For Evans sake as Jake hopeful

Hungerford Town’s midfield maestro Jake Evans has backed his side to pull off an unlikely escape in the battle for National League South survival.

Although the Crusaders are still eight points from safety and bottom of the league, Evans and his side have picked up a number of good results in recent weeks, beating Dover and Slough and drawing with Farnborough.

And Evans, who had a somewhat stop-start first few months of the season, has been instrumental in the Crusaders comeback, winning December's player of the month and scoring the winning goal against Dover from 30 yards.

"Everyone in the squad believes," he said.

"We've been in every single game this season, if we were getting battered every week then you'd understand people being a little bit despondent.

"In this league you can go and win four or five games in the blink of an eye.

"Everyone's fighting as hard as they can, that's something I've got to give credit to the gaffer for.

"It's easy to be motivated to play for him because of how much he believes in us."

A lot of the Crusaders problems have been attributed to the summer departures of top scorers Ryan Seager and Sol Wanjau-Smith, but Evans has a slightly different perspective on Hungerford's plight.

He said: "Seags and Sol have been big misses, but a lot of the games we've lost have been down to easily avoidable mistakes.

"I can't remember us being carved open, it's been mistakes.

"We've got goals in us, we've got to believe we're as good as anyone in this league on our day."

If Hungerford are to claw themselves back into contention they'll need Evans, who has had spells at Football League outfits Swindon and Cardiff, to produce more of the magic that helped the Crusaders beat Dover.

"I don't seem to score tap-ins at the moment," he said.

"It's either a worldie or nothing, so I'd take a few tap-ins to be honest.

"We know we're a good team, if I can add a few more goals that would be great."

Hungerford welcome Chippenham to Bulpit Lane on Saturday with the visitors in 20th, directly above the relegation zone – a must win if ever there was one.