GUISELEY will take their good away form to Darlington in the Vanarama National League North on Saturday, but they will be without ace marksman Aaron Martin, after he picked up his second red card of the season at Brackley Town.

After the striker got a second yellow for an off the ball incident in that clash last Saturday, the 10 remaining Lions dug deep to secure a valuable 0-0 draw.

Guiseley’s joint-manager Marcus Bignot feels his side have already proved they have the tools to cope without Martin this season, and believes there is no need for his striker to get a telling off either.

He said: “Aaron’s old enough and mature enough to know what’s right and wrong. He’s the one that will miss out (on getting to play).

“I didn’t see the incident but I wasn’t surprised we went down to 10 men, just with the way the game was going and the yellow cards we were picking up.

“But we’ve missed Aaron for a large proportion of the season already (through injury and suspension) and we’ve reacted well to losing him before.”

It is important Guiseley do react on Saturday, as the game at Darlington could be vital to their season,

They are down in 10th but their North East opponents, who occupy the last remaining play-off place in seventh, are only two points ahead and with a worse goal difference than the Lions.

Guiseley only hosted Darlington in the reverse fixture nine days ago, so memories of his side’s 2-1 defeat are still fresh for Bignot.

He said: “It was a really good game against Darlington and we were just the wrong side of that last result.

“They’ll be confident having beaten us but our away form could make it close.

“The point at Brackley continues our good away form. I think we’re seven unbeaten (on the road) with four clean sheets in our last nine (overall) since we changed shape.

“We were conceding too many so felt a change of system would help change our fortunes, which came with a good run over Christmas.”

Despite still playing well, Guiseley have had a couple of defeats since New Year and Bignot is aware of how damaging too many more could be.

He said: “It’s the business end of the season, now we’re into the last third. Picking up points becomes massive and it’s all about that return, so we need to come back with something from Darlington.”

They did come back with something from Brackley, with Bignot saying: “The 10 men played well, but it killed our opportunity to win the game.

“Our performance on the ball throughout wasn’t great and we never really imposed our game on them, but it was quiet day for (our goalkeeper) Marcus (Dewhurst).

“Brackley had lots of opportunities but never really worked the defence like they would have wanted, especially being the home team.

“We’ve come into the dressing room disappointed afterwards, which is a positive emotion to have when you’ve played a team like Brackley.”