Rather than ignoring the pressure of the bigger picture, Mark Reynolds wants Cove Rangers to embrace it.
It is approaching do-or-die stage for Cove. They have won once in 14 games and with Hamilton Accies’ midweek win over Raith Rovers, they find themselves at the foot of the table for the first time this season.
Hamilton are the opponents this weekend; Cove trail John Rankin’s side by two points and have played a game more. Lose and they find themselves in dire straits.
“Every game is huge – it’s been like that for the last five weeks,” said Reynolds. “Every time we lose a game, the next one becomes bigger.
“There was a school of thought that you block out the pressure and treat it as another game. For me, it’s been about embracing that and stepping up in these games. You need to understand there’s a lot on the line.
“You need to put on performances in big games and we need to do that.
“When the pressure is on, it makes or breaks you. We’ll find out. The pressure is ramping up and the game is huge.
“We need everybody to step up and come together as a team.”
Reynolds is one of the oldest heads in the squad. His playing career dates back more than 15 years, having taken in Motherwell, Sheffield Wednesday, Aberdeen and Dundee United.
Big games have been won and successes have been achieved. But the run Cove find themselves on now, where they are shipping goals almost at will, is new territory even for him.
‘There’s lots of reasons why we are where we are’
“The closest I’ve probably came is my first season at Motherwell, where we finished 11th and just avoided relegation,” said Reynolds.
“That was a long time ago. But in a similar way, there’s a lot of reasons why we are where we are this season and ultimately we need to put that aside. We’ve still got five games to get results and it’s in our own hands.
The desire of the players was called into question after the 5-0 loss at Partick Thistle last weekend and on both sides, there seems to be a genuine bafflement as to why training performances are not being translated on to the pitch.
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be where we are,” he added. “You get teams that don’t train well, no harmony in the squad and there’s issues – they then go out on Saturday and get results.
“You get teams like us who are doing things right in training and getting good information from the manager but we’re just not doing it when it comes to games.
“We’ve always been a team that just goes out and plays and we’ve been well aware of what the manager wants us to do. We just need to stick to the plan, as we’ve done before and we’ll get to where we want to be.”
Cove have five games left to beat the drop. Arbroath, who have done their survival chances the world of good by picking up back-to-back wins, are still on the calendar in the remaining month of the season.
But they have to be ignored for now, with Hamilton the only target in Cove’s crosshairs.
“We just need to win every game in front of us and that starts on Saturday,” he said. “We’ve not looked any further ahead than that.
“We go to Hamilton and we need to find a way of picking up three points.”
Cove boss Paul Hartley says he isn’t even entertaining the idea of the club taking a backwards step as he says he still “firmly believes” his side can beat the drop.
The threat of relegation is a world away from Hartley’s previous seasons at the helm, having guided Cove to the League One and League Two titles over a three-year period.
Hartley said: “It would be a step back for the first time in a long, long time – and we don’t want to do that.
“All we’ve thought about is staying up, we haven’t thought about anything else.”
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