Relegation battle lines drawn as Louth Town recruit ahead of huge six-pointer

Frustratingly, last weekend's home clash with South Leeds was frozen off, which means Louth have not played since the 2-1 defeat at Shelley the previous Saturday, and now face successive trips to Swallownest on Saturday and Maltby Main on Wednesday.

With Alex Aldrich, Callum Brown and Dan Evison all suspended and a couple of injured players 50-50 for Saturday, Martin admitted: “We are probably not particularly in the best shape, but this week I am hopefully going to get two or three new bodies in to help the squad.

“We need a bit more depth and a little bit more quality to help us in our relegation battle.

“We are really hopeful we can do that.

“It's not set in stone yet, but I am also looking to add an experienced head to the management team as well.

“He has been around the block and won at this level and the level above, so it will be a different set of eyes and a different voice which will hopefully give us all a bit of a lift.”

Louth, in the drop zone, are third bottom with 24 points after seven games without a win since late October

Swallownest sit 17th, four points ahead but have played two games more, so Saturday is a crucial six-pointer.

“Another blank weekend wasn't ideal for us,” said Martin.

“I think there were only two games in our league that went ahead and one result went for us at least.

“You want to start the New Year on the front foot.

“Saturday now does become our most important game of the season so far.

“We have 18 games left to play and we know we are in a relegation battle – the table does not lie.

“So we will now treat it as a bit of a mini league with the bottom eight sides and that is our remit.

“Swallownest are in our reach, so we need to go there and start the New Year with a positive performance first and foremost and hope we can get a positive result.

“Three points would probably get us out of the relegation zone and give us a bit of momentum.

“We did beat them at home but I think Saturday will be a cagey affair with both teams nervous and not wanting to make a mistake.

“There will be a lot of quality on show and I would like to think we'd be on the front foot.

“We played Maltby at home earlier in the season and they probably gave us a bit of a good hiding and a footballing lesson, so we need to rectify that on Wednesday too.

“We need to start picking up some points fast.”