No fear!

Photo: Alan Howarth

OLLIE BANKS

ATHLETIC won't fear playing against high-flying Fleetwood one little bit.

In-form midfielder Ollie Banks says that the squad have already put their Southend nightmare behind them as a "blip", after a night of results that went perfectly from Athletic's perspective.

Port Vale's 3-0 defeat at Rochdale lifted Athletic a place to 18th on goal difference, while Shrewsbury experienced a fourth straight defeat in going down 2-1 at home to Millwall to stay in the drop zone.

Third-placed Fleetwood are in action tonight at Oxford. But after beating Uwe Rosler's side earlier this season in the Checkatrade Trophy and only losing 1-0 away to a last-minute Josh Law own goal on New Year's Eve, Banks insists there is no apprehension among a squad buoyed by the positivity of manager John Sheridan as they bid for three points that would serve as a huge boost in the bid to avoid relegation.

"Since the gaffer has come in, he kind of lets people get on with it and he fills you with confidence," said Banks, who is now one of the first names on the team sheet for the manager. "There are no negative thoughts - everything is positive.

"You can see from his results since he has come in that it's obviously working.

"The last 11 games have been brilliant. We can call Southend a little blip. Every team has one.

"Fleetwood lost at home to Swindon on Saturday, which nobody expected. So there is no reason why we can't beat them.

'OPINION'

"In my opinion, we have beaten better teams. Although they have been there all season, people have expected them to drop off a little bit. They have a good squad of players though and I think they will carry on.

"But we can beat anyone on our day, we know that.

"We have seen Fleetwood twice now and there is nothing to fear. So we go into the game full of confidence and we forget about what happened at Southend."

Banks also admitted to being grateful to be available for this weekend at all. The former Chesterfield man appeared to be the last man when tangling with Simon Cox at Southend, but was only shown a yellow card by lenient referee Kevin Johnson.

"By the letter of the law, I probably should have been sent off - but I made no attempt whatsoever to bring him down," Banks added.

"I tried to get out of his way, to try to get back.

"I'm not sure how I ended up last man. I thought I was gone, but it was probably a bit of common sense from the referee which is rare but quite good."

Tonight's other fixture in Sky Bet League One sees leaders Sheffield United take on bottom-of-the-table Coventry at Bramall Lane.