Quakers host Brackley this afternoon looking to bounce back from their midweek defeat at title-chasing Scunthorpe that left them six points behind the play-off position in 11th, with games in hand.
Brackley, who arrive at Blackwell Meadows having avoided defeat on their previous six visits to the ground, are third in the table thanks to three straight victories.
“In our last home game (against King’s Lynn), I thought we played really well and thoroughly deserved our 1-0 win,” said Mitchell. “We created a lot of good chances especially in the second half.
“We broke on them well and looked comfortable. We restricted them to very few efforts on our goal. That’s the sort of performance we need against a team that is third top at the moment. Brackley are in good form, but so are we, despite our last result at Scunthorpe.
“We reviewed the game and saw some good things, and there are things to improve upon, such as working on the final third of the field where we weren’t precise enough and we didn’t get the key passes right.
“There were a lot of positives against a very good team. It took two good strikes to beat us, but they didn’t create loads of chances.”
Quakers have games in hand on most of the teams above them – Peterborough Sports pushed them down a place in midweek – and Mitchell said: “You always want points in the bag.
“We’re in the mix with 12 teams, fighting to get the one automatic promotion place. We’re a bit off trying to get that one, but we’re still in with a chance of the play-offs.
“We knew going into this run of matches that we’ve got coming up that we’d need to win half of them. Nothing’s changed, we’ve got 14 to play, and we need to win eight or nine of them.
“It’s possible, just as it was last season when we were fighting relegation. We’ve got faith in the players.”
Striker Cameron Salkeld is missing today because of an ankle injury, but defender Kallum Griffiths could come back into the reckoning after missing the midweek game at Scunthorpe.
Brackley will include former Darlington winger Justin Donawa in their line-up. After helping Quakers reach the first round of the FA Cup, Donawa left Quakers for Solihull in 2021 and then moved on to Altrincham. He joined Brackley during the summer.
The visitors have the third-best away form in the league, having picked up 30 points from 17 away matches this season, only losing five times on their travels.