February so nearly perfect

The month didn't start well with Grenier playing in the reserves for the first time after coming back from injury, suffered a twisted knee and will be out for another 3 weeks. I think I need to stop him stepping on black cats or whatever it is he did to bring such bad luck.

First match up is a tough encounter at London Road against the Posh. Peterborough have been another side in good form, so this was not an easy prospect. However to start with, we had the majority of the match, but I began to think it was going to be another game where we'd play well but not score. with 10 minutes of first half left we managed to score from a corner, and then a few minutes later new signing Slory, playing as a striker in this match, caused complete panic in the defence, with his shot rebounding off the keeper to give Wayne Routledge an easy side foot volley. On the stroke of half time they pulled one back. The Posh come out fighting, hustling and harrying us in the second half, but we held firm. We were not helped by Gavin Mahon being sent off for a second yellow card offence. One excellent run from a midfielder did scare me as a ran half way up the pitch jinking by my players, sending a ball through which was put away. I was delighted to find, after I'd screamed "NO" to find that it was offside, by a clear margin, but the Posh players were so angry one got a booking. Even with this immense pressure and with our now lone striker off the pitch being attended to by the physio, we still managed to produce a few good efforts on goal, with Buszaky looking dangerous. A real battling performance against a team we could easilly have lost to on another day. Mahon will serve a one match ban, but shouldn't cause any problems. The morale of the players was beginning to worry me, but this has improved things a fair bit.

The Tractor's Boys are another team that have been on a real run of form, and our next visitors to Loftus Road. We pushed right from the off, and played much the better football. With 20 minutes of the match to go the score standing at 2-2 I decided to bring Buzsaky off the bench in search of some magic that might produce the winner. This decision proved to be a good when we won a free kick just ouside the area. Buzsaky stepped up and curled the ball over the wall and in the top left hand corner of the goal. This win against Ipswich gives us our first back to back victories for 2 months. Really pleased with the effort shown.

Next up we're sent to the Ricoh Arena and a match against Coventry. This proved to be a fairly even contest, though Coventry seemed to lack imagination when it came to finding the killer blow. Thankfully we managed to dispatch two of our opportunities, but it's wasn't exactly the best of matches. Jay Simpson will be much relieved after ending a goal drought of over 13 hours played.

In the FA Cup fifth round there was a big shock with Southampton beating Man City 2 - 1, and West Brom defeating Sunderland by the same score was not expected.

Watford's visit to Loftus Road was a rain sodden affair. At first both sides seemed to have trouble coming to terms with the slippery conditions. We adapted the quickest and started to produce lots of chances but it wasn't until added on time in the first half we finally converted one of these. within 5 minutes of the resumption, we'd gone two up, with Faurlin smashing a hammer blow into the net from just outside the area. Watford were largely ineffective, but midway through the half we allowed them to get a cross in from the byeline and our frailty in the air was exposed. This spurred them on, and they managed another couple of chances. If they'd equalised it would have been a travesty as we'd dominated the game so well. After one of these chances Matteo Alberti, the man of the match with 3 assist, raced down the right and gave an inch perfect pass to Slory in the centre who rushed onwards to crash it home two minutes into added on time. We weren't finished though, with Buzsaky striking a wonderful free kick into the corner from wide on the right seven minutes into added on time. These two goals gave the use the scoreline the performance deserved. Unfornately Simpson and Slory picked up injuries and will be out for 2 weeks and 4 weeks respectively.

Doncaster travelled down to Loftus Road and proceeded to control the match for the first 25 minutes, creating a few chances as well. During this time we could hardly put more than two passes together and I began to wonder what had happened. Then as if a switch had been flipped we started to dominate allowing Balanta to run onto a sweet pass and blast it in. Faurlin added another with what seems to be a trademark of his, hitting absolute screamers from just outside the area. Helguson grabbed two late goals to make the scoreline rather more flattering to us that the performance warranted. Having just recovered from his previous injury Grenier has now had a fall in training and twisted his ankle and is out for a further 4 weeks.

The trip to the Riverside to play Middleborough is a daunting prospect, but off the back of 5 wins I was hoping this might give us the confidence to play well and cause them trouble. However we rarely looked dangerous, and showed how poor we can be at dealing with a ball crossed high into the box, conceding one from a cross and the second from a corner. The majority of the corners taken were met by the head of a Middleborough player. If we do hold on to get promoted, this is probably my biggest concern that we are just so vulnerable to this type of ball. We had good possession but really failed to created many chances from this. Adel Taarabt also suffered a bruise rib and will be out for the next week.

Overall this was a good month for us and stayed two points behind leaders Newcastle, who also saw a good run of form. The gap to the chasing pack has widened a bit, which is great news and builds more hope that we can hold on for automatic promotion, although we do have 3 matches in the next month against other teams in the top six, which could prove very tricky. Alejandro Faurlin scooped the Player of the Month award for February, with me winning the Manager of the Month award.