Nine wins. That’s what we need. And they’re not our words, but the words of the gaffer. OK, so our Graham actually said “we need to win another 10 games to be a League One club next year“, but he said that at the beginning of the month – before we came out on top against Swindon Town. So here we are, with our rudimentary maths revealing exclusively to you that 10 minus one is nine. There is our A in GCSE Maths being put to excellent work right there.
Losing to Notts County was hugely frustrating for two key reasons; firstly, surely we’d rediscovered our spark in the Swindon game and secondly, they are also candidates for the drop. Now it’s all very well taking points off teams up in the top half, but we’ll make it a whole lot easier if we take ’em off teams down our end. That’s not to say games against Notts County should be easier than Swindon – not if they’re fighting just as hard to stay in the division.
You end up asking yourself, therefore, where our wins are coming from…
If we look past the end of our nose (and by which we mean Everton), Crewe Alexandra will be the opponents in our return to league action next Tuesday. Now we can take relative comfort in how we have done against this lot, with no losses in five meetings to date. But all three victories against ’em have come away from home. We’d love to be able to mark this one down as a home win, but a lot is going to depend on how we emerge from the Everton game, no?
After that, we have Crawley (A) and Gillingham (H). Now, we have a history of pulling rabbits out of the hat at Crawley when we’ve needed to before and their form is patchy right now. And then we have EEMPT (DWAH) and his Gillbots. They’re doing just enough to keep themselves clear of this mess at the bottom, but our record against them is pretty naff. What do you think then? Is there one win in there? Two? On the scale, they are both “winnable”…
The rest of February features Wolves (H), Rotherham (A), Leyton Orient (A) and Peterborough (H) – a formidable foursome. Forgive us for thinking the worst about those first three, but they’re all top five. We’ve already turned over Peterborough this season, but they’ve just ended a four-match losing streak (albeit against Tranmere) so might be firing once more a month from now. Next month could be very uncomfortable if we don’t start it well.
March is busy: Bradford (A), Tranmere (H), Preston (H), Carlisle (A), MK Dons (H), Coventry (A) and Port Vale (H). Now, you can make a decent claim for two wins in there – and we’re thinking the Tranmere and Port Vale games in particular. Carlisle are one of those teams who can get dragged in and go down, but our only win there came in 2005. And if we can beat Swindon, can you argue the same for Bradford? Coventry? MK Dons?
Shrewsbury (A) Colchester (H), Sheffield Utd (A), Bristol City (H) and Walsall (H) – by April, our fate may already be in the hands of the gods. It’d be a shame, because April presents us with games we could win. Payback for Colchester and Bristol City? Shrewsbury too, perhaps? Sheffield United ought to be clear of the dogfight by then, while Walsall will either still be pushing the top six or will be collapsing into mid table. Two difficult ones to call.
And then we conclude with Brentford, where we’d rather not have to go if we require points to stay up. So how did you do? If you counted 9+ wins, congratulations – we’re probably safe and life will be good going into the summer; if you counted 6-8 wins, not bad – but we’ll be needing some draws no doubt; if you counted 3-5 wins, uh oh – we’ll be relying on four teams to not get any more points until May; and if you counted 0-2 wins, game over. Restart level?
Oh, and if you counted 0 wins but only because you haven’t got a clue how to call them, fair play. You aren’t alone.
