9:12am Friday 19th March 2010
By Adam Leitch
SAINTS’ first team coaching staff have convinced themselves the team can still make the play-offs this season – now they are focussing on convincing the players.
Assistant manager Dean Wilkins revealed that he, Alan Pardew, Stuart Murdoch and Wally Downes are all drawing on various experiences of winning runs at the end of a season as proof for the Saints squad that it can be done.
Many have written off Saints’ hopes of ending the campaign in the top six after defeat to Swindon left them 16 points adrift of the play-offs with 11 league games remaining.
However, Wilkins, right, is still very upbeat about their chances.
He said: “We know what we’ve got to do to get ourselves in that play-off spot.
“It might be a tall order but we’re going to be going into every game trying to win every game.
“We’ve looked at the stats and all the staff here have been in run-ins where we’ve won eight of nine, ten out of eleven, so the staff have experienced it – it’s just convincing the players now that it’s still there for us.
“If you look at our run-in in the 11 league games we’ve got we’ve already beaten eight of those sides we face.
“You could also argue we are a more consistent, better team now.
“We are very much, very much, in the race.
“The experience that we’ve got amongst us staff, it’s up to us to relay that on to the players.
“It’s important for the supporters to realise we’re by no means out of this and we’ll be going for it game, after game, after game.
“We’re very much in the hunt and out of all the sides that are our competitors we’ve only got to play one of the top six while the others have got at least three games against each other.
“That again is another reason for us to be optimistic.”
Saints’ bid to try and take maximum points from their remaining fixtures starts at MK Dons tomorrow – a team they have already beaten three times this season, once in the league and twice in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.
However, Wilkins insists the previous victories will not lead to complacency.
“We’re capable of beating anybody and we have to take that belief into the weekend against MK Dons,” he said.
“The results we’ve had against them already this year count for nothing and we have to make sure we come off the pitch with the three points in the bag.
“They will be very similar to what they’ve done before, they haven’t changed much all season.
“We’ve done the normal preparation as we do for every game – we’re as thorough as we can be with the opposition and just because we’ve played them three times already there’s no complacency there.
“We pretty much know what to expect.”
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