Colchester United’s Tom Lapslie would play every day of the week, if he could, which is why the last 10 days without competitive action has been so frustrating.
Even so, Lapslie recognises the advantage of recharging the batteries, both mentally and physically, and now he is champing at the bit to take on Sol Campbell’s Macclesfield Town at the JobServe Community Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
The U’s are sitting proudly in third spot, behind leaders MK Dons and Lincoln City, following a 1-0 win at Forest Green Rovers in their last outing, last Tuesday week.
“You never want to stop, when you are winning games,” insisted Lapslie.
“I would play matches every Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, if it was up to me. I just want to play football, and I miss it when we don’t have a game over the weekend.
“It feels so weird, when you don’t have a game on a Saturday.
“But it’s important to be mentally refreshed, which is why we had the last weekend off to just forget about football for a couple of days. The boys have come back refreshed and training has been excellent all week. Everyone has been bang on it,” added Lapslie.
The U’s have the third best home record in League Two, having lost just two of their first 10 home league games, with seven wins and 22 points bagged. Only MK Dons (24) and Newport (23) have accrued more home points.
“Our home form has been excellent this season, and teams are coming to ours expecting a very tough match,” said Lapslie.
“I think everyone sat up and took notice, when we beat Lincoln (1-0) at home (October 27). They know they are going to be in for a hard time.
“Some teams are coming here to sit back and try and get a point. That was the case in our last home match against Exeter City, who were over-the-moon to get a draw.
“That’s a good sign when a team in and around us is so delighted to just get a point from us.
“Some teams are arriving here with two banks-of-four, and two strikers sitting off, so we have to find ways of breaking them down, whether that means scoring a goal early on, or later in the match. We have to find ways around them.
“Of course we are not getting carried away. We know at any point that things can go wrong.
“For instance, if we had lost at Forest Green Rovers last week, instead of winning 1-0 to stay third in the league, then potentially we could have dropped to as low as 10th in the table.
“Every team is capable of beating any other team in this division, and we are continually being surprised by various results each weekend.
“Now we have Macclesfield coming to town.
“Their league position is irrelevant, because they have a new manager (Sol Campbell) and have won their last two games.”
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