AFTER about ten games of the season, Derek Fazackerley asked me if I’d settle for a place in the top half of the table in May.

At the time we were struggling with injuries, hadn’t hit our stride at all and were bottom of the league and I would have snapped his hand off.

To be in with a chance of making the play-offs after 44 games is a remarkable achievement from all concerned.

We broke a couple of club records along the way and there have been a couple of obvious lows too, but in general we have been very consistent and our form has been excellent.

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Now we have to try and finish things properly and get two wins from our last two games, starting at Shrewsbury this afternoon.

I laughed the other day when someone said ‘Shrewsbury have nothing to play for’ because that’s just not how football works.

Since then they have announced that Steve Cotterill, their manager, will be back on the bench on Saturday for the first time after a long illness so if anyone doubts their motivation and intensity then think again: every single one of their players will be up for this game.

So will ours. I’ve got to be honest with you, the training ground is always a positive place to be and I haven’t noticed any extra tension among the staff and players this week.

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Yes, it’s a big couple of games and I’d be lying if I said we didn’t keep an eye on other results on Tuesday night, but before that we’d been down to the Oxford Golf Club for a round of golf in the afternoon and everyone was really relaxed.

James Henry and Sam Winnall will be available again so we are in good shape and I think one of the things we can use as motivation is the scenes at Shrewsbury last season when Josh Ruffels scored a last minute winner to move us up to third.

Those celebrations with the fans and players are up on the wall at the training ground and the players have seen them every day of training this season.

Having the fans there today would have been a massive help but instead we have to visualise the scenes around the whole of Oxfordshire if we can get a similar win this afternoon.