James Beattie wants his players to guard against complacency as they look to stretch their unbeaten run in League Two to seven games when Torquay United visit the Store First Stadium.

The Reds climbed out of the relegation places with the 2-0 win at Scunthorpe last weekend but now face the team directly below them in another big test.

And the manager is acutely aware of the importance of taking points against close rivals and is full of respect for Alan Knill’s side.

“You always look at the teams that would supposedly be around you come the end of the season,” he explained. “Torquay are on this little bit of a bad run but we’ll prepare ourselves the same way as we did when we were playing Middlesbrough and we’ll treat it as any other game.

“Once you start changing things that’s when the players get different ideas and that’s when if they think they’ve cracked it that’s when the wheels will start coming off.

“Hopefully we can manage it right and we won’t allow that to happen.”

It’s the first of two home games in a week for the Reds with Fleetwood the visitors on Tuesday night but Beattie isn’t expecting the game with the Gulls to be any different to the one against a Town side pushing for automatic promotion.

“If the lads perform as I know they can do then it doesn’t really matter who we’re playing whether it’s Torquay or Fleetwood I believe they can go out there and get the result,” he continued.

Stanley waited 13 league games for a first League Two win but now find themselves third in the League Two form table ahead of their latest assignment and Beattie won’t let his players rest on their laurels.

“I speak to the chairman Peter Marsden on a regular basis and he’s been great with me.

“He kept faith with me when other people were maybe saying different things, but I’ve always believed what we’re doing here, I’ve always believed in the lads.

“The first step was just getting them to believe in themselves as much as I believe in them and we’ve managed to do that.

“Now it’s just about maintaining the standards they’ve set.

“If they fall below them then I’ll be onto them, because they know what it feels like to win a game and if they take their foot off the accelerator that’s when they’ll get found out and they’ll start experiencing what we did a few weeks ago, and nobody wants that.”