Bristol Rovers boss Joey Barton has full faith in his players to muster a response after their promotion hopes were dented in defeat at Carlisle United on Saturday.
The Gas dropped to sixth place in League Two after losing out to Kristian Dennis' winner 18 minutes from time at Brunton Park, leaving just seven games left in the season as vie to secure a play-off place and compete for a top-three berth.
Rovers dominated possession against the Cumbrians but struggled in the final third. Still, they created enough chances to take a point or three from the game and Barton is sure his players will be improved for the visit of Bradford City to the Mem in six days' time.
"I speak to the lads all the time," Barton said. "Sometimes you can get beat and you never had a chance of winning the game. You can see from the Carlisle crowd and the players and the lying on the deck and the timewasting and so on and so forth, you can see that we are a big scalp for teams and you’ve got to get used to that.
"From our perspective, whenever we’ve had a poor performance or a poor result, we’ve responded. Today, up until the final third, I thought we were really good and controlled away from home against one of the form teams in the division. It certainly didn’t look like the two teams at the top of the form table.
"I think we were markedly better in possession, but we’ve got to pick ourselves up again and it’s a tough game against Bradford on Saturday. That will be another tough game. Similarly to Carlisle, a new manager has come in and they’ve got a bit of a new manager bounce.
"Mark (Hughes) has been a Premier League manager and I imagine there’ll be a bit of the experience he’s got, trying to take our crowd away from us, but it’s nothing new and nothing we haven’t faced before.
"We’ve just got to keep turning up and committing to each other like we have today and most times, that will be enough with the quality we have."
Rovers' away crowd of 637 was bloated by a few dozen Newcastle United fans taking the chance to watch Elliot Anderson in the flesh during the international break, but Barton made clear his appreciation for the Gasheads who made the near 550-mile round trip from BS7.
"They’ve been superb and we’re aware that it’s a long way to go and it’s the end of the season," Barton said.
"Inflation and the cost of living are going through the roof, and we don’t take it for granted.
"Disappointing that we can’t send them away with a bit more of a skip in their step, but those who have turned up today or tuned in, I think they’ll see a team fully committed and pushing, doing its best for the quartered jersey.
"If we turn up and be committed like that every week, we’ll have no problem between now and the end of the season."
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