WAYNE Thomas admits to viewing Worcester City’s performances “from a manager’s perspective” and insists his colleagues have title-challenging capability.

The 38-year-old defender returned to City following a brief spell in charge of Rushall Olympic at the start of this season.

Having parted company with the Pics, the former Burnley, Southampton and Stoke City centre-half has enjoyed being back in the thick of the action — even if he does see things differently these days.

“It is good. I am enjoying playing even if I do find myself looking at games from a manager’s perspective,” said Thomas.

“If I didn’t enjoy it I wouldn’t be here. We are not Man City so there is always going to be room for improvement but we have good players and a good attitude in the group.

“The team spirit is there and so is the quality so it is down to us to be up there come the end of the season.

“We have to take it on and believe we can be in there.

"We have earned the right to be in the shake-up so far and long may that continue.

“There is a good bunch of lads here. It takes time to gel and it has not helped us having so many games called off over the past couple of months.

“It is difficult to get that understanding, to see through a game plan or philosophy but credit to the boys — as long as we keeping digging deep like we did last weekend more often than not we should be up there.”

Thomas had been set for a rest in midweek but City’s trip to Stourport Swifts fell victim to the weather, as has today's match with Rocester at the Victoria Ground. 

Reflecting on last Saturday's 1-0 win over Lye Town, Thomas said: “The bottom line was we kept the clean sheet and the Lye keeper pulled off an unbelievable save from me.

“The pitch was not in great shape and our opponents ran and worked hard. Credit to them, they did really well and made life difficult.

“It is not always on to play beautiful, flowing, attacking football. Sometimes you have to get down to it, dig in and get a result.

“We had not played for a couple of weeks either so we were happy to get the points and move on to the next one.

“Physically I am okay, even if we have a lot of games coming up. I’ll get strapped up and see how much I can do.

“Some players need to look after themselves differently but as long as I manage myself correctly we will be ready to go again.

"As long as we’re winning that’s all that matters.”