Notts County FM 2010 Story — September 2009
Hello folks! After five straight wins in the first League Two games the fans expected me to drive Notts County to a few more wins in September. I was fairly confident, the team looked good in August and although I still had to work on the defensive aspect of our game I felt that our offensive power was enough to keep the good results coming.
The first game of the month was away at Burton in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. I didn’t care too much about that competition but I tried to win the game anyway. It wasn’t easy though, Burton put us under pressure a few times but I was happy that my defense stood firm. Striker Francois Zoko scored twice on counter attacks and that was it, we were through to the next round.
We had to face the same opponent in our next League Two game, but this time we were playing at home. The game was quite boring, I tried to make the defense secure and it worked out well but in attack we didn’t create much. Romanian left winger Nicolae Mitea scored his first ever goal for the club to give us another win.
We had another home game coming up, we had to face 8th placed Northampton. We played well in the first half but missed a few chances, so we were only 1-0 up at the break. We dominated the second half too but when I thought nothing bad could happen disaster struck, Northampton scored from a free kick! We continued to push forward and got what we deserved in the last 10 minutes of the game.
Next up, we had to travel to 10th placed Morecambe. We made the game easy by scoring twice in the first half, that allowed me to make some more tactical experiments in the last 45 minutes :) I was beginning to refine my tactic but I still had to work on a few tweaks.
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After three straight league wins in September we were preparing for the fourth, we had 19th placed Port Vale coming at Meadow Lane. I tried a more aggressive version of my 4-4-2 tactic and it produced quite a few chances to score but also great chances for Port Vale to counter attack. We missed a few good chances again but fortunately we managed to score just enough to get the three points.
The tactical experiments were almost over, in the last game of the month I used the tactic that I will probably use throughout the season. The game was away at 23rd placed Lincoln, one of our rival teams. I was pleased with the team’s performance but I was concerned that we missed a few easy chances to score again, my strikers seemed overconfident! Anyway, once we score the first goal it’s tough for any team in the league to beat us, we are very quick on counter attacks and more and more reliable at the back.
Seyfo Soley picked up a knock during the game and he’s going to be out for around 7 weeks, I guess we’ll miss him a bit. We were top of the table at the end of September but 2nd placed Bury had a game in hand.
The player that I’d like to single out this month is versatile midfielder Ben Davies, he’s a treasure for this team. He plays very well as a right or left winger or as a central midfielder and he had a good season so far, scored 3 goals and made 5 assists. He is my jolly joker, I move him around the pitch a lot during certain games. He made his debut in professional football back in 1998 with Stoke, in League One. He never found his place since then, changed a lot of teams in his career and never went higher than a season in Coca-Cola Championship. He played a lot of seasons in League Two and I hope to give him the opportunity to play at least one minute in the Premier League.
We’ll have a few difficult games in October, especially with 5th placed Crewe and 3rd placed Shrewsbury but I hope to keep the unbeaten record.
That’s how it was, I will publish a post about my tactic very soon, probably tomorrow. I also encourage you to post your tactics and thoughts about Football Manager 2010 in our brand new forum :)