Credit has to go to Gary Caldwell, the players and the staff for how things have turned around since our awful run of form going into Christmas. I’ve called for change in this blog and he’s proved me wrong. To err is to be human as they say. Yes, at times the football hasn’t exactly been pleasing on the eye, but we’ve been grounding out the results that we’ve needed.

Since I last wrote, we’ve had 7 games resulting in 2 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses. This started with a loss to Derby County, who as many who were at the park that night would agree simply blew us out of the water, and to be honest I’d be very surprised if come the end of the season they’re not in the top 2. An away loss at Lincoln followed, where although we weren’t at our best one mistake cost us the game, but looking at their form at present I think we got away lightly with a 1-0 defeat!

Home to Fleetwood was next, with a 1-1 draw being seen by many at the time as a missed opportunity to get much needed points on the board. Vinny Harper opened the scoring in the first half only for Fleetwood to get a leveller 20 minutes from the end. March however started to see much improvement from the boys in Red and White.

Despite a 2-1 loss at Peterborough United, City put in a good shift, and although the Grecians’ started on the front foot, unfortunately Peterborough scored with their first attack. Earlier in the season, heads would have dropped but we kept on fighting, and although Tom Carroll’s deflected effort ended up sending us in level pegging at half time, Posh would go on to get a winner in the second half.

The next game at home to Bolton was also seen as a difficult test, especially considering the 7-0 drubbing they gave us back in November. This was an opportunity for the boys to show us how far they’d come since then, and in the second half they more than showed that. Bolton went ahead before the break, but a lightning fast start from City and two well-taken early goals from Sonny Cox saw the game turn on its head a matter of minutes after the restart! It was the best half of football I’d seen all season long, with both teams really going for it, and despite a late Bolton equaliser denying us the three points, I went away feeling proud of the shift the boys put in and satisfied that we’d taken a point off one of the sides expected to be around the top 6 come the end of the season. The atmosphere in the ground that afternoon was superb, and I hadn’t felt a buzz like that at SJP for a long time.

That game must have given the lads a huge confidence boost, as we then went to Shrewsbury on the following Tuesday night and came away with a convincing 3-0 win thanks to goals from Will Aimson, Luke Harris and Jack Aitchison. Granted the early sending off of Shrewsbury’s Jordan Shipley would have helped matters, but it was a convincing performance against a side in and around us, and we took three points from a game that we needed to win to help us climb to safety.

This now brings me on to our last game at home to Burton Albion, where again this was a game against a side in and around us where we needed to take three points. A first half goal from Reece Cole set us on our way, before misdemeanours in the tunnel on the part of Zak Jules saw City reduced to 10 men for the second half. A resolute defensive performance followed, and huge credit must go to Vil Sinisalo and Will Aimson, who were absolutely colossal at the back. Aimson’s got a fair bit of unfair stick in recent weeks, but at present he’s putting in the performances to show what he’s capable of and hopefully that will only give him the confidence to continue them.

City held on for the win to take us to 47 points for the season. The Big Bank, as it was for the Bolton game, was superb and rightly gave the players and staff the credit they deserved at the end of the game. The tide now definitely seems to be turning, and the sooner we can get that win to take it to 50, the more likely it is we’ll be able to enjoy the end of the season without looking over our shoulders.

We’ve got five players on international duty this weekend, therefore our game against Leyton Orient that was due to take place has been postponed. Again, Vil Sinisalo and Ilmari Niskanen have been called up for Finland as they take on Wales in the play offs for a place in this summer’s Euros, Luke Harris is featuring for the Welsh Under 21 side, Mo Eisa is playing for Sudan and Yanic Wildschut has been called up for Suriname. It goes to show just how far we’ve come as a club when we’ve got five players called up to play for their respective countries!

Therefore, the next two games are over the Easter weekend when we face two sides around us in Charlton Athletic and Cheltenham Town. It was announced today that we have sold out our away allocation for the Cheltenham game so around 1,500 Grecians will be in attendance there on Easter Monday, which will be fantastic to see! Hopefully from one of those games we’ll pick up a win, preferably two, and start to look towards planning for next season.