BOSS Danny Searle is looking forward to a special meeting at Braintree Town tonight (Thursday) when Iron fans will have a chance to quiz their manager about his plans for their team.

The 'Meet the Manager' evening will be held at Cressing Road on Thursday starting at 8.30pm after first-team training and Searle hopes it will give supporters the chance to engage with what he is trying to achieve.

Searle's team still sit bottom of the Vanarama National League table ahead of Saturday's home game against Gateshead (kick-off 3pm) and, although his position beyond the end of the current campaign isn't fixed yet, he said he was already putting preparations in place for pre-season and next season.

So he feels meeting the fans is an important step forward.

The Iron boss said: “I’m planning for next season how I would like to do it and I know my pre-season, so I will keep doing that until someone tells me not to.

“All this meeting on Thursday is from my perspective is to give the fans the opportunity to have an opinion because I think it’s important that they have an opinion.

“Also, it’s for me to try and get across what we are trying to do and how we’re trying to do it.

“I would be frustrated if I’d been a paying supporter last weekend and seen my team go three-nil down like we did (against Bromley).

“You look at the side and it’s a young side and we have to make sure the fans get a buy-in to what we are doing and they keep coming to watch because it will get better.

“I understand and I want them to understand that sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate and we have to do that with the situation we are in at the moment."

The meeting starts at 8.30pm on Thursday in the Clubhouse at Cressing Road and the club will be offering discounted beer prices for both Braintree Town season ticket holders and social club members.

Meanwhile, Searle is also looking ahead to the game against Gateshead when he knows his team need to be like they were in the second half of their 3-1 defeat by Bromley last weekend and not as they were in an underwhelming first-half display.

“Consistency is a key thing you need," added Searle.

“If we’re being brutally honest, if you had really talented players who were consistently performing week-in week-out then they probably wouldn’t be playing in this league.

“We have got what we have and we work with them and try to help them off the field to be mentally focused with regards to consistency in their performances.

“That’s what the message will be in training this week.

“We did some good things (against Bromley), we did some very very bad things and we know we have to tighten up at one end and be better at the other."