All roads continue to lead to iFollow as the latest Government Covid controls ended in tiers.

Tier 3 to be precise, meaning that the prospect of us attending a match is as far off as ever. Not so for tier 2 clubs, which means that we will probably be playing Cheltenham Town in front of their own fans, in a couple of weeks’ time.

So, more than ever we were looking to the Wanderers to bring a little joy to our lives and to continue our recent good form.

The mood of the fans is changing with many more buying into the new regime. It has been a real joy to read the positive comments and to witness the belief beginning to emerge.

The negative doomsayers seem to have gone on furlough, but I am sure that they will be back at the first opportunity.

Ian Evatt was able to name an unchanged team to face the Shrimpers, fellow relegation fodder last season, who have continued to struggle this season.

As it has been said before, no match will be easy and that is how this one started as Southend gave a good account of themselves and we were below par, particularly in midfield.

However, the mark of a successful team is that you can get a result when you are not playing at your best.

Others rose to the occasion, like Alex ‘Kevin de’ Baptiste who supplied two superb crosses for Nathan Delfouneso and Eoin Doyle to tuck away.

Matt Gilks kept us in the game with some decent saves as he was probably the busier of the two goalies.

It was difficult to tell from the camera angle whether it was justified but Doyle’s penalty broke Southend’s resistance. Again, having strikers who are scoring regularly augurs well for this team.

The downside was the injury to Andrew Tutte, who seemed to be indicating that something on the pitch had caused it. Let us hope that it is not too serious, but we will get injuries and therefore, we need players who can step into the breach.

Things are beginning to look good but there will be a lot to test us over the coming months. For instance, any manager of the month award is usually the kiss of death for the following match. There is still a long and winding way to go before promotion becomes IanEvattable.