IAN Evatt sees no reason Barrow AFC cannot continue their impressive form against the top sides in the Vanarama National League when Ebbsfleet United visit tomorrow.

The match signals the start of run which sees the Bluebirds tackle the likes of Leyton Orient, Eastleigh, Wrexham and Harrogate Town over the next month, while tomorrow’s opponents harbour play-off ambitions of their own too.

Evatt is delighted with how his players have performed against the sides above them so far this season, which continued with a 1-0 win away to Sutton United last Saturday, and knows they need to keep it up if they are to be involved in the post-season promotion shake-up.

“We’ve got an excellent record against the top six which goes to show we haven’t got anything to fear and, on our day, when we do the correct things, we are a very difficult team to play against,” said Evatt.

“The players have to take confidence from that and really push on, and I think we’re doing that. Whether we’ve got enough time to get into the play-offs this season I don’t know, but we’ll have a right good go.

“Certainly, we’re building for next year and we’re laying down platforms to be really strong.”

The National League is a notoriously unforgiving place for young players, but Barrow have seen several of those come to the fore through the season.

Josh Kay, who got the winner against Sutton, earned plenty of plaudits from Evatt, while the manager was pleased with how Blackburn Rovers under-23 captain Lewis Hardcastle fared on his full debut after signing on loan the previous week too.

However, Evatt knows there is still plenty of work for those youngsters to do.

“We have got a lot of very good young players who, one day, will hopefully turn into valuable assets for the football club,” said Evatt.

“But, for now, they need to keep working hard on the training ground, keep improving and see where that takes us.”

He is well-aware not only would more good results over the next month keep Barrow chipping away at the sides above them, but also deny them of points.

“Ebbsfleet are the ones immediately ahead of us, so to close the gap on them we need to be beating them,” said Evatt.

“We’ll be going all-out to do that and, as I’ve said before, we go into every game trying to win and we don’t go for draws.

“This is a difficult league and I think, at times, even the top teams have had difficult spells, but we’ve got to keep it up. It’s as simple as that and we’ve got to keep going.

“We’ve got an outside chance of the play-offs and we need to win games to get us there, so hopefully on Saturday we can make sure we do that.”