A Long Term Challenge

Pauker: Thank you very much.

Walter:I was glad to see my choice of formation worked as it I think it is harder to find a good one for lower league teams. Revell is going to be an important player for us this season and probably end up being our top goal scorer.

Skeletor6: I don't think the HSV will be too bothered just yet but I do intend on making them regret their decision for sure.

Before discussing the much anticipated (ha) first round tie against Nantwich there is some transfer news with me conducting a bit of early business. I had shown interest in Jonathan Obika in my days at HSV as I thought he was a player with some potential but if he was to have joined me at the German club I don’t think he would have been good enough. However, he definitely has the ability and quality to do well in league two. It was great when I saw that he had been released by Spurs as he was never going to break into their first team with the likes of Defoe, Adebayor and Toivonen.

I jumped into action and offered Obika the best contract that we could afford. The contract will see him on less than he was at Spurs but at the promise of a wage increase after 30 league games saw him sign on the dotted line. Jonathan has made a good impression with him scoring two goals on his debut and then leading the line against Nantwich in the first round of the FA Cup.


The match was pretty plain sailing with the semi-professional club not concerning us too much as they didn’t create many clear chances. Instead it was great to see our team put away four excellently worked chances and it is always good to see different scorers on the scoreboard. What made the goals even more significant was the fact that Sercombe, Ainsworth and Winchelow all scored their first ever goal for Rotherham United.

A number of youngsters came into the squad in order to give the first team a rest with more vital league games coming up what will be a very busy month. Lance Donald at right back put in a solid debut for the first team and he will be a player that I will want to use in future cup games. Michael O’Connor, our captain, put in yet another outstanding performance and was well deserved of his 9.0 rating and it was difficult to decide between himself and Sercombe as to who should have received the man of the match award.

I went into the game confident of coming away with a result and this faith in the players paid off greatly. We are a realistic club who are only expected to reach the second round of the tournament so it is brilliant that the club have achieved their first expectation of the season. The second round will see us pipped against league rivals Exeter City.

Great win vs. Nantwich and quality signing in Obika. It is good to see that the youngsters stepped up too. Good luck for Exeter, which is a winnable game

I'm going to round this win off with just a few words...

who the fuck are Nantwich?

good start btw;)

Walter:Obika should be a great player for us in the future and if he strikes up a good parntership with Revell then we will be laughing. Exeter should be an easy enough game but then again, this is the FA Cup!

AaronHJFT96: Haha that is a great post! Thank you.

When is next update bud? Loving this...;)

2013-09-04 19:11#133436 AaronHJFT96 : When is next update bud? Loving this...;)

I could update at anytime as I am edging towards the end of the season and just at the beginning of my journey with them on the site

I have seen a fantastic effort put in from all the players this month with us managing to now get ourselves a comfortable 9 point lead. It is still however way too early to talk about winning the league it is not something I will be doing in game just yet as we all know things can change pretty quickly. The month of November saw us come up against teams from different ends of the league with the most vital games being against Nantwich and Fleetwood. Nantwich was an important game because we were expected to reach the second round of the competition and we did this extremely confidently. I am sure that Fleetwood will be in and around the play-off/automatic promotion spots until the end of the season so it was great to come away with three points against possibly promotion rivals.

The only disappointment of the month was the match against Aldershot but to be fair to the team, a lot of changes were made with a number of players being rested after the exertions against Fleetwood. The coming month will be another challenging one with a difficult tie against currently second placed Southend United just before the turn of the year. I am confident that we can continue this winning start to my management of Rotherham United and continue to play the impressive football that we have been doing.

Manager Award

Player of the Month – Jonathan Obika

Player Brought In

Despite my best efforts I could not convince Michael Tonge, who I had seen as an integral part of our midfield with him taking up the deep lying playmaker role, to return to the club after his loan had come to an end. Leeds were willing to both sell the player for £250k or loan him to us for another three months but Tonge just didn’t want to return. I can’t get my head round his decision as he has gone straight back into the Leeds United reserves and doesn’t look like getting any first team action until he is probably released at the end of the season. My initial thought is to see if he is available at the end of the season to sign on a free as he would bring a good wealth of experience to a team that may be playing in league one next season.

It was important that I acted on Tonge’s departure and the loan window closing by bringing in someone that could potentially replace him. I had our one scout look at a few Premiership and Championship clubs to see which players were available for loan and interestingly Nacho Huertas’ name appeared. I knew a little about him from my Liverpool save and that he is a young player with great ability for his age. He will come into league 2 already with better abilities than a lot of the midfielder players so we are fortunate to have signed him on loan until the end of the season. As part of the deal Huertas will be played in one of his preferred position of centre midfield, no monthly fee will be paid but we will be paying £1k of his wages which has had no affect on our wage budget.

Huertas does prefer to play in the attacking midfield position and be given the role of trequartista, however, I don’t have my side play with anyone in the attacking midfield position. Instead he will have to settle with being used in the centre of midfield adopting the deep lying player maker role vacated by Michael Tonge. Huertas will mainly be sat on the subs bench to start with but he will see some game time as it is important in the lower leagues to keep players fresh as it is a very long season.

Wow! A great signing! Well...it seems;) huertas never seems to have good potentiall on my saves dunno what his potential is for you? Plus Liverpool will never accept a loan offer from me??? O.o

Nice update, you are cruising in the league Good to see new signing Obika get player of the month and nice signing in Huertas. Keep it up.

Wow! The wins just keep coming. Too bad that Tonge didn't feel like staying, but looks like Huertas could be quite a good acquisition. Keep doing what you're doing, it seems to be working rather well =)

Never knew Rotherham had it in 'em,

AaronHJFT96:Huertas could end up being a pretty good signing for us although it will only be for three months and I think I will end up reaching my loan limit for the season.

Walter:Obika just came in and made an immediate impact which is just what we needed. Him and Revell could end up doing very well playing alongside each other.

Skeletor6:I think we will miss Tonge in the short term but then things will turn out ok in the end.

Toon:I hadn't expected quite a good start at Rotherham but can't complain with how it has started.

I cannot believe that I have managed to come from being sacked by HSV to helping Rotherham United to the top of the league. We have managed to do this by adopting a formation which suits all the players preferred playing roles and positions which has allowed them to play at the top of their game; many of them have done this game after game.

I would have done a separate post for the FA Cup but I felt that it would be better to leave it until the third round which we have now progressed to. I had been hoping to get an third round tie against a Premier League but instead had to settle for Charlton Athletic. On the upside to this we do have a better chance of progressing to the fourth round which will continue to bring in much needed money. The club’s finances are dire with us making a loss every month with us losing up to £120k in the month of December. A continued cup run would be excellent as it would bring much needed income to stabilise the finances for at least one month.

In the league things have continued to go well with us continuing to control the ball during matches with us creating chances and managing to score the important chances to help us continue our undefeated streak since I took over. It has been great to see Daniel Nardiello come back from injury and scoring goals in his first game back against Bristol Rovers. It has created difficult decisions that need to be made with Jonathan Obika having been in great form and Jordan Slew needing to be given as much game time as possible to continue his development. Danny Schofield has also returned but he has found it harder to get back into the side with me deciding to rotate players such as Herron and Winchelow. Rotation of the team seems to be the best approach at the moment in order to keep players fit as there is still a lot of games to go and I am really hoping that we continue this undefeated streak for a long time to come.

Player of the Month – Kári Árnason

Haha, that's unfortunate, when I started my Liverpool save first thing I did was look at huertas...he's pretty shite;)