Gloucester City manager Mike Cook is hoping that his side can rebuild momentum after a two week break of fixtures when they take on Chertsey Town at the TigerTurf Stadium.
After eight goals in one a half games in the spirited comeback against Walton and Hersham and triumph over Poole Town, City's momentum has been thwarted after the Tigers fixture against Gosport Borough was postponed owing to The Boro's involvement in the FA Trophy.
Cook admits that has slowed down preperation ahead of Saturday's fixture but hope his side can make up for the break in fixtures with all three points.
"A little bit slow to begin with as I think once you get a win like we did everybody playing well and scoring four goals, and in the last two weeks scored eight goals with the previous game it just takes that bit of momentum away.
It would have been nice to have a game last Saturday but it’s just a slower build up of these two weeks."
The visitors, Chertsey have played twice since the Tigers last encounter which saw them lose 3-0 to City's tital rivals AFC Totton, before pulling off one of the greatest results in the clubs history after defeating National League side Dagenham and Redbridge at Alwyns Lane.
With their involvement in two competitions, the away side have had to ring the changes showing the squad depth that they possess.
"I know that they’ve made five or six changes to their team on Wednesday night.
"Although they’ve picked up a good result I think it’s changes, it was changes when Broughy (John Brough) went to see them play as well there was three of four changes that day so they will be a decent team there’s good reason why they are up in that top 10.
"it’s one of those matches at home that we will be looking to get the three points."
City have missed out on midfield duo after Harry Pinchard broke his leg earlier in the season, while Kevin Dawson had been missing after an awful tackle in the away fixture to Sholing FC.
With the duo being two fans favourites, Cook provided an update on whether they would feature in Saturday's game especially after the gap in fixtures.
"Harry’s got the norovirus at the moment so he’s been a bit rough this week but we will be hoping that he will be on the bench for Saturday and Daws is probably still another week to 10 days away with his ankle.
"I think it’s five weeks this Saturday and when he did it we thought it was going to be between four and six weeks before he came back. With a bit of luck and a good fair wind we will be getting him back over that Christmas period."
Merthyr Town after playing all of their games in hand have gone eight clear at the top of the Southern Premier Divison South, and the gaffer admits that it's time for City to chase the leaders down, before the two sides go head to hide in South Wales on New Year Day.
"We definitely need to keep in touch with Merthyr. Once they get to 15, 16, 17 points ahead then it’s going to be a bit too much then, so we need to not let it get to that amount.
"We’ve got to pick up a couple more wins instead of draws what we did in the month of November so we’ve just got to keep doing what we have been doing which is playing well and scoring goals in the last couple of games and hopefully it looks after itself then."
The boss also hinted at the potential return of City legend Spencer Hamilton as he gets on the mend and back to full fitness in addition to the possibility of new arrivals joining the current squad.
"I had a good conversation with Spencer Hamilton this week so he’s going to start coming back into the club and getting some more treatment next week and he may need a minor operation on his groin and then we will be looking at the New Year for him coming back.
"Daws will be 10 days from now and then hopefully Pinch will be back for Saturday to see if we can get some minutes out of him.
"We are not too far away from the squad depth with a bit of luck once we’ve got all those players back in. We are still a little bit short on bodies with a couple of injuries that we’ve had, we will also be looking to try and bring someone if we can over the Christmas period.
"We’ve had a good couple of interesting conversations where that is a bit more of a possibility than it was a couple of days ago."
Title rivals Merthyr Town and AFC Totton are both in action over the weekend and both away from hime as they travel to Poole Town and Tiverton Town respectively as the race for the title closes in on the half way stage of this season.
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