Jones: Keep Calm And Carry On

Vice-captain Gethin Jones is looking to help rally the troops and get Wanderers’ play-off push back in top gear.

The Whites have seen their top-six surge slow on the back of a three-game winless run.

But Ian Evatt’s men still have a six-point cushion inside the play-off places as they sit sixth in the League One table thanks to eight wins since the turn of the year.

And Jones will be doing his best to help restore confidence in the camp and draw on past experiences with the Whites as Wanderers seek to regain their momentum with nine games to go.

“I’ve been here for two-and-a-half years now and when we’ve been through rough patches the most important is that we stick together as a team and keep pulling through and hopefully the results start coming back,” said the defender, one of Evatt’s first signings after taking charge of the Whites in July, 2020.

“The gaffer said there are a few of us who have been here from the start and we need to talk to the lads and get the lads going again.

“We’ve had some really rough patches here – especially when we were in League Two in that first few months and came out of it promoted – so we need to keep at it and a few of the older lads need to speak to the younger ones and keep them calm and get the confidence back into them.

“We’ve had some games this year when we’ve played unbelievable and we need to look back at those games and the performances then and think ‘listen lads, we can do it’.

“Everyone has a rough patch and at the moment as a team this is ours. We just need to keep working hard and get the confidence back.”

Saturday’s 2-0 loss to high-flying Ipswich Town saw the Whites’ 12-game unbeaten home run come to an end.

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But a second promotion in three years under Evatt is still a possibility for Wanderers as they look to cement their play-off place.  

And Jones will be looking for a response to the defeat to Ipswich when Wanderers go to table-topping Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night.

“The most disappointing thing was we didn’t put it on them in the first half. We felt like in the first 15-20 minutes of the second half we were dominant and the chat we had afterwards was ‘why didn’t we start like that’?” he added.

“It was always going to be a tough game. They (Ipswich) are right up there, which is where we want to be ourselves. We need to take account of ourselves, look at the game again and improve from it.

“There are nine big league games and a cup final to go so we need to roll our sleeves up and get back to it.

“Every game is going to be massive from now and the end of the season. We just need to stick at it as a group and take each game as it comes and don’t look further down the line.

“First and foremost, we need to go to Sheffield Wednesday and put in a performance there.”

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