Play-offs hold no fear

Robbie Nightingale believes past form won’t be important when his Cambridge City side face Hayes & Yeading in the Southern League Division One East play-offs tomorrow.

The Lilywhites will travel to west London on Wednesday to face a Hayes side that finished third in the league, having dropped into the division alongside them at the end of last season.

Paul Hughes’ men have already beaten City twice this term – 3-1 at home and 2-0 at Westwood Road – and are the only team to score more goals in the league, finding the net 103 times to 99.

And even though they won’t have the home advantage, Nightingale believes that anything is possible on the night.

“They’ve obviously beaten us twice during the season, but I don’t think those two games will have a great deal of importance to be honest,” he said.

“They’re a good side, Paul has bought three or four players in as and when he can and probably changed things up three or four times over the course of the season.

“They’re a very strong group, they have to be to finish third and they deserved that.

“It’s one of those things [playing away from home], there’s not a lot between the top six and on any given day we can beat each other, we’ll just need a bit of luck and the rub of the green.”

The Lilywhites’ form has stuttered of late and they only have one win in five going into this one-legged play-off match, as well as two losses and two draws.

But their form wasn’t something that concerned Nightingale too much, with the staggering amount of games they’ve had to play in April – Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Moneyfields to their ninth – leading to injuries and player rotation.

And he admitted that they would be making late decisions on who would travel in the midweek.

“I’ve had to change the squad over the last couple of games, mainly down to the fact that we have had so many games, but also because we’ve had injuries which is a bit hard to take sometimes.

Read More At: Cambridge News