We are staying up.

[Cromwell58]

The feeling now must be that we will be seeing league football next year I would like to thank the Board for the difficult actions they have been forced to do and is appears it paid off. I can never understand the opinions of some of our fans for the negativity expressed on this Forum for day one to the present time. Every club has a bad spell throughout a season and thank god we had ours at the start that lasted till after Christmas and our luck has changed in the last few games. To stay in the League was our aim and I think we will have that , we have the smallest budget in the league and to get players to travel here was always going to be a massive tasks. We will see League football at Holker Street next year and that is because of our Board and the playing staff.

[HenneysKnee]

Agree with the vast majority of that. Not sure after January we will have the smallest budget in the league though

[A.B.]

Careful, you'll get slaughtered on here for being optimistic about our survival chances...

[Jim]

Always a bit of a worry IMO to suffer from premature congratulation!

[LCBAFC40]

The main thing this year esp during the no fans allowed was to stay in this league so we can at last watch league games next season and tbh i can't wait to be able to go back to Holker street. Im optimistic we'll stay up. We are doing ok and luckily for us our relegation rivals aren't winning. I'll be celebrating when its mathematically safe for us as there can still be twists and turns. Massive game on Tuesday for us against a very good side and its one of our game in hand

[holkerboy]

I won't say it's over but the fat lady is waiting in the wings ready to exercise those vocal chords!

[Shaun]

Football is weird so I won't be counting any chickens just yet. Another couple of wins and I might.

[Tommylad]

Could massively backfire this post with the fixtures we have coming up..

[holkerboy]

Could massively backfire this post with the fixtures we have coming up..

Agreed.

As the manager says let's take it one game at a time.

[PerthBluebird]

Nowhere near over this southend have us and col to play yet .

[andyg]

This sort of thread makes me nervous. Even when I was playing we never felt we were totally safe until we were totally safe. Football or any sport for that matter has an ability to hurt you when you least expect it. Am sure RK, the background staff or the players certainly don't feel we are there yet. I know RK will be making sure that message gets across to everyone. Exeter,unfortunately, appear to have hit some form and are already talking up this match in the press right after their great win at Cambridge. Its going to be tough like the rest of the games we still have to play. We must not give the teams below us or for that matter immediately above any glimmer of hope if at all possible.

[Cromwell58]

Could massively backfire this post with the fixtures we have coming up..

Nearer staying up then predictions all season of going down.

[Desmond2-2]

If we do, my prayers have been answered, too early for this topic heading. Again if we do I just cannot wait for those matches next season both home and away. Yesterday would have been a sell out with a fantastic atmosphere, roll on next season.

[pjdaly]

I'm with the posts directly above - - - it's too early to say this. I cannot be doing with premature assumptions of success. As the posts above suggest, sport (indeed life itself) has a habit of tripping you up, and never more so than when the going seems good or when you have the loud-hailer out and you're shouting about it. It's not actually about lacking optimism (maybe there's such a thing as "silent" optimism?); rather, it's more about not wanting to tempt fate with premature public announcements of pending (?) success.

I was mentioning this the other week - - - one of the worst examples of football management I have ever witnessed came in the 2016 FA Cup Final between Crystal Palace and Man Utd. Palace went 1-0 ahead with only about 10 minutes left and the watching public was treated to the sight of Palace manager Alan Pardew doing a celebratory robotic dance on the sideline. Now, I had no interest in either Palace or Man Utd but, yes, I wanted Palace to win as they were massive underdogs. I remember cursing Pardew on the screen and thinking "I would never want you as manager of Barrow". Pardew's job, the very instant his team scored, was to get his players' heads back out of the clouds in readiness for the kitchen sink that would be coming their way in the final ten minutes. Instead he acted as though the cup was already won. Needless to say, Utd soon equalised and went on to win. I far prefer the approach of Rob Kelly who wants to keep everything low key and will only think, at least openly, about the next match and no more than that.

Sorry if this seems miserable. Then again, I take that back - - - no, I'm not sorry. I'm happy to remain miserable until such time as there might be a reason to be cheerful. In the meantime we have work to do, starting with Exeter.

[Suffolk Blue]

I'm with you 100% PJ. Theres no point offering congratulations until such time as there is something to be congratulated for. To do so is not really in keeping either with the way Rob Kelly and the team have set about the task or with nature of the incremental process that has led us to this point. Everything has been and continues to be gradual. Its about staying the course better than our rivals and that has not yet reached a conclusion.

Statistically the scenarios are looking increasingly good for us as more survival options open up and the ones that aren't become fewer. Its also pretty clear to most of us now that the three teams below appear to have serious issues that will probably not disappear over the next few games. However there are still some rather scary scenarios that are possible that I dont particularly want to think about and would involve things going badly wrong in the last couple of games.

So right now I'm with RK and agree that focusing on each game is the sensible approach. In that respect our game versus Exeter should be seen as a free hit on Tuesday. We are the only one of the four playing and anything we get improves our situation.

Short of a resounding victory the next goal should probably be to get three points clear of Colchester and with a much better goal difference. The one thing that you can predict with confidence is that if we are three points clear of both Southend and Colchester by the last fixture it wont matter what the result is.