Stags’ midfielder Joel Byrom believes he is beginning to get back to the performance levels which he knows he is capable of as he enters his third month at the club.
The former Northampton Town man joined the club at the start of the January transfer window and has since played a part in every one of the Stags’ Sky Bet League Two matches.
And after a solid start to his Stags’ career, the former Stevenage midfielder thinks he is now returning to the type of form which has seen him win three career promotions.
“I think I started well when I came in and then obviously it catches up with you a little bit,” Byrom said.
“I had a couple of off-games but I think I’m starting to get my fitness levels back up to where I want them to be and where the manager wants them to be and I'll hopefully kick on now until the end of the season."
We face Cheltenham Town on Saturday as they continue their quest for a League Two play-off spot and Byrom says Stags will need to ‘win the battle’ in order to return to Mansfield with points in the bag.
“You’ve got to match them, you’ve got to win the battle and then play on top of that. There will be times when you can get the ball down and play and we’ve got to work that to our advantage and create chances from that.
“The pitch will make it difficult but I think you’ve still got to look at it where you’ve just got to work harder than the opposition, win more tackles, win more headers – I think [you've got to do that] in League Two in general most weeks.
“It doesn’t matter what the pitch is like, we’ve just got to make sure when there is the time to get the ball down, we do it well and we create good chances from it.”
With 12 games remaining of the 2016/17 Sky Bet League Two season, the Lancashire-born 30-year-old says the team who finish the campaign with momentum often go on to achieve promotion.
“You have teams who go on runs and it’s normally the team towards the end of the season who get the momentum who go on and pick up wins and get runs going and get into the play-offs or into the automatic spots.
“That team that gets itself in the play-offs on a good run tends to do well in the play-offs, so we’ve just got to keep looking to pick up points [in] every game.
“You look at a [match] and you think it’s going to go one way and it goes the other way. We’ve just got to be one of those teams who doesn’t get on the end of one of those dodgy results.”
Supporters can view Joel Byrom’s full news conference by logging in to Stags PlayerHD.
