All over the shop
With December came a topsy-turvy set of results and a new but most importantly, league position remained, battling away to achieve supremacy over our premier League rivals as well as officially progressing to the next round of the Champions League among other competitions. All in all, an interesting month as December always is, with players feeling the festive spirit and I expect those from tropical regions feeling the cold too.
Christmas Time!
A solid beginning to the month as we dismantled Stevenage in the League Cup, putting us through to the semi finals of this most prestigious contest. A slightly rotated side was selected, and
Ibrahim and
Zoundi showed form of old,
Ibrahim banging 2 in, whilst
Zoundi made all 3 goals.
There was slight squeaking of bums in this game as
'Eel' Paling made things uncomfortable for us later on in it. Though, we did dominate, though
Otsuki scored, he was relatively poor up top, and
Ibrahim got another chance. Meanwhile,
Masawudu scored again, to keep his run going.
We finished with a bang as a heavily rotated side smashed SC Cambuur convincingly, scoring 4 before half time and relaxing as the game drew to a close.
Sainrimat started and scored which was a rare sight to behold, he's unfortunate to be behind 2 very decent strikers, may be loaned.
Masawudu added another 2 to his season tally as well, claiming man of the match.
A lovely outing for
Otsuki against Fulham in a fairly routine win in the Premier League, thoroughly trouncing our London opposition.
Masawudu is beginning to remind me of
Mahrez or
Hazard, does very little, until he does something very good.
Ruiz threw a spanner with a late unnecessary red card, not great from the captain.
Let down, we tried a slightly different team, as
Krasniqi missed the game with injury and it showed, statistically the game was fairly even but Stevenage were far more clinical than us. Unfortunate game to lose, but these things happen even to title winners. Older readers may recognise the man of the match,
Casalino who joined us on loan in the first season.
Post Christmas resurgence, it's good to know the lads had a good Christmas as shown by our ability to bounce back and beat Hull.
Krasniqi marked his return with a goal and a generally good performance, whilst
Masawudu took man of the match again with 2 efforts, lovely stuff.
A defensive and offensive masterclass from our Irish summer signing
Griffin who played beautifully in defence as well as scoring from a corner too, creating a man of the match display. West Ham netted late to make it nervous, but nothing we couldn't handle.
A tale of 2 stars in this upper tale clash, ultimately
Dosso and
Krasniqi cancelled each other out, but our man took home man of the match as a leading light in our squad.
Ibrahim and
Otsuki both had run outs to try and grab a winner, but they both seemed to have their mind on the New Years party, I mean, you'd imagine the MIGHTY DUCK's throw a pretty wild one.
Just enough
Spurs now with a game in hand, could get up to as close as 2 points away from us which is rather scary, but we definitely have the quality to pull through. With fixture congestion as bad as this it's understandable to drop points here and there, as long as we don't lose too many, nonetheless though, happy to still be top.
Player of the Month
Defensively excellent and the king of consistency of recent weeks in a time of chaos in the Premier League,
Patrick Griffin has had an impressive start to his Wycombe career, and I hope it continues like this for years to come. The Irish man has been showing up the veteran defenders of the side recently.
Flop of the Lot
Sadly times have tested our young left back
Dave Kimbell who to be fair, barely gets a rest in this side, but he's looked to have come unstuck at times in this Wycombe side. He may also get less help than his right sided company, due to
Masawudu being an Inside Forward, but he didn't look bad before December, maybe fatigue got the better of him.
Our golden boy
On a very happy note, our
Steve Lawson won the European Golden Boy award, a huge achievement for the lad who's scored 12 and set 22 up in 45 games. Not bad at all for a kid.
January is just as hard
The games keep coming thick and fast through to the new year of 2172, some tricky ones including a top of the table clash against Spurs, oh it's going to get exciting! Also, the Champions League knockouts have been drawn, and we've been given Tenerife meaning
Francheschi will get a Wycombe return.
Thanks for reading, all comments will be reciprocated,
Alex