United’s current stubborn run of six unbeaten has taken them to third spot, with those in the chasing places having played the same number of games, and left it with everything to play for now that the number of games remaining is into single figures.
“We’ve got to do our job properly, that’s all that matters,” manager Paul Simpson said. “The last two games are good draws, but we know we need to get back to winning games, it’s a simple as that.
“Gillingham is next, so hopefully we’ll be fresh and we can go there and pick a side that will put on a performance for us.
“It’s in our hands in terms of the teams below, but we’re looking above as well. We want to be higher; we want to push ourselves, and we have targets that we want to achieve. We’ll keep working to do that.
“We worked hard in and out of possession on Tuesday night and we could have nicked it at the end. I’m sure they’d have been gutted if we had, but we showed real character and a desire to want to keep the ball out of the back of the net. It takes you a long way if you have that.”
And he agreed that not losing the last two games was important, in terms of the points gained.
“It’s big to do that,” he told us. “And to keep a clean sheet, that’s the massive thing, two clean sheets. We’ve just got to keep going.
“The players know that, we know what we’ve got to play for, we know where we’re going, and there’s a real desire to want to stay up in these top places.
“I looked at the last two as being tough games, before we go into another tough one at Gillingham. So to come away unbeaten out of the two of them, knowing we’ve had spells in both games where with a bit better quality we could have won it.
“We’ve got to take belief and heart from it, but make sure we take it into this weekend, and if we can go and get a result down at Gillingham it will make it a really good week for us.”
The last time the club enjoyed promotion was under the current gaffer, some 17 seasons ago.
“This is a different group and there’s no easy answer to getting over the line, because every game is a scrap,” he commented. “Bradford have fought for their lives, and done really really well.
“Gillingham will do the same, Orient will the week after. We’ve got some brilliant games to look forward to, some fantastic games.
“Whatever does happen between now and the end, we’re going to go and give it our best shot to try and make it a happy ending.
“I think everybody’s just enjoying coming in to do their job. That’s what it’s about. Before I came in everybody told me there was no enjoyment coming into the football club.
“We’ve now got smiles on faces, a togetherness, office staff who are pulling up trees doing all the work they’re doing, players trying to do it as well, we’ve got a long, long way to go.
“It doesn’t seem like a load of games but there’s a load of games to go, a lot of points to play for, we have an idea of what we need, and we’ve got to keep working to try and get there.”