SEASON 2020/21 No.48: WIMBLEDON AWAY Pre-match Since Sunday when the announcement was made, the big talking point in the football world is obviously the European Super League. I suspect everyone who writes professionally or just because they love the game as I do could rattle off pages and pages of bile directed at the owners  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.47: GILLINGHAM AT HOME Building for the future – the team In a recent post-match interview Karl Robinson mentioned the importance of essentially keeping the bulk of the squad together pointing out that the most successful teams in L1 have not had much player turnover compared to last season. I assume that stands  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.46: SHREWSBURY AT HOME Pre-match thinking We enter the final straight with 40 of the 46 games completed. Thus far we’ve played 18 of our 23 L1 rivals twice but to date there’s been no meeting with Shrewsbury which is down to firstly frost and then the FA Cup run our visitors had.  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.45: CREWE AWAY Pre-match thinking Anyone who read the previous FV will know I’d all but given up on this season. We may not be mathematically dead just yet because including this game we’ve got seven left. That’s 21 points to fight for. Win them all and we’ll end up with 77 points  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.44 ACCRINGTON AT HOME Pre-match The reward for winning each and every league game is three points. No more (for beating the likes of Sunderland), no less (for beating the likes of Accrington Stanley). The contrast between our two Easter period fixtures could hardly be greater. The Black Cats are the biggest fish  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.43 SUNDERLAND AWAY Pre-match Contrary to the advice I gave myself a few FVs back I’m currently doing anything but taking the one game at a time approach. In fact I’ve actually gone way beyond that and looked at all the remaining fixtures of half the teams in L1. To what end I’m  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.42 LINCOLN AT HOME Pre-match After a load of Cobblers and some on Tuesday night I was not looking forward to my Friday night sat in front of Sky TV. That was until about 5 o’clock when proper pre-match anticipation kicked in. It always does at some stage however utter shite we have  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.41 NORTHAMPTON AWAY Pre-match So what do I do? Accept that we’re not good enough to make the top six which on the evidence so far this season is hard to argue against? We’ve not been up to matching the better teams unless they’ve been having a really bad day (Doncaster). We’ve been  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.40 BLACKPOOL AT HOME Before Tuesday night with the hand brake off, entertainment followed as did a re-igniting of play-off dreams. Pressure, in a good way, therefore remains. Eighth in the table in real time and on a PPG basis. Blackpool though are only three points behind us with two games in hand.  [ more ]

SEASON 2020/21 No.39 DONCASTER AT HOME The state of play pre-match If we don’t win this it’s “game over” said Deadly on Facebook. For game read season. The league table hasn’t written us off but knowing how we’ve been playing for many games now and our inability to beat any of the better sides so  [ more ]