PAUL Cox has not given up hope on Barrow AFC's season – and he does not want anyone to do so either.

The Bluebirds boss is concerned heightened expectations created by the pre-New Year 26-game unbeaten run could lead to the club tearing itself apart and people turning on each other ahead of the run-in.

Barrow welcome Sutton United to Holker Street tomorrow on the back of defeats to Tranmere Rovers and Guiseley (3pm kick-off).

The former result saw – a 5-1 thumping – saw the Bluebirds knocked out of the FA Trophy, leaving them with just the National League to concentrate on.

However, a 1-0 loss against Guiseley at Nethermoor on Tuesday made it just two wins in 11 league games for the Bluebirds, who sit eighth in the division, five points off the play-offs with 13 matches remaining.

Recent form would suggest Barrow will struggle to climb back up to the dizzy heights of third place they reached back in November, but Cox has seen signs that his team are starting to click once more.

He felt they were mightily unlucky not to claim a result at Guiseley, and saw indications in the display there that the team were close to be back to their best.

Now, he wants everyone to unite behind the cause for the final two months of the season, forget about negativity and attacking each other, and push AFC on to potential success.

“I can imagine what is happening. There will be a lot of people losing their heads,” said Cox on the back of the recent dip in form.

“I think we have to have an understanding of what our goal was before the season started. I think we have been on course all year which was – not moving the goal-posts – to affect that top-10 and try and affect the play-offs, which is what we have done.

“We reached the third round of the FA Cup, the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy, now it's about finishing the season well.

“I don't want expectation to ruin what, for the first 15 months I have been at the club, has been a steady incline on our journey.

“Sometimes, expectations and making that rod for your own back by doing so well, so quickly, can be a catalyst for disaster, because expectations overrule everybody's head and everything starts crumbling. People get a little bit disenchanted with thinking that we deserve to win games all the time. Expectation levels outstrip everything. Everyone starts to turn on each other, everything starts to implode.

“For my first full season here, my experience of being in and around football for a long time, winning this league, I think sometimes that raising of expectations levels too high has happened.

“There has to be a learning curve. It's not just about putting a good team out there and just getting on with it. It has to be a building process, it has to be a learning curve. There are players at our club who will never have been involved in a 26-game unbeaten run, who have probably never been to the third round of the FA Cup or the last-eight of the Trophy. It's new for some of the supporters, new for some of the people working behind the scenes.

“We've got to keep level and we've got to be focused on our eventual goal. That's to keep building, to lay some strong foundations, and to make sure that all the work that is going on at the minute isn't an overnight get-rich-quick scheme that falls apart. It has to be a real, strong movement as a football club.

“When we do eventually reach our goal of getting to the Football League, it could be this season, it could be next season, it could be the season after – at Mansfield I got five years to do it – it is done with strong foundations and with a level-headedness so we achieve it in a logical manner.”

Cox has a full squad to choose from tomorrow, with Shaun Beeley having returned from suspension to play at Guiseley and no other issues with fitness or bans.

He is hoping the team can build on their display in midweek – when Lions keeper Jonny Maxted and his defence kept out a number of AFC chances – and take confidence into tomorrow's showdown with a Sutton side who have won their last two National League matches since their FA Cup exit at the hands of Premier League Arsenal.

“Let's go back to Saturday,” Cox added. “I thought in the first half we played well. The second half, we let ourselves down and the players let themselves down, and they understood that. When I have a go at the players, I'm having a go at myself as well, because I'm one of the pack.

“On Tuesday night, we lost a football match. I'm never going to try to convince anybody that losing football matches is positive. But our performance levels against a side who went down to Dagenham two weeks ago and beat them – one of the better teams in our league – away from home, were fine.

“The game was very one-sided in my view. The goal went against the run of play in the first half and we applied ourselves. Everything, our shape, our structure, our desire, was excellent, and on another night we would have won that game by three or four, no problem. When people see the chances we missed, it will raise a few eyebrows. That happens sometimes.

“I thought the players in the dressing room afterwards had that little look in their eye. They had the understanding when I told them that if they keep that level of performance up, they will achieve something this season.

“These are all ifs, buts and maybes. If we play like that on a consistent basis, positive results will follow.

“We've lost seven games in the league all season, and I still think over 15 months, the number of games we have lost has been out of this world.

“We've won some games in the last two or three weeks that we probably didn't deserve to win. It swapped it round on Tuesday – we deserved to win, but we didn't.

“That level of performance was excellent for this stage of the season. It was the end product that was missing – and it wasn't even about creating chances, it was about finding the back of the net.

“If we can replicate for half the games or two-thirds of the games, even the 13 games, we're quite capable of doing it for, then we'll be successful.

“I don't know if people have given up on the season, but I haven't, certainly not after Tuesday's performance. I really do believe that was the old us.

“No-one can promise anything. I'm not going to promise we are going to win every game between now and the end of the season. I'm not naïve. I understand players, I understand there will be circumstances that are out of our control – injuries, suspensions – but if these players do what they did on Tuesday night, then we will win a lot of football matches between now and the end of the season.”