The end of the season is nigh, with just four games left and the Iron sit at the top of SkyBet League Two, just one point ahead of league rivals Rochdale.
Defensive powerhouse Niall Canavan is confident United can finish the job after a hard-fought campaign.The 43rd fixture sees a wave of Claret and Blue travel to Morecambe on Good Friday and one half of our strong central-defensive pairing knows exactly what needs to be done.
“We’re going to go there full of positivity, looking for three points,” he told The Iron Player.
“We know that being top of the league, winning these next four games will help us stay there and get us to where we want to be.
“We will treat it like any other game and we see it as another three points to fight for. If results go our way, something good might come of it.
“But firstly, we can only focus on what we’re doing and if we take three points, it’s our job done and then we can sit back and wait for the other results that will hopefully go our way.”
With Burton’s fixture with Hartlepool taking place on Saturday, the Iron may be waiting on their result, if Fleetwood fail to get a result at Cheltenham, and scorelines in our favour could see our League One status confirmed by Saturday evening.
Otherwise, it may come after we host Chris Wilder’s play-off chasing Oxford United on Easter Monday.
Whether it’s sealed on the pitch or through results elsewhere, Canavan- who turned 23 last week- just wants the task to be complete.
“I’m not fussed, as long as we get the job done,” he said, talking ahead of Friday’s trip to Morecambe. “If you’re either sat at home waiting for results to come in or if it’s at the end of the game, it’ll be a good occasion.
“If we know we’ve done it before Oxford on Monday, it should be a happy atmosphere and if we have to wait until after, we will get a good atmosphere to spur us on at Glanford Park.”
The late equaliser in the 2-2 draw with Bury on Saturday meant two points were dropped to David Flitcroft’s men, but Rochdale went down at Mansfield and Canavan saw the point gained as an extra one over their league rivals.
He added: “Bury are not a bad team at all, they have made quite a few changes from when we played them earlier in the season and they had good chances.”
Barnsley loanee Danny Rose drew the visitors level with a sublime finish and sometimes there isn’t anything Canavan and his team-mates can do to stop those going in.
He said: “It was just unfortunate. They stuck it away at the end with a very good finish so late into added time. That’s the only disappointment but maybe it was a fair result on the day.”
The result sent us back into first place- something the team deserve so much after going 26 games unbeaten under Russ Wilcox.
“Top of the league- that’s where you want to be," he continued.
“We’ve been chasing Rochdale for a couple of weeks and thankfully, they’ve dropped points and those crucial ones we’ve been picking up can be the difference when it comes to the end of the season.”
With a bumper crowd of over 1,000 expected in the away end of the Globe Arena on Good Friday, Canavan knows just how important such a following can be to spur on the side.
He stated: “The travelling support can have a massive impact on us. Going to an away ground, they can make it more like a home game and really push us early in the game and hopefully we can take the game to Morecambe and the travelling support can make them crumble.”
See much more from Niall Canavan, Russ Wilcox and Dave Syers on The Iron Player.