Alfreton Town assistant-manager Russ O’Neill has called for the side to respond immediately to a first defeat in twelve games.
The Reds had their eleven-game unbeaten run ended in a narrow and somewhat unlucky 3-2 Blue Square North defeat at Gainsborough Trinity last Saturday.
Nicky Law’s side are still third in the table, but things have tightened up since the demise of Farsley Celtic, who have had their playing record expunged.
The Reds have had six points taken away for their two wins over the Celts this season and Alfreton’s goal difference has also been cut by seven goals which means several of the chasing pack have benefitted from Alfreton's misfortune.
There are now just six points separating the teams from third place down to Stalybridge Celtic in eighth.
The disbanding of Farsley means the season wil now only be forty league games in total and Alfreton are down to the last nine, four at home and five on the road where the Reds have only won three times all season so far.
Some of the results over the past couple of weeks have gone in favour of the Reds with a few of the teams harbouring hopes of knocking Alfreton out the play-off places suffering surprise defeats.
And O’Neill thinks that trend will continue. He said: “There will be plenty of shock results between now and the end of the season and we have just got to make sure it is not us.
“There are loads of big games coming up for all the clubs chasing us and they can’t all pick up maximum points.”
The taking off of the Farsley points has affected Alfreton badly but the team and management are determined it won’t undermine what they are trying to achieve.
O’Neill added: “We went eleven points clear of the chasing pack after last Tuesday’s win over Droylsden and then were back down to five.
“But we can’t let that affect us, we will just keep going.
“We just need to get back to where we were. We got away from it a little bit at Gainsborough but we discussed things with the players on Tuesday night at training and we all know we have nine cup finals left.
“We have to get focused straight away again. We will be looking at those nine games as a sort of mini season in which we need to pick up two points a game again like we have been doing of late.
“If we do that we will be in the mix.”
The experience of qualifying for the play-offs last season should stand the Reds in very good stead.
The Reds face the first of those nine cup finals this Saturday with a visit from a Blyth Spartans side who felt they were unfortunate to go down to a 2-1 defeat at Ilkeston Town last weekend.
O’Neill ended: “Blyth are a good, hard working side with some good strikers. We need to play to our strengths and not play into their hands.”
The following Saturday the Reds travel to eighth-placed Stalybridge Celtic. And there will be a feeling of deja vu as the Reds went to Stalybridge last season with Celtic being their nearest challengers for a play-off spot.
Nicky Law will happily settle for a repeat of last season’s 2-0 victory at Bower Fold.
