Wycombe Wanderers manager Gareth Ainsworth has insisted that he is ‘happy to go under the radar’ if it means the Chairboys make an immediate return to the Championship.
His side sit top of the League One table on 52 points following their 2-0 win over Thames Valley rivals Oxford United last weekend, one point ahead of second placed Wigan Athletic, who have four games in hand.
And with an away trip to 21st placed Morecambe on Saturday, Ainsworth hopes his side can continue their unbeaten start to 2022, which has seen the Adams Park outfit win three and draw one since the turn of the year.
The Chairboys are taking on Morecambe at the Mazuma Stadium for the first time since November 2017 (PA)
Ainsworth said: “The 1-0’s and 2-0’s, under the radar performances are really important to me. I do not want to be the team that score loads of goals.
“I want to be the team that is tough to beat.
“I pride myself on teams saying ‘we are really tough, we hate playing against Wycombe’.
Despite travelling to the Mazuma Stadium to face a side that has only won six matches this league season, the boss has stated that this campaign so far has had the ‘best quality’, compared to any of the other League One seasons he has managed in.
There are only 12 points separating first and eighth with all those sides not playing the same amount of games, whilst there are only eight points between ninth placed Portsmouth and 16th placed Shrewsbury Town.
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And with 19 games left for Wycombe to try and get that all important place in England’s second tier, Ainsworth knows that ‘consistency’ is key to their successes.
In nine visits, Wycombe have only lost once away at Morcambe in the Football League (PA)
The boss also revealed that the current situation at Derby County has nothing to do with their ability on the pitch.
He continued: “Consistency is a huge part of what we are doing. You get teams that rollercoaster and have huge defeats, they are the ones that end up missing out.
“We need to look after our own results, it’s too early in the season to think about other teams’ results.
“When I was a player, all you want to do is train and play.”
“You ask my boys and some of them won’t even know about it [Referring to the Derby situation].
Gareth Ainsworth and Matt Bloomfield will attend the funeral of Alana Hurford this morning before boarding the bus to Morecambe.
— Wycombe Wanderers (@wwfcofficial) January 21, 2022
Everyone at WWFC is thinking of Alana and her family today. pic.twitter.com/CmfXQpMZpv
“Our job is playing on a Saturday and Tuesday and getting points.”
When Wycombe faced Morecambe in October at Adams Park, a Curtis Thompson strike in the final minute of injury-time saw the Chairboys come back from 2-0 to defeat the Shrimps 4-3.
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