I’VE spoken a few times about the fans in this column this season but I thought they were fantastic in the game against Crawley on Monday.

They went in behind the other goal to the right of the dug outs and it made a huge difference.

I think it’s the first time since I’ve been here that there has been a noise like that inside the ground and those fans managed to get the other areas of the stadium involved as well.

It made a huge difference to the team and certainly played a big part in us digging in to get a 0-0 draw with only nine men.

I understand that our fans are again to be in that stand tomorrow and I hope the same kind of atmosphere can be generated because it would give us all a real advantage.

Accrington will represent another tough test this weekend under their new manager Paul Cook.

He came in to replace John Coleman who for me should have won manager of the year in League Two last season.

The award always seems to go to whoever wins the league but John should have got it last year because he worked wonders for them.

Paul will be looking to carry that on and I’ve read quotes from him where he’s been saying he wants to play a more attractive style of football so it will be interesting to see what they come with against us.

They drew at Bradford which is a good result in their last game and drew with an in form Port Vale before that as well so they will be looking to build on those good results.

Unfortunately, we will be missing Liam Dickinson this weekend after he broke his ankle against Crawley.

It’s a huge blow for us because he’s been a little bit inconsistent I think he’s definitely had more good games than bad.

Losing Jean-Paul Kalala is disappointing as well and we’re still mulling over whether to bring anyone in on loan.

Nobody will be coming in ahead of the game this weekend but we have another two weeks before the window shuts and we will be considering our options and seeing who is available during that time.

We will be forced in to making a defensive change too as Chris Barker is suspended after being sent off against Crawley.

I think that’s a shame too because he had been doing much better in the last two or three games.

Barks would be the first to admit that after his injury over the Christmas period he went through something of a rocky patch.

But up until then he had probably been in contention to be our player of the year again and I now think he’s back on form.

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