Notts County 3, Aldershot Town 1

ALDERSHOT Town assistant manager Anwar Uddin has described tomorrow’s visit to AFC Fylde as a “massive test” in the ongoing fight against relegation.

The Shots had hoped to put some distance between themselves and the bottom four of the National League but suffered two defeats in four days.

Mitch Brundle’s late goal condemned Aldershot to a first home defeat since October as they lost 1-0 to Dagenham on Saturday before going down 3-1 to in-form promotion hopefuls Notts County at Meadow Lane on Tuesday night despite a Craig Tanner goal.

The defeat against Uddin’s former employers Dagenham was undoubtedly the more demoralising as victory would have given the Shots a handy cushion over their rivals before the tricky trip to Nottingham.

“It was tough to take,” admitted Uddin, who saw his side unceremoniously taken apart 6-1 in the first fixture between the sides.

“Sometimes earlier in the season we were pretty but not effective, but on Saturday I thought we competed. We weren’t at our best in terms of football being played but we really competed, we were aggressive and in their faces, so to lose the game and concede a late goal was very disappointing.

“But we crack on and we go again because two wins prior to that had us in good stead.”

Standing in Aldershot’s way in their bid to climb to safety is AFC Fylde, who are in big trouble next to bottom of the league having started the season as one of the favourites to go up after a dazzling campaign the previous season which saw them reach the National League play-off final and clinch the FA Trophy with a 1-0 win over Leyton Orient.

A win for the Shots would see them move 13 points ahead of Fylde while defeat would leave them uncomfortably close to the bottom four.

But Uddin insisted that Saturday’s game on the Lancashire coast was not the only must-win game facing the Shots.

“Every game is a must-win game,” he said.

“Regardless of who you play, when you are playing teams at this stage of the season you want to get three points. That’s our outlook every single game. We don’t go into games looking for draws or looking for a performance, we go into games to win.

“We’re at the business end of the season now and I think we have shown signs this season of the fact that we are a very good side and we play very good football, but it’s about doing it when the pressure is on as well. At the business end of the season it’s all about results.”

Aldershot’s cause hasn’t been helped by injuries to key personnel in a small squad in recent weeks, not least skipper Lewis Kinsella and striker Mo Bettamer, but Uddin is confident the young Shots can dig deep and get the job done – on Saturday and beyond.

“Over the next eight games I’m confident that we can put in a string of performances that will give us the required points to finish as high as possible,” he said.

“We’ve got a young group of players that have done really well, and who are all going to get better. Hopefully we can get one or two more players back onto the pitch in the next couple of games, but whoever we’ve got we will head to Fylde full of positivity and hopeful of getting three points.”