A rather surreal evening in a great setting. The view from our end was not as bad as I anticipated and the overall attendance was greater than most people forecast. The home support was pretty average at best but I must also say our end was not as noisy as say at Walsall but the singers were spread around. Of course the game did not help as it was pretty dull - we coped with West Ham quite comfortably for 90 minutes without creating very much. Hart saved well from Payne and that was the turning point as the pressure on us increased during extra time and it seemed unlikely we would make it to penalties without conceding. A great shame as I really fancied us from penalties after our good Checkatrade shoot-out and , whatever its faults , this team does not contain any bottlers. The stadium experience as a whole was pretty underwhelming with a ludicrous number of stewards, most of whom were doing absolutely nothing all game except grappling with the hundred or so Eastenders extras who mysteriously appeared behind our section in the second half and made several pantomime attempts to storm the barriers. The big chance to beat them was at the Meadow and, considering West Ham's woeful attacking display then I just wonder whether we could not have had more of a tilt at them second half in that game. As for the rest of the season, we know our defense and midfield is magnificent when defending and can also knock it about a bit but with the lack of quality crossing and with both our main strikers a bit out of touch (though you could not fault their effort) I suspect we will probably drop out of the automatic promotion places. Even if we do we have a great chance of making the play-offs (and also in the Checkatrade) and two wins at Wembley would make it one of our best-ever seasons.
A bit of an odd one, the chance of Wigan or Bournemouth damped down the desire to progress in this slightly. I'm sure Wigan would put up a stronger fight than West Ham did. I'd rather we focused our energies on securing promotion without the playoffs. The Checkatrade might be a good cup run, however prize money is only 100k on top of ticket sales. Town had the highest away following of all the FA cup games which was great to see.
Oldham at home in the Checkatrade looks winnable, especially if we put out a strong side and we definitely have unfinished business at Wembley though obviously Doncaster is the bigger match and looks a must win if we are serious about automatic promotion. A win on Saturday and we would a have the chance to go top again when Wigan play the next round in the FA cup.
