The Spartans Make Their Debut In The Premier League

So then, we’re finally there, ready to play against the big guns of the Premier League. With an almost entirely new squad, with a lot of new staff members and with a lot of enthusiasm, the Blyth Spartans are making their debut in the Premier League. I was quite nervous before the first game although we had nothing to lose, we just had to go out there and play the best we could.

The first game of the season was at home (played at Sunderland because our Croft Park was undergoing expansion works) against West Ham, a team that finished 16th last season in the Premier League. The difference between the two teams was obvious in the first half, West Ham dominated the game but we managed to restrict them to long shots, not too dangerous. In the second half we played much, much better and we created a few chances to score. My new Brazilian striker, Nicao, finally found the way to the net in the 65th minute, a goal on his debut an the first ever Blyth Spartans goal in the Premier League! We controlled the game well after scoring but the final 10 minutes were an absolute nightmare. First I had to take off an injured player, so we were down to 10 men. A few minutes later Gabor Baranyai, my new Hungarian centre back, received a second yellow card, so we finished the game with only 9 men on the pitch. West Ham were all over us in those final minutes but we managed to hang in there and get our first win!

After the first home win we had to face a difficult away test at Fulham, they finished 12th last season. We played surprisingly well in the first half and it seemed that we had a real world class player in there, Nicao. He made Titus Bramble look like a complete fool on several occasions and he scored twice before the break! Fulham switched to a 4-2-4 system in the 39th minute and that gave us another couple of chances to score on counter attacks before the break. Unfortunately we missed them and, as it happens time and again in football, we missed and Fulham scored. It should have been 3-0 at the break but it was 2-1 :(

Fulham came out looking very determined in the second half and my defenders were overwhelmed. A couple of defensive errors and it was 3-2 10 minutes after the break… It seemed like we were heading for disaster but my lads reacted well, they fought back and Nicao scored another one, a hat-trick! The last 20 minutes of the game were pretty even, both teams had chances to win it but it finished all square. It was a good result but I felt some regret, we could have won this with a better concentration in defense.

Nicao suffered a minor bruise in the 89th minute of the Fulham game, so he was unavailable for the next match, the Carling Cup 2nd Round clash with Plymouth. Without Nicao we had to find ourselves another star and Pavlyuchenko didn’t need to be asked twice… Roman scored his first two goals for us as we controlled the game throughout the 90 minutes. Right winger Mario Garay scored his first goal of the season after the break and centre back Cristian Suarez got himself a goal too. Plymouth scored one from the only shot on target they had all game, we were through to the next round.

The last game of the month was another home match, against Birmingham, a team that finished 17th last season. It was a direct battle against a relegation candidate, so we had to win it. And guess who made it easy for us… Nicao, back after the minor injury, put up a brilliant show in the first half, I’ve never seen anything like this! He scored 5 goals in 20 minutes! After the first two goals my players already knew the drill… They were tackling in midfield, getting the ball back, and then they were passing it straight to Nicao. The funny Brazilian then dribbled past anybody around him and placed the ball right where the keeper had no chance to reach it!

The crowd gave him a standing ovation when I substituted him in the second half, a second half that saw only one team playing football out there — Birmingham. I didn’t find a way to motivate my players to play well in the second half and Birmingham scored twice in the last 10 minutes.

We were 3rd in the Premier League table! I guess I should print the table and hang it somewhere on the wall because it’s obvious that things will change once we’ll get to play against the best teams in the league.

With his 9 goals scored in 3 games Nicao was named Player of The Month and left winger Sandor Vaida was picked as Young Player of The Month. Of course, I got the Manager of the Month award :)

Here’s how Nicao looks like, I found a photo of the lad on a Brazilian website.

But there’s another youngster that I want you to know about. His name is Mark Dean, English, 16 years old, right winger. He was promoted to the Blyth under 18 squad this summer and all my coaches are thrilled with his potential. They say that he could be one of the best players in the team in a couple of years, so maybe he will be the first 100% Spartan to play for us in the Premier League. The thing that concerns me is that he is unambitious, that could hurt his development. I’ll do my best to take care of him, he’s already valued at 4.4 million euro!

So far we didn’t play against any of the big teams, but that will happen in September, we’ll have some tough ones against Tottenham, Everton and… Manchester United. We’ll also play in the Carling Cup 3rd round against Sunderland, I badly want to go through to the next round.

My main concern right now is the defense, it is way too leaky… I’ll do my best to sort this out and find a solution to the problem without signing any new players because we don’t have any money left.

So, that was it. Any comments? :)