Goodwin happy to take it easy

Having already booked a play-off spot, it has been quite a start for Alloa’s new manager

JIM Goodwin tended to find himself regularly at the heart of any commotion during his time as a player, but as a manager he can afford to adopt a more serene air heading into the final week of the league season. A frenetic finish to both the Championship and League One means the identity of three of the four promotion/ relegation play-off contenders will not be decided until after Saturday’s concluding round of matches.

The sole exception are Goodwin’s Alloa Athletic who clinched second place in League One, and with it the first play-off spot, some weeks ago, thus removing themselves from the scenes of stress and panic that have beset many of their rivals in recent weeks.

Such has been the size of their advantage over the side in third place – 13 points going into yesterday’s round of fixtures – that it seems almost unfair that Alloa will gain little benefit from that consistency when the play-offs finally get under way.

On the plus side it has given Goodwin the opportunity to rest one or two players for what are relatively meaningless league games before the start of the, potentially, four post-season matches that the Irishman hopes will conclude with Alloa returning to the Championship at the first attempt.

“It’s been good having nothing riding on recent matches apart from pride and wanting to keep winning,” he said. “It’s been nice to be able to rest some players and give a chance to some others who had been waiting patiently. And we’ve also taken the chance to try a few different formations and things like that. So it’s been good having the luxury to do that.

“I don’t think anyone could argue that we’ve not been the second-best team in the league but as we’ve seen from play-offs in the past often it’s the team that sneaks in at the last minute that goes on to get promotion. So we can’t take anything for granted. But I’m a big fan of the play-offs in general. It’s been a really welcome introduction to the game up here, giving every team a reason to keep going all season, and brings extra excitement for the fans. Obviously I’d much rather this season that two sides went up automatically! But that’s not the case so we’ll just get on with it.”

Goodwin laughs as he apologises for adopting the “one game at a time” mentality but there is one