"We've put ourselves in a great position" - Niall Maher's captain's column

You could be very, very happy if we'd got six from six, but to come out of the Easter weekend, with two games with a quick turnaround, unbeaten and four points out of six, we'd have taken that at the start.

In areas against Chesterfield I'd say it was our best performance for a while.

I think we've shown glimpses in games that we're getting back to ourselves and how good we are, in possession, believing in ourselves again, and showing what we've worked on all year.

There was a five or ten minute spell in the second-half on Monday where we looked a bit stretched and they had a couple of opportunities, but I never really thought we were in danger throughout the game.

You try and not look at the table. Yes we've got a bit of breathing space to fourth place at the moment but there's still a lot of football to be played.

We can't come off the gas, we've said this. We've put ourselves in a great position to be where we are, and we're on track to meet the expectations we put on ourselves at the start of the year.

We can't look at what everyone else is doing, we're fully and solely focused on ourselves, and we can only take it game by game.

It will be a difficult game at Southend, they dropped down from the Football League last year, they'll have a big gate.

We can only be ourselves, go and do what we're good at and try to exploit their weaknesses.

We're fully focused on ourselves and we'll look to go down there and get a positive result.

Since I've been at the club there's always been a great cohesion and bond within the group, I just think this year we probably have more finesse, that's got us over the line, and a few more experienced heads.

There's also a no-fear youthfulness, that hunger and desire, a grit, wanting to play with no fear, I think that's got us over the line at stages.

Some of the lads might not have a lot of experience but they're playing with freedom.

I think the lads this year have stuck by one another, and we've helped each other along the way.