On Saturday we travel to Accrington and everyone needs to be prepared for a tough game.

Last season in the FA Cup they took us by surprise at how quickly they started and for the first 20 minutes they were first to everything.

One thing we’ve done this year, though, is work hard and we are just in need of more quality with the ball. Accrington is not the most glamorous of places to play but it’s somewhere we have to believe we have a good chance of winning.

Apart from the first half at Bury, I feel we’ve played better away from home this year, so we’re not far from our first win.

In an ideal situation, we would have liked maximum points from two home games this week, ahead of the weekend’s trip, but to come away with the next best of four points and two clean sheets is a good return and something we can build on.

It’s been an important week for us with those home games back-to-back and the manager was looking for a positive reaction after the disappointment at Bradford.

The games against Burton and Southend were quite similar, in that they were scrappy, with the ball spending a lot of the time in the air.

The first-half displays, especially, in both games were not up to our standards and we can probably count ourselves lucky that our opponents lacked quality to punish us.

It could also be down to the fact that defensively, since Bury, we have been good, especially our two centre-halves Josh Gowling and Matty Lawrence.

I was also delighted for Lance Cronin (pictured) who, after a bit of criticism at Bradford, has kept two clean sheets and pulled off some important saves.

Both second-half displays saw us improve in retaining the ball but we all know that we could do better when in possession.

Unfortunately, in League 2, it’s easy to get caught up into playing more direct. You can guarantee many teams will have big lads, with other players trying to pick up the scraps from flick-ons.

It’s not pretty football but it’s something we all have to get used to. It’s up to us as players to have trust in each other’s ability because we do have players who will cause the opposition problems when the ball is at their feet.

The win against Burton was a great feeling, although it was scrappy. We’ve played better this year and not won and we would certainly take "winning ugly" every week rather than playing great football and coming away with nothing.

It was great to see Cody McDonald get off the mark against Burton.

It’s been a frustrating start for him, with a few niggling injuries but he works hard for the team. He and Bayo are starting to get a good understanding.

You can see in training that he is a natural finisher and is not scared to shoot.

He reminds me a bit of Freddy Eastwood, who I was with at Southend. He could make a goal out of nothing and hopefully that is the first of many for Cody.

At last there was some positive news for Simon King this week and, fingers crossed, he could be back running in a few weeks.

He’s been putting on a brave face for over a year now, so I’m delighted for him that he could be close to joining in with the boys again.

He is an important player for the squad and we certainly missed him throwing his body in front of every shot at goal.

For such a pretty boy, he was never scared to put his head in where it hurts!

Go towww.kentonline.co.uk/sporton Saturday afternoon for live text commentary of Accrington Stanley v Gillingham