Dagenham have set the standard ahead of home opener says McMahon

Daggers welcome The Ravens to Victoria Road on Saturday as they look to build on their season-opening 3-1 victory at promotion hopefuls Stockport County.

“We’ve set the standard, I feel we set the standard at the back end of last season, and coming here was going to be a huge test and seeing if we could get back to where we were at the end of last season and I felt we did,” said McMahon.

“It’s about now maintaining that, knowing through the season there will be ups and downs, bumps and bruises which we have to deal with.”

The boss is also ‘excited’ for fans to be back in the ground and admitted it has been strange ever since he took over the reigns in January 2020.

“Since I’ve been manager of this football club, it’s been horrible really, as when I come in I had six games then we went into Covid for 18 months so we’ve not really had that connection between our team and our supporters," added McMahon.

“They had to watch from afar last season on TVs etc. I thought it was important to put on a performance so the fans could see that live. I said at half-time the only fans you could hear in the stadium was our fans, Stockport fans were quiet, and that was down to our performance.

“Hopefully now we can build on that and the fans can get behind us at home.”

Daggers will be forced into changes from the opening day as captain Angelo Balanta looks set to be sidelined for a period of time.

Josh Walker of Dagenham and Mickey Parcell of Hornchurch during Hornchurch vs Dagenham & Redbridge, Friendly Match Football at Hornchurch Stadium on 24th July 2021 (Image: ©TGS Photo tgsphoto.co.uk +44 1376 553468)

“We think he’s done his hamstring pretty badly, initially with the way he went down, we thought he had collapsed so that was very worrying," said McMahon.

“It doesn’t look good, he can’t really walk.”

Josh Walker came on to replace Balanta and impressed, therefore he will be expected to start while defender Will Wright will take the armband.