Retirement comes to us all

Even tho at the start of the season, Jesse Lingard, a player-coach at the club, made the choice to hang up his boots at the end of the season. With 16 games this season scoring 8 goals is a good return for a 35-year-old player who had a good career turning out for Man Utd and Forest, as well as England. How he can turn to his coaching, teaching some of the youngsters here at Salford to become better players.

Now we start the new year, it’s got to be better than we ended last year, December was poor by our standards. With it being the new year, transfer window time, and looking at the team, I have to say we are a bit light at the back.

So to start the new year was a transfer meeting with Roy, Paul, and Nicky to get started. Coffee was flowing and a plan has been made, but the challenge now is to go and get these players.

4 players arrived at the start of January, left winger Jack Moylan came in from Sligo Rovers on a free. West Bromwich let go of Harry Clarke for £375k to bolster our back line, also Sander Brouwers, a left-center arrived from Feyenoord, and to complete the window for us Paul Scholes brought in Di’Shon Bernard, returning to the club from Millwall for £3 million.

The new signings were in the stands to watch us beat Cheltenham in the 1st game of 2028 4-2 away from home. The TV cameras were out for the cup game Vs Matlock, a match important to me, friendly faces now rivals in a match for a quarter-final spot. 2 goals from former gladiator Jack Stott and one from Hugill gave us a 3-0 win.

The top two came to blows next as this Salford side sits 6 points behind Cardiff, after taking the lead at the 30-minute mark, we got pegged back. I am waving the lads forward with 5 minutes to go till half time, we were able to get 2 quick goals to make it 3-1 at the break. The game finished 4-1, and the lead cut to 3 points. A win Vs Bolton put us level on points as the Bluebirds lost, but I wasn’t happy after we lost to Stockport 2-0, missing out on a 3-point gap. Coventry was next up in the quarter-finals of the Papa John’s trophy, this was a hard battle for us scoring late on to draw the game and go to pens. We were able to score all of our pens to win 4-2. After that, we ended January with a draw against Fleetwood.

February we changed things up with a new formation, to try and not concede goals when we are in the lead, but after taking the lead against Notts, we could only come away with a draw. A double home victories followed against Wycombe and Wigan. Then a 2 all draw against Walsall made it 3 unbeaten and a lead at the top of the league. Up next week got an away win at Exeter but couldn’t extend the lead after a defeat to Burton.

We had 2 more home games to finish up February, Lincoln was 1st up and a goal from John-Jules was enough to get 3 points, but then Peterborough made the trip up north, and a brace from Morton was able to get a win finishing up 3-1.

Fans at the ground are getting excited with a 3 point lead going in to the last 2 months of the season. 6 league games left, so there is a lot of work to do on the training ground if we are to go up, plus maybe a Papa John’s trophy final if we get past MK Dons in the semi finals.

I hope you enjoy this round up and hope you can join me to see if I can add to my trophy cabinet and the run of a trophy every season I habe been involved in.