HAKAN Hayrettin wants his younger players to draw on the experience of Braintree Town’s older heads as they battle to pull clear of Vanarama National League relegation trouble in the second half of the season.

The Iron head into back-to-back festive fixtures against Dagenham and Redbridge – at home on Boxing Day (kick-off 3pm) and at the Daggers on January 2 – having taken eight points from their last four league games.

Coupled with some impressive form in knockout competitions, that has given the Iron a platform to get clear of relegation danger in the second half of the season. But manager Hayrettin knows they can’t afford to blow hot and cold.

So he wants those with less experience in his squad to look to feed off the more seasoned members like Lee Barnard and Jack Midson as they strive for consistency in the new year.

Hayrettin said: “I’m telling the younger lads to look up to people like Lee Barnard, Jack Midson, Jerome Okimo and Sam Beasant.

“These are the experienced players in the team so they should look up to them, learn from them and use their experience.

“I have a saying and I’ve said it from day one: you don’t have to be the best player, you don’t have to be in the best team – but you have to be in the winning team.

“That is down to us to find that formula and I think that since we have come in here, we have been finding some consistency in results and consistency in our performances.

“We don’t want to be a heartbeat (with ups and downs), we want to be consistently level and that’s key.

“We are not going to win or lose the league in January – that will be decided at the end of the season.

“But what is important is that the team consistently provides what we expect them to do and if they do that, then we won’t be down where we have been.”

But while Hayrettin is looking for consistency in performances on the pitch, he isn’t ruling out further changes to his squad as 2017 starts.

The Iron boss added: “The club have allowed me to keep building because they have seen what we have done and how we’ve approached things.

“I’m looking all over the pitch.”