HIGH-FLYING Basingstoke Town will travel to Wealdstone United on Saturday – safe in the knowledge that a win will see them remain top of the Vanarama Conference South.

The Dragons have had a really good start to the season. They go into Saturday’s game two points clear at the top of the table, having taken an impressive 24 points from their first 11 league games.

Town have won their last five games, and reached the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup with an impressive 2-1 victory over Ebbsfleet United last weekend.

Manager Jason Bristow is delighted with his side’s form and is keen for them to keep the good run going.

“Being top of the league at the moment is a bonus,” he said. “We would love to be there at the end of the season, but we are there now, and we want to stay there.

“Saturday’s game is a really big one for us. We know that if we get three points, then we will end the day on top of the table.

“In terms of the start we have made, we deserve to be where we are. We are delighted to be at the top of the league, but we will see how it goes.

“We have played a lot of good sides but there are still a lot of good teams to play. We need to take it one game at a time and until we have played everyone at least once, I’m not sure we can really make any concrete judgements.

“One pleasing thing is that we have won our last two or three games without playing as well as we know we can. That’s something we will need to do throughout the season.”

One reason why Town may not to be able to sustain a genuine title challenge may be their relatively small squad. The same 11 players have started most of their games so far, meaning Bristow would be left with big problems if three or four of them were to be ruled out at once.

However, both Simon Dunn and Manny Williams missed Saturday’s 2-1 win over Ebbsfleet in the FA Cup on Saturday and Bristow took great heart from the way their replacements performed.

He said: “It will be difficult if we lose three or four players at once and it has to be said that there are other clubs who could deal with that much better. We were forced into two changes on Saturday though, and it didn’t really affect the way we approached the game.”

For this weekend’s trip to Wealdstone, Bristow will be without Manny Williams through suspension, but he is hoping that Dunn will recover from a hip problem in time to play.

Newly-promoted Wealdstone had a tough start to life in the Conference South, winning just one of their first 13 games this season. However, they seem to have turned a corner and were unlucky not to beat high-flying Havant and Waterlooville last week.

“Wealdstone have picked up some form of late and had a good result at Havant,” Bristow said. “With a big crowd behind them, they will be a real force, so we will need to make sure that we prepare properly and are in the right frame of mind.”

Town’s prize for beating Ebbsfleet to reach the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup is a home tie against Ryman League Premier outfit Harrow Borough on Saturday, October 25.

Bristow said: “We have to be thankful that we have drawn a team from a lower division at home, but it’s not a game that we will look at thinking that it’s going to be easy.”