Thurrock-March 2015 results

Hello friends, three more months to go before the season ends. Our team still has not solve the inconsistency problems over the season. The only thing is to ensure that the players perform to their best in every game and hope for the best of luck that we can grab the last promotion spot in May. It is a pretty relax schedule in March, only 4 games to be played. Lets take a look at the results.

Although we were unbeaten for the whole month but we can only win 1 and draw the rest of them. I was actually a bit disappointed as if our players had been more clinical in front, we would have won all of the games.

First game of the month was against 8th place Bristol Rovers, not an easy game for us. We hit the woodwork in the early stages but that was the only moment for our fans to shout about. They started to pile on the pressure and took a lead in the 14th minute when their central defender headed in a point blank range from a corner. We couldn’t settled into the game after the goal and went a goal behind in the first half. 2 minutes into the second half and i had to make a substitution. Emmanuel Frimpong was injured and Damian Russell came in for him. We started to see more of the ball and a through ball from Moreno Marra put Scott Harvey through and he scored a place shot to equalize for us in the 63rd minute. We finished the game strongly threatening with a couple of chances but the players could not finish it and we had to settle for a draw. The injury to Emmanuel Frimpong is not serious and he will only be out for 6 days.

Next up was a home game against 6th place Stockport. We had a terrible record against them, have not been able to beat them in the last 5 meetings. We had a great start though in the match when Scott Harvey picked up the ball after it was cleared from our corner and bring the ball forward to put the ball into the net. We took advantage of the possession we have and scored another goal in the 18th minute, this time it was Petr Kopecky who sidestep his marker and smashed a powerful shot to the net. David King was injured just before the whistle and had to be replaced by Troy Archibad-Henville. It was 2-0 till the break. We were controlling the game and played better than them. We had a scare when Moreno Marra had to be taken off after picking up a knock in the 54th minute. We couldn’t increase the goal tally and finally we scored our first win over Stockport. David King will be out for 8 weeks but luckily nothing serious for Moreno Marra and he will be fit for the next game.

Next up was against 21st place Carlisle, they had the dangerous Francois Zoko in the team and i was pretty amazed by their low position. It was pretty even game for both teams. Both teams had numerous chances but the quality of finishing was poor from the players. The game ended up in a boring draw. We had another injury bad news in this game. This time round Petr Kopecky suffered a strained knee ligaments and will be out for a maximum of 7 weeks-2 months.

Last game of the month was against 18th place Lincoln. Both team had few chances and it was them who took the lead when they slip a ball through behind our defender and made no mistake in scoring from close range. Thomas Hitchcock equalized in the 25th minute when Scott Harvey split the defence open and put him in a dangerous position to place a shot in. The game went into the break with the scores level. It was a high tempo game in the second half, we had some clear cut chances to score the winner but could not find the target. This match turned out to be our third draw of the month.

With 7 games left to go, no change in our position. We are still lying in 5th place but 10 points off 3rd place Tranmere. Based on our form, i think we will be settling for a play-off place. We are drawing far too many games this season though we had lesses losses compared tp last season. We have a slim hope of gaining the last promotion spot but provided Tranmere and MK Dons slip up in the last months which is quite impossible.

Next month will see us play another 5 games which start at Ship Lane facing 2nd place Oldham. We have home advantage in three of the games, i hope with the support of the fans we will see a good run of results to push us up the table.

Thats it friends, my March updates for my Thurrock team. Looking forward to your comments and i will see you in my next post for April results.