A LOGISTICAL challenge on Monday night when facing Chelmsford City is to be put to the back of manager Mark Collier’s mind this weekend when Chippenham Town travel to St Albans City for their latest National League South fixture.

Roadworks coupled with the varying hometowns of the Bluebirds’ players made for a 4am finish for some of Chippenham’s first-team members following defeat against the Essex outfit.

But with a chance to push back into the play-off frame this weekend with a win, manager Collier is remaining upbeat about his side’s chances.

He said: “It is tough at the moment, not all of our players live in Chippenham. They travel, and that makes things difficult.

“Everyone took time off work to get to Chelmsford, and that has an impact on things.

“We’ve had a decent start to the season.

“In this division, two wins on the bounce will take you somewhere.

“That underlines how important every point in this division is.”

With a busy Christmas schedule approaching, Collier is keen to inject some consistency into his team selection process.

With Nick McCootie and Dean Evans’ return immanent, the Chippenham boss is looking to freshen his side’s legs after admitting they’ve ‘taken a beating’ in recent weeks having been denied the opportunity to rotate his squad as he would’ve liked.

A double-header against Bath City plus ties at Concord Rangers and a home contest against Hampton & Richmond Borough during a 10-day block over the festive season means keeping legs fresh has been set as one of Collier’s key priorities.

He said: “We’ve got lads playing with tight hamstrings and sore backs, we’d like to rest those players.

“But we’re not able to do that. It’s tough on everybody – the players, myself, my team and the supporters who want to be winning games.

“We’ve got some very good players that can come back into the team, and when they do return, we can hopefully push on.

“The table is still early, we’ll have a good look at it come Christmas. We know we can compete against all the teams in this division, though.

“There will be good times and bad times. Consistency is the key, and we need to find that in our selection.

“Unfortunately, that’s difficult to do when we’re so limited.

“Hopefully Nick McCootie and Dean Evans might return to the squad for this Saturday’s game (against St Albans). We’ll see how they go in training.

“Callum Gunner will miss Saturday because of his red card.”