A constant theme throughout almost every interview with coaching staff and players this season has been the demand for high standards in everything done, on and off the pitch.
And more Paul Simpson used the disappointment that’s been felt over the last fortnight as a reminder that none of it comes for free, with over half of the campaign left to play.
“The frustration that everyone is feeling is maybe a bit of a sign of what we’re asking of ourselves, and that’s no bad thing,” gaffer Paul Simpson said. “It’s not a negative, we’ve earned the right to expect things with the way we’ve played so far, and that’s a good thing.
“I keep saying this, I don’t want to be talking about us doing well for just 10 games or 15 games. We’re now 20 games in and we have done well.
“But we’ve got 26 left to go and I want us to keep going. We have to keep driving the standards and everybody has to stay together to drive those standards.
“On Saturday we fell away from it a little bit. But something else I keep going on about, we have to remember we are still very early into rebuilding everything here.
“Let’s not get carried away and think we’re an automatic promotion team. I’m really sorry to say it, we’re not there yet. We have to keep working.
“And we must keep working together. Our supporters have been absolutely fantastic and the players have risen to that.
“After the flatness of Saturday what can be better than getting a local derby to incite some atmosphere, get the players up for it, get the fans up for it.
“We have to make sure our training is right this week and that we get ourselves up and ready to go again.
“We’ve got to being the spark to it on Saturday. There’s no point in us relying on anybody else. We have to grab it as an opportunity.
“It’s the next one for us and we’ve got to do it properly, make sure training’s right so we’re going into the game with energy, and the truth is, we’ve just got to be better. We all know that Saturday was not where we want to be.
“It’s a great game to look forward to, a really good game. I did expect a lower crowd at the weekend because it’s the first game in December, it’s a horrible, cold day, and an early kick-off which doesn’t help everybody because people have commitments whether it be working, whether they’ve got their own family members with sporting activities on a Saturday morning, whatever.
“Next Saturday there’s no excuse. I know it’s an early kick-off again but it’s a local derby, there’s everything to play for, we have an opportunity to push ourselves further up the table and set ourselves up for the Christmas games.
“First and foremost the players have to be right. We’ve got to make sure we’re ready for it. We make sure we’ve got energy to take into the game and hopefully that energy rubs off onto the supporters and we get a right good afternoon.”