FC United of Manchester FC United of Manchester FC United of Manchester Badge FC United of Manchester Pitch In

Captain Kyle says team is up for the Cup

We’re still unbeaten and that continues our good start to the season. Sunday’s game at home to Hednesford was a bit of a mixed bag - we played well in the first half, defending well as a team and getting an all- important goal, but they piled on the pressure in the second half and forced us into giving the ball away too cheaply. A draw was probably a fair result on the day.

Analysing the game in the dressing room afterwards, as we always do, we thought that we gave the ball away too often and should have held onto possession more than we did. We’re still getting used to playing with a few new players but that will come. Keeping the ball is vital at any level of the game and we need to get better at it. Hednesford will be up there at the end of the season so a 1-1 draw at this stage is a decent result.

It’s still early days but once we click as a side we will be very hard to beat. We’re not far away now; after all we’re not unbeaten for nothing. We just need to cut out minor mistakes that are causing us problems. Personally, I think it is a good sign that we are critical of ourselves. That can only make us strive to be the best we can be.

We now face another run of three games in a week, culminating in an FA Cup tie this coming Sunday at Gigg Lane. At our level, we’re prepared for a rush of games and we’ll be ready. Because we all have day jobs, the players are bound to be tired coming into matches. We work five or six days a week and then play football so it’s going to be hard, but It’s a squad game, as the manager always reminds us, and we know we have quality to come off the bench or to slot into the starting 11.

Looking ahead to Sunday and the FA Cup tie against Cammell Laird, we can’t wait. The players want to have another cup run like we had in 2010 and we’re mentally preparing for it. A few of us were here when we had those televised games against Rochdale and Brighton and we want up experience that again - and so do the newer members of the squad.

We play in the Northern Premier League and the FA Cup gives the club national exposure and we’ll be aiming to have a cup run that can land us a plum draw in the first round proper. The boost that could give FC United in terms of profile and finances as we look to build our new ground in Moston would be massive. A cup run will benefit the whole club and really put us on the map and the players are aware of that.

We know our supporters are excited by the FA Cup and we’re looking forward to a good turn out at Gigg Lane on Sunday. Hopefully that will spur us on to a good result a take us a step closer to our target of a place in the first round proper.

You can read Kyle Jacobs’s column and other FC United news in the North Manchester Advertiser.


First Posted ~ 06:19 Fri 7 Sep 2012
News ID ~ 4415
Last Updated ~ 02:08 Tue 16 Feb 2021