Iron manager Mark Robins says his side have moved on from Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Coventry City and that they are very much looking to the weekend clash against second-placed Swindon Town.
The Robins are currently three points behind league leaders Bristol City after succumbing to defeat against Oldham on Tuesday. Scunthorpe face Mark Cooper’s side at Glanford Park this weekend, a big game for the claret and blue, according to Robins.“We’ve got games coming thick and fast,” said the 45-year-old. "So we don’t dwell on Tuesday’s game against Coventry. We’ve moved on and, in the cold light of day, a draw away from home is a decent starting point. The next match is the most important one.”
Robins described this weekend’s visitors as “good to watch”, but insisted he did not want to see them expressing their style of play against his side.
He said: “There are big expectations from Swindon in terms of how they play so we need to be at it. We’ve been working on what we need to be doing along with our performance levels.”
The manager, who remained coy about revealing Saturday’s game plan, also confirmed that there are no new injuries to report. He expressed the importance of being clinical against sides near the top of the table such as Swindon.
“We aim to try and hurt them when we’ve got the ball; you’ve got to do that at all times. At the moment, the makeup of the side is quite good, we’ve just got to try and keep posing problems for the opposition as we’ve got players who can score goals,” he said.
Tuesday’s result meant that United have now gone nine games unbeaten away from home in the league and Robins says his side need to match these sorts of performances at Glanford Park.
“Away from home we’ve been fantastic. At home I think we need to lift those performance levels up and get those results. If we’d have got the three points on Tuesday, we stay on track a little bit, but clean sheets are fundamental.
“I’ve spoken about making sure we don’t concede in the past. It’s an essential part of doing well unless you’re scoring more than the opposition, which we have been doing. But when we’re not, we have to maintain that we’re going to try and keep the opposition away from our goal.”
When asked about the possibility of a play-off push, Robins insisted that he is staying focused on the next game and the next game only.
He stated: “The amount of points needed shows what a tough ask it is, but in all honesty we are just looking at the next fixture and where we can try and hurt the opposition. There are 19 games left and we’ve just got to take each one as it comes.”