Remaining fixtures

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

FT Carlisle 1-2 Cambridge

That's a shame, but a very good day overall

The title chase can wait for slightly later...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

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Nice. And quite the promotion race.

[Worthy4England]

On balance, given I had us down for a draw today, I'll take that set of results. Loverly. 4 points off top with a game in hand.

[officer_dibble]

Cambridge at Tranmere on Easter Monday as well.

[officer_dibble]

Any weekend where we win is good. If we win them all we go up.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Quite the day, once more. There's now just 5pts covering the top 5 – and Cambridge, 2pts clear at the top, have played a game more – but you definitely get the sense Forest Green are a force on the wane, with 6pts from their last five games (we've taken 13pts) and their main strike threat unluckily hobbled.

Cheltenham's loss at Morecambe continues their curious split-personality run: their last five games have been LWLWL and they haven't drawn in 12 games since late January (W8 L4). Cambridge's late winner means they've triumphed three times on the bounce for the first time since just before we went down there – Brocky disallowed goal, Crellin's goof, Evatt's "man up" quote, etc and very much so on.

Anyway. There's no games in midweek bar Crawley-Carlisle, but I said earlier that this three-game spell – today, Good Friday and Easter Monday – would be crucial, and today's results have made that even more so.
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I mean, oof.

Good Friday:
Cambridge (1st) v Morecambe (6th, but just beat Cheltenham)
Cheltenham (2nd) v Tranmere (3rd) – as noted, whatever happens here, if we win we go into the autos
plus Bolton (3rd) v Colchester (21st), Bradford (12th) v FGR (5th), Barrow (22nd) v Newport (7th)

Easter Monday:
Tranmere (3rd now) v Cambridge (1st)
Newport (7th) v Bolton (4th now but likely top-3 by then)
plus Grimsby (24th) v Cheltenham (2nd), FGR (4th) v Salford (10th), while Morecambe (6th) host Southend (23rd) on Tuesday night. What the table above them will look like by then is anybody's guess...

[jmjhb]

Morecambe are flying under the radar. Their run-in is on the favourable side too.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Morecambe are flying under the radar. Their run-in is on the favourable side too.

Maybe not for much longer, if they complete the C-bomb double by beating Cambridge on Friday. If they do while we and Forest Green beat Colchester and Bradford, while Tranmere don't lose to Cheltenham – a very believable set of results - there will be two points separating the top five.

[BWFC_Insane]

9 games left.

6 wins and a draw. I think that’d do it. 7 absolutely would.

5 and 2 draws might.

Just win all 9. Not that hard.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

9 games left.

6 wins and a draw. I think that’d do it. 7 absolutely would.

5 and 2 draws might.

Just win all 9. Not that hard.

For the record, judging season-long PPG there's only the two Cs on course for as many as 79pts; we're on 63, so 79 would be 16 more from 9 games - W5 D1 L3. But obviously that would be cutting it rather fine.

Also, the recent-form tables – if continued over each team's remaining games – suggest one or two more points will be needed.

Repeating the last-six form would put Morecambe in third with 81.5 points, leaving Cheltenham's 78.5 in the play-offs. Maintaining last-eight form – in which five of the top 7 (not Newport and FGR) have been particularly strong, with at least 15 points out of a possible 24 – would have Cheltenham third on 81.9, Morecambe missing out on 80. Mirroring last-10 form would have Cheltenham third on 81.2, Tranmere cursing their luck on 80.1. And mimicking last-12 form would put Cambridge third on 81.7, relatively comfortably clear of Tranmere's 79.5.

The good news in all those scenarios is that our recent form – over 6, 8, 10 or 12 games – would have us champions, with at least 87 points, seven or eight points clear of the play-offs.

So yeah: keep winning.

[BWFC_Insane]

9 games left.

6 wins and a draw. I think that’d do it. 7 absolutely would.

5 and 2 draws might.

Just win all 9. Not that hard.

For the record, judging season-long PPG there's only the two Cs on course for as many as 79pts; we're on 63, so 79 would be 16 more from 9 games - W5 D1 L3. But obviously that would be cutting it rather fine.

Also, the recent-form tables – if continued over each team's remaining games – suggest one or two more points will be needed.

Repeating the last-six form would put Morecambe in third with 81.5 points, leaving Cheltenham's 78.5 in the play-offs. Maintaining last-eight form – in which five of the top 7 (not Newport and FGR) have been particularly strong, with at least 15 points out of a possible 24 – would have Cheltenham third on 81.9, Morecambe missing out on 80. Mirroring last-10 form would have Cheltenham third on 81.2, Tranmere cursing their luck on 80.1. And mimicking last-12 form would put Cambridge third on 81.7, relatively comfortably clear of Tranmere's 79.5.

The good news in all those scenarios is that our recent form – over 6, 8, 10 or 12 games – would have us champions, with at least 87 points, seven or eight points clear of the play-offs.

So yeah: keep winning.

I’m pretty confident in 6 wins and a draw doing the trick. 82. If we got that and didn’t go up for me something weird has gone on. I half think it might not need that as you say.

But right now it’s quite simple and the old cliche. One win at a time. I’d say if we can somehow win the two Easter games (which is a big ask) but IF we can I can’t see us being stopped really. Newport has the feel of a tough fixture about it.

[The_Gun]

9 games left.

6 wins and a draw. I think that’d do it. 7 absolutely would.

5 and 2 draws might.

Just win all 9. Not that hard.

For the record, judging season-long PPG there's only the two Cs on course for as many as 79pts; we're on 63, so 79 would be 16 more from 9 games - W5 D1 L3. But obviously that would be cutting it rather fine.

Also, the recent-form tables – if continued over each team's remaining games – suggest one or two more points will be needed.

Repeating the last-six form would put Morecambe in third with 81.5 points, leaving Cheltenham's 78.5 in the play-offs. Maintaining last-eight form – in which five of the top 7 (not Newport and FGR) have been particularly strong, with at least 15 points out of a possible 24 – would have Cheltenham third on 81.9, Morecambe missing out on 80. Mirroring last-10 form would have Cheltenham third on 81.2, Tranmere cursing their luck on 80.1. And mimicking last-12 form would put Cambridge third on 81.7, relatively comfortably clear of Tranmere's 79.5.

The good news in all those scenarios is that our recent form – over 6, 8, 10 or 12 games – would have us champions, with at least 87 points, seven or eight points clear of the play-offs.

So yeah: keep winning.

I’m pretty confident in 6 wins and a draw doing the trick. 82. If we got that and didn’t go up for me something weird has gone on. I half think it might not need that as you say.

But right now it’s quite simple and the old cliche. One win at a time. I’d say if we can somehow win the two Easter games (which is a big ask) but IF we can I can’t see us being stopped really. Newport has the feel of a tough fixture about it.

Newport are playing their home games in Cardiff now, right? If so that should make it a less challenging fixture than if it were at Rodney Parade.

Edit: But obviously not an easy game.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Nope - back at Rodney Parade
https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport ... ls-run-in/

[The_Gun]

Balls, so we’ll be playing on their ploughed field then. That would be one where a point would probably be satisfactory.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Balls, so we’ll be playing on their ploughed field then. That would be one where a point would probably be satisfactory.

It won't have been played on for a month so let's see how good their groundsbloke is.

A cynic might suggest that the manager might encourage it to cut up to affect our football but that would seem like a short-term gain considering it's also hosting games on the 13, 17, 20, 27 Apr and 1 May. Obviously it had got so bad that even they didn't want to play on it.

[jmjhb]

Yeah, Newport will be the toughest of our remaining matches imo. They will be coming off the back of a two-week break before their double header with Barrow and us over the Easter weekend.

[officer_dibble]

So what? We’ve got the squad players to mix it up. Nobody else has. Win and a draws good enough over the weekend but I wouldn’t bet against us getting 6 points.

[brommers95]

Had a snoop on Newport’s forum to see if I could glean any info about the state of the Rodney Parade pitch. Somebody had posted the below photo. Although not the best angle, it does look to be in decent nick

Which is quite the turnaround considering it looked like this just four weeks ago...

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However, County also share the pitch with egg chasers Dragons who play there this Saturday, so the state of the pitch come Monday the 5th is anyone’s guess.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Bagels against Colchester wasn't the plan, but I clean forgot it's Cheltenham-Tranmere and Cambridge-Morceambe today. They can't all win.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Honestly, I turn my back for 10 minutes...

GOAL CHELTENHAM 1-0 Tranmere (Thomas 4')
GOAL BRADFORD 1-0 Forest Green (Watt 11')
GOAL CHELTENHAM 2-0 Tranmere (Boyle 14')