Written by Hello friends, i am satisfied with the performance of my players for the last 3 months. My players had been performing quite well and we are now lying in mid-table. Last month saw us facing some difficult games against the top teams in the Blue Square Premier, i am glad that we only suffered 1 defeat and that was against the leader Luton. The last month of 2011 before we welcome 2012, we will playing 5 league games and some strong opposition too.
Here is the results..
It was an inconsistent month for us, we have 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. The 2 losses was against teams that are lower place than us, we seem to face trouble playing with weaker teams, i don’t know whether it was my tactics that is giving me the problem. I think i should be more aggressive playing with weaker teams even away from home.
First game of the month was against Mansfield a team currently chasing for a play-off spot. I always employ counter strategy against teams that were potentially stronger than us and it seems to work well for us. My players were magnificent today in front of our home fans, we were doing most of the attack at times and what Mansfield can do was going for hard tackles to stop our passing game. In the first half we establish a comfortable 2 goal lead scored by Kiernan Hughes-Mason and Kevin Macdonald. Things doesn’t improve for them in the second half and my young striker David Knight whom i gave a run out to score the 3rd goal to wrap up a great win.
Another home game for us, this time we are facing our rivals Ebbsfleet. This was a must win game for us especially we were playing in front of our home fans. But end up they went home with disappointment, we lost the game by 2 goals. They do not deserved to win the game, it was a gift from us to them. 2 costly mistakes by Freddie Warren and Robbie Threlfall allow them to score from 2 set-pieces. I was so angry with them, i gave them a piece of my mind after the final whistle. To lose the game in this manner was very hard to take, i got to move on and just hope that it was a one time affair.
In this FA trophy 1st round, we are facing non-league side Gosport. I rotate the players a bit as i wanted to give a rest to some of the first team players. We bombarded their goal from the start of whistle to the end, and i had my young striker David Knight to thank for. He scored the only goal of the game though we totally dominate the game. In times seems like the game was heading for a draw, it was a bit worrying that we struggled to put the ball in the net on such a weak opposition. Anyway we are through to next round and our next opposition is LUTON. What a bad draw.
We will be visiting The Lamb Ground stadium of Tamworth. We created a few chances in the first half and they had theirs too but it was 0-0 in the first 45 minutes. Neither side able to put the ball away. 4 minutes after the whistle of 2nd half, we took a lead through David Knight who never missed from close range. They came back strongly after our first goal and they equalized in the 67 minute. We tried to search for the winning goal but end up we conceded another goal from them 6 minutes before the final whistle. I was a bit disappointed with the results but happy with the performance of my players. I thought we were the better side in this game but their defenders put up a great performance to deny us the win.
Next home game was against 5th place Gateshead that was leading the table in the first 2 months. Suddenly their engine had stalled and now they are occupying the last play-off spot. It was quite even in the first half in terms of chances created and shots, but my players failed to close down the opposition and we conceded a goal in injury time of the first half. We came back strongly in the second half and level the score through David Knight again(yes this is his third goal in three matches) after a fine through ball from Kevin Macdonald. We tried to search for the winner but couldn’t find a breakthrough and in the end had to settle for a draw.
Last game of the month was against Stevenage that was relegated from league 2 last season currently sitting in 8th place. It was not an easy game for us and things got even worse JoshFalkingham committed a serious tackle and was given a straight red card in the 33rd minute. The players seem to play even better after the sent off and 1 minute after the start of the second half, Paul Hakim scored to give us a lead. They tried to come back to the game and they also lost one men when their defender committed a professional foul in the 50 minute. Things remain as it is and we got another victory against one of the stronger team. Seems like the counter strategy tends to work against these stronger teams.
Half the season gone, we are lying comfortable in 9th place without any relegation worries now. However we are trailing the last play-off spot by a whopping 10 points. My team definitely needs to perform better for the rest of the season if we have to seriously challenge for a play-off spot. The transfer window will be opening next month, i am considering selling some of the fringe players to free up the wage budget. I need to search for some quality players for replacement, i think we are still a bit short in quality for some positions.
Next month will see us playing 6 games in total, 5 games in the league and 1 FA trophy game against Luton. I need to tweak my tactics against weaker opposition and hope the results will go our way. I will see you in my next update.
You can still make it to the play-offs, there’s still a long way to go. Good luck with the new transfers, if you bring a few quality players things could improve dramatically.
I can see that must have been a frustrating month, with the 2 losses against teams that are weaker than you. It’s always hard to know exactly why that happens sometimes, and could be a combination of things, from a bit of complacency, tactics, or even just bad luck.
Thanks for the comments guys.
@Johnny
I definitely need to bring in some quality players but i have to offload few players as my wage had exceed the budget.
@The Ziggy
I agree with you i still could not understand how we can lost these 2 games. Especially the game against our rivals, we throw the game away. I just hope things will improve for the next few months.
Hi Lye
Good luck for 2012. Agree with Johnny that there’s still time for a play off push, I’m sure you can do it.
Thanks Kevin, I hope my team will be more motivated to win against weaker teams. I think we are doing quite well against stronger opposition, as long we do not drop too many points, i believe we will be up there challenging for a play-off spot.
Looking good Lye, it would be a fantastic achievement if you were to get promoted considering you were relegation candidates at the beginning. About losing to lower reputation teams, I hate it when this happens to me, sometimes changing the team talk can have a positive effect making sure they dont become complacent. Also usually lower rep teams will play defensive and try and counter attack against me, so what I usually do is play with the Control strategy and use the “Retain Possession” shout, which often does the trick. It will be interesting to see how you solve this problem. Good luck!
Thanks for the recommendation Rooneye, i will have a try on that. I think maybe you are right regarding the complacency. My assistant always told me that my team tends to perform well against higher reputation teams. I will see what i can do to solve this problem.