March 2011 - Extending The Cup Run

On first sight this appears to be a very quiet month, with just 3 matches scheduled, although if we are able to beat Tottenham, this will increase to 4 matches.

Tottenham (H) FA Cup Fifth Round Replay

Having managed to gain a draw at White Hart Lane to send this tie to a replay, we are marginal favourites to win this at home. I feel optimistic after our brilliant display against Man United. I have decided to go with a Standard strategy which seems to work against Spurs.

In the first few minutes Spurs came at us looking to take and early lead, and Crouch fired a long shot just wide. We needed some desperate defending to keep Spurs out in the first few minutes. I felt if we could get through this early period of pressure the game would open out a lot more for us. In the 10th minute we finally managed to make a counter attack, with a well place pass putting Fatih Yucel free, and only a superb save from Gomes stopped him from opening the scoring. We started to get more time on the ball after this, and Nasuti headed just over from a free kick. This seemed to calm our defence down and they became a lot more confident. In the 24th minute Fatih Yucel got free of the defence only to see Gomes produce another great save to deny him. Just before half time Spurs won a free kick just outside the area, which fortunately hit the wall and flew over the goal, which was their best opportunity of the half. Half time was reached with the score goalless.

I was pleased with what I'd seen, as we looked solid at the back and very dangerous going forward, and were unlucky not to have taken the lead. I felt if we could continue to defend this well, we had a great chance to find a winner at the other end. In the 49th minute a Spurs attack broke down, with the ball intercepted by Laure. He moved along the right flank and produced a perfect pass for Balanta to continue forward, and once in the penalty area, squared the ball to Fatih Yucel, who smashed the ball into the net to open the scoring. Spurs pushed forward again, but after another attack broke down in the 53rd minute the ball was cleared to Ephraim in the middle of the pitch. He quickly spotted Fatih Yucel making a run and provided him with a perfect pass to race through and slot the ball home to double our lead. I was deleighted with this, and Fatih Yucel was denied his hat-trick by another brilliant save 3 minutes later. Although Spurs were pushing forward we were doing a good job of restricting them mostly to long shots. We managed to hold our 2 goal lead to the end of the match to put the current FA Cup holders out of the tournament. An absolutely fantastic performance, and our best defensive display for a while. This win sees us through to the 6th round and an away tie to Coventry, which is unfortunately only in 3 days time, which isn't ideal.

Coventry (A) FA Cup 6th Round

We arrive at the Ricoh Arena as marginal favourites to play Coventry who are currently in the lower middle area of the Championship table. This is a match we are expected to win, being a Premiership side. We come off the back of two excellent results, and Coventry from a home defeat. I noticed that the Coventry defence is extremely slow, so decided that I'd go with a standard strategy to try and give them the opportunity to push up slightly and allow us space for us to take advantage of.

After the first minutes I could see this was going to be quite a battle. In the 8th minute Balanta managed to get clear in the penalty area, only for his shot to be deflected just wide by the keeper. From the resulting corner we had a call for a penalty turned down. In the 15th minute Di Gennaro made a fantastic run in the area only to give the keeper a fairly easy save. In the 31st minute we conceded a free kick just outside our area, which required a brilliant save from Lung jr to keep the ball from going in the top corner. Our midfield seemed to be looking very lacklustre, and were giving the ball away far too often allowing Coventry far too easy a time in coming forward. This also meant we were not making the best use of our opportunities to counter attack. However in the 39th minute a poor clearance by the Coventry keeper allowed Di Gennaro to slide in a pass for Balanta in space in the area, this time making no mistake in placing the ball into the bottom corner of the net. I hoped this would bring some confidence to to our midfield, but they still seemed to be giving the ball up too often. Fortunately our defence seemed to be holding up well, and we arrived at half time with our slender lead still intact.

For the second half Coventry changed to a 5-3-2 formation to shore up their defence even more, but still seemed to be finding it far too easy to get through our midfield, which was worrying, and finding space to fire some long shots at us. In the 64th minute Fatih Yucel received the ball clear of the defence, but hit the ball directly at the keeper. I'd have put money on him putting that away, but I think he must have left his shooting boots at home. At times we showed our quality, but allowed Coventry to take possession far too easilly. We managed to play out the rest of match to take a narrow 1-0 victory. I'm pleased that we managed to get the win to go through to the semi-final, but some parts of the performance were lacking. It is good that our defence played well, or we could have been humbled. I don't know quite what to make of this performance, but I'm pleased we got through without requiring another replay in this round.

Bolton (A) Premier League

Our visit to the Reebok Stadium sees us arrive as marginal favourites. Bolton are without their 2 highest scorers and their players with the most assists, which will hopefully help us in taking this match. It largely depends on the attitude the players go onto the field with. Bolton are playing a 4-1-4-1 with a young striker with lots of pace, but little in the way other attributes, but we'll still need to be careful.

The early part of the match saw a big battle in the midfield, with space hard to come by, with only a few long shots going wide of the target. There was also one goal mouth scramble in our area which required a desperate clearance to stop a Bolton player managing to get a foot to the ball. In the 17th minute Balanta was brought down just outside the Bolton area, and Fatih Yucel stepped up to take the kick. He produced an absolutely stunning strike to put the ball in the top corner of the net and give us the lead. Only 3 minutes later we gave away a free kick just outside our area, which required a superb save from Lung jr to stop Bolton levelling the scores. The first half ended with us still leading by the one goal with both sides making a few long shots, but really struggling to find a way through.

I was fairly pleased with our fast half display, as we'd pretty much restricted Bolton to long range shots. In the 61st minute a piece of bad luck was to be inflicted upon us, when Basham struck a 35 yard drive, which deflected off the head of Nasuti to fly into the top corner of the net, rather than carry straight on to be caught by Lung jr. At first I was trying to work out why our keeper was going in the wrong direction, but after a replay I could see just how unlucky we were. In the 74th minute Fatih Yucel was the victim of a vicious tackle, but because he'd come from off-side there were not repercussions for the player committing the foul. This is definitely an oversight in the match engine, having seen my own players occasionally being extremely lucky too in not getting booked for awful fouls. In the 87th minute I thought we'd taken the lead after Lung jr hit the ball forward which Slory ran onto and hit the ball home. Unfortunately he had been just off-side at the point the ball was hit. In the 89th minute Routledge was unlucky not to find the winner when his header hit the crossbar. The matched ended as a 1-1 draw, and I left feeling that we were very unlucky to only come away with the draw. This was a rather scrappy battling performance, but was not one of our better displays. I was largely happy with with the defence, as almost all of Bolton's shots were from long range.

A couple of days after the match Davide Di Gennaro suffered a back strain putting him out for about a month.

Fulham (H) Premier League

The Cottagers arrive with us favourites to take all the points, after they have suffered 3 straight defeats. I expected this to be a battle though given how the match was the first time we played.

This match lived up to my expectations of it being a tough battle, and the first half was a pretty dire affair with both sides committing plenty of fouls. Of note though was how Rafa was looking really up for this match, making a lot of tackles and interceptions, then trying to feed the ball through to other players to try and make an attack. Both keepers had a few good saves to make from long shots, but little else to do in the first half. For us Puygrenier was being very poor, giving away far too many free kicks in dangerous places. It was pretty much a relief when the first half ended with the match goalless.

The second half started with a little bit more action, with Buzsaky striking a great long shot, producing a stunning save from the Fulham keeper. In the 51st minute Fulham conceded a free kick just outside the area, and as Buzsaky swung the kick into the area, Nasuti was fouled in the area. This allowed Fatih Yucel to step up and open the scoring. A few minutes later Lung jr had to perform another good save to stop Fulham scoring an equaliser. The rest of the match was pretty dire with far too many fouls from both sides which broke up the flow of the match. I think we were very lucky to come out of this match with a win, so guess justice has been done after our undeserved loss when we played Fulham earlier in the season.

Month Summary

A brilliant start to the month with victories in the 2 FA Cup ties, putting in a great performance to beat Tottenham, and a less convincing display against Coventry. That seemed to set the tone for the two league matches, which were both very scrappy matches, and far from convincing. However to come away with a draw and a win from those matches was very good. Sometimes it's the result that's the most important thing, rather than the actual performance.

This has seen us retain 4th place in the league, and progress to the semi final stages of the FA Cup, which means a visit to Wembley. The upcoming tie is against Man City, the current leaders in the league, which will prove to be very tough opposition. However, on any given day we have the ability to beat any side, so will remain hopeful that we can pull off a surprise and proceed to the final for only the 2nd time in the clubs history.

Unfortunately during the international break at the end of the month Buzsaky twisted his ankle during an international match, and will be out for about 3 weeks, and will most likely miss the FA Cup Semi Final. A few days later Martin Stranzl damaged his foot during training and will be out for two weeks.

Fatih Yucel won the Premiership Young Player of the Month award again, this time with Silvui Lung jr coming in 2nd place. Both these players have been excellent this month, with Fatih Yucel seeming to score at will.