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Dartford FC boss Tony Burman says title hopes depend on togetherness at Princes Park

Tony Burman has warned Dartford can forget about winning the league unless they pull together on and off the pitch.

Darts have been top of National League South since November but second-placed Havant & Waterlooville are just three points behind them with three games in hand.

Burman’s side host Truro on Saturday in a game which carries huge significance for both
teams.

Dartford manager Tony Burman Picture: Andy Jones
Dartford manager Tony Burman Picture: Andy Jones

The White Tigers, who beat Dartford 3-1 in November, are also fighting for promotion but have lost three of their last four matches.

So how important is a positive atmosphere inside Princes Park come 3pm?

“It’s massive,” Burman said. “You’re always going to be criticised and people will disagree with you but as the manager you have to get on with that.

“It sometimes becomes disappointing but I hope we all can pull in the right direction because if we don’t, we certainly won’t win the title.

“We’ve been at the top for a while and in certain games we haven’t handled it as well as I wanted.

“Yes, it’s been a strange time with us and other people dropping points and the ball is really in Havant’s court. Let them have a bit of the pressure. They’ve got the games in hand and they can go above us with six points (advantage).

“There’s nothing we can do about that other than carry on winning our games.

“The pressure’s always going to be there and you’ve got to have that desire and belief in your game.”

Dartford were almost knocked off top spot last weekend but came from behind to win 2-1 at Wealdstone.

“It’s given us the boost we needed,” Burman said.

“In the last home game against Chelmsford, we were by far the better side for 80 minutes but games now are 96 minutes and we’ve got to make sure we do everything right for that amount of time.

“We try to put over what we’ve learnt in situations before and you could say we haven’t done that right, especially in the last couple of games (before Saturday).

“I’ve stated I may have picked the wrong starting line-up in one of those games but in hindsight, it’s easy.

“You’ve got to handle players the best you can. I’ve got experience of that and hopefully, most of the time, I’ve got things reasonably right.”

Strikers Andy Pugh and Duane Ofori-Acheampong are both injury doubts but defender Ronnie Vint returns after illness.

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