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Town fan Adam Johnson analyses six points out of six from the recent double header against Carlisle United and Stockport County, and looks forward to this weekend's clash against Leyton Orient....
In the last blog I mentioned how we needed to win games like Carlisle and Stockport if we were going to mount a serious play-off challenge and that's exactly what we have done!
So now we look at the League One table with a grin on our face as we know what is possible (even if we don't want to say it at the risk of jinxing it).
A win against Leyton Orient and any slip up from Colchester or Charlton, with those games in hand, could push us nearer the dream land of top two.
So let's look over the action from the last two games starting with last night.
It was another potential banana skin situation for us and we have seen it before that we fail against the lower teams but beat the big teams. But another impressively professional performance meant we got the three points in an astounding fashion.
When you see that we had 61% possession in our favour, you know it was dominant. There were a few nerves when Stockport grabbed a goal back just before half time but even the visitors had some more decent chances in the second half, we got the goals to guarantee the victory.
It was good to see Sean Morrison back in a Town shirt last night as well. Greer and Cuthbert are still going to be our number one defensive pairing but having quality like Morrison on the bench shows the depth that we have - along with Matt Ritchie filling in for the injured Danny Ward from early in the game.
Saturday's win over Carlisle was again a professional performance. A trademark goal from Charlie Austin with the inside of his boot again proved his talent that just seems to be never ending at the moment.
All the talk this week has been that Austin has been watched by England Under 21 scouts. I was surprised by this but when you see his record so far, it makes sense.
It's too quick to say that he will be in the squad soon but it is guaranteed that he would attract this attention at some point which he fully deserves.
More great news came in the form of Alan Sheehan's return to the team after injury. Sheehan has been brilliant during his loan spell at left back and he showed on Saturday that he has plenty of talent - especially with his cross for Billy Paynter's 20th of the season.
I know I mention Paynter every week, but when he reaches 20 goals in a season in February, his name deserves mentioning on a regular basis!
His transformation has been incredible; he has upped his own goals tally this season but has still been a vital supplier to goal scoring machine Charlie Austin and is now second in the League One goal scoring charts.
We move onto Leyton Orient on Saturday full of confidence and hopeful of continuing our building process to stay in the play-off zone.
Orient may not be on the best of form this season but as Danny Wilson has frequently been mentioning, this run doesn't mean we underestimate our opponents. It means we go out battling even more knowing what we are capable of.
Finally, and despite the optimism around the club at the moment, we do need to keep both feet on the floor and not get too excited!
Red Army!
Adam Johnson
