So the anguish of the Yeovil defeat was swiftly forgotten at the weekend as Gillingham were swept aside at sunny Sixfields. Danny Jackman shone in a man of the match performance while big bad Bayo hit his third and fourth goal in under 90 minutes of football that he’s played in since joining the club.
Gillingham at home represented a good chance to get the wheels back in motion for the final push of the season but no-one would have been able to predict the ease in which we swept aside the team from the Priestfield.
Gillingham were poor, one of the worst sides many have seen us play this season and their loan striker, former Dim himself Simeon Jackson, hardly had a sniff. The Gills splashed out £150,000 on the villager a couple of weeks ago and Cobblers fans left completely satisfied that we instead went for the free transfer acquisition of Mr Akinfenwa.
Jackson’s only real activity involved missing a one on one with Bunn but he was offside anyway and that was the closest the Gills would get to excitement.
It was always going to be ours if we got the first goal and once Crowe had smashed us in front and Bayo had headed home just as we were sitting down from the first goal celebrations we were in cruise control. The second half saw Bayo score again, barging his defender out the way in the process and then his replacement Giles Coke scoring after just three minutes of his introduction.
The game was won and we had twenty minutes of more control with Hoobs missing an absolute sitter at one end and the Gillingham fans getting excited at a shot on goal at the other, prompting a conga line from their fans! Fair play to the travelling support for keeping morale high during the drubbing and rightfully lording the efforts of goalkeeper Simon Royce for keeping the score in single figures!
One man who shone more than others was former Gills man Danny Jackman who put in an outstanding performance in the middle of the park. Since his transition to midfield, the little man has grown by the week and he would have deserved his goal that was disallowed. It would have capped a tremendous afternoon and the visiting fans were left smarting at what they let go for free in the summer.
So it’s back to the top half and the “P Word” is being whispered softly now that the gap between ourselves and the bottom four is big enough for us to be able to breath fairly easily. The playoffs are six points away at the moment and though we shouldn’t get carried away with a lot of tough fixtures, particularly over Easter, to contend with we should certainly not be getting ahead of ourselves. But why not look up now that relegation fears are starting to disappear once more?
Hartlepool away is winnable and if we can win on Friday night, we could be an incredible three points off the top six come the end of the night ahead of Saturday’s games!
It’ll be a tough evening, particularly being a night game and with us having a minimal support up there but another performance like Saturdays will mean we’d be in with a great chance of bringing home three more precious points.
Up The Cobblers!
Danny
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