Blyth Story — October and November 2014

Hello my friends! I’ve done a lot of playing yesterday, so this post will have two months of my Blyth Spartans story instead of just one! I hope you don’t mind :) We had a good start this season, we were unbeaten after two months and our goal, a Champions League place, seemed to be within our reach. However, October was going to be very tough and we had to prove our worth.

The first game of the month was in the Europa League group, at home with Werder Bremen. I expected a tight game but we played a perfect first half, we were 3-0 up at the break! Werder tried to react in the second half but they couldn’t create anything special, one of their strikers got sent off and we controlled their attacks easily.

We looked completely different in the next Premier League game though, away at Liverpool. My lads looked exhausted, we couldn’t create anything upfront. We defended pretty well, we only made one error but Steven Gerrard took advantage of it. It was our first defeat of the season…

The squad reacted well though and our next league game, at home against title holders Manchester City, showed a better attacking Blyth. Things were made easier for us by Zhirkov, he got sent off in the 13th minute after a murderous tackle. But not too easy, Vagner Love was there! Take a look at the highlights, the Brazilian scored the second goal all by himself!

We played pretty well overall but considering that Man City played with only 10 men I guess we should have won this one. My defenders just couldn’t keep Vagner Love quiet and when you give him too much space he scores, over and over again…

We needed a win to boost our morale and the perfect chance was right there, a home game with Romanian side Unirea Urziceni in the Europa League group. We got things wrapped up in less than 30 minutes, we were 4-0 up and looking great. We got a bit complacent in the second half and conceded a goal but it was OK, my players got some rest in the last 45 minutes.

We were first in the group table along with Marseille, we had a great chance to qualify for the next round.

We were doing quite well in Europe but we had to get some wins in the Premier League. Our next opponents were newly promoted side Wolves, we had to win! The game started with another goal from Nicao but guess who scored the equaliser… Christian Short, my former striker in Championship! We dominated the second half, Wolves were under siege, but we missed the easiest chances… Defender Gabor Baranyai took care of things by scoring a great double, a header and a superb volley! We should have scored at least a handful in the second half but we conceded another goal instead :( Anyway, we won it but the team just didn’t look anywhere near the level of confidence that I wanted them to show.

We had a tough one ahead of us, away at Chelsea. The Blues were in 1st place and were having a great run, unbeaten in the last eight games. They didn’t play too well against us but we had a miserable outing, we didn’t do anything to win the game. Chelsea did enough to score one goal and take the three points, highly efficient… We didn’t look like Spartans at all, more like a group of chicken left outside in the rain…

Luckily for us we had an easier game after that one, at home with Wigan. Centre back Tiberiu Radulescu made it even easier with two corner kick goals in the first 15 minutes, he could have scored even more as Wigan‘s marking was extremely poor. We allowed them to create more in the second half but their shots from distance didn’t look too threatening. It ended 3-1 after they scored a free kick goal and Nicao replied with his 10th goal of the season.

We were down in 6th place after eleven games, that Champions League spot didn’t appear to be that close anymore.

Next up, the home game against Marseille. We drew 0-0 away but we should have won that one, we dominated the game. Well, the same thing happened again. We dominated and created chances but just couldn’t beat their keeper. It ended 1-1 but it wasn’t too bad, a win at Bremen would get us through to the next round.

We had to get back on track in the Premier League and the fixtures were not helping us at all… We had a difficult game ahead of us, away at Crystal Palace, one of the teams that had big transfers during the summer. The game was an absolute thriller, something beyond any description. Both teams made a lot of errors in defense and we were quite lucky to score one goal more than our opponents. I just can’t describe what happened, so here are the video highlights, take a look.

That Tomas Necid is a killer! It was a huge win, extremely important.

The bad news was that we had to play against Crystal Palace again three days later in the Carling Cup 4th round… It was a spectacular game again with Tomas Necid showing his skills. And it was a thriller again, we won after the penalty shootout!

Back to the Premier League, another tough home game coming up against our local rivals, Newcastle. We had a good first half but couldn’t score. Tomas Necid took care of that again right after the break and Newcastle started to push forward. We defended well and looked capable of holding on to the one goal lead. That didn’t happen, Newcastle scored 4 minutes before the final whistle. Left winger Martin Panik wasn’t happy about that though, he made a great run on the wing and placed it home two minutes later!

Next up, the new Premier League leaders, Aston Villa! They had three straight wins and were looking unbeatable. Things turned even worse after their early goal, they controlled the first half easily. Nicao pulled another trick from his bag after the break and made it all square but we conceded a corner kick goal right away… Roman Pavlyuchenko, our veteran striker, came off the bench determined to show that he still has the skills and he did that with a superb diving header! He even had the chance to give us the win in the last minutes but his header went wide. We played pretty well and we went close to causing the upset.

And now, finally, the last game in November, at home with 6th placed Tottenham. Cameroonian midfielder Eyong Enoh scored his first goal for the club to give us the lead after an even first half. Tottenham tried to react in the second half and they succeeded right away, Hulk banged one in… They tried a lot of shots from distance but most of them went wide. Right back Damien Grange came to the rescue, he fired in a free kick from 25 yards out, brilliant!

And with that win we were back where we wanted, in 2nd place, only four goals behind Aston Villa! The league table is incredibly tight, only 9 points between the first and the 13th, anything can happen!

December is going to be exhausting, 7 tough games to play, including the Carling Cup quarter final game at Arsenal!

I hope to win the first game, away at Werder Bremen, that will give us the qualification to the next round of the Europa League, so I’ll be able to rest some players in the last group game. We’ll also have Manchester United visiting us, it’s going to be interesting :) Stay tuned to find out!