Going into the final 3 games – the fight for promotion

[Awayday]

Even better, Hereford are winning 4-0 within the first 20 minutes and then due to a freak of nature it snows 20 inches in 3 minutes for the game to be abandoned. The game would take a week to be re-scheduled which will upset the FA plans of working around the Olympics, also Crawley will not know for a week whether they can celebrate or not.

Then on the rematch Hereford go 2-0 up by half time, with most of Sussex getting drunk on their babyshams, and from kick off Mansell runs rings around Hereford to score goal of the season. It stays like that until the last kick of the ball, which happens to be a goal kick from Bobby. He clears midfield, it bounces once over the defenders, and then again on the penalty spot, for it to then bounce over the Hereford keeper for a Bobby goal.

[Bigman]

May I be the first pedant to point out you can't score from a goal kick

For no particular reason other than blind optimism and a gut feeling I think Crawley will drop points, meaning 3 wins will see us up. What I am less confident about is whether we can win all 3. Given some of the runs we've been on this season there's no reason why not, we'll just have to wait and see.

EDIT: I stand corrected, must've been confused about how you can't score an own goal from a goal kick. If only there was an egg-on-face smiley.

However I do believe Tim Howard's was from a free kick.

[HeavenAndHele]

May I be the first pedant to point out you can't score from a goal kick

Yes you can - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal_kick (3rd point under 'Procedure'). Unless I'm very much mistaken, Tim Howard scored one for Everton recently.

There's hope for a Bobby wondergoal yet!

[jonnyfive]

What could happen ...

Torquay win their next two games ...
Hereford beat Northampton, and hopefully beat Crawley .....
Crawley beat Dagenham, and as said already, lose to Hereford ....
And Barnet lose to Southend (Friday) and draw at home to Wimbledon ....

Then both Torquay and Hereford would only need to draw in the last game. (Unless Barnet win by something like 10 goals in their game). We could then play out a very tame 0-0 and both be happy.

It could happen ......

It's raining here and I've nothing better to do.

Interesting calculations. I really can't see Hereford winning their next 2 games, and indeed, we wouldn't want them to. If the other events came to bear and the Bulls needed a point on the last day, do you think they would settle for that? I think they would be scrapping tooth and nail to win!

Although I stated a little while ago that, (big-hearted chap that I am), I wouldn't want to put Hereford down on the last day, I have re-aligned my thinking slightly. I want them to be relegated before we get there, so we roll over a dispirited team and home crowd.

All's fair in love and lower-league promotion battles.

[gullsflyinghigh]

Can't believe people are writing us off already and accepting that we're destined for playoffs.

Anything can happen in these last three games and as has been said, there's plenty of twists and turns to come. I still believe Crawley will drop points so its up to us to give 100% both on and off the field in our last three games and see where we end up.

The team certainly seem up for the battle, quote Manse on twitter last night:

Right 3 f**king games let's f**king have it, who's got the bollocks I'm telling you we f**king have let's get it on #TUFC

I love the passion of our captain, and I'd agree with him in saying its a case of who's got the most bottle in the final stretch - the pressure's on for Crawley and so anything can happen.

We have a duty to vocally GET BEHIND the lads and cheer them on. Create an atmosphere that is positive and will lift the team. Dont allow negativity to project onto pitch. And DO NOT BARRACK AT OUR OWN PLAYERS IT DOESNT HELP

I'd also agree wholeheartedly with the above, its definately not over yet and its up to us to give the team our full support going into the final 3.

It's important we come off the pitch at Hereford with no regrets regardless of where we end up. Both fans and players should give 100% commitment to the cause now and see where it gets us.

I'm certainly not making playoff plans anytime soon. We can still do auto's!

COYY and lets have the spirit of 2004

[coley in stripes]

I totally agree with the above. Why all this bloody doom and gloom, end of season preditictions and statements of 'We won't beat Crewe'.

Let's take this one game at a time. We MUST win on Saturday and hope that Crawley drop points then from 5pm think about and discuss the Crewe game. No win Saturday - No promo (despite people's varios predictions).

Crawley's win last night robbed us of the luxury of a draw, so let's just do the job the harder way BUT one game at a time. 3 wins now will seem easy compared to what might come up for the playoffs...My Saturday preditions - Wewill win and Craley draw giving morale a boost....COLEY

[Plymouth Gull]

To be fair, I've thought about it.

Drawing comparisons from 2004. When we had 3 games left, we were 2 behind Huddersfield, who had a game in hand. We went on to take 7 from 9, while Hudders dropped points, only picking up another 5 from 12.

Hudders > Crawley, sooo, anything could happen!!

[jocktheknife]

Can't see Crawley winning all 3, if they do then fair play...they'll have deserved it.

What nobody seems to mention though....is the amount of draws you get at the arse end of the season. Games involving promotion or relegation are mostly nervous tight games, with players desperate not to make mistakes and teams desperate not to lose.......we've seen plenty of draws for us and Crawley in recent weeks I can see this continuing.

The last day of the season is a little different though......If Crawley need 3 at Accy, they will go gung ho - and probably get them, the same with us at Hereford.

For me.....it's the next 2 that really count, the team in front on the last day hold all the aces.

So my (very hopeful) prediction is a win for us at Wimbledon and a draw v Crewe and draws for Crawley at Daggers and home to the desperate bulls......so we lead by 2 going in to the last day but due to Crawleys superior GD - a draw at hereford will not be enough.

Of course we could just as easily get dicked on saturday and Crawley win - then its game over.

Wimbledon

[coley in stripes]

Interesting, but I disagree, we will beat Wimbledon and Crewe. I have always said though, let's take one game at a time. All these predictions do not take morale into account....When we win and Crawley draw on Saturday (that has got to be the situation), morale going into the Crewe game will be 'sky high'.

[coley in stripes]

Also to the above...This Saturday is really the crutial game....If Southend win on Friday and we don't win, they are on our backs going into the Crewe match.If we win, Southend are no longer a threat...This Saturday is the big one not the Crewe game...COLEY

[londongull63]

With Dagenham safe now, as Northampton were last night, I'm not sure they'll get much off what is to be fair is a strong Crawley side. And Accrington, well it's outrageous that they're mucking about not playing players they have on loan from Hull and using youngsters instead (not just for us but Crewe and Oxford must be peeved they rolled over for Cheltenham). They gave us quite a tough time with their proper team.
so it's looking like we need 3 wins - and that might not be enough.
Perhaps the positive now is that we now know we need to go for win rather than the mustn't concede/lose fear we had for recent games, and Crawley perhaps think they're nearly home and dry and as they're above us they can afford a non-win. It might have helped us if they'd had that 3 points over Northampton a long time ago and we would have known we had to win games like Southend last weekend instead of hoping Northampton would get something off them. (Northampton would also have been in more relegation danger a while back and might have fought harder from the off last night).
As some said above, Eunan's legitimate disallowed Oxford goal could have produced that "unexpected bonus" 3 points that would have got us up. Don't think we can regard ourselves as suffering hard luck because we didn't deserve to beat Barnet so it balanced, but beating Oxford would have given us that overall perhaps undeserved extra bit of good luck and points that you tend to need to get promoted, especially against richer competitors (rarely would you expect the promoted Conference side be such strong automatic spot probabilites, although Stevenage battled to promotion last year, and Fleetwood could be a worry next year.)

[Colorado Gull]

[youtube]v6FbNMEMfhU[/youtube]

Always have that image of all the players and staff running into the middle of the pitch to celebrate and Leroy going mad at the final whistle! Oh the memories........

Will Hereford away be like Southend? I so hope we can go up automatically! COME ON UNITED!!!

[Awayday]

There are hundreds of decisions over the whole season which either went our way of didn't, some of which could have given us more points or reduced them. You can never take a whole season on "that moment when"......

Our biggest down fall was the begining of the season, we were losing games that we would be winning now. Look at the 4th game of the season when Creepy beat us on our turf, if only we had won that then we wouldn't be in this state. Game after having that shocker of a performance at D&R. Then 0-0 at Northampton. See we could do this all day.

[Regiment]

if you had told me at the start of the season, we would :-

1. do the league double over Argyle for the first time ever,
2. go to Buckle's Rovers in their first home game, and beat them,
3. go to Crawley and beat them,
4. be safe from relegation by christmas (well, almost),
5. go into the last three games with a shot at automatic promotion,
6. go into the last three games guaranteed a play-off spot,
7. have our more saleable assets signed up on contracts,

and so on............

i'm pretty sure we'd have all taken that.

come what may in the coming weeks, it's been an incredible season, let just hope we can finish it off in style.

one final consolation - this time last year, heading hopefully into the play-offs, our manager had already "left" thus de-railing our final push. at least that won't happen this time around.

MARTIN LING'S YELLOW ARMY !!!!!!!!

[popside_yidlad]

Lee mansell was in my work place tonight and I told him about the hereford calculation and he just laughed and said we WILL keep our side of bargain up to them to keep theirs. Certainly sounds confident and positive : )