John Goddard knows it is vital for Town to maintain their current good form at The County Ground while trying to improve their fortunes on the road heading into the Christmas period.
The Reds host Fleetwood Town at SN1 this afternoon (3pm Kick-Off) in their final home game of 2016 and will be looking to make it three wins from their last three home league games.
Town then face two away games over the festive period against Millwall and MK Dons and Goddard believes getting the balance right between their home and away form will be key to having a good Christmas.
“We had a few chats earlier on in the season to make a real effort to improve our home form because we want The County Ground to be a tough place for people to come,” he said.
“It wasn’t quite like that at the start of the season so it has been really positive that we’ve managed to turn our home form around, but the other side of that is our away form has dropped almost simultaneously.
“We need to try and get the balance right between home and away and we’ve been better at The County Ground recently. We’ve had some very good results and the fans appreciate that.
“They really got behind us against Charlton and Bradford and it made a real difference.
“It is something we need to look at and earlier on in the season we showed we can play away from home, but we’ve gone away from that recently for whatever reason.
“It is in there, it is in the changing room so we’ve just got to believe in it and put it on the pitch.”
Goddard has been impressed by Fleetwood so far this season but feels Town have got enough quality themselves to get the three points and head into the festive period on a high.
“We’re looking forward to the game today,” he added.
“Fleetwood are doing very well, they’ve got some good players and they have got some finance behind them but they’ve invested it well.
“You’ve seen a lot of clubs that have resources but they don’t use it wisely and I think Fleetwood have done that very well.
“They’ve got the basis of a good club but in the short-term it is all about Saturday and I feel like we’ve got enough in the changing room to get a positive result against them.
“Everyone beats everyone in the league and the league is very tight. Fleetwood are a good example for us to look at because you put a few results together on the bounce and you climb up the table.
“We just need to find that consistency and if we can string a few results together then it will make the table look a lot prettier.
“We’re nearing the halfway point of the season and we’re not where we want to be but it is just about getting a little run together.
“We know we’ve got it in the changing room and we know the players are good enough to do it, it is just a matter of going out and delivering on a Saturday and finding that balance of getting it right home and away and making sure we go out and give a positive account of ourselves.”
