How good was it looking at around 4.30pm on Saturday afternoon eh?
Victory had been secured off-the-field during the week in the lead-up to the game and at that that stage victory on it again was looking good as we would have been 2-1 up at Brentford while Oldham, the side that were always realistically the one we were looking to catch to get out of the bottom 4, were still being held!
Fast forward to 5pm and the mood had changed…
Brentford had scored a couple of late goals to come from behind to win 3-2 while Oldham has secured a 1-0 win at Bury to extend the gap on us, while relegating The Shakers in the process.
Defeat did not stop a small minority from taking to the field to ‘celebrate!’ The less said about that, in this article at least, the better but the likelihood of us somehow managing to scrape our way out of the bottom 4 to take the 10-point deduction this season has become very, very slim.
Given the games in hand that Oldham had, and looking at the fixtures they had to come, something that was always going to be tough to achieve has become even harder. Catching them following their win at the weekend and defeat for us has seen them open up a 5-point gap on us, and they also have a +6 advantage on us goal difference wise so that is worth another point really.
Oldham have Yeovil (h), Crawley (h), Shrewsbury (a) and Orient (a) to play and if they cannot secure at least a point from these games, which should be enough to keep us at bay, I would be very surprised really?
That said all the opponents to The Latics still have something to play for really.
Crawley and Orient have unlikely (for Crawley anyway), but still possible at this stage, play-off spots to go for while Yeovil are pushing for automatic promotion and Shrewsbury can still be dragged back into the relegation battle – the words ‘straw’ and ‘clutching’ do spring to mind though really?!
I am not neglecting Scunthorpe by the way, although Oldham are the one that we had to look to catch (technically I should say ‘have to look to catch’ as we still can).
Scunny play Bury (a) tomorrow, victory for them would take them 6-points ahead but they have a worse goal difference than us. They then finish with MK Dons (a) and Swindon (h), so a couple of tough games to finish with so whatever the outcome of their game tomorrow they are still catchable.
Games for us against Sheffield United (h) and Shrewsbury (a) are games that I reckon we can win, and what an atmosphere it would be going to The Shrews with it still possible that we could get out of the bottom 4! That would be an atmosphere to spur us to victory I am sure…
Come what may we are of course going down, but it is all about that 10-point deduction now.
If we could somehow get out of the bottom 4 then the football league, using its ‘discretion’ or not, would have to deduct it this season. Should we be going down without the need for it I cannot see how they will do anything other than carry it over for us to start league two on -10-points…
All the while you are playing ‘catch up’ and ‘relying on others’ it is an almost thankless task but I am now probably 60:40, at best, that the weekends results have swung the possible towards improbable for us now?
The victory last week in the courts was a monumental one for PFC, and has secured our future, but we cannot neglect that going into next season with a points penalty from the off again sees you fighting yet another up hill battle but come 10pm tomorrow night our fate of seeing that happen could be sealed should Oldham collect another win, even a point just about does it to be honest.
If Yeovil do us a favour we would at least live to fight one more round of games…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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