Thurrock-January 2012 results

Hello friends, it was a brand new year and while most of the people are celebrating, my Thurrock team had to prepare a visit to The Abbey stadium of Cambridge Utd on the 2nd day of January. Half the season gone and we are lying in 9th place 10 points off the last play-off spot. We had already exceed the expectations of the board and fans but personally i wanted more. I need to rally my players for the rest of the season to grab a play-off place and a chance to promote to league 2.

I had mentioned in my last post i need to released some players in order to sign new players. But there was no takers and i don’t want to deepen the financial problems by releasing them on a free. However Lewis Walker was loaned to Corby town. I wanted to keep 2 loan signings out of 4 that i had signed but Andrew Isaac decided not to extend the loan with us. In the end, Kiernan Hughes-Mason is the only one who extends his loan with us for another 6 months. I loaned another player from Millwall. His name is Jonathan Hutcheon a 17 year old regen whose position is a midfielder.

Now Let us take a look on the results for the game played in January.

6 games were played in total and we scored 4 wins and 2 losses. Not a bad month, as you can see from the results. We did not concede any goals beside the 2 losses to Luton and Chelmsford. The defeat against Luton was expected as i shift my focus to the Blue Square Premier but it was hard to swallow for the defeat against Chelmsford. You can checkout the details below.

First game of the month was a difficult away trip to The Abbey stadium of Cambridge Utd. They were lying in 4th place at the moment and having a 5 match winning streak in a row. It was bad timing to face them for the first game of the new year. Both teams were quite evenly match in the first half and we had quite a few decent chances. But it was stalemate for the first 45 minutes. We got the breakthrough in the 57 minute and Matt Paine pick up a good pass from Kevin Macdonald scored to give us a lead. They tried to come back into the game and it was a torture for my defense for the last 10 minutes as my eleven players were doing the defending in our own half. But my goalkeeper was in great form today, he blocked everything coming towards him and always came out top in one on one situation. As a result he got the MOM award for his performance after the game and truly deserved it.

A FA trophy 2nd round match against the current leaders of BSP. I wanted to focus on chasing a play-off spot and rested few of my first team regulars. The players i sent out actually gave a good account of themselves and played very well. The game take right through to the end and a special goal from the BSP top scorer Tom Craddock finally condemned us to a defeat. I wasn’t disappointed about the results and i wish them well for the next round tie against Hampton & Richmond.

Chelmsford will be our next opponent visiting our Ship Lane Stadium. They were promoted with us from the BSS last season. We lost the first fixture 1-2 to them in August. I wanted revenge and we actually played very well in this game. We totally dominate the proceedings in the first half created 12 chances and they had only 1 shot for the entire first half. Yet they took that chance and scored through a thumping header to give them the lead. I was shocked and i urged my players to attack after the break. They listen to my instructions and keep on attacking but we just could not break down the wall. We lost the game 0-1. Their goalkeeper was in tremendous form and i do not understand he always seems to perform incredibly well against us. During the defeat in August, he gave us a hard time too. His ratings and attributes is very poor.

Did you guys ever encounter one particular player always seem to perform well against your team or one particular team?  It was hard to take but that was football, i just had to accept it and blame solely on bad luck.

Next game was against 23rd place Worcester and after the unlucky defeat to Chelmsford. It was a good time to get back to winning ways. Jack Jeffrey was one of the three players i transfer listed(the other 2 being Phil Anderson and Lewis Walker). I wasn’t too happy with his training and performance on the pitch. As my other strikers was not in full match fitness, so i gave him a start for this game. He wasted no time in telling me that he still got something to offer to this club, he scored 15 second after the start whistle to give us a lead which is recorded as the fastest goal scored. This was a fairly easy game for us as we went for a goal rout to win the game by 4 goals.

We will be expecting Chester in our next home game. They are currently in 16th place and we should be capable of handling them. Currently for the home game against weaker opposition, i have been using control strategy instead of standard. I noticed that more chances are being created and that’s a good sign. Another high score win for us as we ran out 4-0 winners after the final whistle. The scorers are Matt Paine, Paul Hakim, David Knight and Kevin Macdonald.

Last game of the month was against Barrow who is struggling at the bottom half of the table now. We were magnificent for the whole game and Kevin Macdonald gave us a lead in the 22 minute. Things got worse for them as they had a men sent off in the 52 minute. We were over them from that on and Robin Shroot and Simon Heslop scored to give us a 3-0 win. I am glad for the last 3 games we gained maximum points and kept a clean sheet. This erased a bit of the disappointment against Chelmsford.

As a result of the 4 victories for January, i was awarded my first manager of the month award this season.

Kevin Macdonald was awarded the player of the month award for his performances, scoring 3 goals from his last 5 games. I consider him to be my best signing this season. He already got 9 goals and 14 assists in all competition this season.

We had played 30 games so far and climb 3 places up the table to 6th place. Some of our rivals had a few games in their hands so we could be overtaken by them anytime. I am delighted with how the football is played by the team at the moment and i hope they can keep up the good form in February.

It is a pretty relax schedule in February only 4 games to be play. They are either lying in mid-table or struggling in the bottom half. I hope to consolidate our position by gaining maximum points.

That’s all for the January update and i will see you in my next post February results.