Notts County April 2013 — One Step Closer

Well, there isn’t much left of the season, is there? Welcome back to the Notts County story my friends, we had six more games to play and we were up in 5th place at the end of March! Arsenal were right behind us though with two games in hand, so I can say that our «real» position was 6th. Anyway, we had to earn enough points to hold on to that 6th spot…

Now let’s get on with the matches. And please excuse me if the writing won’t be good in this post, I have a terrible headache due to an acute lack of coffee this morning :) OK, here we go…

The first game of the month was a very difficult one, at home with 3rd placed Everton, one of the strongest teams in the Premier League this season. We managed to grab one point from the away game though, it ended 2-2 back in November. Everton were coming from four straight wins, they were in a very good state of form. My lads played very well in the first half, we dominated the game and didn’t allow the opponents to shoot at all! The second half was a bit different, Everton looked better on the pitch but failed to create important chances to score. Both teams worked hard but the game turned out to be quite boring for the fans. It was a good point for us though as Everton were expected to win the match.

We had a good chance to get three points again in the next match, it was away at last placed Blackburn. They were already relegated so I thought that we could take advantage of their lack of motivation. The game turned out to be much more difficult than I expected, Blackburn had nothing left to lose so they played very well without having any pressure on their shoulders. They dominated the first half quite clearly and I had to thank Sergio Romero at half time for keeping us into the game. We picked up the pace in the second half and Gianmarco Zigoni gave us the lead after a fine counter attack move. The score was back level only a few minutes later though, Djourou missed an easy header  and Blackburn scored. The pressure was rising on our defense but Blackburn were leaving huge gaps for our counter attacks. Guilherme was like a kid in a playground with all that space in front of him, he slotted home two counter attack goals to give us the victory. It was a pretty close shave though, Blackburn could have easily won the game…

The last game of the month was another tricky one, 8th placed Newcastle were coming at Meadow Lane. We managed to beat them 2-0 at St. James’ Park in December but I wasn’t expecting an easy game. My fears were confirmed right away, we went 1-0 down due to a fine shot from 25 yards out. We had to react quickly and my attacking players proved their worth again, a quick combination left Guilherme with a good chance to score and he coolly headed the ball home. A few minutes later a fine through ball from Biglia found Guilherme with some space inside the box and he powered it in, we were back on track! You can’t imagine how angry I was when I saw that we were unable to hold onto the lead until half time, my defenders looked distracted and lazy. We started the second half pretty well and finally the pressure turned into a goal, Lucas Biglia headed home a cross from an indirect free kick. Newcastle were down to 10 men only a few minutes after the goal but they were trying to put us under pressure with a very attacking 3-2-4 setup. I had to switch the strategy to counter and we controlled the final 20 minutes of the game without having too many problems.

We were still in 5th place but Arsenal had a game in hand, if they’ll win that game we’ll be back in 6th. The important thing is that we are 7 points ahead of Liverpool right now with three more games to be played. That means that only one win could give us the certainty of holding on to the 6th place and getting the ticket for the next season’s Europa League.

Guilherme was deservedly named Player of the Month, he was absolutely fantastic with his four goals in the last two games.

The youngsters did well too, 18 year old Nicola Bonetti got an award for himself after playing really well throughout the month. In most games the opposition’s left backs never walk away without a yellow card, they can’t stop him! He has improved a lot since I signed him and I have high hopes regarding his future at the club.

So, we need a win in the last three games to be 100% sure of qualifying to the Europa League… It sounds easy but if you look at the fixtures the whole picture changes a bit. We’ll have two very difficult away games at Tottenham and Aston Villa with a home game between them with Manchester United…

Hopefully Liverpool won’t get nine points out of their three games, they have to play Chelsea at some point if I remember correctly. That’s about it for now, we’ll see how the last month goes. We have a good chance of hanging on to the 6th place and I would be very disappointed if we would fail.