By Jacob Greenwood

If football is a game of two halves, then Woking’s start to the season could be described as a season of two halves, so far. From sitting top at the end of August The Cards went through September without a win and started October with a draw against Wrexham yesterday. You can feel the frustration amongst supporters, players and the management team, despite the fact every single one of them would have bitten your hand off if you offered them 4th position at this stage in the season.

There is no doubt that expectations went through the roof at the start of the season. In fact, a thread on the fan forum Cardsboard in August/September time had a lot of posters saying they’d be disappointed if we weren’t challenging for the play-offs after our good start. It’s no surprise that anyone that bought into that will be pulling their hair out after no wins in seven. Woking have failed to beat three of the bottom five in that run.

It maybe shouldn’t be a surprise that we’ve had two distinct runs of form this season, with no real crossover. We are either unstoppable, or can’t buy a win. That’s because we saw this last season. There were great runs. Most notably, Dowson’s side put together a run of 12 wins in 15 games in all competitions across November, December and January – and one of those loses was to Premier League side Watford.

But there were poor runs too. Only one win in eight games towards the end of the season had many people fearing the worst in the play-offs. Earlier in the season, Woking won only one league game in seven attempts after beating Glenn Tamplin’s Billericay Town on the open day of September.

With two tricky away games coming up in the next week, things might get worse before they get better. But one thing is key to remember. So far, whenever Dowson has found himself in a tight spot, he, and most of the current squad, have turned it around.  A lot of people will look at the fact that on this weekend in 2017, Limbrick’s Woking side beat Dagenham & Redbridge to go second in the league, before going on the poorest of poor runs. Dowson is a lot more savvy when it comes to getting results, so let’s hope the next winning run starts soon!