The retirement of Alex Taylor Part 2

Not the best of starts mate, but results will pick up!

Lippo Hopefully so or else Alex might be looking for a new job soon.

Atoobie Not ideal and He will be missed but, fortunaely should only be 2 or 3 games that he misses.

mgriffin Hopefully, is a tough start so not as bad as if it was a weaker team

An annoying buzz from the alarm clock woke Alex up at 8. He pushed it off his night stand but, it just fell onto the floor and under the bed making it more annoying than it had been before. He then remembered why he had such an early alarm. It was the kids second day of school and he had to drive them in to their new school. Another English speaking school in an expensive part of the outskirts and with fees that meant Alex knew exactly how they were able to afford such a property. He reluctantly pulled himself out of bed and headed down to get himself some breakfast before he had to wake up the kids.

At the third attempt he found the bowls and then it was only two to find the cereal. He put in the milk and realised he had forgotten a spoon after searching half a dozen drawers Alex found them in the final one he checked and was able to finally have some breakfast. A quick shower and Alex headed to do the fun bit and wake up the kids for school. He positioned himself equally between the rooms and then yelled as loud as he could “UP, UP, UP. Time for school you three.” An assortment of grumbles greeted his shout and Alex thought he heard three distinct ones which was good enough for him.

Five minutes later and only Ellie hadn’t come down for breakfast so Alex went back up and opted for the more direct approach of getting her up by just plucking her out of bed and then carrying her to the kitchen. With the kids all in the kitchen Alex looked over some emails and saw nothing of interest in the subject bar or senders so added to his 5,000 unread emails.

When everyone was finally ready Alex was able to head out and drive them all to the rather expensive English school that they all attended. He dropped them all off and headed into to the office. He had no idea where anyone was before he remembered that with it being the international break he had given everyone an extra couple of days off to relax before they had to come in. Instead of heading home after 5 minutes in at work Alex figured he may as well deal with the stuff he had missed over the weekend.



He was pleased to see that Henrichs had accepted the new contract he had offered and that they would have to arrange a time with the photographer to celebrate this. The new five year deal gave him a decent pay rise and at the insistence of his agent had a €70 million buyout clause which Alex felt was a tad optimistic but, was good for him as if he wanted one in the next contract Alex could simply point out that he ha improved so the clause had to go higher than it was, meaning he could never be taken on the cheap.



He also had a look at the report on BMG. They had a poor start to the season letting in three without reply to Hoffenhiem. Alex knew it was a big game for the Leverkusen fans as Monchengladbach was nearby and it was a local derby, though not as intense as the one with Koln. The 5-2-1-3 that they played was narrow enough as to where Alex hoped the could block up the middle in defence and attacking a 2 vs 3 should hopefully give them some chances and they could also try and overload the wingbacks by pushing theirs beyond the wingers. Raffael and the slightly less good Hazard brother would have to be watched over as either could produce a moment of magic and Raffael was also lethal with any chances that were presented to him and would need to be closely marked at all times.

A couple of days later Alex was sitting with his family eating dinner when he glanced at his watch. It was 6:47 which meant that the transfer window was closed. The only big business done of late outside Leverkusen was Bayern Munich adding Oguzhan Ozyakup to their already impressive squad as they looked for the title under Ancelotti.



The weekend of the international break Alex headed down to watch the U-19 side take on Frankfurt as he was yet to see them in action. As it was the international break the two 17 year olds in his squad Havertz and Akkaynak were both available for and playing for the U-19’s. However, Queckenstedt stole the show as he fired 5 goals past the Frankfurt keeper in one of the most impressive performances Alex had seen and in doing so he put himself firmly on Alex radar for a possible move into the first team.



Annoyingly Havertz had a less successful game and had to go off with a back injury that would rule him out for the best part of a month.



The next day he was joined in the physio room by Omer Toprak who went down injured and would miss over a month with an ankle ligament injury. Fortunately Alex had quite a bit of cover at centre back however, Toprak was one of the best and would be missed for the time he was out.

Fortunately there was a lack of injuries for the rest of the lead up to the game without anymore injuries and Alex still had most of his squad to pick from.

Good stuff, hopefully you can get on the board in the Bundesliga against Gladbach

Patrick Cheers man, thats the plan although I'm not sure if it is one shared by Monchengladbach

Alex made a slight change to his formation and changed one player from the last starting eleven as in a necessary change Henrichs was replaced by Charles Aranguiz in midfield. Monchengladbach played the formation they were expected to go for with the exclusion of Torgan Hazard for Lars Stindl a surprise and Andre Hahn up front was a bit of a surprise as well but, nothing to radical that was different to what Alex thought they would face.

Inside two minutes Stindl had the ball just outside the Leverkusen box for Monchengladbach. He tried to push wide but, Aranguiz won the ball excellently and passed the ball up to Volland on the right wing. He cut inside and chipped a delicate pass over Jantschke. Chicarito ran past him he made rapid progress towards the box until Chrissen came over in front of him. Chicarito simply squared the ball to a wide open Pohjanpalo. He took a touch and from just inside the box fired low and hard across the face of goal. The keeper had no chance and could only watch on like everyone else as the ball hit off the inside of the post and went across the face of goal and rolled just the wrong side of the other post for Leverkusen as Sommer dived onto the loose ball before anyone could get near to it.

After 6 minutes Pohjanpalo went down chasing a ball grasping at his calf. The physio went on to check him out and indicated that he would have to come off. Alex got Calhanoglu warming up as Joel grimaced and hobbled his way off the pitch and into the physio room In the stadium. The one player who was in great form would be missed but, they hd to make do without him.

Just past the quarter of an hour Johnson took a throw in to Stindl in the Monchengladbach half. He lofted a pass up to Raffael who found some space and chipped a pass over the Leverkusen defence to Hahn. He struggled to bring the ball down as he got into the box his touch was again poor as he cut inside and he couldn’t wrap his foot around the ball and it flew well wide of the target from a good position.

The game was dull as it headed into half time and Alex challenged his team to create more chances and to show that he meant it he pulled off Aranguiz and replaced him with the far more attacking Kampl.

Inside five minutes of the restart Wendell had a throw in deep in the Monchengladbach half. Christensen stepped in and headed the ball up to Stindl who passed it back to Kramer. He took a touch and dawdled on the ball allowing Bender to step in and take the ball of of him and knocked the ball up to Calhanoglu. He pulled in defenders as he ran to the box and then squared the ball to Chicarito. He took a touch and then fired the ball low past the keeper at the near post to grab his first goal under Alex and put Leverkusen ahead.

Jantsche easily took down a long ball at the half way line and passed up to Kramer. He turned and passed to Raffael who backheeled the ball to Hazard. He took a touch and then slipped in Stindl. 1 on 1 with Leno he tamely chipped the ball at Leno’s chest and Leno easily caught the ball to end the attack.

Just after the 70th minute Sommer hit the ball high into the middle of the pitch. Ender headed the ball wide and Johnson got it. His first touch was poor though and D’Ambrosio easily dispossessed him and passed the ball up to Volland. He tried to pass the ball inside to Chicarito but, Vestegard headed the pass back to Volland. This allowed Chicarito to make his run into the space behind Vestegard and Volland chipped a pass up to him. Chicarito had acres of space as he ran out wide and cut inside to the box. He passed the ball perfectly into the path of Calhanoglu 8 yards out and he was able to smash the ball right into the middle of the goal to give Leverkusen a two goal lead with 20 minutes left.

With less than ten minutes left Sommer hit the ball out wide to Johnson. He picked out Raffael in space in the middle of the pitch. He chipped a pass up to Stindl who won the header over Dragovic and played in Hazard. He took a couple of touches and from outside the box tried to chip Leno it got over him but, never came close to dipping enough to go in under the bar.



Leverkusen were able to hold onto the two goal lead with the difference being that they took their chances and Monchengladbach didn’t. Alex was pleased with how his attackers did but, was worried about how disjointed his defence looked. It was partly to be expected with a new centre back pairing and a new right back but, they were never a unit and Monchengladbach got behind them with ease time and time again.



Leverkusen moved up to 8th place and even stayed there after the Bayern game as they dropped points again with another draw. They would be turning attention away from the league next as they faced Legia in the Champions League.



Alex got an update on Pohjanpalo later on and the news could have been a lot worse as he would only be out or 2-3 weeks, Alex just hoped he could recapture his form when he returned.

Damn hopefully Pohjanpalo can comeback strong

Ouch! Losing Pohjanpalo in current form is a real blow.

Btw, only just saw the description for this story! Cracked me up....

Pohjanpalo is going to be a big miss man!

Alex was pleased to get a first league win out of the way and was hoping to get his first one ever in the Champions League proper in the same week. It was a vital game for Leverkusen as well if they were to get out of the group. Getting six points off of Legia would put them in a good position to get out of the group and playing them away would be the harder of the ties. Alex had a second goal for the week which was to avoid any references to World War 2, he had been doing well so far but, with the side heading to Poland he would have a whole new range of temptations to resist.

The team ended practice showered and changed before heading to the airport. Alex as feeling some early pressure before his first Champions League game as it was an important one to win and he had been told that a big part of the reason that he was chosen for the job was the job that he had done getting Bruges to the Europa League final as the board wanted the club to push on in Europe after having failed to get deep in the tournament for quite some time.



The flight was going well and Alex was distracting himself by trying to think of the most World War 2 relevant joke he could make, but most likely wouldn’t. Not the first time a German plane had been over Poland was his par that anything had to beat to be good. Not the first time a German plane had carried people hoping to beat some Poles in Warsaw was the best he could do before he was forced to turn his attention to some more pressing football matters.

Warsaw airport was far nicer that the Soviet grey concrete block Alex had been expecting and after almost losing Jedvaj in the baggage claim when he went to the toilet the trip went off without a hitch. The team got settled in the hotel and had to soon leave to go to the stadium for their time to train on it. The not oddly named Polish Army Stadium was a rather solid pitch. As the players had trained earlier in the day the time at the stadium was just about seeing how the ball bounced on the pitch, high as it was like a rock, and how far their touch went, far and bobbly for much the same reason as the bounce.

With the knowledge that the pitch had the same hardness as a rock meant that Alex wanted to win while also avoiding as many injuries as possible which it seemed would be a challenge as the surface was hard enough so that falling on it could crack ribs.

With everyone back at the hotel the team split up into groups and Alex joined some of the coaches for a game of cards and a quick beer that somehow added up a bit. Alex blew an early lead as the Germans and Philippe were able to handle all the beer being drank a bit better than Alex. Alex was able to stage a form of a comeback and had earned back most of his money when they saw that they had to be up in six hours so went off to bed.

The players took great delight in all the coaches rocking sunglasses and trying to quietly sip some coffee and get some food in. Alex felt fine by noon and the team had moved on to getting focused on not slipping up against Legia.

MJK46 Yeah hopefully he can keep his scoring boots on despite the time out of action

Lippo An annoying loss for sure was bang in form, and that description had best not apply to you

mgriffin Yeah, with this being his second injury in four games I fear he may be out for longer that he plays

Haha little bit of history in there but hopefully your side can come away with the win!

Don't mention the war, Alex did once but he thinks he got away with it!

Literally the only thing I could think about after reading Alex's attempts at humor

So will you be using a Blitzkrieg style of play in Poland???

mgriffin Yeah some history between the two nations. Another German victory would be nice

Lippo Exactly they started it not Alex

MJK Well the style of play does involve getting a quick advance through the air to try and breach the defences and get reinforcements brought up