Wins to come when “could” turns to “should” ... the David Rawson Rotherham United fan column

The post rattled, the crossbar shook, the Bristol keeper did a pretty passable Johansson impression – and it finished 0-0.

It ... and here's where words need choosing carefully. It “should” have been five? It definitely “could” have been.

In the gap between “could” and “should” is the reason this season feels slightly askew.

“Could” is a story of effort, of thump and grunt, of putting the ball in the right areas and assuming that decent players will eventually shunt it into the net. Odoffin's winner against Crewe was a classic "could" goal. “Should” carries with it a bit of finesse, a bit of poise, a bit of decoration on top of solid foundations.

I'm not sure we're at “should”. Not yet. We're a bit football by numbers at the moment. There's a bit of clunking and rattling in the machinery. We need a bit of oil, a bit of tuning to get it running smoothly. You can see it on the pitch. The players carry themselves like they think they're going to win, not yet like they believe it.

There's a lot of constrained scrapping in the centre of the pitch, there's not yet much expansiveness. League One is like the Championship was two or three seasons ago. Everyone is relentlessly competent. It's the fine-margin players who will decide games for you, the ones that take you from “could” win, to “should” win, to “will” win. There are sparks that suggest we have those players, but they've not yet caused us to burst into flame.

Given the overhaul of the squad over the summer, that's not surprising. Nonetheless, we've already got a five-point gap to make up to at least a couple of teams with legitimate automatic promotion ambitions. Stumble over the next two league games and the distance might already look daunting. Get it to click, on the other hand, and we're exactly where we want to be.

It's tight, suffocatingly so. That's why the crowd against Bristol Rovers wasn't in full battle cry, instead offering up the intense hush that comes from focusing on a fiercely competitive match.

The team us nearly there, but not quite. Somewhere between solid and spectacular. Somewhere between three and five points behind what we could – if not should – have had.