FMstory

Hello friends, finally the last stage of our push for promotion has come. We are certainly in a very good position right now, has a game in hand and leading at the top of the table with 4 points separate us and 2nd place Accrington. It is a conjested month for us as we have to play 7 games this month. Can my Thurrock team defy all odds to win promotion to league 2? Lets find out.

First game of the month, we were away to AFC Wimbledon hoping to beat them in their own ground. I went into this game full of confidence as they were currently fighting against relegation. But the results wasn’t meant for me to take as they were determined to avoid the drop and gave us a scare when they took the lead in the 4th minute. My top scorer Izale Mcleod equalized in the 30th minute after a fine pass by Kevin Macdonald. Both teams went into the break with the scores level. It was the same scenario in the second half when they scored another not long after the break. Both times we needed to come back from behind to gain [...]Read More

Hello friends, as i forgot to save the table for February, i decided to play one more month. So this post will be a combination of February and March results. After the games in January we are currently lying in 2nd place with 1 point behind the leaders Accrington. With injuries to my 2 first choice central defenders, we had the tendency to concede quite a number of goals. The defence definitely need to be tighten up while they were out.

As this will be the results of two months, i wouldn’t want to describe every match in detail as the post will be extremely long. Lets take a look at the results.

February

As i mentioned in my last post that the opposition we faced in February was not too strong, we produced the form shown in early season and won all of our games.  Hereford and Tamworth provide us with some resistance but Izale Mcleod is in the form of his life at the moment. He had 2 hat-tricks consecutively in these two games. I am still a bit concerned on the defence as we concede 4 goals. Luckily our strikers was [...]Read More

Hello friends, its another brand new year with us currently leading the table after chalking up four wins last month. But we are only ahead of York with a superior goal difference, we have reached the second half of the season with boiling point and any poor performance will surely have a effect on our promotion prospects. Without further a do, let us take a look on how my Thurrock team performs in January.

We had 3 wins out of 5 games in January not consider perfect, partly due to some injury problems suffer to both my central defenders Troy Archibad-Henville and David King. They picked up the injury during training  and was  out for 1-3 months respectively.

First game of the month was against Histon who was a 4th place team last season. They simply can’t reproduce the form this season and was lying in mid-table. But they were still a dangerous team and we will be playing away from home. We conceded a goal in the first half when we gave their player too much space and time to direct the ball into the net  in our 6 yards box. [...]Read More

Hello friends, after the shocking results last month, i change my tactics from attacking back to standard and the tackling to become default. We seriously need to improve our form  as our rivals are not dropping too many points as we are. The table is pretty tight so we need to win as many points as possible to prevent us from dropping out of the title race. Not too many games played in this month, 4 BSP matches and 1 FA trophy match. Lets take a look on the results.

Very good set of results there, besides the defeat on the FA trophy game, we actually won all of the BSP games. What a big contrast compared to last month. Most likely we don’t have the players who have the attributes to start a attacking strategy. I still can’t figure out why. Anyway this is the tactics that suit my team best so i will stick to it till the end of season.

First game of the month was against Kidderminster who is lying in mid-table. They were having a good run winning their last 3 games. Immediately after the start of whistle, there [...]Read More

Hello friends, we are having a good run of results for the last 2 months. Unbeaten for 13 games since the last defeat to Cheltenham in August. I am quite pleased with the form of the players as we were on top of the table leading 6 points comfortably. In this month, we will be playing 6 games so lets take a look at the results.

2 Draws and 4 defeats without any wins, i can’t believe it. What a bad month we had! I know sooner or later we will suffer a dip in form but never did i expect it will be so terrible. I think this is the worst month that i ever have since taking over the helms in Thurrock. But looking back, i made 1 terrible tactical mistake which possibly caused the bad run. I hope thats the reason else i do not know what happen to the team to produce such a bad results.

First game of the month was against Forest Green. they are currently lying in mid-table and employing a formation of 4-2-3-1. They used 2 defensive midfielders to counter any attacking threat [...]Read More

Hello friends, a fine run last month had propelled us to the top of the table. Our main task for this month is to ensure that the team keep up the good form and consolidate our position in the BSP. There is 6 games to be played including a FA cup 4th round qualifying match against St Albans. Lets take a look at the results.

Another unbeaten month for us, we had 5 wins and a draw. The wins against York and Macclesfield is what pleased me the most as we scored 2 important victories against our rivals for the title.

An impressive victory against a team who is lying in 6th place. Macclesfield had some good players in their team and i was particularly wary of  Andrew Isaac. If you remember, i loaned him for 3 months last season and i like him very much as a player. He had made some improvements this season and had been scoring goals for fun in the shirt of Macclesfield. Lucky he didn’t perform well today. Both sides had almost identical shots and on target shots. Our strikers made the difference today. Izale Mcleod [...]Read More

Hello friends, we had a good but not perfect start in August with 1 defeat to Cheltenham.  Due to some injuries along the way, we concede 5 goals in the last 2 games. I need to tighten up the defence while Troy Archibad-Henville is out injured for the games in September. It will be a busy schedule with 7 games awaiting us. As i mentioned in the last post, the opposition is not strong except for Crawley but i certainly won’t be underestimating the opponent. I just need my team to gather as many points as possible in the early season to prove our title credentials. Here is the results.

We had a great month. 6 wins and a draw, i think my players are starting to understand each other better after last month.  I was really pleased with the strikers upfront, Izale Mcleod and Marc Richards are scoring goals for fun. Seems like their partnership is working well and i think there are still a lot to come from them.

First game of the month was against Crawley, a team that finish 3rd in the last campaign. It was not an easy game for [...]Read More

Hello friends, finally the new season is under going but before we go to the actual games, we have some workout in the friendly games. There are a lot of friendlies to be played, i try to rotate the players to get their match fitness back as they had just returned from holiday.

A few high scoring results there, the only defeat is to championship team Peterborough but the result had been expected as they are few divisions on top of us. The new signings had adapted very well especially the new strikers. They had scored a total of 18 goals between them. It was a nice workout for the team as they need sometime to foster the understandings.

The media predicts us to finish 15th this season, the bet is firmly against us too. We were expected to struggled and fighting a relegation battle. I think thats a joke from them to lessen my pressure on the job. Anyway based from what i saw from the friendly, we definitely have what it takes to challenge for the title.

Finally the actual game arrives, however i received a bad new that Thomas Hitchcock had injured himself [...]Read More

Hello friends, i am coming into my fourth season with Thurrock. After the disappointment of missing the play-off spot last season, i am determined to strengthen my squad to challenge for the title this season. My board expectations has been pretty average for this year as they only expect us to finish in mid-table position. Thus i don’t have any transfer fee available, i had already expected that since the club is 200k in red. But what i didn’t expect is that they only provide me with a small wage budget of 2.8k/week. It was few hundred lower than last season. Anyway i told the board that we will have a top-half finish and they increase to 2.9k/week. The current wage is well over this amount so definitely i need to release some players for new players to come in.

Even though i was given such a small budget, i had no choice but to accept it. Before the start of the new season, i had already identify my transfer targets and offered them a contract. Most of them agreed to sign for my club so i was pretty delighted about it. The signings were concluded [...]Read More