2010/11 – Written off already?

With just a couple of days until the new season starts, football fans up and down the country have that nervous excitement in their bellies, the hope that this might be their year.  Such optimism, such light-headed anticipation!  It’s the kind of feeling that only a 5-0 reverse at Gillingham can spoil.

How not to head a ball, courtesy of Scott Cuthbert (and swindontownfc.co.uk)

As Swindon fans, our emotions seem to be on a permanent rollercoaster.  Last season began with that humiliating thrashing down in Kent followed by gradual improvement, stopped off for a bit of fun at Craven Cottage, reached a peak with two 3-0 donkings of Leeds and Charlie Austin’s goal at Southampton, merged with fear as the play-offs approached and wins turned into draws, exploded with delight on a Monday evening at the Valley and ended, devestatingly, in a damp Wembley squib.  As teams go, we’re not the easiest to predict!

Not that that’s going to stop the pundits of course.  In the last couple of days I’ve seen Sky Sports News attempt to sort the winners and the losers in League One, and today the BBC Sport website has had it’s say.  Neither of these has any time for Swindon.  It seems we’re being written off already.  Again.

BRILLIANT!

Despite playing some excellent football and taking points from most of the leading sides, we were largely ignored last season and it suited us very nicely indeed.  Without any pressure or fuss we went about our business easily making it to the play-offs, and even flirting with second place for a while.  When the pundits finally sat up and took notice, our form dipped as the nerves set in.  Clearly if we have a season like the last one it won’t take as long for reporters to single us out, but it is nice that the players can once again get on with the job in hand with just the local Wiltshire rabble to impress.

In terms of the playing staff, it’s excellent news that Ferry is back, Caddis is almost universally lauded as a player, and I think that Prutton will be a fine addition to the squad.  I don’t know much about messrs Ball and Rose, but they are also well respected.  On the flip side, we’ve lost Paynter to Leeds, Greer to Brighton and Ward is back at Bolton.  Despite finishing the season as top scorer, I don’t think we’ll miss Paynter all that much.  Champagne Charlie has had a very decent pre-season, Big Vince should be fit for the first time since he’s been at the club, and Thomas Dossevi has impressed during his trial.  If we were to also land Tresor Kandol, as is reported, I think we’d have an excellent looking attack.  We will miss Ward who just got better and better as the season progressed, but hopefully we can fill that gap quickly.  Greer is a big loss, and very disappointing.  Hopefully Sean Morrison will step in, but central defence is probably our weakest position now in terms of depth.  I am sure Morrison and Cuthbert will do well, but we’re looking a bit exposed if one of them gets injured.

A bad pundit. Well, two actually...

This pre-season reminds me a bit of the season we got to the play-offs under Andy King.  I remember Chris Kamara, amongst others, writing us off as relegation candidates and could only assume they hadn’t looked at the squad.  That’s the way I see it this time around.  In my opinion we have a better bunch than we did last season.  If we can get a decent centre back to add depth then we’ll be pretty much there.  Yet we’re being ignored by the pundits and journos who are supposed to know what they’re talking about.  Yet they all tread the same well worn path of picking Southampton and the three relegated sides as promotion favourites.  It’s just lazy journalism in my opinion.  Sheffield Wednesday are financially crippled and may well struggle, while Plymouth and Peterborough are back where they belong and will find that League One sides are ready to gobble them up.

Will we go up this season?  Who knows.  But there is clearly a momentum behind the club, and the squad we have is more than good enough to battle for honours.  I can’t wait!

Come on you REAL whites!

I’ve moved on.  I no longer feel the pain of defeat.  I am numb when it comes to matters of domestic football.  There is no domestic football.  I have moved on.

I have moved on to the excitement and promise of further disappointment that comes with following England in the World Cup!  Yes, I flee these shores this very day, fly south for the summer and am due to spend and enlightening and incomparable month in Africa.  It is surreal but true that in just a couple of days I’ll be in a stadium in Rustenburg watching England play the USA in the 2010 World Cup!  Incredible.

I will, of course, be blogging about my adventures.  Please follow my World Cup experiences at www.england2010.wordpress.com.  If this doesn’t shift the remaining grains of post-Wembley sadness, nothing will!

100% disappointment

Almost 24 hours after the event, I am still struggling to find any positives from yesterday’s play-off final defeat to Millwall.  Losing a game like this is always a massively disappointing, but something in an event like that should bring some kind of silver lining.  For me, right now, there is nothing.

Pic from the Adver

Let’s start with the performance.  Be honest, we just didn’t turn up, did we?  Our first half performance was pretty poor with only a few half chances to our name.  Disappointingly from our perspective, we suffered in the same way we did at the Den a few weeks ago.  Millwall were the hungrier side and they didn’t give us a second on the ball.  We didn’t know how to cope with it then, and we couldn’t cope with it yesterday either.  The second half was infinitely better  and we played some excellent football at times.  But the fact that we can lament just one clear chance in the game says an awful lot. Fair play to Millwall, they were the better side and deserved to win, and I congratulate them for that.

I mentioned our one chance – the bobble.  No-one in the stadium could have seen the ball dink up just as Charlie went to shoot, so to us all it looked as if he’d fluffed his lines.  I kind of wish that was the case.  I don’t want to blame the pitch.  Charlie Austin has been superb for us this season and his time will come, hopefully by firing us the Championship in a year’s time.  So in no way would I hold that miss against him, and I feel desperately sorry for the guy.  But as I say, I don’t want to think what if.  I don’t want a lump of soil to have been the difference between us losing or not.  In the end, it really wasn’t the difference.

What, then, about the atmosphere?  Well, there wasn’t one at our end, and this is another disappointment.  It’s difficult in an arena like that to get things going, to orchestrate a good sing song.  It did happen once or twice, but the whole thing almost felt like a bit of a non-event.  The play-off finals in the old Wembley didn’t suffer the same dead feel.  You can put it down to the fact that we had fewer fans and more space this time around.  You could, justifiably, blame the poor first half performance.  I also think that the effect of the Millwall fans can’t be ignored.

Let’s come on to the Millwall fans, shall we?  I was disappointed when they beat Huddersfield in their semi-final simply because of their fans.  Now, I’m not scared of Millwall fans.  I have been to the Den a few times, I know what they’re like and what they’re all about as a club.  Their strategy is one of intimidation and they’re very good at it.  I believe that, even with fans like Millwall’s, you’re only likely to find trouble with them if you go looking for it.  If you don’t want it, by and large you can avoid it.  But my problem was that their presence was going to create an intense air of intimidation, and that’s what happened.  For most fans a play-off final at Wembley is in itself a day of celebration and excitement.  I remember mingling with Sunderland and Leicester fans before and after the games in the 1990s and it was brilliant.  The atmosphere between both sets of fans added to the whole occasion.  Had Huddersfield been at Wembley yesterday instead of Millwall I am sure the experience would have been just as cordial.  Partisan, certainly, and with the intensity of two sets of fans desperate for success, but without it needing to become unpleasant.  I’m not suggesting that all of Millwall’s fans are thugs.  I am sure at least a dozen of them are decent people.  But they deliberately create an unpleasant atmosphere of intimidation and fear, and I for one felt it was a shame that an all too rare trip to Wembley could be spoiled by that.

I chatted to a few Millwall lads on the tube before the game and while they were loud and boisterous, one particular guy was very nice and wished us luck, shook hands and all the rest of it.  But outside the stadium there was a lot of aggression and it was a relief to get into the ground.  And against any other team I would have stayed at the end of the game to applaud our players off the pitch, but I felt the wise course of action was to get away from the place before their fans spilled out and put their attention towards people wearing red.

So, all in all I found the whole experience a real let down.  I’m sure it wasn’t the same for everyone, and I hope you had a good day despite the result.  As I look out of my of my window right now and see beautiful sunshine I can’t help wondering if things might have been different had it not pissed down all day!

Invoking a Saintly Spirit.

The big game is just hours away now and, predictably, the nerves are beginning to set up camp ready for an all out assault on my senses.  Why does it mean so damned much to us?  It’s crazy, but we all feel it.  This game is just huge. The difference between winning and losing is enormous: back in the Championship for the first time in years, back where we belong, or yet another season in the third tier scratching around in places like Hartlepool and Oldham, struggling to keep hold of our better players.

I guess the nerves are a combination of excitement and what might be, fear of failure and a  gnawing feeling of helplessness, that all of this nonsense is out of our hands.  It’s all on the team, and how they perform.

Performances this season, especially since Christmas, have been generally superb.  We need another excellent performance at the weekend.  We cannot rely on Millwall to have an off day, we need to have a better good day than they do.  What we need is to recreate the spirit of Southampton.

The headline performances during the regular season were undoubtedly the two three-nil wins over Leeds, first at the County Ground and then, and I can still barely believe it, at Elland Road.  I wasn’t at either of those games (GROWL!) but I did see the games against Southampton, and it’s clear to me that if the team is up for it on Saturday like they were at St Mary’s then we have a very good chance.  That day we faced a Southampton side who had been knocking in goals for fun in their previous games, and who had a play-off place very much on their minds.  They were about to have a Wembley visit of their own in the JPT, so there was an inferno of optimism about the place.  Yet we turned up and put in a performance that was more than a match for them and in the second half we were outstanding.  In the words of one of my Saints supporting friends:

 Swindon made us look shit in both games this season, especially at St Mary’s

This is what we need on Saturday.  We need to find ourselves back there on that Tuesday night, the fans need to sing like we sang that night, the players need to give their absolute all, just like they did that night.  May the Saintly Spirit be with us at Wembley this weekend.  In short, we need a moment or two like this:

Of course, One thing we won’t be lacking this weekend, perhaps ironically given that Millwall fans are likely to outnumber Swindon fans in the stadium, is popular support.  Millwall supporters will be supporting Millwall, obviously.  They can add to their ranks fans of Oxford United, Bristol City, Bristol Rovers and probably Reading.  But just about everyone else will be on our side.  The neutral vote will most definitely be in our favour.  I have already had well-wishes from fans of other London clubs, including a particularly emphatic pledge of support from a West Ham fan.

But it seems that dislike of Millwall goes well beyond local rivalry.  No-one likes them and they don’t care, as they seem intent on reminding us at every opportunity.  The lady doth protest too much, methinks.  Anyway, nowhere was the extent of our support so eloquently expressed than on my own Facebook page where I received the following comment from an Ipswich fan:  

Whole of the country bar 37,000 people are rooting for you. The remaining 37,000 will be knifing you.

Hunting for Omens

My mind is in a state of some contradiction at the moment.  I don’t believe in good luck charms, I don’t believe in praying to gods or pleading with the spirits of past legends.  No lucky pants, no pre-match rituals no chance of weighing influence on what happens on the pitch, other than a healthy dose of vocal support from the stands.

I don’t believe in any of it.  Oh no.

But I can’t cope with this feeling of helplessness.  My god, we’ve still got four and a half days of ever increasing nerves to endure.  I think I feel tense and jittery now, how am I going to be feeling on Friday when my entire day is bound to be punctuated by electric jolts of pure nerve energy.  I can’t cope!

Pic from swindontownfc.co.uk

So, it seems to me that the only sensible thing to do is see how many spurious facts I can come up with that guarantee our success at Wembley on Saturday.

1. It’ll be all white. The club have been quick in their attempts to appease supporters chuntering about the choice of kit colour by reminding them that we beat Arsenal in the League Cup final in ’69 wearing white.  But, more importantly, white seems to be a lucky colour for Wembley at the moment.  Blackpool beat Cardiff at the weekend wearing white, and, as I write this, England are 3-1 to the good in their traditional home colours.  White kit on Saturday, we’re going to win!
2. We’ve got our lucky end. The fans will be in the same end of the stadium as we were in the 1990 and 1993 play off finals, and we won those, so it stands to reason.  I’m not sure which end we had in ’69 as I was only there at a vague cellular level.  Actually, that brings me to…
3. Me! OK, this is perhaps pushing things a bit, but my mother and father were there in 1969, and I was there in both 1990 and 1993, so my presence, either in person or as mere DNA, is enough to ensure success!
4. Results against Millwall. We drew at the County Ground, lost at the Den, so to complete the picture we’ll win at Wembley.
5. Play off form. Our play off record, in finals particularly, is excellent, while Millwall’s is wretched.
6. The underdog factor. Millwall will be favourites and therefore will be under more pressure.  We are not expected to win, so will play with freedom and ease.

I could probably go on, but each list item will become more and more ridiculous and I might just convince myself we’re going to win.  I don’t want to think about it any more.

I can’t cope!

** UPDATE ** You know how sometimes you get an idea and that leads to a train of thought and before you know it you’ve completely forgotten how you made it to the end of that particular mental road?  That seems to have happened here.  There was a point to this post and I only remembered it when I was in bed, panicking about the game.  The strongest, most compelling reason why we’re going to win is, like point 3 on the list, thanks to me.  It’s OK, you can save your thanks…

I’m currently working at Sky TV, specifically on the never-popular Preview Channel, Channel 999.  You needn’t watch, it’s uber-dull. When you press the red button on 999 you are presented with a menu of certain genres that are being promoted.  One of my responsibilities is to wade through the schedules and pick out some highlights from each day and then represent these in the form of photographs for this menu.  A couple of weeks ago I met some of the staff of the stills department and one chap was kind enough to provide me with a picture of Charlie Austin to use.  Had you tuned to 999 on the Monday of our second leg game at Charlton and pressed red, you will have been greeted with a picture of our young hero representing the Sport genre.  Of course, we duly won!  OK, we didn’t really, but we prevailed, we triumphed on spot kicks, we qualified.  And it was all thanks to me!

Of course, the next day I contacted Mr Stills and thanked him for his part in ensuring our success, and asked him for a different picture to use on Saturday for the final.  The man leapt into action with all the enthusiasm of someone with little better to do, and the picture below will feature on Saturday, sweeping us to glory.

If you can highlight a more tenuous omen for the weekend then do let me know!

Play offs it is, then.

It’s been a while since I posted, mainly because I buckled under the pressure of an ever decreasing bank balance and got myself a job.  It’s only temporary, something to get me a few quid before the World Cup, and this is just as well, because the commute is a complete double-arse.  Two hours there and two hours back is pretty much the best I can hope for, and although most of that time is spent on trains, it’s knackering.  So after getting up at 6.20am, spending eight and half hours at work, four hours traveling and getting home at gone 8pm, I’m not in a fit state to write.  Or do anything other than eat something and collapse into the sofa.  But enough about my woes, already.

Speaking of being knackered, I found the whole experience at The Den yesterday thoroughly exhausting.  The problem is, I can’t help but get totally absorbed in the pantomime that is football when either Swindon or England are involved.  So given the occasion yesterday, I committed my heart and soul to the event.  This wasn’t helped by the fact that I am, as you may have noticed, a deluded optimist.  Unlike many people I spoke to in the days leading to the game, I was fairly sure all the pieces would fall into place for us.  Leeds would fail to win against Rovers and we would beat Millwall.  I had allowed myself to picture it in my mind, and that made it true.

Pic from swindontownfc.co.uk

Another contribution to my exhaustion was the fact that the game was at Millwall.  Now, I’ve been to Millwall before and I know what to expect.  I know that trouble is rare and that football fans are well managed these days, especially here.  I know too that unless you’re supremely unlucky you can avoid any violent situation, even if it happens fairly close to you.  If you’re looking for trouble then you might find it.  If you’re not, you just get the hell away and you’re fine.  I also know that until the unfortunate Amankwaah/Harris incident earlier in the season there was no bad blood between the two sides, and even this event would hardly amount to all out hostility between fans.  On the other hand, this was a game that really meant something for both sides, so the atmosphere was always going to be tense.  In the end there was no trouble, but I think had we gone up at their expense we could well have seen some unpleasantness, and may have been kept in for a while at the end.  So this, coupled with the fact that I felt that I had to wear colours to the game (I put my home top on in the morning and couldn’t bring myself to take it off before I left!) meant that I was, well, on high alert for most of the day.

The atmosphere as the game began was electric.  Both sets of fans were in fine voice, and then, incredibly, we scored.  Pandemonium.  After 15-20 minutes of constant, chest out singing I was completely knackered!  Then of course Millwall scored and I could no longer cope.  The atmosphere changed several times throughout the afternoon.  News of Rovers goal at Leeds spread rapidly round the ground and both sets of fans celebrated together and then roared on their side.  Shortly after that Millwall took the lead thanks to Greer’s unlucky own goal and the noise from the home fans was astonishing.  But very soon after that Leeds turned it around and things went a bit flat in the stadium.  At this point, Swindon’s fans were probably the happier.  The glory had been snatched away from the Millwall fans and despite being 3-1 and then 3-2 up they were very quiet.  Meanwhile, Que Sera Sera rang out from the away end.  We’d given up on automatic promotion much earlier and instead settled for mocking the home fans and preparing for the play offs.

Pic from swindontownfc.co.uk

It was a good game and a great experience.  Days like yesterday are what it’s all about for a football fan.  In my opinion, Millwall definitely deserved to win.  They looked a very good side and we found it almost impossible to break them down.  I would think they’ll be strong favourites to take the third promotion spot.  Having earlier said that I am the eternal optimist, I now have to contradict myself by saying that I don’t fancy our chances in the play offs.  Our form has been patchy for a while now (pretty much since I started this blog actually!) and I don’t think we’ve put in a really excellent performance for some weeks.  We were unlucky to take only 2 points from our games against Charlton this season, so that should give the squad confidence, but unless performances improve we will probably be disappointed.  Of course, there’s absolutely no reason why we won’t put in three outstanding performances and soar into the Championship, and no doubt I’ll be clinging to this hope until the bitter end.

The one good thing about my new job is that it’s not far from Heathrow, so getting to Swindon on Friday night in time for the game is a distinct possibility.  Come on you wonderful Reds!

Perspective

The weekend just gone was one of those where you can’t really make up your mind whether to be pleased or disappointed.  On the face of it, a draw at home to Walsall in the current circumstances is not exactly a result to fill you with too much glee, but then again, results elsewhere meant we didn’t lose touch with our promotion rivals.

Pic from swindontownfc.co.uk

It really is a tough one to decide.  Perhaps the best way to think of it is that it’s a cloud with a silver lining.  I was following proceedings via 5Live as I bombed it round the M25.  (Well, I say following proceedings, that’s not so easy if you listen to 5Live.  I’ll not rant on about this right now – perhaps another time! – but I am becoming convinced that 5Live deliberately ignore our goals.  “We’ll have all the goals from all the games” they triumphantly crow before 3pm, but it’s more likely that those of us listening in the car will be the very last to know if anything’s happened at the County Ground)  It’s not often that we get to cheer on the Gills, but as Gillingham knocked in three first half goals against Leeds I was almost pounding the horn (as it were) in joy.  That, together with Millwall’s defeat the night before and Charlton being beaten by Norwich meant that 2nd place was back in our grasp.

5Live did finally mention that we were 1-0 down (thanks for keeping your fingers on the pulse of the promotion race, you idiots) and quite frankly I couldn’t believe it.  And given how the last few games have gone I wasn’t exactly awash with confidence that we’d turn the game around.  Of course, a point is better than none, but this was a golden opportunity to put our fate back in our own hands.  It’s so frustrating that we didn’t take that opportunity.  But when you turn it around and bear in mind that despite taking just 2 points from the last 3 games we’re still only a couple of points away from second place, things could be a hell of a lot worse.  We still have two extremely winnable games before we go to Millwall, although we need to get through this sticky patch and start scoring goals again.

I’ll be at Adams Park this weekend, full of enthusiasm as always, and 3 points will help to ease the disappointment of the Walsall draw.  Can’t wait!

At least we won a few fans!

Tuesday night’s draw in front of the Sky cameras left us all scratching our heads.  How did we not win that one?!  Of course, the very nature of the game (and one of the major reasons, in my opinion, why football is such a universally loved sport) means that the best team does not always win.  For the second game in a row, the stats weigh heavily in our favour, and the performance was good enough, yet the win eluded us.  Understandably, many Town fans are thinking about crossing Lady Luck off their Christmas card lists!

Pic from swindontownfc.co.uk

There’s no doubt that one point from the previous two games represents a dent in the already tricky task of achieving automatic promotion, but hopefully all those connected with the club will remain positive and upbeat – we have every reason to be thrilled with the way the season has gone, and continues to go.

This time last week I was very bullish about our chances of taking second place.  Obviously my opinions have changed and we’ll clearly be seen as outsiders now.  But I am sure there will still be twists and turns up there in the promotion positions, so who knows, we may still make it.  And if we don’t, we all remember those wonderful days at Wemberlee, don’t we!  I have been convinced for months that we would go up this season, and my feelings have not changed.  I am sure we will be a Championship club next season.

One positive we can take from the game is that the game itself was very entertaining.  Yes, I’ll be the first to admit I found much of it insanely frustrating and probably have to apologise to the neighbours for my ever-increasing shouts at the telly, but it was far from a dull encounter, and both sides played some attractive football.  We weren’t at our fluid best, but still looked like a decent side, and Exeter certainly don’t look like a side flirting with League 2.  So we may not have won the game, but I am sure many of the neutrals watching will have been impressed by us our talent and style of play.  Most importantly, it may have done enough to tempt back one or two fans who have been bored into submission over the last decade.  If the game on Sky puts a few bums on seats on the back of a spirited performance and an entertaining game of football, then the short term disappointment of dropping a couple of points may have a very welcome long term trade off.

Camera Shy?

When was the last time Swindon Town appeared live on the box and didn’t let themselves down?  Rather helpfully, Aaron at The Washbag has put together a superb list of our past appearances on TV, and recent history is a rather patchy affair.

Nice socks.

The last time we were on was back in 2007 at home to Yeovil.  The previous owners of the club scored an own goal before the game had started by parading BEST Holdings in front of the cameras, our supposed Portuguese knights in shining armour.  Other than bringing in a few unwanted players and raising the hopes of the fans yet again, this was to be a spectacularly public false dawn.  The game was just as bad, with Town getting jittery in front of the nation and losing 1-0.  I had been away for the weekend and had recorded the game to watch “as live” when I got home.  I’d driven for hours without listening to the radio and had refused all phone calls.  I then wasted 90 minutes watching the game.  Having previously agreed with one of my cousins that he would not talk to me about the game until I’d seen it, we subsequently decided that if the situation was ever to be repeated it would be better to tell the other if they would be better off finding something else to do.

The two games before that saw wins for the Town, including a 2-1 victory over Bristol City in 2005.  Personally, I have only vague memories of watching this game, possibly due to the season as a whole being utterly forgettable.

Then we get to an FA Cup replay against Notts County at Meadow Lane.  I’d been to the home leg, and it was a dreadful game.  For years my father, brother and I had been trying to persuade my sister-in-law to come to a Swindon game.  She’d flatly refused, claiming that lower league football was rubbish and Spurs were the only side she wanted to see.  In the end we convinced her, and, to cut a long story short, I’ve never heard the end of it.  The look of amused triumph mingled with bemused boredom still haunts me.  So, for the replay, shown on Sky, to be even worse, was something of an achievement.  But worse it was, and we lost 2-0.

The three live TV games before Notts County were the two play-off semi-final legs against Brighton and our 2nd round FA Cup game away at Oxford.  I didn’t see any of these games on the box as I was in the crowd for all of them.  The Brighton games, especially the second leg, warrant much more than a mere mention here, but in both cases the Town played very well and I am sure any neutrals watching would have enjoyed the games.  Sadly the same cannot be said of our trip to the 3-sided stadium in Oxford.  Once again we bottled it in front of the cameras and gifted our rivals a victory with a terrible performance that was shown live on BBC1.

Which way will things go tonight?  All the factors point to a decent performance against Exeter.  There is a huge incentive for us to play attacking, aggressive football, and all town fans will be hoping that we can quickly get back to winning ways after Saturday’s defeat to Colchester.  The squad we have assembled is bursting with talent for a League One side, and no doubts Billy Paynter and Champagne Charlie Austin will be itching to get on the score sheet against a side placed a lowly 18th in the table.  On the flip side, we may well see Barry Corr start for the Grecians and he’ll be desperate to put one over his previous employers.  Let’s hope he injures himself getting off the bus or putting his shorts on, like he always seemed to do for us.

A good performance and three points tonight will be a huge boost after the weekend’s stutter.  Fingers crossed it’s not a camera shy side that appears in front of the country tonight.

Colchester vs Swindon

The surest way to undo an omen is to write about it.  So my post on Friday about the Town always winning when I go to the game on my own should have had punters keen to back the home side.  My apologies everyone (unless you made some money).

On reflection, we were clearly the better side yesterday.  Colchester are, to put it bluntly, a big side who lump the ball up field at any opportunity, yet seem to be rather fragile.  Their physio spent almost as much time on the pitch as the players.  Once they’d taken the lead they fell to the ground at any and every opportunity and certainly got good value from the ref when 5 minutes was shown at the end of the 90.

Gordon Greer hits the bar against Colchester

Of course, all that sounds like sour grapes, and indeed is!  But to be fair to Colchester, they soaked up the pressure we put on them in the first half and after the break they were much better and the contest was a bit more even.  Despite their best attempts to look like rather talentless for much of the game, they do deserve credit for resolute defending, and, in the second half especially, a tireless workrate.  Our problem was a lack of time on the ball.  Every time we had possession they closed us down rapidly and more than once forced us to move the ball from deep in their half all the way back to Lucas in goal.  They should be applauded for this, and also for their second goal which was a cracking finish.

It’s small comfort to know that our performance yesterday would have yielded 3 points more often than not.  We didn’t play badly, and the stats were hugely in our favour:  10% more possession, more than twice as many shots on goal, and five times as many corners.  But it was one of those games where had we still been playing now we’d probably still not have scored!

Personally, I don’t think this makes too much difference to our promotion push.  This was always going to be a tricky game, but the next four games are crucial.  We have Exeter at home tomorrow evening, then home again against Walsall.  Then we’re away at Wycombe and at home to Brentford.  We should win all four of these games.  A side such as ours at the moment, in the position that we are in, with real ambitions for automatic promotion, should take twelve points from the next four games.  If we don’t then we won’t deserve – and almost certainly won’t get – second place.  If we do win those games then a win at the Den on the last day of the season will see us finish above Millwall.  That then just leaves Leeds, who would need to drop points for us to finish above them.  The question is this:  Can we win our remaining five games?  I say we will, and yes, I include a win at Millwall.  I think we will beat them.  Will Leeds drop points?  Very possibly.

It’s going to be a cracking last few weeks of the season, that’s for sure!