Martin: We’ve got to stay in touch

Romford face a long trip to Wroxham in Ryman One North tomorrow, before hosting Tilbury on Boxing Day.

And boss Paul Martin wants to see a response from his players after Jack Barry and James Ishmail were sent off in their 1-0 defeat at Witham last weekend.

He said: “We’ve got to make sure we bounce back. I’ve got some tough decisions to make.

“Our rule is anyone booked for dissent gets dropped for the next game.

“If we want to make the play-offs we’ve got to stay in touch with the top five.

“We lost 1-0 at home to Wroxham to a very dubious penalty. I didn’t think they were as good as some were saying and they hadn’t won in three matches before beating Aveley (4-1) last weekend.

“Tilbury will be a real toe-to-toe battle. I’ve not had a chance to see them lately but they are one of my bogey teams.

“We do struggle to get results against them. They work hard and it will come down to who battles the hardest.”

There was no shortage of effort from Boro at Witham, but they could not take their chances.

Barry hit the crossbar early on and saw another header well saved by Jason Baker, who denied Billy Hunt and Nick Reynolds with fine saves in the second half.

Boro are due to return to their former home at Rush Green to take on current tenants Grays on January 2 and Martin added: “We always seem to get results against Grays, we took four points out of six last year.

“The hunger is there, we’re a lot more organised and I do believe we can make the play-offs. We’ve probably not had that belief before, but no-one has looked outstanding against us.

“We’ve got to keep our momentum. We need two wins out of three over Christmas to keep in touch. I’m expecting six points.”