My match report: Swindon Town v AFC Wimbledon.

It's not so much that the hope kills you, we've all gotta go sometimes. No it's the way it strangles and suffocates you slowly, leaving you gasping for breath before eventually the lights firstly dim then extinguish gradually. Such is the cruelty of hope that we aren't actually dead yet, not totally. Ultimately though after this defeat we know that our demise as a playoff contender is inevitable, as sure a thing as Die Hard being on the TV at Christmas.

It had all started so well in the first fifteen minutes. Swindon looked about as disorganised and demotivated as any team I've seen in ages, we tore into them and it looked like there could only be one winner. Big Joe Lewis headed us in front and I think a second goal would have turned it into a potential goal difference job.

Gradually though as we continually gave them ownership of the football, they put down the holiday brochures and began to get interested. Once they'd realised that if they tried something which didn't come off they were only going to have to wait 30 seconds before we gave them the ball back, they relaxed.

Of course we continued to threaten from mortar bomb throw ins, but once they got the games outstanding player (McEchran) on the ball more often, the tide began to turn. The little midfielder pushed and probed, displaying all of his Chelsea pedigree as he nudged his team back into the game.

In the second half they scored three goals. One of them very good, two of them gifted by us. Once we'd gone behind we made three subs, but in truth although we tried our guts out our play had an air of desperation about it. We got one back via the excellent short shorts adding a second, but time was against us and we slipped to defeat.

Defeat here didn't cost us a playoff spot, that has come about as the result of loads of factors which will no doubt be discussed at length. Ultimately this season has been much better than last, I just wonder whether history will judge it positively. I hope so, there has been much to like, despite the way it's ending. I think though that I probably speak for many when I say that I hope this particular brand of "football" isn't going to be our long term blueprint for success.

The long throw. Is it worth it?

There used to be a fella get in a pub I ran years back, Geoff his name was. Once when we rang the time at the bar bell he leapt off his chair and started shadow boxing, the whole place fell about laughing. Timing is everything in comedy as it is in life, Geoff nailed it.

The unfortunate thing was, from that day on he did it every single night he was in. We went full circle in terms of audience reaction. From polite smiles, to total silence, to "sit down silly bollocks" and finishing with people laughing AT him as opposed to with him. I had to have a quiet word with him in the end to save his embarrassment. I definitely don't think I nailed it even though my intentions were good, he stopped coming in.

As I often say, football reflects real life. I don't know if Ronnie Radford tried hitting it from 35 yards every time it rolled near him after his screamer against Newcastle, but I'm pretty sure that if he did he'd have quickly been told to give it a rest.

So what of our throw in? Well after Saturdays winning goal, it's caused two goals to be scored so far (that one plus the og versus Notts County). Given that, am I completely bonkers to be even talking about it? Let's have a look.

The first thing to point out is that Kofi Balmer obviously isn't a right back. He CAN play there, he is good defender who rarely gets embarrassed (if he does it's more of the him failing to control it rather than him getting skinned), and he lets nobody down. But he definitely isn't a right back. I'm going to be so bold as to suggest that if he couldn't throw the football like Captain Caveman hurling a boulder, we would play Ogs or Huss at right back. The impact on us as an attacking unit of having "Not a right back" playing there is quite profound. It isn't the ONLY reason that we have become so bereft of inspiration going forward, but like a boxer with a broken right hand, it is chief amongst the causes.

Then there is the question of the element of surprise. Much of the magic in sport is when someone does the unexpected. Nine times out of ten, it isn't the bouncer which gets the Test cricketer out, it's the yorker when the batter is EXPECTING the short one. We never seem to take the opportunity to throw a quick short one in, to perhaps vary it so the long throw is loopier, hits the edge of the box, even is thrown backwards so we can build the play while they have ten men in their own penalty area.

Like Geoff with his shadow boxing routine, we are in danger of becoming one trick ponies. If the throw in doesn't work (and it normally doesn't) we are seemingly at a loss to come up with an alternative.

So I ask the question. Are we getting it right already and I'm just talking bollocks again? Do we need to mix it up more, or should we play a right back at right back?

My match report: AFC Wimbledon v Salford.

If football matches were pop songs, this one wouldn't have been "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. As to the best of my knowledge he never released a song called "Totally boring shite", we'll have to go with "Bad" by the same artist. I should think we can console ourselves with the end maybe justifying the means, but in truth this was a brutal watch from start to finish. 

Salford briefly threatened to be quite good during the first ten minutes (this was during Kofe Balmers comical "I've never seen a football before" period), but gradually with our ratting and rock solid defence, we snuffed out their creativity, dragging them to our level by their earholes. By the twenty minute mark, the trenches were dug and it was just a question of who would win out.

Would it be them if one of our defenders fell over it and presented them with a chance? or would it be us if one of Kofi's heat seeking throw-ins caused havoc? They almost got first blood when Ryan fell over it but Alex Bass saved our Danish with a good stop. Then, on throw number 107 our tactic (I use the word as a singular deliberately) eventually paid off. I was reminded of the 70's tennis player Vitus Gerrulitis. He lost 17 matches consecutively to Jimmy Connors, then unexpectedly triumphed against him in a small clay court event in Miami. He memorably said in an after match interview that "Nobody beats Vitus Gerrulitis eighteen times a row", and in this spirit our cunning throw in ploy was always going to win through in the end. Here it was thanks to Omar Bugiel, leaping like a kid who's been done with the old "drawing pin on the chair" schooldays prank, to head home expertly. 

From there we huffed and we puffed (I'm talking us in the crowd) but nothing happened. There was just time for Jake Reeves to hilariously disrupt Salford's injury time free kick routine by booting the ball into the stands. In many ways, that launch into "anywhere will do" territory perfectly encapsulated the game.

Still, we won. The dream lives on, and as it's now finished the nightmare that was the game itself is over.

It's a question of balance....

So here we are, the business end of the season. Four games to go, and over the next couple of weeks it'll either be "Let's smash MK and go to Wembley" or it'll be "Well at least we did better than last time".

Fortunately for us, we don't have to concern ourselves with any "squeaky bums". That kind of thing is for Barrow, Crewe and Crawley to worry about, they're already in there and just need to hold onto what they've got. All three of those teams by the way have been excellently managed to this point. None have huge budgets nor massively impressive individual players,  if they make the playoffs that's a fine effort.

So what of us? Well a quick check with the bookies sees that they have us at 7/1 to make the playoffs. That's probably about right, not only do we have some ground to make up but there are a couple of teams behind us with games in hand also. It's been said that we need to win our last four, I'd say even that probably won't be enough. It's not by any means impossible that we get in there, but I'm afraid we do need a couple of snookers.

It's long felt to me (from my view in the stands) that we haven't quite got the balance right between trying to avoid conceding goals/getting beat, and trying to score goals/win. Funnily enough I had that feeling even stronger earlier in the season. Back then we had the best player in the league playing centre forward for us, a sound defence and generally a very good team. If we don't make the cut, it won't be because we got beat one zip at Stockport, it'll be because we didn't go "let's have it, we'll score more than you" at Grimsby, Forest Green etc.

A quick look at the current form table is illustrative. 

Only one team has conceded less than us in the last ten games (Wrexham) but we have the worst attacking numbers in the league. Even Sutton have scored more than double our goals tally, Mansfield have scored almost four times as many.

Whatever happens over the next couple of weeks, it's this balance which needs addressing. At the moment we have two expensive strikers sitting on the bench, our best striker often operating as a ball winning midfielder and our chief threat is from long throws. We don't get forward in any numbers and we don't in all honesty even look like scoring heavily.

My hunch is that we need to get the ball down and play a bit more. I'm not talking Notts County or MK style, but we've got to look on the first pass to at least try and find the feet of a teammate. We need to go through the thirds a bit more. We have good footballers, we need to play and then give others a chance to get up and support the strikers.

We've made big progress this season. Next time around, it's on this balance that surely the focus must fall.