Football Manager Blog | Football Manager Guru | Newcastle In February And March 2012-2013

Hi everyone, hope you are all fit and well. With 10 games to play over the months of February and March it was now getting to the business end of the season and a time where your form has to be good. Our first game of the month was against Bristol City at Ashton Gate.

Newcastle v Bristol City

A slender 1-0 win was enough to see me get three points in the first game of February. A goal from the returning Darren Bent who had been out for the last two months with a hip injury got the winning goal in the second half. The game was getting scrappy and I felt that Bristol could have equalised at any point. This got even harder when Steven Taylor was sent off for a second yellow. We managed to hang onto the 1-0 lead and get the three points at the final whistle.

Newcastle v West Ham

I was now set to face a West Ham side with the return match just three days later. This encounter at St.James Park ended in a 1-0 win to the home side with a goal from Marco Verratti. His wonderful free-kick was brilliantly placed into the top left hand corner of Robert Green’s goal. This was my second consecutive 1-0 win and I was hoping for a continuation of this form.

Newcastle v West Ham

In the second encounter it was much a closer game but it was my Newcastle team who edged out on top again. West HamHam took the lead through George Boyd in the first half but my Newcastle team fought back to win the game after goals from Bent and Aaron Spear in scoring his second goal in his 4^th league appearance from the Toon.

Newcastle v HSV

I was now into the knockout phase of the Europa League and my first game was against HSV of Germany. It was a pretty dull match with the sending off of Jorge Valdivia the only real talking point to the game. In the end it was a satisfactory result and I was hoping to progress after the second leg at St James Park.

Newcastle v Tottenham

We were no back into the race for the title at we had a tough game to face in the form of Tottenham Hotspur. It was always going to be a difficult game and it proved to be that way with Spurts winning the game with two second half goals from Crouch and Defoe. It was a disappointing result but there are going to be plenty of game to sort it out.

Newcastle v HSV

The second leg was much more of a one sided contest with Newcastle winning the game by 3 goals to nil. The goals came from Bent, Ben Arfa and Jo. We had progressed into the next round where we will be facing Spartak Moscow.

Newcastle v Villa

An evenly contested match ended in a 2-2 draw between two of the top clubs in the division. We took the lead twice but Villa levelled the game twice and the game ended in a draw. We were starting to pick up a problem of not being able to win games just after playing in Europe. Hopefully this won’t affect us too much.

Newcastle v Spartak Moscow

A very comfortable 4-1 win over the team from Russia with two goals each from Dan Gosling and Eduardo in a very one-sided game. Moscow scored the first goal of the game but we hit back with 4 unanswered goals to be favourites to progress into the Quarter Finals.

Newcastle v Manchester United

This was a massive match in terms of what was going to happen to my title credentials. If we won this game it would give us a massive confidence boost for the final push of the season. On 35 minutes Newcastle took the lead when Sega Diagne sneaked into the far post to sidefoot the ball into the goal. This was the only goal of a frantic game and it was a brilliant win in the end.

Newcastle v Spartak Moscow

It was already confirmed before the match as I won the first leg quite comfortably but a 1-1 draw in Russia made it certain with goals coming from Prudnikov and Wilson. I was now into the Quarter Finals to face Lyon for a place in the semis.

Results

With 6 wins from 10 games I was pleased with the way the past two months went. I was still in the hunt of the premiership and I was in the Quarter Finals of the Europa League.

I have decided not to post the league table to add a bit of suspense to the blog.

Thanks for reading

Warren