By Chris Slavin
Neal Ardley believes his squad are not far away from turning positive performances into results and he said that tomorrow's match against in-form Doncaster Rovers is a good challenge for the players.
Darren Ferguson's Doncaster have made a bright start to life back in League One after promotion and in midweek they earned a Carabao Cup tie against Arsenal by beating Hull City.
Speaking during an extensive update for iFollow, Neal said: "They have had a great start, but their manager will be saying, 'that is all we've done'. We will be saying the opposite. There is no crisis, we are on the right lines, and we have to keep going. It is a really good challenge on Saturday. They got promoted and they have that winning feeling from last season. We will be playing against a team with a different shape, a different playing style, and we will have to try and master it. It is a challenge for us all. Hopefully, we will go into it with a really positive mind-set. They have had an unbeaten start, we have been the opposite, and let us hope it is the one that the coupon does not expect."
Neal is convinced that there is enough quality in the squad assembled during the summer to start winning football matches this season.
"We are trying and there are lots of positives," added Neal. "Obviously, I understand that results at first-team level make all the difference, but they can also cloud over other stuff. It is a 46-game season in the league and we are just three in. We've not really touched the boundaries yet. We need to slowly, but surely, start putting some points on the board. As long as we keep seeing the positives and the results are good. We've had three good performances and one that was not so good. We need to make sure we continue with more positive than negative performances and we've got the quality for that to turn into results.
"We do not batter the boys every time we lose. We look at the stats, we assess how we are playing. We should have got more from the game than we did last week (at Fleetwood). In our last home game we did not do what we wanted to do, so it's a chance to put that right against a good team. We are looking forward to it. You have to keep looking forward to games, it cannot be any other way. Hopefully, that is what the players feel, it's what we've trained for all week, and we will go and give it our best shot."
Tickets are still available for tomorrow's match. See our Match Arrangements article for more details.