Hitchin Athletic 0–0 Edgbaston FC

The scoreline tells you nothing, which is its own kind of mischief. A goalless draw between a 14th-place side and a seventh-place side in red-hot form is usually a Tuesday's chore. This one took a detour through the bizarre.

The match effectively ended at 32 minutes, when Edgardo Achával received a straight red card. Not for a professional foul, nor for a moment of genuine violence, but for the sort of lunging challenge that makes referees reach for their top pocket and players wince on behalf of the victim. Achával had laid on a goal in each of his previous three appearances, a man in the habit of giving. On Thursday he gave his team a numerical deficit for the remaining 58 minutes. There is a poetry in that, though none of it is kind.

Edgbaston, to their credit, did not let the advantage curdle into complacency. They pressed, they probed, they crossed balls into areas where Hitchin simply refused to go. And Hitchin, to their credit, refused to be embarrassed. They reverted to a shape that suggested they had been practising for a siege since early August. Edgbaston had the ball. Hitchin had the bodies. For the final half hour it looked less like football than an argument about whether the fence should be painted.

An earlier meeting this season ended 3-3, a scoreline that promised chaos at the gates. Thursday delivered a lockout instead. A point for Hitchin, given the circumstances, feels like a small coat of armour. For Edgbaston, whose recent form had them arriving with a swagger, it is two points dropped and a lesson in the limits of momentum.

There is no time to dwell. Matchday 27 comes tomorrow, which is brutal but also fair. Achával will watch it from the stands, and so will his red card, tucked safely in the referee's pocket. Hitchin will need more of the same stubbornness, and Edgbaston will need to remember that confidence is a passing guest, not a permanent resident.