Manager Paul Simpson spoke to us ahead of tomorrow’s game against Reading.
“I think Reading have got a good group of players with good pace about them” he said. “They’re down in those positions, but I think without the deduction they’d be in something like 14th.
“They’re a team who are struggling and having a tough time, but we’ve got to make sure we keep pushing ourselves to try and go on a run. If we can do it this weekend then fantastic, but it’s not about who we’re playing, it’s about competing against ourselves and making sure we show the best side of us.
“I don’t know what their mentality will be, they might have that siege mentality where they think everyone is against them but it’s them who have done things wrong financially. I feel for the players and staff because it’s not their doing but they’re taking the blame for it.
“It’s tough on supporters as well. Those things are irrelevant to us, it’s about us making sure our performance is right and making sure we go about it in the right way. If we do that and we get a win, we know we’ll be in a bit of a better position.
“It will be a tough game. They showed at their place that they were able to weather the little patches we had. We started the game well down there and had a few opportunities, but we weren’t able to finish it.
“They’ve got good players and players who have played at a higher level, so it’s going to be a tough game, but it’s one to look forward to. It’s the next one and we want to make another little step forward like we did on Tuesday so we keep moving forward. Whatever happens come the end of the season we have to just take.”
“We want to put on a performance in front of our own fans,” he continued. “Everybody talks about making their home ground a fortress and we haven’t done that this season. We’ve got to put on a performance that keeps our fans happy.
“We had to take the criticism from the Cambridge game, we took the plaudits on Tuesday and it was better to be able to go and celebrate with the fans because we won. We now need to carry it on. We want a positive start to the game to try and push ourselves to get that first goal, then we want to go and try and get a second, that’s what our mindset has to be going into the Reading game.
“We’re chasing everybody, that’s the top and bottom of it. The main thing is we’re competing against ourselves, that’s what we have to do, we have to earn respect and get that pride back, and to do that you have to win the battle against yourself. We’ve lost that battle on quite a few occasions this season so we have to make sure we do our job right whoever we come up against.
“I think there will be a great atmosphere. Our fans will have got a lift seeing us get a result at Burton on Tuesday and I hope that encourages a few more to come out and support us. We do need their support. I think it’s easy to support a team who are winning or going for promotion, even at the end of the season when we were up in those top places but not winning, they still turned out because they could see we were going for something.
“We need their support now we’re struggling, they’ve done it so far this season and hopefully they’ll do it again. Reading are bringing great support as well, but we want to give our supporters something to shout about and something to keep them loud. If we do that then we’ll all be happy.”