I’m not sure I could care any less about winning the Charity Shield. My desire to win it just isn’t as strong as my desire to not lose it. Especially to the only Northern Irish team that managed a win over us last season. That win last season was their only triumph over us in our sixteen previous meetings.
Still, we rotate a bit with an eye on that Boavista fixture in four days’ time.
We sneak the (fully deserved) win right at the end while a man down. Mason’s broken toe comes after we’ve made all three subs — of which he was one — after he’s spent only four minutes on the pitch. Very bad luck indeed. Silverware #1 for the season, after the Board requested success “in every area”.
I’ll save the good transfer news for after the match, in case the result doesn’t go our way and we need cheering up. No Hose and no Mason leave us less potent than I was hoping for and my scout says they’re “a very strong team”.
We dominate the Portuguese side from start to finish. They field a strong side but can’t get anything going as Gibson and Feeney do the damage for the home side. We’re in a great position for the trip to Porto in two weeks.
And that good transfer news I mentioned? We’ve added a young Dutch DM to the mix. He’s wanted by Hearts and West Ham too so I’m hoping that’s due to some solid potential.
First match of the season and Cliftonville are in town. I rotate heavily to get some more players their match fitness and our new signing gets an immediate first appearance.
We do plenty, despite the reserve/lacking fitness side I send out. Davids scores his first ever goal in his 17th appearance for us.
It’s a stronger side for our second league match of the season, as Armagh are in town to face us. I rest de Weerdt as I don’t want to risk losing HIM to injury too prior to our Portugal trip.
Another solid performance to start the season. Our makeshift strikeforce each score — as they well should, being better than most of the other strikers in the league — and we keep a clean sheet again too. Add in no injuries and I’m as happy as a clam.
Nursing a two-goal lead from the first leg, we head to the Estadio do Bessa to face Boavista. We’re thrilled that Hose is back and — other than Mason not being back to 100% fitness after his broken toe — we’re looking pretty solid.
An early strike from Feeney calms the nerves as the away goal doubles the requirement for Boavista. We go in to half time level and I tell the lads to keep up the pressure. Pinas gives us the lead a second time but that’s cancelled out quickly by Tavares — who has the fantastic given name of “Diocliciano”. Antar, who subbed on for Feeney adds a late one to give us the win on the day and send us through to the Champions League Phase 1 Group Stage!
We quickly pocket the underwhelming (9,338 of 23,000???) gate receipts and whelming qualification prize money (is inflation not a thing?) and fly back home to deposit the near £2M in the bank. Then we settle in for the Group Stage draw. We’re lumped in with German champs Schalke 04, English runners-up Arsenal and Russian back-to-back champs (with a likely threepeat on the cards) Locomotive Moscow.
I’m hoping the lads aren’t too exhausted from the celebrations as we face newly promoted Limavady Utd way up north. Gibson and Feeney are rested while Brewerton is still recovering.
We win, as we should have, but the MotM award goes to Limavady’s long-suffering defender Stewart McCallum. He completes 13 of 14 tackles and breaks up wave after wave of our attacks, with one Hose strike being the difference between us.
With the Charity Shield already ours, qualification for the Phase 1 Group Stage of the Champions Cup completed and while we sit atop the Premier Division, we begin competition number four. We’re on the road against Newry to kick of the defence of our League Cup title.
We get off to a very good start in the competition. Already three up before Newry decide to spoil the clean sheet so Feeney and Hose tack on two more out of spite.
Coincidentally, Newry are our next opponent as well, this time in league action. They visit us at Shamrock Park, so all signs point towards an easy victory. So I tell the lads that there’s no chance this will be an easy victory. Brewerton is back in our defensive line but Hose needs a break from pumping in the goals.
I’m glad Kox was on the ball when he was on the ball. It was a very different match and nerve-wracking for quite some time before our hat trick hero decided he was due.
We forego the drive to our next match (about 43 hours long) and fly the 1700-ish miles to Moscow instead. We’re at full strength and Lokomotiv are missing a star midfielder due to injury. I’m sure we’re underestimated by everyone, so it would be a great time for a surprise victory…
Our performance certainly surprised them, though the result was less that what I was hoping for. When looking through the scouting report, I hadn’t noticed that Lokomotiv employed one of the world’s greatest goalkeepers in Ruslan Nigmatullin. He earned a rating of 8 despite conceding twice and made a string of saves and tackles that rescued a point for his side. It’s a decent start for us in the group but it’s certainly two points lost rather than one gained.
Editor’s Note: Here’s a lovely CM0102 peculiarity I’ve not seen before. During our free-for-all signing period last year, I’d scouted a bunch of big European sides in case they released some of their youth players that couldn’t quite cut it. A few of them WERE released, so I thought I’d bring some in for trials during pre-season. That way, if we were eliminated from the Champions Cup I’d have a head start in signing them. One such player was Liverpool cast-off John Welsh. I’d put him in my reserve side and forgot about him as he was signed by Villa during his trial period here.
Well, we just had a reserve side match against our next league opponents and look who featured:
With only 72 hours to recover from our exploits in Russia, we have a few players in need of a rest. Feeney, Gibson, Willems and Hose make way for Antar, Douglas, Mason and Kox respectively. We’re facing Linfield at home as we look to continue our perfect start.
We’re out of the gates fast and would have added a goal every half-ish hour but a 92nd minute strike denies Kox a second goal of the day. Without their strike force from previous years (Glenn Ferguson was shockingly released after I cancelled our Bosman deal and remains a free agent while Larmour is doing very well at Div 2 Norwich) Linfield can’t generate the offence they once could.
Another 72 hours later (but without the jet lag from a flight mixed in) we’ve got our first home match of our Champions Cup group as we welcome Arsene Wenger and his Gunners to town. They’re good, deep, rich, capped and a bunch of other things. One teeny saving grace is that new signing (and even better keeper than Lokomotiv’s Nigmatullin) Seb Frey is ineligible as he wasn’t signed in time for Champions Cup football. They’ll have to settle for their #2 but England’s #1, Richard Wright.
Twenty minutes in to the match our usual suspect rips a dipping shot into the Arsenal goal to rapturous applause from the home fans. Half time arrives with the score the same and we’re forced in to all three of our changes due to potential injuries. The second half is a cagey affair as we don’t want to commit too much forward while protecting our lead. We manage to contain the visitors and we have a FAMOUS victory on our hands! We’ve now managed to defeat three of the English royalty in Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal!
We’ve had four home league matches out of five so far so we’re due another away fixture. Crusaders have had an interesting history since I’ve arrived in Northern Ireland. A couple of horror years to start with a last place finish in the Prem in my first year and 8th in Div 1 the following season. Then last year they won Div 1 at a canter and have started this season well enough with three wins from five. We’re facing them at Seaview in Belfast which neither has a view of the sea nor sits on Seaview Street. We go narrow today with most of our wide midfielders in need of a rest or care from from the physios.
An early red card for the hosts (for two-footing Antar) renders the Crusaders attack next to nil as the only shot we face as a speculative effort from distance that lands in Row Z. We do take our sweet time to make use of the difference in manpower, though a trio of goals make it look rather simple in the end. Antar’s brace exacting revenge for the attempted leg-breaking.
The travel to the Arena Auf Schalke is significantly less exhausting than a couple of our recent excursions. The stadium itself — with their 63k+ seats — is quite the sight. Huub Stevens has been is charge for over eight years now and and though his late 90s period resulted in a few double-digit placings, the new millennium has been good to him. His finished of 2nd, 2nd, 6th and 1st over the last four seasons demonstrate the good work he’s been doing. Ebbe Sand and Emile Mpenza will certainly keep our defenders on their toes today.
We manage to keep Ebbe and Emile in check though we go behind to a strike from Russian international Yevseev. Hose equalises the match late on with a header from a Boyce cross for a share of the spoils. The lads played an incredible match and an away draw against the reigning German champs is the very least that they deserved.
After three matches (with two on the road) we’re the only undefeated side in the group yet sit in second place, sandwiched a point between Arsenal and Schalke.
A bid arrives for our 3rd (and loaned out) keeper that’s too good to turn down. The offer IS across 18 months, but considering our #1 and #2 are both both better and younger (does that make sense?) than he is, I see no harm in having Santa Cruz pay our entire first team wages (and then some) for the next year and a half.
We rotate quite a bit for our next league match. Limavady Utd are visiting us as we try to remain perfect in the league.
I left our strike force in to help them keep their shooting boots on, but it’s our midfield that gets it done on the day. Antar fires home a Hose knock down before van der Kruis pounces on a rebound for his first ever Portadown goal.
We’ve got a couple of League Cup group matches on the docket next, as we host Armagh this week and travel to Dungannon next. With a full week off we get back to a very strong XI.
It takes a red card/penalty to get us going, despite being the far better side all the way through the match. We had four potential injuries at the break, so I made the only three changes I could. Fortunately, we make it through to the end of the match physically unscathed.
I spend the week between League Cup matches firing off contract offers to all sorts of folks. It had been a while since I checked out who was interested and was pleased with what I found. We bring in a pile of new staff by swapping out a trio of sub-10 player-judging scouts for some mid-teens ones and adding a pair of new (albeit Welsh) coaches to the backroom staff.
We also find and sign a new Dutch kid. He’s a freebie and there’s immediate interest in him from Salgueiros.
At Dungannon, we only make a solitary change out of necessity. Lawson twisted his knee in training so Brewerton comes in to the right side of the DC trio. A win here would qualify us for the quarter-finals with a match to spare.
Our six goals are JUST more than enough to overcome Dungannon’s zero attempted shots. The win is so lop-sided that we’ve more-or-less clinched top spot in the group — not that it matters as the QF home ground seems to be a random draw.
72-ish hours later, we’re in Armagh for our next league match…to face Armagh. We rotate an awful lot to keep the lads as fit as possible. No Pinas, Hose or de Weerdt for this one.
We’ve thrown away our invincibility very early this season, though very undeservedly. We concede on Armagh’s sole attempt of the day while their keeper (five full stars worse than van der Haar, comparatively) repels everything we throw at them and wins his second career MotM award. Very disappointing.
The bad news compounds as I receive a very unwelcome visit in my office later that night from Brian Pinas, requesting a transfer. I get it: we lost, he wasn’t in the matchday squad, we’re STILL just a semi-pro side and he’s earning £275/week. My argument is that it was a classic champing, he didn’t play as he wasn’t fully fit due to Portadown competing in FIVE (so far) different competitions, I want to turn pro as much as he does (if not more) and I’d happily bump his pay another 50% if he’d be open to it.
Fine, damn it. Request granted. But hooray, no interest! Maybe a nice Champions Cup win against visiting Schalke will change his mind…
We’ve got a chance to clinch a top three spot in the group today, if results go our way. We’ve also got a chance of being dragged in to a dogfight for the bottom of the group if they don’t.
By the break, we’ve been severely outplayed and are down a goal to an Mpenza strike. Perhaps our lacklustre performance has something to do with both Mason and Feeney nursing injuries. They’re replaced by Willems and Antar and we play far in the second period with trusty Hose banging in an equalising goal after a deflected free kick. It’s all for nought however, as Cameroonian international Epale (who’s got 8 and 9 in 13 matches from midfield this season) scores against the run of play to resign us to our first loss of the group stage. We now sit third with work to do to continue in the Champions Cup…
It’s another short 72-hour turnaround from Europe to Northern Ireland and we’re up to Belfast to face Cliftonville this time. Our wide players are a bit tired, so we come compact with a skinny 3–2–3–2 this time around.
Ugh. We don’t seem to do so well on three days’ rest. Well, performance-wise we absolutely crushed our hosts despite being a man down for over an hour. RVP opens his Portadown account before we concede a penalty and it stays all square despite our best efforts.
The problem is, when we’re also playing X vs. XII, it gets even more difficult:
We only have 72 hours to recover from that match before we’re back at it in the Champions Cup…yet somehow all the lads are much fitter for this one. Everyone in the European squad (and those under 20 years old) are available, save Odartey Lawson who’s still recovering from an injury. It’s as if they take care to recuperate better when they know a big match is up next.
To help out our cause, Locomotive Moscow’s starting (and absolutely world class) keeper has scheduled a physio appointment for the day of the match.
With a solitary percentage point missing from our 18-man squad, I tell the lads to work their absolute bollocks off. This should be the most winnable match in our group schedule, at home to Locomotive. It’s also a must-win if we want to continue in the Champions Cup. Despite having one more match remaining after this one, a draw would probably mean a third place finish in the group, with a loss being potentially catastrophic.
Locomotive play quite well but we play ever-so-slightly better and earn the victory. Our Lebanese super sub hops off the bench to nab the winning goal after the first half and ended a goal apiece. The lack of enthusiasm over this win is due to results elsewhere going as poorly as possible. Schalke (10 points) handle Arsenal (9 points) leaving us (8 points) on the outside looking in. With our final match being at Highbury, we’ve got a bit of a challenge to remain in the Champions Cup.
It’s league action again as we try to cling to top spot. Amassing a solitary point over the past couple of matches has left Glentoran nipping at our heels. A win against Coleraine at home would be nice, though we rotate heavily once again.
An early red/PK to Coleraine’s keeper helps our cause as we run riot. We concede on the only shot we face, but that’s late on after I make all our subs and end playing a 1–2–4–3 formation…
With that annoying news of Pinas wanting out, I’ve made some inquiries about replacement players. One has arrived, a free agent most recently of Haarlem. He’s not quite as good as Pinas across the midfield positions but he’s almost as good as Hose and de Weerdt up front, so he should be very useful.
In the end, it turns out that we HAVE already wrapped up top spot in our League Cup group. Normally, I wouldn’t really care one iota about fielding a strong team, but at the moment, Newry sit behind us. If we lose this League Cup version of the MUD, Glenavon will leapfrog past them on goal difference. Yeah, I’d like to keep our rivals away from a quarter-final battle with us…
Three first half strikes sew the match up and bombarding the Glenavon net with shots in the second half doesn’t change the result. Addis earns an 8 in the opposition’s net in spite of conceding thrice. My MUD record is now 13–3–2 in my 18 matches as boss here.
That leaves us to face Newry in the QFs and the random draw says it’ll be at theirs. And if we progress, it’s a two-legged affair with the winner of Larne/Crusaders. It could certainly have been worse.
Now THIS guy is a worthy replacement for wantaway Pinas. After pestering my Board for more transfer funds every bloody year, our max spend jumped from something like £300k to £2.6M. And what can that kind of money buy you? How about a Jordi Cruyff from Alaves’ B team? He’s actually here for only £1M and a £100k signing-in fee. On par with with Hose and de Weerdt as a striker but a step up from my AM trio, he’ll fit in VERY nicely. Plus we’ll probably recoup most of that fee on the trip to Highbury in 4 days’ time.
Before that though, we’ve got a trial run of our League Cup QF as we head to Newry in league play. It’s top vs. bottom in this one. Full debut for Jordi and Bond, who will both be ineligible for the upcoming trip to London. A narrow 3–2–3–2 based on how well Antar and Feeney have been playing.
The series’ themes of us 1) playing far better than the opposition, 2) conceding a goal on the only shot we face and 3) having opposing keepers register 8+ performances all continue. Jordi is removed at half time with an injury niggle but Bond manages to open his Portadown account.
Here it is, the moment of truth…
Location: Highbury
Date: 10th of November, 2004
Event: Matchday 6 of Group H of Phase 1 of the Champions Cup
Win and we’re in the next round of the Champions Cup. Anything else and we drop to the UEFA Cup. We’re full strength (barring the unavailable new signings) and have nothing to lose.
That went poorly, to be as kind as possible. We’re down three goals in the first quarter of an hour and then a fourth before halftime. Not a great day for our keeper, both DMs and playmaker all end on 4s or 5s as we tuck our tails between our legs and head out of the competition. At least we can use the £600k we made to dry our tears.
Out of one fire and in to another. We’ll face our old “friends” Ajax. We’ve played twice and drawn twice with two goals scored each in our Champions Cup Group Stage just over two years ago. The 0–0 home fixture and the 2–2 away result would move us on to the next round in a knockout competition! Hose, Douglas and Nieuwenburg could all feature against the club we purchased them from.
Our two most recent league wins have bumped our league lead over Glentoran to five points with the added bonus of a match in hand. And we face them at home today in a TOTTC/6P (Top of the Table Clash/Six-Pointer). Jordi and Bond are back in with a bunch of folks rested from the Arsenal “match”.
Any guesses as to what happened here? I file my SECOND complaint letter of the season against this particular referee afterwards. Did I run over this guy’s cat or something???
We didn’t win the match, obviously. I probably wouldn’t have complained otherwise. As per usual, we outplayed our guests, their goals-per-shot-on-target percentage was ludicrously high (66.66666666%) and their keeper finished on a 9. Standard fare.
The reason I complained was due to a blatantly obvious penalty being denied in the 34th minute…and then again in the 50th…followed by a third in the 66th. Then he awarded one to Glentoran (that they dispatched) in the 71st minute that commentary described as a “dubious decision”. Imagine what a future hypothetical Man City striker would look like after a hypothetical breakaway was hypothetically called back for a foul after hypothetically playing an advantage up to that point in added time of the second half of a 3–3 match. Hypothetically. I looked very similar to how he would have looked.
Well, we clawed one goal back via Hawkins but couldn’t find a leveller in the final quarter hour. I couldn’t get my complaint to the FA fast enough. Francis Harte should never referee another Portadown match for as long as he lives.
Our League Cup QF against Newry gives me something to take my mind off things. Let’s just knock this match out of the park to cheer ourselves up. Crusaders have already knocked off Larne and await their SF opponent.
That’s more like it! We should always just try to score so many goals that terrible refereeing only angers me rather than changing the result of the match.
Oooh, that’s an interesting development in the managerial world… Our future UEFA Cup 3rd Round opposition have recently become gaffer-less. After dumping us out of the exact same UEFA Cup 3rd Round LAST season, Ken Bates has tried to do us a solid by swiping Ajax’s boss for Chelsea.
The matches are coming thick and fast these days and some of the lads are a little weary from their League Cup exertions three days ago. We still field a strong side for the latest league edition of the MUD as we head the seven miles to Mourneview Park.
Our most recent signing opens his account for us before needing a break at the break. Feeney comes on in his place and sets up de Weerdt for our second as we comfortably outplay domestic opposition yet again. We’re back up to four points clear with a match in hand.
I don’t know if it’s because we’re overachieving or because we don’t seem to be making strides in Europe but all of a sudden, offers are flying in for all of our players. I’ve rebuffed the suitors as we’ve got decent enough sized release clauses. But Pinas has stated he’s becoming a free agent and Bosman bids are in for Hawkins too.
I need them both here though as we’re in Amsterdam for the first leg of our UEFA Cup 3rd Round match with Ajax. They’re missing Semak and Yakubu through injury while we’ve got Willems and Gibson missing via suspension.
It doesn’t go GREAT but it could certainly have gone worse. We have left ourselves a lot of work to do at home in two weeks’ time. Hersi — a man I’ve tried to buy a dozen times already — is the scorer of the lone goal. Willems and Gibson being back for leg number two had better make a big difference for us…
It’s official. Pinas AND Hawkins will be leaving in the coming summer. I’m not surprised I can’t compete with a rich mid-First Division English side with a 28k seat stadium and top of the line facilities. They’ve got lads with wages in the £16k per week range. I can’t blame the guy. If I was Hawkins, I would have left too.
We’ve got back-to-back Belfast dates (Wednesday/Saturday — plenty of time to travel there and back) as we take on Crusaders in Leg 1 of our League Cup SF and then Linfield in league action. Departing Pinas is still one of our best performers so he keeps his spot.
Well, I think we’re going through. I ease off the gas at the 34 minute mark, going light with tackling and taking pressing off. It seems the road was downhill though, as it doesn’t really slow our momentum. The return leg will be a chance for the fringe/reserves to stretch their legs.
We switch over to our narrow 3–2–3–2 for the Linfield match. It’s not to counter-act some perceived strength of Linfield’s but it’s a personnel move on my part. Pinas is still a bit tired and Gibson had an off game last match. Antar/Jordi/Feeney should be a formidable narrow trio.
After converting an early penalty, de Weerdt decided he’d like to receive a suspension — number of matches to be determined — and landed a left hook on Baillie (Linfield’s star defender). It doesn’t really slow us down much as we thoroughly dominate the match from start to finish.
As we prepare for an absolutely massive home fixture with Ajax, I keep waiting for a call from the FA but it never comes. Looks like just the one match suspension for de Weerdt…and that match happens to be the second leg of the League Cup SF with us up by six goals. He was going to be sitting that one out anyway!
He’ll certainly feature in this one against his compatriots though. We need to overturn a 1–0 away loss or we’re out of Europe quite early again. We’re without Raeside (our best defender) for a week still and they’re at full strength. Perfect. Come on lads, show me what you can do!
We score early but I’m devastated to see it’s called back for an uninvolved offside. And then Hersi pops up with another strike against us leaving us needing three. We get a lifeline with a second half red card for a kick out from Rafael van der Vaart and manage to level the score but we don’t get any closer. Out of Europe at the same stage as last season.
On the bright side, our Magic Number for European qualification for NEXT season is still at 53. That leaves us a decent amount of time to figure out some non-Dutch transfers. With all the transfer offers arriving for our players, we may need some reinforcements…and any improvements are always welcome.
I waste no time sending out scouts all across Europe and sending out bids for a plethora of short-listed players. We capture a couple players — albeit one of them not until summer — almost immediately.
I had said “non-Dutch” but that’s just because pickings were slim. There’s no rule that says I can’t sign Dutch players… This dual-nationality Ajax player has agreed to join us at the end of his current contract.
Sort-of unfortunately, the other player I signed plays the same position as Quansah. And with de Weerdt and Hose barely setting a foot wrong (boxing tendencies aside), I’m not sure how necessary this many good strikers are. However, when you’re able to grab someone THIS good for just £100k, you usually jump on the chance. Many thanks to Coventry for loaning him out to Leyton Orient for me to find!
Lots of transfer irons still in the fire but my backroom work is annoyingly interrupted by actual football. It’s the second leg of that League Cup semi-final that we’ve basically already won. However, there’s a new develpment for this match…
When I was hired, I was told we were to initially use a 3–2–3–2 formation and after three trips into Europe, I’ve finally been given free reign over our formation. Our defenders have been…fine so far this season, but our DMs have been outstanding. It pains me every time I have to to leave out one of Willems/Thomson/Mason, so I’m doing a switch to a 2–3–3–2. It’s a favourite formation of mine from an alternate universe. We’ll let the fringe/new squad test it out against Crusaders.
With a 4th minute debut goal from Kusi-Asare (JKA, from now on) I feel the floodgates opening once more. However, the floodgates have other ideas entirely. Maybe the weather played a part in a it, but JKA scores early in each half and Crusaders cancel them both out later in those halves. There’s not a lot of attacking going on from either side, so a 2–2 draw is a rather high-yield result. Glentoran win both legs with Institute, so the Final is set for one week from today at Windsor Park.
I can’t really remove JKA after his brace/10/MotM performance, so he partners Hose up front in our next league match. We’re much closer to full strength now with Willems being out for about ten days. Let’s try this new formation with the starters as we face off against Armagh at home…
Other than the goal conceded on their only shot on target, our starters took to the new formation nicely. Five goals spread out between four attacking players is quite the statement of intent.
The day before our League Cup Final with Glentoran, we get a big boost to the squad. Kavala — a non-league side in Greece — are very happy to accept £250k for this absolute unit of a player. He’ll go nicely anywhere in I feel like playing him…
…and the middle of our DM trio is where I feel like playing him. Willems is still injured, so Tokene will fill that gap very nicely (that’s what she said!). JKA also makes was for de Weerdt up front as we revert to our tried and tested striker pairing. It’s the second piece of domestic silverware that’s up for grabs this season. It’s also a TOTTC as Glentoran are two points clear (with three extra matches played).
10,000+ turn up in the sleet at Windsor Park to witness the mighty Ports grab yet another domestic title. A first-half brace for Hose before JKA (on for de Weerdt) adds a third against a ten-man side in the 53rd. JCVD faces zero shot attempts all match long which does wonders for my blood pressure.
Our next match gives me major deja vu. It’s also on the road and also against Glentoran. As it’s a league fixture this time around, it’s a title six-pointer. There’s a sizeable gap opening up over Linfield in 3rd place, so for now, the Northern Irish Prem is a two-horse race.
We play a crappy first half but score on our only two shots on target: a penalty from Hose and a low/hard strike from JKA. They get a stern talking to from yours truly at the break and our performance improves greatly. Unfortunately for us, same goes for Glentoran’s keeper who saves all nine of our second half shots on target and earns himself a MotM award in the process. I don’t care TOO much though, as we secure the three points and leapfrog our opponents for top spot!
Our newest signing is a bit on the older side, but we’ve got money to burn. The one-time (literally, not figuratively) England international bumps infrequently McAulay onto the transfer list and should partner Raeside very nicely. He arrives for £250k from Northampton who somehow pried him from Prem side Everton to play in the Third Division.
A few days later (Happy New Year, btw!) another solid attacking player arrives from Stromsgodset for a cool £120k. The AM/F will probably play more AM than F, with Pinas wanting to escape the horrors of European football every season.
I depart with a couple of Johns as McAulay heads to Elgin and Nieuwenburg departs for Willem II. The cost of their departures covers the purchase of Veigar Pall Gunnarson (VPG).
I’m pissed off with Kallithea though. They’d agreed to buy Clarke for £375k from us. When the time came, they didn’t have the funds and it fell through. He immediately announced he’s leaving on a Bosman this summer.
It’s Mid-Ulster derby time again with mid-table Glenavon. Unsworth is in for a debut. VPG is poised on the bench and will almost certainly make an appearance.
Glenavon’s first half added time goal (on their first shot of the match) is sandwiched in the middle of our six goals. Ten of our fourteen players finished on 8s or higher. A fantastic debut for both our new boys as we smash our nemeses from up the road.
Emmen have bid for five different players of ours (Davids, Kox, Nijkamp and de Visser being the others) and I finally decide to let one of them go. We earn £100k for Patrick de Wit, a freebie from last season who spent time on loan with Dungannon in the First Division and amassed a solitary assist and a 6.27 rating in 15 starts. I’m much happier with that money in our bank account.
We’ve got Cliftonville at home in our next league match. There’s a bit of a shuffle with Gibson in for Feeney (he’s a bit tired from the Glenavon match still) and VPG is rewarded with a start after his fine debut performance.
JCVD faces no shots on target in the entire match as we push Cliftonville farther into the cellar of the division. Gibson scores in his first start in a while and Thomson nets his first of the season.
This match marks the halfway points of OUR league season, though everyone else is well past that point. The league looks like it’s ours to lose and we certainly don’t like like losing it.
Two more trophies have been added to our cabinet/my curriculum vitae so far this season in the Charity Shield and the League Cup though crashing out of Europe at the same stage as last season is disappointing. Wins over Boavista, Locomotive Moscow and the mighty Gooners are nothing to sniff at, however.
I still have some transfer irons in the fire (we’re still 32 points from an automatic top-4 spot and our Dutch-only law) with £6.7M burning a hole in my pocket. There’s a work permit issue that I’m not particularly hopeful about— a 29yo with four caps to his name — and a few other bids that I’ll keep upping for a while longer.
We’ve got the league to win and an Irish Cup run to make. Tune in next time!
