Scrap is on for precious play-off spot

Reporter: Paul Rachubka
Date published: 30 January 2015


Athletic’s goalkeeper writes every week for Chron Sport

IT CERTAINLY felt like an awfully long journey home from Gillingham, with everyone only too aware we didn’t get what we should have.

By half-time, to be back in the game at 2-2 having been two-down showed good character. At that stage, we were even disappointed not to be leading given the chances we created.

But when the final whistle blew on our defeat, There was that familiar feeling that our problems had been of our own making. The first two goals were poor ones to concede, and the third took a big deflection.

Bradley Dack’s shot would have been going low but it spun up and left me scrambling to my left, where I got a hand to it as it dipped in at the last second. On another day it could have been a fantastic save, but it wasn’t to be at Priestfield.

The feeling around the club is that not picking up points our overall displays merit has been a recurring theme. It’s almost as if the damage is often self-inflicted rather than our being beaten by superior opposition. That makes losing doubly disappointing.

But we have to move on. As it stands, the top three in League one are up there battling for automatic promotion and everyone below is scrapping for play-off places.

We need to put ourselves in a good position as soon as we can. There is plenty of time left — we have 21 games remaining — and the challenge now is to kick on and start a run.

We are all expecting new faces to arrive sooner rather than later to boost the squad. That said, the players we have at the moment are more than capable of getting a positive result against Notts County.

Everyone knows the fans will be with us all the way.