Brilliant backroom boosts us all

This week we saw the advantages of having an excellent back room staff at FC United. I picked up an injury during the cup game against Cammell Laird and it was touch and go whether I’d be fit for the next game. We’re fortunate to have an excellent group of physios at the club and I was able to see one of them, Sam Rhoades, twice during the week for treatment. The injury to my hip responded well and I arrived early at the ground before the Nantwich game for Sam to check me out. Fortunately everything was fine and I put that down to the work I’d had done during the week.

The back up we get from the physios, podiatrist, sports scientist, doctor and nutritionist at FC is massively important as it gives us access to top-quality advice to keep us in good shape and get us fit again when we get injured. Not every club at our level has this support and it’s another brilliant example of how our club does things differently.

Looking back at the match last Saturday, it was the classic game of two halves. In the first 45 minutes we dominated and had most of the possession but the second half let us down. After going ahead we conceded two sloppy goals. We had a talk straight after the game on the warm down about what went wrong and again in the dressing room afterwards to iron things out.

I think we relaxed a bit after taking the lead and once Nantwich scored scored our heads went down. With two games in a week we have the opportunity to put things right straight away and that’s what we’ll be aiming to do. Our aim is to win the league this year and games like Saturday’s have got to be won. It’s a simple as that.

Turning to this coming Saturday, we face Salford City FC away in the Second Qualifying Round of the FA Cup. With some former FC United players and connections in the Salford line up there will be a bit of extra spice to the game which should make for a good atmosphere.

We won’t treat the game any different, despite Salford playing in the league below us. Of course, you can’t help thinking about it being a cup game, and if we win we’ll be just two wins away from possibly landing a league club in the first round, but we’ll be focused on getting the win and the other stuff can take care of itself.

You can read more from Kyle Jacobs and other FC United news every week in the North and East Manchester Advertiser.