Darryl Duffy has warned his Bristol Rovers team-mates that all of the teams they face over the rest of the season will be scrapping desperately for points.

The Pirates can have a major say in who goes up and who goes down from League One at the end of the season.

On Friday they face struggling Northampton Town at the Memorial Stadium – one of the four teams they still have to play who are embroiled in a relegation dogfight.

The two other clubs on their fixtures list are scrapping to secure at least a play-off spot.

"Every team we face between now and the end of the season has got something to play for," said striker Duffy.

"MK Dons and Millwall are trying to make a late push to get an automatic promotion place, while the likes of Swindon, Northampton, Hartlepool and Brighton are scrapping away at the bottom.

"There will be no easy games – and if we walk on to the pitch thinking that any of them will be easy, then we will finish the season poorly.

"That's not the way I want to finish it. I want us to finish it on a good note and on a high note."

Rovers' 2-0 defeat at Tranmere on Sunday was their third in four games and Duffy knows the Pirates cannot afford a repeat of the end-of-season slump they suffered last term.

"If we'd won at Tranmere, we'd have been eyeing ninth place in the league and I think that would be a decent season for us," he said.

"Instead we are stuck in 14th, which, considering the players we've got and some of the performances we've put in, isn't good enough. We need to have higher aspirations.

"I don't want to be feeling how I did after the defeat at Tranmere when we play Northampton on Friday – and I don't want to be feeling like it when I go for my summer holidays.

"I want to go away buzzing and raring to go for next season. If we finish the season strongly and in a good position, we can all go away with a spring in our step.

"That can only be good for pre-season and the start of the next league campaign."

Rovers have the best 'goals for' tally and goal difference outside the top six in League One but still find themselves languishing in mid-table.

"We've got the best goal difference of the teams around us, but if that was the be-all and end-all then we'd be higher up the league," said Duffy.

"It shows we have to do better as a team to push ourselves up the league."

Rovers found it hard to create clear chances in their weekend reverse at Prenton Park, although Duffy insisted he was denied the opportunity to net his 12th goal of the season by a bad offside decision.

"It was onside. The ball hit one of their central defenders on the way through," he said. "Whether the linesman thought it came off one of our players, I don't know. But I couldn't believe it when I saw the flag was up.

"It would have been a bread and butter one-on-one chance for me – and I don't tend to miss too many of them. It could have changed the outcome of the game.

"We didn't get much from the ref at Tranmere, but it's no good looking for excuses because we weren't up to our usual level. That was pointed out to us in the dressing room afterwards and everything the management said to us was fair – and completely true."