The ups and downs of Annan's season

It really has been the story of our season and we held a bit of an inquest in to why this continues to happen.

We have saved our best performances and results for the teams in the top three and more often than not have struggled against the rest and it's simply not good enough.

We started like a really confident team on Tuesday night and should have been two goals up within five minutes.

Killing teams off when we are playing well has been a big problem for us all season and it came back to haunt us once more when we lost a terrible goal midway through the first half.

We struggled for the rest of the half and were probably fortunate to be only one down at the break.

We huffed and puffed after half time without creating too much which meant that an already long journey was an absolute nightmare.

So why is it we seem to let ourselves down against the teams of similar ability to ourselves?

Obviously teams with less ability than Livingston or East Stirlingshire need to find a wee bit more in other parts of their game to stop them playing.

That comes from your work rate as an individual as well as sticking to formations and tactics set by your manager.

It also comes from making the right decisions on the pitch and more often than not we are making the wrong decisions against, and without being disrespectful, the lesser teams.

In four games against Forfar this season we have won two, drawn one and lost the other and from our three against East Stirlingshire we've won two of those.

Yet we have failed to beat Elgin in four attempts in the league this season and you've got to question why?

It could quite simply be that we expect to beat them but I'm not having that because we're not that good.

When I look at the other side of the coin, are the better teams expecting to beat Annan and that's why we've done so well against them?

Anyway, I don't think you can put it down to one single thing but its inconsistencies in aspects of our play that, if we're to harbour any sort of ambition to progress as a football club we need to sort out.

Maybe the players at the club are just not good enough, but that's for next season.

Right now we have five games to play before the season ends and the players at the club right now have to see these games through.

The performance against Livingston at the weekend must have given the manager a boost that perhaps these players can mount a serious challenge next season but after last night that doubt must surely have crept back in.

There are a few players in the squad fighting for their futures at the club, including me and results and performances like the Elgin one don't help at all.

We need to aim for maximum points from these last five games of the season and see where that takes the team in terms of league position but also where it leaves individual players after 1 May.