PIERCE SWEENEY IS THE CLUB CAPTAIN OF EXETER CITY FC
With six more points in the bag, courtesy of 2-1 wins at home to Peterborough United and away at Wigan Athletic since I last put pen to paper, it has been a good seven days for us. We probably rode our luck a little in the first half of last Tuesday night’s game against the Posh, when former Grecian Joel Randall had a goal disallowed for offside before Harrison Burrows fired the visitors ahead from the penalty spot.
However, we grew into proceedings and, come the final whistle, I thought we were good value for our victory – albeit, good as we were out of possession, we can still do better when we have the ball. Admittedly, our cause was helped considerably when Michael Olakigbe received a second yellow card for hacking down the excellent Vinny Harper early in the second half but, notwithstanding the visitors could have had no complaints about his dismissal, playing against 10 men is all too often easier said than done.
Fortunately, we got to grips with the situation pretty quickly and went straight for the throat, with Reece Cole firing us level from a free kick before Jadel Katongo inadvertently poked the ball into his own net with 10 minutes to go.
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Reece has been fantastic over recent weeks, and it was great to see him on the scoresheet again. Not only that, but it was also his ball into the box which wreaked such havoc that, in his efforts to clear it, Katongo, who is on loan from Premier League champions Manchester City, only succeeded in diverting it past his own keeper. Reece’s performances are even more praiseworthy when you consider this time last year, he was playing for Hayes & Yeading in Southern League Premier.
He and Tom Carroll have been dynamite in the centre of our midfield over the last few weeks and seem to compliment one another perfectly – I guess the fact that the two of them share a house in Exeter goes might go some towards explaining their apparent telepathic understanding on the pitch! For what it’s worth, I think Reece is only going to get better next season when he’ll have had the benefit of being in a full-time environment for 12 months as well as another pre-season under his belt.
As I’ve said before, I’ve no problem if the manager decides it’s in the team’s best interests to bench me from time to time and while I was disappointed not to start the game against Peterborough, it was great to get on for the final 30 minutes and have the opportunity to affect the game.
Saturday’s match at Wigan saw us record a second successive 2-1 victory, although on this occasion we weren’t required to come from behind, going in at half-time a goal to the good and doubling our advantage midway through the second half.
On his first start for the club, Mo Eisa fired us ahead with a deflected shot from distance after just 10 minutes and Jack Aitchinson provided us with a bit more breathing space when doubling our advantage, courtesy of another deflection, after 66 minutes. Wigan did pull a goal back five minutes later, and proceeded to put us under a bit of pressure from thereon in but, truth be told, I thought that we dealt with everything they threw at us without too much difficulty and never really looked like conceding an equaliser.
While I knew of Mo before he joined us on loan, I can’t remember having come up against him. That being the case, I was surprised at how slight he is – for sure, I don’t think he’s on the same diet as I am! Be that as it may, he’s strong on the ball, which he looks after really well and, what’s more, has an eye for goal. Suffice to say, I think he’s just the kind of player we needed and is going to be huge for us between now and the end of the season.
Our victory at the DW Stadium was our first over Wigan in donkey’s years and I imagine no-one was more delighted by it than the gaffer. Plainly, Gary [Caldwell] had a pretty torrid time before Christmas, during which we were unfortunate to lose to his former club in both the league and FA Cup, and I’m sure he took great pleasure from getting a result on his former stomping ground. Understandably, he remained up north afterwards and I’d like to think Saturday’s result made the time he got to spend with family and friends all the more enjoyable.
Certainly, the League One table is looking a whole lot healthier now than it did five or six weeks ago – we’re up to 13th, eight points clear of Port Vale, who currently occupy the final relegation place, although there’s no room for complacency. While I’d far rather have points in the bag than games in hand, the fact remains that all 11 of the clubs below us in the table have played less games than we have and things can change very quickly.
For example, Wycombe, who hadn’t been in great form this year, found themselves 2-0 down at Fleetwood a couple of weeks ago, before the home side had a player sent off and they scored two late goals to nick a 2-2 draw; since then the Chairboys have won 3-1 at Cheltenham and walloped Peterborough 5-2.
Meanwhile, Fleetwood, for whom things had been beginning to look decidedly bleak, have won two of their three games since then, having previously gone 13 without a win. And they might well have made it three on the bounce, having led 1-0 at Lincoln on Saturday, before they, again, had a player sent off and eventually succumbed by two goals to one.
Will Aimson and I went along to one of Exeter City Community Trust’s half-term holiday clubs on Monday. It’s always a humbling experience to see the kids’ eyes light up when you drop by at these type of events and, certainly, it’s something I’ll never tire of doing.
Jamie Vittles and his team at the community trust are top people and do lots of fantastic work, much of which goes unseen, delivering physical activity, education, health & wellbeing programmes and courses to individuals regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, physical ability, background or economic status. More power to their collective elbows!
Touch wood by the time you read this, we’ll have picked up another point or three from our game against Derby. That said, regardless of how we get on at SJP on Tuesday night, such is our form of late, and the mood in the camp at the minute, that we’ll travel to Lincoln this weekend confident of our ability to get a result – we’ve won our last three away games and, if we play as well as we did in the victories over Bristol Rovers, Barnsley, and Wigan, then I see no reason why we can’t extend that sequence to four!
Due to Express and Echo print deadlines, the column was written before Tuesday's 3-0 defeat at home to Derby County
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