Hello and welcome to the Stade d’Ilea. This morning we entertain South Wimbledon, the leaders of the First Division (which is one above ours), in the quarter-final of the Ron Le Beau Challenge Trophy.

This is without a doubt the most important game of the season for Logica so far. Victory here today will see us take on Lillington or Notting Dale in a lucrative semi-final and the possibility of the Sky Sports camera’s coming to Stade d’Ilea.

We shouldn’t fear our opponents, as we’ve beaten teams from higher divisions before, and in my experience we usually pull a performance out of the bag against better opposition, particularly in the Cup. Who can forget the triumph over Queen Vic, who didn’t lose a single other game all that season, and who are now sitting pretty at the top of the Premier Division? Then there was also the famous victories over Red Star last season and Worlds End this, both from the Premier Reserve Division, and even the victory over Racing Club Santos in the previous round - a team who had just completed a league double over us.

There is no doubt in my mind that we can pull this off, but it will require a 'Man of the Match' performance from every player on and off the field.

The cups have been littered with shocks over the years where the little teams have upset the ‘big boys’. Minnows like the ’59 Norwich team (Third Division South at the time), who made it all the way to the semis of the FA Cup beating Man Utd and Tottenham on the way; Wycombe and Chesterfield achieving the same feat in recent years; Canvey Island, Cardiff and Middlesbrough this year; Yeovil, Kingstonians, Kidderminster and Wrexham in the past. We should seek to draw inspiration from these teams; they certainly didn’t sit back and wait to get steam-rollered!

Intelligence about South Wimbledon is scarce. Indications are that they are quite a young team, Lillingtonesque perhaps. They have lost twice this season - including last weekend, in fact, away to Darkside - so they are definitely beatable. If they are a young team, they will in all probability be quick and are likely to come at us like a tornado early doors. So we need to keep it tight at the back and compete for every ball in every area of the pitch. The last thing we can afford to do is concede an early goal. Hopefully they’ll get frustrated if we can stop them scoring in the first 20 minutes or so and then we can systematically take them apart.

I was disappointed with the way we lost the game against Prince of Wales. We conceded pretty much three identical goals, and to be fair about half the goals we conceded this season have been of a similar ilk. When will we learn? The ball over the back of the defence beats us 95% of the time and the question is why? It’s one of the most basic strategies to defend against, yet we seem incapable of coping with it.

We can tackle this in one of two ways. The first is to play high up the pitch utilising the offside trap, which puts us at the mercy of the linesman. The second is to drop off a lot deeper and stop them from having any space behind us, which to be fair is probably the most sensible option, as most teams boast a quick centre forward who is either an imitation of Heskey, Anelka or a ten year old Michael Owen. Once they have a yard over you, they’re uncatchable! [Why haven’t we got anyone like that up front, then? Ed.]

Over the following two weeks we have two crucial league away games: Kensington Stanley and Townmead. Stanley have been in freefall in recent weeks and Townmead, though slightly improved, shouldn’t cause us too many problems. Six points from these two games and we’ll have a total of 21, which should ease our slight relegation worries.

On another note I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing Sven Goran a happy 54th Birthday for last Tuesday (5th February).

So Fergie is staying at Man U, and old turnip head has gone back to Aston Villa then. Fergie staying is certainly bad news for the rest of the Premier League, though I’m not surprised he’s been convinced to stay, as it was always going to be difficult for the Man U board to entice some poor fool into stepping into the Aberdonian’s shoes. I certainly wouldn’t want it, though the money would of course be nice.

Taylor returning to Villa was a bit of surprise. I think it’s always dangerous to go back to a club where you’ve been successful, (Howard Kendall, Mike Walker to name but two who have done just that and failed woefully), as the fans are going to assume that success is a foregone conclusion. I can’t see it happening at Villa for Taylor in all honesty.

That’s about it from me, just sit back and enjoy the match and let’s hope its be a good day for LFC.