Town skipper eyes nine cup finals

Town lost ground with Tuesday’s 2-0 home defeat to Coventry City, sealed in the last minute when a backpass by Roberts held up short of keeper Chris Maxwell, Frank Nouble grabbing an opportunistic second for the Sky Blues.

On Saturday Town travel to Bradford, a side looking to bounce back from their own disappointment having been dumped out of the FA Cup by Reading on Monday.

Roberts is happy to be back in action so soon and knows there’s no more room for error.

He said:”It’s the beauty of the games coming so quickly. We do have a chance to put things right.

“It’s a great game to be playing in, a good stadium and one of the top teams in the division. It’ll be a competitive game and we’ll be up for it.

“Of course we’re disappointed in the dressing room. We wanted to carry on our winning run and we’ve been playing good stuff at home.

“It wasn’t to be but there are nine games to go now and we’ve got to treat them like cup finals.”

Coventry were battling for their lives and showed it on Tuesday night, Tony Mowbray’s men out-passing and outsmarting Town.

“They were a good side and have some very, very good players,” insisted Roberts.

“They were in a low part of the table and fighting relegation, but you couldn’t tell. We were competing – it just didn’t seem to be dropping for us.

“It’s a bad result but we’ve got to dust ourselves down for a massive game on Saturday.”

Roberts made it clear Tuesday’s defeat wasn’t down to a lack of spirit from the Fleetwood squad.

“It wasn’t a lack of effort, determination, endevour – we had all of that,” he said. “We ran our socks off.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to take it on the chin and make sure you come back better and stronger.”

Town could have jumped into the top six had they beaten the Sky Blues, having managed back-to-back victories for the first time since August in their previous two fixtures.

And the skipper believes that’s not bad form to be taking into the business end of the campaign, with the play-off zone only three points away.

“In the last three games we’ve taken six points,” he said.

“If we get 18 points from our last nine games I don’t know where that will leave us.

“We’ve just got to pick up as many points as possible. There are 27 to play for now and we’ve got to go for every one.”