Askey’s 11 win target
JOHN Askey has set his Macclesfield Town side a target of winning at least 11 of their remaining games this season in order to finish in the play-offs.
Macclesfield are eighth in the National League table, having won 14, drawn four and lost 10 of their 28 matches so far this season.
One of those wins came on Saturday, when they earned a 2-0 victory against relegation-threatened North Ferriby United. That made it three wins out of Macc’s last four games, and Askey now wants them to kick on and keep winning in order to secure a play-off place at the end of the season.
“We need about another 11 or 12 wins now to have any chance of getting in the play-offs so with each game we know we’ve just got to go out there and try to get the win,” he said.
“It’s at that point in the season where we concentrate on winning as many games as we can now, and we know whoever we play it’s important that we win.”
Macclesfield were comfortable in the game against North Ferriby, with George Pilkington and Danny Whitehead getting two first-half goals to help earn their side the three points.
It saw the Silkmen return to winning ways after a shock defeat to Guiseley last week, and Askey was glad that the team redeemed themselves.
“Everybody was disappointed after Guiseley, but you never stop learning,” he said.
“I thought against North Ferriby right from the off we were at it, and we should have scored a lot more goals, but that was the only disappointment on the day.
“They had a good result last week against Southport but it was a game that we were expected to win as we had a good win there in the FA Cup.
“We had our game against Eastleigh on Tuesday postponed so that gave us an extra few days to get some rest in before the game.
“Against Guiseley last week we made two bad mistakes for the penalties
‘With each game we know we’ve just got to go out there and try to get the win’
and we weren’t good enough to recover from it, but the nice thing to come from it was that we were in no worse position because the results went in our favour, so after winning against North Ferriby we have less points to get now.”
Askey will now hope that his side carry their form into this weekend when they turn their attention to the FA Trophy.
Macclesfield have a tough match, hosting Forest Green Rovers at the Moss Rose, who currently sit second in the National League table.
The two teams have already met once this season in the league, with Macc suffering a 1-0 home defeat back in November.