HAVING watched his team put in an improved display at the weekend, Tommy Wright has warned his Darlington players he will accept no slacking this evening at Spennymoor Town.

Saturday’s win at FC United of Manchester came seven days after a disappointing defeat at home to Boston United, when few of the team were at their best.

Wright, however, gave his starting XI the benefit of the doubt by sticking with ten of the line-up at FC United - the fit-again Luke Trotman replacing Tom Portas was the only change – and it paid dividends, with Quakers playing much better and winning 2-1.

The victory was the team’s seventh in 11 games, ensuring relegation is no longer possible and now the manager wants to finish as high up the table as possible with a continuation of Saturday’s form in the final four fixtures the aim.

“We want four wins,” he said. “It would be easy for me to say ‘well done lads, you’ve done your job, let’s make changes’. But what would we be making changes for?

“If we can finish eighth then lets go for eighth, if we can finish ninth then we go for that. I want to fight for these 12 points and the lads know I will make changes if they don’t perform on Thursday.

“Hopefully we won’t revisit what we served up last Saturday against Boston.

“The lads got a telling off a half-time last week, we didn’t really revisit it after the game, but the challenge was there in training – shirts were up for grabs.

“Last week was probably the best week I could’ve asked for in training. The lads in the teams, the lads on the bench and the lads that didn’t even travel to Manchester, they all put a right shift in.

“The strength in depth is there and so is the competition for places, and they deserved the benefit of the doubt to prove that it was just rustiness last week.

“The lads were aware I could’ve made changes, I could’ve changed five or six, but then if I’d done that I’d have been a hypocrite and gone against what I’d said, which was that my gut feeling was that it had been a bad day at the office, and that they were rusty for not playing the previous week at Easter.”

Today’s game is the first since Joe Wheatley was selected in the England C squad – the international team for non-league players – to play away to Republic of Ireland next month, though the midfielder would like to become for prolific.

In his 26 appearances he has scored just once, on his first start in September, though he came close on Saturday when he hit the post with a volley in the closing stages

Wright explained: “Joe wants to add goals to his game and that can only be a plus point.

“He knows the perfect midfielder scores goals and he probably looks at Dave Syers scoring and wants to add that to his game.

“Wheats was tireless on Saturday. His running off the ball and won a lot of breakaways, he was battling back and making last-ditch tackles, so I was really happy with his performance.”

This evening’s match was originally scheduled for Easter, but it was postponed due to the Brewery Field being waterlogged, as it has been on number occasions in recent months.

Moors’ game on Tuesday with Kidderminster Harriers was their third ‘home’ fixture to be staged at Harrogate Town, while in March they moved an FA Trophy tie to Blackwell Meadows.

Moors drew 1-1 with Kidderminster to remain on course for the play-offs, which are very likely out of reach for Darlington, though not mathematically so.

Spennymoor and Darlington have shared some crucial and tense tussles in recent years since first locking horns in the 2012-13 season, during which a 3-1 Quakers win at the Brewery Field was viewed as a pivotal moment.

Darlington went on to win the Northern League title and have not lost a league or play-off game with Jason Ainsley's side since, but this time around the stakes are only high for seventh-placed Spennymoor, whereas there is little at stake for Quakers other than local pride.

The game is not all ticket, turnstiles open at 6.45pm and supporters will be segregated, with Moors fans in the Main Stand and Pond Stand, and Darlington supporters in the open terracing at the Durham Road end and Tees Crescent side.