Head Coach Harry Kewell says Reds will relish the challenge of facing some of the League Two high-fliers between now and Christmas.
Five of our next six games are against sides in the top half with the next three against teams currently in the play-offs.
Reds go to seventh-placed Wycombe on Saturday before we entertain last season’s play-off finalists Exeter, who are currently third, next Tuesday. We then go to sixth-placed Coventry on November 25.
HK said: “It’s a tough couple of weeks coming up but we should be looking forward to testing ourselves against some of the best teams in this division. If we have aspirations to be among them, which we do, then we need to be beating some of them.
“Every week there are surprise results and I don’t think there is actually that much between teams at the top and those at the bottom. Last season there were a couple of really strong sides in Plymouth and Portsmouth but I don’t see that at the moment, although we’ve only played just over a third of the season.”
Reds have made themselves hard to beat in recent weeks and only three teams have conceded fewer goals than our 17.
As everyone acknowledges, our difficulties are at the other end of the pitch with only 13 League goals scored so far.
“Obviously that has to improve,” added Harry. “But in the last two home games and at Lincoln we created five or six really good opportunities, not half-chances but chances you ought to be sticking away.
“That is the area where we work hardest on during training. In terms of personnel and adding to the squad there’s not much we can do until January when the window opens. I know the forwards in our squad have goals in them and if we can get other areas of the team contributing as well we will be in business.”
