August - September 2021
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Life in the Premier League began quite comfortably with a victory against Burnley with our new signing Andre Green making up his £12million fee already with a debut goal.
However, we came crashing down to reality with a 2-0 defeat to Wolves - and we weren’t even close to standing a chance. Wolves dominated the entire game and the result was decided after only 20 minutes of play.
The first match against the division’s big boys came against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. We bagged a well-earned point as City continued their below-par start to the season.
Our first cup match was against the relegated Coventry City, who went down from the Championship as we went up. Kenneth Zohore impressed on his first start of his renewed loan spell, scoring a brace as we advanced with a 3-1 win.
We lost two points in my eyes, with Fulham’s Marko Livaja scoring a late equaliser in a match that we really deserved and really should have won.
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The last-minute blow against Fulham affected our performance against Everton and Arsenal as we conceded 8 goals in just 2 games, scoring only 1 in the process.
Jón Daði Böðvarsson returned to the squad in the Carabao Cup against Swansea City and shone, scoring a brace to send us through to the Fourth Round against Everton.
The win really picked us up, despite having a fully rotated squad as we defeated Aston Villa 2-0 on our return to the league. Sam Johnstone had the game of his life, picking up the Man of the Match award with five shots saved, keeping us on a clean sheet and allowing Hayden Muller to score his first-ever senior goal, followed by Liam Walsh first goal for the club.
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The opening months of the new Premier League season has caught some off-guard, particularly at the bottom end of the table.
However, at the top are Arsenal with a two-point lead over holders Liverpool who won it by six points last year. Manchester United and Chelsea make up the remainder of the top four.
Wolves, Everton and Aston Villa all follow up in the Europa League/Europa Conference League spots with a decent showing, though they might be expecting a finish like that come the end of the season.
We find ourselves quite proudly in 10th place - a mid-table spot after a gruelling opening for us. We are only 3 points away from 18th, but we are also 3 points away from 8th placed Leicester, so it could swing any number of ways for us.
Directly below us are Tottenham Hotspur, who have struggled for form in the early stages as they only managed to pick up maximum points from relegation-threatened Brentford and Sheffield United along with their Europa League campaign.
The biggest shock so far is the horrific performance from Manchester City - last season’s runners up - who only show a win against Southampton as their only win of the past seven games. This month they finished horribly with a 3-0 loss to city rivals Manchester United, worsening their early season woes.
Making up the bottom three are our dearest rivals West Ham United, newly-promoted Brentford and Chris Wilder.
Transfer News
As the window slammed shut, our first-team business was done with the signing of Max Lowe from Sheffield United.
However, we signed four young UK-based players to fill up our under 18s side with some more talent as a total of £16,300 was spent on Reece Regan (free), Michael Jenkins (£7,000), Malcolm Kerrigan (£7,000) and Michael McMahon (£2,300).
With the total transfer outlay for us sitting at £39million, we have maxed out our transfer budget for the season.
We have sold Mason Bennett for £1million to San Jose Earthquakes, as well as loaning a lot of our under 23 squad out to a variety of domestic clubs.
Scott: As predicted, Burnley was a great way to get off the mark, both for us and Andre Green - one of the bigger signings of the summer.
Tango: Very true, I hate vegans too
James: New management style of physical assault incoming
Justice: Yup, Dembélé really embarrassed us.
