Notts County In The Championship — The Final Dash

Here we go dear friends, the final episode of the Championship season is finally here! It has been a long difficult journey but we were close to achieving something that seemed impossible at the start of the season: the Championship title. We only needed three wins out of the last five games, we had to play well and get those nine points!

The first game of the month was at home with 21st placed Peterborough, a team that we defeated quite clearly away from home, 3-0 in November. We didn’t play too well in the first half but managed to score twice. It wasn’t thanks to our game but due to some very poor defending from Peterborough. We continued the poor performance until Peterborough clawed one back in the second half, then my boys realized that they had to bring things under control. At that point we were 7 points clear of Newcastle, the second placed team.

The next game was at home with promotion contenders Derby County, they were in 7th place but still had a good chance of getting a play-off spot. We took the lead right after the break thanks to a superb header from Tomas Pekhart, he tried that in the first half too but only managed to hit the crossbar. Derby tried hard to get back into the game after the goal but we defended very well and grabbed another win, two out of two so far in April. With those three points we secured promotion to the Premier League and we needed just one more win to get our hands on the title!

Next up, a tricky away game at 13th placed Doncaster. We managed to defeat them 1-0 at home back in December and I was expecting another difficult game against them. We had to play well but for some reason we didn’t, it was a poor performance and the 0-0 draw postponed our title celebrations.

The next game was another difficult one, at home with 10th placed Cardiff, the team that defeated us 3-2 in December. It was a nightmare game back then, we were leading 2-0 and got beaten 3-2 in only a few minutes. We produced a solid performance this time and we were 2-0 up again in the 71st minute. I guess I was a bit overconfident and refused to pull back and defend the lead. Well, it seems that was a mistake, Cardiff pulled off another comeback and delayed our title celebrations again!

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We still had three points above Newcastle, so we only needed a draw in the last game of the season. It was an easy game too, we had to play away at the last placed team, Brighton. They were already relegated and their players surely remembered the 4-0 defeat we inflicted them at Meadow Lane in December. Alibec was back on the pitch after his injury and he made his presence count right away! Tomas Pekhart was the hero of the game though, he scored a goal and played a perfect assist for Rodney Sneijder. It was an entertaining match in the second half, my boys were already thinking about the champagne!

We won the Championship title with 101 points, I wasn’t expecting such a good season to be honest.

The board were delighted with the result, especially because it was the 150th year in football for the club!

Here are the player stats for the season, sorted by average rating. Adam Szalai seems to be our best player of the season, but all of them did well. For some reason the wingers have the lowest average ratings, I can’t figure out why.

Now I have to plan my moves for next season, the Premier League can eat us alive if we don’t prepare right. First I’ll have to see if the board will finally relay our pitch, it would be quite shameful to play in a swamp in the Premier League. I will also ask them to improve the training and youth facilities, that is essential for the long term future of the club.

I will also think about getting in some new coaches and scouts and maybe an assistant manager too, the current one seems to have a poor relationship with several players.

Last but not least I will have to make some good transfers. First I will try to buy two of the loaned players, Alibec and Sneijder, they did well for us this season and I hope to have enough money to give them a long term contract with us. I will probably keep most of the current first team players and look to bring two or three key players, maybe one in defense, one in midfield and another one upfront. Your transfer suggestions are always welcome! ;)

Just another thing before going to the comments, I will make an announcement about the blog tomorrow, some new features and interesting things will be added to it. If you’re curious stay tuned, I hope you’ll like the improvements that I thought about :)

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