Russian To The Top?

Griffo - IKR! Makes the job that much harder!

Live - I'm not personally buying players in this save. At All.

ATM, that responsibility is on my D.O.F. I just plan to work with what I'm given as an added challenge.

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BTW, there has been a small amendment to Menchinov's Wikipedia page, in the opening post. I plan to update that throughout the save until we have something approaching a complete page & will let you know when changes are made.

Using a DoF is what I love doing at times. Hopefully your squad does amazing for you.

Can't believe you didn't tell me you were starting this! Looks great though, good luck!

Hopefully Kortava can lead your side to safety!

Pre-Season

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Not sure how best to describe our pre-season, semi-shit? (thanks MJK )

All our opposition were clubs from the lower reaches of the Russian pyramid, yet we struggled to deal with them, especially early on. We did manage to build some momentum in the later stages but if we are to be any chance of staying up, we really should be creaming the likes of Khiimki & Spartak Nalchik.

Oh well, it is what it is & I did use these games to experiment with various formations & combinations. The most important thing is that we got through it all injury free & the squad managed to build their fitness levels.

Expectations & Odds

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So, we are only expected to "fight bravely against relegation" which I'm guessing just means don't get annihilated too often? Sounds doable.

The odds are a little deceptive I think. I'm guessing Spartak 2 & Zenit 2 are only at such long odds because they are incapable of being promoted? Surely they wont be that bad!

Excluding those 2, we are rated 3 times more likely to be relegated then any other club in the league. A little insulting really. Normally I wouldn't mind having a flutter at those odds but pre-season didn't exactly fill me with confidence, so I think I'll pass this time around.

July Fixtures

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We start the campaign with a road trip to Moscow to take on Spartak 2, an early chance to see if they are as bad as the bookies think. We then return to Irkutsk for 3 home games in a row, including the visit of Valeri Karpin's, Torpedo Armavir, before rounding out the month with a trip to Yenisey.

General consensus seems to be that 40 points will see us to safety. By my calculations, the competition runs for an exhausting 11 months, which means 4 points per month should keep us up? Sounds easy enough, right? Only one way to find out. Lets get going!!!

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This shall be fun, considering most people know nothing about Russian football let alone the First Division. You'll be educating us while playing I hope

Ahhh I have faith, you should be finnneeee

Well..... they're not impossible odds, at least

Any chance you could get some logo packs in or are they not available in Russia xD

That's Leicester City odds, that

Scott - It will be an education for me as well, so I will try

Griffo - lets hope so mate

Justice - Not impossible, just very, very unlikely

Atoobie - I don't really go in for that kind of thing but I suppose I could if people would like.

Jack - Then call me Claudio, I'm out to shock the world!

Cheers Guys

A funny thing happened on the way to August

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That's right, we won! 4 out of 5 in fact. Ok, we rode our luck in the final 3 matches, after beating Spartak 2 & KamAZ comfortably, but we went unbeaten! Baikal! Unbeaten! If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it!

The Torpedo Armivir game was a toss of the coin that came down in our favour. Against Tyumen, we played well until we took the lead then spent the rest of the game on the back foot, hanging on by the barest of margins, & against Yenisey we were played off the park, had a man sent off, yet somehow hung on for the draw. Incredible!

In my wildest dreams I never imagined a start like this. Hell, If I'm completely honest, I never expected to put a run like that together all year! If we assume that 40 points Is the magical number, we are over a quarter of the way there after just one month!

Table

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That's right, no need to adjust your screen's, we are top! Baikal! Top!!!

This seems like as good a time as any to mention that the top 2 teams win automatic promotion, whilst the teams that finish 3rd & 4th enter a promotion playoff.

Not for a second do I believe we'll be in that mix come May but I may as well mention it while we are up there!

Stats

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Despite our giant killing feats, we don't really feature anywhere in the overall stats though many of our players have obviously started well.

Monthly Awards

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Azamat Gonezhukov has began the year on fire picking up the leagues player of the month award as well as a spot in the team of the month. The 28 year old racked up an impressive 2 goals, 2 assists in our 5 games & recorded an average rating of 7.9.

August Fixtures

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7 games in all for the month of August, 3 at home, 4 on the road. After our start to the year, I'm really not sure what to expect. My main goal at the moment is still to get to that 40 point mark as soon as possible. Once we get to that, assuming we do, I'll re-assess. Incredible to think that 7 points this month would get us half way there!

Still, lets not count our chickens, there is still a long, long way to go & I don't expect this run to last forever! Lets just take it one game at a time

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I told you, no isssueeess!!!

Get as many points on the table while you're in form, you can build on that in the second half of the season!

Great start man! Keep that up and you'll be on the way up!