Top Of The League At Christmas

On the plus side, the sides in 2nd-7th are not performing consistently right now - it's like all the lesser sides have suddenly found a second wind while the movers and shakers are getting exhausted. However, despite our 78-game league unbeaten run (and British senior football record) ending a couple of weeks ago, we seem to be battening down the hatches alright and have a manager with the ability and common sense to navigate us through troubles times.

On the minus side, we've lost our talismanic centre back and goal machine (26 goals last season), Matt Everard, for at least 8 months, and have significan injury problems which are significantly skewing the look of the first team. If Rob Ursell gets picked up by a league club before the end of the season, we'll struggle a lot to replace his vision and frankly astonishing levels of skill. And we have the biggest bunch of moaners in football as our fanbase, as far as I can tell. For a team top of the league and owned and run by its fans, we seem to have an awful lot to complain about.

Does this make you imagine you are the best in Europe? It's the Championship.

For Bristol Rovers, we are becalmed in mid-table - but it's all close enough that a quick couple of wins would take us into a playoff slot, so I am hoping that we can find a bit of inspiration, and some goals, from somewhere and climb, rather than drift slowly towards the lower end as in the last few seasons.