After being knocked off our perch and brought down to Earth on Monday night at Fratton Park, we headed for the Toughsheet looking to get back on track.

As it is the Festive season, we availed ourselves of Christmas lunch at the Harvester, amidst our Doombar deliberations. Naturally, all the talk was about ‘the miss’ and how the game would have been different if we had gone one up.

We didn’t and the rest is history as we were well beaten in the end. But all good runs come to an end and the hopes were that we would get back on track against the Gas and start another run.

Aaron Morley came in for the suspended Josh Sheehan in an otherwise unchanged side. Any hopes of a Merry Christmas were dashed in the ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ first half.

The team played like they had just had their Christmas lunches, immediately before kick-off! In fairness, Bristol Rovers were up for it, under their new manager Matt Taylor. They pushed up and harried us, forcing error after error. Captain Rico Santos compounded his mistake by getting a deserved red card. We were lucky to see half time only two goals behind.

In the second half, we did give it a go, forcing five consecutive corners at one stage, a few mad scrambles in the box and Eoin Toal getting one back but we had left ourselves too much to do after our disastrous first half performance.

Let us keep things in perspective. Losing two games on the trot does not rule us out for promotion. Admittedly, it does not help but it is not the end of the world or our promotion challenge. With less than half the season gone, we are in 5th place with games in hand.

It is my philosophy that every game presents its own challenges. Injuries, suspensions, new managers and the January transfer window will all play a part for all clubs in League 1. Bristol Rovers were under a good run of their own. The real test of management is for Ian Evatt to find answers to all these different challenges.

Things had been going very well for us before this week. I have no doubt that we can get another good run going.

Obviously the sooner the better. We win together, we lose together but, in the end, we shall overcome one day.