In my last blog I said the lads were looking to put our poor home form behind us and make a totally fresh start at Griffin Park.
After a 5-2 win against Wycombe and a 4-0 against Carlisle, I’d like to say I’m now looking to win the lottery this weekend and the play-offs in May!
On a serious note, after run of disappointments at home it was great to give our fans a couple of good wins. It’s just annoying that our last couple of away results haven’t been good.
We should definitely have won at Yeovil on Saturday and all the lads were sick about that defeat.
I felt for some time we were capable of turning the corner at home and it’s been a theme of our season that we don’t do things by half. As well as the bad results at home we’ve beaten Leyton Orient 5-0, Bournemouth 6-0 and have now scored nine goals in our last two at home.
It means we’re in the top 10 at the start of March, which the manager stated from the outset was his aim.
We are still very much aiming towards a play off place but we appreciate the next two games are crucial. There are plenty of games left and ones we should believe are winnable. We’ve still got an opportunity, so let’s go for it.
Elsewhere on West London Sport football psychology expert Dan Abrahams talks about players “rehearsing failure” after bad run or when the team’s particularly struggling at home or away.
In my experience this is definitely true. It does become the talk of the dressing room and almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the more talk there is of results being bad the worse the problem gets.
It takes a bit of mental strength to break the chain and now we’ve turned the corner at home it’s important we keep going.
Talking of mental strength, Joe Hart has it in abundance which is partly why I’d love to see him made England captain.
He was mentioned as a candidate before the armband went to Scott Parker and I think he would be a great choice.
As well as his talent and physical attributes, he’s got the mental attributes as well. I don’t know whether this is something he just has or has developed, but he has the ability to put a mistake behind him if he makes one and that’s a great asset for a goalkeeper.
A lot of people are sceptical about having a keeper as captain. It is true that as keepers we’re not always in the centre of the action, but keepers can make good captains and that’s been shown down the years – particularly abroad, where a number of keepers have captained top sides and you have Iker Casillas with Spain.
For me a good captain has a presence in the dressing room as well as on the pitch and leads by example.
I think Joe Hart epitomises everything about a good captain and he’d definitely be my choice.
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This post was last modified on 09/03/2012