Blyth Spartans — The European Debut
Finally, our second season in the Premier League is ready to begin! It will also be the season in which my Blyth Spartans will participate in the Europa League, the first time ever! After a good transfers campaign there was a lot of enthusiasm around the club, the season tickets were sold out!
The first game of the season was at home, the European debut with Dinamo Tbilisi in the Europa League 4th qualifying round, the last round before the group stage. I was a bit nervous before the game but it turned out to be absolutely perfect: right back Damien Grange got a goal on his debut with a great free kick shot from 25 yards out, Tomas Necid and Tiberiu Rãdulescu also scored on their debut and Nicao started his season with a great hat-trick! A great landslide win and a huge boost to the morale of the squad.
Next up, the Premier League, once again at West Ham. The game started pretty well, we were 2-0 up at the break and it all looked too easy to be true. West Ham only had some shots from distance but in the 69th minute one of those went in! Nicao got us back leading by two goals but my players looked a bit complacent in the last 15 minutes and we conceded again… Anyway, a win is a win and that’s important to get going in the long season ahead of us.
The next league game was away at our local rivals from Sunderland, everybody expected a tight match. We took the lead early in the game thanks to a goal by Tomas Necid but by half time everything turned around somehow. We conceded two goals in a stupid manner, the second one from a corner kick. We dominated the game after the break, created a whole lot but couldn’t get any on the scoreboard. The equalizer came from a corner kick but we should and could have won this easily…
I chose to rest my star players in the second leg of the Europa League clash, we already were 8 goals ahead. The Georgians tried hard to score at least one goal for their fans but we were a lot better, scored another 4 goals and qualified for the group stage! Left winger Tom Chapple scored a double and I was very happy for him because he just recovered from an injury that kept him on the sidelines for a whole month.
The last game of the month was at home with Portsmouth, the team that managed to survive in the Premier League last season. The game began well again, we were 1-0 up right from the start but we lost concentration once again and by half time we were 2-1 behind. Fortunately Nicao was in great shape, he solved the game for us with a quick double right after the break. Portsmouth tried another comeback but we kept cool and defended the lead well.
The league table is not very important at this time but still, we were in 4th place. The thing that concerns me is that we conceded 2 goals every game and if that goes on we can’t challenge for a place in the top four at the end of the season, it’s out of the question. I hope to improve our defensive record, otherwise it will be very difficult.
The good news is that Nicao seems to be in top form again after a quiet second part of the last season. He already scored a lot for us and I hope that he will keep going! He was elected August Player of The Month in the Premier League, with 3 goals and 3 assists in the first… 3 games!
We were not very lucky with the Europa League draw, we were handed a very tough group with Werder Bremen, Marseille and Romanian side Unirea Urziceni. It’s going to be difficult but I want to get to the knockout rounds, no question about that.
We didn’t have any luck with the Carling Cup draw either, we will play Liverpool in the 3rd round :(
There’s a tough month ahead of us, we’ll get to face Marseille away form home and then Liverpool and Arsenal at home! I guess it’s a good opportunity to test the squad and get more information about our strengths and weaknesses, it’s going to be a long, tough but beautiful season! I think that my youngsters will learn a lot from the European games and they will become stronger.