John Coleman hopes his Accrington Stanley side can mount an all-out attack when they face fellow play-off chasers Crawley Town at Wham Stadium on Saturday.
Both teams have 46 points, two points outside the top seven, and Stanley have a relatively strong home record this season with nine league wins.
Coleman knows the team hasn’t switched to the upcoming style in recent games, but he hopes the team can take the lead starting with Saturday’s off.
“Crawley are a decent team, I know their manager Scott Lindsay, he’s a good lad and a good footballer and his team play attractive football.
“It’s good that the two teams are trying to attack.
“Especially at home, we have to come forward. The fans expect us to play hard, and I expect us to play hard, but it’s the players on the pitch. are to carry it out.”
“I can’t fault their effort, but we need a little more smarts, we need more quality to show on a regular basis, we need more intensity in the final third and we need some luck. If you add it all up, you have a chance.”
In the fierce league competition, the difference between 7th and 16th place is just 3 points.
“A lot of teams will feel like they have a chance to make the playoffs,” Coleman continued.
“It’s just a mini-run that the team rides, you ride it, and it’s how long you can stay in it until you get into position.
“Barrow ran incredibly well, went into the automatic, and just dropped off a little bit.
“Harrogate had an incredible run and got into the play-offs and although they stumbled a bit they responded well.
“Morecambe have had a great run, they had a mini-run earlier this season where they won four games on the spin, but it seems like a lot of people want to get into the play-offs and get promoted, but nobody says anything about it. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to try.”
“I feel like we were floating between No. 13 and 10, and no matter what the result is, we’re still floating there.
“We have to get some wins and come out of the vacuum and try to go up instead of down.
“We just want to get better and we’ve got to get better offensively and that’s what we’re focused on this week.”
Bad news for captain Seamus Connealy, who is out with a torn abductor muscle and could be out for four to six weeks.
Korede Adedoyin is returning to fitness, but Matt Lowe is “not a million miles away”.
Sean McConville saw a specialist yesterday and could return to full training next week, while Sean Worley is out for a week or two.
Norwich loan defender Brad Hills missed the first of a four-match suspension after being sent off in last week’s 1-1 draw with Colchester.