Southampton: Season Kick Off — August 2010

Hello friends and welcome back to my new FM Story. My apologies for the delay in a fresh update but I haven’t been feeling too good these last few days but I’m back in action now so let’s get on with the news!

August 2010:

With some good results behind us and well drilled in our new tactic we headed up to London to play Charlton in our opening game of the season. We came up against an authoritative Charlton midfield who stifled our free flowing play and a lucky deflected shot ended up in a goal for the home side which was enough to take all three points. Not the start I had in mind.

The League Cup was up next where we ran riot over League 2 side Barnet at St Mary’s stadium. Alex Chamberlain got a brace on his debut and so did my Brazilian striker Guly do Prado who had joined the club just prior to my arrival. An own goal added a fifth to the scoreboard on a very pleasing nights work indeed.

Brighton were our next opponents and again we were at home for our first League game of the season at St. Mary’s. After a frustrating first half do Prado put us ahead in the 48th minute striking the ball first time from a Puncheon cross ball. We had to wait though until late in the game before adding two more through DC Fonte and right winger N’Guessan for our first league win of the season. The victory though was marred by an injury to GK Bartosz Bialkowski who will be out for two months

Martin Hansen arrived from Liverpool as a loan goalkeeper for 3 months prior to our away game at Dagenham which saw us struggle up front and a single goal by DC Danny Seaborne gave us the win in a less than impressive performance.

We returned to St Marys for second round League Cup action where we were trounced by Birmingham by four goals to one which seemed to very much suggest that my tactic was lacking defensively. In the final league of August we left it late to secure a point through Adam Lallana after falling behind early on to Brentford.

A modification in our formation paid dividends in our last game of the month which was a derby encounter against south coast rivals Bournemouth in the JP Trophy. Two first half goals from do Prado and Gislason was enough to see off our bitter rivals.

Results:

September:

We started off the new month with confidence high after the win over Bournemouth but were soon brought back to earth with an unexpected defeat away to Yeovil. This prompted another tactic modification which saw dropping the wing backs into a flat back four and removing the anchorman to be replaced by another striker.

In our following game the team hit their stride thumping in three goals paast Hartlepool as I exploited the wings to full effect with Lallana and Chamberlain. This approach almost backfired away to Peterborough but two goals in the last ten minutes ended a brilliant comeback to take all three points. The highlight being the winning goal by striker Richard Lambert who hit a stunning free kick from 25 yards out. We followed that with a methodical performance at home to Carlisle which saw do Prado geting his second brace in two outings whilst fellow striker Lee Barnard netted his first of the season. We ended the month the same as we started with and away defeat this time to Huddersfield who pretty much controlled the game from the outset.

Table:

West Country teams are dominating League One with Swindon Town and Yeovil leading the pack and with us nine points adrift of first place we have some hard work ahead of us.

Fixtures:

We start October at home to Rochdale before taking on Yeovil again this time in the JPT and will end this two month cycle with a visit from Swindon Town

With no new transfers to speak of other than the previously mentioned Martin Hansen I’ll leave you with a picture of our finances which aren’t too bad at all.

As always thanks for taking the time to read this update.

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