Notts County need to put the 2-1 defeat against Port Vale behind them and kick-start another run in Sunday’s meeting with Crawley Town, says first team manager Shaun Derry.
Ahead of the Vale Park loss, Notts had taken seven points from three games to make up significant ground on the teams outside the bottom four.
Although a setback in the battle for safety, Derry will not allow his players to dwell on the result and has already set his sights on another important festive fixture.
He said: “We need to make sure that everybody recovers right ready for Crawley away and it’s onto the next challenge.
“This Christmas period is unrelenting and it’s unforgiving as well.
“You can’t get too down and disappointed when you’ve lost and you can’t get too high and mighty when you’ve won.
“We’ve got to keep doing what we’ve been doing and take it into the next game.”
On the Boxing Day result, Derry added: “When I first came here I said there was a manner of losing and I thought we lost in the right manner.
“I’m disappointed that we did – obviously – especially coming off the back of three positive results but we had difficult circumstances heading into the game.
“We lost the best part of four players out of last week’s squad so what I will say that it gave some of the lads an opportunity and Ronan took his chance again with another goal, which was satisfying."
For full post-match reaction, sign in to Magpie Player.