AFC Fylde boss Adam Murray set to keep ringing changes ahead of visit to Scarborough

Head coach Murray made three changes to a winning team for Tuesday's 1-0 home win over Buxton – a fourth straight victory in 2023, leaving Fylde level with leaders Kings Lynn Town.

That was the first of eight Tuesday games before the end of March as Fylde look to ease their fixture backlog, making squad rotation unavoidable.

The Coasters head to fifth-placed Scarborough Athletic tomorrow and nobody would be surprised to see Murray shuffle his pack again.

He told the Gazette: “This will be the normal trend because it's important to keep the energy levels high.

“We have a good squad and there will be no issues keeping the standards high. Everyone brings their own energy to the squad and the challenge is to maintain our consistency.”

Speaking immediately after Tuesday's game, Murray addressed the congested fixture list which brings a mouthwatering trip to King's Lynn next Tuesday.

“We're snowed under with games, so we need to be clever with the squad,” he said. “We have a very strong squad and I know anyone who goes into that 11 can perform to a very high standard.”

Murray is also comfortable to ring the changes in the knowledge he has goals throughout his team, with defender Pierce Bird the unlikely matchwinner in midweek.

“I like to think we're an attacking team and we ask the players to get into positions where we are going to hurt teams,” he said.

“I said before I came in that we didn't put teams under enough stress and create enough clear chances. Our expected goals was way too low for a team that wants to be promoted. I think we're going the right way to changing that.

“We score all kinds of goals and a lot of credit has to go to (coach) Andy Taylor for all the work he does on set-pieces. The lads take on his ideas and it's great to see Birdy scoring from one we worked on on the training ground.”

The goal redeemed a “frustrating” performance for Murray, who told The Gazette: “It was a strange game. We had enough chances to score four or five but we didn't really click into our rhythm or control the game as well as we'd have liked.

“We allowed them a couple of half-chances, which could have changed the result on a different day.

"But we ground out another result and it was another positive for our mentality in terms of winning when we weren't at our best.”

It was a ninth win in 10 league outings for Fylde and a seventh in eight under Murray, though he won't allow success to go to his players' heads.

“We need to keep a level mentality on our journey, focusing on the next game, and we've done that really well,” he said.

“We keep plodding along, not singing and dancing about what we've done so far, and we have to remember what has got us these points on the board.

"If we come away from that, we could give ourselves a problem.”

Tomorrow's hosts won at Mill Farm in August but started 2023 with successive defeats before beating Blyth Spartans 3-2 on Saturday.

Murray said: “I've watched a fair bit of Scarborough and they are an effective team, who are strong from set-pieces. But we look to identify weaknesses and exploit them.”

An improving weather forecast is something else Murray hopes to exploit, especially when Fylde return to home turf.

“We need a bit of warmer weather for our pitch because it is a huge part of the way we play,” he added.