September 2010 - Gift Gratefully Received

Gavin Mahon has recovered from his injury, so will be fit to play in the next match. Rafa is unfortunately still severely lacking match fitness, so will be sitting on the subs bench.

Everton (A) Premier League

Our visit to Goodison Park looked like an extremely tough prospect, given they'd won their first 3 fixtures and not conceded a goal. I decided the best idea was to go with a counter attacking setup, but up the tempo as we do not seem to play well when the tempo is too slow. At the start of the match we looked pretty good, creating the first half chances. On 16 minutes Everton's Yobo brought Nasuti down in the penalty area at a free kick. The resulting penalty was scored by Fatih Yucel to give us the lead. Up to this point we'd had the better of the match. Unfortunately this seemed to spur Everton on, with them equalising with a thunderbolt from outside our area. Their second goal, in the 29th minute, came as the result of a terrible back pass by Slory, which was swiftly played behind our defence and crossed right into the heart of the box for an easy header. Their 3rd duly arrived in the 34th minute in a very disappointing fashion from a corner.

After the break we looked great for the first 10 minutes with some great interplay moving the ball around with confidence. In the first four minutes we produced a couple of clear cut chances that their keeper Tim Howard managed to keep out. This pressure did however pay off with the ball being won back from one of his saves, moved swiftly to the left, and then passed into the middle, then to Fatih Yucel, who provided a superb throughball for Balanta to allow us to pull a goal back. The posession was fairly even, although Everton were producing more shots. In the next passage of play we had another couple of excellent chances to score, but somehow Tim Howard kept us out. Much to my annoyance we conceded another goal to a shot from the edge of the area. The match was to end 4-2 to Everton, although it was only the brilliance of their keeper Tim Howard that stopped them from conceding more goals. Despite this loss I'm quite pleased by the performance the players put in, especially as we are the first team to score against Everton. I am perturbed by the ease with which goals were conceded by allowing their fowards too much space.

Arsenal (H) Premier League

Arsenal's visit to Loftus Road is a match I fully expect to be tough, believing our best hope was to get a draw. However once I saw the team sheets I began to think we had a chance of taking all 3 points. Arsenal had decided to rest several important players, such as Fabregas, Clichy, van Persie, Gallas, Diaby and Nasri, with Sagna also suspended, and Vermaelen injured. I was expecting most of these players to start the match with one or two on the bench. Eduardo and Arshavin were also sitting on the bench, so I got a real sense Arsenal were being cocky, and giving us a the hope of turning them over. I decided to take a chance and stayed with the Standard setting, rather than going defensive.

This was a fairly even match, with both sides doing well at defending and showing some great touches to move the ball about. I feel we were slightly better on the ball, and produced a few more chances in the first half. The score however remained at 0-0 when half time arrived.

I felt we'd been doing well, so my half time talk was to tell the players I was pleased. They went back out, and the match continued to follow much the same pattern, with us being slightly better, but not quite producing that killer ball. After 10 minutes I readied some substitutes, replacing Faurlin with Buzsaky and Rafa on for Mahon. As I was sorting these subs out Slory took a heavy knock, so I switched Ephraim to the left, and put Routledge on the right wing. On 60 minutes the substitutions were made, and we immediately looked more dangerous. Arsenal still came forward causing a few problems. The breakthrough finally came in the 66th minute, after an Arsenal corner was cleared to the right wing, which Ephraim latched onto, making his way up the side of the pitch. As he moved forward I could see Arsenal getting stretched and Fatih Yucel making his way into the middle of the box with no markers on him. Ephraim hit an inch perfect pass to him, which was put away with style, leaving the keeper no chance. This seemed to rattle Arsenal, and they started committing a number of silly fouls. In the 88th minute we won a corner, Buzsaky fired the corner to the edge of the 6 yard box, where Puygrenier had moved in anticipation, heading home our second goal. Arsenal changed to a 4-2-4 to try and salvage something, but was to no avail for them.

Absolutely delighted with this result, and serves Arsenal right for not taking us seriously enough. Puygrenier was man of the match, mainly because of his goal right near the end of the match. His centre back partner for this match, Stranzl had actually done a better job defending wise. I was impressed how we were able to take the match to Arsenal. There is also good news, as Rowlands is now back in training, so shouldn't be too far from returning. Fortunately the knock that Slory took did not cause an injury, and means we have no first team injuries at this point.

Fulham (H) League Cup 3rd Round

After two days rest we were back in action at Loftus Road, welcoming the Cottagers for a match in which we are favourites. Fulham have been struggling to find any form this season, although they do come off the back of a victory against Blackburn, so both sides have decent morale going into this derby cup clash. Their two strikers have a fair amount of pace, so a counter attacking strategy might be the best option to try and keep things tight at the back. We seem to score a good number of our goals when going on the counter attack, so feel hopeful this will work for us again.

After the first few minutes of the match, I noticed that we were getting good possession and Fulham were giving it up very cheaply, so decided to switch from Counter to Standard setting. We looked nicely in control and in the 15th minute a series of quick passes culminated in Balanta taking a pass from Buzsaky in the D of the box, slipping the tackle from his marker and steering the ball by the keeper to open the scoring. Fulham pressed a little more without really creating much and the first half finished with us still leading by the solitary goal.

I was fairly happy with the first half display, and decided to give the players encouragement at half time, to keep them going. I have no idea if this really made any difference, but within a minute of us restarting, Buzsaky slid a nice pass through to Fatih Yucel just outside the box in open space. He moved forward to just inside the box and doubled our lead with a shot placed into the far corner of the net. Fulham's attitude changed a lot after this, and I moved back to a Counter attacking setting, as they came at us hard. We held firm until the 77th minute from a corner, when it appears that our concentration slipped allowing a Fulham defender to ease into acres of space in the 6 yard box to power home as easy a header as you are likely to see. This set my nerves jangling a fair bit, especially when, in the 88th minute we conceded another corner. Sure enough it found the head of one of there players, but fortunately it hit the crossbar bouncing downwards. Fortunately this bounced to give an easy take for Jason Steele, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We cleared the ball upfield and managed to largely retain possesion for the remainder of the time to secure our 2-1 victory.

I was pleased to note that at several of our corners we did have players get a head to ball, although all of them were off target. I will be keeping an eye on how well we do at corners and if we continue to regularly get a head to ball I'll post the setting I have worked out. This match though was another case where we'd been in control until we took a two goal lead, and then the opposition wakes up and feels like they've gone ballistic on us. Fortunately we held on again, but I do wonder if this pressure that comes is slightly over the top. This has also meant that the mail message received after the match says that we recorded a fortuitous win, even though we dominated the first half with ease. Anyhow, this win does mean we've hit our minimum League Cup target of reaching the 4th round.

Elsewhere Ispwich caused the biggest upset by beating Wigan away from home, and Wolves overcame Aston Villa at home to be the second Championship side to beat Premiership opposition.

Reading (A) Premiership

Our last visit to the Madejski Stadium gave us a 2-1 win, completing the double over Reading last season. This gives us great hope of coming away with another victory, and cementing our excellent position in the league. This match sees them come off the back of a 5-0 drubbing at home to Liverpool and their 3rd straight defeat, and also looking for their first win of the season. They are looking like strong relegation candidates, having scored only a single goal so far.

My scout had advised me that would most likely play a 4-4-2, however this turned out not to be case when the teamsheets were released. They were playing a 4-5-1, with a DMC, 2 MC's, an AMR, AML and a lone striker. This was a more attacking formation than I was expecting. I decided to move to a Counter Attacking setting. The match started with both sides putting together some good passing moves but rarely looking like troubling the scorers. In the 33rd minute a long ball out by our keeper was nodded on by Fatih Yucel with Balanta running through to be clear of the defenders, and showed great composure to move around the keeper and plant the ball in the back of the net. Although the match had been fairly even this was the first good chance either side had created. We made it to half time still leading by the one goal, although Reading had made a few chances and pressured us from corners. It was obvious that they weren't about to just roll over for us.

When the sides resumed the second half it was clear Reading were showing more determination to get back into the match, and duly found some space from which to blast a long range equaliser past our keeper who had no chance of stopping the thunderous shot. I was a bit disappointed that we'd given Reading their second goal of the season, and a bit worried that we'd only had 2 shots so far in the match, which didn't bode well. Reading relaxed a bit even though it was obvious they were still trying to find a way of creating a winner. We were still moving the ball about well, but finding it very hard to work any space from which to create opportunties. We were however winning a number of corner kicks. After about an hour I decided to bring Buzsaky off, as he was being closed down too quickly and put Faurlin on in his place for a bit of extra pace, to try and make us a bit more dynamic. After this change we won another series of corners on the left side, which Faurlin was hitting into the box, and finally in the 73rd minute found the head of Fatih Yucel who nodded the ball home past Reading's flailing keeper. Reading piled on more pressure, and I'm pleased with how we held under some intense pressure.

Reading put us under quite a lot of pressure for periods of the match, and a man of the match performance from Silvui Lung jr in goal made the big difference for us today. Without him in goal the result could have been a win for Reading. I was pleased that despite only taking 5 shots in the game we scored 2 goals. As ugly wins go, they don't get much uglier than this, and definitely goes down as a slice of luck. We also scored our 2nd goal from corners kicks in 3 matches, which is encouragement that the corner setup might be working well now. I will keep reviewing how the corner kicks go for the next few matches, and if we are consistently creating chances by getting heads to the ball, I'll make a post showing the setup I've gone for.

Monthly Roundup

Our second month went a lot better than I expected, with great thanks to Arsenal for putting out a team that was some way short of their best squad. Also I'm not sure those players were used to playing the formation they used, which was the same formation being used by Reading. This was a huge gift for us, and most gratefully received. Our win over Reading will also be seen as quite lucky, and leaving me absolutely delighted with how things have worked out. Again, thank you Arsene Wenger for being too cocky about your visit to Loftus Road. I can't imagine them giving us the same present when we head to the Emirates Stadium, later in the season. These two victories have seen us rise to 2nd in the table behind Man City on goal difference. Without our slices of good fortune we would be sitting mid table, and still feeling okay about things. Instead we are currently living in dreamland, and need to avoid becoming complacent. Our goal from this position so early in the season is to finish around mid-table. The table shows things are quite tight in the top ten, so mid-table looks to be realistic for us.

Unfortunately Daeseleire, my first team pick at right back, has suffered an injury and will be out for about 2 weeks, which gives Laure a chance to step back into the first team. Rafa is however just about match fit so will have a chance of starting a match. When he has come on a sub he's looked pretty solid in his role as Ball Winning Midfielder.

Fatih Yucel won the Premiership Young Player of the Month award for September. Out on loan striker, Antonio German won the League Two Young Player of the Month award while playing for Crewe.