BRAINTREE Town Reserves joint manager Lee Fisher is confident that his side can provide an additional pathway for young players to come into the Iron’s senior first-team ranks.

Fisher, who manages the Thurlow Nunn League division one side alongside Luke Nash, has been impressed with the strides forward that his team have made in the opening half of the season.

The squad was a new group put together by Fisher and Nash at the start of the campaign and they are hoping that youngsters can progress their careers through the team and eventually into Braintree’s senior side.

“We are looking for them to have that pathway into the first team,” said Fisher.

“I speak to (first team boss) Hakan (Hayrettin) on nights when we’re at the club for training about things and Charlie Webb is one of our players who has been involved in the Essex Senior Cup with the senior team.

“We’re trying to give him the opportunity to train with the first team on a Tuesday and us on a Thursday and our goalkeeper is also training with the first team.

“Hakan is very open to looking at the younger players and getting them progressing so if we can find someone we can feed into the first team then we’ll have all done our jobs.

“Now the club are seeing what we are doing and they are showing more and more of an interest.

“That’s good for us.”

Having taken over the side at the start of the season, Fisher admits that the early expectations weren’t that high for the reserves team, but the progress that they have seen this year has lifted that.

“The pressure isn’t on us,” he added.

“At the start of the season, we said ‘can we finish mid-table?’ because that would be a good start.

“But over the last few weeks we’re starting to look at whether top eight or top six may be possible.

“The way we are going, yes it is but only time will tell.

“There’s still lots of football to be played, but I think we’ll upset a lot of the top-six teams.

“There’s lots for this group of players to aim for.”

Braintree Town Reserves continued their strong recent run by extending their unbeaten run to five games with a fourth consecutive victory.

Their latest success came with a 1-0 Thurlow Nunn League division one win against Needham Market Reserves as Troy Featherstone fired home from a cross by Joe Jones.

The Iron reserves are due to be back in action on Tuesday when they head to AFC Sudbury Reserves in the league (kick-off 7.45pm).