Barrow AFC manager Ian Evatt has reiterated that he’s not satisfied with the team being set for a mid-table finish in the National League this season.

The Bluebirds are currently 11th in the table and have a potential top-half finish in their hands, which, taken in isolation, represents progress from last year when they only just avoided relegation.

However, that’s not enough for Ian Evatt, who has ambitions of taking AFC back into the Football League for the first time since 1972 and wants the club to stop regarding itself as underdogs.

They’ve shown themselves capable of matching the top teams in the division during the current campaign, but a habit of slipping up against teams lower down in the table has prevented them from making a concerted play-off push.

Evatt said: “I spoke last week about taking the whole mentality of the players, the staff, the management team, the board of directors, the fans, the town, it all needs to change.

“I very much get the impression that everyone’s quite pleased with how we’re doing, that everyone’s happy with how we’re doing - Barrow are the underdogs, little Barrow are doing well beating these big teams.

“Well, I don’t buy into that. It’s not what I want, it’s not what we do and I think we can be a lot more successful than that.

“I’m not happy where we are, certainly not. Many people say to me what a fantastic season we’re having, not for me.

“I want to be better than this and we’re going to work hard to try and be better.”

The next task for Evatt and his players is to put last Saturday’s surprise 2-1 home defeat against Boreham Wood behind them and get back to winning ways at Dagenham & Redbridge this weekend.

The Bluebirds will certainly want to be quicker out of the blocks in East London than they were against the Wood, where they only really kicked into gear after falling 2-0 down.

Evatt said: “I thought in the first 15-20 minutes, we were slow to start, sloppy and probably second to a lot of second balls, we weren’t winning tackles.

“We found ourselves two goals down – obviously the free kick was a fantastic free kick, but the penalty was a sloppy goal to give away. Then we kind of started to burst into life and started to play with the energy and urgency that we need to play with to get three points.

“We could have quite easily still won that game. Taking the first 15-20 minutes out of it, I thought we were much the better team, but the problem is we gave them something to hang on to.”