FC Isle of Man aiming to maintain winning mentality against Longridge Town

Ravens could go as high as ninth with victory on Saturday

After getting back to winning ways last weekend, FC Isle of Man's manager believes his team needs to take it up another gear when they host Longridge Town in the NWCFL Premier Division tomorrow night (9 March).

The Manx side are twelve points better off than their latest opponents and were 2-0 victors over the Lancashire outfit in the reverse fixture earlier in the campaign.

Last season however, Longridge Town produced a stunning comeback to beat the Ravens 5-3 at The Bowl in March 2023.

What's more, FC Isle of Man boss Paul Jones says he expects the visitors to provide a stern test for his players once again:

Along with a mixed set of results in the head-to-head record between both sides, the contests between them to date have also not been short of goalmouth action.

Fourteen goals have been scored across all three meetings so far.

For the Ravens, despite back-to-back losses before their narrow victory over West Didsbury & Chorlton six days ago the Island side remain one of the in-form teams in the league over the last six with four wins and two defeats.

If there's further incentive required, another win on Saturday could see them leap up as high as five places to ninth depending on results elsewhere.

Meanwhile, for Lee Ashcroft's Longridge Town side it's been a challenging campaign overall to this point as they sit 20th in the standings in a very congested area of teams occupying the bottom five.

More recently they've only won two of their last seven, losing the other five, but one of those victories was their most recent outing on Tuesday (5 March) with a comprehensive 4-1 win over Pilkington.

Furthermore, whilst below FC Isle of Man in league standings, Longridge Town's haul of 66 goals is superior to FC Isle of Man's scoring exploits of 51 at this stage.

FC Isle of Man vs Longridge Town takes place this Saturday, 9 March, kicking-off at 6pm.

Manx Radio will be providing full live match commentary on our DAB and AM1368 channels.

FC Isle of Man team news

For the first time in a while, Paul Jones names an unchanged squad following last weekend's success at The Bowl.

Man of the match last time out, Adam Killey, retains his place in goal ahead of Ben Wilkinson with last week's match winner Callum Sherry also keeping his place.

Elsewhere, Sean Doyle looks set to make his 30th appearance of the season - midfielder Michael Williams remains absent following recent injury.

FC Isle of Man squad vs Longridge Town

Adam Killey (GK), Connor Birch, Jacob Crook, Furo Davies, Sean Doyle, Tiernan Garvey, Danny Gerrard, Dan Hattersley, Charlie Higgins, Frank Jones, Phil Kelly, Alex Maitland, Eoghain Sherrard, Callum Sherry, Kyle Watson, Ste Whitley