Stockport's Challinor refuses to dream of Wembley

Boss Dave Challinor has taken Stockport from the National League to within two wins of the Championship [Shutterstock]

Stockport County manager Dave Challinor claims he is not dreaming of Wembley because he's "ever the pessimist".

The Hatters are in a great position to reach the League One play-off final with a 1-0 lead over Stevenage Borough heading into Wednesday's semi-final return leg at Edgeley Park.

However Challinor has told his players not to get carried away by Saturday's success in the first leg, courtesy of Ben Osborn's 90th-minute winner.

He told BBC Radio Manchester: "It's really, really easy to get carried away and that's certainly not something that's in my persona.

"I'm ever the pessimist, if anything, and I let all the other people be the optimist.

"Of course, it's easy to look ahead at what might be, but what might be doesn't happen if we don't take care of our stuff.

"We can only control us, what our mindset is, what our mentality is and how we carry out the game plan required to win the game on Wednesday.

"If we do that and we're one step closer, you'll have more questions further down the line.

"But at the moment, there's only one objective from our perspective and that's to perform on Wednesday and try and take ourselves to a final."

'Attack the game'

Stockport lost to Leyton Orient in last season's play-off semi-finals and were in the National League North as recently as 2019.

Challinor knows what is at stake and is mindful that Stevenage won 3-1 at Edgeley Park in December.

"We've got to do exactly what we did on Saturday," he said. "You have to deal with their threats in terms of what they can do on our home patch.

"We'll have the crowd behind us, which will great, but we need to perform well.