From the Skipper

THE CAPTAIN JOSH FALKINGHAM

FIRST OFF, on behalf of everyone at the club, I’d like to say a big congratulation to Rebecca Welch who today becomes the first female referee to be appointed to an EFL match. She’s worked incredibly hard for this and fully deserves the role. If we focus on our last few results, there’s no denying it’s been a disappointing period for us and not a run we predicted or felt was coming. It’s just been frustrating as we probably haven’t done enough to win the last few games but at the same time on a whole, we probably haven’t done enough wrong to lose them. From the recent good run of form, we felt we’d put ourselves in a position to be within touching distance of the play-offs and we were looking to take the opportunity. After the last few results though, maybe that’s one step too far. It does feel like some of the hard work we’ve done in the last couple of months has now come undone, that’s the honest and general feeling in the camp. When we’re sat in the dressing room, we’ve not been pleased as the whole group wants to keep getting better and achieve more. Many might say that to stay up or finish mid table would be enough, but this team has been in playoffs season after season and I think that’s made the last few results even more frustrating. We have to finish the season strongly and make sure it’s enjoyable from now until the end of the campaign. If we finish in the top 10, we can then definitely say it’s been a good first season in League Two. We want to finish on high and the trip to Wembley is another thing to look forward to. We want to improve, we want to get better and win games and competitions. The aim is to keep moving forwards. We know first-hand how beneficial momentum can be and if we can finish this season on a high, then it can only help us going into the campaign next season. We have Port Vale today and it was a tough point that we picked up against them earlier in the season. Like every game, we know we’re going to have to work extremely hard and do our jobs properly to come out with the right result. If we don’t concentrate throughout the 90 minutes it’ll cost us. It’s been our Achilles heel this season and it’s something we’re working on to put right.