A RATIO of a goal every other game would please most strikers. Having scored 29 by this time a year ago, however, forgive Darlington’s Nathan Cartman if he appears a little underwhelmed with his total of ten goals in 21 appearances this term.

“Last season at this stage I had just short of 30. It’s okay this season, a bit different,” said the forward, whose almost weekly goals for Harrogate RA led to him joining Darlington in January.

“But I’d rather be winning games and being up there going for promotion than scoring every week and it all being about me, which it was to be fair.

“I’ve got nine in the league and one in the FA Trophy, so I’m up there at the minute [in the leading scorers list] and hopefully it will continue, even though I’d rather we win games than me score.

“I’ve not paid attention to the list so much this season, knowing full well I’ve not scored so many, I’ll just have to keep plugging away and keep scoring.”

He’ll hope for goal number 11 today, although simply playing a league match at all would be a novelty.

A combination of cup fixtures and postponements has meant Darlington have not had a league fixture for five weeks, a period which has seen them drop to fourth, four points off leaders Nantwich.

They travel to 16th-placed Barwell in Leicestershire today, a team against which Cartman scored in a 3-1 Heritage Park win in August.

Cartman added: “I’d like to play every week, I hate it when games are called off. In the last six weeks I’ve only played two full games, I only came on against Mossley in the Trophy for half an hour.

“I’m desperate to play on Saturday. It’s the same with Lee Gaskell, he’s in the same position. We share cars together so we’ve got on well and in our five or six matches together we’ve set up a decent partnership, he was scoring and I was scoring, so I think we’re getting on well.”

If selected today, Cartman, Peter Jameson and Stephen Thompson will continue their run of starting each of club’s 19 league fixtures. Phil Turnbull has started every game too, but he is now sidelined with a broken jaw.

With an almost fully fit squad available, however, manager Martin has plenty of options, and despite being leading scorer Cartman does not feel assured of his place.

He said: “I’ve started every game apart from Mossley, when the manager said he wanted to rest me for the week after. I travel to every game hoping to play. At Harrogate I played every game, I would never think I might not be playing, but at Darlo there’s David Dowson, Graeme Armstrong, Lee Gaskell and Amar Purewal to come back.

“He needs to keep everyone happy and rotation will be a part of this season. Every lad that I’ve mentioned is good enough to be starting without a doubt, so I’ve got to keep my performances up.

“I’ve got to keep my performance up to stay in the team, but as a team overall I think we’re underperforming at the minute.

“We were unbeaten for seven games until we lost the last one [at Sutton Coldfield Town in the FA Trophy], and the sign of a good team is when you win without performing particularly well. Against Mickleover, we only just beat them at home, but at their place we had battered them 5-1.

“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about though, maybe the couple of weeks rest will have done us good.”

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