Daggers have belief

Tuesday, 12/04/2011

by Ricky Butler, Shoot's Dagenham blogger

Well it has certainly been a roller coaster ride for us over the last few weeks! A six-match unbeaten run, which saw us move out of the bottom four, was quickly followed by five matches without a win to send us right back into it again, but then that is all par for the course for us. Never too high, never too low as John Still likes to remind us...

The highlight of the last few games was undoubtedly the 500th appearance of club legend Tony Roberts in the midweek defeat to Peterborough. If there has been a better goalkeeper in the league this season then I have yet to see him and its fair to say we would be cut adrift at the bottom if it were not for his magnificent performances.

Of course he cannot go on forever but if he continues in the sort of form he has been displaying this season then we should be able to get another two or three years out of him and he may yet reach the 600-game milestone...incredible when you think he had to retire from the game 11 years ago!

But that defeat to Posh dropped us back in the bottom four meaning we simply had to beat a Notts County side in free fall on Saturday. Having sacked manager Paul Ince in the week I feared a backlash but we were always in control from the moment John Akinde scored his first goal for us early on and things got even better when they had defender Graeme Lee sent off just before the break for a professional foul on Jon Nurse.

When Danny Green duly dispatched the free-kick with his usual aplomb there was no doubt we would get the result we so desperately needed and he then made sure by converting a penalty in the dying seconds of the first-half, meaning we could relax and enjoy the sunshine after that.

Green is another who has been in great form lately and he his delivery from set pieces has been described as Beckham-esque in some quarters! Not sure he is quiet up there yet but the lad has been pivotal in our revival since the turn of the year and his two goals on Saturday took him into double-figures for the second season in a row. Not bad when you remember he was playing at Bishop Stortford this time two years ago...

As relegation battles go this one has been surprisingly good fun. Perhaps it has been because no one gave us a chance at the start of the season or maybe its because we looked doomed at Christmas, but I don't think I have ever enjoyed a season quiet a much as this one.

Apart from playing in some fabulous stadiums against some massive clubs we have also shown exactly what our little club is all about. Our form since the turn of the year has been nothing short of sensational and I have no doubt we will take that momentum into the final stretch and get the three wins we need to reach the magical 52 points, generally the total needed to ensure safety.

Not that it will be easy. We face a trip to leaders Brighton tonight where a point will virtually guarantee them automatic promotion, and I would gladly settle for that right now too. Maybe Still and Gus Poyet can come to some agreement where we can play the game out like the West Germany v Austria match in the 1982 World Cup? Okay maybe not...

We then travel to fellow-strugglers Tranmere on Saturday, which is not so much a must-win game as a must-not-lose one! Four points from those two games would see us nearly home and after recent events I am confident we can do it. With our team spirit you have to be don't you?

Come on you Daggers!

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