Southampton: Oct — Nov 2010

Hello friends and welcome back to what now is a temporary FM Story as FM 2012 will be coming out a lot sooner than expected and I’ve already ordered a copy and planning a new story. In the meantime let’s see how far I can get with Southampton.

October 2010:

We began the month in fine style with a dominant 3-1 win over Rochdale with all our goals coming in the opening 45 minutes and then followed that with a tough game away to Yeovil in the JPT where we were eliminated from the competition on penalty kicks.We bounced back with confident away performance at Colchester where Guly do Prado put in a classic performance and managed to get on the score sheet himself in a comfortable 3-0 victory.

We conceded an early goal at home to Bristol Rovers and lacked the fight to hit back and to my surprise we lost this game. Like England we seem to do better away from home and this was shown yet again as brushed aside Plymouth with three first half goals with MR Danny N’Guessen tormenting the Plymouth defence and setting up two goals for Adam Lallana. Next up was the visit of Orient to St Marys and the home jinx struck again after 5 minutes with poor marking allowing the early goal. We equalized after the break though Richard Lambert but then conceded almost immediately from a free kick. We then added salt to the ever opening wound by giving away a penalty to suffer yet another home defeat.

Results:

November 2010:

Walsall were our first opponents of this new month and for the third home game in a row we went behind inside five minutes and that lead was extended to two some 17 minutes later. Despite 56% possession and an 80% pass completion stat it was Walsall who added a third early in the second half and we could only come up with a consolation goal through Barbadian striker Jonathan Forte. The next game was away to Bournemouth in an FA Cup first round clash. Of course as usual the opening goal was in our net but the penalty spot provided a way back into the game just before the hour mark which was converted by do Prado and a Bournemouth own goal secured the victory in the 82nd minute.

We followed our FA Cup win with a trip to 24th place Tranmere and a chance for a much needed morale boosting win and that’s exactly what we got. A stunning strike by Kevin Das Nevis in the 10th minute gave us an early lead and Guly do Prado converted from the spot on the stroke of half time for a comfortable 2-0 win. With back to back wins under our belts we travelled to Sheffield Wednesday with only one fit striker in Rickie Lambert. It was left up to ML Adam Lallana to put us ahead with a fierce shot into the roof of the net after 27 minutes. Despite our domination that was the only goal we could muster but was enough to take away all three points.

Our final game of November was at home to Rochdale (who we had beaten in early October) in the second round of the FA Cup with skipper Dean Hammond opening the scoring early on with a long range effort. An inspirational pass by striker Lambert found Lallana running into the box for the second and Lambert got on the score sheet himself just before half time. An early second half goal by Puncheon allowed me to take off my only fit striker with youngster Tony Garrod making his debut and he went on to score goal number six late in the game. It was a fabulous performance that gives us a home tie in the third round to Championship side Burnley.

Full Results:

A couple of miserable looking defeats right in the middle but overall not too shabby. Room for improvement though!

Table: Top Ten

We’ve moved into a play-off spot but it still lokks like some serious muscle is needed to over come a rampant Swindon Town.

Looking Ahead:

We have a couple of busy winter months with an opening game against promotion chasers MK Dons and yet another meeting with Bournemouth and we will finally take on Swindon.

A pretty brief update for sure but thanks for reading all the same.

Have a good weekend!

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