With the players looking to revert to their earlier season away form of getting spanked to nil everywhere they go, reliance on our home form is going to be thoroughly tested if we are to remain in this division. Such is our dip in away form that even our usual guaranteed points away to Southport can't be relied upon. God knows what happened at Banbury....
After Southport our last three away games are at Kings Lynn, Spennymoor and Kidderminster. I'm not exactly holding out many hopes for these games. Even with Kings Lynn sudden found generosity towards away teams I can see nothing but wall-to-wall thumpings from these games.
That leaves 6 home games to save ourselves and we really need to be looking to win 4 of them. Given that 4 of our home games are against teams firmly inside the play-off places and the other 2 are against teams fighting relegation, it's fair to say the shit's just got real....
Other than Telford, every other team in the relegation shake-up has had the odd good run of results. Leamington looked dead and buried until suddenly pulling in 7 from 9 in the last 3 games. Farsley are pulling out some great results. Boston are still chucking in the odd unexpected win.
Bradford's successful spurt was far too early in the season. Since then they have tumbled from almost mid-table obscurity to looking like favourites to be heading through the trapdoor with Telford. And other than easily beating us, Blyth are also trying their damnedest to finish lower than us, which is appreciated.
So, it's looking like 4 from 7 for the plunge. We've got a handful of points in the bag more than the others. Some of them have a game in hand over us. It's going to be a tight finish. Certainly too close to call. But if we had to stick our neck out and choose the bottom four come the end of the season we'd probably look at Telford (well, d'uh), Bradford, Blyth and Farsley. I still get the nagging feeling Boston will be just about OK. And Leamington have experience of this surviving against the odds at this level. And us? We can but hope and trust the Burton bobbles keep falling our way.
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What happened at Banbury was that it was the start of their desperately poor run that has taken them from play-off contenders to surprise relegation candidates. They have taken only six points from the 11 games they have played since. Which takes a little off the gloss of our sparking 3-0 win, but it’s nice of them to give us another option for avoiding the drop.
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