by @FMDoop
I was hoping to bring you an inspiring post at the end of March, full of all the stories of battling bravely against the normal relegation candidates, hoping not to get dragged into a relegation battle and maybe an impressive win now and then. Well, I might have got that a little bit wrong.
I've done something that I do a lot. I get into a save and then, it consumes my life. Over the last few weeks, I've spent far too much time playing the Hometown Hero save rather than writing about the next blog post.
In a previous piece, I spoke about my tactical decisions at Cheltenham and how we took on our former boss over at Barnsley. I dove deeply into a tactical post on how I looked at changing the system to try to suit the players that we had, and the challenging games that we had upcoming. I then ended the blog by discussing how well September went and how we found ourselves in a very unexpected position, in the playoff places. Well, I’m pleased to say that October also was a good month, but it saw us losing to Bristol Rovers, at home. This was an awful performance. The game saw us concede very early on, to a simple mistake. This was followed up by a second-half penalty and in a game of not many chances, we failed to create anything meaningful. Was this the pathway of where the season was heading?
We started our FA Cup journey in early November against Bromley away. My main overall priority for the season was to try and do as well as we can do in the league however, I wouldn't say no to a good cup run, that in turn will do wonders for finances and reputation. So, with a fully rotated side, we made our way down to Bromley of the National League. 224 away fans saw us book our place into the second round. This was followed up by a league game away to the runaway leaders, Ipswich Town. Who have been bossing League One. They scored either side of half-time, and their star striker George Hirst got both. I’m not even sure if they got out of first gear. We were then treated to a second-round FA Cup tie, televised, versus Dagenham and Redbridge, again away from home. With the Daggers being early favourites to be relegated from the National League, we sent another fully rotated side down there. This league and cup rotation is key to preventing overloads and injuries...with the TV cameras present to witness a lovely team performance, we saw ourselves into the third round. We have an incredibly busy Christmas period coming up, so it was time to put the FA Cup on the back burner.
December saw disaster hit, with eight games being played, seven in the league. We found ourselves only registering one win in the month, beating our local rivals Forest Green in the ‘El Glosico' derby. Yes, it’s a real thing. In a very even game, in the 75th minute we saw Aidan Keena breaking through the back line and popping the ball in the back of the net. There are only a few things in life that shows just how important football is and that's the local derbies. This was huge for the locals, and we did not disappoint. What we did disappoint the fans with though, is the four straight draws against Lincoln, Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth, and Shrewsbury. Games that in the latter part of the season could come back to haunt us. In the four games, we only conceded once, however, we only scored once. This midway point in the season hands me a dilemma. Do I try to take the positives out of this month and move on with a form guide that shows us unbeaten in four, or do I look at the negatives and say that we drop 8 points? The results against Sheffield Wednesday and Plymouth were positive, at the time they were third and 4th in the league respectively. Chins up and we move on. With December now behind me, we enter 2023 in second place in the league. I haven't spoken about where we were in the league yet and actually looking back up this post everything seems so down and negative. But there is so much to be positive about. We are batting way above our station right now. With zero major injuries so far and some stand-out performances, we have been able to climb the table under the radar. We might be second, but we are miles behind Ipswich in first and we are only four points ahead of 13th. It's as tight as tight can be, a couple of losses could see us move drastically.
After Christmas we had a week or so to spare before a huge game in the first weekend of January against Derby, away from home in the FA Cup. A win against Derby could put us in the mix for a great fourth-round tie against a big Premier League side. So, in the lead-up, I decided to rest all the players from training for a few days. I decided to relook over the system, set pieces, and coaches. Every single part of the club that I could look at, got looked at. Not a stone is left unturned. The difference between a good season and a f*****g great season can literally be on just the tiniest of details. These seven days in-game took me two days to get through. I just spent the time seeing if we could add to our squad, if we could add to our coaching team, or if we could add anything in the world that can just give us that extra little edge against the rest. And then before you knew it, we had to get on the bus and head up to Derby.
Derby County (a) - FA Cup Third Round 🏆
Unfortunately, over the last few years Derby have dropped down the leagues, so this is not as big a fixture as I would like it to be. It wasn't even picked up to be on the telly. But for the first time this season in the FA Cup, I decided to put a full-strength side out. We host Derby a week later in the league, so it would be great to get one over on them early doors. The game was cagey, over 10,000 fans attended Pride Park. We looked nervous. This will be up there with one of the busiest stadiums we have played in this year. Derby started the game brilliantly, straight out of the blocks. This was compounded after the 12th minute when an old local rival, the ex-Swindon town striker James Collins, found himself some space at a corner and tapped it in from three yards out. A corner! We conceded from a corner! So much for f*****g trying to look at our set pieces hey. Bloody typical. The rest of the half went as follows: Derby attack, Derby attack, oh look another Derby attack. One thing I will say, as much as they found themselves in great positions, they never really looked like they would score again. We looked more dangerous with the few chances we did have. The first half ended, and I dragged them in. This is the first time in this save that I have thrown the water bottle. A lot of red came up on the screen. This wasn't the response I wanted. Derby had nine shots, four on target in the first half and an XG of over 1.5. This is in comparison to our one shot which missed the target. The only positive we had was we had lots of the ball, nearly double the number of passes and 60% possession.
Just after the second half started, we were on the attack. Long found space in the middle. An overlapping run from Broom found himself wide open the right-hand side. A late run into the box for Liam Sercombe, Broom manages to find him and we nab a tap in for ourselves. 1-1 game on. They say fortune favours the brave, WOW we were brave. We shifted to a more attacking mentality and in the 68th minute Broom found himself in a lot of space on the right hand side yet again. The ball was whipped in, with a very similar cross to the last time. The Derby defence was bamboozled and Eiran Cashin managed to tap it into his own net. 20 minutes to go. It’s ours to lose now. With just ten minutes left and after a few changes were made. Derby found themselves in our box and we bought one of them down. PENALTY. Harvey White steps up and smashes it down the middle. A nervous last 10 minutes. Do we try and bring them back to the Cotswolds or do we go for it and beat them here and now?
We pushed, and we pushed, but we just could not create a good enough chance to take the lead again. With four minutes added on it was all us. There was only going to be one winner. Alfie May found some space on the right hand side, whipped a cross and it was deflected out for a corner. 40 seconds left on the clock. Ferry whips the corner in, and from nowhere the young Dylan Barkers leaps the highest to get his head on it and the net ripples. Maybe all the work on the set pieces did work out in the end. Derby kicked off to restart the game with only two seconds left on the clock. But it felt like the ref let them have one more chance. One more attack. McGoldrick passes it back. The ball is humped forward and lands out wide to the left hand side. The Cheltenham fans are whistling. Roberts whips a ball in, finds McGoldrick, and McGoldrick buries it in the bottom corner. Pride Park goes wild hands go on the away fans faces. It's going to a replay.
But wait there's a flag. OFFSIDE!!!!! Followed by the final whistle and we are through, what..a..game.
That inspiring win saw us go undefeated in the league in January, beating Derby seven days later 1-0 at home, and beating Plymouth away from home who potentially could become promotion rivals. We did get a little bit lucky as they had a player sent off for a hack down on May in the box which saw us convert the penalty. At the time of sending off it was 2-1 to us in the 30th minute and that's how the game ended. The FM22 highlight killer tactic found his way onto the save. I'll be shocked if Plymouth don't go up this year.
The end of the month saw us play West Ham at home in the FA Cup fourth round. On TV and a complete sell-out. This was the dream. This is what we wanted. A Premier League side at home and on the telly. The maximum amount of finances earnt on this tie. Happy days! West Ham brought a fairly strong side. Declan Rice and co go 1-0 up after two minutes and we just could never get a good enough chance. Outplayed and outclassed, the FA Cup journey is over.
February and March saw us go undefeated in the league. Defensively so solid and dangerous up top, we had a recipe for success. If we wanted to get promoted this year this was the form we needed. We found ourselves second in the league at the end of March. 10 points less and one more game played than Ipswich ahead of us, they were as good as promoted. We were six points clear of 7th place with promotion in our hands. Another positive was local rivals Forest Green Rovers were in the relegation zone. Also, Aidan Keenan is currently the league's top goal scorer. This probably means if results don't go our way over the next two months and if we don't get promoted, he probably will.
Thanks for reading.
