Graham Alexander on Scunthorpe's stunning transformation

Scunthorpe find themselves at the heart of the most intriguing of final day situations on Sunday, worlds apart from the mundane mediocrity when Sky Bet League 1 Manager of the Month Graham Alexander took charge.

Having drawn five of their last six games, with attendances barely clearing 3,000, the Iron were languishing down in 13th in the table with nine games remaining and without a permanent manager.

With their promotion odds at 200/1 with the Football League sponsor Sky Bet, the board opted to move for former right-back Alexander in the aim of preparing the squad for another crack at making the Championship next season.

Little did they know that seven games later they would be recording a fifth successive victory in front of 7,275 fans to move a result away from the play-offs.

Few are more surprised by the upturn in fortunes than Alexander, who admits: "Part of the reason for me coming in was to assess what we needed to improve over the summer. Then just win try and win as many games as possible.

"We started okay and then when we got beat by Bradford at the start of the month we were 10 points adrift of the play-offs with six games to go.

"We just set a target for the players to win as many games as possible and show people, even though we were perceived as having nothing to play for, that we cared about winning and wanted to put on a show for the supporters.

"The momentum sort of come from that and we've managed to win five on the bounce, and results elsewhere give ourselves an outside chance on the last day of the season."

That care for the crowd was never likely to be lost on Alexander, who began his career as a right-back with the Iron 25 years ago.

"When I met the chairman and chief executive I was desperate to come here because I know it was a great club and I thought there was good players here and ambition," he added.

"Starting here and playing here for seven years made it extra special for me to come here and work."

The Iron faithful will now be focusing on a decisive trip to Sheffield United, with various permutations deciding the fate of the three teams involved.

Barnsley sit in pole position but arguably have the toughest fixture as they travel to all-but champions Wigan, while Gillingham are also in with a chance as they host Millwall.

Alexander's men need to either better the Tykes' result or match it and improve their goal difference by three goals due to their inferior goals scored tally, while the Gills will snatch sixth spot if they win and the other two fail to do so. 

However, the 44-year-old insists that his and his players' interests will solely be on securing three points at Bramall Lane.

He added: "We have to focus on what we can do. We haven't looked at other results until after the games, we haven't looked at what might happen and we won't be doing that on Sunday.

"If we look at anything else then that means we're taking something away from our focus from the job in hand and we need everyone 100% focused on what we can do, because Bramall Lane is a tough place to go and it's the biggest club in the division.

"It's been set up nicely. There's great excitement around the town and we had over 7,000 at Glanford Park last week.

"We've requested an extra tickets for Sunday and we'll be taking a massive following so it's our responsibility to turn in a performance for them.

"We won't be going with any special plans to score more goals than Barnsley can do because it's going to be tough enough to win the game in the first place.

"We can't affect anything elsewhere but if we go and win the game then we've done as much as we can possibly do and then it's down to the lap of the Gods."

Alexander secured promotion via the play-offs in his previous post as Fleetwood boss. If he can repeat that feat with the Iron by transforming mid-table mediocrity into monumental success in minimal time then the God-like status will be his.