Iron manager Graham Alexander feels it’s vital his players back up Tuesday night’s win over Rochdale with another victory in tomorrow’s away fixture against Oxford United.
Alexander stated Matt Crooks’ injury-time winner gave the squad a significant lift heading to the Kassam Stadium this weekend, but he insisted three more points are equally as vital.
Speaking to The Iron PlayerHD, Alexander said: “Getting the win the other night was a massive boost for everyone.
“It’s added a spring to the step of everybody, and the task now is to build on it in tomorrow’s game.
“We’ve still got a lot of points to play for, and we feel we’ve got the quality and the right mindset to do that.
“Tomorrow’s the next opportunity to do that, so we have to approach it exactly as we have done in the last four games.”
Alexander says the Iron should be encouraged by their performances in recent weeks, and he’s challenged the Scunthorpe dressing room to go out and not only match, but better their displays of late.
“They’re a very good team - they’ve a lot of good players within their squad,” he declared.
“We have to make our plans to play against them and make it difficult for them, but we have to focus on our stuff on the ball as well.
“It’s really important that we don’t put the performances of the last couple of weeks to the back of our mind.
“We have to think about what we’ve done in the past few games, repeat it, and see where we can improve - there’s always room to do that.
“I think we have to show that we want it more than anyone else, and in the last four games we’ve shown signs of doing that.”
The visitors will be without at least three members of the squad against Michael Appleton’s men, but Alexander revealed Josh Morris could be in contention for selection.
Kevin van Veen will unfortunately miss out for definite though after he was replaced in midweek, with Conor Townsend and Sam Mantom also still sidelined.
“He’s (Kevin van Veen) going to be missing tomorrow, as he has a slight hamstring issue,” revealed Alexander.
“It’s quite minor, so I wouldn’t expect him to be out for any longer than a couple of weeks.
“We’re going to look at Josh (Morris) to see how he is, and there were a couple of knocks from the other night which we have to assess as well.
“Sam (Mantom) and Conor (Townsend) will definitely not be involved, so we should have 19 or 20 players to choose from.”
See much more from Graham Alexander and Paddy Madden on The Iron PlayerHD.