Life without our best player and top scorer is going to be hard unless someone steps up to fill the void left by the departure of Kenny Betts. It looks like it may be a tough season, with our first action being drawn against CSKA Sofia in the European cup! Hopefully Paul Robinson and Lee Small can knock in the goals, but we also splash out some of the Betts transfer fee and sign England International Adrian Foster from Division 1 Brighton for £2.7M, we’ve had our eye on him for a while and it’s as good a time as any to see how he does for us.
We’ve got 1 graduate from the reserves, but unfortunately he doesn’t feature in our future plans. Then Danny Carter gets injured and will miss most of the season with a broken leg! Hopefully Tinkler can seize the chance to impress, and we also raid Brighton again for Gordon Scott, to hopefully fill the support role and create some chances.
We got to Wembley to play Derby in the Charity Shield, a good performance bodes well for the start of the season with Robinson bagging 2, but we kick off the season with a defeat at St. James Park as we thoroughly outplay Newcastle but get done over by Andy Cole and lose 2-0!
We get back on track with a 4-0 win in our first home game against Southampton, as we break 10k in attendance for the first time at Sandy Lane! A good away win at Arsenal is followed by a rousing 5-0 home win against Leicester as Robinson scores FOUR, then finally Foster gets off the mark in the fifth league game, having played well but not found then net, by scoring at Villa Park.
We keep getting hit by injuries here and there, 2/3/4 weeks at a time to Henderson, Hancox, then Foster so we’re a bit disjointed and scrape draws against Spurs and Derby, narrowly winning at Wednesday before going to Brighton in the League Cup, unfortunately Foster’s out injured and can’t face his former club.
Howard, Robinson and Mulrain give us a decent 3-1 first leg win but the injuries keep coming as we draw 3-3 with Everton and lose to Barnsley who are in 3rd place, 2 points behind us in second, as the surprise team of the season is Man Utd, who we trail by 7 points! Some interesting transfer activity and dubious manager selections have given them a team of 11 internationals and they’ve only lost 1 game so far this season.
We scrape a draw away at Brighton to go through and get Charlton in the next round, edge past Man City at home before going to Bulgaria to face CSKA. Due to the injuries piling up we play a more defensive line up and it’s not a great game, finishing 0-0 with few chances. An away goal would have been good but we can get a result back home.
We go to Old Trafford next to face the league leaders and find out what all the fuss is about. We come away from Manchester still with no clue how some of these players have made the England squad as we see them off comfortably 2-0 to close the gap on them. Simon Collins and Andy Howard are particularly baffled as to how they can’t get a call up but Scott, Watson and Brannan can!
We scrape past Charlton in the League Cup thanks to an own goal to get Palace in the next round. We’ve got Palace next in the league too, and turn in one of our best performances of the season to win 4-0 and close the gap further on Utd. Tommy Tinkler has really stepped up and taken his opportunity to impress and deservedly gets player of the month!
Still more minor injuries keep inconveniencing us as we host CSKA in the second leg, and despite a decent performance and a lot of chances created we just can’t score and get caught on the break twice by their full backs. We’re out at the first stage 2-0.
Back to focusing on the league and we go on a four game winning streak, albeit winning by the odd goal as we just can’t keep a clean sheet with all the injuries. Jon Ryan has been stepping up and playing well but the England U21’s season is over and he won’t be back until next year with an achilles injury. We draft in Mark Wells as a squad player, but he gets injured too and we struggle on with the remaining uninjured players.
We’ve closed the gap on United to 2 points as they go to the Hawthorns to play WBA and we visit Upton Park, getting a good 4-0 away win over West Ham. United lose 1-0 and we take top spot for the first time this season as we host Palace in the Coca-Cola Cup.
A fairly mediocre performance see’s us 2-1 down at half time, and despite throwing everything at them in the second half we’re kept out by Nigel Martyn and our first trophy defence is over as we crash out. Just the League and FA Cup to play for now, and we’ve been drawn against Ipswich.
We reach the halfway point with a comfortable victory over Leeds, Lee Small, who’s been doing a decent enough job comin in for Henderson and Foster whilst they’ve been out, scores a Hat-Trick. We’re 3 points ahead of Man U, who are 2 ahead of Barnsley. It’s a three horse race as the rest of the pack, led by Spurs, are a way behind. Liverpool are looking like they’re going to bounce straight back up again being 6 points clear at the top of Division 1. Sam Allardyce’s time at Sunderland is over too as they struggle in Division 2.
So the team without Betts is finding it hard this season. We’ve battled and managed to get to the top of the league but we’ve not been a patch on what we were last season, missing out the goals and inspirational performances of Sir Kenny. Robinson has done his best and leads the scoring and ratings charts, but coupled with our injuries woes we’re out of Europe and have surrendered our League Cup too. Hopefully the injury crisis lessens and we can retain the FA Cup and League title for a fourth year, see if we can do it next week!
I4NI 