FC Bayern München: The Future of Football

This month was just pure perfection from start to finish, which is just what we needed after having exited the Champions League at the group stage. Even though this was predicted, it was still disappointing to exit the competition without getting to the nitty gritty stage. However, as a result of exiting the competition at that stage, we have been given the opportunity to continue our European journey through the means of the Europa League. This is a competition I am confident we can do well in and I would love to see us go to the very end and be the eventual winners. If we were to go the whole way, it would bring in a lot of money into the club which would be needed to continue to re-emergence of the club as a reputable club in European football. From a selfish point of view I can only see it doing my own reputation good in terms of increasing my stature amongst other managers so I could become contenders for any vacant managerial roles at other “higher calibre” clubs. I don’t want to stay at Newcastle United for the long term but instead so far this season, I have turned down four opportunities to sign a new contract and have not acted on being bookies favourite to take over at Arsenal. Instead I will play out the season and see how things turn out before deciding on my own future.

On reflection, I cannot praise the defenders enough as they only conceded one goal throughout the month, which is some feat to say we came up against Spurs and Chelsea at the end of the long month. I have continued to rotate the defenders to keep them fresh as we are in for a long season, with us still competing on all competitive fronts. The younger defenders have also been given an opportunity to show what they can bring to the club and that the future for Newcastle United is a bright one. Marcelo’s (right back) attributes are starting to shoot up as he has been preferred Tomas Kalas so he has been getting a lot of game time; he also looks like he will continue to keep him out of the squad for the long term. Ibrahim Aurier appears to broken up the centre back partnership of Jamaal Lascelles and Marcus Berglund which was so solid last season. Aurier has put in some great performances and has become my first choice centre back to partner either Lascelles or Berglund. The lads at the other end of the pitch have continued to put in great performances, all apart from our top goal scorer from last season, Jerome Sinclair. He is being kept out of the team by Christos Mantalos but when given the opportunity to start or to feature later in a game, he is having no impact and just not performing. He has been very disappointing so far with only two goals in sixteen appearances so far this season. This will need to drastically improve as I will not hesitate to move him on; he was signed for £1.3 million by myself and is now worth £8.5 million so I am sure the board won’t mind making a tidy profit on the sale.

Player of the Month – Zeli Ismail

Brilliant month of wins, amazing results! Now you just have to stay atop the table

I swear Kalas is a centre back and Aurier is a right back? Odd, lol! Great month, well done! Keep it coming

Neal: I am quite confident that we can see out the remainder of the season and finish in 1st place for the second season in a row...but things can quickly change of course!

AaronHJFT96:I am afraid that Aurier in my save is a centre back and Kalas is more versatile and can play right back or centre back. I tend to prefer to play Kalas at right back as he has more experience than Marcelo (who does still get a bit of a look in).

This was just a never-ending month; it seemed to go on and on and it wasn’t one that I particularly enjoyed, despite the majority of results going our way. The match against Everton was a tricky affair with us having to wait until the seventy third minute to get the winner from Jerome Sinclair; who is having a really disappointing season thus far and really needs to step up his game. The win against United was pleasing but it was clear that the win had taken it all out of us as we were poor against my former employers, Notts County. In truth, we should have lost the game but we were extremely fortunate that Mauro Bollino was in the right place at the ninety-second minute of the game to grab us an undeserved draw. I felt sorry for Notts County as they had dominated the game; however, Chelsea did them a favour and knocked us out convincingly in the next round.saw us progress to my first cup final. I have never been bothered about domestic cup competitions; however, if we were to win the competition it would secure our place in the Europa League next season as a minimum. This means I intend on putting out a strong side in the final against Leicester City who are a bit of a bogey team for me.

The matches against Man City last season had much more emphasis placed on them with the latter one being considered a title decider. However, both teams played out a bore draw this time round with neither side looking like they wanted to push forward for the win. The Reading match was a different story with me sticking with the same side that played against City and they played Reading off the park. Tiziano Tulissi has a very bright future ahead of him and he showed some of his potential by grabbing himself a brace. The draw against United

I do apologise for the lack of enthusiasm in this post. This month was played a long time ago and it really wasn’t one I enjoyed as nothing dramatic happened. I hope to return to my normal vigour when it comes to writing me next one. Thank you to everyone who has continued to help increase the view count despite the lack of updates.

Player of the Month – Alexey Volkov

That month looks insanely difficult, and the results show that! Thankfully you didn't drop many points in the league after such a tough run, the FA cup shouldn't matter too much, because now you can concentrate on the Premier League and the Carling Cup final!

Well done for getting there btw, and good luck!

good month mate!

2014-07-13 17:05#184235 AaronHJFT96 : That month looks insanely difficult, and the results show that! Thankfully you didn't drop many points in the league after such a tough run, the FA cup shouldn't matter too much, because now you can concentrate on the Premier League and the Carling Cup final!

Well done for getting there btw, and good luck!

The Premier League is taking priority but a run in the Europa League will help to bring in extra money! I need to next decide if I sign a new contract as they keep pestering me to sign a new one.

2014-07-14 03:59#184301 fzemdegs : good month mate!

Thank you!

Now that is more like it! Yes the calibre of side that we came up against is a lot less (no offence intended) but it was important to get back to consistent high performances that I know we are capable of. Leicester appear to be a bogey team for me with my side always finding it difficult against them home or away and this was evident by the poor score line at the end of the game. Ryan Seager was a player that I was interested in signing from Leicester last season but I just couldn’t get the club to agree to a reasonable fee. Unfortunately I had not envisaged Jerome Sinclair’s changes in fortune in terms of luck in front of goal which means hindsight would have been a wonderful thing; the signing of Seager could have been a useful one. However, the players showed that we didn’t need him when it came to the Capital One Cup final that we won very confidently. I gave a number of youngsters, who I had used for the majority of the cup run, the chance to play in the final. Lewis Ward took his place between the sticks and there was no chance of me doing a Louis Van Gaal and replacing him with Tim Krul. Gael Bigirimana put in a man of the match performance and showed that he is still willing to fight for a place in my side. He unfortunately isn’t used too often but when he is given the chance, he puts in 100%. I am never bothered about this competition but the security of Europa League football next season is reassuring if we have a sudden dip in form in the Premier League.

The Europa League run almost came to an abrupt end with us being complacent in the second leg when we should have run out more comfortable winners. The complacency was on my part with me choosing to play a number of youngsters in a match that could have easily turned on its head if it wasn’t for Alexandr Vokorin helping himself to a brace. It is definitely a mistake that I will learn from but instead look to put out my strongest available side in the next round of the competition against Racing Club Lens. It is a competition that I would quite like to win as on a personal level it would be my first piece of European silverware. Also as I have the intention (at the minute) of leaving the club at the end of the season, it would look good to have a European cup competition trophy on my CV. I am still disappointed by the early exit from the Champions League but it has made it clear the club has some way to go before being able to compete in the latter stages of that competition.

Player of the Month – Gael Bigirimana

Unbelievable performances. Well done. Good luck in the next few rounds, I think you can see the league title out also, but from experience I should know not to say things like that, so once again all I will say is good luck ::P

2014-07-18 22:54#185052 AaronHJFT96 : Unbelievable performances. Well done. Good luck in the next few rounds, I think you can see the league title out also, but from experience I should know not to say things like that, so once again all I will say is good luck ::P

It was such a good month and a huge relief after the below par performances of the month before. It is important we keep our focus on the task at hand and don't think it is already won, although, I do already know the outcome!

Touch line bans are something I like to avoid, especially when important games are coming up; even more so against sides like Manchester United who I am always determined to beat. With United being our closest rivals for the league title this season, it was imperative that we beat them in order to maintain our recent good run of form as we headed into the business end of the season. I set my team up, selecting my strongest players and preferred formation of 4-2-3-1 when playing at home and then remembered, I was banned from the touchline due to complaining about a dodgy offside ruling, which in the end had no impact on the game. Stupid decision or what! I should have kept my mouth shut so I would have been able to oversee the game and not have to rely on my assistant manager Eric Black who isn’t the most able of staff members. However, as you can see from the result, it really didn’t matter who took charge of the game as the players came up trumps and signalled our intent to win the league for the second consecutive season.

At the beginning of the game, the first key replay was a United attack that ended in a shot wide from their star regen, Henk Hender. After this I skipped the game as my nerves just didn’t seem able to cope with the early pressure we were under. How I wish I had stuck with the game as we ran out two nil winners which pretty much buried any title challenge from United. Kokorin and Bollino (not regular starters) grabbed the goals and helped us show what great depth we have in the ranks at the club. After the goals the lads were able to see the game out and helped us extend our lead at the top of league to three points with two games in hand. It is now simple with us having to get just twelve points from an available twenty-one. It is going to be a difficult run with us having to compete in the Europa League and we come up against Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs before the end of the season. Anything can happen in football but a treble is definitely on the cards!

Player of the Month – Jamaal Lascelles

Excellent update, hopefully European success!

Very close race with Man U, hopefully you can clinch the title!