Notts County January 2011

We had to get back to work after that upset, the second leg of the Carling Cup semi final was coming up only three days later. After the 2-2 away draw we had a good chance of getting to the final and we had to do our best not to miss it. We made it clear that we wanted to win right from the start of the game but Preston‘s keeper denied us the goal. That was until the 25th minute when Pekhart placed a good shot, the keeper parried it somehow but the ball went to Parvulescu and he passed it into the empty net. Matt James scored again by taking advantage of an error in Preston‘s defense so we were in control at the break. We dominated the second half too but Preston were quite dangerous on counter attacks. They clawed one back after scoring from a corner kick but there’s no way we could have lost it, we were through to the Carling Cup final! We are going to meet the cup holders themselves, Everton, they defeated Manchester City in the other semi final.

But until the big final we had another beautiful game coming up, away at… Arsenal. They were top of the Premier League table, it was a great challenge for us. I asked my players to play with courage and determination and that’s exactly what they did. Unfortunately Arsenal‘s top class players made the difference, Eduardo and Walcott were unstoppable. It was the first defeat of the season for us but I was satisfied with the effort, we didn’t look like sitting ducks at Emirates Stadium.

After all those cup games we had to get back to League One, 16th placed Crewe were coming at Croft Park. Most of my players were tired and we lacked inspiration upfront, we just didn’t know what to do with the ball. Luckily centre back Shelton Martis saved us with a corner kick header in the first half.

The last game of the month was at home with 19th placed Gillingham, we had to end the month with a win. Left winger Paul Parvulescu got injured right in the beginning of the game, I replaced him with Mitea and things turned out pretty well as Mitea ran the show. He converted a penalty and then placed two perfect assists for Szalai and Sburlea.

Unfortunately Parvulescu‘s injury was pretty bad, he’s going to be out for around two months! We were only a few days away from the closing of the transfer window so I had to move fast to find a replacement. The player that I chose is young Brazilian Pedro Botelho from Arsenal, they agreed to loan him until the end of the season.

We were still top of the table with a few games in hand but we still didn’t play against Huddersfield, the game was continuously re-arranged since December!

And we won’t have the Huddersfied game inFebruary either but we’ll have two finals to play, the Johnstone’s Trophy second leg and the big Carling Cup final with Everton.

That’s about it, I see some entertainment coming up in February, don’t miss it!

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