Ryan Delaney said that Swindon Town must accept that they are in a relegation scrap and must deal with that before thinking about anything else.
After 17 games this season, only goal difference sees Swindon outside of the bottom two in League Two, with Morecambe and Carlisle United both level on points with them following the home defeat to the former on Saturday.
The stated aim for the season at the Fan’s Forum in September was to go for promotion and Ian Holloway said that is what Clem Morfuni tasked him with when he took over.
Given the situation that Swindon now find themselves in, Delaney said that the team must concentrate on steering clear of the drop first.
He said: “[Do you have to accept the first challenge is to stay in the EFL?] First and foremost, yes, we need to get ourselves out of the situation that we are in.
“We need to start winning football games and then we can take it from there and maybe start looking up the table.
“But before then we need to start winning football games in the here and now.
“We just want to win the game [against Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup this week], win the game and build momentum.
“We have won the last two cup games and we want to get into that winning mentality again.
“We had a tough game against Accrington last week, so we know what is coming but we just want to win the game whether it is in the cup or the league to get the momentum of doing that.”
Delaney added that he believed that the squad Swindon have are good characters who will stick together to turn the season around.
He said: “I think that we are a tight-knit squad and that hasn’t changed from the start and this is now an important time to stick together.
“When the times are tough that is when it is most difficult to stick together but I think that as a group we back ourselves and we back ourselves to stick together.
“We have got a good squad in there, the results are not showing that but we want to be the ones who put this right, we want to be the ones to get ourselves out of the situation that we have put ourselves in.
“It is up to us to stand up to the challenge ahead.”
