NPL Premier Division
Nathan Haslam believes Whitby Town have turned the corner and displaying traits which will help them climb the table.
Whitby were bottom of the table after losing all six of their opening league games.
The 6-0 home defeat to Gainsborough Trinity was the watershed moment and led to joint boss Lee Bullock resigning.
Haslam has carried on as sole manager and steered them to two wins and a draw and he is thrilled with the turnaround.
“The last three results would tell you that (the corner has been turned),” Haslam told Non League Yorkshire.
“At this level when you’re carrying 17 or 18 players, if you start getting injuries you’re in trouble.
“It is a case of getting through it and we had no defenders barring one available at the start of the season.
“Teams were rightly targeting us and getting success from it.
“We have got our injured players back and that’s the difference.
“Look at us, we’re solid again.
“We conceded six against Gainsborough and you would never associate any of my teams conceding six goals because I pride myself on having a solid defence.
“After the six goals, we conceded one against Marske when we still had injuries.
“None against Nantwich, one against Radcliffe who are a very good attacking side and we have conceded none at Ashton.
“We’re near the bottom of the league and we’re keeping clean sheets.
“It is a big plus moving forward.”
Haslam remains level-headed and is not publicly setting any targets for Whitby as he plots their ascent to safer shores.
“It is a gradual thing,” he said.
“You can’t run before you can walk and we have to keep doing what we’re doing.
“About getting to where we need to be it is about getting consistent results over the next 30 games.
“We have had a terrible start.
“Six games, six defeats is not good enough.
“At the moment we just need to get out of the relegation zone, that’s the first thing and then one game at a time.
“As the season wears on hopefully we can be in the mix of where we want to be.
“It is a big ask in this league to be consistent as even teams at the top are dropping points.”
Whitby head into the FA Trophy clash at Guiseley on the back of the magnificent 1-0 away midweek win at Ashton United.
“It was nervy in the sense that there was only one goal in it and (Ashton) had to gamble and they were at home,” Haslam.
“They put us under pressure in terms of the long balls into the box.
“Anything can happen on second contact so we defended well.
“We was all our own doing because we could have been out of sight.
“We had a one-on-one and we hit the post.
“We were outstanding and the lads are doing their jobs and we are very structured in what we are doing.
“I thought it was very controlled.”