19th January 2009, that was the last time we lost at home, or put another way, we are seven undefeated at home.
We haven’t conceded for 451 minutes, the players seem to have found a renewed togetherness, is there any wonder that some fans are already starting to talk about next season.
However there is still a lot of work to be done and we must not get carried away, even if we are arguably playing the best football since the Johnson era.
A delighted Terry Skiverton spoke to the press.
‘Really pleased with the boys. The effort, the game plan that we stuck to, keeping our two banks of four with Gavin Tomlin playing a little bit deeper than he usually does. We knew that they was going to attack us and come at us, we had to sit back a little bit and hit them on the break at times. When you’ve got a team like Millwall coming down to you on such a good run, you’ve got to be solid at the back. I felt we was today, we limited them to a few chances and we created maybe three or four good chances ourselves. So really pleased with it today, I think Gavin Tomlin deserved his goal, he put a great shift in for the team, it was just nice for him to crown it off with a very good goal today’
For me the jury is still out on Tomlin, although he played well against Millwall and Northampton, he still makes too many fundamental errors to be considered a league one standard player. However a run in the team, a team with confidence seems to be doing him the world of good.
‘I think it has rewarded me with good performances, he makes Jon Obika even more dangerous because centre halves have to drop deep to go with Jon and the Gav goes and picks up little bits and pieces in the hole. Today he did more of a defensive job by latching on to Bolder today, he was picking up quite a lot of balls in the first ten/fifteen minutes and he was having to do a sort of man on man marking on him. So we had to tweak and adjust our way of playing but really pleased and to beat Millwall two-nil is an excellent result for the football club’
Obika was set up after some good play from Murtagh and Tomlin’s goal came after Warney won a number of 50/50 balls and Skivo noted the contribution.
‘I keep calling Paul Warne the best defensive right midfielder I’ve ever had, that’s only six games mind you, but he does a really good job for us, his running for the age of him is outstanding and he is another one who does a good job for the team and we are a team. We are not one to keep praising individuals but people that work like that and drag other people by the scruff of the neck to work as hard as him really does help us’
As I mentioned above, clean sheets obviously help when you are in a relegation battle and credit must go to all five of the back line. The communication is there, the willingness to work hard, cover for one another and to fight for the cause has been top class.
‘We’ve been lucky enough to get Chris Weale and it shows today when he comes and takes crosses like that, he takes the pressure off the back four and they was a very big side and we was worried about them because they score a lot of goals, not from the first ball that goes in from a corner or a free kick but when you clear the ball, the second ball, they score quite a lot of goals like that. I’m pleased with the way that we defended today, it seems like every time they did get a free header we was on the knock downs, there was another case when they had three or four shots and we was getting blocks in and that shows a real togetherness in a football team’
A sometimes feisty game saw Dunne being sent off for ‘Wall but the boss was largely happy with how we kept control.
‘We kept a lid on it, we was a little bit passionate and sometimes you get too passionate but they had a man sent off for two innocuous challenges but it shows that Andros who in his own head might not of thought he had a good game today but the two times he got running at the full back, the full back is making lunges and they go down to ten men and it makes our job a lot easier’
A crowd of over 6,000 was inside Huish Park, for only the second time this season and Skivo was pleased with the ’12th Man’
‘It was fantastic that they come out and supported us today, I thought the kids for a quid was a great idea, maybe not against Millwall at home, but it’s a great idea and the kids would have enjoyed it today because it was a great atmosphere and the Millwall supporters played their part as well’
It’s Cheltenham away on Monday and Skiverton chose a phrase from Johnson’s to describe the match.
‘Never go to a wounded animal, they’re the most dangerous things out there. What you’ve got to make sure is that we are mentally strong, mentally tough, we don’t show any weakness, we need to go there be powerful, positive, play the same way we did today and the same way we played at Stockport. We’ve got a little mixture of the two now, I think we can play football, we can dig in and defend. We’ve got a very good plan A and a very good plan B’
