Blyth Spartans December 2016

Hello my friends and welcome to the most important month of the season, December 2016, the month that could give the Blyth Spartans the only trophy that is missing from the vault, the Club World Cup.

But until then we had another few league games to win… The first challenge was a tricky away game at 3rd placed Crystal Palace, a solid team. We played very well in the first half and young striker Pablo gave us the lead with a close range header. Crystal Palace created a bit of pressure in the second half but there was nothing we couldn’t cope with, so there was another win in the bag!

We had a nice holiday game after that, the last Champions League group game, at home with Steaua Bucharest. We were already qualified, so I allowed my players to have some fun out there. The result was a spectacular game despite the frozen pitch, we could have scored at least five or six more goals.

We clearly dominated the Champions League group, six wins out of six and great performances overall. I really hope that we could win the trophy again…

Next up, another Premier League challenge, at home with 15th placed Hull. Striker Daniel Aquino put on a great show, his goal in the second half was the 100th league goal of his career! Hull dominated the last 40 minutes of the game but our defense can play like that all day long :)

Finally, the big moment arrived. We traveled to Australia to play in the Club World Cup! The semi final game brought us an easy opponent, Melbourne Victory. The game was a lot of fun for my players, they even scored one into our own net to make things more interesting :)

After the game we received the news about the Champions League first knockout round draw, we’ll play against Deportivo La Coruna. It won’t be easy but I’m confident that we can defeat them.

But there’s still a lot of time until then. We had to focus on the Club World Cup final as we had tough opposition, Argentinian side River Plate. Their star player is Diego Buonanotte, a very skillful midfielder. They won in the semi final 2-0 with South Africans from Orlando Pirates, a much more difficult opponent than Melbourne Victory. Anyway, we were determined to win it and young striker Pablo gave us the early lead with a great volley from inside the penalty area. We dominated the first half but River Plate created some pressure right after the break. We stood firm and eventually struck on counter attacks, left winger Tom Chapple and striker Nicao scored the goals that brought the trophy into our hands!

We won everything we could possibly win but you know how it is, I have one last season to play and I want to win some more :) We had to stay calm and take care of the league games, we had some difficult ones ahead of us. The first one was away at 13th placed Newcastle, they always were a tough nut to crack. They were lucky to score an early goal and the game was pretty even overall. My centre backs made the difference again though with two corner kick goals.

The last game of the year was at home with Manchester United, the most disappointing team in the Premier League this season. If you can imagine that, they were in 16th place despite having all the stars in their squad: Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and so on.

We had to take advantage of their poor form and we had no problems in doing that, Man Utd played like an anonymous team! If they continue to play like that they might even get relegated, that would be something!

We were in control in the Premier League but Tottenham were still breathing down our neck…

As you can see from the player stats I rotated the lads quite a lot, with only a few exceptions. I’m satisfied with their performance overall and I think that there is still room for improvement from some players.

I would like to single out two players. The first one is our star, Nicao. He was in great form again, scored 12 goals and made 9 assists, he is a world class striker!

Right back Damien Grange was also an essential player in the team. His right foot is simply golden, he takes corner kicks and free kicks almost perfectly and that’s why he scored 5 goals and made 14 assists!

We’ll be quite busy in January, 9 games to play, and quite a few tough ones: Arsenal in the Carling Cup semi final, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham in the Premier League, there will be a lot of entertainment :)

That’s about it, I’m very happy that we managed to win the Club World Cup, the only trophy that was missing from my track record. Now I’ll have another few months of my last Football Manager 2009 season to enjoy, I hope you’ll enjoy them with me. :)