So here we were, walking around
New Anfield. Quite an amazing stadium and my hopes were that the lads wouldn't be overawed by the surroundings. They'd have to be extremely focused to keep up with the league leaders. Our last game against them had ended with us losing by two goals and I was hoping that we'd be able to at least snatch a point in this horribly difficult away game.
Liverpool v. Derby English Premiership
We had a great start to the game, with
Mikael Dahlberg scoring twice and
Troy Hayder once before halftime.
Xabi Alonso pulled a goal back for
The Reds just before halftime and that's how the first half ended. In the second half
The Reds came to life, scoring straight after the kickoff.
Steven Gerrard broke free of his marker near the right hand side of the area and drilled a powerful shot into the far corner. In the 59th minute,
Lukas Podolski got
The Reds level, but
Tommy Smith put us one up again in the next minute. Unfortunately our lads couldn't withstand the intense pressure, put on by
Liverpool. in the final minutes of the game and
Michael Owen and
Podolski put the game beyond us in the final 10 minutes.
Final Score: 5-4
Goals:
Mikael Dahlberg (23, 34)
Troy Hayder (40),
Tommy Smith (60)
MOM:
Lukas Podolski (
Liverpool)
Current League Position: 3rd
I really tore into the lads after the match, because the sort of capitulation that they showed in the match is totally untolerable at any level. True the
Liverpool team were headed for the title, but at least let them earn their win by defending properly. I almost took the door off the hinges when I slammed it in anger and after the match I told the reporters how ****ed off I was at the way they conceded such stupid goals at the end. Overall the result was a fair one, because
The Reds had been the better team overall, but the goals we conceded were very soft and very uncharacteristic of us.
The lads were quite sheepish when the finally drifted into the team bus, obviously knowing full well that my short fuse was shorter than usual. For their sake I hoped they'd perform better in our next match.
Before our next match, we received an offer from
Arsenal for the services of
Paul Boertien. They were having a major injury crises on their hands, with no left sided players fit to play and with
Paul being available, they put in an offer of £500k, which I accepted right away.
Paul was more than happy to talk to them and I was optimistic for him to get a deal he could live with.
Derby v. Crystal Palace English Premiership
The lads were raring to go, after the bollocking I'd dished out after the last match and it only took 6 minutes for us to score the first goal of the match.
Rasmus Würtz scored with a thunderous shot from 35 yards and
Kiraly in the
Palace goal had no chance whatsoever. The visitors got more into it after that initial shock and we really had to hold on tight to avoid letting them back into the game. In the 29th minute
Mikael Dahlberg scored with a beautiful header, after
Hoyte's freekick from the right wing and that put a hold on the
Palace onslaught. They suddenly couldn't string two passes together and somehow seemed to have lost all faith. In the second half,
Christian Traoré pounced on a loose ball in the
Palace box and put the game beyond any doubt. 3 minutes prior to his goal,
Andy Johnson had suffered an injury, when he had a nasty clash of shins with
Wotton, who didn't seem to be affected at all.
Final Score: 3-0
Goals:
Rasmus Würtz (6),
Mikael Dahlberg (29),
Christian Traoré (70)
MOM:
Paul Wotton
Current League Position: 3rd
I was much happier with the lads after this match and told them so. We're still in with a shout of the top two teams and with some luck we might even give them a scare, come the end of season.
The day after the match,
Paul Boertien came to me and told me that he'd managed to secure a deal with the
Arsenal management and thanked me for allowing him to talk to them. I wished him the best of luck and hoped that he'd be able to forge a good career with them. His transfer wouldn't be completed until 1st of January, but that's alright. At least we'd get a decent amount of money from his transfer. Additionally, I had to fork out £95k to
Cefn Druids after
Gerard Dohery came on in the game against
Palace. I didn't mind that at all, since they were the team that gave me my first opportunity in management.
Next up was a trip to London to play against
Arsenal. We knew that it would be a difficult match, because the Londoners had a hatful of good players on their team. Fortunately for us, they'd been suffering a rather unfortunate bout of injuries to key personnel, like
Henry,
Silva,
Van Persie and
Ashley Cole, none of which would be ready for the match against us and
Fabregas, who was out suspended for violent conduct in one of their matches. But their reserve players couldn't be discounted, because that would be a virtual suicide on our behalf. So I hammered it into the lads in every training session of the week leading up to the game.
Arsenal v. Derby English Premiership
Prior to the match we were on edge, because an injured animal is always dangerous and
Arsenal were very badly injured. Both with prior results and also with injuries and suspensions to key personnel. But we started fast and furiously and within 8 minutes, we were 2 goals up.
Troy Hayder had started the scoring with a glorioys shimmy in the 5th minute and then tapped home the simplest of goals in the 8th minute, when
Dahlberg squared the ball for him. In the second half
Dahlberg put the result beyond any doubt, when he hammered home our third goal of the match in the 59th minute.
Arsenal suffered yet another injury, when
Alexander Hleb had to hobble off after 62 minutes. After the match it turned out that he'd be out for the next 4 weeks with a badly strained ligament.
Final Score: 0-3
Goals:
Troy Hayder (5, 8),
Mikael Dahlberg (59)
MOM:
Duda
Current League Position: 2nd
I was ecstatic after the match and told the lads that they'd done the club proud on the day. I also told them to ignore all the usual media idiocy, claiming our win to be the result of the injuries to their players. A rich club like
Arsenal usually has such quality in numbers in their squad, that usually they wouldn't suffer much from injuries, though we could accept that the injury to
Henry was lucky for us and the suspension to
Fabregas was his own folly.
Van Persie wasn't there due to his own silly fighting habits in local pubs and breaking his hand in such conditions wasn't something that could be blamed on us.
The top 6 at the end of October:
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1st | | Liverpool | | 12 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 27 | 9 | +18 | 32 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 2nd | | Derby | | 12 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 26 | 14 | +12 | 25 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 3rd | | Middlesbrough | | 10 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 24 | 12 | +12 | 24 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 4th | | Tottenham | | 10 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 11 | 4 | +7 | 17 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 5th | | Aston Villa | | 12 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 11 | +4 | 17 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 6th | | Charlton | | 11 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 16 | 15 | +1 | 17 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| </pre>
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