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H/T

Chasetown 1-0 AFCRD

Lincoln 0-0 L/boro
Shaw Lane 0-1 Belper
Witton 0-0 Carlton
Market Drayton 2-0 Newcastle

Poor poor result yet again against a team in the bottom half of the table. What is wrong with this team, it seems to have a soft under belly?

FT Lost 2-1. Away form well and truly deserted us now! I know Chasetown pushed Witton close on Saturday but fact remains they are second bottom of the form table. Newcastle lost today but that is irrelevant given our result. The fact that Lincoln and SPS won is far more of a concern. We are in real danger of falling down the league table like a stone.

But it is not like we haven't been here before! This was the form table on the 5th April 2016 during are fall from challenging for the title to hanging onto the play-offs.



Here is the form guide tonight:

This is getting too close for comfort now but a play-off place is still within our hands.

It is true that you can only deal with whats put infront of you and we did that at the weekend winning convincingly but as I suggested on Saturday in my report what bothered me was the number of good chances that we missed against arguably one of the worst teams seen at the Dog & Duck.

My point is that against better teams we won't get as many chances so it becomes absolutely essential that a higher percentage of chances are converted - if you see what I mean.

With 3 wins in 9 we now face 3 of our nearest rivals in quick succession and they will be smelling blood on current form.

We are definitely 'good enough' to make the play-offs but being 'good enough' doesn't guarantee you play-off places. The players have to repay the faith shown in them by the management team and pull out all the stops in these last games starting with Leek on Saturday.

I thought we played really well tonight against a team that clearly regarded the game as their cup final. They scored with one of their two good chances in the first half - and probably their only good chance in the second - both involving hopeful long balls. We suffered by not making more of the pressure we had to create clear-cut chances, and Jack Bowen not taking the two gilt-edged chances set up for him by Nabil in either half. Richard Bunting brought a great save out of the keeper, and we won a succession of corners that were generally well-taken and well-defended. We played a lot worse at Kidsgrove - and won.

At least that's the last midweek night game of the season unless we reach the playoffs, so there will be no more suffering the uncordinated late-night roadworks (close the A14 then put the M1 down to a single lane before Northampton, and close the alternate M1-A1 link via the A421).

As always I agree with you Formic and as I said earlier it is the conversion of a greater percentage of those chances that might cost us dear.

Both goals were bad goals to concede but the second one was particularly disappointing as I think we had 2 players trying to head the first phase header and then failed to pick up the midfield runner for the goal.

Formic wrote:I thought we played really well tonight against a team that clearly regarded the game as their cup final. They scored with one of their two good chances in the first half - and probably their only good chance in the second - both involving hopeful long balls. We suffered by not making more of the pressure we had to create clear-cut chances, and Jack Bowen not taking the two gilt-edged chances set up for him by Nabil in either half. Richard Bunting brought a great save out of the keeper, and we won a succession of corners that were generally well-taken and well-defended. We played a lot worse at Kidsgrove - and won.

At least that's the last midweek night game of the season unless we reach the playoffs, so there will be no more suffering the uncordinated late-night roadworks (close the A14 then put the M1 down to a single lane before Northampton, and close the alternate M1-A1 link via the A421).

Good summary Formic. We did play well and deserved to win the game comfortably, but we didn't.

There has undeniably been a reaction since the horror show at Basford, we're playing better football and the players that have been brought in have improved us. Ultimately we're still losing football matches and unfortuntely the beginning of April isn't the time for hard-luck stories.

Rushdenjim wrote:FT Lost 2-1. Away form well and truly deserted us now! I know Chasetown pushed Witton close on Saturday but fact remains they are second bottom of the form table. Newcastle lost today but that is irrelevant given our result. The fact that Lincoln and SPS won is far more of a concern. We are in real danger of falling down the league table like a stone.

But it is not like we haven't been here before! This was the form table on the 5th April 2016 during are fall from challenging for the title to hanging onto the play-offs.



Here is the form guide tonight:

Ever the optimist Rushdenjim.....using 4 games not 6 for form table this season to make it look worse. Statistics eh??

For 6 games form table arguably the proper comparison for your point...we're 10th above Newcastle and Leek not great but a better reflection of our form I think.

It's closed right up though now and we need wins in at least 2 of next 3 I think...

We didn't actually play that badly last night, just missed some guilt-edged chances. To be fair I thought Chasetown were very good going forward and caused our backline problems - it didn't help that Bully was clearly carrying a knock and Ben is clearly not a right-back. We were very unbalanced. Lose on Saturday and the playoff challenge is over. I'm just pleased I only had a 10 minute journey home to dwell on the disappointment!

Good honest comments from Nabil.