Cheltenham Town: Assistant manager Neil Howarth's weekly column

TWO more games have been ticked off the total that we have remaining this season and we are four points closer to where we want to get to.

Things are still very tight, at both ends of the table, but we are still right up there in the thick of the action.

We have lost eight league games this season, a number only bettered by Port Vale and Gillingham, but we have also drawn 11 games.

These points will be very important come the end of the season, I am sure, but for that to happen we need to start turning a few more of them into three.

We travelled to Southend last Tuesday and rewarded those of you who made the long journey by getting a very good victory.

Paul Benson scored his first goal for the club, which turned out to be the winner, but by conceding late on we did not get as convincing a win as we should perhaps have.

I thought if we had shown a little more composure in possession in the second half we could have controlled the game better and perhaps gone on to increase our lead.

However, we gave possession away a little too cheaply at times which resulted in us having to defend more than we would have liked.

After we had lost our previous game to Dagenham, we looked as though we were a little bit nervous and afraid of keeping the ball.

However, the result was certainly a morale-boosting victory and was very welcome.

We followed this match with a home game against Aldershot. I'm sure people will look at their position in the league table and expect us to pick three points up, but I didn't quite see it like that.

The players they have in their squad suggest they are certainly underachieving this season and I would be very surprised if they finish in the bottom two in the division come the end of the season.

Michael Hector had recently finished a loan period with them prior to joining us and he tried to give us some inside information on them.

He said they would definitely set-up to pick up a point and if they got any more than that it would be a big bonus.

And during the match they certainly employed tactics that suggested that Michael was right in his assessment.

There were lots of delays and time wasting going on as they wouldn't let us gain any momentum.

Michael hit the underside of the bar early on and that would not only have been a very good goal but also a very important one as well.

When you play a team such as Aldershot it is vital that you score the first goal so their negative tactics don't get even worse.

But we made the cardinal sin of going behind during the first half.

I knew that everyone would get frustrated but we had to stay focused and try to get some momentum going. Paul Benson scored his second goal in two games but we missed a couple of chances to get the all important three points.

While we had Michael to offer some inside knowledge on our opponents, they too had someone to call on from within their ranks.

Jeff Goulding made his debut for the Shots and he obviously didn't need any introduction to our fans. It was good to see Jeff and I thought we played against him very well.

You sometimes get a player coming back to haunt you on their return to a former club but on this occasion we had no such worries.

One of the players who was helping Michael to marshal Jeff was making his Football League debut. Luke McCullough has had to be very patient since we brought him in on loan from Manchester United.

But it was a great way for him to celebrate his 19th birthday by making his debut. He replaced the injured Steve Elliott just before the break and he looked composed capable of handling the rough and tumble of League Two football.

Congratulations to Luke and I will look forward to watching how his career pans out over the years after starting at the Abbey Business Stadium.