The season got off to a great start, as Scott says though, hopefully the back-end isn’t a catalyst for poor form

#014 - Consistency? What does that mean
03/11/2020 -- Henderson looks a bit cynical. His team can play really good matches, but two days later with almost exactly the same players, it suddenly seems that these players never have seen a ball before. A consistent run of form is the big problem Spartans is struggling with, and so avoiding a more stabilized position in the league. After the 4-1 loss against Annan, Spartans managed to win two games and an acceptable away draw against Civil Service Strollers (like that name!), before getting surprised by Buckie Thistle at our own Ainslie Park. Then followed by three good games again, but suddenly the away game against Gretna went horribly wrong... And this repeats itself again in the next four games. Two cautious wins against the lower teams in the league but again not capable of holding a longer stand of form with conquering only one point in the following matches against Caledonian Braves and Gala Fairydean. The most point of concern is the lack of scoring goals. We do create a lot of chances though, but our strikers are performing quite bad at the moment. The last time one of our strikers scored a goal is already nine(!) matches ago… If Spartans is running through like this, then a position within the first six at the end of the season will be quite difficult.
Henderson doesn’t know where it’s going wrong: “Nothing has changed since last season. We can play three really good games, but suddenly from nowhere we lost our confidence and lose two games which we actually have to win given our reputation and players qualities. It’s a mental issue obvious, but I really don’t know where to start with to avoid this big ups and downs. Maybe some of the players are a bit impressed or such, or the fact that we do have a young squad without a real natural captain we can lean on. We can rule out thousands of reasons, fact is that we need to change our mindset. Otherwise reaching into the play-offs will be a very difficult one. Although Spartans is getting forward statistician wise, it doesn’t feel that way right now.”


Cup tournaments
Despite the changeable results in the competition, Spartans is performing quite good this far in the cup tournaments. They have reached the third round in the Scottish Cup, already one round further then last year. But probably it will end there. Of all possible 63 opponents Spartans draws against Hearts… Their affiliated side from the Premiership. A fantastic game though, but we were hoping for at least one or two rounds more with a draw against a lower league team. Probably it was to much to ask for. We shall see how it sorts out, hopefully Hearts doesn’t show up with their strongest team, giving us a small chance for at least not losing.
Also our run in the Challenge Cup is still alive. We defeated Stonehaven in the second round with 2-1, played a really good match against Gretna and turned down Lowland League side South Queensferry after a replay. That has bring us into the quarter finals, in which we are facing Stenhousemuir, currently the number three in the league. A home game again. If we can make it all the way to the final then we will earn a serious amount of extra money. So far we already scraped around £100,000 together in both cup tournaments, but the real money can be earned in the semi-finals and final. We definitely need the money to keep out of financial troubles, but it will make a huge different if we can double our prize money. Then we can invest in our squad and the clubs facilities.