Lancaster prepare for the visit of league leaders Matlock Town

The Derbyshire outfit head the table by virtue of having a superior goal difference to second-placed South Shields.

However, both teams have now opened up a gap of seven points between themselves and the rest of the division.

They both met each other at the weekend with the Mariners stealing all three points thanks to a 1-0 victory.

The Dolly Blues boss expects Matlock to be smarting from that reverse and they will come out all guns blazing against City.

But Fell reckons that is just the type of scenario his men will relish.

“Matlock will be tough,” Fell. “They are big, strong, physical side who are built for this division.

“But I still back us against them. That’s the type of game which suits us.

“We will roll our sleeves up and take it to them.”

Despite City suffering their eighth defeat of the campaign last weekend at Radcliffe, Fell was not that upset with his team’s performance especially as they played a large part of it with 10 men after Lewis Fensome was red-carded for a professional foul.

That incident resulted in a penalty being awarded for the hosts which meant City found themselves 2-0 down and with a mountain to climb with 10 men.

“We conceded an early goal on the break and these things can happen,” said Fell. “It was a great finish from their player Bobby Grant so I have not really got an issue with that.

“The sending off changes the game because that one chance they had for the goal was their only chance in the first 25 minutes.

“In the first half we had 11 shots on goal, six on target. The sending off is a sending off and the penalty is a penalty – Fenners has made a mistake.

“But we have come in at half-time, feeling a bit unlucky that we have not managed to score.

“I was not really upset about it all because in terms of the way the game has gone we did well.

“If you had missed the red card, you would not have known that we had only 10 men with the way we had played.

“In the second half we have had nine good chances. We have hit the post and bar.

“Yes, we got beaten and nobody likes that to happen but I thought overall our performance was pretty good.”

Fell will have to juggle his defensive set-up this weekend as Fensome serves a one-match suspension this weekend.

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