THIS week saw a bit of a wasted opportunity for us when we travelled to Coventry on Tuesday night.

It came on the back of a fantastic home win over Bradford where we fully deserved to become the first side to beat them this season.

We had a little bit of luck when they missed a penalty in the first half, but that only evened things up because the decision was very harsh anyway.

We then grew into the game and dominated the second period.

It took a moment of class from Chris Maguire to win the game, but I don’t think too many people begrudged us the victory.

Our Achilles heel this season has been that inability to follow up a terrific win like that with another one immediately after.

Three or four times we have played well and I have thought we have had the perfect opportunity to go on a run.

We have missed each of those chances so far and failed to build on a win and gather momentum.

To beat the team in second and then lose against the division’s bottom side a few days later is so frustrating.

But we have a young squad who are learning all the time and I am convinced we do have that elusive run of results still to come.

It is such a tight league – we are still three points off the play-offs.

Scunthorpe have had a great run, Sheffield United have been in terrific form of late, and I know we are more than capable of doing that ourselves.

Every unbeaten run starts somewhere, so we have to go to Port Vale today and get on the front foot straight away.

We need to have the mental strength to repeat the performance and result from our trip to Bolton the other week.

It is not going to be easy against a strong Vale side.

But if we win we go level on points with them.

We then have three of our next four games at home and that presents another great opportunity for us.

We will have a great following again today, so hopefully everyone comes back down to Oxford on the motorway tonight smiling.

I WATCHED the FA Cup draw at home on Monday and like every manager was hoping for a home draw.
Paul Ince was pulling out the home clubs and as soon as he drew Merstham’s name out I had a funny feeling we were coming next. 
Sure enough, David James pulled out ball 34 and I had to quickly google exactly where we were going!
It is on TV and anyone tuning in from outside Oxfordshire is going to be hoping for an upset, so I think it is a very dangerous game.

Last season we were the cup heroes, beating Swansea in the third round, so there is no way we are going to Merstham unprepared. 
We have two massive league games first, but when the cup comes around we know we will be ready.