CENTRE-back David Mirfin knows the Easter weekend is going to be pivotal to Scunthorpe United's hopes of Championship survival.

He is just pleased to be back in the thick of the action after injury threatened his place in the team in which he has been a defensive fixture for the past three seasons.

The next four games though are his biggest challenge as the Iron battle to avoid the drop to League One.

"The Easter weekend is going to be just massive for us," the 25-year-old declared.

"After Saturday's win at Crystal Palace, we are right back in it again.

"We have still got to rely on Palace dropping some points for us to catch them – all we can do is continue trying to pick up as many as we can."

Scunthorpe travel to Coventry on Good Friday to face a Midlands side whose home record gives reason for hope.

The Sky Blues have lost nine times at the Ricoh Arena this season and recently parted company with manager Aidy Boothroyd after a disastrous run of just one win in 16 games that plunged them towards relegation trouble.

But they have won three of their last six games under the caretaker control of coach Andy Thorn.

United too have shown marked signs of improvement since the arrival of boss Alan Knill less than three weeks ago.

"The new manager here and his staff have come in and done well," said Mirfin.

"All credit to them, they have got the lads going.

"Training has been brilliant. We are training now like we are playing and that means we are now going into games knowing exactly what is expected of us.

"The lads were talking after the Palace game and saying that if we had to lose one of our last two games it was better to have lost to Reading than at Palace.

"Our win on Saturday has put ourselves back in with a great chance again going into this weekend's games.

"That's where we wanted to be at Easter, still in the fight to stay up.

"We will have had the best part of a week to build ourselves up again for the game at Coventry.

"We will go into it with confidence and we will go into it having found some consistency again.

"That is a quality we have been lacking all season and I just hope we haven't found it again too late."