Luke Williams: Notts County 'mentally preparing' for National League play-offs
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Behind the scenes for a day with promotion-chasing Notts County
Notts County manager Luke Williams says accepting the National League title is out of reach will not derail his side's push for promotion.
Leaders Wrexham are three points clear and have a game in hand on County with seven matches remaining.
After saying the Magpies' title hopes were "over" after their draw at Barnet, Williams says his side must now be "mentally prepared" for the play-offs.
"There's a bigger goal at stake and we have to stay focused on that," he said.
"They have performed at a very high level and ordinarily they would probably be top of the league, not second.
"And it is their performances and hard work that has got them to that level, and so they need to focus on that and not feel like they have failed to achieve a goal by not winning the league."
With County still to go to Wrexham and both sides on track to break the divisional record of 105 points in a season, clinching the one automatic promotion spot is still mathematically possible for the Magpies.
But Williams says it is "out of our hands" and not something he wants to distract from a potential play-off campaign.
"We can go on a run of winning games and anything can happen," he told BBC Radio Nottingham.
"The message is not let's do nothing then see if we can turn it on later in the play-offs, the message is let's not focus on things we can't control, let's focus on maintaining very high standards and see how far that takes us.
"Of course there can be many twists in the tale between now and the end of the season, but we have to be mentally prepared to protect ourselves."
When County opened their doors at Meadow Lane and at their Lady Bay training base to BBC East Midlands Today, Williams was filmed delivering that message to his players before the visit of Scunthorpe on Saturday.
"I understand that there is pressure, but please don't think about the pressure," Williams told his squad during a briefing session.
"I know that is easy for me to say and it's harder in practice to do, but our objective is to get up."
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