Wandering to the top

An interesting month for us here as we were well beaten and I mean well beaten in 3 games but still managed to grind out 3 solid wins against Scunthorpe, Aldershot and Gillingham to leave us in a really solid place going into October. I fully expected us to get outclassed from time to time and Walsall are way above us in terms of quality level. The same with Peterborough which is to be expected with them being a League 1 Club and I was also playing a rotated side.

The Forest Green game was a weird one. They were bottom of the league and struggling but we just didn't play well and they scored three easy goals and killed us off. We bounced back well and Big Shamir Mullings is getting in the goals bagging 3 in the final 2 games to give me more hope that he can still produce the goods in this league. The table looks like this


Incredible performance so far and I know we are going to be safe. Will we keep this up, time will tell. As you can see from the results screen we have moved to a 3 man midfield to try and just give us numbers in a crucial area of the pitch. It has largely worked with 3 wins from 4. The only slight problem is I failed to register Rowan McDonald after his signature so we are a little short of midfielders for the time being until January when I can finally register him. Luckily he is a breakthrough prospect so won't get too pissed with the lack of game time between now and then.

Analysis and Thoughts

The tactical swap has seemingly worked. We are getting more of the ball and with the two wide players further advanced it is allowing crosses from nearer the byline and Mullings is still proving to be a difficult man to mark even as a sole striker. 50 Points is still the goal and once I have that, I can then have a think about where we can finish. Play-offs seem possible, our two year momentum doesnt seem to be stopping anytime soon but in both of our first two seasons we got into a late season wobble but had just enough about us to seal the trophy / had enough points to allow the slip ups. We are not going to have that luxury in this league. We need to keep this going for the whole season and I am not sure we are quite there yet in terms of quality. Still massive effort and this save moves on

Six cleansheets from seven games have driven another strong month in League 2 as we become the Defensive force in the league. What is driving this? Well we did sign Jordan Tunnicliffe on a free transfer to bolster out our defence and he came in at the beginning of October and since then we have been mightily hard to score against. Also, a big part of is has been Viljami Sinisalo who has been a wall in the goalkeeping area and leads the league in clean sheets with 8.

With Cleansheets it means we are picking up points, 14 points from 18 available is title winning form and although I am not at that point yet this season, I have to admit we are looking like a very good team. Perhaps not the most exciting to watch but we are hard to beat and that at least gives us a shot. Table wise it looks like this


Top of the table albeit having played a game more. Still 25% of the season done and we are in the mix for a 3rd promotion in 3 years. I'm not sure how i am doing this but somehow I have become a good FM player. Perhaps watching Zealand videos has paid off.

Analysis and Thoughts

We are doing well and at this stage, I am putting all of my efforts into the League. The Cup competitions are a distraction at this stage and we are trying to get out of the Papa Johns Cup as quick as possible but we did put up a spirited effort againt Peterborough last month and also the West Ham U23 side so we might (I haven't even checked the rules) get out of this group if we do something against Oxford United in the final game. The FA Cup sees us against MK Dons who are doing well in League 1 and so for the third straight season, I think we are going to go out in the 1st round.

The key to the success right now is the defence. It has become a well oiled machine and if you look at the average ratings of the defence you can see they are really at the forefront of what we are doing.


We are busy back there for sure, putting in more tackles, more interceptions and more clearances than the average teams in the league. It certainly means we are working hard, maybe too hard and we could do better in preventing the need to do all of this work but our expected goals against is low and we are actually conceding even less which again is in my opinion testament to Sinisalo and Co really preventing goals.

So in my last update, I said I couldn't care less about the Cup competitions and that defensively we have been superb all season with Sinisalo in goal being unflappable. Queue Sinisalo flapping a bit this month and us knocking out MK Dons in the FA Cup 1st Round to set up a very winnable 2nd Round Tie at Home to Altrincham. Suddenly the FA Cup has become interesting and that defensive stability we had in the first few months might be showing its first signs of cracks. However, we are still picking up points and I did manage to get us knocked out of the Papa Johns Trophy so it wasn't a disaster of a month by any means.


We are still in a promotion hunt and a 3rd promotion in 3 years is not out of the question. I have never been able to do back to back promotions but somehow this could be on again. My team is Vanarama National level hands down and bar a few players, we should not be in this division but we are picking up points and we are hard to beat. Big man Shamir Mullings with his 7 finishing is just 3 goals away from becoming our record goalscorer and he is still putting them away in League 2.


Analysis and Thoughts
We do have a small problem, squad wise as Aaron Nemane broke his leg meaning he is out for the rest of the season and we are desperately short at right wing. We have no wage budget left and i don't want to go over it and put the club in financial risk as the stadium loan is still draining us massively. We are packing out the Dorking Stadium week to week and as the stadium doesnt meet the minimum requirements, I am pretty sure we are going to have to do a stadium expansion again and I dont think £70k is going to cover 1k seats somehow.

I have loaned out Zane Monlouis to Chelmsford for the rest of the season with them picking up his wages to help give us a little wriggle room but I need a new right winger and we still need some more improvements. With the window about to open, I am looking for a few additional faces to come in and bolster the squad. We may need to move on our last Dorking Original Josh Taylor from the team whilst both Henry Ochieng and Jezreel Davies are complaining about lack of game time / not being played in the right position which does mean we potentially have a crisis in the midfield. I will be able to register Rowan McDonald at least so thats one "additional" man but without more budget from the board we could find the back half of this season tough.

It is with no surprise that we have the lowest wage bill of the league at just over £500k per annum. Forest Green on the other hand have a £1.9m budget so nearly 4x what we have. Whilst Walsall who have the second lowest wage bill spend 50% more than we do.

The wheels might just be starting to fall off as we pick up just 7 points from 6 league games in our toughest run on the save yet. What's changed? Well fatigue is setting in and the lack of quality in places within the team is really starting to show and we are dropping down the table with automatic promotion now looking very tough for us.


10 points off the top and 4 points off the last automatic promotion spot with 21 games to go certainly isnt us dead and buried but I feel the jump in quality is now starting to show. Fatigue has set in and we are having to rotate more and more and the problem is, the back up's we have are not League 2 level and that is clear. Result wise though we been a bit unlucky and maybe I am being a bit harsh on the team as we could have quite easily picked up another 4 or so points if luck was a bit more on our side.


As you can see the month couldn't get off to a better start as we demolished Altrincham in the FA Cup 2nd round 5-0 with a semi-rotated side to give us our first ever FA Cup 3rd round appearance. We will be at home again, this time against Championship side Ipswich. One of them ties where we are more than likely to lose but perhaps won't get the fully bumper crowds and therefore the financial gains that we could definitely use. Saying that we pretty much sell out our new stadium anyway so it will likely be a sell-out.

The league form as you can see has been patchy. We were unlucky against Mansfield where a long range effort against the run of play gave them a win and in the Hartlepool match where we were winning but real fatigue set in and cost us the 3 points.


Analysis and Thoughts

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed a new name in the scoresheet in the form of veteran Martyn Waghorn who was signed in December to help cover that right wing spot and give us some much needed experience. On his debut he came off the bench to claim an assist and in the very next game he started and scored the winner. He also tore a muscle in his leg and will be out for 3-4 months meaning in the end we haven't solved our injury crisis on the right wing.

Also his arrival means we are spending £350 per week over the wage budget and we have no wiggle room in terms of moving over budgets to cover it. Yet we need reinforcements if we are going to prevent a potential slide down the table and still challenge for promotion. So it is going to be a case of trying to move on some players in order to free up wages for hopefully better players. Original Josh Taylor is certainly one I am trying to move on as well as Dan Sparkes who has barely played. Back-up keeper Hawkins may also be shifted on as I can promote our 3rd choice to cover for the rest of the season. That might get us to a position where we have £400-£500 to play with which is essentially 1 player. Rowan McDonald can finally be registered so that gives me a better DM which is a start.

The loan market is going to be the best bet and I am going to sniff around parent club Newcastle first and foremost to see if there is someone. Central midfielders feel like a good general area to work on as does that right wing. Perhaps, a striker if i can find a 3.5/4 star Target Forward but we have just a month to get our business done

The January Transfer Window has shut and the question that we needed to answer was could we reinforce the squad enough to give us a jolt and keep us in a promotion race. Well, it was a quiet window until the last week when all of a sudden things moved into gear. Let's see what happened.

So as you will no doubt remember, we were in the position of needing to sell before we could acquire new faces due to some small overspending on the wage budgets having signed Martyn Waghorn in December. I did ask the board for some more wage budget and they told me to sling my hook so we were going to have to do this with comfortably the smallest budget in the league. It was a right slog but we finally got Josh Taylor off the books, the last of the Original players that start with Dorking, was sold for £0 to Enfield Town with us picking up a little of his wage to help move him on. We also sold back-up keeper Callum Hawkins who moved to League 1 Preston for £14k which means we have promoted young Harvey White to provide cover for the rest of the season.

Incoming wise, this allowed us to bring in Shaun Mavididi from parent club Newcastle on loan for the rest of the season. We are paying none of his wages and the young winger gives us speed and options on either flank although he will mainly play on the right as that is where we are currently short. He is recovering from an Injury so we won't be able to use him until the end of February but its an extra body that we desperately needed.

Now that was all I was expected to do, other loan signings were all going to cost wage budget that we didn't have but then Transfer deadline day hit. Out when Jezreel Davies for £25k to Lens in France. He was unhappy about something (I think he was played in a slightly different position than he wanted) and the former Spurs man was shipped out. However, the big move was Mauro Bandeira who was signed for just £0 in the Summer. Middlesborough came and met his release clause of £185k and then loaned him back to us for the rest of he season. As all of this happened so late in the window I wasn't prepared or ready to bring in anyone on a permanent deal and so I went out and Panic loaned three players on deadline day to give us more cover in the centre of midfield. None of these cost anything in wages so welcome to the club and I was flying blind in terms of attributes.

The lottery of transfer deadline day gave me Darko Gyabi from Man City, David Okumu from Tottenham and Jack Spong from Mansfield. In terms of numbers we are in a much better position and there is a slight overall squad improvement but we still failed to sign that top top player who would be a star in the team. Would it be enough?


Well result wise, these players haven't had a chance to right what is a worrying situation. 7 points from 5 games is technically better than Decembers 7 points from 6 games but we are now in lower mid table form. Our FA Cup run was ended by Ipswich as expected and so we have just the League to play for. Which is probably a good thing as we are clinging onto a Play-off spot as it stands.


Automatic Promotion now seems like a pipedream and if we are not careful we could end up in Mid table. A position I would have happily taken at the beginning of the season but to finish there having played so well in the first half of the season, just seems cruel. We are not good enough at the moment and the lack of quality for this division is showing at times. Shamir Mullings has lost it and we need to breathe fresh breath into this team. Mavididi is the most likely to do it out of the new boys but it will be a little while before he is ready to play.

Did the new faces help turn things around? The Table says no


Our slip down the table is in full swing as we really struggle to get back to winning ways. It was another 7 points this time in just 4 games might allude to a slight improvement but on the field we are poor. We lack speed, we lack killer instinct and we are giving up sloppy goals all over the shop. Right now we are at a cross-roads. We are just 3 points away from the automatic promotion spots so if we can turn this around we can still get promoted. However right now, I am looking down the table and not up!

We are in freefall and I am not sure how to stop it as confidence is dipping. The games are horrid, we are not awful but we have lost all cutting edge up top whilst the defence is now starting to make that one mistake in a match that is enough for us to concede a goal. So lack of goals and clean sheets now hard to come by means we are not getting the wins that we were sneaking earlier on in the season.


As you can see I have reverted and tweaked the tactics going to the 4-4-2 that we started the season and in the last game of March we moved the right winger to the AMR slot to allow Mavididi to play in a more preferred position. So far it hasn't quite worked and so i made a panic signing at the end of March to try and give us a the firepower to turn this around as we are not that far off the play-offs. So welcome Lyle Taylor who joins on a free for the rest of the season. He has 6 games to impress and earn himself a contract for next season.

We need to workout a short term fix but it looks like next season we are going to have a big rebuild either way

A formation change may have stemmed the bleeding and in turn has given us the unlikliest of shots of scrambling back in the play-offs. Its a 4-2-4 that is seemingly doing the trick as we pick up 3 wins on the bounce to reignite a promotion push.


Tyreece Onyeka has caught fire in particular in a two striker system whilst Toto Nsiala has suddenly become an attacking threat at set-pieces as we go into our best run of form this year. The fact that two of the victories came against fellow Promotion hopefuls Colchester and top of the table Mansfield increases the impressiveness of what has been achieved. Table wise, we are still outsiders but it isn't completely out of the realms of possibility


Goal difference is a real problem so we are going to need to get at least 4 points ideally 6 from the final two games to give us the best chance of promotion. We have Hartlepool who are in mid table and Bradford City who are chasing automatic promotion. We need to believe as this rollercoaster might just end on a high!

The Season has ended and the question of whether we would make the play-offs or agonisingly miss out and have to spend a 2nd season in League 2.


The answer is we couldn't do it. Our late run in April got us into contention but when it came to May, we just didn't have enough in the legs to get the points we needed. The Hartlepool game effectively killed it for us as we then needed a 12 goal swing in the final game to take the last play-off spot. When you look at the league table, you will understand how annoying that loss to Hartlepool has proven to be


If we won that game then we would have nabbed a play-off spot. To be fair if we weren't so goddamn bad between January and March we would be in the play-offs too. Thing is, if at the beginning of the season you would have said, we would have finished in the top half of the table, never in danger of relegation with an outside chance of getting into the play-offs at the end of the season, I would have bitten your hand off. The hard part comes when you realise we spent the majority of the season in the play-off spot but we blew it, it becomes a bitter pill to swallow. All in all, our team did well but it ultimately fell short.


Analysis and Thoughts

So where do we go from here. Well we need to brush ourselves off and really look at the squad. In all honesty this squad is not League 2 standard with many players really being National League at best. Our budgets last year caused us to be that way and with our low reputation we often couldn't compete for players. Reputation wise, I suspect we will be slightly better although still a favourite for relegation but budgets have improved. Our Wage budget of £13.8k is now £26.5k which certainly feels more League 2. A small transfer budget of £25k means we can even go and buy some players without the need of relying on loans and the free transfer market. So where do we invest?

In Goal, I am happy with Sinisalo, He had a good campaign, averaged over a 7.00 and kept a lot of cleansheets. A few mistakes at the end of the season but he feels like the right standard for this league. A back-up is needed having sold Hawkins in January and young Harvey White, not at the standard should Sinisalo get injured or make a few more of those mistakes.

Defensively, we largely had a good campaign with one of the tighter defences in the league. However, we need work. Tactically we are going to set up potentially a little differently but there is room for improvement at both full back areas. A new starting left back and a right back with higher crossing capabilities will be the main aim. Tobi Omole wants to be a centre back next year and his physicality means he might be a better fit at the heart of the defence then at left back where he is a little limite going forward. Talking of centre halfs the loan of Agbontohoma ends and although I love his height, a more rounded compentent loan deal should take us to the next level.

The Midfield is where the most work is going to lie. Currently we have 4 on loan central midfielders who are all likely to go back to their parent clubs. I might try and keep Gyarbi and Bandeira if i can strike good deals but we are going to need a big rebuild here with at least one top top midfielder. The wings also need work. Martyn Waghorn is going to retire which is annoying as he played well in the few games he could get on the field whilst Wright-Phillips and Nemane both struggled on the right flank. Left flank wise, Thompson Sommers and Andrews performed better both getting above a 7.00 but I am not sure they have the quality to really take us to the next level. I would love to keep Shaun Mavididi on loan as he looked like a match winner but i suspect he might not want to come back on loan. So expect some outs on the wings as I try and bring in some new fresh blood.

Uptop we have four strikers but I am not convinced on any of them. Lyle Taylor came in at the end of the season on big money and didn't score or provide anything. I am finding it hard to justify his wage so I probably won't offer him a new contract unless he takes a significant pay cut. Tyreece Onyeka ended the season on fire and the on-loan man did a decent enough job and I believe his contract at Crewe is coming to an end so if we can pick him up on the cheap, I might keep him around. Slavi Spasov and Shamir Mullings are not League 2 ready and i think it is the end of the line for Spasov in particular. Mullings did Ok last year and there are two reasons I might keep him around. Firstly he is a team leader and we don't have many of them and dynamics play a huge part. The 2nd and this is purely sentimental, he is just 1 goal away from becoming our top scorer ever and I feel he deserves to become that man.

So its going to be another busy pre-season as we look to potentially find 8 new faces. However, with the increased budget I could see us going even more extreme as we really look to level up the team and fight again. One thing to also note, the newly built Dorking Stadium actually doesn't meet the League 2 minimum capacity requirements (We can hold 4k people but the league requires 5k capacity). The Board put in a stay of execution which means we don't have to do further work for another year but it looks like in a years time we will need to increase our capacity by 25%. What that will do to this club financially, I have no idea but we are going to have to be aware that Dorking may need to sell more assets like Bandeira to keep surviving.

So let's see who the winners and loser's were in the 2023/24 season.