Well this is all going rather well suddenly. A truly excellent win last night for OUFC, and Wycombe, Plymouth and Sunderland will all now suddenly be nervous about the raging Ox coming up from 8th.
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Things to note:
- What a win! When talking about us needing to win 4 from 4 to have a hope of still hitting the playoffs, in the back of my mind I always had MK as the point where we trip up and end our season. But here we are, still in with a shout, and the other games on last night in a weird way went in our favour (Wednesday aside).
- Let's start with Wednesday. They just keep getting results. Cross them off the list of teams to chase, there is no way they don't get 3 points from their final 3, and we actually want them to win on Saturday now against Wycombe.
- Speaking of Wycombe, we're now only 2 points behind with an easier run in. All we need is for them to drop points against one of Wednesday and Burton and we'll sit above them in the table come season end (assuming we win both our games). Whilst Wednesday seems the obvious game to watch out for for them to drop points, Burton have suddenly become a defensive force. In their last 4 games they've held Plymouth, Wigan and Accrington, and last night beat Rotherham, and didn't concede a single goal in all 4 games. If Wednesday fail to do their job, do not rule out Burton doing it for us instead by any means - another 0-0 in that game would do us perfectly.
- As I said yesterday, the other team we have a good chance of catching is Plymouth. Form has gone off a cliff, their PPG in the last 5 is lower than ours, and thanks to Ipswich, both Wigan and MK will have a lot to play for when they face Plymouth - Wigan still need to guarantee the title and MK will most likely be playing for the last automatic promotion spot. All we need is for Plymouth to not win both games and we'll finish above them (again, assuming we win our two).
- As for Sunderland... It feels unlikely that they'll fail to get 5 points from their 3 games, especially with their ridiculous knack for late goals recently. Since the beginning of March, all of their games have either finished 0-0 or with late Sunderland goals:
- Against Fleetwood - 1-1 until the 82nd minute, scored again at 90+1
- Against Crewe - 0-0 until the 84th minute, scored again 89th minute
- Against Gillingham - 0-0 until a winner in the 95th minute
- Against OUFC - 1-1 until a winner in the the 89th minute
- Against Shrews - 2-2 until a winner in the 92nd minute
5 games with late goals to give Sunderland the 3 points. Unbeaten since mid February. Chances of them not getting 5 points v Cambridge, Rotherham and Morecambe? Very low. Don't entirely rule out catching them, but it's probably not worth getting frustrated by them if they get more late goals.
- Finally lets talk about Saturday's game. Rotherham looked to be doing what Rotherham always does - put in workmanlike performances all season, and get back to the Championship without too much fuss. But they seem to have completely swapped form with Sunderland since beginning of March and have dropped 5 points in 2 games against Shrewsbury, lost to MK, Charlton and Burton, drew with Wycombe and only picked up wins against Ipswich and Lincoln. They reached the final and won the Pizza trophy in that time too, but that doesn't matter one bit when OUFC come to town. Rotherham aren't just in bad form, they're in relegation level form and at the worst possible time. The players and fans will be panicking about throwing away the autos, and all we need to do is match the work rate and energy of the second half v MK and the first 20 minutes v Fleetwood and we'll comfortably win. As long as one of Sunderland or Plymouth fail to win that'll guarantee it is taken into the final day of the season where anything can happen. KEEP BELIEVING!
