Ian Evatt believes his National League manager of the month award for December shows just how impressively Barrow AFC managed to turn around their form following their autumn struggles.

The Bluebirds lost six games on the spin, in all competitions, going into late November, which dropped them down to 17th in the table, while they also went out of the FA Cup in the fourth qualifying round.

However, they followed that up with their best run of the season so far, going eight league games unbeaten and giving some of the division’s leading lights a bloody nose along the way.

They defeated Solihull Moors and Salford City during December, a month where they picked up 13 points from a possible 15 to lift themselves up to 11th and keep their hopes for a play-off push alive.

Evatt said: “The most pleasing thing for me is that after going through a difficult spell, we’ve come through it with flying colours. In this league, it’s such fine margins – you could more or less play the same game ten times and win five and lose five, it’s that tight.

“I think everyone has shown that; Salford went on a four-game losing run, we went on a five-game losing run in the league and I think Wrexham now are in that kind of run.

“It happens, and it’s about how you react and come back and I think we’ve come back really strong.”

Evatt believes everyone in the playing and coaching staff should share the credit for him picking up his first monthly award as a manager, which was presented to him at Barrow’s training ground at Hopwood Hall on Monday.

The AFC boss is impressed with what he’s seen from his players there in the time since the 2-0 defeat at Havant & Waterlooville that ended their unbeaten run just over a week ago, with them looking to make amends against FC Halifax Town on Saturday.

Evatt said: “It’s nice that I get the award, but it’s very much a team effort.

“The backroom staff – Pete (Atherton), Lewis (Duckmanton) and Callum (Walters) – have been fantastic. They’ve been very supportive and really helped things along.

“First and foremost, the players have bought into the new system and bought into the new shape and they’ve worked ever so hard on the training pitch.

“It was nice for them to get the rewards. It possibly should have been all 15 points, but for a world-class save by the AFC Fylde ‘keeper it would have been.

“It was an excellent month, but we’ve still got a hell of a lot of work to do.”