Dover Athletic boss Andy Hessenthaler is facing up to a tough trip to Wrexham this weekend full buoyed by a Christmas double over Maidstone United and a point off National League leaders Leyton Orient which have lifted the men from Crabble out of the divisions drop zone to start 2019.
That said, Dover’s schedule doesn’t get any easier as they start their full League programme with the long trip to North Wales to face second placed Wrexham.
Looking back on his profitable Christmas, Hessenthaler told KSN this week, “It was a great win on New Year’s Day – a tough game and a good atmosphere there. First half wasn’t particularly great for either team with both of us looking nervous what with the importance of the game. But in the second half we were better after making a couple of changes and I thought in the end we were well worthy the win. As the game went on, we thought that we weren’t going to lose the game, and were the most likely to get the goal and fortunately for us that’s how it proved to be – we got the goal at a good time and deserved it for the second half performance after looking a little bit predictable in the first – we were too direct at times instead of mixing things up.
“But credit to the players – a win a clean sheet and seven points out of nine over Christmas. We would have taken the point against Orient beforehand but of course missed the penalty, so it could have easily been nine out of nine, so the confidence is high, we’re creeping up to 18th which I good but we’ve got another really big test – probably our biggest for a while – when we go to Wrexham on Saturday.”
“We’ve got no fear going there – they’re a good side who we’ve done our homework on – they’re very good at home and have only been beaten by Leyton Orient but they’ll be nervous of us because the onus is on them as they’re the favourites, at home and are flying and they’ll look at us and see u on a decent run – one defeat in eight – and it’s a game we’ll go into with no real pressure and we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing.”
“This is a good time for us to play them – we’ve got a lot of confidence but if you go to Wrexham having lost your last two games, you’ll face a difficult game before you get there. But because we’re going there with the confidence that we are I’d sooner be going there now on this run rather than if we were struggling.”