Cheltenham Town FC

Most fans will have their own opinions and these opinions range from things like who will win the league, what will the new signings be like, and will the official coaches make it back from Morecambe before midnight?

The rise of online media such as Twitter has given everybody a voice and recently the thoughts of us Cheltenham fans have become pretty divisive. Cheltenham's 1-1 draw with Southend last Saturday extended our unbeaten run in the league to seven games and by the time the Robins take to the field at Morecambe this weekend, the team won't have tasted defeat for nearly two months.

The trouble is, that of the past seven games, five have been draws. And this is where the split in opinion comes in. The departure of Alan Bennett last January caused much debate, and certain other players over the years have split fans views. But I struggle to recall the fans being so divided over form in recent times. It seems that half the fans think great, seven games unbeaten, not too bad, we're making progress. The other half see only two wins in those seven and think that's not good enough.

I tend to side with the former. Considering the start to the season we had, Mark Yates' absolute number one priority had to be to shut up shop.  Two clean sheets in our first 12 games has been followed up by three in our last seven. Whatever anybody will tell you, that's a definite improvement. Unfortunately, the goals have dried up a little bit at the other end but we have to believe that will come. We have players that will score goals but we just haven’t quite found that balance between attack and defence yet. Hopefully the loan signings will help us find this.

Other fans will tell you that despite the recent improvements, performances still aren’t good enough. I'd argue that we earned decent points in the Newport and Southend games, but I'd agree that the Rovers game was disappointing. Either way I think the murmurings of discontent that have surfaced are a little premature. I don't think even Roman Abramovich could sack a manager who hadn't lost for seven games. Then again, he did sack Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti...

Talk of the need for change seems unnecessary at the moment. One glance at the table will tell you the league is tight and that any team going on a half decent run can push up the league very quickly. Just look at what Bradford and Crewe have done over the last couple of years. Considering the attendances we attract and the budget we run on, we have overachieved in recent seasons. Seriously, you didn’t think we were going to make it to the FA Cup third round and play at Wembley every year did you? Football doesn’t work like that.

I think if there's one thing that Cheltenham fans will agree on, it's that we all want the club to do well. So let's get behind the team and hope that we can push on over Christmas. It's all about looking at the positives and as long as we're not losing, we can start to sneak up that table. We managed to beat Morecambe 3-0 not so long ago and a similar result this Saturday would in my eyes, see us turn a decent run into a good one.