A thoroughly disappointing result at Aldershot at the weekend was followed by an angry post-match interview with Micky Mellon, where he really reflected everything that the fans felt about the performance and, ultimately, the result.

With only eight games to go, it is a little concerning that we seem to have run out of ways of grinding out victories and points.

I don’t need to dissect the performance but what I do want to do is touch upon something Mellon said in that interview; something I’ve mentioned a few times this season and that is the mentality of the squad. Mellon admitted the mentality is a concern and has been on occasion since he’s been in charge.

The squad’s mentality at home to take the game to lesser opposition, to really dominate sides and even sometimes to just grind out wins against them hasn’t been good enough and this seeped into Latics' away performance for the first time in a long time too.

The leadership of Liam Hogan, the win-at-all costs mentality of James Norwood and Joe Garner, who have of course been there and done that, just doesn’t translate to the squad as a whole.

Saturday was a massive game against a play-off rival and if we can’t get up for a game like that, will we against Chesterfield and Rochdale in two of our biggest home games of the season?

Will we be able to find that mentality to go to the re-arranged fixture at Halifax, likely to be one of the last games of the season and get a result against a team who could usurp us into the play-off spots? And then there’s the play-offs themselves too.

This is not a quick fix but it’s up to the boys to dig deep and show everyone they want a promotion on their CV.

They are good enough footballers, I have no doubt about that, so let’s hope they find that in them for the rest of the season, starting with the early kick-off against champions-elect, Chesterfield who will want to turn us over on our patch.

I’m expecting it to be quite the atmosphere pitting the two biggest clubs in the National League against each other alongside the fact that many pre-season predictions had us being the top two.

Whilst it hasn’t worked out anywhere near that way for us, this would be an ideal game to lay down a marker for the rest of the season. I am still confident we will make the play-offs but it’s going to go down to the wire.