Football Manager Blog | Football Manager Guru | Birmingham September 2009

Hi guys good to see you. I had 4 tough fixtures this month including a trip to Anfield and a visit from the Gunners.

My first game this month was against Liverpool, a team with high hopes for this season. Liverpool were in control for most of the game once again the brilliant Joe Hart was clinical in stopping any shots from going in. We even had some chances of our own, young Chris Wood with two excellent headers clawed away by Reina.

But Liverpool struck late on thanks to a parried shot and it found its way to Dirk Kuyt who fired the ball home, I felt a little hard done but they deserved to win and they got another when Jamie Carragher nodded home from a corner, it was a good effort from my team.

I should mention that Bordeaux and Lyon both came in with £2.9 million pound bids for Stephen Carr (to my amazement) I rejected them both as I am not willing to sell my captain.

Arsenal made a journey up to St Andrews, a game they were heavily expected to win. We forced some early saves out of Almunia, nothing that he could not handle. But the true stand out player on the night was Joe Hart, sparing our blushes with 14, that’s right 14 excellent saves to make sure that we held on to an important point.

It did not help that we had to play last 10 minutes with 10 men, Bowyer with a rash foul.

Now this game is truly the most extraordinary I have ever played in my whole time in FM 2010. It was against Ipswich in the Carling Cup. Ipswich took the lead when Carlos Edwards pounced on a rebound. And then Christian Benitez netted a first half hat-trick to put us 3-1 up.

Garry O’Connor then scored a good effort into the corner. Then Ipswich had a man sent off, that is when it all went wrong. The game actually went to extra time because Ipswich fought back with some really good goals to my embarrassment.

I made it clear to my players that I was not happy. Then two headers from O’Connor and McFadden made it 6-4. But Healy got a late consolation. What a game, but it should have been so much easier. Credit to Ipswich, they fought on until the end. By the way Brian Murphy is awesome.

Our next game was against Fulham at St Andrews, our home advantage made us favourites. We also got Fulham in the league cup. For some reason Roger Johnson was all the way up the park and he won the ball set up O’Connor, but he didn’t get the shot on target. The 1^st half was really dull, neither goalkeeper was tested; I saw Fulham were dominating possession.

In the 55^th minute an excellent shot from Gardner from the corner hit the post and then fell to Prieto and he passed it in. That counted for nothing because ERIK NEVLAND just walked passed our defenders and passed it in. What a lot of crap. I thought Fulham would score again when Nevland hit the ball from 25 yards, but Hart made an excellent stop.

Then we scored again yay, Chris woods cross wasn’t cleared properly and Gardner hit the ball to Prieto who thumped it past Schwarzer. We were awarded a penalty because of a foul by Smalling, a chance for Prieto to complete a hat-trick and that is just what he did 3-1 Prieto hat-Trick OH YES.

But then Clint Dempsey scored a nice goal from 20 yards, to my annoyance. But we won and held on to a priceless victory, I am very unhappy with the first goal conceded, but my side showed amazing character to get back into the game.

Join me next time when I again play Fulham in the cup and then I travel to Old Trafford thank you for your time.