Luton Town manager Mick Harford has expressed his sympathy with Saturday's opponents Salisbury City who have had their season's tally of 10 points wiped out after going into administration this week.
The Wiltshire club, instantly slumped to second from bottom in the Blue Square Premier above Chester City who were hit with a 25 point penalty at the start of the season.
It is a situation Harford and the Hatters know all about after they were docked 30 points before the start of last season which ultimately lead to them slipping into the non league for the first time in 89 years.
Asked if the punishment will affect the Whites’ players ahead of their clash at the Raymond McEnhill Stadium, Harford said: “I don’t know how they will approach it, it affects individuals differently.
“It can be hard, and I’m sure there will be some players wondering if they are going to get paid, what is going to happen to the club in administration and perhaps whether they want to be there.
“It’s a difficult situation for a football club. I don’t like to see clubs getting into this position.
“I think last year there were one or two clubs with low budgets who thought they might be in a relegation battle but knew they were going to be safe after the second half of the season.
“Hopefully we won’t be involved in that part of the league come the end of the season. We’ve had a good start and we want to maintain that.”
City have had a decent start to the season with three wins, three losses and one draw, but Harford knows that despite the punishment they will be no pushovers as Luton go in search of their second win in a week.
“I saw them at Hayes and Yeading and they looked dangerous going forward. They create chances and they have Matt Tubbs up front who is a threat.”
After a convincing 3-0 win against Crawley Town on Tuesday Harford is confident his defence, who have not conceded a goal for four matches, can cope with any threat the league has to offer.
He said: “We look solid and strong defensively, and I’m talking about everyone in the team. They know their roles when we are defending and we don’t look like we’re going to concede. Touch wood we can keep it going.
“Overall it couldn’t be better at the moment.”
The manager also believes that hard work on the training pitch is paying dividends at the other end.
“We done our homework on this league and we knew set plays, for and against, would be a massive part of being successful at this level,” he said. “We are defending them well and in attack we are scoring goals from them.
“It’s all about hard work on the training field. They weren’t my cup of tea as a player but it is something we must do. They’re very important.
“I have watched all kinds of football matches and they’re important, even at the top level. You just need to look at France versus Brazil in the World Cup final (1998) – two of those goals were scored from corners.”
But despite the midweek win where the manager praised the teams play, he conceded that performances won’t always meet the same expectations.
“Sometimes it’s quite difficult to play the way we want to when there isn’t an outlet ball. I thought Kevin Gallen was excellent the other night in terms of holding up the play and bringing other players in. He does an excellent job for us because we are missing Liam Hatch.
“Liam is making good progress and will hopefully only be a few weeks away. We have a reserve game on the 15th and I would like to get him involved in that and see how he is. He is very comfortable at the moment in terms of his injury.
“Lewis Emanuel is going to be a little bit longer and Ed Asafu-Adjaye, who has just had a complete rest, is going to fit and available in maybe three to four weeks.
“Andy Burgess is going to be out for a while because he’s torn his hamstring.
“Rio (Ryan Charles) is back training, though he had a little bit of swelling on his knee so he didn’t train today. He’ll be back in training on Monday.”
In other team news Claude Gnakpa will start against Salisbury after staking an impressive claim for a permanent position against Crawley with his first start of the season.
Harford said: “I’ve always said to the players that if they show me they deserve to be in the team then they’ll be given an opportunity.
“Claude has trained really hard and worked at his game, but he knows that his standards can’t drop below the (Crawley game). It’s up to him now as he has the jersey and it’s up to him to keep it.”