August Report - Highs and Lows
Well here we are, my first month of fixtures as the manager of Stockport County. Nervous? Of course not... well, maybe a little. It's going to be tough for us because quite frankly, teams in this division are much better than us, but hey, let's quit criticising our lads and see how they did!
Now if someone said to me "Hey Josh, would you take 10 points from your first 6 games?" I'd snap their hand off as it's a very encouraging start back in the Skrill Premier. In our first month our toughest team to face was Southend, as they have just been relegated from League 2 and kept most of their players, so they'll be a force to reckon with, anyway, let's evaluate how we did.
So as I mentioned before, Southend was undoubtedly our toughest test and I guess the scoreline just backs up my point as we were outplayed right from the off. I handed debuts to numerous players but I must say it's not the start I wanted, first game in a new division at home and we screw it up. In fairness though, the lads tried their best, and with a team like Southend oozing class, it was always against us.
However, our game against Nuneaton was a great response from the loss against Southend, by winning by 5 goals to nothing, which is exceptional. We got off to a flyer as Nat Jarvis netted his first goal of the season with a perfectly timed finish into the bottom corner. Then another of our new signings Danny Lloyd, netted two goals in the space of 7 minutes, which was absolutely amazing, he's a breath of fresh air that kid. Nat got the fourth goal to really rub salt in the wounds and then young Danny got his hat-trick with a great 20 yard striker to earn his first career hat-trick and become the leagues top goalscorer already.
Next was Hereford, a team we've played many times in our history and it was a pretty dull game. Nat Jarvis got his third goal of the season to give us the lead as he headed in a perfectly weighted cross from James Marwood to make it 1-0. However the referee gave a very soft penalty and they levelled up the match after a well taken penalty. 4 points out of 9 ain't too bad so far.
Braintree were next on our hit-list and boy, did we show them how to pass a ball. We dominated possession throughout the game and finally hit the net in the second half as Danny Pilkington was set through on goal by Archie Love and the winger slid the ball under the goalkeeper to give us all three points.
Then we faced Cambridge who are one of the favourites to get promoted this season. Nat Jarvis got yet another goal to give us the lead within the first 20 minutes and then we set to go more defensive as it was away at their ground however we couldn't hold out and we conceded two goals in quick succession to drop all three points.
And finally Salisbury. James Marwood got the only goal of the game to give us all three points and to end our month in good style. Taking 10 points from a possible 18 is a solid start which I'm very happy about.
League Table
Now my stupidity has brought a small downfall to my story, I didn't save ANY screenshots of the league table up until NOVEMBER. Sorry about this but I can tell you my position after the first month;
8th
Awards
Player of the Month
Nat Jarvis
Nat has been our best player this month, getting 4 goals in 6 games is a very solid start from the young striker and I hope that he keeps improving and scoring us goals! He's also got one assist which makes him also a very good build-up player!
