NOW is the time we need everyone pulling together for the final push towards the Championship.
It’s been frustrating in recent weeks that we haven’t come up with the results we all wanted.
But our season is far from dead and the big prize is still there to be grabbed – a place in the higher division.
The manager, coaching staff and players will obviously be keen to finally secure our play-off place and finish the season with as much momentum as possible.
What everyone has to realise, however, is that the play-offs are a separate competition and that every team in there has the capability to go up.
I have said all along that we’ve got the squad capable of chasing and winning promotion – and that faith has never wavered from my point of view.
Last season, we finished eight points clear of Peterborough and 16 ahead of Bournemouth and yet we still lost out to the former when it came to the play-off final at Old Trafford.
That shows the play-offs are all about seizing the opportunity and not getting too tied up in worrying about how you have finished the season or what position you are in.
I think it probably helps to be at home in the second leg of the play-off semi-finals – it certainly did for us last season when Bournemouth had to come up here to the Galpharm.
That match also highlighted what I think is the most important element of all.
Our fans were right behind us.
I know some of our supporters are feeling aggrieved that we haven’t gone up automatically, but we need every single one of them right behind the lads when it comes to the ‘cup’ competition which is the play-offs.
When we went behind to Bournemouth in that second leg last season, our fans really responded positively and the lads were eventually able to make it through.
I know from personal experience what a difference our supporters can make when they are all as one and right behind the team.
It happens pretty much every other week away from home and makes a massive difference, but here at the Galpharm it’s a really special feeling when the stadium is rocking and you are wearing blue and white stripes.
Let’s all remember that.
I’M REALLY hoping Fernando Torres can rediscover his best form and help Chelsea shock the football world by defeating Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals.
The first leg is at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday – Bayern Munich host Real Madrid in the other semi tomorrow evening – when Roberto Di Matteo will be aiming to create an advantage for the second leg at the Nou Camp on April 24.
Not many people will be giving Chelsea much chance of beating Lionel Messi and Co and that’s hardly surprising.
But Chelsea are a fine team and, in Torres, they have one of the best strikers in world football.
His problem of late has been that his confidence has been shattered – and I genuinely feel sorry for him.
Some of the chances he has had you just know he would have tucked away a couple of years ago, but the reason I really admire him is that he has stuck to doing his very best for the team.
He might not have been contributing too much in terms of goals this season, but his workrate for the team has been excellent and he has plenty of assists to his name.
I would love to see him get a couple of goals this week, and I think Chelsea’s best chance of causing an upset will be to really get after the Barcelona defence and try and put them on the back foot.
I’m not sure what the best policy is to try and contain Messi (inset) – plenty of people have tried and failed over the last few years, including Manchester United in last year’s final – so my own thought would be to use attack as the best form of defence and aim to keep Messi off the ball as much as possible.
IT was a rarity for me, but I actually watched the Grand National on Saturday.
In my playing days I never got to see the race and, had we been at home this weekend, that would still have been the case because I would have been working at the Galpharm.
But with me taking a day off from watching the lads, I was able to watch some of the build-up and then take in the race itself while listening in to evens at Deepdale on the radio.
My own preference has always been for the Cheltenham Festival and for the Gold Cup, and I usually have a little flutter at the March meeting.
It’s never quite been the same for the National, with never being able to watch it, but this year I had Always Right in the office sweepstake, which was appropriate because I tell the office staff that I am always right!
It didn’t win, of course, but the race was dramatic and enjoyable until the sad news of the fatalities.
