Back to the Premier League, we had a tricky away game at newly-promoted Sheffield United. They had a good start of the season and were lying in 13th place, I wasn’t expecting an easy afternoon. In fact, the game proved to be quite troublesome although Sheffield United were coming from three straight defeats. We went a goal down when Gergely Varga made a poor clearance, another Varga slotted the ball home. The team reacted well though and we got back level right away: Biglia played a through ball for Sobis, the Brazilian rounded the keeper and deposited the ball into the back of the net. Twenty minutes later the same Rafael Sobis made United’s fans applaud too, he rifled in a fantastic volley from the edge of the area to give us the lead. We were a bit under pressure after half time but Defour scored again with a powerful shot from inside the penalty area. Rafael Sobis completed his hat-trick with a vicious volley from inside the area, the keeper tried to parry it but the ball was way over the speed limit. An error from Kjaer gave Sheffield United another goal but the three points were safely in our bag. The bad news was that Sam Hinshelwood suffered a pulled hamstring and will be out for three weeks, it’s the first major injury of the season.
That was the last league game of the month and a look at the table was the first thing that crossed my mind after the final whistle. We were in 2nd place, one point behind Manchester United but with two games in hand!
The last game of the month was the Carling Cup clash with Tottenham at White Hart Lane, a difficult game. The team looked pretty well though, we were dominating the start of the game. The first good chance came from a corner kick but Demba Ba‘s header hit the crossbar! A few minutes later Guilherme had a similar corner kick opportunity and he didn’t miss, his header hit the back of the net! We had quite a few corners in the first half and just before the break tiny winger Nicola Bonetti headed one home, they left him unmarked! We moved the ball around well in the second half, Tottenham failed to create any chances in attack. Just a few minutes before the final whistle a splendid team move gave Guilherme the opportunity to strike again and he didn’t miss! I was very pleased with the emphatic win but I was thrilled with the way my team played in the second half, we never looked like losing it.
Brazilian striker Rafael Sobis was named Player of the Month, he’s a very talented player that can produce stunning moves anytime during a game. His skills helped us a lot so far and I hope there’s even more to come from him.
November will begin with a tough home game against surprise package Wolves, they are in 4th place at the moment! Then we’ll have to travel to Greece to face Olympiakos and last but not least, a difficult away game at Arsenal.
We’ll have to show consistency in November and I hope that we’ll be able to do that. I’m a bit concerned by the injury situation, Hinshelwood is still out and if Bonetti will pick up a know we’ll be left without any natural right wingers! I will probably try to sell one of the backup centre backs in January and bring in another winger but there are a lot of games to play until then. I guess we’ll have to enjoy the moment and try to win every game. We’re still unbeaten but a defeat will eventually come up, we’ll have to be mentally strong to face that moment. Well, it seems that I’m thinking too much about the future… What do you think, when will our unbeaten run come to an end?
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Calum
4 февраля, 2010 at 19:32
Yes….. first comment! :D
A brilliant, brilliant month for your team Johnny. Brilliant results against some top teams. I hope you can keep your unbeaten record up :D Well done!
Laxeyman
4 февраля, 2010 at 20:09
Brilliant month there Johnny, you could be top of the table next month! It looks like you are doing well in Europe as well, hopefully you will go along way in the competition! Good Luck!
Johnny Karp
4 февраля, 2010 at 20:16
Thanks Laxeyman and Calum, I hope to keep the good form as long as possible.
Bilal Ahmad
4 февраля, 2010 at 20:32
Well done Johnny you have done really good! You have 2 games in hand and your only one point behind the leaders and you are in a great position in the Europa League.
Kevin Mayo
5 февраля, 2010 at 01:32
Johnny Karp, you are indeed a Football Manager genius. I tip my hat to you sir for another fine set of performances!
You said in another post that you are using tactic 2.6, so dumb question coming up. You buy players based on your tactic design and look for key attributes to fill the various positions?
TheZiggy
5 февраля, 2010 at 01:41
A very impressive month there. You’ve given yourself every opportunity to progress through to the EURO Cup knockout stages. The longest I’ve managed to keep an unbeaten run from the start of the season going is into December, which seems the most likely time for it to come to an end.
Lye
5 февраля, 2010 at 03:29
Good job there mate, another unbeaten month saw you up there challenging for the title. I hope to see you unbeaten all the way rather to guess when your first defeat will arrive. Its tough but i have a lot of confidence in your team this season. Good luck.
Johnny Karp
5 февраля, 2010 at 06:20
@Lye
Thanks for the confidence mate. I doubt that we’ll stay unbeaten all the way though, bad times might arrive sooner or later.
@TheZiggy
Thanks for the comment. I’d be extremely pleased if we’d keep the unbeaten run until December, that would give us a good chance to gab a Champions League spot.
@Kevin
Thanks mate but I’m not a genius, I just have some good players now. The main features of the tactic are still the same in v2.6 as in v1, the tweaks just adapted it to the better opponents rather than to the players that I used. I do look for certain attributes for each position, I need good pace and acceleration for the centre backs along with marking, tackling, heading etc (just an example). It’s also true that now I have players that exceed the minimum requirements that I’ve set for each position, Defour for instance is a guy that can cover both central midfield roles.
@Bilal
Thanks mate, I hope to keep up the pace as long as possible.
Majk
5 февраля, 2010 at 18:49
Doing great there Johnny, once again.
I feel I’ve reached the same situation where my minimum requirements are surpassed by the quality of players I possess… still I might need to improve one or two positions but that’s the fun thing about this game.
You’d get tired really quickly if you had no need for improvement.
Johnny Karp
6 февраля, 2010 at 11:19
@Majk
Thanks mate. There always is need for improvement, in football, FM and maybe also in life.