'We can beat anybody in this division' - Curle in bullish mood ahead of Exeter visit

While Town are on a four-game losing streak and have slipped out of the play-offs as a result, Exeter have won three successive league matches and are now level on points with leaders Swindon.

But Curle has complete faith in his side that they can replicate last year's 2-1 home victory over the same opposition and get their season back on track.

"We can beat anybody in this division," he said. " There will be plenty of coupon busters throughout the season in this league.

"The mentality in the changing room, which we've had all the way through, is that we play every time twice and when we play certain teams, it doesn't affect us and can't affect us.

"Whether it's a Saturday or a Tuesday or at the back end of a busy spell, it doesn't matter. It's a game and we go out to represent ourselves and the club and that's how we work.

"Every game is a challenge whether it's against top or bottom of the league and we need to accept those challenges and stand up to them."

Cobblers gave Exeter a run for their money in the reverse fixture earlier this season and went ahead through Charlie Goode's first-half goal, however missed chances proved costly as the Grecians fought back to win 3-2.

"If you look back at the earlier game, we went 1-0 up and had chances to go 2-0 up but they scored from a speculative opportunity and then got another two goals quickly," added Curle.

"We showed some fighting spirit and got a goal back but we ran out losers on the day.

"But goals change games and we need to score goals at crucial times and we need to defend our goal at crucial times because we will get opportunities with the way that we play and the personnel we've got. We need to make sure we take them.

"If you look at the defenders we've got, we can defend our goal. The number of clean sheets we've got this season show that, over a period of time, we can defend our goal."