Northampton: Road to Glory

September
An okay month... We could have done better, but that's soccer.


Although we've dropped from 4th to 6th since last month, I think we are still at a very pleasing position.

Nice Story glenn Keep it going

You've made a good start, I'd like to see promotion!

But really Glenn.. there's no need to kill people. Imagine how your family would feel!?

Very nice story. Must take you a lot of time and effort to come up with so many posts together? Do you stay up late or something, because I'm not allowed to do that.

Good start in the league 2, you are not so far from the direct promotion, good luck :D!

October
A good month...
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Where I currently am... A really good league standing!
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My first few months as Northampton manager has been nothing short of success although some of my transfers have really flopped, while some have exceeded expectations.

November
A poor month, as we are very disappointingly knocked out of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy at the Quarter-Final stage, and also out of the FA Cup in the First Round by Crewe who are a division above us, 1-0.
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Well, at least our league postion has been improved on.
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Meanwhile, with my backup keeper Neal Kitson out injured for at least another 6-7 months with a bad injury sustained in training, and my first-choice keeper Shane Higgs being extremely inconsistent, I decided to bring in another keeper, and I couldn't ask for a better deal as we got in Scottish goalie Mark Brown after a bit of tough negotiating.
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Mark is 30 and has never left Scotland, with 16 out of his 18-year career being in the Scottish Premier League, while the other 2 years were in the Scottish First Division. He has played for teams like Rangers, Inverness, Motherwell, Celtic, Kilmarnock & Hibernian. Best of all, he is a free agent!

Great stuff, keep on going should be in League One next season!

A bit of good news as Englishman John Forrest and Scot David Winnie have joined the club as scouts, easing the burden on Duncan Galbraith who was the only scout at the club before.

Northampton chairman David Cardoza has announced a link with Premier League club Fulham. The Cottagers will use Northampton as a feeder club to send their youth players on loan to them if Northampton are interested and Fulham will also have to pay us a yearly fee.

December
Fairly successful month as we come to 2012.
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We are sitting 3rd in League 2! Hopefully we can maintain this position for another 6 months.
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It has been a fantastic six months at Northampton! We were one of the surprise packages of the season and both the board and the fans are very pleased with my work.

As I looked at the news on the very first morning of 2012, I found that, as expected, Lionel Messi had won the Ballon d'Or.

The January transfer window has started up but I don't think I need to bring in any more players. In fact I think I need to sell some to get them off the wage budget.

Mark Brown has done a good job in his first five games for Northampton, keeping a clean sheet in the first three games and only allowing one goal in the next two.

January
I couldn't have asked for a better month!
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We are 2nd only to Wycombe Wanderers, who have had a rather successful season so far, much like us.
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Ishmel Demontagnac, a 23-year-old winger in my squad has dropped down a division to play for Wrexham in the Blue Square Premier, departing Northampton for a bargain fee of 1k.

Meanwhile, I have acquired Davide Petrucci, a 20-year-old Italian playmaker from Manchester United. He failed to break through the first-team ranks and when the great Sir Alex Ferguson discovered I was scouting his Reserves for any potential loan signings we could sign, he decided to offer me Petrucci on a FREE. I took up the offer straight away! He already has the quality to be a first-team player here and with Derek Niven, who had been on loan at Northampton, returning to Barrow on loan, I felt we needed a midfielder to replace him, it was of course very lucky we were offered Petrucci.
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February
What I would describe as a turbulent month. We are getting way too many draws than wins, and the last two matches of the month, losses to Fleetwood & Rotherham, were just not acceptable.
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We have slipped down from 2nd to 4th, but as long as we finish 4th or 5th, I am already convinced we have had a successful season; and of course, get promoted.
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My star striker Pablo Counago, who has been a success story at Northampton, has injured himself and will be out for a shattering 2-3 months, and my other strikers can hardly deliver as we are very reliant on Counago to get the goals for us. I'm thinking of getting a quality striker in on loan...

March
It was a poor month in my eyes.


We have alarmingly dropped from 4th to 6th in the table! I have heard about this, what reporters say is the "end-of-season slump".


I managed to get a loan signing in just before the loan window closed for the lower leagues. It was in the form of Ivorian striker Souleymane Coulibaly, currently playing for the youth team at Tottenham Hotspur. So far he has been first class in training and my coaches claim he could turn out to be a superstar for the future, Spurs have a real "next Didier Drogba" with them, in my opinion.

April
Souleymane Coulibaly has proved to be a very shrewd signing. He's a very good goal-scorer and I'm thinking of getting him on loan next season a second time. He has already scored a hat trick in his short Northampton career and currently has 8 goals in 7 appearances for us. His goals resulted in us winning our last four April matches rather one-sidedly.


We are 4th in the league, but our hopes of automatic promotion has been dashed and instead we must look to come out tops in the playoffs. We have just 1 more game left to play, which is against Plymouth Argyle.


Pablo Counago has returned from his lengthy 2-month injury, and came on as a substitute against Southend in the last match to score a diving header and effectively broke a record.