Exeter City’s 2-1 victory over Barnsley on Saturday was one of the shocks of the weekend slate of matches and the result represents some huge improvements which have been seen in Gary Caldwell’s side in recent weeks.
Having at one point gone 13 games without a victory it looked likely that Caldwell’s tenure as the Grecians’ manager would be coming to an end. However the board stuck by the 41-year-old and have now been rewarded with ten points from their last five matches.
As a result of that turnaround in performance, Exeter have moved up to 14th in the table and although are by no means safe, are gradually distancing themselves from the relegation zone.
Despite having the third-worst record in front of goals this season, Caldwell’s side have managed to pick up wins in recent weeks through strong defensive displays. In their last five matches, they’ve conceded just four times and it looks to be a different defence than the one that was seen in their long-winless run.
Although their performances in front of goal could be significantly improved, Exeter still have time to address that issue with the transfer window closing on Thursday.
It was however a very impressive performance against Barnsley, with two first half strikes helping them to victory. The result sent quite the statement out to the rest of the teams down the bottom, and if able to pick up another couple of wins in the coming weeks, they might be able to reach safety with some of the season still to go.
Caldwell seemed ecstatic with the performance, and one that he would describe “as good as I’ever seen.” Speaking to BBC Radio Devon, the manager gave his view on the turnaround in form.
“It’s as good as I’ve seen since I’ve been here, but we want to be better.”
“We want to keep improving and once you go through difficult moments together I think it makes you stronger, and hopefully we can keep building on this in the remaining games this season.”
“I hope our supporters enjoy it and they start to get belief in this team again.”
“But we won’t look at the table, we’ll look at our performance, we’ll look at the process that we go through to try and get better for the next game.
“There’s a lot of games still to play and a lot to achieve this season, so we have to keep sticking to the process to try and do that.
“We will keep behaving in the way we did when we went on the difficult run we went on. We never lost faith in the players, we kept supporting the players and again when we’re winning we’ll try and make the players better and keep building.”
Writer’s View
It was a surprise that Exeter stuck with Caldwell for so long, yet it seems like a move which has now paid off. The Grecians are flying at the minute and are doing as much as they can in order to drag themselves out of the relegation battle.
Welcoming Bristol Rovers to St James Park on Saturday, Caldwell will be hoping for another three points to further distance themselves from the relegation zone. Having beaten the Gas away from home recently, there’s no reason why they can’t do the double, especially given their current performances.
