Thurrock-September 2013 results

Hello friends, after an encouraging start to the new season. Everyone associated with the club is being lifted by the players performances. We need to continue the good form in September and it certainly won’t be easy. But at least i am more confident that we can avoid the relegation. Lets take a look at the results of the games coming up.

Though we progressed to the 2nd round of JPT, but it was quite an even results for us in the league. We had 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss. Overall i am satisfied with  the performance of the players but i felt that we could do better.

First game of the month was a Johnstone’ Paint Trophy match against league 1 side Gillingham. I actually rested few players and handed my loan signing Rhys Williams a debut in the middle of the park. Also getting rare starts were Joe Woolley, Matt Paine, Josh Falkingham and Gary Alexander. We were playing under raining conditions and the game started by Gillingham testing our goalkeepers with a few shots and freekicks, luckily the shots lack of accuracy. We created our first attack in the 13th minute and it resulted in a goal. Rhys Williams threaded a through ball to Gary Alexander in the 6 yards box and he released an unstoppable shot into the goal. We beginning to gain some confidence after the goal and created a number of chances, but we couldn’t find the target and even had a goal ruled out for offside. It was 1-0 in the first half. We had a injury before the break, Gary Alexander injured his elbow in the 38th minute and will be out for 2 weeks. Immediately after the break a backpass from their full back to the goalkeeper was intercepted by Izale Mcleod, he accepted the gift and calmly slide the ball pass the goalkeeper. Though they turned to attacking and started to pressure us, but our back line was magnificent today. Even they could get pass the defenders, my goalkeeper Joe Woolley stopped every shot that was coming at him. It was a fantastic win. The media were speculating that the players wanted to give me the win as a birthday present as it was my birthday when we played the game.

We returned to our home league game after the success in JPT match against Gillingham.  We were facing Torquay who is lying in 10th place. I rested my top scorer Izale Mcleod in this game as he was showing signs of tiredness. We went into this game full of confidence and the players were controlling the game from the start. We took an early lead in the 3rd minute with a goos team move that involved Robbie Threlfall, Gonzalo Vicente and finished by Brett Slade. Torquay was protesting furiously as they thought it was offside. We had chances to double the lead in the first half but were denied by the goalkeeper. We were still the better team in the second half but a dramatic turns of event saw Mitchell McPike receiving his marching orders after the referee handed out the second yellow card. Even with 1 man down, we were still mounting waves of attacks. Josh Falkingham missed a penalty and Izale Mcleod hit the post and we were still hanging on for the one goal lead. Luckily the miss was not costly, though they had some chances but found it difficult to get pass Nikki Bull. It was a hard fought win for us.

Next will be a live telecast match against Oxford a place that is lying in 14th place at the moment. We did not help ourselves in this match by producing the worst performance of the season so far. We conceded two goals in the first which i thought we should have defended better. Their first goal is a placed shot in close range and the second goal was scored at the edge of the 6 yards box after Robbie Threlfall lost possession in our half. But we allowed their striker far too much space. We conceded another goal in the second half, this time through a freekick. The whole team need to take responsibility for the embarrassing result as from front to the back, we were awful tonight. I got nothing to complain about. We deserved to be thrashed. Hopefully the players will pick themselves up for the next home game coming up.

After the heavy defeat against Oxford, we had a tough game coming up. Carlisle the team that was relegated from league 1 last season and will be visiting our home ground. They are lying in 6th place with 3 wins in the last 3 games. I was particularly concerned by their 2 strikers, Francois Zoko and Christian Nade, both quality strikers with 14 goals between them. It was an entertaining match as both side looking for opportunity to attack each other with us being the better side having more shots and shots on targets. But we could not find a way pass their goalkeeper and they were limited to long shots by my defenders most of the time. It ended up a draw as both teams cancelled each other out evenly. I thought it was a good result for us as we managed to contain both of their strikers pretty well. Credit to my defenders for holding the fort well.

Last game of the month saw us visiting 9th place Stockport that was 2 place above us. We took the lead in the 3rd minute from a counter attacking move when my full back sent a long pass to the path of Izale Mcleod who sent a chip over the goalkeeper to put the ball in the net. But some disastrous defending saw us conceded 2 goals to go behind. We equalized before the break when Izale Mcleod ran down the right flank and cut the ball back to Gary Alexander who powered an unstoppable shot to the top corner of the net. Both teams tried to search for the winner in the second half with shots testing both goalkeepers several times. A lack of concentration saw us went behind again when they scored at the edge of the 6 yards box in the 76th minute. With 10 minutes left, i switch to overload urging my players to go all out for the equalizer. We were rewarded when Izale Mcleod scored his second goal to level the score. The late impact delighted the fans. It was an entertaining match with the scores ended in 3-3.

We were lying in mid-table after 9 fixtures played. The table on top is very competitive as 1 or 2 wins will see us climbing 4 or 5 position up the table. I don’t think we will have any relegation worries based on the poor form of the teams at the bottom. If we can keep up the performance , i bet we should be at the top challenging for a play-off spot.

Next month will see us playing 6 matches including a JPT match against Bournemouth. We will be meeting some teams that is above us such as Luton, Dag & Red and Morecambe. If we can produce some good results over there, i think we will be able to break into the play-off spot.

Here you go friends, my latest updates on September results. Thanks for reading the post and i will see you back in my next post Thurrock-October 2013 results.