So close to another spotless month in October, but sadly we did have one slip up in the league against Halifax going down 1-0 at home. Plenty of excuses we could use, we dominated the game with a weaker team due to injuries and players unavailable but just didn’t take our chance.

Even fielding a significantly weakened team to save some players for league games, we comfortably came through our FA Cup and have now achieved our targets for the competition. Our reward for defeating Alfreton is a tricky away trip to League Two Swindon in the first round.
On a positive note we do seem to be over the worst our the injury crisis, most of the players that were out are now working back to match fitness which is great as it means we now actually have some options picking the match day squad as some of our players were starting to get a bit jaded.

Something that is becoming an issue however is our team discipline, I don’t know how to solve the issues as the players aren’t instructed to go in hard or anything but yet we seem to accumulate a ridiculous amount of yellow cards per game! we’ve know hard 4 different players suspended for games.

Something we weren’t expecting to be an issue is international call ups, however we have a couple of players that represent island teams in North America and they keep disappearing for weeks at a time and its beginning to get frustrating but nothing we can do.
In the league we now sit second, just one point behind Ebbsfleet, they seem to be a juggernaut of a team and don’t seem to slip up! I just hope our slip against Halifax doesn’t cost us.

Player of the Month
Patrick Brough is this month’s winner. The left back has created 7 goals this month, that’s despite being suspended for the Halifax game and being an unused substitute in the FA Cup tie against Alfreton. 7 assists in 4 games isn’t bad form at all, yes the vast majority were dispatched by Scott Quigley but Brough has been solid defensively also.