Day 95

We face lowly Southport tomorrow. Their manager, Liam Watson, spoke out against my style of football (what opposition manager would like it when we keep a tight defence while attacking with venom?). I hit back that they're struggling because he's a shit manager. I'll take anyone on with these stupid mind games.

We've been given odds of 4-7 to win, despite being the away team, while Southport are at 4-1. That tells me the bookies are not ruling out an upset, so we should be careful not to get caught out.

Kiwi defender Steven Old arrived on trial just in time to play for the Reserves in their friendly against Long Eaton today. Unfortunately his fellow trialist Tô was off on international duty. And just when I was on the brink of going after the lad. Maybe next time. Mofokeng, another trialist who impressed in the last match, dropped to the bench because of poor fitness.

Fatih Akyel's high looping cross fell to Burgess on the far post at the 11-minute mark, opening the scoring. It looked set to be a very one-sided match, but Long Eaton rallied immediately—with two close efforts in quick succession.

Nothing came of it, though, and we exposed the weakness of their defence with another goal. Burgess crossed to the near post and young striker Jordan Thomas broke from his man to tuck the ball in. Long Eaton's defenders never moved.

Once again Long Eaton tried to rally, and it took great goalkeeping from Halstead to prevent a goal from close range. Nothing was going to stop Joe Gray's strike from some 35-or-so yards out, however. They looked to be back in it.

The goals continued to flow freely up the other end. A corner from Burgess was cleared unsuccessfully to the centre of the six-yard box, where Old poked at the ball. It rebounded off two players before rolling over the line—3-1.

Just moments later Fatih Akyel played another cross from deep, aiming for the edge of the box. Thomas threw himself head-first towards the oncoming ball, connecting with a diving header that bounced past the surprised Long Eaton keeper—4-1.

After a thrilling first period, the second half felt anti-climactic. It took 33 minutes for anything noteworthy to happen, and that was a horrendously-mishit shot from Long Eaton's Moss—after a great run forward into space. In the 85th minute Husbands tried to get onto the end of a great long ball from Paul Hunt. Chalwe outpaced the striker, and went to pass back to Halstead. But Moss was alert to the move, and beat the keeper to the ball. Moss's shot ricocheted off Halstead into the path of Husbands, who fired into an empty net—4-2.

Fatih Akyel, Thomas, and Burgess all impressed me. Thomas looks to have a bright future, while the two trialists have now performed well twice. Ahmadi killed off his hopes of a contract. I ended his trial three weeks early. I think I'll wait to see what happens with Olembé before I make a decision on Burgess. We don't really need (or have the budget for) another left winger, but he'd be a decent replacement for the Cameroonian.