Stevenage boss Steve Evans says he is aiming to refresh his players to take on a Carlisle United side with “vigour”.

The visitors are preparing for this weekend’s trip to Brunton Park for the big third-v-second showdown.

Stevenage moved back into second place after beating Crewe Alexandra on Tuesday night, and their next two away games come against fellow high-fliers Carlisle and Northampton Town.

Evans knows both will be difficult tests given the work done by the respective bosses at United and the Cobblers.

“They’re two really tough away games. If you were saying you’ve got to go to Carlisle, who are third, and Northampton, who are fourth, it’s going to be really tough,” said Evans in interviews after the 1-0 Crewe win.

“But you can see how tough it is for teams to win games. Look at Mansfield, probably the biggest resource in the league bar Salford and Bradford, and they’ve just lost at Northampton.

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“They’ve got some real vigour, Jon Brady and his boys [at Northampton], and I know Paul Simpson will have that at Carlisle on Saturday.

“We’ll recover the boys as best we can and ask them to go and produce another workmanlike and decent performance.”

Stevenage have enjoyed back-to-back wins to move back to the front of the pack behind runaway leaders Leyton Orient.

The Scot added that the pressure of the race will soon start to tell on inexperienced figures in various hotseats.

“Tuesday was about accumulating three points, looking forward to Saturday, and then it’s ten games to go – and then we’ll see who can deal with the pressure, some of the managers who’ve never been the course,” he said.

“See some of those horses at Cheltenham who’ve never been the course?

“It’s squeaky bum time after this weekend.”