Stevenage boss Alex Revell: We’ve given ourselves a really good opportunity

Alex Revell believes Stevenage are giving themselves every chance to do something special this season after a 2-1 win at home to Stockport put them on the verge of the League One play-off places once again.

Jamie Reid had originally been given their first goal, equalising in the 35th minute after Adama Sidibeh had fired County ahead six minutes earlier.

Skipper Carl Piergianni took that off him after the game had finished, but there was no doubting it was Matt Phillips who scored the winner 12 minutes into the second half, leaving Boro a point off the top six.

“I know what I see every day,” he said. “I know that when we cut the mistakes out, we’re a good team and our home record is outstanding.

“We know how well we’re doing and what we saw was a really committed team, committed to winning and trying to achieve something for this football club.

“To do the double over Stockport is a great achievement for us, because they’re expected to be up there.

“We’ve given ourselves a really good opportunity now.”

Revell said the second-half performance was key to that, with an increased work ethic and effort shining through.

“It just goes to show what we can do when we play with an intensity, play with togetherness and when we’re connected as a group,” he said.

“And by the word ‘connected’, I mean in terms of who we are. We’re a team that are really hard to beat, we work extremely hard and we always say that the ability comes out when we give ourselves an opportunity by working like that.

“I thought we were just a little bit off it in terms of how aggressive we were in the first half but the messages the staff got to everybody at half-time were perfect.

“And second half we saw a performance that was so together.”

Dave Challinor, meanwhile, was met with some boos at the final whistle as Stockport fell to a second defeat on the road in a week, following the 3-0 loss at Burton.

He pointed to missed chances as being crucial, saying: “If you get opportunities, you have to take them.

“We need to build quicker, especially when we’re chasing the game. We have to supply the forward players more often because it’s evident that by just getting a selection of opportunities at the moment, we’re not making the most of them.

“That would suggest we need to get it up there more often and quicker to allow them to have one-on-one situations.

“We didn’t do that enough. We didn’t ask enough questions of their back line in terms of the defensive stuff.

“We knew what the game would look like but when you go from being in front to being behind, that suits what Stevenage want to do.”