As the world turns

You could have bought ur defender for around 10-20mil when he was younger, I thought the players was going to be either of these guys: Nemanja Vidic, Chris Smalling, Flanagan, Benedik Howedes or Matt Hummels. Anyways good progress on your game. Maybe for you can invest more on future talents with cheap cost such as: Rafael Toloi, Lorenzo Crisetig and Carlos Fierro.

We had another strong month to close out 2014 and we head into January in strong form. We won three games but not before relegation dwellers Numancia gave us a scare. Granted, we didn't field our regular squad, but a 1-0 affair against a weak team is never something I enjoy. Ironically enough, We managed to drop a close match against Barca where David Villa was the only scorer. At roughly the halfway point we hold a slim 2 point advantage over At. Madrid at the top of the table. Real Madrid, Valencia, and Barca are all within six points of us as well so our good form will need to continue if we are to defend our La Liga crown.

Our four games in January will give us a chance to make things happen with the table standings. Hopefully it will be good things! We open the new year against Real Madrid (3) then face Real Sociedad (11), Betis (9), and Las Palmas (20). I want to take home 10 points this month.



We finished the drill during group play of the Champions League as we dispatched Chelsea 3-1 to sweep our group. We were extremely fortunate to win, though. 6 minutes in, Salomon Kalou missed a penalty kick. Then in the 25 minute Lewis Baker was sent off with a straight red card. 2 minutes later, Thiago opened up the scoring. Jano doubled our lead in the 35th only for Fernando Torres to hit back immediately. The second half was a surprisingly tight affair even with Chelsea down a man. It wasn't until Bueno slotted home a goal in the 79th minute that the game was truly decided.

I think we got extremely fortunate with our draw for the first knockout round as we got paired up with Zenit. The travel for the away game is going to suck, but outside of surprise package M. Haifa (Israeli Premier League), we drew one of the weakest sides to advance out of group play. We should be definite favorites to advance to the next round.



We didn't have any Copa del Rey games last month but we open up January with both legs against Almeria.



I still don't have any plans on the transfer front. We'll see if the board decides to give us a little bit of spending money, although I won't be in a rush to spend it. We do have a future transfer finalized, however. Allan Nyom will be transferring to Lyonnais this month and his replacement, newgen Adam Devlin will be arriving in July. That leaves me a man short at right fullback so we'll probably snap someone up on a free. And in case of emergency we can always play Kyirakos at right fullback and play one of our promising youngsters at center back.

The depth of our squad has also been recently tested by a rash of injuries. I've managed to lose both of my starting wingers so we did a bit of shuffling. I'm comfortable with Achabar getting a run with the first team because he is a very capable rotation player. Yohan Mollo is a bit more of a dropoff in talent but he is still quite serviceable. It's the bench depth that had me worried, though. Torje and Redmond are both within a few days of returning, but we had to play guys like Lenny Nangis and Guilherme Siqueira at winger for a while; something I'm not in a hurry to do again.

#39351 Ory1997 : You could have bought ur defender for around 10-20mil when he was younger, I thought the players was going to be either of these guys: Nemanja Vidic, Chris Smalling, Flanagan, Benedik Howedes or Matt Hummels. Anyways good progress on your game. Maybe for you can invest more on future talents with cheap cost such as: Rafael Toloi, Lorenzo Crisetig and Carlos Fierro.

Buying Kyriakos even last season was an impossibility for us! He wasn't interested in us until we had made another good showing in the Champions League and I didn't expect otherwise. Even I thought we would have a hard time repeating our success there!

Thanks for the kind words on the game! Crisetig is currently rotating for playing time with Rodwell and he's developing quite nicely for us.

We got the new year started off on the right foot with 4 wins out of 4. I think our first game of the month set the tone as we traveled to play Real Madrid and came away with yet another win against them. We played far more defensively than usual and only looked to attack in the second half. Madrid dominated possession early and we didn't break even until Bueno scored 71 minutes in. It was Bueno again less than 15 minutes later scoring the game winning goal. We maintained clean sheets against the rest of the teams we faced and are looking quite strong going

into the back half of league games. With 17 games to go we hold a commanding 7 point lead over At. Madrid. Barca is 9 points back in 3rd with a game in hand. Real Madrid is in 4th place, 13 points back with a game in hand. We only have three games upcoming in February. We face off against Getafe (13), Almeria (17), and Osasuna (19). We can really keep the pressure on the other top teams with another strong month and I will honestly be upset if we don't secure all 9 possible points this month.



Nothing new to report from the CHampions League yet. We travel to Russia to play the away leg against Zenit toward the end of the month.



Our defense of the Copa del Rey continues. We defeated a pesky Almeria team by a 4-2 aggregate score in the 5th round and then faced Malaga in the quarterfinals. We looked like shit in the home leg, struggling through a scoreless draw. We got back on track during the away leg, however, where a 3-0 halftime lead ended with a 3-1 final score and a trip to the semifinals. Valencia is our opponent for the semis and we did well to earn a 1-0 victory during the away leg. Valencia will have it all to do in front of our home crowd, with a trip to the finals in the balance. If we manage to advance to the finals, we'll get to face one of the big boys. Barca and Real are matched up on the other side of the bracket.



The transfer window opened and closed without us doing any business; at least as buyers. We bid farewell to a veteran face as Allan Nyom was allowed to move to Olympique Lyonnais for 2m.

We had another strong month as we continue to take major strides toward repeating as La Liga champions. We started and ended the month with identical 3-0 beatdowns at home. Almeria were the only ones to put our defense to test and the 4-2 scoreline doesn't reveal that the game was actually extremely close until Anass Achahbar notched his second goal in the 74th minute. With 14 games to go, it is now Barca that is coming hard after us. We are 3 points clear of them with a game in hand so we have our fate in our hands. At. Madrid is 7 points back in 3rd place and Real Madrid is 10 points back in 4th place.

We have four games coming up in March and once again we should really continue to march toward securing the league crown. We face off against Mallorca (15), Racing (10), Espanyol (16), and At. Madrid (3). Outside of At. Madrid we should have a relatively straighforward month. 12 points will continue to shut the door on the competition, with my personal expectations set to at least 10 points.



Our away leg against Zenit didn't go as planned. Not that we lost, but we also didn't come home with a win that I was all but expecting. Maybe it was the long trip to St. Petersburg. Maybe it was the freezing temperatures and the heavy snow that we dealt with all game. Maybe we overlooked a team that we felt that we were better than. Whatever it was, the result wasn't to my liking. Yes, the weather was bad and we played less aggressively. But for us to only muster 11 shots was a bit of a letdown. And a lot of credit also goes to Zenit's keeper. We put 5 shots on target and he only allowed 1 goal. The silver lining is the away goal we notched as we head into the home leg.



We convincingly defeated Valencia in the semis of the Copa del Rey, with a 2-0 home victory leading to a 3-0 aggregate win. It will be a few months yet but we will face a very familiar foe in May for the cup - Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid. This will be the second straight year that our teams have matched up in the finals and is the third time overall that Madrid plays in the finals since 2011. I'm sure the mind games and nasty comments to the press will be starting soon enough.



I'm pleased to say that <so far> the experiment at right fullback is working. I've played Kyriakos in a handful of games at right fullback and he's done an admirable job thus far. In fact I've actually begun to train him at that position because he certainly has the pace to play out wide.

You look to be dominating the league quite thoroughly, but do you feel you have the squad for a confident shot at the Champions League trophy that is your ultimate goal at Granada?

Your defence and midfield looks quite solid but is Bueno really a top notch striker capable of winning the CL for you, or have you considered splashing some cash for an upgrade?

There's of course no denying that he's been scoring pretty consistenly through the seasons but he's no Caca. Does de score regulary in the big matches or does he stack his goal tally against weaker league opposition?

#39923 jeffc : You look to be dominating the league quite thoroughly, but do you feel you have the squad for a confident shot at the Champions League trophy that is your ultimate goal at Granada?

Your defence and midfield looks quite solid but is Bueno really a top notch striker capable of winning the CL for you, or have you considered splashing some cash for an upgrade?

There's of course no denying that he's been scoring pretty consistenly through the seasons but he's no Caca. Does de score regulary in the big matches or does he stack his goal tally against weaker league opposition?

To be honest, I think we have a shot at the CL this year. As mentioned, our defense has looked extremely strong and our midfield is really taking off in our second full season of playing the 4231 and having proper playmakers.

Very good point about Bueno! I'll have to look at his stats more closely against top competition. Off the top of my head, I feel confident that he can continue to score in big games. I effectively have a 2 year window in place to win the CL with Granada. The defense and midfield are in good shape and if we can't win it all this year we're gonna spend some major coin on a premier striker.

Nice reference to Caca, by the way! Thank you for your continued readership!

#39954 joannes3000 : #39923 jeffc :
You look to be dominating the league quite thoroughly, but do you feel you have the squad for a confident shot at the Champions League trophy that is your ultimate goal at Granada?

Your defence and midfield looks quite solid but is Bueno really a top notch striker capable of winning the CL for you, or have you considered splashing some cash for an upgrade?

There's of course no denying that he's been scoring pretty consistenly through the seasons but he's no Caca. Does de score regulary in the big matches or does he stack his goal tally against weaker league opposition?


To be honest, I think we have a shot at the CL this year. As mentioned, our defense has looked extremely strong and our midfield is really taking off in our second full season of playing the 4231 and having proper playmakers.

Very good point about Bueno! I'll have to look at his stats more closely against top competition. Off the top of my head, I feel confident that he can continue to score in big games. I effectively have a 2 year window in place to win the CL with Granada. The defense and midfield are in good shape and if we can't win it all this year we're gonna spend some major coin on a premier striker.

Nice reference to Caca, by the way! Thank you for your continued readership!

who's the chump that doesn´t know who caca is? ultimate top scorer, he scored goals as much i changed underpants! :b

So do you have any long term plans like making Granada a 'Barcelona' with a youth system worthy of continuing their legacy or will you change clubs after winning the CL?

#40003 xXBlueXx : So do you have any long term plans like making Granada a 'Barcelona' with a youth system worthy of continuing their legacy or will you change clubs after winning the CL?

It will be difficult as always, but I am going to move on when I've delivered the CL to Granada. I've already got a team picked out, but I won't reveal it until we've won the CL.

We can see the finish line and we look like good value to get there first. March was a perfect month and our undefeated run in league play helped solidify our standing at the top of the table. As expected, our closest game was against At. Madrid who limited us to a 1-0 victory. We put 11 goals past our other opponents, with only Mallorca managing to score against us. Ten games remain and we hold a six point lead over Barca. Real Madrid is 10 points back in 3rd place. At. Madrid is 18 points back in 4th.

We have SEVEN games coming up April thanks to our continued run in the Champions League. We face off against Athletic (8), Sevilla (12), Villarreal (5), Numancia (18), Malaga (6), Valencia (7), and Sporting (15). Phew! It will be tough with a congested schedule that ALSO features two CL games, but we can all but wrap up the La Liga crown if we continue our undefeated run in league play. It would also be helpful if Barca and/or Real Madrid slip up once or twice.



We did ourselves zero favors during the home leg of our matchup against Zenit. That 1-1 away leg draw wasn't an anomaly. A 2-1 halftime lead grew to 3-1, but even then we failed to put Zenit away. They clawed back a goal in the 59th minute and we played far more cautiously then we usually do in front of our home crowd the rest of the way. We were truly fortunate to get out of the round and it's going to take a far more inspired effort to get past our opponents in the quarterfinals - Manchester United.



No news from the Copa del Rey.



I have a surprise for you guys but I don't want to reveal it yet. All I will say for now is that it involves a new starter coming into the fold in the July transfer window. Assuming we don't win the CL, of course. And judging by how we narrowly got past Zenit, face Man U, then face the winner of the Schalke v Barca matchup if we advance, we'll be lucky to get to the finals this year.

Nicely done! you can definately do the triple! And i wonder what superstar your going to bring in, i can't wait! Good job :).

good job mate dont think u have wrapped up the league yet as a 6 point gap with barcelona get disappeay very quickly .

what nation are u looking to manage in next. ?? give us some clues

Something like Hungary, Switzerland etc something like that might be an idea :D.

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#40129 Atreidas : Nicely done! you can definately do the triple! And i wonder what superstar your going to bring in, i can't wait! Good job :).

You have the confidence that we are lacking right now! That series against Zenit really put a damper on my CL dreams for this season. After we steamrolled through group play I was really hoping for a demolition against what was one of the weakest teams to advance to the knockout stages.

As for our inbound summer signing, he won't be nearly as big of a deal as our last three signings were. And depending on how the season goes, maybe we'll make another big splash to help ease the pain.