RICHARD Dryden reckons Worcester City should be looking up the league rather than fearing relegation.

City despatched Weston-super-Mare 4-1 at St George’s Lane on Monday to make it three games unbeaten in Blue Square South. The result took them up to 16th place but they are still only three points above the drop-zone with 14.

However, City’s current form is a vast improvement on that shown in the early part of the season and Dryden believes they are much better than their position suggests.

The manager said: “We have gone up to 16th and the table looks a lot better.

“People say teams are too good to go down, and I think we are too good to go down, but it’s up to us to prove that we can climb the league and hopefully we have turned a corner.

“I think for the past four or five weeks we have played consistently well, apart from the Thurrock game. The performances have been OK.

“We scored four goals against Dorchester and four against Weston but we have got to get one when we need to win by the odd goal at 3-2 or 1-0, that’s when we need to be picking up points.”

New striker Marc McGregor headed a debut goal against his former club and was joined on the scoresheet by Craig Wilding, Rob Elvins and Wayne Daniel.

Although McGregor was replaced by Marco Adaggio with 25 minutes to go, Dryden is confident he can supply the firepower to propel City up the league.

He said: “It was a great header and he could have had another 20 minutes later. He did well and I think you could see the difference when he came off.

“Hopefully he will get double figures this season and I can’t see why not if we put passes in the right area. He wants to score goals.”

Dryden added: “It was a very nice performance for probably 75 minutes. It could have been a lot more and I think Andy Gurney (Weston manager) would agree.”

City captain Tom Kemp missed the game through illness but the manager is hopeful of having him available for Saturday’s trip to Eastleigh, for which Elvins starts a three-match ban.

“We have got a big game coming up and we need everybody firing on all cylinders on Saturday,” he said.

“I think I have probably got three of the top five or six centre-halves in the league.

“I haven’t seen anyone better than the three defenders we have.”