Luke Williams: Notts County boss finds positive in Friday night game at Salford

Luke Williams guided Notts County to promotion from the National League last season

Notts County boss Luke Williams says the only positive about Friday's re-arranged game at Salford is that a win would send them top of League Two.

The Magpies appealed against the move when it was announced in July, arguing Salford's wish to trial a Friday night match was an "unnecessary disruption" that also impacted fans.

Williams said Notts would not "dwell" on the appeal being knocked back.

"It's an opportunity, not a threat for us," Williams said.

"There are things there that are contentious for us, but we're certainly not going to dwell on it."

Friday's fixture is Notts' third game in seven days, and second in the league away from home, while Salford were last in action at home against Walsall last Saturday.

Williams admits he is "sorry for selfish reasons", both for himself and for Notts fans who have a 220-mile round trip on a Friday.

Games being moved in English football is nothing new, but decisions are largely out of scheduling necessity or taken when they relate to television fixtures which generate money for both teams competing.

Salford - co-owned by former Manchester United team-mates David Beckham, Gary and Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt - have lost four of their past five league matches.

"It's not perfect for us but they wanted to try something different," Williams told BBC Radio Nottingham.

"We have now become part of their experiment and that's what it is.

"We can only try and make the best possible plan we can, go there make a really good performance and then it can be a really good experiment for us as well."

When asked if a positive is that a victory will send Notts top before the weekend, Williams replied: "That would be really nice. I'd love that.

"That is the mentality we have, we have spoken about that. We spoken about it in the morning, about 'can we find some positive message?'

"That would be great and would make the journey back very nice."