SAINTS fans will be pleased to know the old cat is back . That s the verdict of goalkeeper Paul Bastock who felt he was back to his best between the sticks for the Saints during Saturday s 1-0 defeat to Chelmsford. The former Boston stopper frustrated th

SAINTS fans will be pleased to know 'the old cat is back'.

That's the verdict of goalkeeper Paul Bastock who felt he was back to his best between the sticks for the Saints during Saturday's 1-0 defeat to Chelmsford.

The former Boston stopper frustrated the visitors for long periods during Saturday's game denying Ricky Holmes on no fewer than four occasions and producing a great point blank save to deny Ollie Berquez a certain goal.

"I was pleased with it today, I've had a couple of weeks out, but had a clean sheet last week - the old cat's back!" Bastock told the Herts Advertiser afterwards.

"The old cat has shown what he can still do today so the young man (Michael Emery) can still learn a few tricks."

The 39-year-old goalkeeper praised the job manager Steve Castle is doing on a shoestring budget and revealed he's really enjoying working with the current crop of players at the club.

"It's just frustrating at the moment because we're not a million miles away and with the budget that Steve's (Castle) working with I think he's doing really well.

"We've got a great set of lads, I get more of a buzz coming in with these boys than I have in certain years. It's a great crop of kids and you look at them and there's some kids that could move onto better things.

"There's a lot of good prospects. If you were to look at the youth element in pre-season and said 'right they're coming in' I would've thought 'oh god, here we go' but to be fair they've come in and done well."

The goalkeeper is confident that if City can add a goalscorer to their squad they have the players capable of gatecrashing the play-offs.

"It's always what they say - look at where you are at Christmas and that is generally where you'll finish at the end of the season. I just hope that's a bit different because, if we do get some players in for Stevie and for ourselves and we start putting the ball in the back of the net, we can be up there.

"Footballing wise when do play it's sublime football, but when we're bad, we're bad and that's youth. Let's look positively, let's look at trying to get a late run into the play-offs, it's not going to take too many games to get in there."

Bastock's young prot�g� Michael Emery was in the wars on his debut for Spalding United on Saturday.

With Bastock back from his suspension, Emery has joined the Lincolnshire outfit from City to get some game time.

The young stopper dislocated his finger in the warm-up but that didn't stop him keeping a clean sheet as United ran out 3-0 winners against Leek.

However, a collision with an opposition forward didn't help and it's feared Emery may have fractured his finger which could keep him on the sidelines for three weeks.