Gareth Ainsworth says his team are in a ‘good place’ after racking up a fifth consecutive home league win as they prepare to end a long wait for a victory on the road at Accrington on Tuesday.
The Blues’ home form has helped them soar into the top half of the League 1 table, courtesy of their 3-2 triumph over Shrewsbury on Saturday, but they haven’t tasted victory away from Adams Park since late August – a run they’re eager to overturn when they reach the Wham Stadium, where they haven’t won on their last five visits.
“Accrington have almost become a bogey side for us and we want to get rid of that jinx,” said Ainsworth. “We’ll be going up there on the day and we need to have a look at the squad and the recovery levels, so there could be some changes on Tuesday.
“We’ve got a couple of injured players who are very close to returning, and we’ve been performing well with different ways of playing, using different players and changing formations, but the boys have been executing the plan well.
“We feel we can beat anyone on our day if we can reach consistency and keep up our energy levels. We know we’ll get injuries but we’ll deal with it and the boys are in a good place right now,” he added.
Wanderers had to recover from an early deficit to overcome Shrewsbury – having done the same against Scunthorpe a month earlier – and Ainsworth was pleased to see his side ultimately tame a Shrews outfit that reached the play-off final last season and had hit good form under caretaker boss Danny Coyne.
“Maybe we were caught cold and can do better, but it gave us a wake-up call and we showed resilience and that old word ‘bouncebackability’! We took the hit but then didn’t feel sorry for ourselves. They’re a tough side and Danny’s got them playing well, but after they scored their first, I didn’t feel we were troubled too much. It was a ridiculous error for their second goal, but overall it was good to see things come together that we’ve worked on.
“Alex (Samuel) deserved his goal because he was outstanding leading the line, and Curtis (Thompson) was immense – nobody was going to get past him and his performance was almost Gape-esque in that sitting role.
“The first XI were superb and then the subs came on and slotted in really well. We’ve got some fantastic players on the bench that I can’t get into the team and I’m really pleased and proud of everyone’s efforts and the results we’ve been getting.”