Chichester City are sixth – but still concentrating on staying up

A 2-0 home win over Chatham last Saturday courtesy of Mo Jammeh and Ethan Prichard goals made it five victories and a draw in City’s past six league games.

That’s left them just three points outside the play-off places – but manager Miles Rutherford warned that teams could slide down the table just as quickly as they could rise up it.

He wants them to reach the seemingly safe total of 50 points – then see what else they can achieve. They’re currently 12 short of that tally.

Rutherford said: “It’s five wins and a draw and we’re doing okay but we’re still talking about staying up.

"You can go up to sixth place like we have, but you can also go down to 20th in about five games if you don’t pick up any points. It’s that sort of league. We want to get to 50 points and see where we are then.”

Coach Darin Killpartrick said he was not interested in City’s past six games – only their next six.

"We have to keep on working hard and maintaining our standards and looking where we can improve,” he said.

The win over Chatham came three days after Chi beat Bognor 4-1 at Nyewood Lane – a result which would have been unthinkable a year or two ago.

Killpartrick said: “Each win we get is just another three points – no more than that. This league is relentless and you can’t afford to stop and talk about how well you’ve done.”

Rutherford said the Chatham game was odd – as City played better against 11 men than they did after the Kent side had a man sent off on 19 minutes.

"It’s happened to us before – when the opposition go down to ten, we seem to struggle to impose ourselves on a game,” he said.

"We weren’t at our best Saturday but we got the result and a clean sheet.”

A stiff test arrives on Saturday in the form of a trip to third-placed title hopefuls Dartford.

KIllpartrick said: “They’re effectively a National League club and a lot of their set-up wouldn’t be ourt of place in the Football League. It will be extremely hard.”

City have no new injury worries.