Martin Carruthers left delighted as Ilkeston Town continue good form

Martin Carruthers was pleased to see the Robins respond well to Saturday's FA Cup exit at Halesowen.

Despite a blip in the Robins’ season 48 hours earlier when they’d exited the FA Cup at Halesowen Town, Carruthers’ men responded with a good display at Coleshill that saw them win thanks to goals from Charlie Wakefield, Kieran Fenton and Remaye Campbell.

And having made several changes to the team for the Halesowen game with the league game two days later firmly in mind, Carruthers was pleased the gamble paid off.

He said: “It was a huge three points. With resting players on Saturday it was a gamble to go to Coleshill with fresh legs and luckily it worked.

"It was a really good first-half performance and although we were hanging on a bit in the second I’m delighted to get the win and get a real hard shift in.”

Whilst Carruthers also highlighted how pleased he’s been to see goals coming from throughout his team all season, with defender Fenton and midfielder Wakefield again on the scoresheet on Monday to add to several goals from the Robins’ defence and midfield so far in the campaign, he was again disappointed in the manner of the goals conceded.

He said: “We’ve got goals in abundance which is great but we’ve also got to show up at the back. Two more poor goals were conceded again - we keep saying we want clean sheets and if we can do that we’re confident we’d always get at least a point from a game given our firepower, but we need to cut out mistakes.

"It’s good to be at the top end of the table though and we’ve said to the lads that we want to be up there all season. We’ll go out and watch some teams on Tuesday night [7th] and they’ve got to go and get results now. It’s always good to have points in the bag and this could prove a huge three points later in the season.”

Ilkeston now prepare to host Chasetown on Saturday, with all supporters being admitted to the New Manor Ground for free, before Spalding United arrive three days later.

Carruthers said: “The free entry is a fantastic gesture from the club and let’s get the NMG rocking. We’ve got two home games now and we want maximum points.”