MARK Jermyn believes there isn’t one member of his squad that other teams in Dorchester’s league wouldn’t want to sign.

County town boss Jermyn reckons there is “an air of optimism” around the Avenue at present, and in his eyes the club is making “big steps” forward.

He feels a lot of that is down to the youngsters within the ranks, but also because of experienced players like Ben Watson, Jake Smeeton and Nathan Walker.

“Sometimes aspirations are to move into League football, but at the same time you’ve got to respect the players you’re with,” he said.

“You’ve got to respect people like Ben, Jake and Nathan because they’ve done it week in and week out under different managers.

“I always think you can tell a lot about a player when managers come and go but they remain at the club.

“That means every manager has seen the same thing in that player and they know what they are going to get from them.

“And if you look at our players I don’t think there is one that other teams wouldn’t want.

“They can say that they don’t but in my mind that’s ignorance.

“Everyone is a decent player at this level and certainly beyond.”

He added: “When you look at our squad at the start of the season and where we are now it’s massive.

“And when you look at the squad now compared to when we finished last season we have made big steps forward.

“These aren’t big steps with big-name players, these are big steps with youngsters with a future who are keen to do well.

“We won’t get carried away with it because we know it’s all to play for, but at the same time there’s an air of optimism about the future.

“We’ve got some good players and we need to make sure we retain them.”

Jermyn and Dorchester bid farewell to Jonah Ayunga on Monday as the youngster left to join Brighton.

The striker’s goals will be a loss to the Magpies but Jermyn’s men have put themselves in a decent enough position going into the business end of the season in the Evo-Stik Southern Premier Division.

“It’s not the league positions people should be interested in, it’s gathering the points because at some point teams above you are going to slip and teams below you are going to push on,” said Jermyn.

“You just have to make sure you are looking after yourself and are getting enough points to be where you want to be.

“We know where we want to be, we’ve got an aim, and we know how many more games we want to win.

“We’ve got a points total that we’re on target to achieve so at the moment we’re going as well as we need to be doing.”