I FIRMLY believe anything can always happen in football and I still think that way when it comes to the end of our season.

Things are out of our own hands when it comes to trying to achieve automatic promotion, but if we win our remaining three matches then we will finish up with 83 points.

That’s normally always been enough for a top three finish in League Two, but it may take more this time around.

We will have to wait and see what unfolds and if the teams just above us slip up, but to stand any chance we can’t afford any more dropped points.

That means we will need to take all three points against Barnet at Roots Hall tomorrow night, but that task has definitely been made harder by the return of Martin Allen as their manager.

Martin’s a real football man who will have them fired up and Barnet will be scrapping for everything – just like Bradford were when we played them.

We will need to match that desire if we are to come out on top but we go in to the game on the back of a battling 0-0 draw at Torquay.

I thought we produced a very impressive and dictated the match. It was a shame the score-line couldn’t reflect that because we could really have done with all three points.

But I do feel we put down a marker and showed Torquay what we’re all about so I’m sure they wouldn’t relish playing us in the play-offs if they had to.

If we do meet again them hopefully we would have a different set of officials because I thought they were nothing short of shambolic on Saturday.

To be fair to the referee I thought his display was very refreshing and sensible in the first half when he decided to only book Bilel Mohsni.

However, he was badly let down by his assistants in the second half.

Some of their calls were extremely bizarre and I’m still trying to work out how we didn’t get a penalty late on because Mark Phillips was very clearly pushed in the back.

Ninety nine times out of 100 that would be given and I just hope those two points don’t come back to haunt us in a fortnight’s time.

ROBIN'S THE MAN FOR ME

THE shortlists for the PFA awards have been announced this week and my vote for player of the year went to Robin Van Persie.

He has dragged Arsenal towards a decent season and his goalscoring form throughout the last 12 to 18 months has been outstanding.

He’s led by example and is the leading candidate for me.

For young player of the year I went for Gareth Bale, who you sometimes forget is only 22.

He was also in great form when Tottenham were flying and deserves to be recognised for that in my opinion.

As well as that, we all voted for our League Two team of the season.

We weren’t allowed to vote for any fellow Southend players, but I would be extremely disappointed if Mark Phillips and Sean Clohessy didn’t make it.

FULL COLUMN IN THURSDAY'S ECHO