Bristol Rovers v Colchester - Essex Dogs

Back to the Mem again tonight to watch Rovers take on play-off chasing Colchester.

The Essex boys haven’t won away from home since October 30th when they beat Bournemouth and so that should encourage Dave Penney’s team tonight.

Despite the fact that they are sniffing around the play-off spots they form hasn’t been too consistent in recent weeks either and they’ve managed two wins and one draw in the last six games.

The two leading scorers are also midfielders. Dave Mooney has seven and Anthony Bond has six, although striker Ian Henderson has also weighed in with five. There doesn’t appear to be a Will Hoskins in their ranks though and the Rovers hit man will be hoping to add to his tally of fifteen league goals for the term.

A win tonight could see Rovers move out of the bottom four. Walsall (currently one place above them) have a tricky home game against Southampton and Swindon, who are fifth from bottom and seem to be imploding, don’t have a game.

Victory would give Rovers thirty-three points and should Yeovil lose at home against league leaders Brighton, move them to within three points of their West Country neighbours.

All in all, tonight could well prove to be a defining point in the season for the Gas. They have shown signs in recent games of being more than capable of winning games and definitely have the players to survive in this division.

Penney told the local media:

“It's more important to be out of the bottom four at the end of the season, but we need to get as many points on the board as quickly as we can. Three tonight would get us out of it and give us something to aim for on Saturday. Not that long ago, we were bottom of the league and six points adrift. Then we got a result against Oldham, Plymouth had 10 points deducted and now we're a point adrift. We would have loved to have got something on Saturday to make up more ground, but there's a chance to come out of the bottom four tonight so there's plenty to play for."

Added spice for tonight’s encounter will be the return of U’s boss John Ward. Ward was in charge for 155 Rovers games winning 65 of them and drawing 42. Not a bad record and he’s one of the game’s nice guys too … but he’s also wily and knows his stuff.

He’s also a former Bristol City manager which will endear him to the home support.

After Saturday’s defeat to relegation strugglers Plymouth, Ward said:

“It’ll be easy to pick them up - they’ll be ok. They were disappointed with the Plymouth defeat as much as I am, but they’re also very honest and they’ll know that they could have done better than they did. I didn’t say much to them immediately after the game, because I wanted to think about what I said to them.”

This is the first league game between these two sides this season and Rovers will be hoping that by the last day of the season on May 7th when they are due to visit

Off to Ashton Gate - All change

A last minute change for this weekend's game.

On Tuesday I was asked to cover the Walsall/Yeovil clash up at the Bescot, but have just been informed that I'm no needed in Bristol to watch City play Norwich.

It will be good to get along to Ashton Gate for the first time this season and I'm looking forward to seeing Paul Lambert's high flying Canaries.

I interviewed Lambert a few times when he was in charge of Wycombe and the guy is a typical dry humoured Scot who had an excellent reputation as a player, turning out in over four hundred games for St. Mirren and Celtic while also serving Borussia Dortmund with distinction.

Lambert was capped by Scotland 40 times and - after cutting his managerial teeth at Livingston and Wycombe - joined Colchester briefly before taking Norwich up as League One champions last season.

It looks as though they haven't lost momentum if the early season results are anything to go by as they are tucked in behind QPR and Cardiff at the right end of the table.

City on the other hand are playing well below their best and don't seem to have recovered from Steve Coppell's shock resignation at the start of the season.

Keith Millen took over and the heat is now on despite being given the manager's job by the board.

One win - away from home at Scunthorpe - in isn't quite the start that the Bristol fans had envisaged when they parted company with Gary Johnson towards the end of last season.

At the time,  I remember thinking that maybe everyone was expecting too much, too quickly from Johnson. He had taken them from the foot of League One to a defeat in the Championship Play-Off Final and - in my humble opinion - deserved full backing from the board despite a below par showing last term.

It would indeed be ironic if Johnson were to take Posh - sitting pretty in fifth spot in League One - back up to the Championship at the first attempt while City passed them going in the other direction.

But of course the season is still young and anything can happen. Ask Norwich fans who saw their side thumped 7-1 on the opening day last season by a Colchester side managed by, er, Paul Lambert!