Scunthorpe boss Brian Laws spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One match against Carlisle at Glanford Park tomorrow afternoon, Laws seeing it as a massive match for the Iron:
“It is not just an ordinary game, it is a game of huge, huge benefits for us because it can get us out of the bottom four in the first time for a while, which would be brilliant, but we know it is not going to be easy because Carlisle are in the same boat and they are fighting for their lives. It will be a tough game and we have got to produce a performance to win the game.
“If we go into it as we did against Bury then we could lose the game, so we have got to make sure we get that right and certainly the performance against Leyton Orient will hopefully help the players concentrate, because they know they have certainly got a great opportunity before Christmas to get out of the bottom four.
“It has taken a while for us to get to the point where we are actually catching teams, there was a gap when we first arrived and now we have closed it to such a degree that we can catch two or three teams. So, we are going in the right direction and we just want to make sure that we pull the others in around us who are not in good form and try to leapfrog them because it would be fantastic psychologically for the second half of the season and it would give us the impetus to move up the league.
“Getting out of the bottom four is a starting point, you are halfway through the season now and that is when you start to realise that the league seems to form itself, and you know that if you are in that bottom area then it is going to take some hell of a run to get out of it. But, if you can pull yourself away then you can start looking up rather than looking behind you, so that is the positivity that you can get from a good Christmas period."
“If things aren't going well with a lot of games over Christmas then of course it's even tougher and it's more fatiguing, but when you're winning or you're on a decent run you can't wait for the games, it works both ways. We're looking forward to the Christmas period because it does determine your season sometimes and if we are winning games then the players will thrive on it.
"There will be no excuses, there'll be nobody working harder than the players, they'll be working extremely hard. We've already given them their training schedules for over the Christmas period and there are no days off because this is our work. They get their days off at the end of the season. We're working Christmas Day because it's important we prepare ourselves in the best possible frame of mind and physically as well.
“Last year Carlisle had an exceptionally good season, and this year they have lost quite a few players and they are probably not as strong as they were. They have got into a rut, they started the season reasonably well but they are getting dragged in and they are finding wins very difficult to come by. So, we know that they are not coming into the game in great form and we have got to seize that opportunity and everybody has got to be committed to that.
“We are certainly going in the right direction in terms of performances but we need now to embrace that with a positive result and three points, which the home fans haven’t seen very much of. That is important and that is why it is hard here because the fans haven’t been lifted by anything at the moment. We need to give them something back and we need to make sure that we try to get this fortress back.
“The expectancy is that it is our home ground and you should be winning your games, and when it doesn’t happen and some of the performances have been pretty poor and some of the defeats have been pretty heavy then the fans want to see some positivity. That is why it is important that if we can get out of that bottom four before Christmas then at least it gives them a present to see something positive and we will certainly move forward with it."