AARON Nell accepts a ‘desperate’ Swindon Wildcats have left themselves with little margin for error in their bid for a place at Premier League finals weekend.

Wednesday’s 5-1 defeat at Milton Keynes immediately put the Link Centre men on the back foot in their play-off campaign, with Basingstoke’s 7-0 thrashing of Hull taking them and the Lightning clear at the top of the four-team pool.

The Pirates visit Swindon tomorrow (5.30pm) before Nell’s outfit make their second trip to the home of the Bison in seven days on Sunday and the Cats’ head coach concedes they have little wriggle room in the race to Coventry next month.

With five play-off games left over the next nine days, Nell believes a minimum of four wins will be required to take his roster through to the season finale but will initially look no further than getting the job done against Hull on home ice.

“Saturday now is a must-win game and we have got to be a desperate hockey team and I know we will be,’’ he said.

“It is a must-win game and I think nine points will guarantee you going through and with eight points, you’ve got a good chance.

“Every game is massive and it’s a time of year you want to be playing as they are big games and we are all looking forward to Saturday.’’ The Cats have an unblemished home record against Hull this season and although Lightning and Basingstoke have tasted success in Wiltshire, Nell knows the importance of securing home points during the play-off campaign.

“The home games are massive, they are three big games,’’ he added.

“We want to try to win every game, that would be the easy thing to do. We have got to take it one at a time and Saturday night is as big as they come. We’ve got to make sure we win it.’’ The Wildcats faced Basingstoke home and away in their final regular season games last weekend and Nell added: “Last Saturday was a good game and on Sunday – I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what the game was like – but we had two of our best players out of the line-up so it’s not a negative. We have put in three good performances.

“The past weekend was always going to be tough, it was more about performances and not results.

“We will bounce back. We have had a lot of adversity this year and when the chips are down, we always bounce back and we will do that on Saturday.’’ First-choice netminder Stevie Lyle missed Wednesday’s defeat due to illness, but Nell hopes to welcome his experienced stopper back into the fold.

“We are pretty sure Stevie will get rested up for a couple of days and he will be back for Saturday,’’ he added.

“It was always going to be tough without Stevie and at times we played good hockey. We will bounce back on Saturday and we are looking forward to it.’’