Exeter City defender Alex Hartridge has said that the four points gained from the two festive fixtures has to be a starting point rather than a false dawn. The Grecians ended a 13-game, 100-day winless streak on Boxing Day with a 1-0 win over Wycombe Wanderers and then followed that up with a 0-0 draw against league leaders Portsmouth.
In front of a sell-out crowd of more than 8,300, City came closest to finding the winner against Pompey on Friday night. Sonny Cox missed a golden chance in the first half when he could only poke his effort straight at Will Norris, before in the opening seconds of the second half, Ilmari Niskanen slid in to meet a cross but his attempt came back off the post.
Reece Cole fired narrowly wide late on, but the game ended 0-0, as it had looked like doing for most of the evening. City stay 20 th in the table, but with four points from two games – more than in the previous combined – and back-to-back good performances, some of the early season form which saw them top the league in September looks to be back.
“We never lost the belief we can win games and play well but naturally need that recent evidence of doing it to spur you on,” Hartridge said. “So we are aware it is not the finished article. This is not a job done, a starting point, and has to be the start of the run rather than a false dawn.
“We are pleased with the point, there wasn’t too much in it, and after the run we have been on, we are happy with that. We gave the fans something, night games are always brilliant, we knew fans would be behind us and we needed to keep them that way and we did.”
The Grecians now travel to Reading on New Year’s Day. The Royals are in the bottom four and would overtake Gary Caldwell’s men with a victory, so City are hoping for a repeat of the 2-1 league win rather than the 9-0 EFL Trophy defeat.
“We are looking forward to it,” the academy product added. “We will rest and recover and then a day or so prep in to that one. Considering the results we have had, we are happy to have games in short succession, played well in the league game, so no reason why we can’t repeat that.”
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