Torquay position ‘irrelevant’ says Dagenham & Redbridge boss McMahon

Daggers will look to extend a six-match unbeaten run in all competitions when they welcome the Gulls for a 12.30pm kick-off – with an FA Cup second round replay at Gillingham to follow next Thursday.

The winners of that tie will host Premier League outfit Leicester City – the 2021 FA Cup winners – but McMahon’s current focus is on collecting another league victory, with his side sitting in ninth place, just one point off the play-off spots.

“It’s irrelevant to me where Torquay are in the league, what Torquay’s away form is,” he told the club website.

“Dagenham & Redbridge, my team, have to be at their best on Saturday to win. Simple. That’s the message I will be giving my team. All the other stuff is just noise to me.

“We don’t work off other teams’ stats, we work off our own and I think we have to make sure we’re at our absolute best on Saturday.”

Torquay have taken just two points from their last four league games, since thrashing Aldershot 6-1 at the start of November.

And McMahon is well aware of the threats they pose.

“They’ve got some very good players,” he added.

“[Aaron] Jarvis up top is an absolute handful, you’ve got Asa Hall and [Brett] McGavin in midfield, [Mark] Ellis at the back, experienced players. They’ve got some real talent throughout the squad.

“And Gary [Johnson] has got great experience at that level as well, so he’ll be calm about where his team are, knowing he doesn’t want to be there but he can move them off that position.

“And like everybody in this division, I say it all the time, anybody can beat anybody and we have to make sure we’re at our very best on Saturday to get a result.”

Daggers have suffered just one defeat in their last 11 outings and McMahon feels a more settled selection process, after suffering a host of injuries earlier in the campaign, has been key during that run.

“We’ve been able to pick a steady team,” he said.

“There’s probably been one or two changes per game, over that block of games, and I’ve said all along and sometimes it might sound like an excuse, but if you can consistently pick the same team, you consistently tend to get results.

“We’ve consistently got positive results with the group we’ve got at the moment. They know as well they’ve got to keep performing to keep the momentum going.”

A win could see Daggers climb into the top seven this weekend and they have a game in hand on the two sides directly above them in Bromley and Solihull Moors, who have home games against lowly Yeovil and Oldham respectively.

But McMahon is not too concerned if they miss out on this occasion.

“We want to be there at the end of the season, definitely,” he said, having just missed out on the last day of last season.

“That’s the time when we want to make sure we’re in there, to be in with a chance to be in the play-off positions to compete to get out of the division.

“If we win Saturday and end up there, great. I’m just focused on making sure we play well on Saturday and try and get that win.

“All we can really focus on for us as a group is our performance and making sure we perform right, behave right and attack the game properly and we will do that.”