September 2009

September didn't begin well. Come to think of it, it didn't end well either. Defeats away at AFC Telford (1-2) and Droylsden (0-1) left us struggling in 17th place. The players' morale was low, my morale was lower, and I needed to change things, and fast.

Next up were two home games against Redditch and Stafford; ideal chances to win the fans and the board round with wins. However, this didn't happen and both games ended in goalless draws. We should've won both games though, as the stats show. We had nine shots to their single effort, with three on target, we had 60% of the possession, hit the woodwork twice, and had two blocked shots. The game against Stafford was exactly the same; 11 shots, 51% possession, woodwork once, and no less than five blocked shots. It was clear that Lawrie Dudfield (yet to score for us) and Nic McDonnell weren't firing on all cylinders. My prediction of McDonnell 'shining in September' was clearly unfounded.

The next game brought Farsley Celtic to Wetherby Road in the FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round. It was a chance for us to put our poor league form behind us. Judging by our recent results, you can probably guess the score of this game. Yes, 0-0. We had a replay on our hands which would take place only four days later. A goal after only two minutes for Farsley proved to be enough to see us off, but yet again the stats show that we should've won, or at least had something to show for our effort. As it was, we failed to score for the fifth consecutive game.

A very, very disappointing month as a whole, as I'm sure you'll admit. The positives that I can take though, is the fact that we're not conceding an endless amount of goals. No, our defence is actually quite good. Gareth Stewart even kept a clean sheet for about 280 mins of football. We just need our strikers to hit the back of the net a bit more often. I'm not going to predict anything this time. Instead, we'll see what happens.