There can be no doubting that Saturday’s game against Scunthorpe is the biggest game, in terms of consequences, that United have faced since the Peterborough match in 1996, which guaranteed us promotion from this division. To claim that this is a “must win” match is clearly to understate the situation, and the parallels with the Bury match of last season are very scarey (the game where Derek Lilley, of all people, scored the goal which effectively relegated us).

Of course there are a number of scenarios which could unfold: United might win both their remaining matches and still get relegated, should Cardiff pick up seven points from their final three games. Alternatively the club could lose both the last two fixtures and still stay up, although that might require an improbable set of results affecting our relegation rivals going our way!

Over the Easter weekend United’s fans’ moods swung dramatically from deep pessimism after our failure to beat a dismal Brentford at the Manor to a bullish optimism after an unlikely fight back and invaluable point at Bristol City coupled with Cardiff’s defeat at home to Bury. Rage Online finds it difficult to share this optimism. Scunthorpe at home is just the type of game that United stuffs up (as in last year v. Bury, this year against Blackpool) and although the team might then go out and get an unlikely point at Millwall this will probably not be enough to keep us up, and the general consensus is that if Oxford does go down they will fully deserve it after a season of substandard and passionless performances.

It’s not much consolation that a glance at the chat boards of Cardiff City and Scunthorpe websites shows that their fans are generally pessimistic. They, like Oxford, probably have good reason to be. At Blackpool, on the other hand, their fans are looking forward to another season of Second Division football as their remaining fixtures, at Oldham and at home to Chesterfield, are both very winnable. It would be ironic if Blackpool were to overtake Oxford on the last day of the season, remembering how United leapfrogged Blackpool right at the end of the 95/96 season to achieve automatic promotion (admittedly before the final game). Not an irony that would be totally appreciated, of course.

Hopefully the next Rage Online Comment will have much more reason to be optimistic, looking forward to playing swindon next season, but there’s a long way to go before we can even begin to contemplate that scenario! Beat Scunthorpe and they’re relegated. So are Blackpool if they fail to beat Oldham. That would also put us four points ahead of Cardiff, who will have three games left. Should they lose at Stoke on Sunday the pressure will really be on them to get a result at Gillingham, but unfortunately even a draw could be enough as Bristol Rovers, who visit Ninian Park on the last day of the season, proved at Blackpool that they are getting the jitters and can be defeated. This scenario would leave United needing at least a point at Millwall, where Paul Moody is fated to score the goal which sends us down. Oh dear….6