These are exciting times for Barrow AFC, who have gone into their two-week break from action riding high in the National League, but centre-back Matt Platt isn’t looking too closely at the table just yet.

The Bluebirds’ hard-fought 1-0 victory over Sutton United last Saturday was their ninth win in ten league games and it lifted them back up to fourth and closer to the summit than ever before.

With none of the top three of Bromley, Halifax or Yeovil winning during the weekend, the Bluebirds are just two points off the leaders ahead of their trip to fellow promotion hopefuls Notts County a week on Saturday.

The race for the Football League is arguably as open as it has ever been in English football’s fifth tier, which is why Platt is refusing to get carried away, with so much football still to be played this season.

He said: “I think at this stage of the season, you just want to keep churning results out.

“Once you get past Christmas, I think that’s when you start to look at the league table, but at the minute we just need to keep taking it game by game and keep winning.

“If we do that, then hopefully by the end of the season we’ll be somewhere near where we want to be.”

Platt’s reticence to pay too much attention to the standings is understandable, considering the table hasn’t taken the sort of shape you’d expect by the start of November.

Rather than establish the group of teams that will be challenging for promotion, there is still so much up in the air, as only five points separate Bromley at the top with ninth-placed Woking.

Platt said: “It only takes a couple of defeats and you’re back down in the pack, so we’ve got to keep churning out results, keep finding ways to win, like we did against Sutton, even if it’s not pretty at times.”

Platt managed to recover from taking a whack at Dagenham & Redbridge to start the match against the U’s, but the Bluebirds are currently running short on defenders.

Sam Hird is 50-50 when it comes to being fit in time for Notts County, while club captain Josh Granite looks set for a significant spell on the sidelines thanks to the dislocated shoulder and fractured collarbone he sustained, yet played through, last weekend.

Platt said: “As you go through the season, you’re always going to have injuries, you’re going to have people picking up suspensions or whatever it may be.

“I think you’ve just got to adapt and the lads who have come in have done well, they’ve settled in straight away and fair play to them for doing that.”