Notts County Second Season — The Grand Finale

Here we are, the final dash towards the end of the season was about to begin. We had a painful month of March with lots of problems and some bad luck, so we were down in 2nd place at the end of it. We had two games in hand though and the team definitely looked better in the last games, so I hoped that we could get promotion pretty soon.

The first game was away at 9th placed Swindon, we beat them 2-1 at Meadow Lane in November. My lads were determined to win it and we were all over them right from the start. We were 2-0 up in the 8th minute but then a harsh penalty decision against us made it 2-1. We made quite a few defensive errors but Schmeichel had a great day, he kept the door shut and Pekhart brought us the victory after the break. Huddersfield drew 2-2 away from home so we were back on top of the table, one point above Huddersfield and with two games in hand!

We had another away game coming up, at 22nd placed Stockport. We won the home game 2-1 back in November and I was expecting a difficult match, Stockport had to battle hard to avoid relegation. The game began well for us, Marc Muniesa scored from a corner kick but not with a header, he rifled in a superb right footed volley. Charlie Mulgrew made it 2-0 with an unbelievable free kick shot from 35 yards out and Sburlea placed the cherry on the cake with a corner kick header. Stockport tried to get back into the game after the break but we punished them time and again on counter attacks, a nice display.

With that result promotion was ours with seven games to spare!

We were 4 points ahead of Huddersfield with one game in hand, we just had to win a few more games to win the League One title, I certainly wanted that ;) The next game was at home with 6th placed Colchester, we drew 1-1 with them in December. The game didn’t begin too well for us, Colchester broke through our offside trap and scored in the 17th minute, I expected a tough one. After missing a huge chance Tomas Pekhart buried one from inside the box, we were back on level terms. Nikita Andreev had a great chance right before the break, a through ball from James found him unmarked inside the box and he passed the ball into the net. Tomas Pekhart scored his 30th goal of the season right after the break, I was pleased with the team’s reaction after going one goal down in the first half.

Next up, an away game at 18th placed Yeovil. There isn’t much to say about this game, we had good chances through the middle of their defense, their centre backs were too slow. That’s how we scored twice, with through balls from midfield. The good thing was that we didn’t give Yeovil any chance of scoring, our midfield worked well.

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The next game was at home with 12th placed Millwall, a team that we defeated quite heavily in December, 4-1. Andreev and Szalai scored in the first half to finish off two nice team moves. We played very well in the second half too but we missed the chances and almost got punished by Millwall on counter attacks.

We had another home game coming up, a tough one with 4th placed Southend. I was pleased with the team’s performance in the first half, we hit the woodwork twice before Kamil Grosicki finally scored after a corner kick. We continued to play well in the second half and Sabrin Sburlea made it 2-0. It was one of the best games that we played this season, a superb display that could have brought us a lot more goals.

We needed one more win to secure the League One title and we had a good chance of getting it away at 16th placed Walsall. We missed quite a few chances though and I was afraid that we would get only a goalless draw. Sburlea didn’t agree, he finally scored in the 77th minute!

That was it, the League One title was ours! It’s been a long journey but everybody was happy, we achieved a very good result considering that the media prediction at the start of the season was that we would finish 7th.

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The last two games of the season didn’t matter anymore but the lads played well without any pressure on their shoulders.

Here’s how the final league table looked like. Coventry got promoted after the playoff, so we will get to meet them again in Coca-Cola Championship.

Now let me show you the player stats, sorted by the average rating. It’s quite clear that Szalai (31 goals and 14 assists) and Pekhart (31 goals and 18 assists) drove us forward this season, they did very well. The biggest disappointment was Nicolae Mitea, I expected a lot more from him and I don’t think that I’ll have the patience to wait, he will most probably be sold in July.

I will surely need to bring in some new players to face the tougher teams in Championship, the finances look pretty well at the end of the League One season.

My top priority for the new season is to improve the coaching staff, I will try to bring better coaches to the club in order to improve the training process. Then I will think about the players, I will definitely need a pair of good wingers, hard working lads that could do well in both parts of the game, in defense and in attack. You’ll know more about that in the next post, now I’ll enjoy the success a bit and prepare a good strategy for the transfers campaign.

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