The New Saints boss Scott Ruscoe is expecting his talented side to carry on as normal when they host title rivals Bala Town on Friday night at Park Hall.

Since Saints bowed out of the Irn-Bru Cup on penalties last week, they have scored eight Welsh Premier League goals with no reply in two games and are looking for a third straight league win in 11 days.

Ruscoe admits he does not expect to make sweeping changes against a team he is taking extremely seriously to avoid any more slip-ups this year.

"It'll be near enough a settled side on Friday – we played Wolves in an under-23 behind-closed-doors game yesterday so players who have been struggling for minutes would have hopefully got 90 under their belt," he said.

"I'm not taking Bala for granted – it'll be same as last week. But we expect to beat every single team in our league – we go into every single game thinking that.

"Any changes we make are small because whoever we put out there can go out and dominate that game especially when playing the likes of Bala or Connah's Quay Nomads who are next to us in the pecking order.

"We have to do our homework with them and make sure we are at 100 per cent.

"We had some good games against Bala last year and we'll make sure we're on our mettle for Friday night.

The memory of the defeat to Queens Park last Saturday still rankles with the TNS boss but he admits the standard of the two performances against Aberystwyth Town and Llanelli Town last week has more than restored his faith in his stars.

But he insists he and assistant Steve Evans won't let that standard drop again.

He added: "We don't become bad players overnight. The Queens Park first half wasn't bad but the second half was abject.

"We were below par and it's possible to say the job was done beforehand. We only play 40 or so cup and league games overall but I've told the players that it's gone now.

"I want a great run in the league, the Welsh Cup and the League Cup and to be fair, the players have been flawless ever since. Their football in the first half on Friday night was superb – regardless of who it was against.

"We moved the ball at a really high level and while we didn't put it to bed, it was another clean sheet and two wins in a week.

"There's no easier games in this league but we made the two last look easy because of how well we played. We beat Barry comfortably at the start of the season but they've gone and beat others.

"In our league, any team can beat other teams and we've got to make sure that the games last year we drew, we go on to get more points. We have our targets, such as improving our clean sheets and goals against and it looks like we're on target to do that.

"If we keeping in the right direction then we've got no problems.

"It's up to me and Steve to keep them going; our target is to win that league. We had a meeting last week and we need to keep turning those dropped points into wins."

Saints host Bala at Park Hall for a 7.45pm kick-off.