Wrexham: October 2012

Hello friends and welcome back to my Wrexham story with the latest report from League 1.

Here’s a quick look at the financial overview and the overall trend is upward which is an encouraging sign.

The first full month of The Fall season saw the visit of Millwall to The Racecourse Ground. Some good pressure paid off in the opening minutes with Fofana being allowed to run at the defence several times and with his speed and dribbling skills paying off with a goal in under four minutes. Gilmour again was solid in midfield winning many balls and creating additional chances for the front two. By the half though it was still only 1-0 but soon after the interval a break by Smith down the left flank resulted in a cross ball that was finished off by Nzuzi coming in from the right flank. The defence gave a solid performance and so we easily held on to the 2 goal lead for all three points.

With the exception of Brian Gilmour it was an unchanged side that I sent to Milton Keynes where the pundits predicted a draw was written all over this game. Fonana gave us the lead after Hammond had picked up a loose ball and drove forward “Beckenbauer style” with his shot deflecting into the path of Fofana and it was 1-0. Our very solid defence from last time then gave away a sloppy equalizer, forgetting to defend the near post on a corner kick but moments later Fofana’s corner kick caught out MK’s goalkeeper who put the ball into his own net. Early in the second half poor passing amongst the back four allowed the home side to get back on level terms but Fofana wasn’t finished and he drove home the winner from an Ngo Baheng through ball late in the game to prove the experts wrong in their prediction!

Next up was our JPT second round clash away to League 2 side Crewe and so it presented the opportunity for some of the other players to get a run out. After what was a less than memorable first half and an even dour second one Crewe took the lead from the spot just after the hour. I switched sides for the front two of Baheng and Vine and suddenly we exploded into action with two goals from Vine and Scott Wotton heading in a third in injury time to  give us in the end a comfortable win and a place in the next round.

After a 10 day break due to international fixtures – and this time our league game was postponed – we travelled to Walsall for our next League 1 encounter. The break didn’t do us much good as we looked very “ring rusty” and missed some very easy opportunities with both Baheng and Smith the main culprits. Fofana had a very quiet game and in the end the only goal of the game did come from Baheng just before half time.

Four days later we faced Northampton at home in what should have been an easy game but for the second time in a row my unchanged starting eleven produced a less than competent performance. Poor passing from right back Billy Clifford allowed the visitors to create their opening goal whilst up front for us nothing doing. Marko Mitrovic having replaced Fofana in the second half pulled back an equalizer just after the hour but by the 70^th minute two thirds of the team were below 60% fitness. This allowed Will Atkinson of Northampton to take the ball form one end of the field to the other unchallenged and score the winning goal for our first defeat since the opening day!

We stayed at home for the final match of the month against Hereford and produced yet another terrible performance in front of what are now becoming disillusioned home fans. Only 1 shot on target and 1 corner gained for the whole match and some silly passing allowed Hereford to score a late winner. Dreadful!

As the table shows below we soemhow remained in second place despite those back to back losses.

Table

In hindsight I probably should have arranged an easy friendly during the international break to keep the momentum going as not playing for ten days has had what appears to be a negative effect on the team.

Next month though we have no such worries with two cup games and 5 league games on the schedule. We have what looks to be an easy FA Cup draw and I’m hoping that we can get into the Third Round at least.

Fixtures

Thanks for taking the time to read this update.