Season to date

Whilst recognising that 5 out of our last 6 league games have been away and that it seems that we might have been unlucky in some of them and we've suffered injuries, the cold facts are we've only taken 6 points of a possible 18 against teams that, apart from Blyth, are towards the bottom.

Even at this early stage of the season, it is leaving us with a lot to do to even make the play-offs.

Having taken only 19 points from 14 games means we will have to take on average a challenging 2 points per match. This will give us 83 points which, based on the last few years, could put us in the top 5.

Success again in the FA Cup has to date swelled our already-healthy coffers by £27.5k but it's already beginning to look as if our number one target of promotion will have to wait another season.

Any comments anyone ?

We are 8 points worse off than we were after 14 games last season.
But, we do have another 32 games to peg those 8 points back.
As Redpike rightly says, we need to average 2 points a game for the rest of the season to stand any chance of a play off place.
This means winning at home and drawing away.
Given that we have more home games left than away games and our home form is sporadic that is a big ask.

However, the performances at Nantwich and the second half performance at Blyth show that we are capable of some good football.
I believe we have a strong squad with cover for most positions, hopefully we can keep Connor for longer that a month, but with Justin out for a long period (possibly all season) we need to increase our attacking options, easy for me to say, difficult for Gary to obtain the right player.

I believe the play offs are achievable, but we need to start picking up those home wins now.

We still seem to be suffering from the same problem as last season, which is that we are conceding too many goals again.  The number of matches this season where we've had to come back from 1 or 2 goals down like Halesowen (H) & Blyth (A) is very frustrating, especially considering our excellent performance at Nantwich where we were already 3 goals up before conceding.

It's no good thinking about promotion when the defence has got more holes in it than the 4,000 in Blackburn, Lancashire.

We have proven by our performances in the FA Cup what we are capable of as a team, so now we need to start doing the same in the league.

And remember, you should never say never with regards to promotion until it's mathematically impossible