Quote Originally Posted by MancMagpie View Post
Shouldn't be really, but I'm really nervous about Saturday. I've just got this feeling that we'll end up playing Wrexham away now in the playoffs, and that they will raise their game even more with fans in. It doesn't matter what's happened in the league previously, Wrexham will still fancy their chances and rightly so. Would prefer to play them at home.

I suppose it doesn't matter in a way. The last few weeks has provided the best football we've seen since the Cotterill days, so onwards and upwards eh?

Anyone else nervous?
I'm more intrigued than nervous.

If we're being honest, a likely finishing position of 5th or 6th in the National League suggests we're not yet ready to return to League Two football, but the counter to that argument is that we seem to have improved quite dramatically in recent weeks and are possibly now a better team than our final league position would suggest.

The bottom line is this. If we're ready for promotion and League Two, then we will beat whoever we meet in the play-offs and thereby conclusively demonstrate the improvement we've made under IB. If we don't beat our play-off opponents, whoever they are, then the rational conclusion must be that we're still a work in progress, but with every reason to be optimistic about next season.

Contrary to the oft-used expression that play-offs are a "lottery", they actually are not. Most of the time, the teams that finish in the higher play-off positions end up winning through, and it's comparatively rare for the lower ranked teams to gain promotion. The league table doesn't lie all that often. If on this occasion we genuinely are in a false position relative to our current potential, we will prove it in the coming weeks.