Cray Wanderers play their first home game of 2026 on Friday night on the back of possibly their best away performance of the season last weekend with manager Tim O’Shea keen to repeat the performance.

Tim O’Shea’s side travelled to The Arena to face a Brentwood Town side who are second in the Isthmian Premier after a terrific first half of the season.

The Wands though dominated the opening forty-five minutes and led 4-0 at the break courtesy of a brace from Saul Kader and a third from Alex Hernandez before Lateef Adaja added a fourth moments into the stoppage time to secure O’Shea’s side the points and make it three wins in a row either side of Christmas to send them into Friday’s showdown at Flamingo Park looking to cement fifth place in the table.  

Problem for O’Shea and his side is that they will be facing the form side in the division, Aveley, who beat leaders Folkestone Invicta at Cheriton Road on Tuesday to move into fourth place in the table.

A big test for the Wands and O’Shea is in no doubt the size of the test facing his team; “We have to play them twice still so I don’t know if you could call this a six-pointer this early, but I know what you’re getting at in terms of the importance of the game.”

“We would like to get something out of the game, but I know that they have games in hand and are flying at the moment!”

“They are a big Club who were only relegated in April, so I am sure they are looking to bounce straight back! We are in a good place – they are in a great place after winning on Tuesday, so hopefully it will be a good game on Friday and better than our last Friday nighter at home before Christmas when we let ourselves down, especially second half, against Whitehawk!” 

Reflecting on his side’s win in Essex last week, O’Shea told us, “It was a good weekend for us! It was thoroughly deserved, and we played exceptionally well too in the first half especially – we were clinical but had other chances too; our keeper made one fine save from a free-kick but other than that no one could argue with us going in four to the good!”

“Admittedly a more even second half and they had a penalty saved but equally their keeper made a couple of great saves – it was a great result!” 

“I don’t think we have ever had the problem of creating chances – we perhaps haven’t converted as many as I would have liked! There have been games where we have drawn where we should have been home and hosed as such, but we were very clinical at the weekend.”

“I have never worried about creating chances, maybe just sticking them away as many as I would have liked.” 

“We’ve been lucky this week in this cold snap to be able to train as normal because I know that teams will have struggled to train this week so the fact that we have the facilities at Flamingo Park to be able to have a “normal” week is fantastic and let’s hope we can get something from what will be a difficult night on Friday!”