Ian Burchnall has challenged his Notts County players to improve their "inconsistent" away form when they take on Southend United today (Saturday).
The Magpies are in action on the road at Roots Hall (3pm kick-off) as they bid to boost their National League play-off hopes. Notts are currently sixth in the table, having picked up seven points from their past three matches.
That included a 2-1 victory away to Dagenham & Redbridge, which was followed by a 1-0 home success over Boreham Wood and a 1-1 draw with Chesterfield at Meadow Lane last time out. Burchnall wants his team to produce a repeat of the performance that saw off Dagenham on their own patch against 13th-placed Southend.
"I think overall throughout the season, the away form has been slightly under par," said the head coach. "I think we've been excellent at home for the majority of the season - (apart from) one or two games, of course, but I think we've been a very strong home team.
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"Away, I think we've been a little bit inconsistent, so I was really pleased with the Dagenham win, and the manner of that win, and I certainly think we will need to take some of the bits we used against Dagenham. We had a bit of a blend - we did really well in possession and out of possession, we were excellent as well. I think we need to be at it like that to go down and get something out of Southend."
Expanding on the point, Burchnall added: "I think teams change a little bit and maybe play with more high risk when they are at home. So we have to try to find the solution to that. Often teams leave a lot of space in behind at home, because they play higher up the pitch, whereas they can be a bit lower here (Meadow Lane), and we dominate much more here.
"So we have to adapt a little bit - and naturally teams have the crowd behind them, so there's that normal home advantage. We have to overcome that a little bit and try to have the mindset of the home team when we are away."
Having the rare luxury of a full week between fixtures has given the Magpies a welcome chance to regroup on the training ground. "It's been Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday for quite a few weeks, so this is the first time we've really been able to get ourselves out on the training pitch," said Burchnall.
"I think the seven points in three games helped lift the spirits and we've been able to get some work into them. When you go game, game, game, a lot of your work is kind of recovery and then some video, and you don't get to do so much on the pitch on things you want to improve at. So it just gives us the capabilities to be able to do that and I think a few weeks of that will do us some good."
What exactly have they worked on? "One thing we've talked about, certainly in the defensive third, is getting better pressure on the ball, stopping balls coming into our box, being a bit more aggressive when we don't have it, some of the defensive structure things," Burchnall explained.
"We're also continuing to work on what we think we're good at - which is a lot of the in possession stuff and a lot of the patterns of play that we work on. So we don't neglect the things we're good at but we're just tidying up a lot of the off-ball work, and coming into a critical part of the season, we're going to require that."
Notts have had four players in action during the latest round of international fixtures. Cal Roberts and Matt Palmer turned out for England C in a disappointing 4-0 defeat to Wales C at Caernarfon Town.
Elsewhere, Kairo Mitchell played 90 minutes for Grenada in a 1-0 defeat against Andorra to earn to his 14th cap, having come off the bench in a goalless draw with Gibraltar. And on-loan Liverpool goalkeeper Vitezslav Jaros kept a clean sheet for Czech Republic Under-21s as they beat Andorra U21s 3-0, having been an unused substitute in a victory over Albania.
