Mark Cooper faces a busy run-in with so many games in hand

Kettering manager Mark Cooper has revealed he worries more about games against struggling sides than those with fellow promotion candidates.

The Poppies shared the points with a goalless draw at home to Blue Square Premier strugglers Grays on Tuesday.

"The big matches - Oxford, Burton, Histon - don't worry me," Cooper told BBC Radio Northampton.

"It's the ones when there's no atmosphere that we have to get ourselves up for," he added.

Kettering are currently nine points away from the play-off zone with games in hand over all the teams above them, but Cooper insisted their position could have been much stronger.

"We've struggled to score enough goals. If we'd done that, we would be right at the top of the league.

"But we managed another clean sheet against Grays and it's kept the points total ticking over."

The Poppies entertain mid-table Eastbourne at the A-Line Arena on Saturday, launching a sequence of four games in seven days.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version