The festive football period truly gets underway on Saturday as Stevenage host Mansfield Town at the Lamex Stadium...
It is the first of four games in eleven days for the squad and Maamria says they are excited about the challenge ahead.
“We are looking forward to it. This festive period has lots of football matches, lots of points up for grabs. We have got some good games coming up, home and away.
“In this league, anybody can beat anybody on any given day, so your focus is always on yourself. We have got to approach every game with the same mindset and do our bit to win the game.”
Maamria beleives that one of the most important aspects of the coming weeks is keeping his players fit and healthy.
“(Michael) Timlin is out for two or three weeks, he had a nasty injury at the end of last week’s game so he is a concern. We have got one or two others that are touch and go, and we will find out tomorrow (Friday).
“I think the key in this period is to have as many players fit as possible and that gives us a good chance to rotate the team a little bit because, ideally, we need to do that.”
This weekend’s fixture is another chance for townsfolk to redeem their Residents Letter, an initiative brought in to encourage the people of Stevenage to come and support their local team.
For Maamria, as much as he would like to see more new faces at the Lamex Stadium, the current set of supporters that get behind the team every week are highly appreciated.
“The home form has been good and we would like to see more of a crowd.
“I am going to embrace the two or three thousand every week, thank them for their backing. Yes, we will try and get a few more but we have got to empower the people that turn up every week.
“I am very grateful for their support week in week out.”
Saturday's opponenets, Mansfield Town are flying high, currently sat fifth in the table and on an unbeaten league record stretching all the way back to September 15th against Exeter City.
The boss is aware of their strengths, but is also confident in his own side’s ability.
“Mansfield are a big club, big budget and big spenders. They are one of the clubs in League Two that came in to buy Matty Godden from us, so that is how powerful they are financially, they came in to buy our best player last season.
“They have got some good players, a good front line. I think (David) Flitcroft inherited a very, very good squad from Steve Evans and they should have really got promoted last season.
"They didn't and i think they look to be up there this season but I think they have got their weakness' as well that we will try to attack on Saturday.”
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