PIERCE SWEENEY IS THE CLUB CAPTAIN OF EXETER CITY FC

The club has enjoyed decidedly mixed fortunes since I last shared my thoughts with you just before Christmas, while, on a personal level, I’ve succumbed to an injury which is likely to keep me out for the next couple of months.

While I’m gutted that I won’t be able to contribute on the pitch for the foreseeable future, rest assured I’ll be offering the lads plenty of support and encouragement from the sidelines. Of course, no-one wants to be injured but now I’m in my 30s, I find it a bit easier to be philosophical – I’ve been pretty fortunate with injuries since arriving from Reading in the summer of 2016, playing more than 300 games, so can’t complain too much.

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Back-to-back victories away at Burton on the last Saturday before Christmas and at home to Bristol Rovers on Boxing Day saw us move up the League One table. However, our progress was stalled somewhat by a remarkable 4-4 draw with Crawley, since when we’ve fallen to injury time defeats against both Wycombe and Bolton.

While it’s less than three weeks since we lined up against Burton at the Pirelli Stadium, it seems like an age since Millenic Alli’s second-half wonder strike saw us come from behind to win 2-1 and secure our first league victory in more than a month. We didn’t get off to a great start against the Brewers, going 1-0 down inside the first 10 minutes. However, Josh Magennis’ equalizer on the stroke of half-time was huge and, ultimately, I thought we were good value for Milly’s 71st-minute winner.

Our somersaulting striker was also on the scoresheet against Bristol Rovers at SJP on Boxing Day. Again, we went behind, but, for the second time in the space of less than seven days, dug ourselves out of a bit of a hole to bag all three points.

It hadn’t necessarily looked likely when Promise Omochere put the visitors in front just after the hour mark, but Jack Fitzwater headed us level in the 72nd minute, Milly fired us ahead some five or six minutes later, and then, in stoppage time at the end of the game, 17-year-old Jake Richards bagged his first league goal to wrap up a 3-1 win.

Buoyed by back-to-back victories, we went into the Crawley home game full of confidence, so it was desperately disappointing to go in at the break 4-1 down; all the more so when you consider Milly’s third goal in as many games had levelled the score at 1-1 just 10 minutes before half-time. Unfortunately, we then contrived to gift the visitors three goals inside the space of eight calamitous minutes.

Plainly, if you’re 4-1 down at half-time you have a mountain to climb. That said, I still thought we could get something from the game and, while I wasn’t in the dressing room at half-time, I understand the gaffer was firmly of the same opinion. There would have been a few more believers after a stunning 60th-minute strike from Vinny Harper and when Ryan Woods scored directly from a corner with 10 minutes to go, with the big bank in full voice, it really was game on.

Step up Demetri Mitchell, who cut inside and fired an exquisite shot past the outstretched palm of Crawley keeper Jojo Wollacott in stoppage time at the end of the game. All said and done, I thought a draw was the very least our second-half efforts merited and that, with just a little more good fortune in front of goal, we might easily have gone on to win the game. Then again, I guess if you go in at half-time trailing by three goals, you can’t be too disappointed to come away with a point.

Conversely, I thought we were extremely unlucky to leave Adams Park on New Year’s Day with nothing to show for our endeavours, having executed our game plan pretty much to perfection. Unfortunately, Ilmari Niskanen had what appeared a perfectly legitimate goal struck off for no obvious reason while the Chairboys took the lead courtesy of a deflected free kick in the 66th minute. Tristan Crama headed home from a corner to equalize in the 86th minute and had the game finished 1-1 I think we’d have headed home relatively happy.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. While I thought it was far from clear-cut, in stoppage time at the end of the game, the referee adjudged the unfortunate Ed Francis to have handled the ball inside the box and, in his final game on loan from Bolton, Aaron Morley struck home the resulting penalty to give the hosts an extremely fortuitous 2-1 victory.

It looked as if we were set to return to winning ways after Demi [Mitchell] fired us ahead shortly after half-time in Saturday’s home game against Bolton. The visitors seemed to be running out of ideas before an unfortunate combination of errors presented them with an 88th-minute equalizer. And things went from bad to worse shortly afterwards when a free kick from that man Morley, who had been recalled to the Trotters’ starting line-up on his return to his home club, evaded everyone and drifted in at the far post.

We took one point from the games against Crawley, Wycombe, and Bolton when it could easily have been six or seven. Truth be told, I don’t think we had a whole lot of luck in any of the three games but what is undeniable is that in two of the three games we conceded some terribly soft goals.

It doesn’t much matter that our backline has been ravaged by injury over the last month or two, we have to cut this out and get back to keeping some clean sheets – our last one came against Lincoln in mid-November – if we’re to start climbing the table again.

We have a break from the league this Saturday when we take on Oxford United in the FA Cup third round. Having been promoted at the end of last season, the Os have adjusted well to life in the Championship, where they sit five points above the relegation zone, so it ain’t gonna be easy.

That said, we believe it’s a game we can win, so let’s hope we can do just that and the club is in the fourth round draw for the first time since 1981. That side made it to the sixth round and, in so doing, wrote themselves into Exeter City folklore. It would be great if we could do the same.