A dodgy August – 2013/2014

We started off the Premier League at home against Alex McLeish’s Stoke City side. Stoke started off well, but we eventually found our stride.

It took until the 44th minute to find our first goal which came from a set piece which Robert Huth accidentally put past Asmir Begovic.

I had forgot to assign penalty takers (again) and Fernando stood up to take a penalty. He missed. Our goal to penalty ratio has been terrible this season.

Valencia scored twice to seal the lead for us, a good solid game.

Up next we had our Europa League qualification game versus Bulgarian champions Litex.

Everybody expected that we would struggle in the game. We won 6-0 however, a great performance!

Next up, we were against newly promoted Southampton in the league.

We were away from home, so we knew it wouldn’t be easy. Younis Belhanda hit the crossbar with a freekick in the 20th minute. Jake Livermore then hit the post in the 34th minute. It looked like we just weren’t going to find the back of the net in the first half. It simply wasn’t to be despite our dominance.

In the 53rd minute, Ex-Wigan midfielder James McCarthy found the back of the net after some very poor defending by Kyle Walker. Fortunately, the lads got themselves together and evened up the scoreline simply 5 minutes later.

I brought on Kevin Doyle for Nolan Roux at half time, only for Doyle to get injured in the 62nd minute. That meant I had no choice but to then bring Steven Fletcher on. I really can’t find a decent person to be our main one man up front poacher.

In the 90th minute, we hit the woodwork again! I can’t believe it, we hit the woodwork three times in the match!

The final whistle blew, and it was adamant that a win just simply wasn’t on the cards. I was dissapointed.

Our second leg of the Europa League qualification game was up. To be fair, going in with a 6-0 lead we didn’t have much to worry about.

We showed why we were extremely dominant when Valentin found the back of the net in the 21st minute. Kevin Doyle then got his name on the scoresheet to make it two. In the 36th minute, the Litex defender collected the ball in their box, attempted to clear it but accidentally kicked the ball at Valentin. It literally hit him and bounced back into the goal. 3-0 to us!

After half time, we got our 4th of the game thanks to a Bakalov own goal. We were winning 10-0 on aggreggate.

3 minutes later, Kevin Doyle found a goal to make it 11-0 on aggreggate.

In the 76th minute, Litex found a goal from a very good Vasilev free kick. Bad marking by Chris Berra to be fair, 11-1.

That concludes August. Let’s hope our league form improves in September.