St Francis Rangers boss reveals what they have to do to climb the table

However, two defeats from their first two league games this season has left Rangers rooted to the bottom of the table, with their next fixture seeing them travel to last season’s pace setters, Montpelier Villa.

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Ahead of their third fixture, manager Del Tobias was well aware of his teams need to strengthen defensively if they want to be challenging at top end of the table.

He said “You’re never going to win games at this level if you don’t compete, and we failed to do that particularly in the first half against Littlehampton. The manner in which we conceded all of our goals was extremely disappointing and we’ll need to improve drastically if we want to be successful”.

Despite suffering a 6-4 defeat last time out, Tobias was happy with the way his side reacted in the second half after going into the break 5-0 down.

He said “The second half was a polar opposite to the first, we were on the front foot from the first whistle and could have easily added to the chances that we did capitalise on. If we are to have any chance on Saturday, we need to show that same tempo for the full 90 minutes”.

Villa come into this weekend’s game having picked up four points from their first two games, scoring four goals and conceding two. They currently sit fourth in the league table, having spent most of last season as title favourites.

Last season’s encounter saw the Saints fall to a narrow 3-1 defeat to Villa, despite a very encouraging attacking performance from Rangers, something that Tobias hopes his side can replicate on Saturday.

He said “We know that we’ve got some very creative attacking players who can cause problems, we proved that in the second half last week. A positive result would do our confidence the world of good, and being able to compete against the best teams in this league is vital if we want to start picking up points”.

Full back Ellis Common and midfielder Will Glenn will be absent for Saturday’s game through injury, aside from this, The Saints will once again have a fully fit squad to choose from.