Ian Allinson believes confidence is the key to St Albans City’s unbeaten start to the season.
Saints have won five and drawn two of their opening National League South games, a sequence which has placed them fourth in the table and with games in hand on the three teams ahead of them.
It is a run that is in stark contrast to last season when it was the seventh game that finally brought a first win and that for the City boss is crucial.
He said: “Confidence helps in terms of winning and drawing games. I thought we played well in the opening three games of last season but we didn’t win one.
“We’ve probably played worse this year but won games. Winning breeds confidence just as losing dents your confidence.
“I think that is what happened last year.
“We picked up a couple of injuries in the loss at Dulwich Hamlet and then got quite a hiding from Braintree.
“That put us on the back foot and we never really recovered from that.”
Allinson also admits that in any good run of form there has to be an element of luck.
They rode theirs slightly in the 0-0 draw with Hungerford Town on Saturday while the late winner in the previous game at Dartford, while a stunning strike, also owed something to the god of fortune.
“Last year there were 13 occasions where the ball his hit the post or the bar and come back into play,” he said.
“[Against Dartford] Shaun has hit the bar and it’s bounced down and gone in. Last year that would have come out so we have to take those things as they are.
“But the mentality of the players this year is slightly different too.”
Their midweek game away to Welling United tonight [Tuesday] was postponed because of a positive coronavirus case among the Wings squad, and that rearrangement is just one match that requires a new date.
Saints will now travel to Hampton & Richmond Borough on December 5, the Saturday date replacing a Tuesday one in March, and the trip to Oxford City, cancelled because of the hosts’ FA Cup first round tie, will now happen on December 8.
The FA Trophy second round match is now set for Tuesday, December 15, with the next round just four days later.
Allinson said: “We know this season is going to be stop start and we have to live with that.”
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