Stockport manager Dave Challinor called on his side to back up their crushing 5-0 win against fellow promotion hopefuls MK Dons after they gave their chances of securing an automatic place a major boost.
Callum Camps, Paddy Madden, Tanto Olaofe, Connor Lemonheigh-Evans and Neill Byrne scored the goals as the Hatters secured just a second win in their last eight matches.
Victory moves them back up to second place – two points behind leaders Mansfield – having dropped below Wrexham earlier in the day.
And Challinor is keen to see his team follow it up in the right manner, starting with Friday’s game away at bottom side Forest Green.
“Is it a statement win if you lose the next two? No it’s not, it’s a win,” he said.
“You have to go and make it a statement win and after 46 games reflect and say ‘yeah, that was a win that really gave us the kick and the boost we needed at the right point in time’.
“You’ve got to go and back that up now with four or five more feelings like that because if you can do that four or five more times, then you get the ultimate feeling of achieving something that we’ve worked so hard for over the course of the season.
“All we’ve done today is increase the gap over MK Dons and put us in a stronger position, and probably put a little bit more pressure on them in terms of the results they’ve got to get in their last six.
“But from our perspective, it still remains the same – we’ve got games to win.”
Defeat for MK Dons sees them remain in fourth place – three points behind Wrexham, who occupy the final automatic promotion spot.
Manager Mike Williamson was left to rue his side’s inability to convert their opportunities before going behind just after the half-hour mark – a period during which they were very much in the ascendancy.
“We’re on the raw end of a heavy defeat, but when we diagnose and we look at it, we’ve got to hold our hands up and say that we gave goals away, of course, uncharacteristically,” he said.
“I thought we played extremely well – we were clean, we were sharp, we mixed it up.
“We couldn’t take any of our chances early on when we were dominant, and then obviously we were punished for it.
“We need to refocus and go again, and try and get that momentum back to where it was before the first goal.
“But they’re up there for a reason and they were clinical in everything they did.”
Manchester City 0-4 Tottenham: Guardiola's champions humiliated in fifth straight loss
Manchester City's losing streak stretched to five games across all competitions as Tottenham stunned the Premier League champions with a 4-0 victory at the Etihad Stadium.
On his 28th birthday, James Maddison scored twice in the first 20 minutes as Ange Postecoglou's visitors caught out their hosts on the counterattack.
Maddison was found unmarked at the far post by Dejan Kulusevski for his opener, then exchanged passes with Son Heung-min and dinked a fine finish over Ederson for his second.
City continued to dominate possession but struggled to find a killer pass, and their hopes of a second-half fightback were dashed when Pedro Porro – who spent three years as a City player between 2019 and 2022 – capped another lightning break early in the second half.
Erling Haaland clipped the crossbar but that was as close as City came to making it competitive, with Brennan Johnson completing the rout following fine work from Timo Werner, as the worst run of Pep Guardiola's managerial career continued.
Second-placed City could now find themselves eight points adrift of the summit after Liverpool’s trip to Southampton on Sunday.
Tottenham, meanwhile, climbed to sixth in the table, four points behind City.
Data Debrief: Uncharted territory for Pep
City have now lost five straight matches in all competitions, including two versus Tottenham after they were also beaten in the EFL Cup last month.
They are the first reigning top-flight English champions to lose five games in a row since Chelsea did so in March 1956.
This is the worst losing streak of Guardiola's glittering managerial career, with City last losing six in a row under Stuart Pearce in 2006.
Should their dismal run continue at Liverpool in eight days' time, their title defence may be in tatters before the festive season has even begun.
Man United could be without Toone until new year, says Skinner
Marc Skinner revealed that Manchester United could be without midfielder Ella Toone until the new year after she picked up a calf injury in training.
Toone has featured in five games in the Women's Super League this season, but is yet to register a goal or an assist so far this term.
The 25-year-old has missed United's last two games and was not selected in Sarina Wiegman's England squad for their upcoming friendlies against the United States and Switzerland.
She had previously appeared in a staggering 96 straight matches before missing United's WSL showdown with Leicester City last weekend.
But ahead of the Red Devils' meeting with league leaders Chelsea on Sunday, Skinner confirmed they would be without Toone for not only that game, but for the foreseeable future.
"We have three games [after the international break and before Christmas]. There's always the hope, but I think you balance and you go, 'right, if we can get her back, we get her back'," Skinner said.
"But we're just not going to rush her in this moment because it's a calf injury, it's your running mechanism. If we injure the running mechanism, it takes longer.
"So ideally we'd like her back for those games afterwards.
"The projection is she misses this game [Chelsea], she misses the international window, probably misses the first game after that, and then we'll see from there.
"But because it is such a short block of only three games, we'll assess whether it's worth that or actually resetting to come back after Christmas."
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
