Magpies can show title credentials with two successive wins at home

The Magpies have made a satisfactory start to the season – although boss Andy Preece believes their performances have perhaps deserved more than their points tally of 10 from eight games deserves.

However, they have an opportunity to grab the campaign by the scruff of its neck and move up the table.

They have two successive home games against teams who are just above them in the table.

This weekend, they face Gloucester City at Victory Park before hosting Chester the following Tuesday.

Despite currently being in 15th spot, Chorley are only four points off the play-off places and are still eyeing up an assault on the league title.

"At this stage of the season when you get a couple of home games, you know that you can move quickly up the table with a couple of wins,” said Preece.

"These are the sort of games that can give you that momentum.

"After these two games, we will be heading into a quarter of the way through the season so it will give us a good idea of where we are at.

"Even though it’s early in the season, you don’t want to slip too far behind the top teams because we still want to try to win the league.

"If you do slip too far behind then that becomes really difficult because it means you have to have some crazy run to catch up.”

Despite being below midtable, Preece insists his men should feel pleased about their performances on the whole.

The games they have lost have been by a single goal deficit while they have recorded excellent 4-1 and 2-0 wins over Boston United and Alfreton Town respectively.

On Tuesday, they thrashed Northern Premier League outfit Liversedge 9-0 in a FA Cup second qualifying round replay at Victory Park after the original tie had ended 1-1.

"I can’t fault how the lads have done apart from that final third,” he said. "We probably could have made better decision in some games or been more ruthless.

"We have defended really – just had that 10 minutes at Scarborough when we conceded three but other than that we haven’t conceded too many.”

With it being the international break, Chorley have reduced their ticket pricing for the game. All fans aged 21-plus will pay just £10; 12 to 20-years-old pay only £5; accompanied under-12s are free with a paying adult. Visit https://chorleyfc.ktckts.com/brand/match-tickets to purchase tickets or at the ground.