"It's a dreadful cliche I'll give you that one, but Saturday's ugly win was just what we needed. A win is most definitely a win under these circumstances.
For large parts of the game, it was a scrap being played out between two very poor teams. A dreadful spectacle it was, an end to end classic it was not, but although sometimes you clamour for entertainment, when you're in the situation we are in we'll be needing more of these rather than good, entertaining performances that end in defeats (see Rotherham). An early goal was enough to settle it with not much else of note occurring until late on when Macc realised they'd actually require an attack of note to get anything out of the game. They had their moments, but never truly threatened, however it was more than enough to provide plenty of nervousness amongst the 1,500 or so home supporters who are sticking with it.
To say Macc's attack was pretty toothless would be a fair assessment but we must look at our defensive performance too to perhaps see why it was so. It's only our third clean sheet of the season and where we have looked shaky before, the defence played their part well. There are still worries, yes, and we've seen what can happen against better attacks, but for now you've got to try and take the positives.
Talking of positives, Mauro Vilhete provided a massive one from Saturday. The young man continues to defy logic that a player of his size and youth can provide Football League defenders a serious headache. He must have been conceding close to ten inches on the visitors' big centre back Nat Brown, yet he gave him more than enough to worry about over his 89 minutes on the pitch. He was winning balls in the air and his first touch and ground play are fantastic. Without trying to heap expectation on such a young man's shoulders, the prospect and potential of Mauro Vilhete is one that should give serious encouragement to the club and supporters that he will be the first in a long line of quality to be produced from our Academy. I am certain we will be seeing plenty more from him this season, and that is something to look forward to isn't it?
So it was a win that for now keeps our heads afloat and shakes off the unwanted burden of being in the bottom two, for now. Northampton's surprising inability to do anything good at all has seen them drop below us and we now have a two point cushion. This is before an away trip to Shrewsbury I may add, where our chances of returning with anything other than a comfortable defeat seem quite slim in all honesty.
Still, the quality of ""not playing well but stil getting the result"" was on show and at the moment I don't really care how we get them, just as long as we do get them. That view must surely be considered when it comes to playing The Chavs at home next week. Now that's something to get excited about."
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