Gaffer wants team to be first class ahead of Railwaymen clash.
Paul Dickov was keeping his feet firmly on the ground ahead of Tuesday night’s clash with Crewe Alexandra.The Scot has seen his side record back to back wins in the last week, scoring eight goals and conceding none in the process, but said his men will have to raise their game against the in form Alex.
“They’re one of the form teams in the division – if not the form team! We know that it’s going to be a tough game,” said Dickov.
“It was a close game at their place and they probably had the better of the first half, ourselves the second.
“Nicky Ajose’s on fire with his goals, but right throughout their team they’re playing with confidence so we’re going to have to be as good, if not better, than we have been in the last couple of games.”
Dickov admitted that Rovers’ recent run which has seen them assume their highest league position since August is probably his best spell in charge of Doncaster to date.
“Yes I think it is. The pleasing thing is that the players have a determination to keep going and we can’t afford to get complacent or drop the standards that we’ve set.
“We only have to look back to the Walsall game where our standards dropped a little bit and we didn’t get the result that we deserved or wanted leading in to the game. We’ve picked ourselves back up again.
“As long as those results are few and far between, we’ll be happy. We’re not going to win every game until the end of the season, although it would be nice, but the bad performances need to be few and far between.”
Crewe and Doncaster played out a 1-1 draw back in November, with current Rovers forward Uche Ikpeazu on target for the hosts in that game and the Rovers boss says the nineteen year old Watford loanee has every chance of making the squad for the reverse fixture.
“Uche, for a young kid, showed a lot of professionalism on Saturday by saying that he wasn’t quite right. He’d felt his ankle so did himself and us a favour but he was absolutely flying this [Monday] morning. It’s great to have a fully fit squad and confidence is high,” he said.
“We’ve got to keep building on this. We had a slow start – which most people expected – but we’ve got a settled team and a settled squad with pretty much everyone fit and we’re a match for anyone in this league, which we’re showing by only losing 1 out of our last ten league games and we need to keep it going.
“Crewe are on a bit of a roll at the minute, but so are we.”