The retirement of Alex Taylor

Congrats man

mgriffin2012 Thanks, but I think that the title is out of our reach about 20 points behind top spot.

Lippo Cheers, hopefully it is or else it will be a rather short story

MJK46 Thanks

Crucial win there, well done!

Justice Thanks, was definitely important to grab the first win pleased to get it out of the way

The morning after the game had been a busy one for Alex as they played again at the weekend the players had been in for some very light training and he had also given the club a green light to pursue German winger Patrick Ebert and had transfer listed Israeli winger Lior Refaelov as he had been in very poor form for most of the season and was on large wages.

Now he was away from the pitch and house hunting so that his family would have somewhere to stay when they came over from England. He was looking at a nice house on the outskirts of the village of Beernam it was well located halfway between the nearest English language school in Gent and the Brugge training ground. It was a nice four bedroom house with a decent amount of land and a barn and shell of a building that the current owners used to keep the cars dry. Alex had shown his family around the house on facetime and they were discussing it when the phone rang.



It was Jean-Claude his personal assistant “Your needed back here to complete the signings of N’Djeng and Ebert.”

Alex sighed well at least it will give me an idea of the commute he thought to himself as he left what looked likely to be his next home. “Alright, I’m on my way” he responded getting into his car.

Alex arrived back at the training centre and confirmed the two signings and loan out the Aussie Ibini to Uniao Madeira. He would have to sell Lior to balance the books but, he looked likely to leave.



Yannick N'Djeng Club Brugge's new striker to challenge Vossen. Cost €240k rising to €325k from ES Tunis



The transfer listed German winger cost €750k from Rayo Vallecano where he was on the transfer list. The replacement for the soon to be leaving Lior.

As he was here he may as well do what he planned to do tomorrow Jean-Claude can you call Dion Cools with the U-20’s into my office as soon as possible they should have just finished training.

A couple of minutes later there was a tentative knock on his door “Come in” Alex responded to the knock. It was Dion Cools wearing the look every player Alex had ever seen go into a manager’s office wear a mix of nerves, hope and a few more nerves. “Welcome” Alex spoke trying to relax the youngster “as you may or may not know we have spent some of this transfer window searching for a right back but, we haven’t come across anyone that we have liked. So from tomorrow onwards to the foreseeable future you will be training with the first team and in contention for a spot in the squad and starting 11.”

Alex let the news sink in and saw the delight on Cools’ face. “Thanks boss I won’t let you down.”

It was just the reaction Alex wanted to see joy at the chance to become a starter for the team. “Great, the first team trains at 10 tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.” Alex knew the warning was pointless Dion would likely show up at least 30 minutes early if not more.

“I won’t be boss” Dion said as he rose to leave the office. Alex heard him jumping around with joy outside then trying to call people and it prompted him to think about his call up to the first team.

It was a busy day for Alex transfer deadline and his first home match as manager of Club Brugge. In the morning Alex confirmed the transfer away of Lior Refaelov who went off to Football Club København for €800,000 quite a bit less than he cost and 15% of the deal went to his old club Maccabi Tel-Aviv which was a bit annoying to Alex.



But, he had quickly turned his attention to matters at hand his team were hosting the oddly named Yellow Red K.V. Mechelen. Both teams had the exact same record in the league and so are obviously level on points, at mid-table in the league. Alex wanted his side to push on in the league and a win in his first home game would go a long way to helping them claw up the table.



Alex told the team to play like they had against Lokren and they would be able to get another win and go up the table. He had selected the same team except for the banned Engels. Alex received a warm welcome from the home fans and clapped back to them as he made his way to his seat in the dugout.

The stadium got on their feet after 5 minutes a wonderful sequences of passes that must have gotten up to 20 saw the team move he ball rom back to front Izquierdo squared the ball to Vanaken around 40 yards out he pinged a long pass forwards to the overlapping Joao Paulo. His first touch got him in the box from wide and he then breezed past a defender to get in on goal. A wonderful shot had the stadium on its feet but, it hit off of the bar and bounced away to be cleared. A wonderful move that was harshly denied the goal it deserved.

Other than that nothing happened to interest Akex much in the next half hour. Then a loose ball fell to Rits just in Melechen’s half he tried slipping a ball through to Lukebakio but, failed as De Bock tripped him to stop him from getting on the receiving end of the pass. Alex was expecting a card but, was shocked when it was a red card that came out of the referee’s pocket which meant his team would have to play around an hour for ten men so Alex changed his team to try and hold onto a point.



The team got to half time without any serious incident and Alex told his team to stay strong and they could easily get a point or three.

The team was comfortably holding on but, given away a lot of fouls including one out wide near the line almost 30 yards out. Wolski hit the ball in and a mass of players converged on the ball and Alex saw the ball flash goalwards and despite the efforts of Butelle the ball went in and Alex’s side were behind.



Alex again changed formation in hopes of nicking a goal back but, they were unable to conjure up a chance and for the second time in his career as a manager Alex was walking off the pitch with a loss.



Alex was still annoyed about the red card but, when he looked back at it had to admit that the referee had made the right decision. A close hard fought game where the breaks just went in favour of Mechelen

Tough loss there mate, on the plus side, Beernam sounds like a magical place to call home

A good signing in there mate, hopefully the first of many!

Lippo Yeah was a harsh loss for me. That is why I picked it, along with a good central location between Bruges and Gent

mgriffin2012 Thanks think he should be a good one. I generally go for a lot of players in the window but, will try and restrain myself here

Forgot to add just got past 1,000 views so thanks to everyone who has had a look at this

Alex signed his name and the deed was done. For 1.325 million euros the move was complete the house was now his and his family would be moving into it in two weeks time when the schools in England broke during February and Alex couldn’t wait to see them all again.

http://www.immoweb.be/en/Buy.Estate.cfm?IdBien=6353964&xgallery=estates&xpage=3

His new house had another advantage it was surrounded by water for all but a small road so no one could sneak in and take some pictures. Despite only having about a roads width not water the area apparently wasn’t a flood risk.

After he finished at the relators Alex got back to work he had a challenge ahead of him as along with the ban from the red card for De Bock Denswil and De Fauw were banned for the next game as they had picked up to many yellow cards. This left Alex with a big problem in defence.



He tried to plan how to fix it while watching a feisty game between Standard Liege and KRC Genk, Alex had never seen as many red cards as in the Belgian league they seemed to always happen.



Alex then got a call from Roel, negotiations for Refaelov leaving had been completed and he would move to København for €1.2 million so Alex felt going for Ebert was smart he cost less and was on half of the wages and couldn’t do worse than Refaelov if he got sent off every game. Although given what Alex had seen so far he didn’t rule out that possibility.



Alex was then able to sit back and with his house think of his new life in Belgium. He would soon be reunited with his family, and his beloved car every thing was going well except the results on the pitch.

Really nice update mate, keep it up!

mgriffin2012 Cheers man, plan on keeping Alex going for quite a while

It was a rather short journey to Wagrem where Alex’s side would take on Zulte Wagrem, who were formed by a coming together in 2001. Alex felt that his side should be able to get the win but, then he had felt that before all of their games so far and it hadn’t worked out like that.



A win was vital for Alex as a loss would see his side fall to tenth place and he wanted to be in the top six after thirty games when the league split.



With all the bans a number of changes had been made to the team to face Zulte with Ebert making his debut the biggest change. There was also a mixed defence that included 39 year old DM Timmy Simons, Alex hoped his positioning and experience could mask his lack of pace from being exposed.



Alex wanted to see how his defence would react to an attack and didn’t have long to wait. After some playing around at the back Wagrem hoofed the ball forward Engel won it but, his header went to a Wagrem player and he used the gap Engels had made to play in De Ridder and Simons was never going to catch up. Butelle came out to try and take the ball from De Ridder’s feet but, he took the ball around Butelle and De Ridder then fired the ball into the back of the net. Alex slumped down in his chair as the fans celebrated instead of mismanaging a football team in seemingly incessant hail he could be home watching TV inside where it was warm. Or, as he was sure Graham would add, coaching for 4 times the money before tax in Saudi Arabia where a lack of sunscreen would be his biggest problem.

After 13 minutes N’Djeng lost the ball cheaply deep in the Zulte half which annoyed Alex. The ball was cleared to Thiam and after a touch he hit the ball so that it was a race between Kaya and Simons and Alex knew there would only be one winner. Kaya took a touch before shooting and Butelle spread himself wide and the ball hit his leg and went out for a corner. Alex had seen enough and made some small change Engels would drop back and cover Simons would be further up and Vormer moved over to in front of Simons to offer him more cover.

Alex’s day got even worse after 24 minutes Ebert went up for a header and fell awkwardly. The medical team instantly signalled for a substitution and Alex swore before telling Felipe Gedoz to go on for Ebert. Thierry gave him the run down when he got back off the pitch “Probably a dislocated shoulder but, I’ll check it further in the locker room to make sure.” He panted between deep breaths from the exertion off carrying Ebert off the pitch.

“Push out” Alex yelled from the sidelines his side had failed to clear a corner and lagging midfielders were keeping everyone onside. Thiam took advantage a neat backheel playing in De Ridder who hit it first time. Butelle dived well and held onto the shot to ensure Brugge went into half time only a goal down.

“Well that was f**king sh*t” Alex started his team talk “Butelle you have been great and the only player who has done well we all owe your for somehow keeping it to within a one goal deficit.” Alex had to make a quick decision one of the first things you are taught on the Continental Pro Course is you can only go ballistic at your players twice a season or else it doesn’t have an impact. It had been bad but, not awful so Alex decided to keep them for later. “But, that means that we still have a chance of coming away with something and I think we can so we are changing to 4-4-2. Vossen you are going up front and replacing Vormeer try and create something you have more than enough ability to. Right lets get the least deserved three points ever.

15 minutes after half time Alex took stock the change to 4-4-2 had done nothing. The only time any side looked close to scoring was a long range De Ridder shot that Butelle held on the dive. He told his team to go totally forward in the hope they could create a chance or two.

After 67 minutes Alex was finally out off his seat due to a Brugge attack, a Wagrem centre back took an awful touch and N’Djeng was on it in a flash to win the ball and pass to Vossen. Vossen hit the ball back ahead of N’Djeng and to Izquierdo. He took a touch before shooting with the outside of his foot low past the keeper and into the bottom corner. Alex had a fist pump as most of the stadium was shocked into silence.

The goal gave Brugge a wind and stole the momentum from Zulte. It took eight minutes of pressing to get another chance, Claudemir won the ball in Brugge’s half and passed to Vanaken. He hit a high pass up to Vossen who outran his man to get to the ball first, he took a touch to control the ball and crossed in just before the left back got a foot in. N’Djeng got past his man at the far post and just after the bounce fired low and hard in the bottom corner to give Alex’s side the lead. Alex reacted by taking off N’Djeng for Zokora who was told to protect the lead.

He did so with ease and Alex’s side ran out winners possibly not deserved but, he would take any win he could get. After a quick handshake with the opposition manager he gave Vossen a massive hug his two wonderful assists had put far less pressure on Alex’s position.



Thierry was quick to dampen Alex mood “Ebert has dislocated his shoulder so he will miss the next 2-3 months.” Alex was annoyed quite a bad injury and on his debut no less.



An annoying end to what had ended up being quite a good day for Alex

That was not looking promising at the half mate but the boys did well to battle back & grab a vital 3 points! Well done!

Lippo Yeah was wondering how much longer I would have a job at half time so was very pleased with the win