BARROW AFC boss Pete Wild says it's about points not placings as they head into tonight’s home game with Accrington Stanley.

A 2-2 draw at home to league leaders Stockport County on Boxing Day saw the Bluebirds drop from second to fourth in the League Two table.

But for Wild even when Barrow were sitting in second spot, it was never about league standings at this stage of the campaign.

He said: “Ultimately the league tables don’t mean anything until the end of the season, so it’s very much about making sure we are on track on a points tally.

“League tables can be quite false in the fact that some teams will have played more games than others, teams might have played a lot of clubs at the bottom end and not many at the top end.

“So you never know where you are really up to with league tables until the end of the season.”

Instead, Wild, his backroom staff and his squad have been focused on points targets and where they need to be at any given time.

The Barrow boss explained: “We look at it as points per game and our next sort of touch point is 45 points (they are currently on 44).

“We are hunting and chasing that down as quickly as possible and then the next target will be 60 points.

“We understand that we have probably already outdone staying in the league, which is all 24 teams first touch point.

“So the next target is to hit 45 and the next one after that is 60. The quicker we hit those markers the better, because it shows that we are still doing well, and it gives us a chance of hopefully being at the right end of the table.”

The points target is further broken down by month and by game, and Wild says that has worked well so far.

“Per month we look for a minimum of 1.5 points per game,” he said. “This month out of four games we needed a minimum of six points and we’ve passed that.

“We are always looking each month to hit the minimum target and that’s how we’ve broken it down.

“Anything we get over that, then that’s banked up as bonus points. We’ve tried to do it that way this year to take the anxiety out of the league table.

“All of the staff and the players have bought into that, and we know if we are meeting that points per game target we are on the right markers, and we are headed in the right direction.

“We look at how many points have we got on the board? How many do we need for the month? Where will that put us at the end of this month?

“For me that approach has really helped the dressing room, really helped me, really helped the staff to focus in on where we need to be.”