Five games of the Blue Square North campaign has convinced Stafford manager Steve Bull of one thing: The squad at Marston Road is good enough for a play-off place.

Rangers have eight points to show from five games so far, although many agree that could well be maximum points on reflection, with late goals conceded in no less than three of the games played.

Bully knows his side need to cut out the silly errors but, as far as he is concerned, that is the only thing holding them back.

He said: “We could top of the league now and the players know that. Its only individual errors that has cost us. It is nothing to do with the team. What we are concentrating on in training is being hard to beat. To be fair, no one has turned us over so far.

“At the end of the last season, if i’d have said we would have eight points from the first five games I would have been laughed at. If we get that tally over the rest of the season, we could well be in the play-off’s. It is not rocket science.”

Next up for Bully’s boys is the visit of fancied Southport to Marston Road on Saturday, which kicks off a manic bout of three games in seven days.

He said: “It is going to be hard against Southport but from what I have heard of them, every one of their games has been a hard fought battle and they have got a win or a draw out of it. So I am thinking: We can get something out of the game.”

The Stafford manager at least has this week to reflect on two games over the Bank Holiday weekend, with the sombre 1-0 loss to Tamworth at least sullied by bouncing back with a 1-0 win at Solihull Moors on Monday.

He said: “We did not play well at all for 75 minutes against Tamworth. In the last fifteen minutes we were a lot better but if we had have won it would have been an injustice.

“It was not that Tamworth were that good, we just made them look like world beaters. If we had played like I know we can, we would have won. We needed to respond very quickly against Solihull and that is what we did.

“If we have had the week to reflect on it, it would have been different. We just had to go there and win. To be fair to the players, its a credit to them the way they responded.

“We didn’t have much choice but to play 4-4-2 at Solihull. Without Andre Francis and Ishamel Reid, we had to shuffle the pack that way. That said, we could have five or six goals.”