Ossett Town boss Craig Elliott is looking forward
Craig Elliott claims he remained confident that Ossett Town would overcome a poor November which left them in lowly Evo Stik Division One North position, writes James Grayson (Twitter: @jamesAgrayson).
Ossett are now on a five match unbeaten run which includes their memorable victory over Curzon Ashton in midweek and the win at Darlington 1883 with striker Chris Wood in goal.
Town rose to 14th with the Curzon victory and former Glasshoughton Welfare manager Elliott said that although his men lost four consecutive league games last month, performances were good.
“We’ve always said privately that our aims are to finish as a top half team,” he said.
“Realistically that is what we can do with the budget and the resources. Anything more than that is a bonus, anything less than then we are going to be disappointed.
“The bad run was a low point, but I’m 34 and everything is a learning curve for me. I’ve had a lot of success and it’s up to me to how I handle going through a dodgy period. I’m not to lie it is soul-destroying at times and the lads have dug in and got through it.
“There wasn’t much wrong though. We weren’t getting drubbings. I said on our website that we were on the wrong end of a few bad decisions and bad luck and that evens itself as we saw on Tuesday night.
“We were four unbeaten before Tuesday night and we went away to Darlington and beat them.
“We beat Sheffield who were in good form and drew with Harrogate Railway who were in good form. We beat Prescot who are never easy.
“We’re in good form and when we were on a bad run we were playing alright. We were just on the wrong end of a few 1-0s. There wasn’t too much wrong.”
Midfielder Richard Patterson is a doubt for Ossett Town at Harrogate Railway tomorrow
A short journey to Harrogate Railway awaits Ossett tomorrow.
It is the rematch of the 1-1 draw that took place two weeks ago which saw referee Hristov Karaivanov overrule his assistant, who had signalled for a last minute Ossett penalty, and award a free kick to Harrogate.
Looking ahead, Elliott said: “We have had two wins on the bounce which is good and we have another difficult game tomorrow,” he said.
“They are a good team and we obviously played them two weeks ago on a difficult pitch. I have heard that the Harrogate pitch is good so I’m looking forward to a good game and with both teams playing good football.
“Both teams are in good form. I know they lost last Saturday, but they have been doing alright so it should be a good game. It was competitive last time and fairly even. I did feel hard done by because I still maintain we should have had a penalty in the last minute.
“We did pick a few injuries on Tuesday night so we will see how things are. Jimmy Eyles (hamstring), Shaun Connor (groin strain) and Richard Patterson got a cut on his head.
“Andy Fox was struggling for Tuesday night, but he should be alright for tomorrow because we didn’t have to use him.”