IN football circles there's a saying about waiting for players to 'come back'.

It means waiting for them to return to the form everybody knows that they are capable of producing -- and that's exactly what we are doing at the moment at Aggborough.

At whatever level you are at, all players have dips in form at at some stage during the season. That's only natural, but as a manager you know when they are 'back'.

We have been waiting for that since our players went flat in early January. We have tried everything from days off to hard training and the players have not 'come back' yet.

Some, I realise, will never be good enough to play at this level consistently, but with others you are still waiting.

One thing is certain, though, there will be a nine-week break in the summer and a five-week pre-season which means they'll be fresh and buzzing again come the start of our next campaign.

But, really, I'd love them to 'come back' now because it would make the summer so much more pleasant if they did manage to do that.

Thoughts, of course, are already turning to next season and people are asking me what my plans are.

Whatever happens I wouldn't have thought we would be allowed to bring in an awful lot of new players, maybe a couple or three during the summer.

We'll try to have a squad of 21 or 22 and we'll have to sign a few youngsters. We've got the two we have had this season, Ben Davies and Andrew Corbett, who have both played one full league game and done well.

There's no point having them playing once and doing well and then not persevering with them.

If they had been at other professional clubs they would probably have had three-year contracts, that's the way clubs look at youngsters when they are 18 or so.

We gave them a one-year contract which is up to the end of the season, but they have done nothing wrong.

Unfortunately, they have never been able to get into a routine of playing regularly because we don't have a lot of reserve games -- it would be ideal if they could play one or two games every week. That's not available to us, but they have done enough to deserve another crack.

Going back to Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Macclesfield, I thought it was a flat performance from both teams.

There was no atmosphere with 1,600 people in the ground and I guess the weather didn't help. But you always look for a bit of enthusiasm, somebody who is going to start the tempo of the game whether it's a tackle or a sharp pass.

But it just didn't happen for both teams. Macclesfield can obviously be more happy than us because they won, although we dominated possession.

But again that's to do with that sharpness and willingness and desire to get into the box from midfield players.

The ball comes out to Thomas Skovbjerg and we know that if he doesn't cross it goes back to Ian Clarkson who will cross it. That enables midfield players to get into the box and try and get on the end of things. But that just never happened.

But now we've got five very difficult games left before the end of the season, starting with a trip to the leaders Chesterfield on Saturday.

Then, on Monday, we're back at Aggborough to take on Plymouth. Certainly, we are in for some tough tests, so it would be the perfect time for our players to 'come back.'