Foxes look to fix it in the New Year

Ilford braced for busy January.

ILFORD manager Colin Walton is braced for a crucial month ahead as The Foxes bid to improve their Ryman North First Division fortunes in the New Year.

Walton’s side end 2010 third from bottom and on a woeful run of just one win in 12 matches, leaving them well short of pre-season expectations of a mid-table finish.

The Foxes are scheduled to play seven matches in January, including crunch games with relegation rivals Redbridge, Waltham Forest and Tilbury and Walton is desperate for his side to start picking up points that will lift them clear of the relegation mire.

“It’s a big month for us. We need to build up the squad a little with new signings and then the fixtures with Tilbury and Waltham Forest are real crucial games,” said the Ilford boss (pictured right).

“We started off the season with a points target per game. For a side looking at the play-offs you would need to average about two points a game, so for us we were looking at closer to about one-and-a-half points per game, but obviously that hasn’t come to fruition.

“We’ve had to revise things a little and we’re now targeting three points in games against the teams in and around ourselves.

“We’ve got to be looking at maximum points in the games against Redbridge and Waltham Forest and maybe just one point in some of the others.

“We’ve only drawn three games this season, we’ve thrown a few points away, so we need to err on the side of caution and make sure we salvage points from games when previously we’ve thrown them away.”