LUKE Joyce is eager for tomorrow’s clash against Burton to beat the weather as Accrington Stanley bid to avoid the sort of fixture backlog that saw them tail off alarmingly at the end of last season.

Temperatures are forecast to drop to minus four tonight, rising only by a couple of degrees by tomorrow, and Stanley have already seen one home game called off in recent weeks after a frozen pitch forced the postponement of the home game against Shrewsbury.

The Reds have covered the Crown Ground playing surface in a bid to keep the match on, which would secure important revenue for the club and also give John Coleman’s side a chance to improve on their current lowly position of 19th in the League Two table.

Stanley are yet to win a league game on the road this season and have not played on home territory since their 1-0 win over Stevenage on November 20.

And Joyce would rather avoid a repeat of last season, when the club amassed several games in hand but then failed to win them as they slipped from play-off contention to 15th at the end of the campaign.

“We would like the game to be on,” said the 23-year-old.

“After losing our last two games we are keen to play and put that right with a win. We have won our last two home games and we have got Burton now and then Crewe here on Boxing Day, so we need to be looking at maximum points.

“We don’t want to be having a lot of games in hand. I’ve got a thing framed from when I was in the team of the week in February and it shows the league table – we had about three or four games in hand and we were only three or four points behind the play-offs.

“I think the games caught up with us and with the same lads playing week in, week out we got tired.

“I think we would be able to cope with it better now because we have a bigger squad, but playing Saturday-Tuesday at home puts a lot of pressure on our pitch and it can cut up. We want to avoid that.”

And playing games is also a personal ambition for Joyce, who was a regular last season but has often found himself as understudy to summer signing Charlie Barnett this term. He has started just five league matches but featured in a strong reserve side on Tuesday.

“It has been stop start, a bit frustrating,” said Joyce, whose current deal expires in June.

“I played more than 50 games last season and my aim was to do the same again.

“I was a bit unlucky because I played against Oldham, Southend and Stevenage last month but I got a knock and the gaffer decided he couldn’t risk me at Bradford, then he thought they played quite well and stuck with that side.

“You want to be in the team and playing to give yourself a better chance of getting a new contract, too.

"If you’re not in the team you worry about what might come at the end of the season and whether it might be bad news, which would leave you in a tricky situation having to find a club.

“But I’ve just got to work hard and hopefully get back into the team.”

The club are making efforts to ensure tomorrow’s game goes ahead, with chief executive Rob Heys saying: “We are keeping an eye on the weather and have got the covers on.

“We will do everything we can.”