Town boss hoping New Year brings a change in fortunes

The club will begin 2017 in 10th position in National League North having fallen away from the top of the table following a poor run of form that their manager puts down to a mixture of injury woes and bad luck.

“I think we could do with a bit more luck in 2017,” he said.

“We’ve endured a really tough couple of months towards the end of the year and the injury problems we’ve had coincided with our loss of form.

“Losing a number of key players at the same time obviously had a big effect and we’ve also conceded a few goals and lost a few matches where I’ve just thought to myself, ‘this is our luck at the moment’.

“The New Year is a chance to draw a line under all that, build the players’ confidence back up and try and achieve some success.”

Although the club now find themselves nine points shy of a play-off spot, Weaver remains bullish about his side’s chances of finishing in the top five.

“Having taken our fair share of knocks and setbacks this season, I think these will only serve to make the players tougher mentally,” he continued.

“I’ve said to them, we have to roll our sleeves up now and come back stronger in the second half of the season.

“Let’s go out and put a run together, get back into the promotion places, create history and do something special.”

Town will have to hit the ground running in the New Year after failing to end 2016 with a much-needed three point haul.

In the wake of what he described as an “atrocious” display at Curzon Ashton in their previous league outing, Weaver had demanded improvements ahead of the Boxing Day visit of Stockport County, warning that certain members of his squad were playing for their futures.

Although Town went down to a 1-0 defeat at the CNG Stadium, Weaver was satisfied with his team’s efforts, if not the outcome of the match.

“I said that I wanted both a performance and a result from the players against Stockport and we got one but not the other,” he added.

“You couldn’t fault the effort and commitment, and they carried out the game plan well. The winning goal is an outlandish finish from their lad.

“Nine times out of 10 that misses the target, but on this occasion it’s found the back of the net.

“The margins are very fine at this level of football and as I’ve said, these are the kind of things that have been going against us recently.”