Getting up to speed can be slow going

MACCLESFIELD Town assistant manager Steve Watson admits it is difficult to get every single player in the squad up to match fitness due to the lack of a reserve team.

Just like the majority of teams at National League level, the Silkmen only have their first team available to them, making it tough to keep every player at the club at 100 per cent week in week out.

With that in mind, Watson has revealed that they are doing all they can on the training pitch to try and have everybody ready if they are called upon.

“It is difficult when you haven’t got a reserve team to do that.

“We’ve given them a lot of training and we’ve done a lot of 11 vs 11 in training, but it’s ultimately very difficult to get them up to match pace,” he told the club’s official website. “We don’t have the teams we need to get these lads 90 minutes of football under their belts.

“Players like Ollie Norburn, Chris Sutherland and Laurie Bell. It is hard for anybody who’s had injuries but it’s a little bit harder when we haven’t got a reserve team or a team that we cannot play 90 minutes against.”

Macclesfield have suffered a few injuries in recent weeks, and it looked like their problems may have increased when Paul Lewis went off with a knock in the FA Trophy match against Altrincham.

Watson has eased the worries though, and is confident that the injury it isn’t as bad as first feared.

“It looked like a bang on the thigh or the hip. Obviously we didn’t have a game at the weekend, and hopefully that will help us in our efforts to go into the next game with a full squad,” he said.