Hello friends, in November there will be some difficult games waiting for us, we will be facing 3 of the top teams in the table. They are currently challenging for the title and the only automatic promotion place to the coca league 2.  If my team can survive the month without losing too many points, i will be more confident on the play-off spot as i believe relegation is definitely not in our radar now. Since the bad start in August, we have been improving and the good results in the last 2 months has raised the confidence and morale of the squad. We have steady the ship and slowly climbing up the table.

Let us take a look on the November results.

We are playing 5 league game instead of 6 as one of the home game was cancelled due to a waterlogged pitch. I don’t know how many times this had happen this season but we definitely got to live with that at the moment. The other game was the FA cup 1st round game against Carlisle. Besides the defeat against Carlisle, we had 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Not too bad considering the opposition we faced, in fact i am quite pleased with the performance of my players.

First game of the month was against Forest Green who is lying at 19th place at the moment. They have some mixed results recently and i am quite confident that we will be able to win the game. The game saw both teams trying to get hold of possession and trying to outplay each other. But both team are equally match in the whole game. Kiernan Hughes-Mason, my loan signing after picking up a through pass from Simon Heslop raced off his marker to score his first goal for the club in injury time of the first half. Forest Green try to come back in the second half but my defenders hold the ground well to give us a vital win.

In this FA cup 1st round qualifying match, we were facing Carlisle a league 2 team. The difference in quality was shown in this match as they totally tore us apart. We had no answer to their fluid passing game and were put past 4 goals in each. It was a hard lesson learnt and give me an idea what kind of quality should i look for if my team got promoted one day.

They are currently lying in 3rd place and visiting our ship lane stadium with 4 wins in a row. They came with the intention to attack and in the 10 minute, my defenders fail to close down their player and we conceded a thunderbolt goal. 1-0 to Crawley. They try to extend the lead but just struggled to put the chances away. We can only master 1 shot at goal in the first 45 minutes. I try to encourage my players in the dressing room and they come out performing better. We created more chances now and in the 60 minute, Andrew Isaac who substituted Robin Shroot in the first half due to his injury, produce a sublime pass to Kevin Macdonald who doesn’t miss in such a close range. It was 1-1, suddenly my players regain some confidence and 7 minutes later, Andrew Isaac again provide a superb pass to Paul Hakim to score the winning goal for us. Though man of the match is Kevin Macdonald but i am delighted with the contribution of my loan signing Andrew Isaac. I hope his club will let us keep him as long as they can as he is becoming a useful player for us.

The next game is a difficult away game against the current leaders of Blue Square Premier. They are unbeaten for fourteen game in all competition and record few high scores wins recently. A lapse of concentration in the first half led  to them scoring 2 goals in quick succession. It was also due to the individual brilliance of their striker Tom Craddock, he is the most in form striker now having score 19 goals in just 18 games. We grab a consolation goal through Andrew Isaac and lost the game 1-2. I believe they are a cut above the rest and will win the title when the season ends based on the quality and form they have. It is up to the rest of the teams to grab the 4 play-off spots.

Another difficult game awaits us and this time round Accrington a 5th place team is visiting ship lane. But it was a boring game, neither side is capable of breaking the deadlock in the 90 minutes and the game ended 0-0.

Last game of the month is against AFC Wimbledon who is just few points off the last relegation spot. This was a fairly easy game for us, we attack from the start of the whistle and most of the time, they were peg back in their own half. We scored a early goal through Paul Hakim a fine assist by Kevin Macdonald. I think we dropped back a little and they managed to create some chances and threaten our goal. My defenders were excellent today and in fact i think they were excellent for the whole month. They deal with the threat well and a goal was enough to give us another win.

There you go, thats how we fare in November and after the games in November, we were lying in 10th place. 8 points off the last play-off spot with a game in hand. We are getting closer, there is a lot to play for in the remaining fixtures. I hope my team can continue the fine performance for the rest of the season, then we can at least grab a play-off spot and a chance to promote to league 2.

So this is my latest update on the November results, there are 6 games to be play in December. 5 league games and 1 FA trophy cup match. I will post the updates once i finish the game for December. See you soon.