Town were beaten 2-0 at Carlisle yesterday to make it back-to-back defeats over the long weekend.

The loss leaves Gray's men 12th in the division, but while they are only five points off the top six, results elsewhere mean there could be as many as seven teams vying for the final play-off spot.

The team head to Cheltenham on Saturday before playing host to Luton Town, who will almost certainly be relegated to league two before the end of April.

Both games are winnable, and Gray says his players must maintain the belief they can finish in the top six, both for themselves and their fans.

"We've got to keep believing," he said. "We can't afford to just let the season fizzle away.

"I won't accept that because we owe it to our supporters, the people who follow us to places like Carlisle, and we owe it to ourselves as well.

"You never know what could happen in this game and I've got a feeling
it will go down to the wire because all the teams have got to play each
other."

Joe Burnell – who has captained the side in the absence of Chris Doig and Mark Hughes – says the view from the dressing room is that while going up is a mathematic possibility the players will refuse to give up on it, though he was bitterly disappointed with the showing at Brunton Park yesterday.

"As long as it's mathematically possible none of us will give up," said Burnell, who has been on armband duty for the past four matches.

"We just need to go another run now.

"We've proved we can go on runs where we pick up a lot of points and we need to just let this defeat sink in, let it hurt, and then kick on at Cheltenham on Saturday.

"There's no big crisis, it's just disappointing to lose two games on the bounce after the run we've been on and when we know we can do so much better."