WE have been taken on the emotional roller coaster in the last few weeks with alternating highs and lows. I’m a veteran of many such battles but still find it hard, so goodness knows how those in amongst the flying bullets manage to stay on an even keel.

The low points were the home defeats to Walsall and Crewe, and the high spots were wins over Orient at home and Oldham away last Saturday.

We look like emerging from an horrendous February schedule with everything to play for and a reasonably settled young team which is learning from their experiences every single week.

We have only lost our way once or twice, most recently in the home defeat to Crewe, and that’s when Tony and Richard really do their work, restoring belief and pushing the troops out again.

Slowly the tide is turning. Even in the Tuesday defeat to MK Dons, there were encouraging points in an admittedly unentertaining game.

MK Dons are now what we can hope to be in a year or two. They are the division’s best side at bossing possession, so needless to say they are not a side you want to fall behind to. They have been flirting with promotion for few years, and they may make it this year.

There were a bucketload of lessons to be learned for our young lads on the night, primarily about looking after the ball, which MKD do so frustratingly well, how to dictate tempo, and how to not be derailed from your game plan.

It’s nothing new. Decades ago Brian Clough plonked the match ball in the middle of the changing room floor and said to his players “Here is the football. Look after it.” Simplicity is genius.

Benik Afobe, has moved from MKD to Wolves and is finding life altogether harder in the Championship. Shorn of their cutting edge, MK Dons found a match-winner in their other iconic star, Dele Alli.

Having just moved to Spurs for over £5million, but loaned back to MKD, Alli is not a player to hurtle round the pitch, preferring to choose his runs and to drift into good positions.

He rather glides around, smooth as silk, all about technique and brainwork. With wonderful irony he looks every bit a player who should be wearing an Arsenal shirt, not that of their greatest rivals. Not that he quite fits the Arsene Wenger midfield player template of “Can’t head, can’t tackle”.

To add to the frustration on Tuesday, we encountered one of our older referees, whose priority appeared to be give himself an easy night.

I have a problem with a referee who gives penalty box free-kicks against attackers but not defenders, who fails to see when defenders impede attackers in the way Chris Porter was repeatedly impeded, and who is not even-handed in his bookings (Alli’s retaliatory foul on Tom Lapslie being the best example).

Referees who are no longer on the way up are largely impervious to the opinions of referees’ assessors, and on Tuesday I think it showed.

The League table tells the whole story – there is not a lot to choose between the majority of the division. An attacker who bangs in 20 goals, a defensive organiser, or a bit of disharmony in the ranks can be the difference between top six and bottom six.

We won’t escape relegation if the fans don’t stick behind the team, and so far they have been great. The few moaners are the same moaners who were audible even in our Championship days, but they are just background noise that the club has to live with. Footballing tinnitus, if you like!