1874 Northwich co-manager baffled by poor home form

However, he along with fellow co-manager Paul Bowyer and their squad will look to improve this against City of Liverpool on Saturday.

Townfield has been a fortress for 1874 in recent years, but the team have found themselves without a win in front of home fans since December 4.

A return of 11 points from a possible 45 has proven a major stumbling block in Greens’ otherwise profitable first season in the Northern Premier League West Division.

And even stranger is their contrasting fortunes on the road, where they have picked up an impressive six wins and three draws from 11 fixtures, with last weekend’s 3-1 defeat to Warrington Rylands their first on the road since August.

1874 were beaten at high-flying Warrington Rylands last time out. Picture by Mark Percy

Goodison confessed he’s found it tricky to put his finger on his side’s struggles at home but that individual errors have been a key contributing factor to their recent blip in form.

“Do you know what, we have no idea,” he said.

“Generally our home form has been very good in previous seasons, so for our home and away form to be so far apart baffles us.

“We’ve spoken about it, we’ve analysed it. We’ve thought is it something in our preparation that we aren’t doing quite right, is it something we can do better during games, but we honestly don’t know.

“I think we have to just concentrate on getting some things rights, because we’ve made the same mistakes away as we have at home.”

Goodison eluded to costly mistakes that have played a sizeable role in their recent struggles, but he insists a top-half finish is by no means out of the equation if they can be ironed out.

“We were disappointed after the game against Warrington but on reflection, we may have been a little bit too harsh on each other,” he said.

“We made some errors that cost us goals early on and that probably has been a little bit of a theme throughout our season.

“Currently we are sat in mid-table, but we think we can sit a little bit higher and really push for a top-half finish.”

The reverse fixture against Saturday's visitors City of Liverpool saw 1874 pick up a superb 1-0 win in October. Picture by Daniel Neilson

The co-manager believes the newly acquired depth of his squad will prove crucial in their push towards the top half of the table, with numerous young prospects knocking on the door of the starting XI.

He admitted his side could not compete financially with other clubs in their division, so the pool of talent coming through the under 21s would be crucial to the club’s future successes.

“We probably have a squad of 16/17 players, but there’s a few youngsters like Matt Fenton who played the other week and Jacob Hamman who has been injured lately, plus a couple more who could come in and do the same.

“We genuinely think we have a group of young players that can have a big impact on the rest of the season.”