Mark Randall believes Saturday’s victory over Accrington Stanley was the “biggest of the season,” writes Ryan Robinson.
After Randall’s initial shot was saved by Stanley ‘keeper Marek Rodak, Ryan Bird appeared to bundle home the rebound to give County a third straight victory at Rodney Parade.
It leaves the Exiles with fate in their own hands as they rose out of the relegation zone for the first time since beating Notts County on 19th November.
And Randall has pinpointed Saturday’s victory as the critical result.
“Credit to the boys and the fans – the best result of the season,” he said.
“We always seem to do it 1-0 now but at the end of the day it’s the biggest three points of the season. All the boys put in a great performance, everybody at the club has been brilliant to get us into this position.”
County kept a 4th clean sheet in five games on Saturday, something Randall says has been key to the upturn in form.
“Our defence has been rock solid apart from the Plymouth game. We knew we had to brush that off and come back and I think we did that today – we showed everybody what we can do.
“If it was any other team that we lost 6-1 to then it would have been different but we’ve shown that we forgot about it and showed everybody that we are confident of staying up.”
He added: “I think the boys showed today that we’ve all been defending for our lives. Six weeks ago things looked different but football is a strange game and it changes quickly and we’ve shown that.”
Randall won the fans man of the match for his display in the Stanley game, but says the game is now well out of his memory as all his attention is on Carlisle.
He said: “I honestly believe we can do it now.
“However, we have to take it game by game, Carlisle away next Saturday is a massive game and it’s two cup finals really.
“We need to put in a good shift and performance. Of course, it would be nice to get it done Saturday but we just take it game by game and focus on what we’ve got to do.
“We had a lot of chances against Accrington and only took one but I think Carlisle’s pitch is half decent so hopefully we can take more. We showed at Exeter that we can play as-well as battle.”