MELKSHAM Town manager Kieran Baggs believes it could be argued that the current crop of players at his disposal might be considered as the best the club has ever had.

Despite a rocky run of results that has seen Town lose eight of their past 12 games, Baggs’ side are still in 10th and only six points off the final play-off place in their first season at Southern League level.

The fact that they are still in the hunt for back-to-back promotions largely boils down to their excellent start to the season – Melksham had only tasted defeat twice before Christmas Day, a run that his since reversed as wins have been difficult to come by in 2019.

Baggs pointed to injuries and suspensions that threatened to derail their promising start to the season around Christmas time, but admitted bad luck is something every team goes through at some point and it is how they react that really counts.

The Melksham manager knows his squad is packed with enough quality to achieve promotion in the coming seasons but admitted he did not know how soon that might be, given consecutive ascendancies may not be in the club’s best interest, given it is, after all, a business.

Baggs said: “From a playing point of view, making the club successful is exactly what I’m here for.

“I want to take Melksham onto the next level – in my first season, we got promoted from the Western League and we’re in the top ten of the Southern League in our first season, so it’s more of a question for the chairman or the board as to which direction they want to take the club in.

“In terms of the playing personnel that we’ve got now, you could probably argue the current Melksham team is the best one that has ever been there with the likes of Jon Davies, Nuno Felix, Marc Cooper coupled in with the loan-signing of Greg Tindle and the rest of the boys that were already there.”

Despite losing 2-1 to rivals Thatcham on Saturday, Melksham still saw a crowd of 431 at the match – a division high and nearly 200 higher than the second-most attended game.

Baggs believes Melksham are a club that is ready to go places but knows they must become more consistent if they are to test themselves at a higher level – sentiments echoed by club captain Luke Ballinger.

Baggs said: “The team is filled with talent now and (Luke Ballinger) said on Saturday that this team is good enough to go on and get promotion, but it’s all about what we can do over the course of a whole season, not just our form in bits and bobs.

“Come the end of the season, we’ll have a better idea of where we want to go, but the fans have been brilliant since I first joined Melksham and the attendances keep going up and up.

“Hopefully we can give them something to shout about over the next season or so.”