Maintenance the key to Town's mountain climb

Uwe Rosler wants his players to maintain their top-six mentality

Admitting that many can make it to the top but not many can maintain it, Rosler believes Town’s challenge is to not lose their grip or run out of oxygen at the top of the League One table.

They are 13 games unbeaten and fourth in League One but Rosler has stressed the need for a precise and detailed approach if they want to push towards the top as they prepare to face Rochdale today.

He said: “I already think we are closer, we are in the top six because we are having that (top six) mentality.

“You know when you climb Mount Everest; lots of people came up to Mount Everest but only a few can live up there.

“The rest have to go down because they can’t live up there, they can’t maintain it.

“We went up there but we need to maintain it, and to live up at Mount Everest is the challenge because there is no oxygen and there is no room for errors.

“We need to be meticulous in everything that we do and that is the hardest thing.

“It is the business end; the magnitude of each game gets bigger and bigger and that is where, in the end, you need a good squad of players.

“You need energy but you also need players who keep calm because, now, each game counts. It is not like when you are losing a game or drawing a game in August or September.

“The second half of the season is important but we need to do what we do – only better.

“We did not do good enough first 20 minutes, first half (in the 1-1 draw) at Charlton but second half we did much better and we should have won the game it was two points dropped basically but I was very happy with the reaction.

“Now with another week of good training we are hoping we are getting that from the start because that is needed against a good Rochdale side.

“Their manager (Keith Hill) is adventurous; he can come up with all sorts of things – and I am meaning that in a positive way – so we need to be prepared but in the end it is up to us.

“We just need to make sure now that we are not just concentrating on keeping the unbeaten run that we concentrate to win games.

“Sometimes you need to take more chances to win because then the reward is higher with three points than one point in general.

“This run keeps a lot of confidence and a lot of mentality that we need until the end of the season.”