The players becoming ‘addicted to winning’ has played a big part in Barrow AFC’s rise to the top of the National League, according to manager Ian Evatt.

It has been a stunning turnaround from the Bluebirds since the beginning of the season, as they have turned losing six of their opening nine games, throwing most of those results away in the process, into a distant memory.

Since then, AFC have won ten out of their last 11 league games, showing not just the quality on the ball that they’ve become renowned for in the division, but also adding a grittier mind-set when out of possession.

It has allowed them to start grinding out results when not at their best, but there’s no doubt they were absolutely on top of their game in last Saturday’s 3-0 win at Notts County, which was arguably their biggest statement of the campaign so far.

Evatt said: “They have a desire and a will to win. They’re addicted to winning and I love that - I was like that as a player. I was just addicted to winning because it’s massive to win football matches on the Saturday.

“To go home at night and think about what you’ve done and what you’ve achieved is a great feeling and they’re addicted to that feeling.

“But we’re only on the way to our end goal and our end goal is to get promoted out of this league and unless we do that I’ll see it as failure because I do believe we’re that good.”

It’s a mark of where Barrow’s confidence and levels of performance are at that the victory at Meadow Lane felt in no way like a shock result to those inside the club and to the 471 supporters that made the three-and-a-half hour journey down to Nottingham.

The growing levels of expectation is one of the reasons why Evatt was as calm as he was post-match and he is now demanding his players produce more of the same when they welcome Barnet this weekend for the first of two home games in three days.

Evatt said: “I was calm because I know how good my players are and I knew that we were capable of that.

“I think sometimes there is a slight arrogance from other clubs’ supporters - they think that they should just turn up and beat teams like Barrow and win at places like Barrow, but that’s not happening anymore.

“We play a great standard, a great brand of football, both out of possession and in possession.

“We work our socks off and we press when out of possession, but we we’re cool, calm and composed and have real quality in possession. I’m so proud of them, but it was only three points and we have to go again on Saturday.”