Magician's Dover Saga | S4E12 Swansea

Christmas break is over.
It is time to make progress on and off the pitch by collecting more points and fixing the financial problem.
On Saint Stephen’s Day we beat MK Dons 3–0.


Then we won against Port Vale 4–1, coming from behind. This was our last match of the year.


Then on 1 January, Karl Robinson, our assistant manager, took a job as West Brom manager. This resulted in a lot of issues with the game crashing in the later stages, but the latest patch fixed that problem.
The same day we received a reminder that we are failing Financial Fair Play again.




The good news is that the squad morale is still good.


The transfer window opened again and, as usual, we kept getting offers for Finn Mahar. This time it was Leeds with £975k plus add-ons, but I rejected it. Someone must be sold, but I didn’t want it to be him.

Then we added a win against Newport, 4–0.


We also received an extra £75k from the Kamara deal as he played 20 matches.

It was time to face Stockport at home in the FA Cup. It was 0–0 after 90 minutes, but I thought we had been the better team and decided to go more attacking. It paid off as we scored in the 118th minute. The FA Cup has been a successful campaign this season, but I also really like the prize money that comes with it. This time we cashed in £126k.


On the 8th I decided to sell Owen Dodgson to Luton for £600k. It was mostly to reduce the wage imbalance, and his contract was also due to finish, so it was better to capitalize now than lose him for free.


Then the London Emanalo offers started coming in, firstly from Brighton and Blackburn at £1.1 million plus add-ons. I increased the asking fee, which resulted in both teams cancelling their offers. Obviously it made London unhappy, but I have mentioned to the players many times that he can leave at the end of the season, not now.

We got back on the pitch to play Blackpool, who were sitting in 3rd position. Surprisingly they are doing very well this season, especially as they have also just been promoted. As always, they are tough opponents, but we came away with a 1–0 win.


Brighton then came back with an improved offer for Finn, but unfortunately it still wasn’t good enough, so I had it rejected. Eventually they gave up, and that was enough for Finn to stay.



The reason I don’t want to sell Finn is that he is really developing well.

Then our next opponent was Preston. It was a rather dominant performance from the team which led to a 3–0 victory. This was our 30th unbeaten match.

January 23 we headed to Wrexham to play them in the Vertu Trophy. We won 3–0 so we are going through.


Diop was in good form recently but he will be out for 6–8 days as he suffered a bruised thigh after landing heavily in training.

Then it was time to play Wycombe and this was another thriller. Overall we have been the better team so winning 4-3 was not a surprise.


Before the transfer window closed I sent backup goalkeeper Vicente Reyes to Dag & Red and backup right-back Federico Colombo to Maidstone on loan to take them off the wage sheet.

All of this for nothing as another report in February stated that we are failing Financial Fair Play again. My plan should have worked if not for the loanees who came back from their half-season loans.


Fulham have decided to make another offer for Finn. This story never seems to end, but while I’m here they will have to pay good money or stop irritating me with these nonsense offers.


Then it was Luton Town on our radar. Doggson was sold to Luton just a couple of weeks back and he was playing in that match. Well, he didn’t help them too much as we won 5–0.


Lucky for us, lower league teams in England can sign players all season long and Dag & Red decided to make a loan move for Marin Zgomba. He is not developing well and he will be out the door when the season ends even though he is only 23.


That is it — finally on 9 February we managed to overcome the financial struggle and the transfer embargo was lifted.



It just happened before our away FA Cup match against Swansea. They are second in the Championship so I expected to lose. But…



Diop was back and he decided to score a hat-trick in 20 minutes.


I decided to control the game since we scored three, but that didn’t stop the players from adding two more.




Just a friendly reminder during the half-time break to make sure we didn’t let this go was enough. But they were hungry and we kept scoring. Eventually the match ended 7–0.


I never expected this, but it is also fair to say that we have been very lucky with the draws this season as so far none of the big teams have ended up in our path.

This cup is all about money and we need it this season more than any other. We cashed out £144k.

Then we got another piece of good news that our fourth-round opponent will be Norwich. I fancy our chances as they are not flying high in the Championship this season.




Then we played Bradford and won 2–0. Again Diop was in top form again.


This was our 8th straight win and we were 22 points ahead of Bolton. It looks like we can pull off another promotion. Why I’m not surprise.