MIDDLEWICH Town can afford no more slip ups this season.

That's the message from manager Terry Murphy as his side whittled the title race down to a straight scrap with Styal.

The Witches trail their east Cheshire rivals by four points with six matches to play.

"They are the ones to watch," said the Town boss.

"Pilkington have dropped a lot of points recently so I reckon they are out of it now."

The past seven days have reaped seven points for the defending champions against as they effectively elminated Curzon Ashton Reserves, Greenalls Padgate St Oswalds and Crosfields from the reckoning.

Their 4-1 win against Curzon was rated as their best display of the season by Murphy.

"We were fantastic," he said "They went ahead but once we were back in the game we could have gone on to score six or seven.

"Our performance totally deflated them because before the game they still had a chance of finishing first."

A goalless draw against Greenalls followed on Thursday before top scorer Mike Brandon bagged the only goal at Crosfields on Saturday.

"I thought we murdered Crosfields," said Murphy.

"Their keeper had a great game and stopped us running up a cricket score to be honest.

"It really was a good performance."

"We should have got something against Greenalls.

"They had a lad sent off and we battered on the door but just couldn't get the breakthrough."

Town, who lost key defender Dave Shore for the rest of the season at the weekend, were due at Trafford Reserves last night, Tuesday.

Shaun Came has stepped in to play alongside Chris Jump, while Murphy can also call on Graham Kay or Lee Duckworth should he need to in the next fortnight.

They play the return match against Pilkington at Seddon Street on Saturday, kick off 3pm, before heading to Padgate next Tuesday, kick off 6.30pm.

Pilkington currently head the table by three points from Styal, but have played three more matches.

Styal were due at Woodley last night, Tuesday, before heading to Curzon Ashton Reserves on Thursday.

They are due at penultimate bottom Poynton on Saturday.