Bolton left it late in a scrappy game, but Shaun Miller’s finish ensured we won a fourth game in five with a 1-0 victory at Southend.
It wasn’t a classic, and it was summed up in the goal. A shot from Antoni Sarcevic looped up off a defender, came up off the bar, with Southend keeper Mark Oxley looking on with his arms out, as if he was some sort of glitch in a computer game. Miller, like Sarcevic one of four second half substitutes, was in position though, and finished to ensure we won the game.
We did okay in the first half, but didn’t take the chances we got. Eoin Doyle did have the net for offside, but he and Marcus Maddison were otherwise misfiring. We had a shot cleared off the line, with the lack of goalline technology in League Two we might have to take their word for it, but given recent refereeing standards in our games, it was probably six feet over.
The second half was much scrappier, in fact Southend had a few blocked efforts earlier in the half, and it almost felt as if as has often been the case, it’d have been better to concede just so it could spark a reaction. But eight minutes from time, Miller managed to capitalise on the stroke of luck, and we held on to win. Not a great performance, but a win and clean sheet against a team that had been better of late, so let’s definitely not say it was anything other than a good result.
Encouragingly, we’re now the form team in the division based on the last five games, we’ve been in good form at times this season but we need to keep this going now. We’re three points off the playoffs and six off automatic promotion.