James Trafford believes Bolton Wanderers are confident of reaching the League One play-offs but are not getting ahead of themselves prior to taking on MK Dons this afternoon.
Wanderers travel to Stadium MK today as third takes on 10th in the League One standings.
Ian Evatt's side sit five points from the play-offs heading into the encounter, while the Dons are three points from the automatic promotion places.
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And Bolton can narrow their deficit to the top six with a win and potentially put themselves that much closer to being in the conversation for the play-offs at the end of the campaign.
Trafford joined Wanderers in the middle of the January transfer window from Manchester City and revealed that members of the Bolton squad who won promotion last season are helping to guide players like him who are in this position for the first time.
The goalkeeper is under no illusions of how tough today's clash will be given the run Bolton's opponents are on and believes League One is such an unforgiving division that every game must be given the same approach.
He said: “We are all confident, but we are not getting ahead of ourselves, away at MK will be difficult.
“Obviously we want to try and get into the play-offs but we can’t get too excited.
“The core of the squad know what it takes. They help lads like myself who haven’t been in this position before, going for a target at this point of the season.
“We are following their lead, a bit.
“They are on a good run, as we are, and they play decent football as well, as we try to.
“This league is just tough. Shrewsbury, Morecambe – they are hard games. And because of how unforgiving it is you can’t box games off and say ‘this one will be difficult, this one won’t,’ it is just hard to predict. You can only treat every game the same."
Trafford has kept five clean sheets in 10 games for Wanderers so far during a loan spell which has begun well.
The Cumbrian comes from a family of farmers and revealed that his father, also called James, has become Bolton's new biggest fan as he takes an active interest in how his son's current team are faring.
Trafford says his family have become very invested in the club and believes acts like boss Ian Evatt speaking to his father after his debut in the win over Ipswich Town mean so much to his family.
The Man City loanee revealed his dad's optimism at Bolton's chances this season and Trafford believes it is a good thing to have an aim towards the climax of a season to keep it interesting and have something to play for.
Trafford said: “I don’t think there is a bigger Bolton fan in the world than my dad at the moment.
“He watches every single press conference the gaffer does, tells me what he has said before I know what is happening. He goes through every report on every game.
“I don’t think he is getting much farm work done at the moment, he is just scrolling down his phone on Twitter. He finds out everything – I don’t know how he does it.
“All my family are so invested in the club because even after that first game my dad and the gaffer passed each other, and the gaffer stopped, took the time to speak to him. And that kind of thing really means a lot to us. All of them, and my mates, they just love it.
“When I came in I just thought ‘this is a good bunch, loads of quality, why the hell are we so low in the table?’ And my dad is the most optimistic bloke in the world, he reckoned we’d be going for automatic promotion, and I’m like ‘steady on!’
“Then he changed it to the play-offs – but he doesn’t know that much about football. We haven’t really thought about it too much but it is always better when you have something to aim at.
“Some March and April, if teams haven’t got anything to play for then I presume they would be counting down the days to the summer holidays."
