Manager Billy Fox believes Thackley reserves’ step up to the Lancashire League this season has had a positive impact on his first team.

He feels the high standard of the competition provides the ideal test for players coming back to fitness.

Fox said: “The league the reserves are in this season has helped us get players who were injured back in top condition.

“The standard of the Lancashire League is very high and if the lads can play 90 minutes in that division we know they are ready for a seat on the bench, or even a start, when they come back into the first-team squad.”

The Thackley chief also thinks it has helped maintain healthy competition for places at Dennyfield.

“I think it has helped us maintain strength in depth within the club,” he said.

“If the players we have here were looking at a lower league when they weren’t involved in the first team’s 16-man squad they wouldn’t be happy at all.”

Thackley have yet to play this month and that means a fixture pile-up is on the horizon which, with the worst of the winter potentially still ahead, may get even worse.

However, he is confident his squad will click into gear in the new year.

“We have been up and down but you will see the best of us after Christmas because we will have settled down by then,” the manager added.

“The strength in depth is there, the consistency is lacking but the more settled we become the more that will come.

“Our keeper Scott Dinnigan has been one of our best players over the last six weeks and our first choice back four is very strong.

“We have some good players up front like Chris Coy and good midfielders but they all have to be fit and firing.

“I hope we will have a regular 14 for an extended period. That’s when the consistency comes and without consistency you don’t get success.”