Are City going up this season?

We can beat anyone on our day, unfortunately two of those days will be away from VP, where unfortunately we are shocking this and last season for a team that got promoted and are chasing it again
Home form has been key to all our success
I hope we do it, but my head says no.

 

I don't think so.

But I also thought by January we would've meandered to midtable so anything is possible.

Given our position, I'd be extremely disappointed if we dont at least make the play offs now but I don't think we'd win through in them.

 

Head says no, heart says maybe. I just don't think we are a consistent enough team to win in anything other than a scrappy way against good sides. It's been a while since we consistently played well, maybe 4 or 5 months at this rate since we could string 3 or 4 good performances in a row? And in the last few months we've played 8 of the top 10 and only a scrappy win against Stockport to our name with a lot of defeats in there.

In the form table over the last 10 games, we are 16th. We need to find some rhythm to our game again but even if we feel the struggle coming in games, we haven't found a way to even get out of there with a point, our last draw was 18 games ago, with a lot of sneaky wins rather than convincing wins. The goals are drying up and fingers crossed somethings clicks in the coming weeks and we find a way to play with conviction again for more than 10/15 minutes per game.

 

We may very well finish in the play offs and depending who we meet in the semis, we may get to Wembley but I'm not convinced we would prevail. And god forbid if we had to play Hudders and lost to them in the semis and got promoted or we lost to them in the final, they would dine out on it for years.

 

It’s strange, but to me we just don’t feel like a 4th placed team. Our last Wembley team in 16/17 was fantastic and only ended 5th. I don’t know if it’s the strength of the league or what but I feel that team would have disposed of our lot easily. Crazy that we’re actually higher up. Maybe it’s just because of how awful we are away that makes me think we’re worse than we are.

 

You're right about the strength of the league.
When we started the season I was expecting half the teams to be Birmingham or Wrexham and we would be lucky to finish lower mid table. As it is, most teams are Cambridge or Bristol and literally all the most fancied sides bar Cardiff are no better than us. It's a strange and surreal feeling that we could be going to Wembley this season after a 97th minute goal got us promoted. Are the stars aligned for us?, do we have divine intervention? or are we just one of the best of a bunch of carpetbagging opportunists?

 

I know everyone is saying that our away form will scupper our play-off chances but, as I think Mark Bower pointed out, we've beaten Stockport and Udders over '2 legs' this season and drew at Bolton with the home 'leg' to play. I absolutely will not write off our chances. We are going up.

 

We'll get into playoffs, if we make it to Wembley then we will be exactly where we were when Rupp bought us, hit the reset button, gave free reign to his mate who he thought knew football and almost destroyed us...

 

Really?

 

We have come a long way from where we were 18 months ago but I don’t think we are strong enough for promotion to the championship. As for the play offs it depends on keeping our key players fit

 

Where we are is a pleasant surprise - not making the playoffs from this position would have to be considered a failure, but we’ll have a better season than most would have anticipated.

As such, I’m still more in hope rather than expectation about how the season will finish - therefore, count me as unsure.

 

I've felt for some time that we will make the play offs but ultimately fail to go up.
That would actually represent a very successful season, but I think if thats what happens we will be left with a feeling of what might have been.
Our 'first choice' 11 is probably more than competitive at this level, but outside of that, we are lacking. At the end of 2024, we were at a crossroads as we were well in touch with the autos which exceeded everyone's expectations. Unfortunately we needed a strong window to kick on but actually had the opposite.
I think we will make the play offs, and of course anything can happen at that point. We will be very much the underdogs though and I do think we'll fall short.

 

Yes. Despite the loss, we did play arguably the best we've played away in a long, long time, so signs of positivity are there. We look unbeatable at home, and we will turn around the away form, finishing 2nd and disappointing our mates at Lincoln. Or, we can let Lincoln have 2nd, and we will win the playoffs.

 

I'd say no.

I dunno why though. I don't think any of the playoff sides look good, the two teams that actually like decent are Cardiff and Lincoln, and not just because they're top 2, but because of what they've been doing to teams including us.

Bolton are playing all 3 playoff sides in the coming weeks so we'll see if they're favourites for the playoffs, but they're not losing and have scored quite a few recently - we play them in the second-to-last game of the season, which will be a solid indicator of whether we can beat them or at least draw them into submission.

 

Not quite, when Rupp bought us we’d just been knocked out in the playoffs semi by Millwall. We went to Wembley season after under Rupps ownership.

 

Next few days are crucial, Orient, Port Vale, Wigan, Mansfield and Burton. A chance to get a lot of points although 3 are away. Big day tomorrow with in form Wycombe away at Bolton.

 

Am I reading this correctly as we lost at Accu?

 

We lost 1 - 0 at their place and won 3 - 1 at ours. So 'on aggregate' a 3 - 2 win.

 

I think we'll make play offs and poss final but fall at the last fence. Other than a crazy final 5 mins in the Reading game we'd be further clear of 7th spot.