It’s the last game in January at the weekend, so on Sunday assistant boss Glynn Snodin will be assessing the league table… for the first time this season!
The PNE No.2 spoke ahead of the trip to Crawley Town and suggested that the business end of the campaign was about to get underway.
“This is where the season starts,” he said. “I never look at the league table until February. Now you earn your bread and butter.
“Things start to get tense and you start to see how other teams cope with the situation – can they handle it? It is going to be interesting.
“Credit to the teams that are up there at the moment; Swindon, Bristol City and MK Dons; the way they playing everyone is finding it trouble playing against them.”
North End’s hosts on Saturday afternoon have a squad that belies their current position at the foot of the League One table and Snodin admits it will be a tough encounter.
“They will be a hard team to beat,” he continued. “They get bodies behind the ball and play a 4-4-1-1 system, so we know we need to break them down.
“We know we have the quality to break teams down. We don’t give much away, but we need to get things going at the other end.
“There are no easy games in this division. You can never rest, you have to work hard, give them respect and keep your efforts going for 90 minutes."
The Red Devils have had to swap managers in recent times, with Dean Saunders taking over, after John Gregory needed a bypass operation, but Snodin says that the Sussex side’s problems are not something he is concerned about, he is more interested in how the Lilywhites deal with the absence of four forward players.
“Crawley have to deal with their own situation. We are good friends with John and we wish him well, but we have to concentrate on our own players and squad and not be worried about what is going on with them.
“Any Club if you lose four strikers then you are going to struggle and we are without Joe, Jordan, Andy and Jermaine at the minute and it is not surprising we haven’t scored as many as we would have liked.
“The lads that have come in have given everything they have got; we can’t moan about their endeavour and their honesty, but everyone needs to contribute throughout the side, we can’t just rely on the forward players,” he added.
“This is where the season starts,” he said. “I never look at the league table until February. Now you earn your bread and butter.
“Things start to get tense and you start to see how other teams cope with the situation – can they handle it? It is going to be interesting.
“Credit to the teams that are up there at the moment; Swindon, Bristol City and MK Dons; the way they playing everyone is finding it trouble playing against them.”
North End’s hosts on Saturday afternoon have a squad that belies their current position at the foot of the League One table and Snodin admits it will be a tough encounter.
“They will be a hard team to beat,” he continued. “They get bodies behind the ball and play a 4-4-1-1 system, so we know we need to break them down.
“We know we have the quality to break teams down. We don’t give much away, but we need to get things going at the other end.
“There are no easy games in this division. You can never rest, you have to work hard, give them respect and keep your efforts going for 90 minutes."
The Red Devils have had to swap managers in recent times, with Dean Saunders taking over, after John Gregory needed a bypass operation, but Snodin says that the Sussex side’s problems are not something he is concerned about, he is more interested in how the Lilywhites deal with the absence of four forward players.
“Crawley have to deal with their own situation. We are good friends with John and we wish him well, but we have to concentrate on our own players and squad and not be worried about what is going on with them.
“Any Club if you lose four strikers then you are going to struggle and we are without Joe, Jordan, Andy and Jermaine at the minute and it is not surprising we haven’t scored as many as we would have liked.
“The lads that have come in have given everything they have got; we can’t moan about their endeavour and their honesty, but everyone needs to contribute throughout the side, we can’t just rely on the forward players,” he added.