Steven Schumacher is aiming to stay in the mix as Wanderers prepare to take on the League One heavyweights, writes Pete Oliver.
The Whites have put themselves on the cusp of the top six with a run of five wins in six league games – including three in a row under Schumacher.
The head coach takes his side to face third-placed Wrexham on Saturday (KO 12.30pm) before Wanderers entertain table-topping Birmingham City next Tuesday night.
And he is hoping an extended run of form will keep Wanderers among the promotion challengers as the play-off places take further shape.
“That's what we want to be,” said Schumacher, who reaches the end of his first month in charge of the Whites this weekend. “We knew when we came into it, it was going to be competitive. All the teams at the top of League One this season are finding spells of form.
“You see some teams coming out of form and that tends to be what happens. But with this short period of time to go now from now until the end of the season, a team that can really stay consistent, stay on it every game, keep the standards high and the level of performance of what you would expect, they'll have a chance of winning and we want that to be us.
“We want to be in the mix, we want to end this season on a positive and we start on Saturday with the next game that's in front of us and we move on from there.”
Wanderers’ run of wins has given them real momentum as they prepare to face a Wrexham side which missed out on a place at Wembley in mid-week when they were beaten on penalties by Peterborough United in a home semi-final of the Vertu Trophy.
The Robins are likely to field an almost completely different line-up against the Whites following multiple changes against Peterborough and when they beat Wanderers in the Trophy just over a fortnight ago.
Schumacher has fewer options with Victor Adeboyejo joining fellow striker Kion Etete on the sidelines as he waits to see how long a knee ligament injury will keep him out.
But the Whites’ boss still has a healthy squad at his disposal with defender Eoin Toal back from injury and Carlos Mendes Gomes potentially returning to the squad as Wanderers seek to build on three successive successful comeback wins.
“The players should take that and use that for belief and play with a bit of confidence,” Schumacher told Wanderers TV. “What we've been keen to do in the weeks that we've been here is show the good things that we're doing in games but also think about areas where we can improve and learn from.
“There was a lot of good stuff again on Saturday against Orient, we played some really nice football and I felt we deserved to win the game, but we should have won the game more comfortably than what we did.
“There are areas to improve on, things to get better at and keep pushing the players every day to try and achieve what the end goal is. Ultimately that's to get into those promotion places and we can't wait for the weekend.
“It'll be a difficult game, no doubt. It'll be one that's going to be competitive and we need to make sure that we're ready for it, because it's one of the toughest games you can go to away from home.
“I know they've had a couple of bad results of late, but they'll be desperate to put that right, I'm sure. We had four that couldn't play in that (Trophy) game, so all of them are all available for this one and similar for them, so the team sheets will probably look a lot different.
“But we know what to expect. We know it's going to be a physical game and it's going to be one where we're going to have to compete, stop crosses where we can, and be on it when we have the ball.
“We felt we did some things well in the Trophy game, so we'll look to do that again, but this time have more of an end product with it and see if we can hurt them.”
Watch the manager’s full pre-match interview and injury up-date on Wanderers TV