Saturday 12th March

[WhiteRussian]

• Accrington Stanley v Charlton Athletic
• AFC Wimbledon v Lincoln City
• Bolton Wanderers v Plymouth Argyle
• Burton Albion v Fleetwood Town
• Doncaster Rovers v Gillingham
• Ipswich Town v Portsmouth
• Milton Keynes Dons v Wigan Athletic
• Morecambe v Cheltenham Town
• Sheffield Wednesday v Cambridge United
• Shrewsbury Town v Oxford United
• Sunderland v Crewe Alexandra
• Wycombe Wanderers v Rotherham United

Some really tasty matches this Saturday. At the top and at the bottom. Of the playoff contenders only Wednesday, Oxford and Sunderland have what could be called easy matches.

At the bottom, Donny v Gillingham and AFC v Lincoln stand out as must wins.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow,

 

[K-Win]

Me too. Us and Ipswich are both bang on form. The losing team will suffer a big dent in their playoff hopes.

MK Dons v Wigan is the match of the day though. Great chance for MK Dons to really put pressure on the top 2. Especially with Rotherham having a tough trip to Wycombe.

 

[BarrieOwl]

If we want top 6 then tomorrow is a must win, we struggled down their place due to the wind and their tactics which worked to perfection but hopefully we have enough about us now to get 3 points.

 

[SuffolkBlue]

Huge game at home to Pompey for us. The start of our run against the teams around us. Should be 25,000 again which is unreal considering we were getting 13k a few years ago in the championship. They score loads and we keep clean sheets (7 in 8 now) so it’s tough to call. Few late fitness tests for Morsy and Burns though. Hooge game!

 

[GFC4EVA]

Must win for both us and Doncaster, loser goes down

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Must win for both us and Doncaster, loser goes down

Totally I just can’t see us winning we have zero confidence, leadership and clue

 

[PuB]

I’m sensing it’ll be a very tense 0-0, probably similar to our game against AFCW a couple of weeks back. But a point isn’t really going to be much use to either of us here

 

[YEO YEO YEO]

I’m sensing it’ll be a very tense 0-0, probably similar to our game against AFCW a couple of weeks back. But a point isn’t really going to be much use to either of us here

Out of both you and Donny we have seen recently, you definitely had a lot more about you. Everything crossed for a draw!

 

[Daz_3000]

3 points is a must for most teams this point in the season. We should beat Crewe but i thought that about us beating donny a month agowhen they were bottom and we know how that turned out.

 

[BarrieOwl]

3 points is a must for most teams this point in the season. We should beat Crewe but i thought that about us beating donny a month agowhen they were bottom and we know how that turned out.

You better I've picked you over forest in Last man

 

[Daz_3000]

You better I've picked you over forest in Last man

A win win for you either way then.

 

[BarrieOwl]

A win win for you either way then.

Rather stay in last man and catch you lot up after

 

[WhiteRussian]

3 points is a must for most teams this point in the season. We should beat Crewe but i thought that about us beating donny a month agowhen they were bottom and we know how that turned out.

Bloody Donny did the double over us, go figure.

 

[MatthewArgyle]

Bolton Wanderers away will be a hard game I think we'll win this 2-1.

 

[bigfatron]

If I was Wednesday I wouldn't start by assuming Cambridge are easy pickings (to be fair, Barrieowl was rather more respectful) and I'm sure their management won't make that mistake - a big club, Sheffield Wednesday, and on that I have a soft spot for who really should be at least one division higher.

We are still learning in this league, and we don't have the squad quality of the top clubs in this league, but if we are on our game we can give any team a real challenge.

The good news this week over the club finally buying its ground back after 17 years of hurt is yet another positive in a fantastic two years.

This weekend is also the first time in over four months that we have 18 professionals available for the squad, which will be nice!

One thing that is sure, we always work hard and show endeavour, even if sometimes we are poor - I've never, ever seen a Mark Bonner team give up or roll over...

 

[Davidimp]

We have a terrible record against the current bottom 6 and is the main reason why we can't pull away from the danger zone.
We haven't won away to any of them.

 

[thewwfc]

We tend to do poorly against Rotherham, and they always strike me as like us (dirty, hoofy and physical) but just better at it.

I’m expecting a narrow defeat, especially if we just try and outmuscle them.

We’ve actually been playing a lot more on the deck in recent weeks though - perhaps trying something different to arrest our mini-slump a few games back - so that might work for us, but we’ll see.

My prediction would be 1-0 Rotherham.

 

[GeneralLee]

Team announced for today. If Shrewsbury are going to spring an upset, they’ve got every chance today. We are struggling big time today.

We have an out of form left back with zero positional sense and absolutely no defensive qualities playing left centre half, Mousinho who is essentially just a coach now and making his first start since December 2020 in the middle and and McNally (who is excellent but was playing part-time football last year) playing right centre half. Our only backup defensive cover are midfielders and a scholar on the bench.

Looks as if our goalkeeper is also out too having named only six substitutes. It’ll make for an interesting game for a neutral, mind!

 

[bigfatron]

Well this is utterly appalling - perhaps our worst performance of the season. I should have kept my mouth shut...

 

[CTFCfan99]

Scrappy as anything at Morecambe, ball bobbling all over the place and neither team has done much. Massive deflection for the goal but I'm not sure what on earth the Morecambe defenders were doing backing off like that.

 

[BarrieOwl]

That was a walk over, expected much more from Cambridge, could have just been an off day for them today, all at sea defensively and we took our chances for once.

Has not made much difference for us in the table but we have 2 games in hand over a couple of the teams ahead of us so just take it a game at a time.

Accy on Tuesday for us.

 

[stevowanderer]

Well that’s us on the beach now for the summer and time to look towards next season. We had more than enough chances in the second half to at least draw that game. Plymouth looked a pretty decent side today but after a good first half they didn’t really offer a lot in the second half. Another sloppy set piece conceded… we must have pretty much the worst set piece stats in the division.

Fairly happy with a solid mid table season which is what we wanted at start of the season. We dared to dream but we’d ultimately left ourselves too much to do. Plenty to work on… especially set pieces but I think we will invest defensively in the summer but I think we will be very competitive for top6 next season

 

[BarrieOwl]

Poor Masi will be licking his window tonight and the tears will be flowing.

 

[stevowanderer]

Poor Masi will be licking his window tonight and the tears will be flowing.

To be fair the vast majority of Bolton fans didn’t expect us to go b2b promotions either at the start of the season or even during that run we went on. Hope we aren’t all tarred with the same brush haha

 

[GFC4EVA]

Massive win at Doncaster scrappy at times, but we looked solid and all results going our way, do I dare to dream?

 

[PuB]

Massive win at Doncaster scrappy at times, but we looked solid and all results going our way, do I dare to dream?

Huge, huge win. Looked dead and buried before Harris came in (10 points behind).

Game on!

 

[thewwfc]

I was expecting a narrow defeat so I guess I have to be happy with the bore draw, even if it was a hard watch.

You know the kind of game where the commentator goes, “this is a great advert for lower league football”? Well this was the exact opposite, hoofing, head tennis, defensive bear hugs on strikers, grinding midfield scraps, yadda yadda.

Rotherham remind me a lot of the Walsall side that got promoted from L2 under Richard Money a long time back, very physical, incredibly solid defensively, but maybe not that much fun to watch. But they’re successful, so fair play to them.

 

[WhiteRussian]

Well, after the lord mayors show at Rotherham that feels like the dust cart!!! It was a fair result in the end. Still, if anyone had offered me 10 points from Sunderland, Bolton, Rotherham and Wigan over the last few weeks I'd have bitten your hand off.

With all the teams after playoffs and promotion playing each other there weren't any surprises really except maybe Plymouth beating Bolton with draws all round so Oxford, Sunderland, Plymouth and Wednesday make up ground.

Ah well, onto Cambridge next Satuday.

I've just noticed we have no more mid week matches this season, all Satudays except for Easter. Whoopee!

 

[GeneralLee]

We were pretty awful defensively and were there for the taking.

Injuries and COVID meant we started the game with a backup keeper in goal, a centre half trio consisting of Mous, primarily a Coach now who hasn’t started a game since December 2020, our out of form offensively minded left back (I’m unconvinced he’s even a left back!) who has been out the side in favour of a right winger alongside our first choice centre half. We had a central midfielder at right wing back and a right winger at left wing back plus a right winger up top… Considering, to take three points is fantastic. The performance simply doesn’t matter.

Shrews - What was Cotterill so agitated about at the end and the subsequent booing at full-time. Have I missed something?

 

[CTFCfan99]

Form at the bottom will be crucial and Gills are the only team showing any at the moment, can see them getting out of it.

Our game really burst into life second half, Morecambe all over us for 15 minutes or so just before and after they scored but we saw it through and Alfie popped up with yet another goal to seal it.

Should definitely be safe now if we weren't before - next target is to beat our best ever finish of 17th.