This week I was asked when the league table actually starts to mean something.

We’ve played four games now, we are tenth in the division but my answer was simple: “the league means something in May”.

You can’t read anything into it at the moment.

We’ve played away games at two teams who came up, Cambridge and Bolton, and won our two home matches against Charlton and Crewe.

It’s far too early to start making predictions or drawing any conclusions.

All I know is that we’ve worked our socks off and the performances have been good in each of those games. That’s a place to build from.

I also think we can take heart despite losing at QPR on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup.

I see the same game as the fans and, yes, we were chasing shadows for the second 25 minutes of the first half.

But I thought the second half was much more even and there were plenty of positives, not least the fact we had a 16-year-old, Josh Johnson, in our midfield against a side who are going to mount a serious challenge for promotion to the Premier League this season.

The only thing missing was a goal in front of our magnificent supporters.

All I could hear was the noise from the away end and I thank you all for that.

I keep saying how much we missed our fans for 18 months but Tuesday really brought that home to me.

When we come over to applaud our away support we always do that from the heart.

I hope you enjoyed your evening out and will be back with us today against Lincoln.

Obviously this afternoon’s game sees Michael Appleton return to the Kassam Stadium and he will be keen to do well against his old club.

He has done a great job at Lincoln and last season’s side made it all the way to the play-off final before, like us, they came up against Blackpool.

I have watched their first games of this campaign and I think they look an even stronger side this time around, even if the table doesn’t show that yet.

Which is exactly where we came in…

Football constantly surprises me, but on Tuesday night there was a first for me, even after more than 600 games in the dugout.

We were 2-0 down at QPR so I made a change at the break and put Cameron Brannagan on as a sub.

I then grabbed a cup of coffee, checked everything was OK and followed the team out of the dressing room and back through the tunnel.

By the time I got there we had to make a second sub because Nathan Holland had been unwell!

Our squad depth was clear at that moment with Gavin Whyte going on, but after Anthony Forde limped off during the warm-up against Charlton I did wonder if we can find any other weird ways to change our plans for a game of football!