Ian Evatt wants his team to keep hitting new heights after scaling the League One table, writes Pete Oliver.
Wanderers go to Oxford United on Tuesday night as the new league leaders thanks to last Saturday’s 7-0 demolition of Exeter City.
Evatt’s men blew the Grecians away with a five-goal second-half spree which gave the Whites their biggest ever league victory at the Toughsheet Community Stadium.
That may be a tough act to follow but Evatt believes his players are capable of building on the way they spectacularly chalked up an eighth successive victory and 112th in 12 games in all competitions.
“Almost a new bar was set on Saturday with our performance,” admitted the Wanderers’ boss. “Some of our play was as good as I've seen it but now we've set almost a new benchmark and we have to replicate that type of performance as many times as we possibly can.
“As I said on Saturday the hard work really starts now. We've had to work really hard and be on a fantastic run to get ourselves to the top spot and now everyone is looking at us and everyone is going to raise their game even more against us.
“The target on our back has become bigger, even though we already had one, and we have to rise to that challenge and make sure we're ready for it.
“I think we will be, but we need still to improve in all departments and become consistent. We have been consistent, but I mean at that level because I do believe the players can get to that level a lot. But we have to go out there and show it. We have to embrace that challenge and keep fighting to stay at the top.”
Wanderers’ sixth straight league win saw them leap-frog both Oxford and Portsmouth to go to pole position in the promotion race, with Evatt relishing the prospect of facing both those sides in the Whites’ next two league games.
“They’re great games to play in,” he said before facing the U’s in the first stage of an away-day double-header wrapped around home cup ties against Harrogate Town and Port Vale.
“It’s exciting for us to be challenging ourselves against the best teams in the league. Oxford are a really good team, who have some great players and are aesthetically pleasing on the eye who I have enjoyed watching.
“This is going to be a really challenging game, a difficult game and a different type of game to the one we've just played. We’re ready for it, we're looking forward to it, but we know it's going to be a challenge.”