Ashford United manager Kevin Watson praises striker Danny Parish after bright start to pre-season

Ashford boss Kevin Watson sees an opportunity to get Danny Parish back to his best.

Striker Parish has scored in both of United’s pre-season friendlies so far and is a player Watson is excited to work with.

A prolific frontman in his first spell at Homelands, the Nuts & Bolts know an in-form Parish would be a major asset in Isthmian South East.

Now 24, he briefly worked with new Ashford assistant boss Adam Flanagan at Concord earlier in his career.

“He’s one of the players we wanted to retain,” said Watson.

“Danny had some success at quite a young age in terms of scoring lots of goals and doing well.

“By his own admission, last season wasn’t as good as he would have liked, both for him and the team, but he’s had a really good attitude in pre-season.

“Part of the thing we do is to try and develop players, so we’ll work with Danny and try and work on the aspects that will bring back that success and hopefully improve him.

“There’s more to him than goals, absolutely.

“He’s very intelligent, he’s quite tenacious as well because obviously he’s not a conventional big forward targetman, so his runs are very clever, and his finishing’s good.

“We’re looking forward to working with him more.

“What we really like about Danny is he absorbs information. I’ve noticed already his eagerness and keenness to learn and improve, which is really good from a management perspective.”

Parish was among the scorers in a 4-0 win at Whitstable on Tuesday last week and struck again in a 3-1 defeat at Chatham on Saturday.

Another player to feature in both games was under-18 forward Stanley Oldfield.

Watson had heard good things about the teenager and was keen to get him involved.

He said: “When I came in we asked the question about some of the