Craig Parry heaps praise on Deegan Atherton and Aleksandrs Starcenko after Worksop Town's 0-0 draw with Parkgate

Atherton has started the last two games at centre-half, forming a solid and cohesive partnership with Jake Picton and impressing with his performances.

The 20-year-old also showed his versatility – and has done throughout his three seasons with the club – by moving to the left-hand side of a newly-used back three in the second half against Parkgate.

"I have really been pleased with Deegan," said Parry. “He has started the last two games on purpose, not out of me having a look at him.

"He has been injured for the past six weeks prior, but he has come back in great shape and he has been professional and to be fair, he has been just as good as any other player on the pitch and he is in there on merit.

“The thing with Deegan and I think we all have to realise [this], is that I think he goes a little bit unnoticed because he isn’t your traditional 6ft 4” centre-half, and he probably isn’t the loudest and he isn’t the oldest, but he is a really good little player and there aren’t many players that get the better of him, so I think in time his experience will get better.

“The biggest reason why he is playing today is because he deserves it.”

Another player who has had to bide his time to impress is Latvian midfielder Starcenko, who has performed well in the limited opportunities that he has been given to show his class.

“Aleks has all the ability in the world, he really has. He is a confidence player,” continued Parry.

“I think the thing with Aleks is he needs to be on the front foot, and I think when he came on, he showed how tidy and neat he is, but he needs to do it in the right areas.

“There is no point in him pinching the ball in our 18-yard box and being that sort of player, he isn’t that; he is a very good technician and he doesn’t need to be sat on our defence’s toes, he needs to be closer to our forwards' toes and making their central midfielders track him.

“If he can get into a habit of doing that, then he is an extremely good player, and I am sure the Worksop fans would love to see that.

"We have got to get him regularly on the front foot and not on the back foot.”​​​​​​​