WE are three games undefeated and have picked up five points along the way.

It’s a decent return, but obviously we wanted more, and there’s room for improvement.

On Tuesday night against Morecambe, I felt we were slightly unlucky.

They got an early goal and then really sat back, got ten men behind the ball and made it very difficult for us to break them down.

We weren’t at our best, and didn’t create as many clear-cut chances as I would have liked, but we had large spells of pressure and deserved our equaliser, courtesy of George Baldock.

We could, and perhaps should have won it in injury time when Patrick Hoban’s shot was blocked on the line.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to force the ball home and had to settle for the point, but we’ll take it, dust ourselves down and go again at Bury today.

As I’ve said previously, myself, the staff and the players are very aware of the position we’re in.

I wouldn’t call it precarious, but things can change very quickly, and we know we have to keep picking up points to avoid a nail-biting last few matches.

The key is focusing on the task in hand and taking the emotion out the situation, particularly between games.

This is easier said than done because football is a very emotional game, and everyone gets caught up in it.

For the players though, it really is about keeping level heads, not getting too excited when things go well, and equally, not being too dejected when they don’t.

Of course, I’m there to help and advise them, keep them focused, and right now, as a group, the mentality is spot-on.

Despite the fact that we’ve had quite a few new faces come in over the past six weeks, there’s a real togetherness within the squad and collectively they’re fiercely determined to keep improving, keep moving forward and up the league.

It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but at times like this, you really do have to take every game as it comes – there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from looking ahead and speculating about what might happen in the future.

Similarly, there’s no point in taking too much of an interest in what the other teams around us are doing.

We know what we have to do, we know that of the remaining 12 games, five are against teams down there with us, and that if we win those games, we’ll be in a strong position.

That said, we’re confident we can go to places like Bury and Shrewsbury and pick up points.

This is a tight league and anyone can beat anyone else.

The players know this, and we’re not going to Bury today to make up the numbers – we really believe we can take something from the game.

 

On another note, much has been made of the state of the pitch at the Kassam Stadium lately.

It’s become quite a difficult surface to play on – but that’s what bad weather and sharing a ground with a rugby team will do!

I’m not making any excuses – we are where we are because over the course of the season we haven’t been quite good enough often enough.

But with the pitch, we have had to slightly adapt the way we’ve played as it’s deteriorated.

Our natural game is a progressive one where we play through the field, and while I’m not going to change that, we have had to become more selective about when we play through the pitch and when we go from back to front more quickly.

Having two strikers allows us to do the latter, and Patrick Hoban and Danny Hylton are excellent at protecting the ball when it goes up to them, and bringing other people into play.

Of course, the pair of them can play too, so we have options.

Whatever route we take to goal, you won’t hear me complaining as long as we win.