Altrincham FC manager Lee Sinnott will be giving us the inside track on the Robins’ return to the Conference. Here’s his latest column for Altrincham Today.
We’re all looking forward to getting back to action on Saturday after a fortnight without a game. Last Saturday’s scheduled fixture against Aldershot Town was called off on Friday lunchtime, due to snow, but we have managed to get the game rearranged for this Saturday and it will be good to play our first Vanarama Conference game in three weeks and get back to The J Davidson Stadium.
Sean Williams returns from his one-match suspension, which means that we just have Peter Cavanagh missing with an Achilles problem. Cav had a scan 10 days ago and is still about 10 days away from being ready to return to action, so he will definitely miss Tuesday’s game at Macclesfield as well.
Not only have we not been playing competitively, but our training schedule has been disrupted a bit.
We couldn’t train on the Thursday before last Saturday because of the snow and we let the players do their own personal training on Saturday, but we have had two good sessions on Tuesday and Thursday this week and they have both gone very well. On Tuesday night, we had a 45-minute practice game against the reserves and the lads seemed to have maintained their sharpness well, considering the lack of recent activity.
Lots of Alty fans are really looking forward to Tuesday night’s visit to Macclesfield, where we haven’t played for almost 18 years
We didn’t make any additions to the squad before the transfer window closed on Monday, but we will be able to bring in players on loan when the loan window opens this coming Monday. As I have always maintained, we are always on the lookout to add to the squad, but it has to be the right type of player in terms of what we are looking for.
After two weeks without a game, we have a busy week coming up with three games in eight days and I know that lots of Alty fans are really looking forward to Tuesday night’s visit to Macclesfield, where we haven’t played for almost 18 years.
We have managed to beat them twice at home in the league and the FA Trophy, both by a single goal, but John Askey’s team have done remarkably well to maintain their good start into the new year and currently sit in third position and could go above Bristol Rovers if they achieved a result from their game in hand… that’s not bad for a team that most people expected to struggle badly this season.
Before that, we must focus on Aldershot, who beat us 3-1 on the opening day of the season. We have improved considerably since then, but we know that their new manager, Chris Barker, will have his team really fired up for his first game in charge and we will need to be on our mettle to beat them.
