Strevens: Dagenham & Redbridge will have to respect Torquay United

The Gulls sit next-to-bottom, with only 31 points from 37 matches, and find themselves six points away from safety.

And they have taken just two points from their last seven matches, since beating Barnet back on February 18.

Daggers sit in 12th place after being held to a 1-1 draw by Oldham Athletic last weekend, as Strevens took charge for the first time.

And he told the club website: “They’re fighting for their lives. No team near the bottom of this league will ever be easy to play against, especially when they’re in front of their home support.

“Gary Johnson has built some strong teams at Torquay, he’s lost a lot of players in his time there so to keep rebuilding is hard work for any manager. 

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Gary and his assistant, they’re great people and we’re expecting a very tough game from them. 

“They’re a very front-footed side and have some good players within their set-up, with the home support behind them we’ll have to respect them as a group, but try to get on the front foot quicker than them.

“We’re going to have to try fight fire with fire and not be too cautious. The weekend just gone we saw some good things but my thing with them was I’ve never been a manager who let’s an opposition team come at us and we sit back.

“The endeavour I saw from the team on Saturday was good, but we need to get it another 20-30 yards up the pitch so we can be aggressive with players and press them in difficult areas to defend.

“We’ve worked on a few things this week to compliment that, tweaking formation and tactics a little, but we’re positive going into this weekend and it’s important we continue to show what we can do.”

Daggers could again be without club captain Angelo Balanta and will miss long-serving goalkeeper Elliot Justham due to injury, but they did welcome Mauro Vilhete back from a long-term absence against the Latics.

“El will still be missing unfortunately. In his head he wants to be back for the end of the season but we’ll have to assess that as it goes,” he added.

“It was a big blow to find out on Thursday, but with Striz [Josh Strizovic] coming in and doing so well is fantastic.

“Angelo is stepping back up his programme and he is a possibility for the weekend. We’re not 100 per cent sure on it right now but I’m hopeful that he’ll be in and around the group.

“I know how good of a player he [Vilhete] is from coming up against him, him being back out on the training pitch and then getting the nod that he can be involved was a huge thing for us. He’s up for selection again this week and he’s trained extremely well all week.”

Dean Rance was the latest player to leave the club this week, following Josh Walker, Paul McCallum and Junior Morias out the exit door, and Strevens will also be without Myles Weston and Omar Mussa, who are away on international duty, as they head to Devon on Saturday and then travel north to Gateshead in midweek.

But he is willing to give those who remain the chance to prove themselves in the final weeks of the season, adding: “I want to give opportunities to those who have been under the wing and waiting, so they have their equal chance of showing me what they can do.

“We spoke about Mauro but there are other boys who are coming back from injury. With Mussa and Westy on international duty we are a little bit light for the weekend but coming out of these two games we’ll have a strong little group together.

“Another one is Aaron (Blair) who’s currently out on loan at Braintree, we don’t want to bring him back for the sake of it but we’ve had the chat with them (Braintree Town) to say if we need him then we’ll have to do what’s right by us.”

“I think it’s only fair for me as a new manager coming in to give the boys who were here that chance to show themselves, rather than me bringing someone in till the end of the season.”