Wrexham: February 2011

Hello friends and welcome back to yet another installment of my football manager story.

The first game of the month saw us travel to Southport and a stellar performance by Ismael Fofana ensured we came away with all three points. We took the lead after the half hour following an inch perfect pass from left back Kinniburgh that Fofana cheekily chipped over the Southport keeper. He added a second after the interval darting into the box to meet a drilled cross from strike partner Baheng and substitute striker Marc Williams killed the game off latching onto a through ball from Gilmour.

With promotion now the key goal of the club I decided to field a changed starting eleven for the FA Trophy game against Redditch. It became evident very quickly who out of my squad were the better players  though thanks to veteran defender Franck Sinclair we had a 1-0 lead at the half. Although we were not playing well we seemed to be in control until loanee goalkeeper Jake Butland dropped a simple cross that was pounced on by the Redditch forwards and it was 1-1. The scoreline remained the same so a replay is in the offering.

As there was no league game scheduled our next game was the FA Trophy replay against Redditch.  The “reserves” had a chance to redeem themselves and they did that in comfortable style. A quick turn and strike by Pogba gave us the lead after 18 minutes with left winger Emanuel  adding a second six minutes later. Although we had a variety of opportunites to score more we had to settle for the 2-0 win and a trip to Darlington in the next round.

It was back to the league and a home game versus Kidderminster. On a frosty and difficult surface we found it hard to make any headway though I wasn’t convinced it was all the playing surface’s fault when going into the interval scoreless. A stern half time talk did the trick with Shane Williams responding first with a lovely pass into the box which Fofana neatly put away.  Midfielder Brian Gilmours forceful run into the 18 yard area created a penalty which Fofana drove straight and true and it it was Gilmour again who set up Cieslewicz to tuck home the third of the afternoon to the delight of The Racecourse fans.

Our next game involved a trip along the south coast to play Eastbourne and with two difficult games coming up I was once again sent out the resereve eleven. It required another stern half time talk to get the team to do anything with Pogba pouncing on a through ball to give us the lead which we  held until thirteen minutes from time when the inevitable equalizer arrived from the home side. On a soggy and damp night we had to settle for a draw.

We now had three dificult games coming up all aginst teams that were in the top five. Two of these were league encounters and the third and FA Trophy match. Let’s see how we made out….

The first of these games was away to Rushden and although the stat’s look like it was a fairly even game the home side got off far more shots than we did and  overall our perfromance was just terrible. We had no creativity about us  and it looked liked nobody wanted the ball or step up to take charge of the game. Rushden on the other hand were the complete opposite and should have won the game by more than a single goal. We also lost our best left back Steven Kinniburgh to an injury which may keep him out the rest of the season.

Next we faced Wimbledon whom having missed a penalty early in the game fell to a rocket of a shot by Fofana to give us the lead after 10 minutes. Wimbledon though equalized fairly soon afterwards beating the offside trap and from there on in it was a painful exhibition of wasted oportunites. After such a good start to the year we’ve simply reverted back to our December form.

So with those two poor performance Luton managed to close the gap on us.

The final game of the month was  the FA Trophy quarter final away to Darlington. We were fortunate that the home side were reduced to ten men early on and so we took advantage of that with Lewis Emanuel heading in the opener off a free kick and Franck Sinclair adding a second from a headed corner to give us a 2-0 lead after 30 minutes. Darlington refused to capitulate and pulled one back almost immediately but when Pogba headed in a third after the interval the game was secured and we were through to the semi-finals where we will face Wimbledon.

Current League Table

February has not been a good month for injuries with RB Declan Walker suffering the worst.

Coming up we have EIGHT games in March which is just insane and I’m not sure if I have enough quality and depth in the squad to cope with such a barrage of fixtures. The season is definitely on the line now.

Thanks for reading!!