Ahead of arguably our biggest match of the season tonight (until the next one) I’ve been looking at the form table for the last 10 games.
While QPR and Sheffield Weds have been pulling up trees and doing well, we’re above all of our other relegation rivals except Huddersfield – just a point better off and hammered by the Baggies on Sunday.

Boro are only three points better off than us and that changes if we can beat them tonight. It’s by no means a stretch to think, with some vocal backing from a decent crowd, we can do so.

Despite two good wins recently, Boro will be fragile if we tear into them from the off – having lost three on the bounce prior to that. Let’s just hope we’ve got our shooting boots on.

Rotherham are gone, so the two places to be filled will go to the teams which bottle it in the run-in. I don’t think it will be us.

I’m not one to bemoan referees but we’ve suffered terribly in the last two games. We hung in against a very good Hull side, despite the terrible hand ball goal which went unpunished. We got a deserved equaliser after a much better second half display. Similarly, after a nervy first half at the Den, we took the game to Millwall and should have won.

Another poor refereeing decision, when Stansfield was clearly wrestled to the ground, left us frustrated again. Had Mark Roberts used his 6’3” frame like it was designed – and not let Tanganga bully him from a 90th-minute corner, we’d be talking about a well deserved point at least.

Our luck has to change. It’s basic fact we cannot suffer such game-changing misses from officials every, single week. If we can get over the line tonight, or even produce a good performance and a point, you have to think Watford is a winnable match on Saturday. With six points from their last 10 games, their form is only better than Rotherham’s. They seem a club in free fall and we simply have to put them to the sword.

If we do, I think we then need two more wins and perhaps a draw to stay up. We have QPR, Rotherham and Huddersfield, all away, in the run-in. There has to be one win among those. Even Leicester are stuttering and we travel there too. At home we have Preston, Cardiff, Coventry and Norwich. All tough games but I would target Preston as winnable and possibly Cardiff. We’re also easily capable of picking up a point or two against the others. So I remain optimistic of getting the points we need, even without allowing for our rivals all taking points off each other.

I remember Fulham coming to St Andrew’s pushing for the play-offs in May 2018 and we needed to win to stay up. We beat them 3-1 because they couldn’t handle the atmosphere. Let’s recreate that again tonight and push the lads to victory.

You heard what Laird said. It spurs them on. Keep Right On everyone, we’re in the business end now. These are the games we buy our season tickets for.

Jez Hemming