A SECOND meeting of the season with Gloucester City sees Darlington go into the fixture in a healthier position than when they played the same opposition four months ago.

Quakers frequently suffered with injuries during the early part of the season, the situation reaching a nadir when they visited Gloucester in September with two teenagers - Brandon Morrison and Lucas Bell – playing as substitutes, the team suffering a 2-1 defeat and falling to 17th in the table.

Now, at just beyond the halfway point of the season, Darlington are tenth and manager Alun Armstrong admits he has so many options that some players are likely to leave soon given that the congested festive period is over.

An illustration of the numbers now in his squad is that on New Year’s Day against Spennymoor Town he had no room in his squad for Terry Galbraith and Liam Connell, both having previously been in his first-choice XI.

New signing Gary Martin comes into the reckoning, paperwork pending on his loan, while David Atkinson is due to be available before the end of the month after recovering from injury.

The situation is a far cry from the game at Gloucester, and Armstrong admitted: “You look at the squad then and you look now, and there’s a big difference.

“We had young Brandon, Lucas, Harry Stansfield, and Cameron Holliday all on the bench, plus Ben Hedley was new to us. He had just signed and was a sub.

“Tyrone O’Neill got knocked out so I had to take him off at half-time. We were probably on top but we ended up losing 2-1, so we owe them one.

“I’ve probably got unhappy players on the bench now – Terry Galbraith and Liam Connell are not even in the squad.

“There will be changes, I will have to make room to free up some funds, maybe get a couple of people out on loan to get some game time.”

Darlington are four points off the play-offs having won ten and lost ten of their league fixtures, an improvement on their standing at this stage last year.

Armstrong said: “At the minute I’m relatively happy with where we are as a club and a team moving forward, but I look back at some of the games – Bradford, Telford – and I think there’s been ten points that we’ve thrown away.

“I’m happy with where we are, but it could’ve been a lot better. It’s getting better because the squad is getting better. They are understanding each more and more.”

Darlington had won four league games in a row before Wednesday at Spennymoor Town, a game Armstrong’s team lost after failing to take a handful of scoring opportunities.

Justin Donawa equalised with his eighth goal of the season, and he has now scored in four successive league starts, though he did have an attempt saved early in the second half with only goalkeeper Matthew Gould to beat.

“That would probably have won us the game,” admitted Armstrong. “We score it and it puts Spenny on the backfoot, but you can’t blame individuals because there were enough chances for us to win the game.

“It was probably the most amount of clear chances we have created in a game, one-on-ones with the goalkeeper, and to do that and not take them is criminal.

“It’s not as though we played badly, but it was disappointing. Spennymoor are good at what they do, the pressure was on them to get a result after we beat them on Boxing Day and they worked hard.

“We looked a bit fatigued, but I can’t fault the lads’ efforts over the last five weeks.

“We’ve got to bounce back and make sure that we’re at it.”

Gloucester are 18th having beaten Leamington 2-1 on New Years Day to end a run of seven league games without a win.

The sequence included a 3-0 defeat away to Leamington which led to Gloucester's board issuing an apology to supporters, and offering free entry to their next fixture.