Parish form key to Ashford United hopes
“Ashford boss Kevin Watson is enthusiastic about the prospect of getting Danny Parish back to his peak form. Parish is seen as a valuable asset in the Isthmian South East league. Watson had previously worked with him during his stint at Concord, and he expressed his desire to retain Parish, emphasizing the player’s potential for improvement.
Watson stated to Kent Online Sport, ‘By his own admission, last season wasn’t as good as he would have liked, both for him and the team, but he’s had a really good attitude in pre-season. Part of the thing we do is to try and develop players, so we’ll work with Danny and try to bring back that success and hopefully improve him. There’s more to him than goals, absolutely. He’s very intelligent, he’s quite tenacious as well because obviously he’s not a conventional big forward targetman, so his runs are very clever, and his finishing’s good. We’re looking forward to working with him more.'”
“What we really like about Danny is he absorbs information. I’ve noticed already his eagerness and keenness to learn and improve, which is really good from a management perspective.”
In recent friendlies, Parish has displayed his scoring ability, netting in a 4-0 win against Whitstable and a 3-1 defeat against Chatham. Additionally, young forward Stanley Oldfield caught Watson’s attention, and although he has not trained with the team yet, the manager is keen to involve him due to his impressive performances in the games.
Watson shared, “He’s played about half an hour in each of the games and worked really hard. I think he’s a good size and he’s somebody we want to keep around at the moment and give him some more game time. He’s a really nice, humble lad and it’s right for him to be involved in that environment and the sort of climate we try to create for a young player like Stanley. I think it’s quite a welcoming, accommodating environment in our changing room, so I’m pleased for him.”
Watson acknowledged the need for slight alterations to their schedule due to an appearance at the first stage of the FA Cup, saying, “Our schedule, we’d planned for the first competitive game to be on August 12 in the league. We weren’t aware what stage of the FA Cup we’d come in, so it means some slight alterations to the schedule, but that’s fine. We know what we’re working towards now.”
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