WITH nearly a quarter of the season gone, things are beginning to look up at Worcester City.

I am a lot happier than I was three or four weeks ago and I am confident we will soon be going in the right direction.

However, you get judged by results and points and we haven’t picked up as many as I would have hoped for, but the performances have been pretty decent.

I would be really worried if we were getting over-run every week but that is definitely not happening. We look strong and organised.

Defensively we look solid and three clean sheets in the last five games speaks volumes.

We are also unbeaten in the last three home matches and it’s important we carry on with that against Thurrock at St George’s Lane on Saturday.

It’s very tight at the bottom of the league and with an extra point we would be four places higher. Everybody is beating everyone else at the moment.

That said, Newport County seem to be the team to stop. I speak to their manager Dean Holdsworth nearly every week and they have started well.

Although we don’t play them until the Christmas and New Year period, they are getting the results and are there to be shot down.

Woking, who beat us 1-0 last month, have got pace and guile up front and should also be in the mix.

One thing in our favour is a good squad spirit. Tom Kemp led the warm-up before the Braintree match at the weekend and that is something different we have been trying recently.

The players hear Carl Heeley and myself all the time so I thought somebody else should take some responsibility and, at the moment, I think it’s working.

On Mondays, if we haven’t got a match, we train on the artificial pitch at Brickfields and on Thursdays, back at the Lane, we do a bit of ball work and then concentrate on the pattern of play for the next game.

We have got a decent bond in the squad for certain and it’s nice to see them gelling. Although we only got a point on Saturday, the players were bouyant afterwards.

Jordan Fitzpatrick was left out at Braintree but he still has a part to play. He’s been suspended but Louis Bridges and Rob Davies have deserved their places in the squad.

‘Josh has also been given clear-ance to play in the FA Cup.’ When I leave someone like Jordan out it proves to me the squad is getting stronger.

We also have Josh Emery, who is on work experience from Cheltenham Town, and he brings us something different which is why we changed the formation at the weekend.

He trains with Cheltenham in the week and comes to us on Thursday evenings. He’s enjoying it and it’s a good link with Chelten-ham, which we could have lost following the late cancellation of our planned pre-season friendly.

Josh has also been given clearance to play in the FA Cup match against Bourne Town a week on Saturday. It is a draw we are pleased with but we are not going to take anything for granted.