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Ebbsfleet United head to Aldershot Town in the National League play-offs

00:00, 02 May 2018

Ebbsfleet believe they can go all the way to Wembley in the National League play-offs.

They visit Aldershot on Wednesday night with a trip to Tranmere awaiting the winners on Saturday.

Six teams are battling to reach the promotion final on May 12 when one will ultimately be promoted to the Football League.

Ebbsfleet boss Daryl McMahon Picture: Andy Jones
Ebbsfleet boss Daryl McMahon Picture: Andy Jones

Fleet boss Daryl McMahon said: "No matter what happens now in the play-offs, for our first season to get where we are is a fantastic achievement.

"But when you’re in it, you might as well try to win it and that’s what we’ll be trying to do.

"Whoever we got in the play-offs was going to be tough. Aldershot are a very good football team and they’ve got a very experienced manager in Gary Waddock, who’s a top man as well.

"They’ve got a couple of players I know pretty well – I played with Callum Reynolds at Boreham Wood and with Scott Rendell – so they’re a good side.

"We played them not too long ago and gave a good account of ourselves at Aldershot so we look to do it again."

The two league games between the sides only produced two goals, so does McMahon expect the third meeting to be equally tight?

"I think it will be," he said. "After the away game against Aldershot (0-0), I was disappointed we didn’t win it. I thought we could have won it but in the home game, Aldershot were better than us.

"We’re a totally different team now than we were then and we’re probably even slightly different to when we played them in January.

"We’ve added Corey Whitely to the group and Kenny Clark and Dean Rance are back fit. We’re in a different place than we were then."

Winger Sean Shields could return to the Fleet squad after missing the last two games of the regular season with an ankle injury.

Aldershot, five years since their relegation from League 2, finished just one place and one point above Ebbsfleet.

McMahon said: "Aldershot were in the play-offs last year and they’ve got more experience of it than us.

"They’re an ex-Football League club so they’ve been there a bit more than we have as a group but come Wednesday at 7pm that’ll go out of the window and it’ll just be 11 v 11, two very well-matched teams looking to get into the semi-finals."

Hundreds of supporters will make the journey round the M25 on Wednesday to back the Fleet in Hampshire.

"They can make a huge difference," McMahon said. "It’s a massive thing when you come out to warm up and you’ve got 400 behind the goal (like we did at Torquay on Saturday).

"It’s massive for everybody and it’ll be the same again on Wednesday night. I’m sure we’ll have a great following.

"We had a great following at Aldershot earlier in the season and I’ve got no doubt we’ll have similar numbers again."

Kick-off is at the earlier time of 7pm.

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