Adalari FK, A New Dawn.

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Results

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Quite the rollercoaster couple of months here. Ok, so we only lost twice, but they were important ones, against the teams in front of us.

We were again dismantled away to Sumqayit City, those matches seem to swing violently based on who the home side is, whilst we also went down in a hard fought battle to 2nd placed Neftci.

We did however get our revenge there as we snuck past them in the cup with a 4-3 aggregate win, meaning we will contest the final against Qarabag Agdam.

Adriano scored his first goal for the club in our 1 all draw with Ravan, a side we should really be beating. Thus far, I have been extremely careful with the Brazilians game time, slowly nursing him back to fitness by giving him limited minutes towards the end of matches.

The good news is, he is now fully fit & actually played a full 90 minutes in our final match for the period against Neftci. The bad news, we lost that game, but here's hoping for bigger & better things from Adriano in the future.

Table & Stats

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So we remain in 3rd spot. With just the 7 games to go, chances are, that's the best we can hope for. Sumqayit look unstoppable in the race for the title with Keirrison proving to be a real goal machine!

At the other end Kapaz look gone & I'm already sifting through their squad looking for young Azeri talent to poach.

Training

Same old story here, most of the guys are performing admirably. This says Adriano is regressing, which you'd expect from a 34 year old, but when I looked at his profile, there was a fair bit of green floating around, so I'm not concerned.

Injuries

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Very close to a clean bill of health here as only Dimitrij Nazarov is missing for a significant amount of time. Its actually going to be touch & go as to whether is returns in time for the first leg of the cup final. Should he be missing, It'll be a massive blow to our chances.

Schedule

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The final 2 months of regular competition! My eyes are firmly set on that cup final &, as I feel fairly comfortable about finishing in the top 4, my attention will largely be focused on ensuring our fringe Azeri's stay match fit & focused in the lead up. There will be plenty of rotation in the league, so I wont make predictions. As long as we finish in that 4, I don't really care. Lets be honest, the title is gone. Its all about Cup glory now!

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Player of the Month(s) - February/March

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Abdulla Abatsiyev

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In a period plagued by inconsistency, 22 year old midfielder, Abdulla Abatsiyev, bucked the trend, turning in some impressive performances.

A brace against Qabala, the winning goal against Qarabag & some genuinely standout performances in an otherwise average team made my decision a no brainer.

Much like a few others in the squad, Abdulla has been impressive all year round but seemingly always gets outshone in any given period. Not this time though, as the young man finally gets his hands on a player of the month award, deservedly so.

Congrats to Abdulla. A shining light in an otherwise bleak couple of months!

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Results

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So there it is, our finish to the regular season. As expected, it was fairly erratic as I rotated the squad to keep our Azeri players fit for the cup final.

The 5-1 demolition of Qabala was a special one as Ecuadorian, Robert Burbano, scored the clubs first ever hat-trick, running rings around their hapless defence.

Once again, our match up with Sumqayit was won by the home side. Not a drubbing but a comfortable 2-0 victory, while other results were disappointing for the most part.

You'll notice I've left the Cup final results out. I figure I'll let you guys suffer through it the way I did. Match by match. 180 minutes plus of nail biting action! Looking forward to presenting that!

Table & Stats

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As expected Sumqayit take home the league title, pushed all the way by a resilient Neftci side. We scrap into 3rd on for & against. I'm reasonably happy with that. We still get the chance to play in the championships & secure European football of some description. So happy days.

Stats wise, Keirrison was a beast, Mark Van Der....whatever (honestly cant think of his name atm) dominated the league & was undoubtedly the buy of the season, costing City between 60 & 80K, while Robert Burbano snuck into 3rd in the assists charts courtesy of a barn storming end to the season.

Overall Stats

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As you can see, mightily impressive performances from the vast majority of the squad. Veteran Right back, Mahir Sukurov, lead the way all year with 8 player of the match awards & 11 assists. Bahattin Kose lead our goal scorers with 16, closely followed by Robert Burbano with 12.

In all, there really weren't too many guys who didn't impress. Even Adriano managed an average rating of over 7, with a third of his appearances coming from the bench.

I'm still undecided on him. He managed to stay injury free, right up until our final match, where he gashed his leg. He'll miss the championships meaning our loss to Ravan could be his final game for the club.

Schedule

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So our path to the Championship Final is blocked by Neftci. We've had a pretty good record against them all year but, as you know, anything can happen in sudden death football!

Before that though there is the small matter of the cup final, stay tuned for that one, I have a feeling it will be epic!

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