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Faversham Town boss Sammy Moore is happy to be in the firing line.
Moore’s squad returned to the top of the Southern Counties East Premier Division on Saturday with a comfortable 2-0 win at lowly Welling Town.
They’re two points clear of Glebe - who could regain top spot tonight as they play 24 hours before Faversham in midweek - with a game in hand.
While some managers dismiss the importance of the league table at this stage of the campaign, claiming they don’t even look at it, Moore is embracing the challenge of setting the pace. If they do, then they are on course to win promotion at the first attempt.
“You probably don’t look at the table at the start of the season but when people say it now, then I probably don’t believe that,” said Moore.
“I’ve been a player and now being a manager, you want to look at it - you want to be at the top and you want teams to chase you.
“We’re there to be shot at but I want us to stay there now. I want us to be consistent.
“We went eight league games in a row when we won and we’re now three wins in a row so we’re starting another little mini-run.
“If we can do that every quarter of the season then you’re going to be well away. We’ve got to stay away from injuries and keep hungry.
“We’ve got a points target that we want to get to by Christmas, we’re well on target for that. Last Saturday was just another game for us that has been ticked off and we look forward to the next one.
“We had two games in hand and we have to win them. If we do that then we go five points clear. We’ve done the first part, we knew Glebe weren’t playing in the league, so it was important that we went top of the league first and foremost.
“We’ve put in a good performance, got the three points and we can go home and rest up for a tough game on Wednesday.”
Faversham visit sixth-placed Snodland on Wednesday before hosting Erith Town, who sit third in the table, at Salters Lane this Saturday. They then visit a Lordswood side who have only been beaten once in the league so far on Tuesday night.
“We’ve got a tough run but we were always going to have that at some part of the season,” said Moore.
“To get 33 points from 14 games is a great effort from our boys but we’ve got to keep going, taking it one game at a time. If we turn up every week then we’ll be a match for anyone.
“We’ve got goals in us, we didn’t see that at Welling but we still created eight or nine good chances in that game.
“It was a great ball from Billy Bingham for the second goal and it’s just a shame Stefan Payne didn’t get his hat-trick. He’s scored goals every week for us, that’s what we brought him in to do.”
Moore was pleased with his team’s second-half display at Welling Town. A goalless first half lacked quality and there wasn’t much intensity in Faversham’s play.
But they put that right after the break as Stefan Payne took his tally for the season to 17 goals in 12 games.
On the first half, Moore added: “Overall, it wasn’t lacklustre but the quality on the ball (was missing), whether we were putting it in behind or making wrong decisions in the final third.
“But saying that, we still missed two one-on-ones. We didn’t take them and that’s the only criticism I’ve got of our boys, that we don’t finish teams off when we have good chances.
“We keep going, it’s another clean sheet on a pretty comfortable afternoon as they didn’t really trouble us at all.
“I’m delighted with the win, it doesn’t matter if you turn up and win 1-0 or 7-0, it’s about three points and going top of the league.
“When you go to places like that, the pitch wasn’t great and winter is starting to set in, I said before the game you’ve got to come here with no atmosphere and these are the games where you can win titles when you look back on it.
“They’re fighting for their lives, they are what they are, they work hard and it’s their cup final so I’m delighted with the boys.
“In the first half I don’t think we adapted to the pitch very well, we couldn’t play the football we like to play so we had to mix our game up.
“In the second half I wanted us to be a bit more front-foot with more energy and I thought we started great and dominated the game from there.”