Singing the Blues

The Glovers surprised most of us on Tuesday night with an excellent 1-0 win away at a snowy Walsall, Sam Williams the scorer. By all accounts the lads thoroughly deserved the win, going ahead early and defending well when necessary, though the match stats of 9 Glovers efforts on target compared to Walsall's solitary 1 suggest a more comfortable victory than was perhaps the case. Whatever, 3 very welcome points which takes us up to 13th position on 38 points, 6 points clear of the relegation zone.

Yeovil entertain Franchise FC at Huish Park tomorrow and will be looking to make it 2 wins in a row for the first time since October. One would not expect Skivo to change a winning team after Tuesday night, injury permitting, and if that is the case then speculation will increase about the future of Ryan Mason at Huish Park. There's no doubt that Ryan is probably the best pure footballer we've loaned from Spurs over the last 12 months, equally there's no doubt that if we're playing with 2 strikers then it's a difficult job to fit him into a balanced side, and the key word there is balanced. His best position would appear to be in the hole behind a single striker and we did enjoy a decent run in the first few months of the season with him in that position, but since then a combination of opposition teams perhaps getting wise to him, injury and poor pitches have blunted his effectiveness in that role. Skivo's tried Mason variously as one of the 2 central midfielder's and on both wings, but with only limited success. He is most effective as a central attacking midfielder, but at a cost to the overall balance of the side. He was fit and available for selection on Tuesday night but was left out then; if he's missing again tomorrow then one would not be surprised to see him follow Jon Obika's example and return to Spurs permanently, sooner rather than later. A super little player who's done us proud, but just maybe has done as much as he can for now.

And having written all that, watch Skivo pick him for tomorrow's game! The bookies make the Glovers marginal favourites for the win at 13/8, the draw is 23/10 and an MK Dons win 8/5. My fiver's going on the home win. Running total: -£7.50p.

Football's chickens are finally coming home to roost: Chester City have been expelled from the Conference at last. The Chester saga has been ongoing for years now with that benighted club's fans suffering under some of the worst/idiotic/most criminal owners that any club's fans have ever had to endure. It seems likely now that Chester City FC will cease to exist in the very near future and a new club - free from the taint of their last, reviled owners, the Vaughan family - will arise in it's place, further down the pyramid. That news comes on the same day that Portsmouth has gone into administration, the first Premiership club to do so; and on the same day that AFC Bournemouth was served with a winding-up order. And we've also found out today that Southend are yet to pay their players this year, having survived a winding-up order themselves just before Christmas. And there are many other clubs in similar difficulties. Where Chester lead others will surely follow before the end of the season. There but for the grace of god...