The Power of Kentucky Fried Chicken

Pre-Season Update

The squad will be back from holiday soon and they will have to work hard to be ready for the new season as we have euro qualification games early in July.

The expectations from the board this year are higher than that of last year, possibly because of how well the team did, or it could be this board is more ambitious and wants the team to achieve more. Anyway here are their expectations:

League: Achieve qualification to Europe (we are 16-1 for the title)
Europe: Learn from the experience
Scottish Cup: Reach the Quarter Finals
League Cup: No expectations as not viewed as important

And here is the budget I have to do it on:

Transfers(after signing Rhodes): £0
Wage Budget (" " "): £115,000p/m

Staff Updates

I've had to go searching for some new staff to replace those that left at the end of their contracts:

Jimmy Nichol - Ass Manager
Alex MacQueen - Physio

In their place I have hired:

Maurice Malpas - Ass Manager
Ian McGuinness - Physio
Chris van Der Veeken - Physio

I have also hired 2 new scouts to increase my scouting abilities:

Kevin Barclay
Colin Sinclair

Transfer Update

Carlos Fierro has signed on loan till the end of the season. We will be paying his wages of £2,600 for the length of the loan. Whether he will take Gros's place on the bench or will be back up to Gros is yet to be seen but thats what the pre-season is for.

Euro Cup 2nd Qualifying Round Draw

The draw has pitted us against B36, a team from the Faroe Islands. At first glance the two legs shouldn't pose much of a challege but as always we'll need to guard against complacency.

End of Pre-Season Update

The pre-season was not the best results wise, and the plan to garner some extra income from high-profile friendlies didn't really work as we lost most of them and didn't earn as much money as I'd hope we would. Even with our Euro Cup fixtures in the month of July and the start of August.



The fact that we weren't expected to do much in Europe helped as it meant there was very little pressure on the team to progress very far, if at all. The team did however get into the 3rd qualifying round after dominating in the 2nd round.

We have picked up 6 injuries during the pre-season with 4 of them coming to members of the first team. The players that are still suffering are:

James Fowler - Twisted Ankle - 2 to 3 weeks out
James Dayton - Chest Injury - 7 to 9 days out
Jordan Rhodes - Twisted Knee - 4 to 8 days out
Oliver Norwood - Groin Strain - 4 to 9 days out
Matthew Kennedy - Slipped Disc - 3 to 6 weeks out
Jude Winchester - Pulled Hamstring - 2 weeks out

Thankfully I have cover for the players that are out injured but I will struggle if I suffer from many more.

I extended the contracts of a few of my players that have contracts that run out in a couple of years just to ensure I have them secured to the club for the future. The players that have accepted new contracts are:

Liam Kelly - £3,500 till 2016
Cammy Bell - £4,300 till 2017
Zdenek Kroca - £2,400 till 2014
William Gros - £2,400 till 2016
Matthew Kennedy - £1,200 till 2017
Paul Heffernan - £4,800 till 2015
Gary Harkins - £4,800 till 2017
Russell Caldwell - £475 till 2017

During the pre-season we brought in a total of 14 players either for free, for a fee, or on loan for a total of £275,000 while we sold or loaned out 21 players for £225,000. In total, we lost £50,000 from transfers but thats a sum we could handle I'm sure.




Hopefully despite the slow and poor start in the pre-season, the team can push on and continue from last season to do well domestically and that will be our main focus for the next two seasons at least.

Club Update

The club have announced a new feeder link with Morton FC from the Scottish First Division. The first movement between the clubs is the loan signing of Jordan Copp to Morton from our reserve squad. I will look at the possibility of loaning out some of our prospects that are not going to be breaking into the first team squad just yet to allow them to get some experience.

Matchday 1

Home/Away to Falkirk

Formation: 4-2-2-2

Line-Up:

GK: Bell
RB: Pursehouse
CB: Pascali
CB: Kroca
LB: McKeown
RW: Silva
CM: Kelly
CM: Harkins
LW: Aluko
ST: Fierro
ST: Gros

Subs:
GK: Murphy
CB: Angha
FB: Hay
CM: Shinnie
RW: Gardyne
LW: Brady
ST: Heffernan

Result

Won 3-0

And here we go again. The new season has kicked off and we got off to the best possible start. A nice win over newly-promoted Falkirk in a game we controlled from start to finish. Fierro scoring on his league debut and goals from Silva and Aluko secured what looked a sure win before kick-off. Hopefully the team can build on this result next weekend.

Matchday 2

Home/Away to St. Mirren

Formation: 4-2-2-2

Line-Up:

GK: Bell
RB: Pursehouse
CB: Pascali
CB: Kroca
LB: McKeown
RW: Silva
CM: Kelly
CM: Harkins
LW: Aluko
ST: Fierro
ST: Gros

Subs:
GK: Murphy
CB: Angha
FB: Hay
CM: Shinnie
RW: Dayton
LW: Brady
ST: Heffernan

Result

Won 2-1

As I hoped the team was able to build on the good start to the season last week with another win against St. Mirren today. This result has us in tied 1st with Rangers, with us only behind by goal difference. Goals from Harkins and Silva gave us the lead in the first half. We held on for most of the second half but a late goal for St. Mirren meant the last 5 minutes of the game would be very edgy. We held out though and the game ended 2-1.

League Cup 3rd Round Draw

The draw for the 3rd round of the League Cup has pitted us against Queen of the South, away. The game will take place at the end of September. Hopefully we can have a repeat of this match-up from the Scottish Cup from last season, where we dominated the game and progressed to the next round.

Monthly Update - August

This month saw the start of the new league and the end of our Euro Cup adventure. We only played four competative games in the month winning two of them, both in the league, whlst drawing and losing our 3rd Round Qualifying Leg(lost on aggregate).



With our two wins in the league games we currently are tied 1st with 3 other teams on 6 points. Due to goal difference of +5 we are in 3rd place and we are looking for a strong continuance of this form into next month and beyond.



The key players that have impressed are Garry Hay, Gary Harkins and Rory McKeown, while only Carlos Fierro being the only player failing to impress...in training anyway:



The clubs finances are as usual, with us losing £213,000 this month. Due to an overall profit of £981,000 from last season the club are now out of debt but not by much. Our main expenditure this month was our Loan Repayments which totalled £175,000 due to us being out of the red. Our biggest income of the month was our Gate reciepts which came to a total of £363,000. We managed to sell 2,607 season tickets for the forthecoming season giving us a total of £620,000 which is down by £190,000 from last season despite us selling the same amount of season tickets.

The end of August also saw the end of the Scottish Transfer window. Here is the sum up of transfers:

Matchday 3

Home/Away to Hearts

Formation: 4-2-2-2

Line-Up:

GK: Bell
RB: Pursehouse
CB: Pascali
CB: Kroca
LB: McKeown
RW: Silva
CM: Stewart
CM: Harkins
LW: Gardyne
ST: Fierro
ST: Gros

Subs:
GK: Caldwell
CB: Angha
FB: Hay
CM: Shinnie
RW: Dayton
LW: Telfer
ST: Heffernan

(Own goal from Kovacevic)

Result

Draw 1-1

This game started with us on the back foot. Hearts looked to dominate from the start and did so. Then with a lucky counter attack a cross in from Silva took a deflection off Kovacevic gave us the lead. The half then continued with both team gaining fair share of the possession. The second half started like the first. Hearts piled on the pressure which finally paid off in the 70th minute when Kevin Kyle appear above everyone else to head the ball into the back of the net from one of their many corners.

Transfer Update

We have signed a youth French striker named Richie Barroilhet on a free transfer after his Fulham contract expired. He has current potential and a future potential of . He is touted as a good player for a first division team which has made me think about loaning him straight out to our feeder club Morton, who are fighting it out in the First Division.

Matchday 4

Home/Away to Celtic

Formation: 4-2-2-2

Line-Up:

GK: Murphy
RB: Pursehouse
CB: Pascali
CB: Kroca
LB: McKeown
RW: Silva
CM: Stewart
CM: Harkins
LW: Gardyne
ST: Heffernan
ST: Gros

Subs:
GK: Bell
CB: Angha
FB: Hay
CM: Shinnie
RW: Dayton
LW: Telfer
ST: Fierro

Result

3-0

The match started as I expected it to, with Celtic dominating everything in the game. Then somehow we took the lead. A quick one-two between Silva and Fierro released Silva down the right where he ran the ball into the box and slid it past the keeper into the net. Less than 10 minutes later, we had doubled the lead. Silva then turned provider as he was again released down the right on the counter. He got all the way to the byline but was forced to hold the ball up until he had support. As soon as he did he played a ball into the box where Stewart managed to bundle the ball into the net. The second half started completely different with the team playing with alot more confident, and once again the pressure paid off. We added a third as Pascali rose above the rest to nod in a long freekick. 3-0 is how it looked and how it finished.

Transfer Update

We have signed Sebastian Lletget on a free transfer after his contract at West Ham ran out. He is a USA under-20 international and a good prospect for the future with current potential and a future potential of


Also in contract news Charlie Telfer has signed a professional deal with the club till 2017.

Matchday 5

Home/Away to Motherwell

Formation: 4-2-2-2

Line-Up:

GK: Murphy
RB: Pursehouse
CB: Pascali
CB: Kroca
LB: McKeown
RW: Silva
CM: Kelly
CM: Harkins
LW: Gardyne
ST: Fierro
ST: Gros

Subs:
GK: Bell
CB: Angha
FB: Hay
CM: Shinnie
RW: Dayton
LW: Aluko
ST: Rhodes

Result

Lost 2-1

The first half was a very even affair. Both teams have a good amount of possession and both teams created a good few chances but neither team was able to take advantage as the chances created were either squandered or ended by some very good defending. Minutes before half-time though, Nanni took advantage of one of the many chances that Motherwell had created and we failed to cope with it. The half ended 1-0. At the start of the second half things went from bad to worse as Pascali earned his second yellow of the game to put as a man down as well as a goal. This seemed to help us though as we started to pile on more and more pressure. This finally paid off when Gardyne went on a superb run and blasted the ball past the keeper to gain the equaliser. Things ended badly though as Motherwell scored in the last minute of the game to give them the 3 points and end our short un-beaten streak.