Stevenage boss Darren Sarll is looking for his side to raise their game for the visit of Barnet on Saturday following their 0-0 draw at Cambridge United last time out.
The away point kept Boro fourth in the Sky Bet League Two table, but with plenty to work on this weekend as they look to extend their seven-match winning streak at home.
Sarll said: “Firstly for Saturday let’s get the performance levels back up [as] we’ve had a terrific spell at the Lamex recently in performance and in results and the second thing is to continue to gather points so that we can stay as high up the league as we can.”
Of the visitors, he added: “It’s another [game], similar to Cambridge, I think they are all derbies.
“The area we are in is brilliant, you can count so many of these games as derbies.
“You can go all the way down to Wycombe and maybe I can count that as a little derby, Barnet, Cambridge, obviously Luton, last year we had Northampton that could have been, we have MK on our doorstep if and when, but it’s a good game for us.
“They had a good win last week, I know the manager [Kevin Nugent] fairly well and he’s a good man.
“They’ll be working very hard to try and build on a good performance and a good win at home to Cheltenham, but as any other time of the year it’s very much about Stevenage for me and very much about knowing that at our peak, at our optimum, we are quite a substantial force now and it’s about getting to those levels.”
Saturday’s clash sees League Two’s joint highest scorer, Barnet’s John Akinde, meet the division’s third highest scorer in Boro’s Matt Godden.
Of the duo, Sarll added: “John Akinde is a good player, for two years he has been a consistent spearhead of Barnet’s attacking threat so I think we would have researched Akinde as much as we can in order to reduce his strengths.
“At the same time we will continue our work with Matthew.
“You’d be foolish to think Matthew is there yet, he has got so much more to get and to do, because we know the extent of his potential we are constantly trying to allow him to realise it.”
Tom Pett a doubt for Saturday after suffering a deep cut to his leg which required nine stitches against Cambridge.
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