MALMESBURY Victoria manager Gareth Davies is looking forward to his return to Fairford Town tomorrow.

The Vics boss is hoping that he will get a warm reception from his former club when he takes his young side to Cinder Lane.

But he knows that returning home with three points against a side chasing promotion from Division One West is going to be a tough ask.

“There is little pressure on us because no-one expects us to go there and win,” Davies said. “Hopefully that will allow to go out there and express ourselves.

“We are, performance-wise, in a decent run of form barring the New College game so we know that we can give most teams in this division a tough game.

“It will be nice going back to Fairford, their president Mike Tanner always make us feel welcome.”

Malmesbury head to Gloucestershire on the back of a 3-2 victory over fellow strugglers Carterton Town.

But Davies has been left to count the cost of that success.

“Stuart Fraser is probably going to be out for the rest of the season,” Davies said. “He has done his ankle ligaments so I don’t think we’ll see him again this season.

“But it was a pleasing performance against Carterton, it was a match where we knew that we could not afford to lose.

“We went 2-1 down and the players could have let their heads drop, but instead they started to press the ball and make life difficult for them.

“It was a physical match and I think everyone has a few bumps and bruises - Jacko (Chris Jackson) has got a bruised foot and I’m not sure if he’ll be OK for Saturday.”

Fairford have not played since their thrilling 4-4 draw at Shortwood United at the end of last month.

The Cinder Lane side currently sit in fifth place, six points behind second place Shortwood.

Paul Braithwaite’s side have, including tomorrow’s game, three matches of the campaign remaining.

“Having that time off has helped us massively,” Braithwaite said. “We had been really struggling for numbers.

“But now I have a full squad to chose and the key is to make sure we get into the game quickly on Saturday.”

While there is still a chance of winning promotion back to the Premier Division for Fairford, Braithwaite insists his side cannot look past tomorrow’s visitors.

“If you look at our remaining games - we have got Malmesbury, Easington (Sports) and Old Woodstock (Town) - on paper you’d think we should get maximum points” Braithwaite said.

“But we have to focus on Saturday. We trained on Wednesday night, worked on a few things and now we are ready to go.”