Rage Online

Very decent performance on Saturday. After ten minutes I was worried that Coventry were going to murder us but we sorted ourselves out, they ran out of ideas and we ended up dominating long periods of the game. No one played badly for Us, and the most impressive aspect was the fight we showed as the game wore on. Also we didn't sit back on our lead too much, and kept harrying the home side into mistakes. It was my first view of Kashi and I was impressed - I don't remember him giving the ball away once and he mopped up nicely in front of the defenders, meaning we weren't relying on Nelson and Dickie to distribute it from the back all the time. Fair play to Robinson for that signing, and I hope he stays (Kashi that is!). Eastwood didn't have many saves to make, though he saw a lot of the ball as Coventry fired cross after cross straight into his midriff. I'd have been livid as a home fan, but maybe credit to our defensive shape for pushing them down blindish alleys.

Feeling much better about the league table now - the only way I see us getting dragged back into it is if we fail to beat all of Wycombe, Walsall and Shrewsbury. Win one of them, and pick up a couple of points elsewhere and we should be fine. What a turning point that last minute at home to Bradford could prove to be. I didn't enjoy all the 'we are staying up' singing though. As if that's something to be celebrating with a 'top 8 budget'! It's been a shit season. Nice to see an away win though - I'd forgotten what that felt like!

Yup - win two of the games against Wycombe, Walsall, Shrewsbury and Wimbledon and I think we're fine. And given our current form, that seems eminently doable.

Whilst I'm delighted in the uptick in form and the increasing likelihood of Third Division football again next season (and wouldn't be so churlish as to ignore the manager's success in reversing our fortunes), I agree with KY that we shouldn't lose sight of what a massive under-achievement the season will have been. Those lauding Karl Robinson for masterminding our back-to-back wins and recent run need to temper their praise by questioning whether he is the right person to take us forward next season. For me, the answer has to be an emphatic No - yet I don't sense that fans will be vociferous in demanding that we let him go at the end of the season.

After our experience with Appleton, when many questioned his first six months, there is perhaps a bit more patience to allow a manager to build his team than previously.

Anyway, a good day out. I was on the train from London, but apparently the trains from Oxford were standing room only. It was quite funny that it seemed like every half hour as another train arrived, the bar at the Litten Tree was filled up. Litten Tree used to be one of the first new pub chains in the 90's but I haven't seen one for years.

Even the local police seemed quite helpful. They had a look round, then advised everyone that a) getting the two coach hourly train to the stadium was unlikely, and B) that we should leave the town centre by 2pm if going by taxi.

I guess I'm used to travelling to the Kassam from the train station and city centre, but Coventry's ground really did seem to be well out of town and not easy to get to from the centre.

Yes trains from Oxford were packed - with a certain type of fan, including some faces I haven't seen for several years. I thought the atmosphere might not be as 'family' as the club were hoping, but as Slappy says the policing and stewarding was all very sensible, and if there was any trouble I didn't see it.

The Ricoh would be a good ground if it weren't so empty, and such a pain in the arse to get to. It must be depressing looking at so many empty seats each week. Are the fans still boycotting? 12,000 home fans is pretty poor for a city that size (and with such a strong recent football history) with a club pushing for promotion.

I thought it was a classic away performance and a point would have been a fair result but to come away with all 3 was brilliant and looking at our corner count not undeserved.

Nelson was my motm by a mile, dealt with everything at the back and then got the winning goal. Going to really miss him next year if he does go (I wonder if the uptick in performances is because he is looking to get himself in the shop window or he does really care about the club staying up - maybe both).

Kashi indeed had another good game - he has really settled quickly, Garbutt did well and Mackie did a good job at putting their defence under pressure resulting in a number of mis-hit passes. Eastwood also made a couple of very good saves.

Still think getting rid or Robbo would be silly. Our bad start cost us massively. I don't think we can discount the injuries we have and continue to have had. In the last 25 games we are 9th in the form table, 6 points better off than the team in the last play off spot currently. I think we have a good base to push on next season. We play decent football on the floor and he likes to play with wingers and give the youngsters a chance. He left us from a team with better resources and in the play offs, lets see where we are at Christmas next year.

Watching some of their supporters being pushed back into the corporate hospitality boxes at the end as they were losing it was very amusing.

Actually we're 7th on form over the last 25 games. Amazing really.

https://www.flashscore.com/standings/zZ ... overall;25

Funny how psychologically it seems we've been poor and struggling for ages, when actually it was our extremely poor start that has always been the problem, and in fact we've been doing pretty ok since then. It seems it's very difficult to overcome the effect of seeing us in the relegation zone, and thus concluding that we are continually struggling. (It certainly affected me ... I was flabbergasted when I saw the above form table.

We’ve won a lot of home games and not lost too many away and dont let in many, which helps. We’ve struggled to kill teams off but yes since Luton we’ve generally looked a decent mid table side, with a few blips. I think that’s Robinson’s level, we need to decide if we want that or are going to fund a push for higher next season.

This has been such a yo yo season. Absolutely no consistency at all.

The table looks better, but may be a mirage, as it is very tight in the bottom half.

I’m reserving judgement until we are mathematically safe as it seems whatever we conclude, the following week the team do the opposite.

Yeah, indeed - there's no way I'm counting any chickens just yet, whatever the form table might say.