Back in our hands... now let’s finish it!
I’M genuinely starting to feel as if no one wants to win League Two this season!
Every team in the play-off positions has thrown away points at such an alarming rate that it’s impossible to predict who’ll win on Saturday, never mind win the division.
It’s great that those teams around us are all having a stutter because our recent form is anything but promotion-like, one win in the last five isn’t good enough. At least we’ve not lost any games, but it’s twitchy bum time and we still have eight games left after last weekend, with, thankfully, games in hand on those around us.
The crazy kick-offs continued last week with a Monday game at Crawley, a game we almost won but ultimately failed to do so after a succession of mistakes, having dominated the game and creating chance after chance, chances thwarted by goal line clearances, the off side flag, another great keeper performance and our own lack of conviction.
Sarce and Camps hit the woodwork, while Woots and Rico had chances that went wide when it looked odds on they’d score. When the goal came it was by way of a deep corner and Sarce’s head and thoroughly deserved.
We then made a plethora of changes and lost our shape. Crawley equalised late on and made the long journey home even longer.
Why do we do it? Monday’s draw meant that Saturday‘s evening kick off against MK Dons was vitally important, (if not a must win it certainly was a mustn’t lose).
The feel around EP was an uneasy one before kick off. I think a fair few would have taken the draw if we’re honest, but the team had other ideas.
To beat one of your close rivals by such an emphatic score would have made the rest of the division sit up and notice.
MK played some very good football, crisp passing through midfield but going forward they met the wall that was Ben Hinchliffe. Ben made some top drawer saves that kept us in the game before we upped our game and scored some fantastic – and a couple of comedic – goals. Callum Camps embarrassed the MK keeper, Michael Kelly, to open the scoring.
Then he played the most exquisite pass to set up Paddy for our second and just before the break Tanto raced clear to add the third.
Into the second half and we didn’t have to wait too long for the forth, Connor Evans, from distance, hit a beauty over the hapless Kelly, a goal of real class.
Then with virtually the last kick of the game Neill Byrne latched onto another Kelly fumble to score from about six inches.
It was a statement from the team and, with games over all our rivals, puts the title back in our own hands, let’s go and get it.