Cheltenham Town boss Martin Allen believes having back-to-back home games gives his players a great opportunity to kick-start their battle to beat the drop.

The Robins take on promotion chasing MK Dons at Whaddon Road on Saturday, before hosting Tranmere on Tuesday, and are bidding to close an ever-increasing gap at the bottom of the table.

Cheltenham sit one place off the foot of the table and are five points from the safety after failing to secure a league victory in over a month.

Allen, however, believes that his side have a "great opportunity" to "turn the corner" with eight games to come in a fixture-filled February.

He said: "Your position in the league can change very quickly when the games come thick and fast. People keep telling you about the league table and that the gap is getting bigger, but I'm not thinking about that right now.

"We need to keep working at our game on the training pitch and keep getting our preparations right for the games that are in front of us.

"The points difference and the gap is something you have to take in your stride and focus on trying to close it. We have two back-to-back home games and that gives us a great opportunity to turn the corner.

"There are six points available in the space of three days and that is an opportunity to get right back in amongst it."

The manager has watched his side fritter away a potential five points in their last two games after surrendering leads in the dying stages and held an inquest on Thursday morning, when ideas were bounced around between players and management to try to get to the bottom of the problem.

"I gave the players a chance to put their points of view across and discuss what they can do to help us get over the line," he added. "I wanted everyone to make a contribution and now we will all have some idea of what we need to do to get these victories.

"One school of thought is that we have a number of players coming back from injury and they are not fully match-fit.

"There are other areas we have identified (that could be resulting in conceding late goals) and we are working to improve in those departments."

Allen has agreed a deal to extend defender Chris Westwood's loan spell from Peterborough for an extra month, while goalkeeper Shane Higgs has brought an end to his Cheltenham Town career after almost 10 years.

Higgs, who is out of contract in the summer, has extended his loan stay at Wolves until the end of the season.

Cheltenham (from): Brown, Puddy, Gallinagh, Bird, Duff, Westwood, Ridley, Bignall, Low, Russell, Finnigan, Westlake, Vincent, Spencer, Connor, Owusu, Hammond.