Next 3 games

[New meadow]

Further to the "next 6 games "topic we now move on, the next 3 games are now even more important. After the result at Crewe with Chesterfield winning on Wednesday i'm now thinking the top five sides are now fighting for promtion with two missing out to go into the play offs , I think you can then add Notts County & who knows where they may end up?? so in reality i think we a re fighting with another 3 sides for the 7th place.
So next 3 games we must get 9 points

[Matt_]

9 points from these 3 games would be a fabulous return, to be honest the only one where we're big favourites for the 3 points is Grimsby away, but that is very much in the banana skin bracket. I think both home games against Bournemouth and Rochdale will be very tough with 4 points probably a very decent return.

Barring a points deduction I expect Notts to finish above us so it's probably 6 sides fighting for 3 automatic places, although I don't see anyone stopping Rochdale going up. For us to challenge those 6 sides would require a mixture of some pretty poor form from them and a run of form from Town which we haven't yet seen this season.

7th place is definitely up for grabs though. I think we'll need another 21-22 points over the last 13 games to finish in the top 7, so 6 wins and a few draws should do it which is very much on. The games at Aldershot and, potentially, Northampton are dangerous fixtures in terms of those sides being able to overtake us. Accrington still look the biggest threat to us making the playoffs at this stage.

I think the 10 games after these 3 have been played will be the deciding factor with a lot of very winnable games in our run to the end of the season. Although there is the almost guaranteed failure to beat Lincoln at The Prostar amongst that lot.

[limacharli]

As you say Matt a points deduction by Notts could still be on the cards although they have discharged the Tax debt there is still a sum of circa £6 million which with interest grows daily and a small fortune in wages to be met. The news this morning about Portsmouth is not good for their fans nor will Bournemouth fans be entirely happy as HMRC have issued a winding up order over an unpaid £350k tax bill. Their own website are saying that they are cash strapped and as this is the second time that this has happened, it is not entirely without possibility they may be expelled from the league should they be forced into administration. Should this happen over the next 12 weeks then the top of the league would change entirely. Simmo was saying in the paper on Thursday that he is targetting a top two finnish! Not impossible I know but we need a massive increase in points haul if we are to do it. We can do it given that the injury list doe'snt start growing again. Good news that Button will be with us until the end of the season(BBC Sport News) and hopefully Simmo can have word with 'Arry and we can acheive something that has not been done before a Home Match agin Spurs for pre season? CMON YOU BLUES

[Matt_]

It's 6 out of 9 at best now and, in typical Town fashion, that will have to be done the hard way if we are to get that many points.

There are a few games this Tuesday night which are of interest too.

Accrington Stanley v Macclesfield
Bury v Darlington
Notts County v Chesterfield

Bury and Chesterfield will be on equal games with Town after Tuesday's games.

Hopefully Macclesfield can do us a favour at Accrington and make their task of catching us much more difficult. A Notts win would be the best result in their game against Chesterfield I think. Bury have ironically not won since we lost there, but they should beat Darlington who have lost their last five after a bit of a mini-revival.

[Matt_]

Results went quite well tonight.

We're still in touch with Chesterfield and Bury having now played the same number of games as both. Accrington missed a big chance to close the gap and now must win all their games in hand to catch us as things stand. Notts are really closing in on second place now and, with their three games in hand and huge goal difference, Town are probably effectively 8 points from the automatic places rather than the 6 as it stands in the current table.

[MalvernShrew]

I'm pretty sure we'll get in the Play-Offs. Automatics aren't out of reach either..