Craig Mackail-Smith says Notts County are staying positive despite suffering back-to-back defeats this week.
After losing to Newport on Tuesday, they were beaten at Tranmere on Saturday with Connor Jennings’ second-half strike enough to send the Magpies home from Merseyside empty-handed.
But Mackail-Smith feels there is still plenty of belief in the camp.
“We’ve stayed positive and we’ll pick the bones out of the loss and look ahead to Port Vale next weekend,” said the striker.
“The first three results since I came in were great and the last two didn’t meet the standard that we set but we believe we can do what we need to over the remaining matches.
“It just shows how quickly things can change. A week ago, we put in a fantastic performance to close the gap and it’s definitely possible to do that again, so we have to take the positives from previous games and move on.”
The 34-year-old says he is enjoying the challenge of keeping Notts in the EFL and wants the younger members of the squad to do the same.
“I’m doing everything I can to help the team because there are still 12 games left,” said Mackail-Smith.
“There are ups and downs, which there always are in football, but there is plenty to play for and this is an exciting task.
“You don’t get challenges in football a lot of the time and if you’re not playing to be challenged then there is no point.
“The experienced boys will help the younger lads and we still believe we have the capability to get out of trouble.”
Notts struggled to get going in an attacking sense against Tranmere, which Mackail-Smith puts down to the January arrivals still being in the process of bedding in.
“We’ve worked on it in training but we didn’t click going forwards and the pitch didn’t help,” he said.
“We’re all learning each other’s strengths and developing an understanding of where people want the ball and it’s starting to click.
“We’ll continue to work on it in training ahead of Port Vale and hopefully we’ll have more confidence, more luck and we put it right next Saturday.”