Seven points in a week, seven points ahead of Rotherham with five games remaining.
Back in February when we were staring down the barrel of a month’s worth of matches to fit in and Rotherham sweeping everything aside it’s a position we’d have taken when offered it every day of the week.
But for some it’s not enough, I’ve seen Tuesday’s point at Burton described in various guises, as toilet based excrement to papering over the cracks.
I know Wiganer’s love to moan but if you can’t find joy in this season of all seasons maybe football isn’t the sport for you?
This is what worries me about promotion, if indeed it does come. Leam Richardson despite the remarkable feats he’s achieved so far as manager in both this season and last will be treated exactly the same as those other title winning managers Gary Caldwell and Paul Cook were.
You can name a stand after the man, you can give him all the platitudes in the world but if he only manages his side to a 0-0 draw at Burton he’ll still be called not fit to burn by the vocal few online.*
* I am of course referring to the minority online, as its always a minority. But minorities are vocal, look at the latest government policy for that.
This has quickly become down beat when I didn’t mean it to be and of course wondering how your manager will get on in the Championship is a great problem to have. Let’s get there first though.
So if Burton was a stutter it’s up to us to make sure we’re quickly back to winning ways. So its to the Sky cameras and an Easter Saturday match up with Cambridge of United this weekend.
Looking back to the return fixture in the Autumn, a game we should have won its remarkable how much we’ve achieved and how we’ve coped with the absence of Charlie Wyke that overshadowed the build up to that match.
Many clubs may have fallen out of the promotion race all together at that point, instead we somehow seem to have rallied against the injustice of it all.
We’ll know a lot more about the promotion race after this weekend. Four points ahead of MK in second with a game in hand is an excellent place to be and as long as we stay in front of both MK and Rotherham we’ll achieve what we set out to do at the start of the season.
A win on Saturday evening will go a long way to achieving that. So to summarise, even if you think ‘we’re papering over the cracks’ or it’s all ‘long ball sh*t’ try and not direct it to the players over the next few weeks.
Instead help them get over the line, I don’t ever remember abusing your own players as being a decent form of motivation. Just look at Sunderland, they’ve been doing it for years.
Sean Livesey
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