After that superlative display, Ensal, Wisker and Nicholson have all be added to the "favoured personnel" screen.
13 Sep 21
One of Nicholson's five goals against Elche was voted goal of the week and Osusana had seven representatives in the Team of the Week.
Decision time, Quintal, the Portuguese U-21 keeper I bought on a bit of a whim is recovering nicely from his injury, and I am hoping he'll be fit enough for the next game against Espanyol in five days, it would mean replacing current captain Gorman, who to be fair, has done nothing wrong. The next best influence score with my regular players if I sent Gorman to the bench is Nicholson, with 15.
Appointed captain Ramos is still injured and no where near conditioned enough to take the field.
Ideas anyone?
New world ranking released:
1. France
2. Italy
3. Brazil
4. Argentina
5. Uruguay
6. Spain
7. Germany
8. Holland
9. England
10. Portugal
11. Mexico
12. Ghana
13. Chile
14. Mali
15. Morocco
Mali and Morocco have come on leaps and bounds over the past ten years!
Another lesson for me to learn, affiliate clubs can't take loans outside of transfer windows.
There goes the idea about loaning Quintal off to Sparta!
I have to admit that I laughed when this flashed up:
Sean Dyche has been sacked as Derby manager Kevin Parkinson.
Derby are currently lying 24th (ie last) in the Championship.
Derby will now be looking for a new manager.
Methinks managing Derby is akin to Chelsea!
For the game against Espanyol, I couldn’t resist making slight changes, introducing Fernández for Nilsson, and re-introducing Farver, who regains his midfield jersey. Wisker moved to the back, partnering Schmidt. Ruiz moving to the bench; Quintal also making his first appearance.
GK: Gorman
DR: Vajda
DC: Schmidt
DC: Wisker
DL: Halberg
AMR: Faulds
MC: Ensal
MC: Farver
AML: Ouattara
ST: Nicholson
ST: Fernández
#51592 Kiwi :
#51480 cazzac_lfc_1991 :
very nice start to the season then beating valencia nad bilbao one after the other congrats hope your team can keep there mentality and be consistent, key word with a young team like yours, but i have faith in your team and im sure you do too
keep it up ill definately keep reading it
oh maybe through in some screenshots if you can thatll be nice to see
Thanks Cazzac_lfc_1991, I was surprised with how comprehensively Valencia were beaten, especially after being champs last season. Athletic were a different proposition altogether, I got lucky early, and then wore them down and scored some soft goals. But, a win is a win is a win, so I am not complaining.
I appreciate your thoughts and the time you have spent to both read and comment, so thank you.
In terms of screenshots, would you like to see players, or matches or just general observations?
Thanks again!
yeah any win you can get is good enough no matter how lol
your squad must be soo high right now full of confidence with the performances theyve thrown in,
and i like how yur handling your finances reading your forum helped me realise i needed to sort my finances out at my west ham
and as for screenshots yeah would be amazing to see the players youve brought and general observation
#51764 cazzac_lfc_1991 :
#51592 Kiwi :
#51480 cazzac_lfc_1991 :
yeah any win you can get is good enough no matter how lol
your squad must be soo high right now full of confidence with the performances theyve thrown in,
and i like how yur handling your finances reading your forum helped me realise i needed to sort my finances out at my west ham
and as for screenshots yeah would be amazing to see the players youve brought and general observation
Confidence is pretty high at the moment, even amongst the players who haven't played yet. I'll have to look at the training levels though - I have them all set to "very heavy" at the moment, and it is causing a bit of friction. I'm also worried about the number of injuries I am being presented with, and only the minority are training room injuries. Guess I was lucky at Derby - had a small squad and only a small incidence of injury compared with Osasuna.
Getting the finances in order is a
MUST if you want to have any long term success at the club. I learned that the hard way at Derby, and probably let my ego get in the way. I should have accepted the 1.6M deal for
Barton ; and I needed to be a bit more cutthroat with the senior (ie expensive) players. I should have released
Stevenson on a free.
With Osasuna, the task was a lot easier, the players I had pegged as deadwood, actually were marketable and for exceptional money, so that relieved the pressure on the finances. Now my "kids" are playing fantastic football, they are young, so have time to develop, I can benefit from any uptake in skill within five years and I am not paying anyone over 10K per week. I think it also helped that the Board were able to support my decision to "avoid relegation" and to be far, based on the incremental difference for ambition, there was no point aiming higher at this stage.
Thanks for the comments!
19 Sep 21
This game played out like a dirty, filthy grudge match. I had a sinking feeling from the start when Espanyol seemed to have a mortgage on possession and we were unable to play our normal control game, where we dominate possession.
Strong man Farver was carded in the opening minute, Schmidt in the sixth (for reasons unknown to me, even watching the replay). Disaster struck for us in the 15th minute when Schmidt was sent from the field for his second bookable offense.
Reshuffling the field, Wisker as the sole centre back and switched Ensal to anchorman, I was desperate to disrupt the flow that Espanyol has managed to create in their favour over us.
After repelling wave after wave of attack from Espanyol, we managed to catch a break through Nicholson and Ouattara on twenty mins, with Ouattara heading it square into the net, only to be called offside.
After being on the back foot and playing a man down for the vast majority of the half, we went to the shed even at nil all. We didn’t get any better luck with the ref, with Halberg also picking up a yellow at the half hour marker.
After speaking passionately and assertively about faith, we began the second half. My palms were starting to sweat as I sent them back on the paddock.
The second half showed that both sides were equally committed and wouldn’t concede an inch, nor the advantage. Both sides had shots on goal, and both should have ended in back of the net stunners. On another day, this would have been a really spectacle. Just before the hour mark, my bad luck was compounded, with key midfielder Farver suffering another injury. Another shuffle sent Wisker to the midfield and handed Tolido his debut.
The deadlock was finally broken by a superb pass to Nicholson from Ouattara. Nicholson the wrong footed the goalie to score. I allowed myself to crack a smile as the clock ticked over 81 minutes. For the first time during my tenure here I felt as if we could lose as the clock wound down. Every second felt as if it hung in the air.
The injury curse struck again, on 84 mins as right defender Vadja limped from the field, to be replaced by Swiss man Beck. We kept possession at the clock showed ninety, for there to be four mins of injury time. Ensal was booked during the second min of refs time, as one of the Espanyol players milked a card for a dive, trying to disrupt our momentum. Secs earlier, a set piece cross from Fernández had met with Wisker's boot, and rebounded off the post.
That man Nicholson made sure that there was no mistake, claiming the ball with a tackle and scooting off and whizzing one through the goalie in the ninety third min to close the game out.
A hard fought 2-0 win, with a heavy injury toll and a 5-1 card count against us. Certainly I am impressed by the lads’ ticker, and I need to go and carpet the young CB Schmidt, a two week fine and a stern talking too are in order.
Farver is out for three weeks with a pulled hamstring, Vadja out for three days with a dead leg, and Schmidt took his medicine like a man - a two week salary fine - eventually, after some encouragement from his manager.
I've taken to fining staff the maximum and then talking them through it as I have lost the dressing rooms support for not being assertive enough and issuing slap on the wrist with wet bus ticket type warnings, or trying to challenge the card.
Nicholson's second goal against Espanyol was only good enough to rank third on Goal of the Week.
In line with my "develop youngsters for the future" mentality, I am actively pursuing two seventeen year olds. The first, David Hernández, is a Chilean midfielder, with mind blowing stats, and the second is a Swedish right defender, Serdar Türk, who has impressive physical scores. Comp is payable on both, but they have agreed contracts so am now waiting for their responses.
Both Hernández (700K) and Türk (140K) will be joining the squad at the beginning of the next transfer window, 2 January 2022. I am pleased to have secured both their signatures and they will be welcome additions to the team.
Barca have made a cracking start to the season, and after having played five games, they are undefeated and have not conceded a goal yet either. We play them for the first time in about two months.
