United manager Mark Robins was keen not to get carried away after beating Chesterfield 2-0 at Glanford Park on Tuesday evening.
It was the club’s second home win in four days, with thanks to second-half goals from Niall Canavan and Paddy Madden.The result took United up to 14th in Sky Bet League One, with a game in hand on most of the teams around us, and the manager was quick to dismiss talk of the play-offs.
“I don’t know how anybody can talk about that now,” Robins told The Iron Player post-match, when asked about a push towards the top six.
“You look at people on the coattails of other sides. When I came in, we were second from bottom and have ended up a couple of games out of the bottom of the league, I think we should look at each game as it comes, as I always do.
“Everything that is happening at the moment is good, we have to maintain those performances and not take our foot off the gas and keep working.
“There’s a lot of tough games, none more so than Preston on Saturday.
“Fixtures are coming thick and fast and we have to make sure we are able to put performances in to hopefully get the results that we want.
“It’s a sensible thing to keep the fans’ and players’ feet on the ground, I am not ducking away from anything, I just think we have got ourselves in a decent position from where we were earlier in the season.
“It’s taken a lot of work and graft to get to this stage and we have ended up in a good position.
“There’s a lot of games to be played between now and the end of the season. If we talk in ten or 12 games time and we are still around those places we can have another conversation about it.
“At the same time, that’s what the play-offs do, it keeps people talking for the length of the season and because it’s so tight all the way through the league, everybody can be talking about the same thing.”
The Iron have made it back-to-back home wins in the league for the first time since December, recording a first domestic clean sheet since October.
With a quick turnaround on games, Robins wants to turn his attention to Saturday’s trip to Lancashire.
“Those games are done now, we have to focus on Saturday.” he said.
“Somebody once said to me you have to smell the roses when you can do and I think we will smell the roses for a couple of days before we go back on the road to Preston. We will enjoy this win and look at picking a team that can hopefully do something against a tough hard-working Preston side.
“We are on a decent run, there’s not many games we haven’t won. Of course I am pleased with the clean sheet. I am more concerned with the fact we have to score more than the opposition, but that is just the striker in me.
“We want decent games, we would like to win every game two, three or four nil but it does not happen.
“I think it’s testament to the players for what they are doing, which is giving absolutely everything they can do and nobody can do anymore than that.”
Scunthorpe condemned Chesterfield to their third successive league defeat and it was Canavan who opened the scoring for his second in as many games.
The United boss was quick to praise the 23-year-old defender, along with United’s other goalscorer Madden, who “took his goal well”.
Robins added: “There’s a few people apparently unhappy about Niall playing, he’s a homegrown player, I have never known anything like it.
“Every club I have been at, the supporters get behind the homegrown talent and he is homegrown, so let’s get behind him.
“We might see him make less mistakes and be better in the team if that is the case. He’s scored two good goals, he defended better as the game went on, certainly in the last 20-25 minutes, I didn’t think they caused us many major problems.
“He is strong, powerful, quick and he is good in the air. He makes mistakes but show me someone that doesn’t. He is an option going forward for set pieces and that’s one of the reasons I have picked him.
“Paddy’s goal was outstanding. I thought he showed pace, desire and composure, his technique to find the back of the net was brilliant and it killed the game off for us which was really pleasing.”
See much more from Mark Robins, Niall Canavan and Luke Daniels on The Iron Player.