The Notts County Story — December 2012

Here we go again dear friends, a new update of my Premier League season is ready, hot out of the oven! My Notts County were in 6th place at the end of November and I thought that the six games that we had to play in December will show whether we can hope for an European spot at the end of the season or not. The board say that they would be happy with a top half finish but considering how the team has played so far the fans were beginning to hope for more.

The first game of the month was at home with 18th placed Blackburn. It started badly for us, we conceded a corner kick goal right away. We reacted well and Guilherme got us back level with a superb finish, right out of the top drawer! We continued to push forward but we only took the lead a few minutes before the break when Sburlea converted a fine through ball from Tinga into a goal. Blackburn played well in the second half and put us under pressure on numerous occasions. We had our own chances on counter attacks but we missed them. It seemed that we were able to hang in there and grab the win but Romero failed to intercept a cross and the score was level again. We tried to react and we succeeded, Sburlea headed on a long ball, Guilherme received the pass and finished it off with a placed shot! It was a thrilling game that we won thanks to Guilherme‘s class.

The next game was away at fellow newly promoted side Newcastle. They had a very good start of the season and were lying in 7th place, right behind us. We had a very good first half, controlled the game and scored twice. Tinga gave us the lead with a fantastic missile shot from 30 yards out and wonderkid Sam Hinshelwood made it 2-0 with a fine corner kick header. Newcastle switched to a 4-2-4 formation after the break so I chose to change the strategy from our usual  «attacking» to «counter». It proved to be a good move, we defended the lead without suffering too much so we went home with all the three points.

Next up, a difficult home game, Tottenham were coming at Meadow Lane. Their season was not very good though and I hoped to capitalize on that, they were down in 16th place despite having a very good squad. We dominated the first half but couldn’t break their defense. Fortunately centre back Martin Caceres found the right moment to score his first goal for the club, he gave us the lead with a corner kick header. We had to defend in the second half, Tottenham tried pretty hard to get back on level terms. We defended well though and even missed a few chances on counter attacks.

So far so good, three wins out of three games. The next match was at home with 11th placed Aston Villa, a very good team that had a few problems in the early stages of the season. We dominated the first half once again and Sabrin Sburlea converted the pressure into a goal right before the break. The second half was fairly even but we had one single problem: Agbonlahor. My defenders just couldn’t keep him quiet and he turned what could have been another win for us into a draw… Guilherme picked up a minor injury and he was going to be out for 9 days.

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

Next up, another home game but this time it was a special one, the Nottingham Derby. We won the first game of the season at The City Ground 2-1 back in August and our fans were expecting another reason to celebrate. My lads were very motivated and the first half looked like a siege, Forest were under pressure throughout the 45 minutes but we failed to convert that into a goal. Tomas Pekhart headed one in just after the break, he didn’t have a very good season until that point. His previous goal for the club was scored a few months ago, in September! Lucas Biglia doubled our lead with a good free kick shot, we played very well and deserved to win the game.

The last game of the year was away at Anfield Road, Liverpool were in 9th place and desperately looking to climb up the table. Guilherme was still out, we had to survive without him. The first half was fairly even but Liverpool scored twice, first Gerrard blasted in one of his superb shots and then Skrtel flied over our defense and powered in a corner kick header. Sburlea took advantage of an error from Carragher to give us a way back into the game but we failed to keep up the pace in the second half. Most of my players were tired and Liverpool controlled the game with their industrious midfielders. We finished the year with a deserved defeat…

… but we managed to keep the sixth place. I guess we can say that we have what it takes to fight for an Europa League place, we have 18 more games to play and I reckon that we need another 10 wins to finish 6th.

Our best player so far was undoubtedly goalkeeper Sergio Romero, I can’t even count how many times I praised his fantastic saves. Guilherme and Sburlea gave us the goals that we needed while Lucas Biglia and Sam Hinshelwood were responsible for most of the assists.

As you can see from the squad screen shot we have quite a few unavailable players, that could be a problem for the first games of January. And we don’t have easy games at all, we’ll start with Chelsea at home, then the FA Cup game with Tottenham and then Manchester United at Old Trafford…

Anyway, I’m quite pleased with our progress so far and I hope to get those 10 wins that could give us the Europa League place, my target is to have at least 65 points at the end of the season. The board didn’t give me any extra transfer money, so I will probably look to bring one or two more players on loan to buy deals. I will be looking for a strong striker, one that could dominate the aerial game and supply Guilherme with passes. I will also try to find a good midfielder to provide backup for Biglia, we could be in trouble if he gets injured.

That’s about it for now my friends, I’m looking forward to reading your comments. I will be away for a few days starting tomorrow morning, I have to travel to another city to do some work for my job so I might not be able to reply to your comments and emails in a timely fashion. I will try to find time for that but I can’t promise anything. Don’t worry, I’ll be back on Saturday :)

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