WAYNE Goodison wants his side to remember how they felt after facing City of Liverpool earlier this season when the teams meet again on Saturday.
The Purps ran out 6-3 winners against 1874 Northwich at Barton Stadium on a new campaign’s opening day and occupy top spot in the North West Counties League’s Premier Division.
While not motivated by revenge, the visitors this weekend will have a point to prove.
“We’ve our own incentives,” said the 1874 co-manager.
“If I was playing, then I would go there believing in a different outcome and wanting to show what I can do.
“It’s easy to forget because of how the first game ended, but we did a lot of things right that day and caused them problems.”
Before last weekend, when City of Liverpool suffered a first league defeat of term at Congleton, no other side had put three goals past them in a Premier Division fixture.
1874 travel to Bootle, where the Purps play home games and have won eight of their nine games to date, buoyed by a six-match unbeaten run.
A single defeat since mid-September has seen them rise to ninth in the table, a sequence they extended following a 2-1 victory against Hanley Town last weekend.
Goodison said: “It was important to keep that momentum going into Saturday and we did that.
“We feel we’re a different side to the one that played in that first game, and we’re certainly a more resilient one.
“That’s something that was perhaps missing earlier on.
“But we’ve had to show that as recently as last week after going 2-0 down [at Hanley]; there was a feeling on the touchline that we could get back into it and we did.”
He told the Guardian that a meeting with the league’s best team – City of Liverpool remain five points clear despite losing last time out – will be a gauge of 1874’s progress.
The visitors expect to be boosted by the return from injury of Mark Jones while Taylor Kennerley and Jake Parker, who completed a transfer back to the club from Wythenshawe Town last week, will be available too.
Defender Danny Meadowcroft also made a first appearance of the campaign against Hanley.
Goodison said: “We’ll find out a little bit more about where we are in relation to one of the best sides in the division and if we can come through it with a positive result that will be a big moment for us.”
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