Skipper raring to go after much needed rest

Magpies skipper Mark Nisbet insists the club will not get drawn into a relegation battle at the bottom of the Conference South.

United currently sit 16th, four places and eight points above the drop zone following a run which has seen them win just one of their last five league games.

They were handed a heavy 3-0 home defeat against Eastleigh in their last league game a fortnight ago, a performance which was acknowledged as one of their worst of the season.

Nisbet accepts that the Eastleigh display was not good enough and admits that his own performance was not up to his usual standards.

The 23-year-old says he felt exhausted before the game and has since been rested by manager Johnson Hippolyte in a bid to get him back to full fitness.

And it appears to have worked as Nisbet says he is ‘raring to go’ ahead of this Saturday’s home game against Bishops Stortford.

He said: “After not playing or training for so long because of the snow I felt exhausted when we started playing again.

“Our first game back was against Bromley, we were all up for it and we got a really good away win.

“Then we had Barrow which was a game that everyone was really excited about. We gave it a really good go against them and put everything into it.

“But after that I started to feel exhausted. I could feel I had a load of lactic acid built up and I was really tired before that Eastleigh game.

“I think all the lads were and that’s why we stared badly. We were 3-0 down after 20 minutes and you could see we weren’t our usual selves.”

So Nisbet was rested for United’s Berks and Bucks Cup tie the following Tuesday and he returned to training two days later feeling like a new man.

“That was probably my best ever training session,” he said. “I hadn’t kicked a ball since the Eastleigh game so I turned up 15 minutes early so I could have a kickabout by myself.

“I feel so much better now and I’m raring to go. All the lads are, we want to get ourselves away from the bottom three as quickly as we can.”

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