New Swindon Town signing Connor Ripley does not see any reason why the club should not be able to reach the League Two playoffs this season.
Ripley was Town’s only deadline day arrival ten days ago and will be hoping to make his debut this weekend with the trip to Harrogate Town.
Having played a game or two more than most of the sides ahead of them in the table, Swindon are ten points behind Salford City in seventh place with 15 games of the season remaining.
Ian Holloway said last week of his expectations for the rest of the campaign that he wanted to “terrify” the teams above Swindon and make them believe that they can catch them.
When asked about what he expected for the rest of the season having arrived on a six-month contract, the 31-year-old goalkeeper said that Swindon should be aiming for the post-season.
He said: “Right now I see a confident group who have had a spell of winning games and you can see that in them.
“You can see that the lads are raring to go and I think that there is a bit of belief in the club now.
“I know that Swindon didn’t have the best of starts to the season, which is beyond me because this is a big club which should be up near the playoffs, but right now they are ten points from that with 16 games to go.
“There is no reason why we cannot be in the playoffs, that is our aim and that is what we are going to do.”
Despite Opta giving Town a less than one per cent chance of the post-season, Joel Cotterill backed up Ripley’s ambition after the draw with Port Vale.
He said: “Tactically [Holloway’s work has been] massive. Especially now coming into the second half of the season and us pushing for the playoffs, which I think that we can definitely push for.”
Ripley also spoke about how Holloway had convinced him to move from a Port Vale side in the playoff places to a Swindon side in the bottom half of the table.
He said: “He didn’t really sell the club, he sold himself with how he wants things to be going and what he expects.
“The club sells itself, it is a big club and it shouldn’t really be in League Two and I think everyone knows it should be a bit higher.
“When it comes to Ian we had a chat for about 45 minutes and the way he explained what he wanted and what he wanted to achieve resonated with me.
“I don’t want to be going from a club that is in the playoffs to a club that is going to get relegated and he said ‘There is no way that that is going to happen, we are going to the playoffs.’
“That sounded good to me because that is where I want to be and that is what we are going to achieve.”
