WANDERERS launch another recovery job in the Vertu Trophy tonight with assistant manager Peter Atherton insisting staff and players are still on the same page.

Confidence dented by a disappointing 3-1 defeat at Rotherham United at the weekend, and pressure piled high on the shoulders on manager Ian Evatt, media duties were left to his right-hand-man Atherton as the team prepared for their last 16 clash at Sincil Bank.

Evatt’s post-match interview after the Rotherham defeat hinted at frustration that some of his players have not taken enough responsibility for the inconsistent form shown in League One this season.

Atherton believes, however, that there is an opportunity to correct course.

“Clearly the manager was very disappointed with a lot of things,” he said. “Of course, we all want to win every game, and when the levels drop below the standard, then everybody is disappointed, and we analyse it.

“As I've said, and we look at the things we should have done better, and we look to correct that straight away. But when all's said and done, we have a way of playing, we need to do that, and it's down to the players once they cross that line to put in those performances.

“We are in it as a group. The staff and the players are all in it together, we all know we need to be better, and that's the target for tomorrow night (at Lincoln).

“Winning in any competition is important. You want to build momentum, you want to have winning ways, you want the players are going into games confident. The longer we can do that and the better we can do that, then it puts us in a better place already, whether it's in the cup or the league.”

Wanderers racked up an impressive 3-0 win against Lincoln before Christmas in the league but the three games since have seen a litany of defensive errors.

As a former defender himself, Atherton is keen to try and stamp out the self-inflicted issues which have heaped unwanted pressure on the team.

“You look at all three goals from the weekend, and they are all from transitions,” he said. “We were in possession, we lost possession and got caught on the transition, so that's disappointing.

“The way we play, we know those situations arise, on counter-attacks. And we're generally pretty good at dealing with that, but on Saturday we weren't, and a lot of that was our own doing.

“The only positive from that is we're not looking to anyone else, we just need to look at ourselves, and if we can put those defensive errors to bed, then we know we've got goals in the team. The longer the game goes on, we know the way we play, we can get goals.”

Wanderers host Cambridge United on Saturday and Atherton hopes they can go into that game with some momentum, having qualified for the quarter-finals of the Trophy for the third consecutive season.

“Obviously losing brings that pressure, and you have to face that, and you have to deal with it,” he said. “After that, it is about moving on.

“This game is coming around pretty fast, so it gives us that good opportunity to bounce back straight away.

“We are trying to correct things under our control, control the controllables, because that is all we can do right now. We have got to make sure that we're putting the performances to the level that we expect, because if we do that, then we're a challenge for anybody.”