The away win against Bristol City was a touch fortuitous. The League Cup match against Oldham was made so much harder than it should have been by the return of some awful defending. With the twenty minutes to go and the match looking like it would go to extra time, I put Varrault on at left back and Adel Taarabt in midfield. Within minutes Varrault slotted a great pass through to Taarabt, who turned and let loose with a screamer from 35 yards curling into the top corner of the goal. I guess on Match of the Day they'd say it was inspired substitutions.
The Scunthorpe match saw my first injury occur with Kaspars Gorkss tearing a hamstring, which has put him out for about 3 months. During the two week break for internationals I another injury occurred, with Ákos Buszáky suffering a dislocated shoulder, putting him for between 2 to 3 months.
The Peterborough match was nothing short of a disaster. Five minutes into the match Damion Stewart was given a straight red for a vicious tackle. Yet another injury blow occured ten minutes later, with Adel Taarabt sustaining a twisted knee enforcing a substitution, also leading to him being out for at least 3 weeks. Things looked brighter after forty minutes when Simpson slotted home after a superb display of passing. Five minutes later it looked like things couldn't get better with us winning a penalty. However, Ben Watson fired the penalty straight at keeper allowing him to save. This was to prove costly as Peterborough came out fighting in the second half, and we finally conceded an equaliser. The two points thrown away annoyed me more than the red card and the injury. At this point we were in second place with Newcastle sitting first with a one hundred percent record.
The 5 - 1 victory over Crystal Palace was a stunning display of football. One downside was yet another injury, this time Matteo Alberti out for 4 weeks with a broken rib.
The defeat to Cardiff was a miserable failure, conceding an early goal showing how dismal we are at coping with a good a cross, and then a penalty in the first half. We outplayed them in the second half, throwing away several clear cut chances. Not good preparation for the Cup match against Spurs. We played much better against Spurs, and were unlucky not to grab an equaliser in the last ten minutes, and force the match into extra time.
The Barnsley match was pretty poor, and again we somehow managed to not find a winner. This match brought Ben Watson's loan to an end, as he suffered a torn calf muscle, which would put him out for the remainder of his loan period. Four minutes my injury crisis got worse, with Fitz Hall carried off with a dead leg. Fortunately this will only put him out for less than a week. I hope we can stop picking up quite so many injuries, especially the long term ones, as these could be a killer for my aspirations of making at least the playoffs.
The match against Newcastle was a very open match, where either side could have sneaked a winner. I was quite happy with this, as we are the first team to even take a point away from St. James' Park. The spate of injuries was a bit of a worry, but we're still sat in 3rd place in the league, so I can't be too disappointed. Peterborough are the biggest surprise in the top ten, and makes the draw with them seem not quite so bad, although dropping points at home never feels good. At the other end of the table Blackpool are having a major disaster with only a single point from the first 10 matches.
When I first took over I noticed my reserve goalkeeper is rated as being decent for the Blue Square Premier league. Eventually near the end August I finally found a reasonable goalkeeper who wouldn't be a total embarrassment to use should Cerny be injured, in the form of Jason Steele from Middlesborough for £190k.
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