Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale says it will be all about focusing on themselves for the final nine games of the Sky Bet League Two season as they try to achieve their aim of promotion.
The Grecians moved to within three points of third place on Tuesday night, with victory over Port Vale, but that gap was extended to six points on Wednesday as Wycombe Wanderers beat Crawley Town to move up into the automatic promotion spots.
However, Tis says he will not be wasting any energy on what other teams around them do and instead they will channel that effort into applying themselves for their own matches and trying to win as many of their remaining games of the season as they can.
“It is very much a case of focusing on ourselves,” he said. “You can easily psych yourself out by seeing other teams winning their game and you losing your game and looking at games in hand.
“You just have to keep your focus and look at the nine games left, eight after Saturday, and think realistically how many of those games do we need to win?
“And what we need to do to win those games. Then you just focus on the next nine games. It is about where you finish at the end of the season. I’m sure if you look back over the course of seasons gone by and look at how the table looks with 10 games to go, it will look very different to how it finished. We just have to hope that we climb the table during these last 10 games.”
It is Swindon Town next up, who sit just outside the play-off places. It promises to be one of the standout matches in Sky Bet League Two tomorrow and Tis is expecting a tough game.
“I think it is going to be a difficult game,” he said. “They are an experienced team in many ways and they have just got an experienced manager who has taken over.
“So the players, I’m sure, will be on their best behavior for him and giving everything they have got.
“However, every game is difficult. I don’t think we see this game as any more difficult than we did Morecambe last weekend, or Port Vale on Tuesday or Lincoln next week.
“I think every game is just all about concentration and disciplines and being at the top of our game. It is just the way it is this season. The pitches are bad, generally, the weather has hurt a lot of the football this year and it is about being practical and objective and doing what we need to do to challenge in the game, to compete for the points and put ourselves into a position where we can win.
“It is difficult at the moment and the weather has just made the season very difficult, but I don’t really care as long as we win games and we get to a position where we can be successful.
“We still need to play our football. We still need to mix our game up and do the required hard work and structural play that will give us a position where we can add some football. We will need to do that again this Saturday.”
Both Troys, Archibald-Henville and Brown, face late fitness tests to see if they can play on Saturday, along with Craig Woodman. Jordan Moore-Taylor will miss the match through injury, while Ryan Harley is a doubt having limped off in the win against Port Vale.