Football Manager 2010 Story — Notts County October 2009

Here we go my friends, the Notts County Football Manager 2010 story continues! After the very good first two months in League Two, with 10 straight wins, we had to keep up the pace and confirm our status of promotion contenders. We were top of the table at the end of September but Bury were right behind us, we couldn’t afford any mistakes.

The first challenge in October was away at 19th placed Cheltenham and my players produced a solid display, they didn’t give the opponents any chances to get something out of the game. Both strikers, Zoko and Sburlea, got their names on the scoresheet, I was quite satisfied. The only bad thing was that the young Romanian picked up a knock and he was going to be out for two weeks.

We had a cup game next, at home with Crewe in the 2nd round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. Sam Hewson made it easy for us with a superb early goal, he scored with a fantastic left footed shot from 25 yards out. Ben Davies made it 2-0 only seven minutes later with a cannonball shot from 35 yards out, everything was under control…

The next game was a difficult one, away at 5th placed Rotherham, a team that was in very good shape, unbeaten in the last 10 league games! They were very confident and dominated the first half but we managed to punish them on a quick counter attack. We played a bit better in the second half, kept things under control but we made a mistake in defense right in the last minute of the game and Rotherham made it all square. It was our first draw of the season…

We had the chance to get back to our winning ways in the next game, at home with 15th placed Torquay. Striker Sabrin Sburlea played two perfect assists for Zoko in the first half to make it 2-0, then we controlled the game and didn’t allow our opponents to create too much danger.

The story continues, go to the next page to read the rest of it.

Next up we had to meet Crewe again, but this time in League Two. Zoko scored an early goal again, his 10th of the season, and we were in control. Unfortunately he picked up two yellow cards somehow and we finished the game with 10 men on the pitch but the win was in our hands right from the beginning.

The last game of the month was also the toughest, we had to face 3rd placed Shrewsbury at home. We played pretty well in the first half but were unlucky, we hit the woodwork twice! We finally scored in the second half, right winger Marius Sava curled in a nice cross and Sabrin Sburlea headed it in. But luck wasn’t on our side that day, Shrewsbury sent their only shot on goal right in the last minute and it went in! We should have won this one but luck plays an important part in football games sometimes…

We were still unbeaten though and Bury were 3 points behind us!

The player that I would like to single out is centre back Shelton Martis, he played very well so far and I don’t regret paying 500K for him in July. He is almost always in control in our penalty area, nobody gets to touch the ball before him, especially in the air!

He is quite experienced for League Two, he even played a few games in the Premier League for West Brom and also had a full season in the Scottish Premier League.

We’ll have two cup games in November and the good (or bad maybe) news is that we’ll get to meet Leeds again, the only team that defeated us this season.

At the end of the month I had a nice surprise from the club’s chairman, he injected around 10 million euro into the club’s bank accounts and the board decided to give me 2.1 million euro for transfers! What can I say, keep it up mister chairman, it might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship! :)

I will have around two months to scout players until the transfer window will be open, I’m thinking about bringing some talented youngsters and maybe another centre back, one that could match Martis‘ ability.

That’s about it, if you have any suggestions about the transfers that I should make please feel free to share them :)