STEVE HALLIWELL wants Gresford Athletic to turn Clappers Lane into a fortress.

Gresford play their first home game of the league campaign at their own ground having been forced to move the 2-0 victory over Llanfair United earlier this month to The New Saints’ Park Hall.

In the past two seasons Gresford have only been beaten six times at Clappers Lane, while Colwyn Bay came unstuck as they lost 1-0 in the Cymru Leagues Cup early last month.

And Halliwell is hoping that form continues as Gresford look to climb away from the bottom four - starting tomorrow at home to Guilsfield.

“Our home record is really, really good,” said the director of football. “We’ve only lost six times at home in two years and we have to make our ground a fortress.

“We have to make it hard for our opponents coming to our ground, we have to make them battle for anything they get like we have to when we play away from home.”

Gresford staged clear the air talks after last weekend’s 3-0 loss at Penrhyncoch left them 13th in the table with just seven points from as many games.

But that defeat has now been cosigned to the history books, Halliwell saying: “We need to stick together and move forward as a team.

“Seven points from seven games is not great, but three points will change the whole dimension and we need a reaction in our first home game.”

Aaron Edwards and Paul Williams are set to return to the Gresford squad, although Adam Hesp and Ryan Williams could miss out and Jack Chaloner is definitely sidelined.

“We are missing players who are winners,” added Halliwell. “But we’ve got a squad of players and we have got enough talent to kick on and climb the table.”

Corwen are without a game this weekend, but they will be in training working on improving parts of their game.

Boss Danny Jellicoe said: “Would we have liked a game? Probably. But we will train a couple of times instead and it’s good to get the chance to work on things that we need to.”