Charlie Charlesworth says Elgin City must focus on getting their own performance right when they welcome Dumbarton on Saturday.
The Sons cannot finish any higher or lower than second in League Two, meaning they are gearing up for a shot at the promotion play-offs.
City recorded a fine 2-1 victory when the sides last met at the Rock in February.
Charlesworth says the Black and Whites cannot go into the game with any expectation that Stephen Farrell’s men will ease off – insisting they must focus on ensuring their own display is up to the mark.
Charlesworth, who is in interim charge along with Stevie Dunn and Ross Draper, said: “It’s easy for us to look into how they will be playing, but we would just rather concentrate on how well we need to play.
“We have got to go about it like it’s just another team we need to play. We can take a degree of confidence from the fact we have beaten them.
“Do they relax now because they are second, or do they just want to keep things going so they are in good nick for the play-offs?
“Either way, what they do doesn’t affect us. We’ve got to make sure we are on our game, because if we are then hopefully we can affect the other team.
“We can’t keep anything in reserve, we’ve just got to produce a performance and play as well as we can.”
Elgin looking to move closer to safety
City could clinch League Two survival if they win, and bottom side Albion Rovers lose to East Fife.
The visit of Dumbarton is Elgin’s penultimate game of the season, which concludes away to bottom-of-the-table rivals Bonnyrigg Rose next week.
Despite suffering a setback in last week’s 3-1 loss to Stranraer, Charlesworth takes heart from the fact Elgin remain in charge of their own fate.
He added: “If we can get three points on Saturday it’s either good news, or it puts us in a good position.
“We had a bad result last weekend. It wasn’t a great outcome between the three or four teams, but we are still in the driving seat in terms of how we can make our destiny.
“We got a bit of a bounce out of the lads with the four points. Out of the three games we have been involved in two have been excellent, but last weekend was pretty poor.
“But if I’m perfectly honest we can’t look back. Obviously we will do a bit of analysis, but we’ve just got to make sure everybody is vibrant and confident.
“We will go again – there’s no point in thinking about anybody else. We will just think about ourselves and keep trying to push forward.”
City will assess the fitness of midfielder Brian Cameron and will have Matt Jamieson and Dylan Lawrence back in contention, however Matthew Cooper and Jake Dolzanski will miss out.
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