Wellens urges against becoming distracted

Athletic manager Richie Wellens

Richie Wellens has again insisted that he doesn’t care how anyone else goes on in rearranged matches, it’s all about how his Athletic team perform when they get out onto the pitch.

Ahead of tomorrow’s crucial SportsDirect.com Park clash against out-of-form Portsmouth, Athletic remain two points clear of the Sky Bet League One relegation zone.

Winter postponements mean some sides – most notable Rochdale – are playing midweek matches and picking up points here and there, but Wellens takes little notice of how any of Athletic’s rivals are going on.

“It was noticeable after our game against Southend was postponed that people were saying ‘this result went for you, that result went for you’,” insisted Wellens.

“All that doesn’t matter. If you win a certain amount of games and get to a certain points level, it doesn’t matter what other teams do.

“That’s been proven year in, year out, that if you get the points you stay up.

“It’s no good us looking at other results, and then when it comes to our game we don’t do our thing.

“It’s important we don’t get distracted.

“There has been a lot of postponements this last couple of months so there will be a lot of Tuesday, Wednesday games where teams play their games in hand, but it’s so important we don’t lose sight of how we play.

“That’s the only time we can affect where we are in the table, and so far the players have done really well in looking after that.

“The only way you can put any pressure on teams in and around you is if you influence your own results.”

While Athletic will be looking to move further away from the drop zone with a win against Pompey tomorrow, Kenny Jackett’s visitors are not enjoying the best of spells at present.

A run of four defeats in their last five games has seem Pompey slide to 12^th in the table, seven points shy of the play-off places.

Athletic’s only slight injury worry ahead of the weekend surrounds skipper Anthony Gerrard (calf).