Forest Green boss David Horseman believes his side’s performance in a 0-0 draw at Walsall is firm evidence they will soon escape the League Two drop zone.
Rovers remained second-bottom, now two points from safety, but had the better of the first half against the Saddlers with Troy Deeney, Harvey Bunker and Kyle McAllister all going close.
And while admitting their position is down to a failure to convert their chances, Horseman is adamant successive relegations are not in the pipeline.
“The boys were absolutely brilliant,” he said. “The first 20 minutes was the best we’ve played by a million miles and we probably should have scored two or three and actually finished the game.
“I want to win, of course, but there was lots for us to be proud of today. Probably just that last pass or cross wasn’t there and that was the only disappointing bit. But we deserved our point.
“We haven’t strung enough results together and we have been getting beat in games like this but today we showed a little bit more steel and determination.
“When we look at our stats, they are top seven in the league but we don’t score enough goals at the moment. I thought there were times some of our football blew them away.
“We don’t believe we are a bottom-two team and we don’t believe that once we start getting players back that we will be anywhere near the bottom two.”
Deeney was back at the club he began his career with but so was ex-Walsall trainee goalkeeper James Belshaw – and it was he who stole the show as he saved brilliantly from Freddie Draper and Danny Johnson.
But Walsall boss Mat Sadler said his side should have had a penalty when Jordan Moore-Taylor handled Ryan Stirk’s volley.
Sadler said: “I think it’s a penalty – I’ve seen it back. The referee has got a really good angle of it as well, he’s right down the barrel of it so I don’t see how he doesn’t give that. It’s got to be a penalty.
“The big moments when there were some big opportunities, we didn’t quite have the quality today. That final ball, that little bit of end product wasn’t there for us. No one could really light the blue touch paper.
“But as the old adage goes, if you can’t win it, don’t get beat and we take a clean sheet and move on. We have to remember the positives even when we are frustrated we’ve not gone on and won it.
“We’re still striving for that consistency of team selection – we’ve had injuries, suspensions, illnesses, we’ve never quite got settled like we would want but we are working towards that.”
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