"We aren't push­ing any pan­ic but­ton at all," de­clared De­fence Force as­sis­tant coach Mar­vin Gor­don af­ter see­ing the club's healthy nine-point ad­van­tage at the top of the Dig­i­cel TT Pro League stand­ings slimmed to just six points with eight match­es re­main­ing.

Cale­do­nia, po­si­tioned sec­ond on the ta­ble, now sits on 26 points, six points adrift of De­fence Force (32 points), af­ter de­feat­ing St Ann's Rangers 2-1 on Wednes­day night, in one of two resched­uled round-one match­es at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, to close the gap at the top.

Mean­while de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion al­so picked up some slack, on Wednes­day, by edg­ing cross-town ri­vals Cen­tral FC 1-0 in the sec­ond resched­uled match, to re­turn to third po­si­tion on the stand­ings with 22 points, and send­ing North East Stars (20 points) back in­to fourth in the process.

"Even if it's a one-point lead, we are not un­der any pres­sure," Gor­don added. "At the end of the day, six points is two games and I don't see us los­ing two games on the trot. I'm not wor­ried what peo­ple are say­ing. We are keep­ing our feet on the ground and re­main fo­cused on the game at hand, which is against T&TEC on Fri­day."

De­fence Force will face bot­tom of the ta­ble T&TEC FC from 6 pm on Fri­day, fol­lowed by sixth-po­si­tioned Po­lice FC against Con­nec­tion from 8 pm in a "Su­per Fri­day" dou­ble-head­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um. And, on Sat­ur­day, the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um will host an­oth­er dou­ble-head­er with Rangers fac­ing Cale­do­nia for a sec­ond time in four days from 5 pm, fol­lowed by Cen­tral against North East Stars from 7 pm.

Back in De­cem­ber, De­fence Force had to hold on for a 3-2 win over T&TEC in the sec­ond round af­ter al­low­ing two late goals by the "Elec­tric Boys." This time around, Gor­don re­mains cau­tious.

He said, "I don't think it would be easy for us against T&TEC be­cause as I've al­ways said, every game in the league is a dif­fi­cult one. They (T&TEC) are at the bot­tom which makes them a tough op­po­nent. They have noth­ing to lose and would be com­ing against us with every­thing they got."

Gor­don will be with­out the ser­vices of cen­tral de­fend­er Devin Jor­dan and de­fen­sive mid­field­er Cur­tis Gon­za­les both of whom are sus­pend­ed, while right winger Kevon Carter will be rest­ed be­cause of a slight groin in­jury.

"We have enough depth in the squad to deal with it," as­sured Gor­don. "We have play­ers like Sean Nar­cis, Glynn Franklyn and Ross Rus­sell Jr who can fit right in. It al­so gives these guys the op­por­tu­ni­ty to try and se­cure their places in the start­ing team."

Gor­don went on to add, "It would be im­por­tant to put that pres­sure on Cale­do­nia by de­feat­ing T&TEC, on Fri­day, and tak­ing a nine-point ad­van­tage. We want (Cale­do­nia) to be un­der the added pres­sure go­ing in­to their game on Sat­ur­day know­ing that we are nine points away."

Mean­time, Cale­do­nia cap­tain and vet­er­an hold­ing mid­field­er Stephan David re­mains very op­ti­mistic over the Mor­vant/Laven­tille club's chances of lift­ing the league ti­tle this sea­son.

"I don't think it's dif­fi­cult (for us to win the ti­tle this sea­son)," David said. "It's al­ways been our am­bi­tion and it's our ul­ti­mate goal. De­fence Force is at the top, but we have to fo­cus on our­selves and do what we need to. Once there are points to play for, we are go­ing to play for max­i­mum points. We have to think about Cale­do­nia right now and not where De­fence Force or W Con­nec­tion are po­si­tioned."

Com­ment­ing on Wednes­day's 2-1 over Rangers and meet­ing the St Ann's club again on Sat­ur­day, David said, "We made the game hard for our­selves by not putting away our chances in the first half. But on Sat­ur­day it's a new game which brings new chal­lenges. We are go­ing to play hard and fight for every point. We can't af­ford to slipup now."

Fix­tures

?

To­day

Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

T&TEC FC v De­fence Force, 6 pm

Po­lice FC v W Con­nec­tion, 8 pm

To­mor­row

Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya

St Ann's Rangers v Cale­do­nia AIA, 5 pm

Cen­tral FC v North East Stars, 7 pm