Notts County Story — March 2017

Hello my friends, a new Notts County update is freshly packed and ready to go! February has been good for us overall, at least the end of it was since we managed to clinch the Carling Cup for the third time in a row. The Premier League table was looking quite alright too, Chelsea were four points behind us but we had two games in hand. Let’s see what happened in March 2017.

The first game was at home with 7th placed Fulham, one of the biggest overachievers of the season. They found themselves under heavy pressure right away though and Carlos Abad scored the opener with a powerful shot from inside the area. Fulham reacted pretty well though and went close to scoring on two occasions before half time. The second half was rather poor for both sides but luckily we had some players that were able to make a difference: Guilherme showed good vision to pick Bonetti‘s run and the tiny Italian winger slotted it home to give us the win.

Next up, the FA Cup quarter final with Burnley. Everybody expected us to win the game and Sam Hinshelwood made things clear right from the start as he headed home a pinpoint cross from Fabian Delph. The game was fairly quiet as a result of that early goal, Burnley were not coming forward and my players didn’t seem to determined to score again. We did that a bit later in the second half, Sam Hinshelwood was brought down inside the box and Joe Barton converted the penalty kick. We were through to the semi final where Chelsea were waiting for us.

Back to the Premier League then, we had to travel to White Hart Lane to meet struggling 17th placed Tottenham. The Spurs were having a dismal season, I felt quite sorry for them because I have some sympathy for this team since a couple of Romanians played there during the 1990’s. Anyway, this Tottenham only survived to hear the half time whistle. In the second half Andrea Romano and Sergio Aguero transformed the pitch into their own playground, they did whatever they wanted with Tottenham‘s defenders. Simon Kjaer completed the rout with a corner kick header, a nice afternoon for The Magpies.

The next game was the second leg of the Champions League tie with Celtic. We won the first leg 5-1 so I chose to rest most of the important players for the future challenges. Celtic scored an early goal and that gave them some hope of having a magical night but my boys slowly took control of the game and could even have won it in the second half. It ended with a draw, enough to get through to the next round.

We were drawn against Chelsea in the quarter finals, it would have been nice to see only English teams in the semi finals :) Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Before the first leg against Chelsea we had another Premier League to play, at home with 5th placed Liverpool. You can imagine that I was hoping for a win but I wasn’t even dreaming of a demolition job. Well, the Reds found themselves under heavy pressure right from the beginning of the game and Nicola Bonetti opened the scoring with a placed finish. Five minutes later Simon Kjaer jumped higher than Skrtel and headed home a corner kick. It took us only nine minutes to hit the net again, Sergio Aguero placed in an assist from his mate Andrea Romano. Then Zapata made his strength count and fired in a ball that he fought for in a corner kick scuffle. 4-0 at the break wasn’t enough though, my boys were hungry for more. Andrea Romano made it 5-0 three minutes into the second half and then Zapata beat Reina in the air to score a corner kick header. It was 6-0 but we were relentless and missed another couple of chances. Fernando Torres scored a beautiful consolation goal but Fabian Delph liked the six goals difference so he restored it with a placed finish from inside the box. Well, how about that performance…

No more league games to play in March and we were 10 points clear of Chelsea with two games in hand. Their manager might have to start some voodoo practices if they want to win the title this season ;)

The last game of the month was the first leg of the Champions League quarter final against… Yes, you know it, Chelsea again! I was feeling quite confident but some of the positive mood faded away even before the start of the game. I had four players missing, away on international duty! And those were pretty important players: Sergio Aguero, Cristian Zapata, Guilherme and Agnaldo. I wasn’t expecting that but we had to do well without them. The first half proved that it was quite difficult to do that though, we were unable to get past Chelsea‘s strong hard working midfield. We looked a bit more lively in the second half and our persistence paid off eventually, Andrea Romano gave us the lead with a powerful shot from the edge of the area. The game continued in a fairly quiet fashion, Chelsea were only trying some wild long shots. It looked like we were going to secure the win but something happened in the last possible second before the final whistle, an unlikely cross found one of Chelsea‘s men unmarked a couple of yards from the goal line and he headed the ball into the net with ease. Not a good result at all, we’ll have to score at Stamford Bridge to reach the semi finals…

We’ll be extremely busy in April but I wish the schedule will get even more hectic (that means going through to the Champions League semi finals). Otherwise, we’ll be very happy to meet Chelsea twice in five days, first at Stamford Bridge and then at Wembley.

That’s how it was, I wish it would have ended with a win over Chelsea but I guess you can’t have everything. Thanks for reading, I’m looking forward to do my share of reading on your comments ;) Before wrapping it up I have an announcement to make: I’m testing my talent as a sports writer, you can check out my preview of tomorrow’s Liverpool vs Chelsea here. Feedback welcome and appreciated, as always.

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