An old face in a familiar place

Rest assured that I am alive and well. I've been switching gears a bit in preparation for an FM12 project so I've been a little more disenchanted with this game than usual. I've got a quick update that I wanted to post last night but I ran out of time and needed to get some rest.

Silverware count - 3



For the fifth consecutive time we have defended the League Cup. At least for now, this is the most celebrated trophy in club history now that we have lifted the trophy six times. A successful defense of the Premier League crown would tie that figure, however.

With 10 games to go we hold a 5 point cushion on second and third place, with both Liverpool and Arsenal tied with 67 points. Man City sit further behind in 4th place with 60 points. The team has been very steady this season and Marcel Hasselbaink is having a stronger season than Caca to this point. Caca still leads the team in goals scored (48 to 32), but Hasselbaink has the better average rating (8.31 to 8.09). I wonder if Caca is starting to peak a bit with his 30th birthday quickly approaching.

In what originally looked to be a hotly contested 1st knockout round game, we turned the tables quickly and emphatically on Ajax. We bumbled our way to a 2-3 deficit during the away leg but as always, felt comfortable heading into the home leg.

And while Ajax quickly took a 2 goal aggregate lead thanks to a 2nd minute strike, that's where the fun would end for them. Caca answered with a goal in the 8th minute, Hasselbaink tied the aggregate score in the 12th minute, and Bamba gave us the aggregate lead in the 22nd minute. Sensing the turning tide, we got aggressive after the break and piled on 5 goals in the second half. By the time the ass kicking was over, Ajax was looking up at the wrong end of a 10-4 aggregate loss.



The team really looks to be hitting high gear going into the final stretch, as this 8-1 demolition comes on the heels of another demolition job that saw us beat Arsenal 7-2 in the 6th round of the FA Cup. With the biggest prizes coming up in the next few months, I hope that we can continue this blistering pace!

England

Our World Cup Qualifying games continue to be a success, this time we dispatched Andorra. We are currently at the top of our group due to goal differential, but Russia also sports an identical 4-0-0 record. We face them in a few months and that game will likely go a long way towards cementing our place in next year's World Cup.

Can we see the profile of Barry Spring please? He seems to be performing Cacá-like recently.

# MLR : Can we see the profile of Barry Spring please? He seems to be performing Cacá-like recently.

Here you are, sir. Spring has been fantastic as the poacher for England thus far. Caca is the far more dominant passer, but Spring is every bit his equal in terms of putting the ball into the back of the net.

These are the matches I look forward to each season. Our semifinal date in the Champions League are my old buddies from Spain. I particularly relish this matchup because Barca continues to be one of the established juggernauts in my savegame and it was at their expense that I splashed onto the continental scene.

It was back in 2018 (sounds crazy, huh?) that we were first paired up with Barca in group play. Back then we were lucky to draw with the third tier teams. Fast forward 7 years later and while Barca continues to be a heavyweight squad, my boys have begun to ascend the ladder toward their stature. We actually own a winning record against Barcelona so I feel we have a bit of an advantage over them. The fans at Camp Nou will argue otherwise, however, and that's where we will begin our semifinal journey.

I think we got caught with our eyes looking too far in the distance. With a semifinal date against Barcelona to go along with the home stretch of games in the Premier League, we came out flat against a City squad that is way too dangerous to do that against. Every goal we scored was met with an equalizing effort from City and in the end we went to penalties where we squandered the game away. Once again the FA Cup eludes us and it continues to be our rarest trophy, having only won it once.

We took a 1-1 draw home for the second leg of our semifinal tilt and had to rely on someone to step up. Caca was forced to serve a 1 match ban thanks to hitting the yellow card limit so Hasselbaink would have a new strike parter up front for our pivotal match against Barcelona. Calum Robinson got the call, a steady and willing backup to our iconic poacher.

Robinson was relatively ineffective against the stout Barca defense, however, so in the 80th minute of a 2-2 game that would see us lose due to away goals I signaled to the bench. Out went the 23 year old battle-tested Robinson and in went... 18 year old Claudio Bressan. Bressan is a newgen that just joined the squad from Boca in the January window. And while he was lacking in first team experience, let alone big game experience, I felt that his excellent passing would help unlock the defense.



His clever passing up front in addition to an already great passer in Hasselbaink helped create several opportunities. It wasn't until the 86th minute, however, that Bressan helped earn us a corner that Jack Rodwell headed home for what would be the winning goal. Hasselbaink put the icing on the cake with a 92nd minute goal.



We are now off to the final to face Juventus. The only previous history we have with the Italians is a pair of friendlies. We had a 1-1 draw in 2018 and a 3-0 win the following year. With Caca set to return and a fairly healthy squad as of right now, I like our chances of defending the Champions Cup.

How fantastically ironic. I mention Caca and injury, and the very next game he goes down for 3-4 weeks.

Domestic season awards

The last line says it all. Even without Caca, we took the fight to Juventus. You could tell that our attack was missing it's leader, however, and we just looked disjointed on many opportunities. Opportunities that Caca would have helped finish if he weren't out with a fractured arm. We had seven clear cut chances and in the end we netted zero goals.

Competitions

Summary

Another season met with mixed emotions. Once again we performed brilliantly on the domestic front. We won the Premier League for a sixth consecutive time and also won the League Cup for the fifth straight time. We bowed out in the semifinals of the FA Cup and lost on penalties to Chelsea in the Community Shield. Overall, I can make a case for Newport being the most dominant team in England.

But my personal measuring stick is continental competitions, however, and we fell painfully short in our bid for another Champions Cup. What would have been our second straight Champions Cup and third overall turned into the fourth time that we finished in second place. I stand by the idea that I'd almost rather get eliminated early instead of losing so late in the competition. A distant consolation to the loss was our Club World Championship trophy.

End of season awards

England

Well so much for separating ourselves from Russia in the group stage. I played this game a lot more tentatively than I normally do and other than being the visiting team, I don't know why. At times it looked to be the right game plan, as Russia came out and took the fight to us early and often. By the time I turned on the offensive pressure, however, it was too little too late and we settled for a goalless draw.

I suppose a loss would have been a far worse outcome and we remain tied atop the group with 13 points in 5 matches and we lead Russia on goal differential by a hefty 8 goals. We have Lithuania on deck in four days. They are struggling so far, gaining only 4 points in 5 matches, and with our home crowd backing us I will be amping up our attack significantly.