Boss Wild reflects on progress at The Shay over the last 12 months

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When asked if he will be giving his squad Christmas Day off, Wild said: “They’ll have programmes to do on Christmas Day, whether that’s with us or at home is yet to be decided.”

And on the quick turnaround between Town’s Boxing Day game and Monday’s clash with Altrincham, Wild said: “There’ll be a recovery programme sent round that they’ll need to complete and report in with.

“There’ll probably be a meeting Sunday night about Altrincham so the players are prepared for Monday.”

Reflecting on the season so far, Wild said: “As a style of play, I think we’ve progressed well.

“We’re starting to implement and look a real threat as a team, with and without the ball. I think we’re building nicely. We don’t need to be the finished article yet, we just need to keep progressing, building and putting points on the board.

“I don’t think you can read into the league tables this year because everybody’s at completely different stages.”

Wild says huge progress has been made at the club over the last 12 months.

“I think it’s an exciting club to be at, I think the club’s moving in the right direction on and off the pitch,” he said. “There’s a real structure to the playing and non-playing staff now and I think the club, at the end of this season, will be a fullyfledged, full-time club, which is brilliant. So the strides the club’s made, from the club I walked into 18 months ago, it’s like night and day, it’s completely different. There’s a real structured recruitment programme, in terms of a threetiered approach with younger lads, the middle group and the experienced boys. There’s a togetherness between the youth set-up and the first-team setup, there’s now a clear pathway for youth-teamers to reach their potential, and the implementation of a full-time programme which everybody understands the importance of.”

Town have been drawn at home to Southport in the fourth round of the FA Trophy on Saturday, January 16.

“I’m really pleased it’s a home tie for us,” said Wild. “It’s a different opposition, somebody we don’t come up against. It gives us a different challenge.”

See next week’s Courier for details of Town’s clash with Eastleigh.