I HOPE that you all had a great Christmas.

Looking back at the last game here, obviously we were all bitterly disappointed to go out of the FA Cup at the second round stage to Dagenham & Redbridge, but that's Cup football and once it went to penalties it was a lottery.

We know that we didn't perform to our best, and having to play for an hour with ten men following Manny's nasty injury after we had already made our three substitutions, certainly didn't help, but we should have been able to finish the game off. We restricted our visitors to very few chances, but couldn't find the breakthrough ourselves and that was disappointing. The luck seems to be against us at the moment and it showed again at Chesterfield in our last game when we were denied victory by an equaliser in the last minute.

It was a disappointing result in the end, but on a positive note, we played some decent stuff in the first half and deserved our lead. We came under increasing pressure after the break, but defended well and almost saw the game out to claim all three points.

Their equaliser came when a deflection took the ball to the feet of Jack Lester in front of goal and he doesn't miss those opportunities.

That said, it's debatable whether he should have even been on the field as earlier in the second half he caught Adam Chambers with a stray elbow and was fortunate that the referee or his assistant didn't see it.

Some of the lads went along to the Children's Ward at the Walsall Manor Hospital last week. As a father myself, I feel that it's really important to do this kind of thing and to be able to bring some cheer to the kids by handing out presents is priceless. It was great to chat to some of the youngsters and their parents and hopefully stimulate their interest in the club. We had a quiet Christmas Day this year.

The family are all coming down from Doncaster tomorrow, so it was just me, my wife and son Ashton this year. It was an early start as Ashton was keen to open his presents and then I took the dog for a walk before settling down for Christmas dinner. I made sure that I didn't eat too much and spent the rest of the day just relaxing in front of the TV and playing with Ashton's new toys.

It can be difficult at this time of year not seeing family and friends and having to watch what you eat and drink whilst others around you are letting their hair down, but it's a sacrifice that we know we have to make when we become professional footballers. When you look at the pros and cons of playing football for a living, the festive period is probably the only negative. We face a tough game this afternoon.

Sheffield Wednesday have done well so far this season and will have a large and vocal following here. I know a few Wednesday fans, so hopefully we can give a good account of ourselves and rise to the occasion, as we have done against the bigger teams so far this season. We follow up today's game with another important one on Saturday when we play host to Rochdale.

It would be nice to start to get things rolling with a couple of wins and be able to go into the New Year by turning our performances into points.