It’s been a good week for us with a battling win over Port Vale but I’m more pleased about the two signings we’ve made to add to our defence, Cirkin and Alves, both of whom seem like strong and capable players. Having already acquired Evans, Doyle and Pritchard, who have all impressed, it’s started to look like a good transfer window after all. I don’t know why today’s opponents haven’t made a bid for Grigg after he’d done well for them earlier in the year but maybe we can bring him on late in the game today and he can have a chance to impress them. I hope Pritchard will have a run-out today and Cirkin too if his paperwork has all been done. We’ve done well at Stadium M.K. in recent years and I think that’ll continue this afternoon. I was thinking about going up for the match but it’s been a hectic week and I never got round to booking a ticket so it’ll be SAFSEE for me. I’ll be back in the homelands for the next two home games. Match prediction: 2-1 to us.
When I got the team news around 2.15, I was pleased to see that Cirkin was starting and that Pritchard was on the bench. Both of Tuesday’s goalscorers were on the bench too but Grigg was nowhere to be seen and neither was O’Nien, who was ill apparently. The side looked like it had a few goals in it and I felt even more confident that we’d get a win.
I tuned in to the match and heard that there was a good turnout of our fans in that big half-empty stadium. The first mention of Cirkin was when he made a great pass to set up a chance for McGeady that resulted in a corner, soon followed by a second corner. Embleton was given a good talking to by referee James Bell after he’d hurled Twine to the ground but there was no card given. We won our fourth corner following a pass from Cirkin and that resulted in goalie Fisher parrying a good shot from Gooch. Two more corners followed before the pressure was eased and we were looking good for a goal before long. Gooch was sounding full of hell and he conceded a couple of free-kicks. It remained goalless as we reached the halfway mark but we’d definitely had the better of things so far. M.K. started to press forward more and they won their first corner around the twenty-fifth minute when Flanagan scooped the ball out. Soon afterwards a Watson volley went not far wide and I didn’t like the way the wind was blowing. Stewart hadn’t had much of a mention but with five minutes to the break he managed an on-target header that Fisher grabbed at the second attempt. It sounded like we were going to go behind when Burge lost the ball and Twine shot just wide after Winchester had stopped playing, waiting for an offside flag. Next thing we were ahead and it was Stewart who won a scramble with Jules after Fisher had fumbled the ball again. It was a great time to go ahead and we kept things together until the whistle went. We’d lost control to M.K. about halfway through but fought back well to take the lead.
There were no changes as we kicked off again. Stewart went down in their box very early on but a penalty in each of our first three games was clearly asking a bit much. Soon afterwards Stewart was yellow-carded for preventing a free-kick being taken. In the fifty-second minute we were 2-0 up when Neil poked the ball through, the M.K. defence remained static and Embleton dinked it over Fisher. Our fans were coming over the ether loud and clear. Our ex-player Ethan Robson was the player making M.K. tick and he soon set up Parrot who pulled one back. Burge had made a mistake by rolling the ball out too far for Neil to receive it and it was intercepted. With over half an hour to go I felt there were more goals to come. M.K. started to turn the screw and we needed to keep focused but I was pleased to hear that Pritchard was coming on to replace Evans, who’d had to go off injured. Evans got a good ripple as he went around the pitch in front of our fans. Burge did well to concede a corner as Eise raced through and it was all getting a bit tense. Burge did well once more to tip it over the ball as we were outpaced again on a counter-attack. With over twenty minutes to go we needed some stability so we waited to see which changes L.J. would make. Next thing we brought on Wright and O’Brien for and McGeady and Cirkin, who’d made an impressive debut. We endured a worrying few minutes when Burge was down injured for a while and we’d already used all our subs but he managed to recover. Flanagan was yellow-carded as we conceded a free-kick just outside their box but Twine smashed it over the top. M.K. were still doing most of the pressing but with six minutes on the clock we won another penalty when Stewart was brought down. In the absence of McGeady, Gooch took the kick but he didn’t get much power on it and Fisher dived to save it by the post. There was bound to be a good amount of stoppage-time and seven minutes were announced, which was a boost for the home side. We were still managing the occasional foray ourselves though it was mainly a rear-guard action. Embleton was our fourth player to receive a yellow but we held out to make it three wins out of three.
We won, as I’d thought we would, but this was a tense battle and we had to fight all the way to secure the points.
