Another of the excellent themes of this season, as covered in yesterday’s article about defender Corey Whelan, is the way in which every member of the squad has stepped up to do their bit whenever they’ve been given the call.
And part of the increase in performance levels against Stockport on Tuesday was the in-game change in formation, which pushed Jon Mellish into midfield and changed the defensive back line to a four.
Speaking about he decision to use Mellish in his midfield capacity, manager Paul Simpson said: “He’s just a good athlete and he gets on with it. He’s a bit of a loose cannon and he runs and chases and gets blocks and those sort of things.
“He also does really well at centre back, so we’ve got a little bit of a dilemma in there at the moment. I’ll have to have a look at it, I’ll start looking at Barrow and see exactly what they do.
“The problem is we’ve had 43 games where we’ve started with a back three, and in the main it’s worked for us. We knew that this run of nine or ten games was a really tough run of games.
“On paper I always thought it was going to be a difficult run, and we’re now in a position where we have to keep driving each other on and keep believing and stay with it.
“I’m delighted we’ve got goals, and they were two good goals. It was a great delivery for the corner and a great finish from Mox for the second one, so hopefully we can keep that bit of momentum we got in the second half and take it into Saturday’s game.”
The threat from set pieces has seen the Blues net from corners 15 times already this season.
“We were more of a threat with some of them, but I thought some of them were a little bit overhit,” the gaffer told us. “The one at the end, Jack has whipped it in and it looks like Hunts is going to get on the end of it, but he didn’t quite get there.
“I thought there were some decent deliveries and good opportunities. We had more life about us but we’ve just got to take that into the weekend now. And it would have been great if our second goal had been the winner, but it wasn’t to be.
“Hopefully Mox is going to save that for another day this season. We’ve got good games coming up and they’re really big games to look forward to. We started back in July where I wanted enough points to be safe and we hit that target very comfortably.
“We’re now in a position where we need to make sure we get enough points to get a place in the play-offs, that’s minimum, then we need to hope we get enough points to get automatic.
“I do think there are still enough points for us to get that, whether it’s possible we just have to wait and see, we just have to do our job and win our games.”
With more on players doing their bit and playing their part, he said: “We want an impact from everybody, be they starters or subs, and we certainly got that which is the pleasing thing.
“Everybody who was out there in the second half did very, very well. I just needed to try and freshen it up. I felt as though we’d started the second half really well but they then started to get a foothold in it, which is why we decided to change it.
“I thought it might lift the crowd again with new faces and some energy. I thought the crowd were outstanding tonight and hopefully they’ll come back and do it again for us.
“Hopefully the squad is holding up now. I don’t know of any issues from the game, it’s just a case of getting them rested and recovered. We’ve got Ben Barclay who can come back into it, Taylor Charters is chomping at the bit wanting to be involved.
“It’s just a case of picking a group that can go out there and do everything we can. Barrow are in the same situation, they’ve had a game, we’ll be ready for it and we have to make sure we have enough energy to go and win it.”
Back and available is Ben Barclay, who missed out on Tuesday due to the terms of his loan agreement.
“We need everyone involved, it will be good to have Ben back available,” he explained. “We’ve got some decisions to make, we’ll see how everybody is.
“I don’t think there are any issues, Callum got a whack on the cheekbone and there were a couple of lads who got elbows in the back of the head, but I would imagine they’ll all want to be involved on Saturday.
“It’s a big call. We need to build on that second half. I was really pleased with a lot of things, absolutely delighted with the second half from the players, incredibly pleased with the supporters, and now we have to go again.
“And players coming back, Taylor is certainly going to come into my thinking, he’s chomping at the bit, he keeps badgering Chris the physio to say he wants to be involved. He’s available. We’ll see what we decide to do as the week goes on.”
