Midfielder Tim Gould cannot stress enough the importance of returning from ECU Joondalup this weekend with all three points. Inglewood United are one of the National Premier Leagues form sides, with four wins from five games putting Michael Garcia’s team on the verge of the top five for the first time this year.

Gould has featured prominently throughout that run of good form but warns there is no time for the team to be resting on their laurels. “It is vital that we make the most of the momentum we have gathered,” he said. “We have a week without a game after Joondalup and then a really tough run of games, so we need to keep accumulating points.”

“Despite our slow start to the season, we’ve proven we are capable of competing with everyone in this league. We’ve been solid at the back, keeping back-to-back clean sheets, and are dangerous going forward. If we apply ourselves as we have done over the last few weeks we’ll get the result we are after on the weekend.”

Saturday’s trip north provides Gould another opportunity to build match fitness following a lengthy absence from the game. Born in Birmingham, the midfielder played semi-professionally in his homeland with Boldmere St Michaels and Solihull Moors prior to a stint in Victoria, where he helped Green Gully win the league championship in 2010.

“After that I had a few years’ break due to work commitments, which made it hard for me to commit to a team,” he explained. “It’s great to be playing again. I still feel a bit rusty and I have plenty of work to do to get back to the standard I’d like to be at, but I feel my performances are going in the right direction.”

Gould thanked former Australian youth international and now Inglewood coach Michael Garcia for rekindling his football career. “I’m grateful to Michael for giving me the opportunity to be playing again,” he said. “He’s not long out of the game himself and brings along some really good experience as a player.”

“Michael is very analytical, he reviews of all our games and is excellent at pointing out where we have gone wrong and how best to fix it,” Gould added. “The success we are seeing on the pitch at the moment is as a direct result of the hard work that is being put in by Michael and all the boys during the week and in training.”