Alex Revell keeping himself grounded after Stevenage climb into play-off places

Stevenage manager Alex Revell is refusing to get ahead of himself despite a fine 1-0 win over Reading putting them firmly back into the Sky Bet League One play-off places.

Dan Kemp’s strike five minutes from time was the difference between the two promotion hopefuls, but while it was late in coming, it was thoroughly deserved for a Boro side now up to sixth.

Revell knows he cannot take too much for granted just yet, with the international break looming ahead of their final eight games.

“We had it here when we beat Luton and then we had the [October] break,” he said. “We’ve just got to make sure that we use this time to get the players ready because we’ve got a lot of games coming up between now and the end of season, the games are going to come thick and fast.

“But we want to keep the momentum and the lads can rest, spend some time with family and friends and then we’ll get back to work later in the week ,and make sure we’re ready for the test ahead.”

However, the performance of his side, especially in the second period at the Lamex Stadium, would suggest something special may well be very achievable.

“There were some individual performances that were the best I’ve seen for a very long time,” Revell said with pride. “And the second half was just a complete dominance for me.

“What we asked them to do at half-time compared to the first half, they delivered and all you’re hoping is that you get the goal that the team deserved.

“We’ve got an outstanding goal and it was just a really, really top afternoon for everybody here.”

Reading boss Leam Richardson admitted it had been a tough afternoon with a disappointing result.

He said: “I thought we were more than competitive in the first half. We had a lot of final third entries, a lot of box entries, far more than what Stevenage did.

“But second half we were poor. The balance of our team, with Randell Williams and Jeriel Dorsett coming off, that probably slowed us down a little bit but then you’ve got to give credit to Stevenage.

“And once we were in that moment, we struggled, our connections were poor, we struggled to get ourselves out of it.”

However, he is not throwing in the towel on their play-off hopes.

He said: “When I walked in the building, everybody was looking over their shoulder thinking we might get relegated out of the league.

“Now we’re in a promotion push, a play-off push, so it’s all to look forward to. We’ve got seven games to go, and all our energy must go on those seven games.”