St Albans City manager Ian Allinson is hoping the change in fortunes hasn’t come too late to save the club from relegation – and wants everyone to keep believing.

City sit second bottom of the Vanarama National League South. But they followed up victory over Weston-super-Mare last Tuesday with a 3-1 success away to Hayes & Yeading on Saturday.

And those results have put them just three points from safety with eight games to go.

But the City boss knows there is still a lot of work ahead for his rejuvenated squad.

He said: “We have to work hard and we have to work harder than the opposition. And if we do that the quality we have in this side shows through.

“I think it’s certainly shown over the last couple of games and if we do that I think we’re a decent side.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’re not running out of games because we’re still in and around that little pack and we’re catching them up.

“We’ve got to keep believing. We’ve got eight games to go and if we can get the same application, the same work-rate and same qualities as at Hayes, we’ve got a chance.”

Saints have played more games than their relegation rivals but results have gone their way this week with Hayes losing again on Monday and Weston, Bath City and Whitehawk suffering reversals on Tuesday.

And while he has one eye on the table, he knows that they have got to keep doing the same things.

“Every game we go into we know that a defeat could be a massive dent in our chances of staying up,” he said.

“The players know that; they’ve accepted it. It’s not new to me and the one thing I won’t do is panic. I won’t put pressure on the players.

“I’ll get them to try their best and work hard. And that’s what we’ve got at the moment.

“We’ve got a bunch of players who are buying into what we want to do and I have to say the performances over the last few weeks have been outstanding.

“We’ve got to concentrate on what we’re doing and ignore everyone else.

“I still think we need a minimum of five wins out of our final eight games and maybe a draw or two which might give us 46 or 47 points.

“That may have been enough in previous years, this year it possibly won’t be. But we’ve got to give ourselves a chance by being in and around it.”