Lancaster City boss Mark Fell has urged his players to remain focused despite fine recent record

The complexion of the Dolly Blues’ season has changed drastically over the last couple of months.

After being hit with a catalogue of injuries to key players over the first half of the campaign, City looked in grave danger of being sucked into a relegation battle.

However, a four-match unbeaten run – including three successive victories – has pushed the team into a much healthier midtable spot.

They are now nearer to the top five than they are to the bottom four – and Fell admits the chatter in the dressing room has been about looking up, rather than down.

While he will not temper his players’ drive and determination to finish as high as they possibly can, he is keen to maintain focus on the job in hand which is the trip to struggling Nantwich Town this weekend.

"I think we are top of the form table now,” said Fell. “We have had a couple of targets, one of which was to get safe as quickly as we could – and we think we are there now.

"The second target was to hit the top 10 and then just see where we are in three or four games’ time.

"I suppose now we have absolutely got to take it one game at a time and just enjoy the run that we are on.”

Treading water for much of the campaign, City have not been able to string a consistent run of results together until now.

But Fell has clung to the hope that at some point his men will catch fire and hit a real purple spell of form.

"We’ve won three on the spin, we’ve won our last five at home,” he said. "If we could win four, five, six on the bounce which is possible.

"There is always a team which comes with a late run to join the group at the top.

"We would like that to be us but we are just keeping our feet on the ground.”

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