MANAGER: Need to really believe

It was an extremely well-earned point for the Blues last Saturday but manager Paul Simpson revealed afterwards that his post-match team talk had included an important message as he looks to turn the two-game unbeaten mini-run into a firm foundation going forward.

Speaking about the huddle in front of the travelling fans, he told us: “I’ll be honest, it wasn’t all positive because I said to them that they don’t properly believe in themselves.

“They have to believe that they’re a good team and if we do the things we’re capable of we’re a good side. We can play football, we have the players in there, but when you come to a place like this you have to do the ugly side first.

“You have to roll your sleeves up and compete, you’ve got to track runners and stick your head in where you might get a kick, you have to do things properly, and we haven’t done that completely.

“It wasn’t a totally positive message that I gave them, but I did say it’s a really big point and if we’d done it properly over the 90 minutes we probably could have come away with all three.”

“It’s an important result for us because it just keeps some momentum going,” he added. “If you win at home and then go on your travels and lose, it knocks the stuffing out of you.

“It’s now two games unbeaten in terms of that, but we have to go and show the same desire, and maybe even more, at Lincoln next week.

“We have to show the type of football we’re capable of playing and hopefully, if we do that, we might even give ourselves a better chance of three points.”

“It’s not so much about finding our feet any more it’s about pushing on,” he insisted. “That’s why I got them together, because they have to believe. There’s no point doubting yourself.

“If you can win at home and can get a point at a place like Stevenage who are desperate for a win to guarantee going top, you have to take confidence, you’ve got to believe it.

“I think we’ve been close in all the games so far this season but close isn’t enough, you have to go the full hog and really dominate teams in terms of the way you compete, the way you pass the ball.

“We’ve done that a lot of times, but just not enough to win games we possibly could have won.”

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