Lambert: You Need Wins, That's the Nature of the Game Friday, 19th Feb 2021 11:32 Manager Paul Lambert admits he needs to win some games at present with his position at Town looking ever more tenuous. The Blues, 11th in League One with the division's form team Oxford at Portman Road on Saturday, have won just just three of their last 10 matches and four of their last 14, and most recently picked up back-to-back victories in October. Asked whether he needs some wins to save his job, Lambert said: “I think that's the nature of the game, you need to win games. It doesn't matter how you do it, you need to win games. “If you win ugly, great. If you win playing magic football like the Man City way, then even better. But just win the game, that’s what we have to get the focus on, just win the game.” Asked whether he might change his footballing principles to get some results and ease the pressure, he said: “We'll try everything we can to win. We’ve got footballers in the team and that's what we try and do, we try and use footballers. “We try and do everything we can, we try and mix it up if we can. But as I said, the lads will be ready for the game tomorrow, that's for sure.” Lambert said after the 2-0 home win over Blackpool that that could mark a turning point but since then the Blues were defeated 2-1 at Peterborough and drew 0-0 with Northampton. Town are still to beat any side in the top 10 at the time other than Accrington, losing the other nine games against those teams. Could a win against eighth-placed Oxford - who have lost only once in 13 in the league and recently went on a run of nine successive victories - instead be that turning point? Lambert says he’s currently taking each match as it comes. “I think one game at a time in this moment,” Lambert continued. “If we win on Saturday, we don't think we're going to win the league and we don't think we're going to get in the play-offs. “It's one game at a time. I think we're four points off it and a couple of games in hand with 20-odd games left to go. There's still a helluva long way to go, but we need to try and get inroads into it, and we need to try and get that win where hopefully it turns.” Has anything different been done at Playford Road in the days since the Northampton disappointment? Additional meetings, anything like that? “We’ve spoken as groups throughout the season, as you always do," he said. “You speak individually, you speak as groups. I don’t have a problem with the guys’ attitude or anything, the way they’re going about it and trying to everything they can to turn it around. “They believe they can get into the top six, that’s the biggest factor as they believe they can get into the top six.” While the top six remains a realistic target, the gap increased to five points after Wednesday's fixtures, the top two, now 12 points away with only 20 games left, looks out of reach. “You keep going, you never give up,” Lambert said when asked whether he felt that was now the case. “Your attitude might be different to mine, you might be a quitter, I’m not. I’ll fight for it.” Reflecting on matches coming thick and fast, Saturday-Tuesday, until late March, Lambert says there’ll be no time for a break. “I guess that's the way of the world just now,” he said. “It's not ideal playing Saturday- Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday because the turnaround is incredible, and it's a lot of work for everybody at the club. “You need all hands to the pump and I think that's for me the big thing, we need all hands to the pump for everybody to say there's a lot of work here, there's not many days off or for people to rest and you've got to try and turn it around.”
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