Caldwell eyes 'fantastic achievement' to end season

Gary Caldwell says topping last season's points total would be a "fantastic achievement"

Exeter City manager Gary Caldwell has challenged his players to pull off the "fantastic achievement" of surpassing their points total from last season.

The Grecians head into a West Country derby at Bristol Rovers on Saturday free of relegation fears, with a 10-point gap to the bottom four, but Caldwell wants his players to lift themselves for one final push.

Last season the Devon side notched up 61 points, so beating that would mean at least four wins and a draw from their last five games, starting with a result at the Memorial Stadium against a Rovers side just three points above the relegation zone.

A point would see Exeter hit the 50-point mark which Caldwell says was their "first target of the season" but he has set his sights higher.

The loss of striker Millenic Alli, who remains joint-top goalscorer despite leaving to join Luton Town in January, hit the club badly, as did the fact they lost three central defenders, with Johnly Yfeko and Pierce Sweeney suffering injuries and Tristan Crama being recalled from a loan by Brentford ahead of a move to Millwall.

Caldwell said: "Wigan in our league lost their best striker (Thelo Aasgaard) and their goals have dried up. We've not been prolific but it hasn't had the same impact on the team as it's had to Wigan in terms of points per game.

"Walsall [in League Two] lost their best striker (Isaac Hutchinson) and have absolutely collapsed in the second half of the season.

"That's what happens when you lose key players in any team at any level, and we deserve credit for how we've managed to keep it going, pick up the points we needed to pick up and still have the opportunity to have more points than last year, which would be a fantastic achievement.

"Until we're mathematically secure we can't rest on where we are, but we want to be higher."

Caldwell confirmed that Pat Jones and Demetri Mitchell will miss the rest of the season through injury, with Jones seeing a specialist over a hamstring problem and Mitchell undergoing surgery on a knee issue.