I think he may be. Concern about Alex Bruce is so high that Brown is a second thought at this point. I also think Murphy is done. I made a run at Lukasz Fabianski who is 33 y/o and backup keeper for Arsenal, but they just want too much for him. Our scouts rate him as dramatically better than Brian Murphy, but if I brought him on I would be 100% done for the season as far as my ability to acquire players.

We've got 10 matches played, and the teams above us have snagged a few wins here and there to make our situation look really grim. Not that long ago we could get out of the final 3 spots if we could find a win. Now... not so much. Here's a look at the entire league for now:

1. Aston Villa - 11 G - 26 pts
2. Sunderland - 11 G - 24 pts
3. Chelsea - 10 G - 21 pts
4. Man Utd - 10 G - 20 pts
5. Sheffield Utd - 11 G - 20 pts
6. Arsenal - 11 G - 18 pts
7. Newcastle - 10 G - 18 pts
8. West Ham - 10 G - 16 pts
9. Man City - 11 G - 15 pts
10. Southampton - 11 G - 15 pts
11. Blackburn - 11 G - 15 pts
12. Birmingham - 10 G - 14 pts
13. Everton - 11 G - 13 pts
14. Liverpool - 10 G - 13 pts
15. Huddersfield - 11 G - 13 pts
16. Tottenham - 10 G - 10 pts
17. Nottingham Forest - 11 G - 10 pts
---------------------------------------------
18. Wolves - 11 G - 9 pts
19. Ipswich - 10 G - 3 pts
20. Watford - 11 G - 3 pts


There's an epic Ipswich/Watford match coming up in the near future.

Injury Update

-- Zeki Fryers turns his knee in training and is out 2-3 weeks. McKerr just got back to full training so I guess that's a wash? Well, except McKerr doesn't hate me.


-- Man City's backup keeper is younger and cheaper than the Arsenal backup we made a run at recently. They've accepted an offer and we've offered a contract. The Brian Murphy era may be over in Ipswich come January. That deal is in the works as our next match approaches though, more on that momentarily.



November 10th, 2018

Ipswich(1-0-9, 19th) @ Wolves (2-3-6, 18th)

Wolverhampton are 4:5 favorites today, we're 3:1 dogs. The best we've seen on the road in a good while. We're 1-1-3 lifetime against them but haven't played since our last EPL run in 14/15. This one is critical not just in that we desperately need points, but we also need to keep teams like this within our reach.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Brown/Adriano
DMC: Guarin
MC: Mariga/Donnelly
AMC: Gordon
ST: Khan/Constantino

Wolves dangerman is ST Sam Vokes, he's got 5 goals for them in 11 matches, a 29 y/o striker valued at $10M. He's 6'2" and dominant in the air. I'm worried about that given how poor we've done in the air. We bring two recently healthy guys back into the lineup, McKerr at DC where Fryers was last match, and Neil Gordon is in at AMC freshly back from injury.

We try to counter today as usual.

9': Mariga with a steal in the midfield, their defense is still set though, and playing pretty far back. Khan takes off though and Mariga makes a great pass up ahead. Khan shows solid control of a very pacey pass... but the keeper rushes out and cuts into the angle some. Still, its Khan's 4th clear cut chance in the last 100 minutes of football... and he's 0 for 4 as the keeper makes the save.

20': We give up a corner after an awful pass ahead by Troy Brown is intercepted. We do clear the corner though.

25': They get a cross into the area, a header, not struck hard but its low... Murphy goes down and makes a good clean save.

29': Gordon makes a great tackle to win us a ball as they are forward to attack.. he gets it to Constantino and he's a bit faster than the defenders, he goes out wide, crosses in... and they win the header and clear. We push it back ahead and a shot is blocked to earn us a corner. That is cleared out though.

45': Fredy Guarin is hurt, I'm unclear what happened... but he's got to come out immediately. In the spirit of doing at least some things differently, I drop Donnelly back to DMC and bring in Kang to play MC along with Mariga.

HALF: We're playing well again today. Each team has 4 shots, we've only got one on target, they've got 2 on target. We dominate possession which is extremely rare for us this year, we have a 60/40 edge. We're passing well and passing better than them, they're dominant in the air though. No other changes aside from handling the Guarin injury.

51': Neil Gordon picks up a knock and his fitness takes a huge hit. No long term injury concern here but I'm unsure if he will go 90 now.

56': We give up a corner... oh my dear god. The ball ends up 25 yards out, a hard shot, it looks like its going wide left, deflects off a defender... sails past Murphy... hits the crossbar and goes out to the right where we push it behind for another corner. That was terrifying. We clear this corner out.

62': we've seen this before... the second half starts and they bring the pressure... how long can we handle it? Do we change our mindset? For now we change back to Defensive.

73': Coutts is in for Gordon.

84': We change back to Counterattacking for the last bit, I meant to do this earlier but a highlight free segment pushed us closer to the end.

90': Alex Bruce is in for Coutts, who picked up an injury int he last couple minutes... 5 defenders here as the pressure continues to mount and we have a full 5 minutes of added time.

96': Bruce with a foul about 25 yards out... maybe the last chance, but we clear the free kick.

Finally 97 minutes in the whistle blows, a bit extra time for the home team there, EH?

Wolves 0 : 0 Ipswich

With 9 losses in 10 matches its just nice to get a point here. And after each team took 4 shots in the first half, Wolverhampton shot 12 times in the second half to our zero.

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.8)
Notables: Adriano (7.1), McKerr (7.3)

Kirkland remains our most reliable ball winner in the air and that earns him the rating today.


I see 15 messages after the match... really, sup?

Injury Update

-- Coutts is only out 4-5 days.

-- DMC Fredy Guarin is out 4 weeks with a fractured cheekbone. Ouch!



-- The fans are disappointed today. Nothing but a win eh? And Khan pissed them off, so they wished that Bojinov had started in his place. Just one week ago I got a message that signing Bojinov was my biggest mistake so far this year. Make up your minds!


Ohhh, new keeper inc! That explains a few of the extra messages, and a few more were FA Cup notes. Kingstonian... a part time club below the conference/blue square level... upset League 1 Milwall in the first round. Ouch! They'll be hearing about that for awhile.


Watford picked up a draw in their match too so we're still tied for last in points with Watford. Both of us are 6 points behind Tottenham, Wolves, and Nottingham Forest. Next up.. tottenham at home.

New Signing

Its November 11th and the transfer won't officially take place until January 1st, but we've paid Man City $1.2M + 20% of the proceeds from his next sale for 25 y/o GK Carlos Antonio.

Two notes before we get into Antonio... Chris Mason isn't ready yet. The kid is 17, so that's ok. But he's not progressing at some magical rate that leads me to believe if I can just steal one more year from Murphy that Mason will slide right into my lineup for the next 20 years. Second, I don't think we're squeezing another year out of Murphy. He's slowly degrading, though his key keeper skills are in tact, and he's just not quite up to the standard we need to try to stay up here. I obviously need to make something happen and Alex Bruce is the biggest weakness and will hopefully be addressed as well, but Murphy was the #2 problem as far as our scouts views of how our starters fare at this level.

So with that, Carlos Antonio is coming to Portman Road.

Physical: 16 balance, 18 jumping, 11 agility, 13 stamina, 14 strength

Mental: 18 bravery, 13 anticipation, 16 decisions, 17 concentration, 13 determination

Goalkeeping: 16 Aerial Ability, 15 Command of Area, 13 Handling, 13 Reflexes.

In terms of goalkeeping abilities, Murphy is still better in many areas. Murphy is a better communicator and has better reflexes. Antonio dominates the mental and physical side of things though, Jumping, Balance, Bravery and Decision Making Antonio just has a massive, massive edge.


We've got 9 more matches until January 1st. After those 9 matches Brian Murphy's 9 1/2 year run as the starting keeper for Ipswich will come to an end.


EDIT: Didn't even think to mention it! Antonio got a 4 year contract that will pay him $27,500/wk. Murphy makes $30,000/wk right now.

-- It must have been a slow week on the right side of the defense in the EPL.. I get notice that one of our guys made the EPL team of the week and am shocked to see that its DR Michael McKerr and not DL Stuart Kirkland.

-- I hope I didn't screw up by doing this now instead of waiting until January, but surely the writing is on the wall? I offer Brian Murphy out to other clubs. I can't afford to pay two keepers nearly $30k/wk. I get a ton of offers from teams in lesser leagues around Europe. None in England oddly enough, the Portugese love him I guess, 3 offers from their top league. I won't make much here, just $400,000, but the salary clearance will help allow me to try to bolster the defense a bit more.

-- Tottenham finished 6th in the EPL last year, and they seemed out of place in the grouping at the bottom of the league... a day after our tie with Wolves, Tottenham goes on the road and upsets #1 Aston Villa... I guess that shows what we have to look forward to here.

November 14th, 2018

Tottenham(4-1-6, 14th) @ Ipswich(1-1-9, 19th)

We're huge 13:2 underdogs today, making them 2:5 favorites. Oof.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Bruce/Brown/Adriano
MC: Mariga/Kang/Donnelly
AMC: Gordon
ST: Khan/Constantino

30 y/o ST Felipe Caicedo leads Tottenham with 5 goals so far this year, but their scariest player is by far Jan Molnar, valued at a whopping $19.5M and making $120,000/wk, Molnar has 4 goals in 11 starts and has a 7.24 rating so far this year. He's been identified as Tottenham's dangerman.

With Guarin out I decide to make a little change here... I drop the DMC and go with 3 MC's instead, running a 4-3-1-2. I don't think its ideal or a ton better or anything, just trying something different. Kang and Mariga are looking to attack a bit more on the outsides while Donnelly is a bit more defensive minded in the middle.

6': We earn two early corners that go nowhere. They counter after one of them and generate a shot but its a weak one off target.

7': They counter again after we try to get forward, a long ball goes ahead and striker Steur is well ahead of the defense... he shoots and its a clear cut chance here, but Murphy makes the save.

15': After they clear out a corner, we recover and push the ball back ahead, a pass goes to Khan and he takes what is officially considered our first shot, but its blocked nearly immediately and goes out sideways before they recover.

20': They're attacking here and a couple quick passes see them get it into the penalty area... Bruce goes to tackle it and win the ball back for us... and brings down his man, penalty given. Steur takes it and buries it. 0-1

39': We've taken 4 shots now but 3 are from long range.. here a free kick is blocked to earn us a corner... which is cleared right away.

42': We watch Tottenham quickly build up their attack, there's a pass to a man cutting in from the right, he's got a solid look, their 3rd clear cut chance of the day actually, he blasts a shot.. off the far post and out wide, whew!

HALF: Bruce has a 5.3, Adriano 5.7, Gordon a 5.9, Khan a 5.9. Its nasty out there. Constantino is the only one with really bad morale, but a few guys are starting to trend to just "okay" and have me worried. We've got enough injuries that we don't have a ton of subs available anyway, so I just sub out the forwards before they just fall over and start crying on the field. Honestly in the first half Constantino touched it a couple times and seemed like he was just trying to get rid of it ASAP without anything bad happening. Bojinov and Lewis are in for Khan and Constantino. I don't expect any better from them though.

52': Donnelly receives a pass and just shoots from 30 yards out. Its on target but right at the keeper. We've got 9 shots... 7 from long range. I issue the "work the ball into the box" order, at least try guys!

69': Yebda in for an exhausted Neil Gordon. Kang to AMC, Yebda MC. In general I'm happy to see that they aren't getting everything this half, but our attacks aren't pretty.

73': We clear a ball out of our end but they recover, a quick pass back forward, laid off to Caicedo in the area and he's lost the defense... easy easy finish there and this one is over. 0-2

82': They counter after we try a shot and have it saved, and they're just too fast, no, we're there, but, its Alex Bruce again... he just gets dominated on a header way too close as Jan Monar heads a cross into the net from about 7 yards out. 0-3

90': Its just IMPOSSIBLE to score... We build up on offense, Mariga to Kang, Kang to Donnelly, Donnelly with a brilliant controlled run around a number of defenders from the left to the right, and cutting into the area, he's earned us a clear cut chance here, he drives it low to the near post... and the keeper manages to get a hand to it and push it just wide.

92': We earn a corner after that brilliant move by Donnelly. Of course they clear the initial effort but we recover, sending it wide to Donnelly. He crosses in, Lewis heads it down, Kang is there and he blasts it into the net from close range!! I'm not sure if Lewis did that on purpose or not. But we needed a goal so bad, it seems like forever since we scored. 1-3

And that's how it ends.

Ipswich 1 : 3 Tottenham

Their star Molnar is man of the match.

Goal: Kang (7.2)
Assist: Donnelly (6.8) -- so clearly Lewis didn't mean to do that on the assist. It was a deflection leaving Donnelly with the assist still.

Murphy 5.9, Bruce 5.0, Gordon 5.9, Khan 5.9, Lewis 5.6. Bad times, man.


Next up is Southampton before our Toilet Bowl clash with Watford to decide who is the clear worst team in the EPL!

Dang, not looking good for staying up. If you don't survive hopefully the cash reserves will help with a quick return.

Hey Radii, just curious how or even if you use shouts?

This scares me if I ever get to the PL. :D

I agree with those who are suggesting it might be time for a formation change. While Counter/Defensive/Control are all great to adjust, coming up with a formation designed to promote those tactics was something I found very worthwhile. I would say what have you got to lose at this point and doing a midseason formation adjustment, after you work out the kinks and they get used to it, might be helpful? I've not gotten as good of a sense with Ipswitch as I did with Woking what kind of play your players would excel at so I hesitate to offer a formation suggestion, but I think it could do you pretty little harm given your current string. Would really love to see you be able to stay up.

I'll use the play higher up/drop deeper and wider/narrower instructions sometimes based on my coaches pre-game recommendations for my opponent. We don't really have a great target man in the air so if I see a lot of highlights where we are able to get forward but are just having cross after cross headed away to safety I'll use the "exploit the middle" instruction.



Its my first time here, so I'm cool with being in over my head. I'm kinda happy that I'm not just having instant success and have to learn more about tactics and work to succeed, especially given how easy the run has been up to this point.



I think you're right. When I looked ahead in the schedule and saw games against all the teams around me in the standings I decided to play out those games before making a change. Our upcoming match against Watford will signal the end of that stretch and I'll look to make a change then.

I honestly don't know what to change either. I believe I have one of the not too terribly old "tactics and theorems" manuals that had been put out and I'm going to go back and re-read that, I read it a long long time ago but at the lower levels it didn't matter, I was just able to overpower teams with talent.


I've still got a few million in transfer money I can spend though tbh I wasn't intending to use all of that. At this point i've done nothing but improve the team in mostly reasonable ways. In a couple cases I gave 2 year contracts to guys where 1 year would have been more ideal, but that's it. So if we hit January and we're in dead last and are.. I dunno... 12-15 points behind the 17th spot, maybe we don't use that money and we just revert back to a safer plan of preparing to fall back to the Championship in much, much better financial shape.

Anyway, the reason for diverting off into finances and transfers... without bringing on an extra defender or two drastic formation experiments won't happen. Sylvain Berthet was an accomplished MR when I took over. Adriano is a natural ML. Neil Gordon plays MR. So I've got some options if I want to look at say a 3-5-2 formation or 4-5-1 or something like that. But anything that involves putting midfielders our wide drains the defensive depth heavily. Though scratch a 3-5-2, my only reliable player this year is DL Stuart Kirkland and he isn't flexible as far as where he plays, so we're not putting anything out there that shelves him.

Back to the original short answer. After the Watford game we're absolutely going to be trying some new things. What exactly we're going to try... uhh, I dunno :D

I'm actually using a 4-1-2-1-2 formation as well, which I suspect is similar to yours.

If you don't have a great target man, maybe make sure all crosses are drilled in (if not already done)?

I make sure my pitch is the minimum size, so short and narrow since my formation doesn't use the wings.

My strikers are played as a poacher and an advanced forward.

These minor tweaks might not be enough to help because, as Barkeep said, it might just be that a formation change is the way to go.

Loving this dynasty though.

-- Brian Murphy demands $7500/wk for us for the rest of the year if he is to accept a transfer out. That'll save me $20k/wk, so I say ok.

-- I make a role change for Gordon Donnely, giving him a defensive role at MC as a deep lying playmaker, asking him to stay further back to help defend and let Mariga and Kang do most of the work up front.

November 17th, 2018

Southampton(4-3-5, 12th) @ Ipswich(1-1-10, 19th)

We're 3:1 to win today, they're 4:5 favorites, a draw 2:1. Southampton has fallen back to the Championship a few times and Ipswich played them during thsoe phases, going 0-2-3 lifetime against them as they pushed right back up each time.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Bruce/Brown/McKerr
DMC: Yebda
MC: Mariga/Donnelly
AMC: Kang
ST: Khan/Constantino

Southampton's ST Tomas Necid has 6 goals in 12 appearances so far this year and seems their biggest threat. His partner up front Daniel Sturridge has 4 goals in 10 matches as well.

6': They get an early chance on a long cross in, a header goes right to Murphy. We get a chance as Khan flicks a ball ahead for Kang who is able to get a decent shot off but its pretty much right at their keeper as well.

8': Kang is fouled about 25 yards out earning us a free kick. Kang is going to take it, lays it off to Troy Brown who takes a bad shot. That was silly.

14' Their ST Sturridge receives a pass near the penalty area, he blows by Bruce and then Kirkland to get a clear cut chance... but Murphy is able to make a stop.

15': We build up, McKerr to Mariga down the right side, Mariga passes to Constantino, hes 20 yards out, he cuts right, by one defender, by a second, he's into the area, earned himself a clear cut chance, he fires it near post... GOAL!!!!! He beats the keeper!!! Oh man what a relief. A great, great individual effort by Constantino and finally he finishes. His first goal of the season. 1-0

26': Mariga with a nice tackle on the right side, we try to start the counter, but a pass back slows it down... we end up moving the ball down the left side and Khan earns us a corner as a cross is blocked. Corner is cleared, we try a couple times to push it back forward but they get it out.

40': They earn a corner, didn't see how. First one is headed back for corner #2. Second one, Mariga heads it away to safety. Khan gets to the ball and sends it long to Constantino, he can't outrun the defense but we save possession. We earn a throw.. and they make a good tackle as we try to get the offense going, they actually get a strong counter attack but Kirkland wins a key header to stop them.

44': We counter hard after a clearance, Kang gets it to Constantino, he's 35 yards out, but he turns by a defender in a great move and sprints towards the area... he's out a bit wide to the right, but he's uncontested into the area, its his second clear cut chance, but this one is saved by the keeper.


HALF: Strong half for us. We had a lot of highlights getting forward and finally Constantino finds a goal. They do earn 2 clear cut chances and can't convert either. We control possession 59/41, they shoot 5 times, we shoot 4. Most shots are on target (4 for them/3 for us). In our highlights Donnelly being further back has been really noticible, Mariga has a 7.5 rating and has made a number of fine plays and Donnelly is a bit back as a safety net and to reset the offense without a much longer backpass. Typically these teams have put massive, massive pressure on us in the second half. We're going to open the half using a Contain strategy just briefly to try to avoid a quick equalizer, expecting a strong, strong attack. We also use the "Retain Possession" instruction to try to keep the ball longer for now.

52': We have a backpass intercepted as we control the ball on offense, they get a quick counter and their man Sturridge gets a long run into the area, we do force him a bit wide for a tougher shot, and Murphy closes his space well and pushes a shot away.

53': They retain possession but shoot wide. Murphy takes the goal kick long.. Their keeper comes out to the edge of the penalty area... but the goal kick isn't quite that far. He has to come out of the area to challenge for the ball, and Khan got out behind their defenders. Khan gets to go up for a header against their now helpless and out of position keeper. He wins it and directs it on target, its in the net!!!! 2-0

53': After the goal we change to defensive mindset, keeping the "retain possesion" option on.

68': Lots of time passes without a highlight... we see one finally and its of them getting forward but putting a shot way over. They're up to 12 total shots now but we haven't seen many of their second half shots.

69': We clear the ball out but they get it back, a pass out wide right, a long cross comes in and I think this is on Troy Brown. He goes to cover the wrong man and leaves Necid wide open at the penalty spot... the cross is to him and he has a free shot on goal and puts it by Murphy. Ugly. 2-1

80': They earn a corner, its taken out to a man 20 yards out, he ends up earning them a throw with a pass out left that we kick out.. the throwin comes into the area but Sturridge commits a foul going for the ball.

81': Kirkland came down with an injury a few minutes ago, I take him out and bring Adriano in. Kang is out, Gordon in as well.

87': We fall back to a Contain mindset to try to kill off the final few minutes.

90': They have a throwin in our end, its taken and quickly crossed into the area... there's a header, Murphy dives for it, its off the crossbar... Murphy is a bit slow to get up, but we get to it first and try to kick it away. Its blocked and one of their men tries a volley but its a very hectic crowded area and he just pops it way over.

93': Alex Bruce goes in hard for a tackle and he hurts himself... there's another minute of extra time and he has to come out right away. That's two defensive injuries and we've already got a couple men down. This is scary. Yebda moves back to DC which he doesn't really play well and Coutts comes in. If both of these guys are out for any stretch of time we are gonna be bringing up some U18 kids. This is real real bad.

With the injury to Bruce 4 minutes of added time turns into 7, but we hold on!! We get a huge win here today!!

Ipswich 2 : 1 Southampton

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (8.3)
Goals: Constantino (8.3), Khan (7.2)
Assits: Murphy (7.5), Mariga
Notables: Kirkland (7.3)


Constantino ends a goal scoring drought of 893 minutes.

Khan ends a goal scoring drought of 428 minutes.


The win was really big but man getting Constantino a goal seems like it may be even bigger.


Injury Update

Oh man, Alex Bruce BROKE HIS ARM landing awkwardly as he dove into a tackle trying to help us seal the win late. He's out for 6-7 weeks.


Transfer Out Finalized

-- After promising to subsidize part of Brian Murphy's salary the rest of the year he accepts a deal to go play for Manisaspor, currently sitting in 5th place in the Turkish Premier Division.

They'll pay us $400,000 for Murphy. He'll leave on January 1st, the same time our new keeper will be coming in.


We're still in 19th, but that win helps us out so much. We're 6 points away from 17th, the spot needed to avoid relegation. In a week we play at Watford, the worst team in the league, a chance to win two in a row!

Sounds like it is, yeah.


Done! One of those things where I was in the past very rarely looking at detailed tactical settings and need to pay more attention to these kinds of things.


I like that advice, if we stick with this going into next season I'll make sure to do this.



Same. Constantino is my poacher. I tend to put Rob Lewis in the poacher role as well when he's in, Khan and Bojinov are the advanced fowards.



Thanks! :)

-- Berthet and Fryers are almost ready to come back, that'll help the defense a ton. For our next match though I promote DC Steve Dempsey up from the youth squad. If he has to play he has to play. *gulp*

-- All it took was one goal for Constantino. Morale up from Very Poor to Good immediately.

November 24th, 2018

Ipswich(2-1-10, 19th) @ Watford (0-5-8, 20th)

Ahhh, a team on our level. But its still a road game. They're 5:4 favorites, making us 7:4 to get a win today. 7 years in the Championship together have given us a 4-2-8 record lifetime against Watford. Last year we tied 1:1 on the road and won 2:1 at home.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Brown/Adriano
DMC: Yebda
MC: Mariga/Donnelly
AMC: Kang
ST: Khan/Constantino

Adriano starts at AMR, McKerr at DC. I almost put Gordon in at AMC instead of Kang just to keep them rotating a bit but Kang is playing leaps and bounds better this year... I keep Kang in here. I wonder if I should play differently against a bad team here, but I go ahead and start out in the same counter attacking strategy that hopefully we're becoming more comfortable with.

16': A nice attacking move for us, Donnelly to Mariga who quickly puts it ahead for Kang who is charging in from the right. His shot is considered a clear cut chance... but he just sends it really weakly at the keeper. Poor poor shot.

17': They get forward, a ball goes into the penalty area but its long and over everyone. McKerr is there and should just clear it away, but he controls it poorly... one of their forwards attacks him and steals the ball... he's able to get a free run on Murphy, but Murphy goes down and turns the ball away as he tries to shoot. Whew, Murphy saves the day there.

25': A counter attack for us... McKerr sends a long ball down the left... Constantino is first to it about 35 yards out, and he's got a speed edge on their defense. He pushes forward as their defense collapses, lays a ball off to the trailer, Kang... who takes a really really bad shot, another super weak effort right at their keeper. Whats up dude?

36': We build up on offense and here Kang takes a much stronger shot, its from 20 yards out and the keeper has to dive to turn it away. Corner is cleared but we recover and begin a slow buildup on offense... in the end we can't do anything though, they intercept a pass and clear.

42': They build up on offense, sending it out left over a couple passes, a ball goes into the area, Brown seems like he has a chance to clear it away but misses a header, it comes down to ST Grimes and he puts it into the net... 0-1 Ick!

HALF: Not what we want to see here... we need 3 points dammit. They shoot 10 times to our 6, stats are pretty even but as usual we're not doing well in the air winning just 46% of our headers... do I tell our guys to attack? These guys aren't better than us, could pressure them into mistakes? I go for it, if we lose to Watford we're pretty screwed, so we need to sell out here to get this goal back.

62': Well this just isn't working. All the highlights are theirs. I sub Gordon in for a tired/ineffective Yebda. Gordon AMC, Kang MC, no DMC.

78': We get a couple attacking highlights that go nowhere.

79': They get a corner, we head it away. One of their men recover but Constantino charges and tackles it away. He takes it and begins a run down he right side, Khan sprinting down the middle... they have a central defender heading over to constantino's side and he sees Khan open and onside. He sends a long pass forward from 45 ish yards away. Its perfect!! Amazing long ball from our Poacher. Khan controls it well, is into the area and he beats the keeper easily! Great, great effort there. 1-1

82': We try to strike again, Kang with a nice through ball ahead to Khan, its a clear cut chance but the keeper is able to get down and make the save, turning it behind for a corner. Corner is cleared easily.

There's a lot of back and forth in the final 5 minutes but very little actual shooting. We walk away from this one with a point, something we shouldn't be too unhappy about on the road, but damn I wanted 3 here today.

Watford 1 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.9)
Goal: Khan (7.0)
Assist: Constantino (6.8)
Notables: Murphy (7.0), Mariga (7.0)


As Wolverhampton lose today we gain a point on 17th. Wolves in 17th with 13 points, Nottingham Forest 18th with 10 points, we're 19th with 8 points. I scroll ahead. I expect us to be in dead last when January rolls around.

Next 7 matches: Arsenal, Man City, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea

Or, just looking at their rankings: 5th, 9th, 4th, 3rd, 8th, 18th, 1st.

-- Kirkland is named to the EPL team of the week this week.

-- Zeki Fryers and Sylvain Berthet resume full training. Hooray! I move our kid Dempsey back down to the U18 squad where he belongs.

-- Everton offer my assistant coach, Mark Seagraves, their Assistant Coach job. Hey, assholes, leave him alone! He makes $2400/wk, I'm assuming he'll take it... and yep, a few days later he takes the job.

-- I do some searching and make an offer that would actually be a nice upgrade, we'll see what happens.

December Update

-- DL Stuart Kirkland is named the EPL Young Player of the Month!!!! Our first award of any kind in the top division.

-- Constantino's goal vs Southampton is the #2 Goal of the Month in the EPL.

-- The board is still pleased with my leadership, with the increase in stature a positive and the Bojinov signing a negative. Our poor performance isn't being brought up as an issue so I feel ok here.

-- We made a profit of $570k last month. For the year so far we've turned a profit of $15M and have $6.8M in positive cash balance.

New Assistant Coach

Steve Burns was the youth coach at Tottenham. He seems happy to get a promotion up to assistant, and while he is best with youngsters, he's a lot better overall than our old assistant and will only make $300/wk more. The fee we received from Everton for our old assistant will go right back out to Tottenham to bring in Burns. Man Management 14, Mental 13, Tactical 13, Working With Youngsters 18. Determination 12, Judging Ability 16, Judging Potential 16, Discipline 16, Motivation 16. Seems pretty well rounded.


Formation Change?

Do we make a change just for the sake of making a change, or ride what we were doing the last couple matches. I play around with the default tactics and settle on one that we have the personnel for and still basically fits our best players well. We're going to try out a 4-4-1-1. With a more support and defensive oriented midfield, and with a wider formation maybe we'll be a little more sturdy out there? I stick with the default roles here. Donnelly the defensive MC, Mariga the Attacker.



December 1st, 2018

Arsenal(7-4-3, 5th) @ Ipswich(2-2-10, 19th)

Arsenal are big 1:2 favorites today, we're 9:2 to get a win. We've played the 3 times, in a friendly once and twice in our one season rise to the EPL before I took over. All three were losses, no surprise there.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Brown/Berthet
M: Adriano/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

Adriano and Gordon are both naturals at ML/MR. Berthet plays a solid MR as well. We don't really have the depth at ML until we either sign someone new or Jack Hughes comes off his loan in January.

Arsenal runs a 3-4-3. ST Federico Macheda has 1 goal on 4 matches. He recently came from Man U to Arsenal for $7.75M, he had a few 10+ goal seasons for Man U but isn't used as much here. Young ST Bugra Yildirim from Turkey is their star it appears with 6 goals and 5 assists in 12 matches. He's a huge threat. He has more '20' ratings than I've ever seen on any individual player with 5 of them (finishing/first touch/free kicks/heading/composure). He's 21 y/o and valued at $29 million. Cesc Fabregas is still their star midfielder at age 31, valued at $33 Million.

We'll try to counter as usual here.

2': Solid highlights for the first 2 minutes as they kick off and work it up the field before settling for a 30 yard shot that Murphy saves. We then control and show some nice passing to get it up the field, a low cross in from Kirkland is headed by Constantino but wide.

4': We have a throwin deep in their end but its taken away and they counter. A long ball goes down the right to Bugra Yildirim... instead of passing though he drives up the right side, into the area and blasts a shot with incredible pace by Murphy. Crazy. No chance. 0-1

22': We're just watching them shoot from everywhere. Every shot is terrifying whether 10 yards away or 40. We've shown some nice passing here and there and hey maybe we'll steal a goal but for now I'm just hoping to get this one over with.

27': Mariga pulls up from 25 yards out and sends a shot in, our first one on target, but right at the keeper.

28': Defender Thiam with a yellow tackling Constantino about 30 yards out on a goal kick. Gordon with a very solid shot from that distance, but their keeper is so good, its a strong shot, bending to the left side of the net, but their keeper makes it look easy.

41': They have a free kick on their end of the field, their keeper takes it and they set up their offense... Fabregas gets forward and crosses it in from the right side, ST Macheda is there with the header and its on target and past Murphy. 0-2

HALF: We do manage 10 shots though 8 of them are from range. They shoot 16 times, putting 8 on target. We're just so massively outclassed here.

50': Berthet is tiring quickly in his first game back from injury. I move McKerr to DR and put Fryers in at DC.

59': Fabregas a yellow.

67': Defender Wilson with a yellow.

70': Coutts in for Adriano, Khan in for Constantino.

84': Kang makes a really nice pass up ahead from inside our own end to Khan, Khan is able to keep possession deep in the right corner while our offense fills in, he finds Gordon in the area and he's got a great looking shot if he wants it, I'd dare say a likely clear cut chance... that he turns down to try to make an extra pass to Donnelly which they intercept.


Ipswich 0 : 2 Arsenal

Murphy 7.0, Mariga 7.2 today. Berthet struggled with a 5.8 and Gordon a 6.3, bad day for the right side of the pitch I guess.


I liked our passing in this new formation, it seemed like we had more space to move the ball around, but against Arsenal, they're so much more talented than we are, its hard to really judge anything.

FA Cup 3rd Round Draw

-- Chelsea draws Arsenal, one of them is going out way early here. Ipswich on the other hand lucks out and draws BS Premier Side Yeovil. It'll be at their place but uh, we ought to be able to handle that. This match will take place in early January.

Training Updates

We receive a number of updates on player training during a coaches meeting.

-- Stuart Kirkland has improved his Marking (11), Compsoure (12), Creativity (13), and Balance (13). The note also mentions strength, which has actually skyrocketed from 10 to 13 over the past 12 months.

-- Constantino's Off the Ball rating is up to 15. He's reported to have made Strength gains as well.

-- Rob Lewis also is reported to have improved his strength, which is only 7. He hasn't really shown a ton of progression lately.

-- On the other end of things, Alex Bruce shows a drop in pace, stamina, strength, work rate, and tackling. He's olllllllllllld.

-- Hassan Yebda and Adriano show drops as well.


December 8th, 2018

Ipswich(2-2-11, 19th) @ Man City(5-5-5, 10th)

Man City are 4:7 favorites today, we're 4:1 to get a win. Ouch. We're 0-0-4 lifetime against them with two matches in the EPL and 2 FA Cup matches.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Brown/McKerr
M: Adriano/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

Man City are led by 26 y/o ST Alipio who has 7 goals in 14 matches. No one else has more than 2 goals for them. The most he's ever scored in an EPL season is 14 goals.

Fryers starts at DC today, McKerr DR, Berthet gets a rest, he's still getting back on his feet really. Counter counter.

7': They get the ball to Alipio about 20 yards out and he just turns straight around Troy Brown as Brown goes in for a tackle. We don't cover well after that mistake and he's got a free run into the area and a clear cut chance that he won't be missing. 0-1

28': They have a free kick from 30 yards out. Midfielder Modric takes it, its fired strong towards the right side of the goal.. Murphy is able to get a hand to it, but it just slows it down, he can't redirect it away... its a goal. 0-2

30': We try to attack, Donnelly has it near midfield and passes ahead to Constantino. He's 35 yards out probably, and his man over-commits just by a step.. Constantino shows a burst of speed and blows by his man. The defender recovers but isn't fast enough to fully recover and get back in a position to maek a tackle... Constantino into the area, a shot near post, and its by the keeper!!!! Great effort! 1-2

33': Kang with a foul about 25 yards out, their man Modric takes it... and does the same thing as before. WOW. Two free kick goals in one match. Bent around the wall and easily into the right side of the net. 1-3

39': Fryers with a yellow.

HALF: Lets just get this over with.

48': A random shot from 35 yards out by midfielder Fabio Vezzoli is aimed perfectly into the upper left corner of the net and Murphy is just helpless. That's 3 long goals today. 1-4

54': We counter after winning a ball in our own area... a long ball is played forward and Kang makes a great run and is behind the defense... its only our 4th shot here but our second clear cut chance as Kang shoots... and puts it right on the keeper. Wow. Weak, weak effort.

63': Midfielder Vezzoli with a yellow.

67': Khan in for Constantino, Guarin (just back from injury) in for Adriano, Berthet in for Gordon at MR.

71': We build up down the left side, Guarin passing to Kirkland to Kang, Kang with a through ball into the area, Khan runs onto it beautifully, its our 3rd clear cut chance and Khan looks sure to score here, the keeper can't get to it if he hits it properly near post... but he sends it wide... guh.

74': They get back on the attack while I'm typing all that up above, there's a through ball and ST Jovetic breaks through our defense and gets a point blank shot that he buries. 1-5

79': Carlos Tevez comes in off the bench and piles on, a nice little give and go sees Tevez get open in the area for a trivial finish. 1-6

83': We have a throwin in their end, Donnelly receives it, passes to Berthet who passes to Mariga at the edge of the penalty box out right a bit.. Mariga fires one in.. and beats the keeper! 2-6


Ouch!!!

Man City 6 : 2 Ipswich

What can you say when the other team scores 6...

McKerr 5.7, Kirkland 5.5, Brown 4.0, Fryers 4.9, Adriano 5.9, Kang 5.9. Constantino put upa 7.0 and Mariga an astonishing 8.0 given the rest of the team.


With wins by some of our relegation competition things start to look worse. 17th place has 16 points, 18th place has 14 points and we have 8 points. We're 16 matches in, getting close to the halfway point of the season. I have a feeling that come January we're just going to be saving our money.

I think you are being a little too negative. When you are trying to avoid relegation, things can change very, very quickly. A quick two game winning "streak" can completely change things, even if you had lost 10 in a row prior. Keep on keepin on. I would not be afraid to spend money to stay up come January.

Would you be setting a goal for how close you need to be to that coveted 17th spot to go for it, or is this pretty much a "use your resources and give it your best" no matter what idea? Right now we're 8 points back, if we could keep it that close I think I would 100% agree with you (whether its because we sneak out a few more points or the teams above us lose a lot). But what do you think if we fall 12 back or worse by the time the transfer window opens back up?

Thanks for the advice!

-- Records are set! But not in a good way. 8 goals total in our 6-2 loss is a new Ipswich record for total goals in a match, surpassing a 4:3 loss to Sheffield Utd years ago in the Championship.


December 15th, 2018

Newcastle(8-6-2, 4th) @ Ipswich(2-2-12, 19th)

Newcastle are 1:2 favorites at our place today, we're 9:2 to get a win and 13:5 for a draw. Back in 09/10 Ipswich beat Newcastle twice in the Championship, but have lost 3 times since, 2-0-3 lifetime.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Brown/McKerr
M: Adriano/Mariga/Donnelly/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Constantino

ST Edinson Cavani is their star striker with 11 matches played and 6 goals/2 assists. He came to Newcastle from Palermo for $30 million 2 years ago. In Seire A he had 9 seasons in a row with 10+ goals, scoring 15+ in 7 of those. AMC Marek Hamsik has 4 goals for them, as does AMC Vladimir Weiss.

I make a couple changes here today, giving Berthet a start at MR and Gordon at AMC. Kang has poor morale and has really missed some easy chances for us recently, I give him a break.

5': Midfielder Hamsik with a yellow for Newcastle.

11': We pass the ball around the left side, Donnelly centers it to Gordon between 20 and 25 yards out... he rifles a shot in, and its just wide right, a really strong shot for Gordon there, good try.

20': They take their first shot of the match, crowding the area but taking a tough shot from a tight angle to the left, Murphy saves it but can't hold, it goes behind for a corner. They get a header off the corner but its high.

29': We have a throwin in their end, its crowded down there, Constantino receives a pass but there's not much he can do, he passes to Berthet who shoots from 20 yards out, he finds a small opening in the defense to get the shot thorugh, but it sails left, pretty close there too.

35': Newcastle is up to 6 shots with 2 on target, they just put one wide from 25 yards out after a long buildup.

42': Midfielder Torric with a yellow fouling Gordon. Free kick is blocked and they win possession. They end up with a shot from 30 yards out but its way high.

HALF: Well the downside is that we took 7 shots but couldn't put a single one of them on target. The upside is that it felt like we really played a solid half, doing a good job forcing them to shoot from distance and clearing balls out of the area. This is where we usually fall though as these great teams just turn it on in the second half to beat us and there doesnt seem to be anything we can do about it. I drop back to straight defensive to start the second half.

48': They try to get their early goal here but midfielder Mata was very clearly offside on a through ball.

49': Berthet lobs a ball over the defense that Constantino gets to first, he can't get into the area but he makes a good run down the right to earn us a corner. They clear the corner but we get a throwin to try to build up again... Mariga settles for a really really long shot, its on target but not threatening.

57': Berthet with a yellow.

60': Having weathered a bit of an early storm I change back to counterattacking.

63': We dodge a bullet as Troy Brown misses an interception and allows one of their men to get a shot off in the area, but he ssent it way high.

66': Khan in for Constantino, Guarin in for Adriano.

76': And there it is, they build up and get it to star Cavani. He turns by Troy Brown *sigh we need better DCs*, he pulls up and fires from the edge of the penalty area and drills it into the left side of the net. 0-1

87': A long ball ahead to Khan, he's got two defenders all over him but he shows amazing control, he recovers the ball and pushes forward, making a move to skirt by one defender, he's into the area and takes a shot, keeper makes a good save. Khan gets to the rebound on the right sideline, he takes another shot from a near straight side angle, he puts it on target but its just too narrow an opening, keeper is able to stop it too. Great effort but that was a lot to ask.

That'll do it. We really played a solid match today, but we're just not good enough.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Newcastle

Their goal scorer is man of the match.

Notables: McKerr (7.1), Mariga (7.2)

Brown slumped down under 6 when he allowed their goal but he recovered to a 6.4 rating. Good try guys. I'm pleased with what I saw today really.

December 18th, 2018

Aston Villa(10-4-3, 1st) @ Ipswich(2-2-12, 19th)

Aston Villa are 4:6 favorites today making us 7:2 dogs. The top of the EPL has been pretty crazy with Aston Villa, Chelsea and Sunderland all sitting in first on occasion, Newcastle is right there as well. For this moment, Aston Villa are in first and they're going not going to want to waste a chance to get 3 vs us. We played well against Newcastle and I'd love to see another good effort today.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Brown/McKerr
M: Guarin/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

30 y/o ST Eren Derdiyok has 10 goals, 6 assists and 5 man of the match awards in 15 games for Aston Villa. ST Gabby Agbonlahor is a 32 y/o who has 7 goals in 15 matches. Neither of these guys start against us today. Instead ST Arsenio Valpoort (4 goals/13 matches) and Nathan Delfoouneso (3 goals/4 matches) get starts today. They're resting their stars for us, but the backups are pretty damn good!

A few changes for us on short rest today. Guarin ML, Gordon MR, Kang AMC.

3': They push straight down the pitch attacking, earning a throwin in our end, and getting their first shot in that Murphy saves and turns behind for a corner. We clear the corner well, they try to push it back in, we clear again and they get a throwin.. this time they move quickly to the right corner, a cross comes in and their man Valpoort wins a header at the 6 yard line as Murphy tried to rush out for it but didn't get there first... once he wins the header, easy goal. 0-1

13': We work it around on offense, play breaks down a bit with some confusion at the edge of the penalty box after a weird deflection, Constantino is able to scoot free, Kang finds him and he's got a great look... but tries to run in a bit closer before shooting and allows them to close down.. he needed to fire right away there. We do earn a corner, taking it short to Fryers, and he turns by his man really nicely, shoots, and the keeper has to dive to save this one... it deflects away but they are first to it to clear. Close!

24': Each team has 3 shots, 2 on target at this point. The early goal allows them a huge advantage here but we are doing some decent things out there I think. Kang's shooting really, really worries me though in this formation. His shots are quite simply weak. I don't know if this is a morale/settling issue or if its something he's just not good with... after some nice buildup we get it to Kang 20 yards out and he just pokes it weakly at the keeper.

35': They earn a corner with a long run down the right as we miss two tackles before finally blocking a cross back for a corner. We clear the corner well.

40': We earn a corner, they clear it out of the area but we push it back ahead to Gordon, he puts a cross into the area, Mariga gets up for the header, but puts it over.

46': We counter, a long ball to Constantino, he gets down the left and puts a pass into the area... they have two defenders there, but the pass makes it through. Mariga runs on to it and strikes it from about 8 yards out with his first touch... he's closely covered but he hits it cleanly.. right to the keeper. That could have so easily been a truly beautiful goal. Doh!!

HALF: The early goal skews things so much. But again I feel alright about our play. We're passing well, building up some chances, this is a very, very good team and we're generating some solid chances here. We have 8 shots, 4 on target. They have 12 shots, 4 on target. One thing I see today is that we're actually winning more headers than usual, and the gap isn't as bad, 56% for us, 60% for them.

47': We build up nicely down the left side, Guarin and Donnelly controlling it well as they try to close down... Donnelly puts it into the area for Kang, he's a bit out left, tough angle... but again, weak, weak shot. Its wide, not struck with any pace, this is really bothering me.

51': we again control the ball well in the offensive end, passing around looking for an opening... Mariga makes a very nice pass into the area, its just a little far... Gordon tries to run to it but their keeper comes out and covers it first.

56': Short highlight, after a pass Donnelly blasts one from 20 yards, its too high though.

58': They counter attack against us, a quick run down the left, a cross from midfielder Treacy, striker Drediyok(subbed on for one of their forwards) gets above Fryers, heads it down into the ground and its under a diving Murphy and in. That one hurts, because it was really fun to watch some solid, controlled play for the first 10 minutes of the second half. 0-2

66': Coutts in for Gordon.

70': Yebda in for Mariga. We play a lot on short rest here and I need these guys when we aren't 2-0 down.

72': Donnelly with a yellow.

76': Constantino receives a pass and begins a run, he's got 3 defenders tracking him, but he is controlling it really well... he's brought down outside the area, and defender Rinaudo picks up a yellow. We earn a corner as the free kick is blocked by the wall. Corner is cleared easily.

81': Yebda with a pass to Constantino, he's got it 20 yards out, he turns, he beats his defender, into the area and its a clear cut chance... he shoots near post... but the keeper saves and its wide.


Nothing the last 10 minutes.

Ipswich 0 : 2 Aston Villa

Much like Newcastle, I'm really not too disappointed here. Yeah, we need to steal some points, but just watching the highlights it feels like we have better control in the midfield and generating chances the past couple matches.

Kirkland and Guarin both put up a 7.0.

If you have budget, might as well spend it on PL quality players. Even if you go down, the additions may make it easier to go back up next year.

Also, you get parachute payments for bring relegated so finances shouldn't be a huge concern if you can re-promote after 1 year back in the Championship. Based on your previous season, it shouldn't be that bad imo unless you lose a lot of players after being relegated.

Alternatively, perhaps youngish championship level players that have the potential to develop to PL quality, since they might be cheaper.

I like law's idea of buying the best Championship players without tons of regard to cost (assuming they are young-ish). Also, maybe try and swoop into some more obscure Eastern European leagues and spend some money on the top up-and-comers there. You aren't going to get to have nearly as big of a transfer budget next year, so I'd spend a lot on transfers now and perhaps try to keep wages lower by giving huge signing bonuses (which I think comes out of the transfer budget).

Thanks for the tips guys. And as we near the end of December, the teams above me haven't pulled away yet. Still a few matches to go but I'm sold on the idea. We'll be looking at picking up a new DC in January, maybe two if I can afford it, but we only have $4M in transfer money remaining so we'll see what we can find. Also remember I do have a new keeper coming in on Jan 1.

Also, up and coming DLC/ML Jack Hughes is coming off loan Jan 9th. I'm not going to loan him out again and will make a push to get him playing time with the 1st team the rest of the year as a backup. He's the 3rd highest rated player for Hull in the Championship over the course of his loan, he's doing better than I expected.

-- Nottingham Forest approach my current Youth Coach and offer him a job as their youth coach. I guess that means I did a good job hiring my youth coach! They're not having a good year and are serious relegation candidates as well but I assume he'll take it.

-- A few days later our youth coach does leave. We get $85,000 in compensation.

-- I bring on a new youth coach quickly, and damn there are guys out there better than ours that I just didn't work hard enough to go find at each spot. For $100k and $1200/wk I sign the youth coach away from West Brom, a team that demoted down to the Championship last year. Dan Ashworth is a Regionally known coach. 20 Working with Youngsters, 17 Man Management, 14 determination, 16 discipline, 14 motivating. Seems really strong!

December 23nd, 2018

Ipswich(2-2-13, 19th) @ Liverpoo(10th)

"Ipswich Face the Impossible" is the headline as the odds are revealed today. Much like Man City and Man U, Liverpool aren't at the top of the table right now but they're still ridiculously talented. They're 1:6 favorites at their house making us 10:1 to win and 5:1 to even get a point. We play again in 3 days against Nottingham Forest, the team currently in 17th. We're going to rest anyone who needs it this match to make sure we're up for the next one.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Brown/McKerr
M: Guarin/Yebda/Newman/Coutts
AMC: Kang
ST: Lewis

Liverpool are led by Lauri Dalla Valle, a 27 y/o worth $19M who has 9 goals in 12 matches. Midfielder Moussa Sissoko is identified as their dangerman, he's worth $28M and is 29 y/o. He's got a 7.27 rating in 21 matches across all competitions wit 4 goals/5 assists.

I use 3 backup midfielders to give Mariga and Donnelly and Gordon a rest today. Rob Lewis gets the start up front.

3': Reserve MC Dave Newman rockets a shot from 20 yards away after about 4 passes of buildup that just goes over.. that would have been a wild goal.

15': Next highlight is theirs and not until 15 minutes in... Sissoko puts it forward, Fryers clears but its back to Sissoko, he puts in another through ball and midfielder Mollo is there, free in the area for a clear cut chance. Murphy can do nothing about this one. 0-1

24': They work the ball up the left side, there's a pass from one striker to the other, Andy Bailey takes a pretty soft shot from 18 yards out but its inch perfect into the right side of the net... seems like Murphy should have been able to get that though, it just wasn't struck that strongly. 0-2

42': Goal #3 comes as their star striker Dalla Valle rockets one.. i dunno, its like a QB scrambling right and throwing back across his body, he receives a pass cutting to the left side of the area, he's still going that direction, strikes it with ridiculous pace into the right side of the net by a diving Murphy. 0-3

HALF: Lets get this one over with.

58': Wheeeeeeeee. Rob Lewis controls a ball 35 yards out and reserve MC Dave Newman is streaking to the goal, Liverpool are... well probably bored, but they're also really out of position leaving a giant hole that Newman can get in while remaining onsides. Lewis puts the ball forward, Newman runs onto it and he shoots from 15 yards out and sends it by their keeper!!! 1-3

74': Their midfielder Mollo gets his second goal, receiving a pass 20 yards out a bit out to the left of center, cutting inside and rocketing a shot by Murphy. 1-4

85': A backup striker gets one from 25 yards out almost the exact same way as goal #4, turn to the right, launches it, Murphy can't stop it. I'm hoping our new keeper will do a better job at stopping these types of shots. 1-5


Liverpool 5 : 1 Ipswich

The good news is that we injured 3 of their players including their keeper during the match.

Goal: Newman (7.2)
Assist: Lewis (6.5)

Murphy 5.7, Kirkland 5.1, Brown 5.8, Fryers 5.1, Guarin 5.3, Yebda 5.1, Kang 5.6.

A few teams are still sitting on 18 matches but most teams, including the bottom 5 teams in the league, are all at 19 matches played and thus the halfway point of the season.

Mid-Season Standings

1. Aston Villa - 40 pts
2. Chelsea - 40 pts (1 less match played)
3. Arsenal - 36 pts
4. Newcastle - 34 pts (1 less match played)
5. Sunderland - 34 pts (1 less match played)
6. Man Utd - 32 pts
7. Sheffield Utd - 32 pts
8. Man City - 30 pts
9. Liverpool - 29 pts (1 less match played)
10. West Ham - 28 pts (1 less match played)
11. Blackburn - 27 pts
12. Tottenham - 23 pts (2 less matches played)
13. Southampton - 23 pts
14. Birmingham - 21 pts
15. Everton - 20 pts (1 less match played)
16. Wolves - 17 pts
17. Nottingham Forest -16 pts
--------------------------------------
18. Huddersfield - 16 pts
19. Ipswich - 8 pts
20. Watford - 6 pts


The top of the table is pretty crazy given that the teams that typically qualify for European Competitions haven't changed too drastically over the last decade. Man City, Man U, Tottenham, Liverpool are all struggling to get up to that top 5-7 range. Of course there's a long way to go for them too and they can buy what they need I'm sure.

League Leaders

Goals

1. Eren Derdiyok - Aston Villa - 11
2. Brahim Ba - Birmingham - 11
3. Lauri Dalla Valle - Liverpool - 10
4. Tomas Necid - Southampton - 10
5. Sam Vokes - Wolves - 10

Matthew Khan leads Ipswich with 4 goals in league play which puts him in a tie for 31st in the league.

Assists

1. Sergio Canales - Chelsea - 9
2. Daniel Parejo - Man Utd - 7
3. Moussa Sissoko - Liverpool - 6
4. Bugra Yidirim - Arsenal - 6
5. Emilio Nsue - West Ham - 6
6. Eren Derdiyok - Aston Villa - 6

We've got a few guys with 2 assists to lead us.


Average Rating

1. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 7.76
2. Eren Derdiyok - Aston Villa - 7.68
3. Tomas Necid - Southampton - 7.61
4. Sandro - Aston Villa - 7.58
5. Adam Hiousek - Man Utd - 7.53

McDonald Mariga leads us with a 6.99 rating which is tied for 87th in the league.

Kirkland 6.85, Khan 6.78, Donnelly 6.78, Constantino 6.78, Guarin 6.71...

On the other end, Zeki Fryers 6.24, Alex Bruce 6.31, Neil Gordon 6.35, and Troy Brown 6.39 are struggling the most.

Champions League Update

The group stages are over and we've got 16 teams left in the tournament. All four English teams are still alive. We've got a powerhouse matchup between Chelsea and Barcelona in the round of 16. Arsenal faces FC Bayern from Germany. Man City vs Benefica and Man Utd vs M Haifa from Israel.

The EURO Cup is down to 32 teams and in its first knockout stage as well. Liverpool, Newcastle and Tottenham have all made it to this stage.


The only other big thing going on is the qualifying for the 2020 Euro Championship. That's still in its very early stages though with less than half of the group matches played.

Contract Updates

We have a large number of player's contracts expiring and are kinda unsure how to handle many of them going forward! As has been suggested, if we demote back down we won't have as big a transfer budget next year.

-- DLR/ML Adriano is a one year rental, he's gone. ($23,500/wk currently)

-- DMC/MC Hassan Yebda is a one year rental, he's gone. ($13,000/wk)

-- DC Alex Bruce is gone. ($10,750/wk)

-- MC Paul Coutts will turn 31 before next year and he makes too much for a backup with his skills, he's gone. ($17,250/wk)

-- DLC Zeki Fryers hates being here, despite seemingly having what it takes to be a decent backup. He's gone. ($23,000/wk)

-- DR/MR Sylvain Berthet is struggling some this year and has been hurt some this year, but he's still a clear starter when fully healthy. He'll take the same rate he makes now plus a signing bonus of $375,000. He wants to add 3 years to his deal. I try to get him to take a smaller signing bonus but he's a guy we're going to want to keep.

-- MC Gordon Donnelly makes about as much as anyone on the team, but he's 24 y/o and putting up one of the better and more consistent ratings this year, we need him. He wants a relegation release clause of $10M that I try to remove from the offer.

-- ST Matthew Khan makes $49,500/wk. The switch to the 4-4-1-1 has been weird since it keeps either Khan or Constantino on the bench. But he's still one of my best players and I feel I ought to hold on to him. I don't make an immediate offer though.

-- AMC/MR Neil Gordon wants $24,500/wk, that's a small raise from the $20,000/wk he makes now. I lower it just a bit.

-- ST Rob Lewis is really cheap but again I wonder if I should maybe sell him. He's not a target man type with poor jumping and poor heading, so he fits the same type of striker role that Constantino and Khan do without the speed. I'm seriously considering trying to sell him since he just doesn't get the first team reps for me. He's not going to improve to be better than Constantino or Khan and if we drop back down we'll be back in a spot where loaning people in becomes reasonable again. I go ahead and offer him out to other clubs to see if I can make a bit of money. I probably should have done this last year as soon as I brought in Constantino.


-- We're actually letting go more than I expected.

December 26th, 2018

Nottingham Forest(3-7-9, 17th) @ Ipswich(2-2-15, 19th)

We're 7:2 to get a win here today, 9:4 to draw, they're 4:6 favorites. They beat us 2:1 in the season opener at their place. They've spent some time in the championship and we are 4-2-6 lifetime against them. They're the first team out of a relegation position currently and we're 8 points behind them, so I think its fair to say that this match is of critical importance at this stage in the season.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Brown/McKerr
M: Adriano/Donnelly/Mariga/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Constantino

ST Ivan Popov leads them with 6 goals.

Back to a starting quality midfield today, Berthet starts at MR, Gordon AMC since Kang has been so vexing.

4': Shit. So so frustrating :( First highlight of the match, long pass upfield, a quick pass to the middle, Kirkland is just caught out completely and midfielder Aqbarov gets behind him, receives a pass and puts a shot by Murphy. Just instant failure. 0-1

5': We try to attack but they win a ball in the midfield, there's another long pass up ahead, this one down the left side and McKerr isn't there! Come on guys! Its their second clear cut chance of the first 5 minutes but this time Murphy gets in front of it and makes the stop. They earn a corner... then a second corner... then a throwin before we clear.

16': We have a free kick 40 yards out to the right. Gordon sends a cross into the area, Mariga gets up in space, gets his head to it, and drills it by the keeper!! Great goal!! 1-1

19': We counter attack after winning a ball in defense, a long ball up to Constantino, he runs out wide left and waits for help, passes back to Kirkland, Kirkland with a low ball into the area, Neil Gordon is there and he redirects it goalward... and scores!!! The keeper dives to his left but can't stop the shot. 2-1

42': We have one offensive highglight otherwise we see 20+ minutes just fly by.

44': They have a throwin in our end, a hard low cross is played into the area after the throw by Fryers heads it away. They push it back forward, a pass going to ST Popov, he turns and spots their scorer Aqbarov cutting in from the right again... its on Kirkland again, the ball goes forward, Kirkland loses his man, and he buries it low by Murphy. 2-2

HALF: I don't see how Kirkland doesn't have a 5.0 rating, but he's not taking the blame specifically for these goals apparently. When I watch it looks to me like he's losing sight of his man and getting burned. I've got us playing a deep line to try to specifically prevent that type of thing but they're just beating it. We got two really strong goals though to make this a really exciting match so far. They're definitely the aggressor, with 8 shots, 3 on target and 3 clear cut chances. We've got 3 shots, 2 on target for 2 goals. Possession is exactly 50/50, stats are all even with each team right around 60% in the air, an area where we've struggled.

51': Donnelly picks up a yellow.

54': Berthet tries a shot from out right, its blocked and we earn a corner. They clear very easily. We win the ball and pass back to Murphy to reset the possession.

56': They win the ball and build up down the right side, their star Aqbarov burns Kirkland again, this time making a run deep down the right side before sending a cross in. Troy Brown takes the blame for missing a header here and midfielder Chris Curtis heads it by Murphy to lose not only our lead but draw as well. 2-3

64': Midfielder Curtis with a yellow for Nottingham.

66': Guarin in for Kirkland. Guarin ML, Adriano back to DL. I would have done that at halftime but I honestly don't think Adriano will do any better. With 3 goals being driven by the same guy though I feel like I have to try something.

68': Berthet comes down with an injury.. he can stay in but we'll see how bad it is later.

74': Kang in for Berthet, Kang AMC, Gordon MR.

77': Troy Brown FTL. We win a ball on the right side, McKerr passes to Brown. Brown stands around waiting for someone to pass to, but their striker Popov attacks him aggressively, steals the ball away, rushes the keeper and shoots, scoring very easily. 2-4

77': Khan in for Constantino.

82': Yellow for midfielder Muamba. Gordon with a free kick from 35 yards out but its into the wall.

That'll do it.

Ipswich 2 : 4 Nottingham Forest

That was a tough one. Kirkland ended with a 6.9 rating but I felt it should have been much worse. Our DC's however got what they deserved.

Goals: Gordon (7.7), Mariga (7.5)
Assists: Kirkland (6.9), Gordon

Murphy 5.9, Brown 5.3, Fryers 5.7, Adriano 5.8, Constantino 5.8.


Nottingham Forest move up a place. We are now 8 behind Huddersfield for 18th and 9 behind Wolves for 17th.

-- Donnelly accepts his new offer.

-- Neil Gordon rejects his and I go ahead and offer him what he wants.

-- Berthet signs his deal


-- We're finally getting out of December, this is our last match before our new keeper arrives (actually we play on 1/1 so if we're lucky there will be an AWESOME travel period where new guy hasn't arrived yet and Murphy is gone. Lets watch!)

-- That last match must have taken a lot out of us. For the first time I start to see a lot of poor and very poor morale amongst the team.

December 28th, 2018

Ipswich(2-2-16, 19th) @ Chelsea(12-4-3, 2nd)

Yea, @Chelsea. December can't end soon enough.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Bruce/Brown/McKerr
M: Guarin/Yebda/Mariga/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Khan

Guarin starts for Adriano, Alex Bruce is healthy again and starts for Fryers, Khan gets the start up front today. Yebda starts for Donnelly. All of these but Khan are done for morale.

1': 30 seconds in they move straight down the middle of the pitch and take two shots, the first hits the crossbar and bounces back into play. The second hits the right post and bounces out.

7': ML Fredy Guarin is hurt... ugh. He can stay in but he's noticibly slowed.

10': Mario Balotelli receives a pass just inside the penalty box and blasts a shot that Murphy has no shot at. Alex Bruce got turned around trying to intercept that and was looking the other way as the shot went off. 0-1

27': Backup ST James Holland gets his first goal of the year, a give and go with midfielder Gourcuff and a shot from 15 yards out. 0-2

38': Midfielder Gourcuff shoots from 20 yards out, McKerr is right on him and trying ot stay in front of him but he just turns and shoots like McKerr isn't even there. 0-3

47': Gourcuf gets his second goal. 0-4

HALF: I'm sympathetic to my team's plight and wish them mercy.

60': Fryers in for Brown, Coutts in for Berthet, Kang in for Gordon. We play again in 4 days, rest up!

74': They put in a cross to no one, their whole team seems to be forward, Guarin picks up the ball and sends it long to Khan. Khan pushes out left and runs down to the corner, he gets a nice cross in around a defender trying to block him off. Their keeper goes after the cross, misses, Mariga wins the header and scores! 1-4


Chelsea 4 : 1 Ipswich

Not much we could do there, of course, nice to get a goal. Mariga continues to put up stellar ratings when the rest of the team fails, he's got an 8.0 today with his goal. He's the only one above 7 today. McKerr 5.9, Kirkland 5.7, Brown 5.0, Bruce 5.1, Berthet 5.9, Gordon 5.5.

Injury Update

-- Fredy Guarin is going to miss 2 weeks with an injured elbow.


-- Neil Gordon signs his adjusted offer.


Transfer Out

Rob Lewis is going to Cardiff. We got $1.1 Million for him, exactly his value. When I first took over at Ipswich he looked like a nice young prospect, and hey he still is. But we aren't really playing him very much and we've moved to a 1 striker formation for what will very likely be the rest of the season here. Lewis just doesn't have a place here, and hasn't since we signed Constantino. The next striker we bring in, whether its at the EPL or Championship, we need to look for a target man type I do believe.


January Update

-- We play on the 1st, 13th, 19th, and 29th in league play. We play in the FA Cup on the 5th, assuming that we win there we'll play again in the FA Cup on the 26th.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. The fans are pretty unhappy with a lot of individual play they're seeing, but they love McDonald Mariga, as do I. Troy Brown's inability to do anything out there is a serious concern.

-- We lost $510k last month.

-- New Keeper Carlos Antonio arrives at Ipswich... injured. LOLZ. He'll miss a couple weeks and will be covered by backup keeper Dominic Johnson.


January 1st, 2019

West Ham(10th) @ Ipswich(2-2-17, 19th)

West Ham are 1:2 favorites at Portman Road on new years day. We've played them twice this year, losing 3:2 at their place in August and losing 1:0 at our place in the League Cup.

GK: Johnson
D: Kirkland/Bruce/Brown/McKerr
M: Adriano/Donnelly/Mariga/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Khan

Emilio Nsue I remember from the first match with West Ham. He's got 9 goals on the year.

Dominic Johnson starts for us today *gulp*. We counter and drop our back line deep.

7': After winning a ball in defense a long ball goes from Kirkland up to Adriano.. he's behind the defense, he's not quick but he's got a ton of space here... he gets to the edge of the area, not considered a clear cut chance but its a pretty good look... keeper makes the save though.

12': Mariga tracks way back in defense to make a key tackle after one of their men beats Troy Brown and is about to challenge our inexperienced keeper. Corner for them, but we clear. They push it back forward and earn a second corner. We clear this one out wide for a throwin and finally clear to safety.

24': A couple throwins for us in their end... we get a shot from Mariga from pretty long range, blocked for a corner, they clear easily.

31': Couple more highlights of shots going over the bar, Donnelly got a decent look for us but put it high and they got one off a free kick.

34': A solid counter for us, a long ball to Constantino... he's a long way out and shoots before getting into the area and before they can close down.. keeper makes a nice save.

HALF: We see a few more highlights for both teams but the only shot is a really long effort by Mariga that had no chance. We've played well this half but we'll see if we can weather the storm in the second half, we've been here before. This is a team we could stand a reasonable shot against at home though. We have 8 shots to their 5, 3 on target to their 2. They're controlling possession pretty well 57/34, stats are even across the board except for headers where we're actually winning more than they are, that's a refreshing change. We've done a good job packing it in and protecting our keeper today so far.

46': They start with the ball but Mariga charges and wins it right away... a pass up to Constantino, then out wide to Berthet, back to Mariga who fires from the edge of the box... blocked for a corner. They clear the corner.

58': Gordon with a free kick from 20 yards out, didn't see how we earned it. He tries to bend it around the wall but it hits the last man and goes out for a corner. They clear it but we send it back forward... a cross into the area is headed away though, no luck.

72': They build up and get a man deep down the left, Brown tackles a ball away for a corner before he can try to pass it in... we win the ball away on the corner and try to counter, getting it quickly to Constantino. We pull it back and set up our offense though... and do nothing. Ah well.

76': Kang in for Berthet, Kang AMC/Gordon MR. Yebda in for a really tired Mariga... I hesitate making this change as Mariga has been a part of nearly all our goals lately, but I hope fresh legs work.

89': A highlight opens with us having a throwin near their end line... we back it up and try to build up... Kang shoots and puts it 1000 yards wide.

94': They earn a throwin in our end, getting nothing but a speculative shot from 20 yards out that goes high.

That's it, its been a long time since we got a point and we'll happily take it.

Ipswich 0 : 0 West Ham

This was a very beatable team but we are on such a long losing streak that a draw is good. Their keeper ends up man of the match.

Notables: Kirkland (8.1), Mariga (7.2), McKerr (7.5)

-- I don't see any clear DC targets that are currently transfer listed. I go back through the work my scouts have done so far this year and look to see if there are any reasonable targets that they've found, no obvious luck there either. Guys that would help me and that I can afford are too valuable to their teams, etc. I do a search for a couple stats (determination/marking/pace all 13 or better) and scout a ton of guys to see if I can find something. I look at guys available for loan and scout a few as well.

-- A few days go by and scouting reports start to come in. I make a number of offers but all of these guys are liked by their current teams so we're hoping to see some counter offers or something.

-- Hull ask to extend the loan for Jack Hughes. I reject the offer. I want him playing for me the rest of the season.

January 5th, 2019

FA Cup 3rd Round

Ipswich(19th, EPL) @ Yeovil(12th, BSP)

We're slight favorites today, 1:8 to get a win, har. Yeovil are 12:1 underdogs. We're 2-0-0 lifetime against them, once from the league cup and once in a friendly. Hopefully we can take out some of our frustration today on them.

GK: Johnson
D: Kirkland/Bruce/Brown/Berthet
M: Adriano/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

Berthet back to DR today, gordon MR, Kang AMC.

7': We shoot early and often, 5 shots so far, Constantino got us a clear cut chance in the 2nd minute and couldn't finish it, blasting it at the keeper.

18': Our second clear cut chance has Donnelly putting a ball into the area that Adriano runs on to, but he puts a shot wide.

35': 12 shots to their 1, Mariga and Gordon just both missed shots high from fairly close range.

HALF: Right, struggles to score, of course. But we're all over them and its just a matter of time.

50': Mariga with a long bending shot that is just wide.. he's shooting from range far too often, I tell the team to work it into the box.

58': Gordon with a free kick from 25 yards out, just wide.

62': Adriano is hurt. He can stay in.

64': We build up down the left, the ball comes in to Kang, he puts a through ball into the area and Constantino is first to it. Its a classic poacher's goal that Constantino is so good at vs players who aren't as physically gifted. 1-0

66': Berthet with a yellow.

75': Coutts in for Adriano

77': Kirkland sends it forward for Constantino, its pretty crowded but he finds space for a shot from 18yards out.. the keeper parries it away, but Kang is first to it and buries the followup before the keeper can recover. 0-2

79': We'll defend to make sure we hang on to the lead.

92': We're passing it around and just killing clock when Kang turns and shoots from 25 yards out, its struck with good pace, the keeper dives, gets a hand on it, but cant stop it, its through and into the back of the net! 3-0

Yeovil 0 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Kang Soo-Jin (8.9)
Goals: Kang 2, Constantino (8.4)
Assists: Kang, Constantino, Berthet (8.3)
Notables: Kirkland (7.7), Brown (7.2), Bruce (7.2), Gordon (7.1), Mariga (7.1), Donnelly (7.3)


This is what was supposed to happen of course, but I'm glad we got the job done.


-- We receive $110,000 for this win.


-- Adriano is out 4-5 days.

New Signing

-- With this, we're done for the year. Welcome 32 y/o DC Henrique to Ipswich. He was valued at $1.5M but was in the first team at West Brom, a team trying to hop back up into the EPL after being relegated last year. They accepted $4.1M after a few offers went by. We scouted a large number of guys that were as good or better than Troy Brown, Henrique came with the "quality signing" and "a lot better than our best DC Troy Brown" praise, and was really the only guy we looked at that we had a chance to sign. All other offers rejected flat out.

Henrique is getting up there in years a but he's retained his physical abilities very well so far. All of them are 14, except Jumping/Strength are 15.

Mental: Positioning 17, Determination 14, Decisions 14, Composure 15, Bravery 15

Technical: Heading 16, Marking 15, Tackling 14

Henrique is going to make $37,500 for the next two seasons.

-- Henrique has spent the last 5 years with West Brom, so he has four years of EPL experience with them, playing 30+ matches every season and putting up ratings in the 6.8-7 range in all of those seasons, including the one where they relegated back down.


-- I'm not sure I've mentioned it but our board has a mandatory 25% Promotion Raise/Relegation Drop clause. I'm not allowed to alter it in any way. I assume at least, from my reading of the FM11 thread, that this is unique to my board and not a game wide thing. So all these contracts and signings and all have a 25% salary drop in them should we demote back down.

-- With this, we'll be playing the rest of the season with 3 new players. Keeper Carlos Antonio, DC Henrique, and DLC/ML Jack Hughes. Antonio and Henrique appear to be decisive upgrades, while Hughes is a very promising youngster that will provide some first team cover and get some experience.

FA Cup 4th Round Draw

We get a home game against Leicester in the Championship. A solid draw with 32 teams left in the field, we had about a 50/50 shot of getting an EPL team.


-- Our "other" young defender, Clive Jackson, goes out on loan to Reading, the team leading the Championship. Jackson isn't as promising as Hughes.

-- Carlos Antonio resumes full training the day before our Huddersfield match.

January 13th, 2019

Ipswich(2-3-17, 19th) @ Huddersfield(5-2-15, 18th)

Huge match, both Huddersfield and Ipswich have gone 9 matches in the EPL without a win, they're now in 18th while we're still in 19th. They're 5:4 favorites at their house, we're 7:4. We lost to them at home in an early season disappointment and want revenge. We're 8 points behind them. Severely lacking in match fitness since he wasn't playing for Man City and at 74% fitness, I think I'm going to give him a game with the reserve squad before bringing him up. I remember starting Lynch right after an injury once and he basically couldn't move and got beaten in horrible ways.

GK: Johnson
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Brown/McKerr
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mariga/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Constantino

24 y/o ST Ibai Platas leads them with 7 goals in 14 matches. This is their big signing as they promoted up to the EPL with us last year, the type of one player splash we didn't make. They bought him from Reading for $14.5 Million. He's only 24. Sam Collins has 5 goals in 16 matches and is their second leading scorer.

We debut Henrique at DC next to Troy Brown. McKerr starts at DR. Berthet MR, and Jack Hughes gets the start at ML today with Adriano coming off an injury. Gordon AMC. We'll counter on the road here.

1': We start with the ball and build up nicely, Hughes centers it to Gordon who shoots from 20 yards out, its saved by the keeper but he placed it pretty neatly towards the left.

2': They get their two strikers up near hte 18 yard line and a through ball gets through to Platas, Johnson comes out, and McKerr recovers quickly to tackle behind, whew. That looked like a goal when the pass went through.

10': they move the ball forward after we have a free kick cleared, a pass goes to ST Collins, Platas cuts into the middle and he hits him perfectly, Henrique is running with him but a step behind perhaps... shot, its a clear cut chance, and they get a goal out of this one, Johnson can't make the stop. 0-1

26': We build up down the right side, a pass goes from McKerr to Mariga who has a shot from 25 yards out, its on target and struck really well, the keeper stops it but there's a rebound, Neil Gordon is first to it and he blasts it by the keeper before he can recover!! 1-1 I really feel Kang doesn't get that goal the way he's played lately.

33': They are attacking, Henrique clears a ball out of the area but they get it back forward, there's a shot from 25 yards out, Johnson tips it over for a corner... they earn a second corner.. then Kirkland clears. They recover and set up their offense, eventually Neil Gordon makes a nice tackle and sends it long.

HALF: After that last clearance I mentioned at the 33 minute mark.. we fly to the half without another highlight. We're tied up, Troy Brown must have taken the blame for that goal, he's got a 5.5 rating. Constantino is struggling and has a 5.9. Henrique and Hughes are both doing well. Huddersfield have 10 shots but 5 are from long range. We have 5 shots... but 4 are from long range. I'm going to tell out guys to try harder to get it into the area, we can do better. Very even match!

47': They earn a corner nearly right away, a shot is blocked behind, we clear though. Its cleared to Constantino who begins a long run down the left... he crosses in, Mariga can't win the header though.

52': After 3 more highlights showing Huddersfield attacking, they earn a corner here. We're able to clear it.

55': They have another attacking highlight, here they get a pass ahead to Sam Collins, he runs by McKerr, Troy Brown misses a tackle... and he's into the area and finds an easy goal. Brown... sigh. 1-2

63': Adriano in for Brown.. Hughes to DC, Adriano ML. Khan is in for Constantino.

79': I tell the team to attack, 10 minutes to get a goal.

Though we do take a couple long shots in the final 10 minutes mostly we see them with the ball passing it around while we desperately chase. Frustrating that all of our play against the other bottom feeders have come up losses.

Huddersfield 2 : 1 Ipswich

Goal: Gordon (7.1)
Assists: Mariga (8.3)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0)

Troy Brown with a 5.1 rating today. Henrique 6.8, Hughes 6.7. Both played pretty well.


We now sit 10 points behind 18th and 11 points behind 17th.

Dang -- quite the cutthroat, aren't we? :)

-- McDonald Mariga is named to the EPL team of the week this week. He's really playing so much better than anyone else on the team right now.

January 19th, 2019

Sheffield United(7th) @ Ipswich(2-3-18, 19th)

They're 4:7 favorites today making us 4:1 to get a win, 5:2 for a draw. We lost to them back in September 2:0.

GK: Johnson
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Hughes/McKerr
M: Guarin/Donnelly/Mariga/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Khan

Luca Vanelli leads them with 8 goals, but they have a lot of guys out today, as reported by our pre match scouting. Maybe that'll help us out!

I didn't really intend to start Jack Hughes too much but Troy Brown has to go. Lets see how the Hughes/Henrique combo works out. Guarin at ML and Khan starts up front today for the struggling Constantino.

4': Hughes picks up an early yellow for a foul out near the midfield.

7': They earn a corner as a shot is blocked... we clear easily though. They've got a couple early shots and all the early possession and aggression.

19': We get a couple attacking moves, but end up with long shots wide every time. Guarin just put one pretty close... but I'm not seeing any attempt to get closer, I go ahead with the Work Ball Into Box instruction.

28': They earn a corner after controlling possession forever. Henrique with a nice header to clear, they recover and work their offense some more... a couple minutes later we win it, they're being real patient, this must be the "control" strategy in action here, I want to say we just watched an offensive highlight for them that lasted ~5 minutes of game time.

33': Free kick for Sheffield. They take it and send a shot around the wall, Antonio dives for it, its off the post... and back into play where Vanelli is the first man to the ball, he puts it into the empty net. 0-1 "The Ipswich players are bereft of confidence" ... well yeah.

HALF: It looks like Jack Hughes took the blame for that goal, he's at a 5.7. Khan is struggling too, I haven't seen him touch the ball yet. We take 6 shots, 4 from long range and all are off target. They shoot 10 times, putting 5 on target. They control 60% of the possession. Just frustrating.

52': We win the ball after a corner and send it long, earning us a throw in... we build up on offense but they've really packed it in. They head out a cross, we recover and earn a corner. Gordon takes it. They're able to clear but we recover again. As we try to build up the attack again they win the ball. Nothing remotely close to a shot happened there.

71': We have a free kick 25 yards out, Gordon bends it around the wall... and it hits the side netting. Close.

80': Constantino in for Khan, Yebda in for Donnelly, Kang in for Gordon. We will try to attack the final 10 minutes.

87': We've got a throwin in their end.. after one pass Mariga shoots from 30 yards and its way over.

91': We've got a throwin in their end.. cross into the area and they head it back for a corner. They clear the corner and keep the ball. That'll do it.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Sheffield United

We were bad today. Not a single shot on target. 8 of our 11 shots were from long range. Poor, poor effort.

Kirkland put up a 7.0. Hughes 5.4, Khan 5.6.


Huddersfield win again and we are now 14 points out of the 17th spot, with 14 matches to go.

Wow. I guess the Premier League is a huge step up, but what's a dynasty without a little adversity?

I hope that the losing season doesn't deter you. It sounds like you've been financially prudent and just clearing away that persistent red ink should give you a better footing to go back down and come back up for good.

Yeah for sure. There's a good chance I'll get impatient and try to really fly through the rest of the season sometime soon, but I'm not discouraged at all. Once the result is nearly in the bag, I am ready to progress ASAP.

I've been reading the SFraser posts mentioned i n the FM11 thread, and I already knew there was a ton I didn't know about soccer and about the game, but holy crap I have to say I didn't know exactly how deep one could go in this game!

There are really simple things I didn't do this season, just because the game is so deep I didn't think about it. I probably could afford to get really solid upgrades at every coaching position to help our development. The two times I had coaches hired away I easily found *much* better for a reasonable price. The more I play with a team with money the better I should get at it!

Hah, I would try to say "well that's not how I meant it" but I dunno how else I could have possibly intended that statement to be taken :D

Just a bit of "oh yeah, well screw you for kicking our asses!" on the way out I suppose.

Injury Update

GK Carlos Antonio tears a groin muscle running after a ball in training... he's out for 2 months. Holy Christ!!!! I go back and look at his injury history, he is 25 years old after all... and he'd never been hurt a single time until this year.

-- With Antonio hurt I decide to call up my young keeper Chris Mason. I'll play him in the FA Cup and may give him a couple starts in the EPL just to get him some high level first team time.

-- Liverpool make an offer of $11.25M for DL Stuart Kirkland. I turn them down. Kid is 19 and is handling the EPL as well as anyone else on my team right now. I want him to be here when we break through and stay up for good.

January 26th, 2019

FA Cup 4th Round

Leicester(4th, Championship) @ Ipswich(19th, EPL)

We're 4:5 favorites today at home to beat Leicester. We're at the bottom of the EPL, they're in contention in the Championship, but hopefully we can get the win here even without our keeper.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Brown/Hughes/Berthet
M: Guarin/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

Henrique can't play since he played for West Brom in the FA Cup already (I assume that's the reason). We attack at home today.

2': Mariga with a yellow.

5': Kang gets a good look from 18 yards out, but surprise, weak shot. Easily saved.

12': Defender Rosenior with a yellow for a foul about 25 yards out. Neil Gordon takes the free kick, he blasts it around the wall and into the right side of the net! 1-0

14': Constantino receives a pass way out to the left, he runs towards the area, gets into the area and shoots towards the far post... if on target its an easy goal, but, he sends it just wide.

24': We have a throwin in their end, its quickly passed into the area, Mariga has it and he lays it off for Neil Gordon who has a clear cut chance from the penalty spot, he scores!! 2-0

41': FC Andy Carroll with a yellow for Leicester.

46': Defender Barr with a yellow for Leicester

48': We earn a corner, Gordon takes it and sends it to Troy Brown. He dodges a tackle and shoots, keeper dives, stops it but can't hold it... Constantino is there for the rebound and puts it into the empty net! 3-0


HALF: We shoot 11 times, putting 7 on target. They shoot 4 times, putting 3 on target, nothing worrisome or anything but Mason did have to make a few saves for us and did well. We've got 60% of the possession and we're in great shape here. Yebda in for Donnelly and Coutts in for Mariga at the half to rest guys a bit.

55': They counterattack after we lose the ball in the midfield, a long ball goes ahead to MC Cia, he's way behind our defense, gets a free run into the area and scores easily. Don't give this back guys! 3-1

70': Constantino makes a great run and is fouled out tot he right just outside the penalty area. Gordon quickly takes the free kick, passing to Jack Hughes 20 yards out up top, he shoots, its deflected... Constantino races to the loose ball, he's there first and from a really right angle near the end line ot the right of the goal he shoots and puts it in! 4-1

70': Fryers comes in for Kirkland. Yebda got hurt at some point here, no idea when or how.

92': We build up quickly on offense, Coutts has it about 25 yards out, makes a short run forward, draws two defenders and lays it off to the left for Kang, he's wide open now, runs into the area and sends it to the right post, its by the keeper and in! 5-1

Ipswich 5 : 1 Leicester

That's what I wanted vs Yeovil. Lets have some fun and get lots of goals.

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (9.6)
Goals: Gordon 2, Constantino 2 (9.3), Kang (7.8)
Assists: Gordon 2, Constantino, Mariga (7.0), Coutts (6.8)
Notables: Berthet (7.6), Kirkland (7.2), Hughes (8.1), Brown (7.3), Guarin (7.2)

Mason with a 6.8.

2 goals and 2 assists from Neil Gordon today, awesome stuff!


-- We receive $150,000 for the win today.

Wow, what do you have to do to get a 10 rating in a game if 2 goals and assisting 2 others won't do it? That's just one awesome game for Gordon!

Tell

FA Cup Fifth Round Draw

-- We're down to 16 teams left in the tournament. We're the first team drawn... there's a few Championship teams still left.. there's also the #2 team in the EPL, Aston Villa. That's who we're going to be playing in the next round.

New Signing

I thought I was done here with only $400k left in transfer money, but we did have one more goal that came up awhile ago. I search for South Korean players, I don't really care about talent here, but Kang Soo-Jin is still having troubles settling in in England. I find a kid who came up through the Tottenham youth system and was cast off and looking for a new home. Welcome 18 y/o DC/MC Park Sang-Ho to Ipswich. He "has the potential to be a decent player". But mostly he's spent a good number of years in England and we really hope he'll buddy up with Kang Soo-Jin and make him happier.

Physical: 13 pace, 13 accel, 15 stamina, 13 agility
Mental: 19 teamwork, 14 work rate, 10 determination, 7 anticipation, a number of 6-10 ratings, composure of 6.
Technical: 12 marking, 10 tackling, 9 heading, 8 technique, 13 dribbling

I'll play him some to try to keep him happy as well.


We've got one more match then we hit February. I'm going to start speeding up the matches and may speed up the reporting as a result.

-- One other personnel note. Between league and cup matches, Adriano has played 16 matches for us. He's only signed through the end of this year and won't be coming back. There's a clause in the transfer deal I made for him that will have me giving Liverpool $400,000 if he plays 20 matches. So if we have another busy stretch come up I may start him and play him 90 minutes up to 3 more times. But if he doesn't start I'm not making him available as a backup.


January 29th, 2019

Man Utd(11-7-6, 7th) @ Ipswich(2-3-19, 19th)

Man U are 1:3 favorites today. They are fighting hard for their place in Europe sitting in 7th currently. We're 7:1 to win here. We're on TV today.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Brown/Henrique/Berthet
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

Henrique is back in. Hughes starts at ML. Wayne Rooney starts for Man U today, he's getting up there in years and playing a little less, he still has 5 goals and 6 assists in 17 league matches.


7': An easy goal, a pass from MC Fletcher in to ST Belfodil, right in between our two DC's and he buries it by Mason. 0-1

15': Gordon with a yellow.

22': Rooney with a yellow.

26': A quick attack for Ipswich, Donnelly with a ball to Mariga in the area and he's behind the defense... their keeper rushes out and cuts off the angle, Mariga tries to put it by the keeper but he deflects it wide.. We have a corner, they clear but we control and build back up on offense. Mariga to Kang, Kang passes to Constantino who is cutting in front of his man... he conrols the ball well, shoots as the keeper is rushing out and he's got it by the keeper and into the net!! 1-1

41': Well we got to be tied with them for about 15 minutes. Rooney with a pass to Belfodil, he's got it 40 yards out and just outruns Troy Brown and gets a shot by Mason and in. 1-2

HALF: We're playing well today, we generated two clear cut chances but sadly only converted one. 7 shots, 3 on target, they have 9 shots, 4 on target. Things are pretty even outside of of course the headers where we aren't winning enough of them in general.

53': Theo Walcott receives a pass about 20 yards out, runs into the area, completely burns Troy Brown and then easily scores. 1-3

58': We win a fight for th e ball in the midfield, Donnelly with a quick pass forward to Constantino, Kang is streaking up the middle and their defense isn't set, Constantino hits Kang, and for once Kang finds the power I expected out of his shots... he catches the keeper trying desperately to run out but no chance, Kang puts it on target and into the back of the net! 2-3

74': We damn near tie this thing up, Constantino with a shot from the left side of the area, just into the side netting, good effort.

81': Fryers in for Brown, Guarin in for Hughes, Yebda in for Donnelly.

That'll do it sadly.

Ipswich 2 : 3 Man Utd

We really played well today. Troy Brown once again takes a hit with a 6.3 rating. Donnelly has been off his game lately, he puts up a 6.0 and is the only guy on the team struggling with morale right now

Goals: Constantino (8.9), Kang (8.6)
Assists: Constantino, Kang
Notables: Kirkland (7.0), Mariga (7.0)


Its amazing it hasn't happened before now, but Watford finally gets a win, their first of the season, over Huddersfield. That win plus a lot more ties than us puts them into 19th and we fall back into last place in the league.

Keep fighting on! Will be fun to watch you absolutely roll up the m-effers in the Championship next year, if it comes down to that. :) Also, might be good to try and have a 100% rested lineup for the FA Cup game - maybe you can catch Aston Villa resting on their laurels!

-- We get a note that Neil Gordon has trained well over the last 6 months, and really this kid is worth another look, his performances this year haven't been as strong as I'd hoped, but I'm expecting a superstar season out of him in the Championship next year. He's still just 22 years old. Over the last 12 months his Strength is up 2 to 12. His positioning, one of his weakest traits sadly, is up 2 to 10. Off the ball +1 to 17. His Aniticipation is steady at 18. Creativity +1 to 18, Passing +1 to 11. And he is *the* man on the team for all set pieces. Corners 19, Crossing 18, Free Kicks 15, Long Throws 16, Penalties 16. I'm still unsure whether Gordon will settle at MR or AMC (weaker tackling and marking numbers offest his brilliant crossing ability), just as Kang could settle at AMC or MC still, but Gordon just looks so good.

February Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 9th, 12th, and 23rd in league play. The 16th is our FA Cup match.

-- The board remains pleased with my leadership. Signing Mariga is the highlight, signing Bojinov the lowlight. We lost $4.5M last month. We spent $5.36M on new players so that's about right. That leaves us just $1.5M cash positive but still with a $9.6M profit on the year.

February 2nd, 2019

Ipswich(2-3-20, 20th) @ Tottenham(8-5-12, 14th)

Tottenham are 1:3 favorites, we're 7:1 today.

GK: Johnson
D: Kirkland/Hughes/Henrique/McKerr
M: Guarin/Kang/Mariga/Berthet
AMC: Gordon
ST: Constantino

Johnson starts at GK, I decide not to throw the young kid out on the road. Hughes/Henrique at DC today, McKerr DR, Guarin ML, Berthet MR. Kang takes Donnelly's place at MC and Gordon moves back up front. I give Donnelly the day off. Down to key highlights from extended for now.

2': We start out with possession and have a long buildup on offense... Berthet sends a ball into the area for Constantino, he heads it down to Gordon who has a great look, in fact its a clear cut chance from the penalty spot... but the keeper makes the save.

12': A long pass goes forward to their striker Stuer, he tries to pass forward for their other forward... Henrique is there, but their ST Caicedo takes the ball away before he can clear, controls it and puts it into the net. 0-1

19': Mariga with a yellow.

23': We win a ball in the defensive end and there's a long ball ahead to Constantino. He's got it but is out pretty wide to the left, he makes a long run as they are slow to close down, Constantino into the area, shot from a tough angle out left though... and its saved. There's a rebound but it deflects out pretty far, Gordon was in a perfect spot if it didn't bound away so strongly.

42': A through ball sees their man Steur earn a clear cut chance from 10 yards out... he shoots off the post, we dodge a bullet there.

HALF: Henrique and Hughes are really suffering in the back, 5.2 and 5.5 ratings for them. Once again though, we are generating some really good chances out there, the finishing just isn't quite there. They shoot 8 times to our 5. Each team puts 3 on target, and possession is even.

55': They get a freak goal after a deflection leading to a header... but the scorer was offsides and it doesn't count.

76': They earn a corner after 20 minutes with no highlights. Its curled in tight and Johnson simply catches it.

77': Park in for Mariga, Yebda in for Gordon, Yebda MC, Kang up to AMC, and Khan in for Constantino.


And that's it, Tottenham didn't really attack all that strongly in the second half but we didn't see a single offensive highlight in the final 45 minutes, and in fact just shot once.

Tottenham 1 : 0 Ipswich

Notables: McKerr (7.2), Kirkland (7.4), Guarin (7.1), Mariga (7.1)


We're playing a lot better against some of these really good teams lately.


With 25-26 matches played by every team in the league we're 2/3 of the way through the season. Chelsea has pulled ahead in first by a little, the top teams have slowly started drifting to the top, and the 3 leading relegation candidates have become obvious. Here's a look at the standings:


1. Chelsea - 25 G - 54 pts
2. Aston Villa - 26 G - 51 pts
3. Sunderland - 26 G - 50 pts
4. Arsenal - 25 G - 48 pts
5. Newcastle - 26 G - 48 pts
6. Man Utd - 26 G - 46 pts
7. Sheffield Utd - 26 G - 45 pts
8. Liverpool - 26 G - 43 pts
9. West Ham - 25 G - 36 pts
10. Southampton - 26 G - 35 pts
11. Man City - 25 G - 34 pts
12. Tottenahm - 26 G - 32 pts
13. Birmingham - 26 G - 32 pts
14. Blackburn - 26 G - 30 pts
15. Everton - 26 G - 29 pts
16. Nottingham Forest - 25 G - 29 pts
17. Huddersfield - 26 G - 24 pts
---------------------------
18. Wolves - 26 G - 19 pts
19. Watford - 25 G - 10 pts
20. Ipswich - 26 G - 9 pts

Huddersfield promoted up with us last year and has a legit shot to stay up. Watford was the other team that made it up along with us, and it looks like we'll be seeing them next year.

Yep, that's definitely the plan. We'll take it a bit easy against Everton on the 12th to make sure we're as strong as possible for the FA Cup match on the 16th. I'd love to pull off an upset there, and with a lot more reasonable performances lately I think we've got an upset in us somewhere.

The win over Leicester just makes it look like re-promotion if you go down should be highly probable, so Ipswich is in really good shape.

Question though: If a bigger club were to come in with some sort of offer, would you consider moving? Think Alex McLeish being relegated with Birmingham last year then being offered the Aston Villa job.

I wouldn't plan to in the near future, no. My intent right now is the same as with Woking... to take that specific team as far as possible. I'm quite confident that Ipswich has the resources to at least hang in the EPL if managed well, and I wouldn't want to leave them unless I felt like I'd taken them as far as they can go for some reason.

Injury Update

-- Troy Brown "has sustained a damaged spine" after a fall in training. Ouch!! He's out for 2 months. That seems low for a damaged spine.

-- Chelsea beats Arsenal 1:0 in a big league match. With all teams even now at 26 matches played Chelsea now leads Aston Villa by 6 points.

-- We have 8 players called up for international duty for matches between the 11th-13th. 5 of them are starters for us and all the matches are friendlies so I request that none of them play more than 45 minutes.

-- Our match on the 12th vs Everton is pushed back to the 20th instead due to international callups.


February 9th, 2019

Ipswich(2-3-21, 20th) Birmingham(8-8-10, 13th)

Birmingham are big 2:5 favorites today, we're 13:2 to get a win.

GK: Johnson
D: Kirkland/Hughes/Henrique/Berthet
M: Guarin/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Khan

We rotate people around to get Donnelly back in, Kang AMC, Gordon MR, Berthet DR, McKerr has the day off. Khan starts up front for Constantino.

2': A through ball to ST Benitez who scoots in behind Jack Hughes, Henrique tried to cover but he was taking a step towards their other forward and couldn't get back in time. Easy easy goal. 0-1

35': They're up to 7 shots with 5 on target, Johnson has made two pretty nice saves in recent highlights.

44': They earn a corner as we block a shot, a header goes high on the corner.

HALF: These teams are just soo much better than we are, and given an early lead they make it nearly impossible. We have 2 shots so far this match, both off target. They have 12 shots, 7 on target.

65': Wow, I don't know what the hell just happened... there's a header... ball is in the air near midfield... their man goes up for a header, and best I can tell from watching the little sprites run around, Jack Hughes went in for a slide tackle and took his man out. Its a straight red, something I assumed the second play stopped. Hughes had been playing ok and his morale is Superb, I don't know where that came from at all! I sub Park in for Kang and run a 4-4-1.

70': They take advantage quickly of the man advantage, getting an easy goal from midfielder Chapman... he really looked offsides and we complain a lot, but it stands. 0-2

74': A 25 yard strike from Midfielder Sergio Suarez is by Johnson and in... 0-3

And that'll do it.

Birmingham 3 : 0 Ipswich


We give up an early goal allowing them to do what they want, and then the red card for Hughes makes it easy for them to get more.

Berthet 5.4, Donnelly 5.9, Khan 5.6. Guarin with a random 7.1 out wide.


-- Chelsea puts a further stranglehold on first place with a 2:0 win over Aston Villa today.

-- Hughes is suspended for 2 matches. I issue a warning for his violent play which he accepts.

-- The league's disciplinary committee reviews the red card by Jack Hughes and decides that 2 games isn't enough, his suspension is extended by 2 more matches to 4 games. I really can't complain about it I don't think. It really looked awful.

February 16th, 2019

FA Cup Fifth Round

Aston Villa (2nd, EPL) @ Ipswich(20th, EPL)

Aston Villa are 1:2 favorites today, we're 9:2 to get a win. They're clearly better but we hope to catch them off guard with a strong performance and maybe them worrying more about their league position.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Bruce/McKerr/Berthet
M: Guarin/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

We're in a tough spot with Henrique unavailable for cup play and Hughes suspended and Brown with an injury. Bruce and McKerr start at DC, Mason in goal at home.

2': They get an early shot on a cross/header but Mason makes the save and we clear it out. A ball is sent long ot Constantino and he makes a long run to get into the penalty area before they catch him, one missed tackle and he's going to score, but the defender that got back made a good stop. Donnelly was able to recover hte loose ball and shoot but he sent it high.

7': Donnelly is hurt and has to come out immediately. Yebda is in for him.

14': Another cross/header that they just miss, this one just over.

17': We get a throwin in their end, its taken short and a pass goes to Kang 20 yards out, he turns and shoots and its a strong bending shot that just goes wide right. Close!

18': They kick it long on their goal kick and we recover, there's a long ball ahead to Kang, we've got 2 forward and they have 3 back... kang gets down to the right end line, into the area and he blasts a shot, the keeper stops it. Corner is taken by Gordon, crossed to the 6 yard box, Mariga wins a header, and its a goal!!! 1-0 I drop back to defensive for a bit.

21': They have a throwin in our end, after one pass midfielder Fabian Delph shoots from 20 yards out wide to the left... and puts it perfectly by everyone and into the far post. 1-1

28': It looks like a replay.. throwin, pass to Delph, shot from almost the same spot... through a big crowd in the area and into the net. 1-2 Boy did they answer fast.

42': We have a nice long buildup, they defend well, Guarin sends a ball into the area but Constantino can't control it to get a shot off, they clear for a throwin. After the throwin there's a cross, Mariga header... but its very weak and the keeper easily collects it.

HALF: We're thrilled to get the early lead but they answer so swiftly. And it appears Alex Bruce takes the blame for both goals... he goes into the locker room with a 4.9 rating. They shoot 7 times, 5 on target, we shoot 6 times, 2 on target. Possession is even but our problem like usual is getting killed in the air, we only win 33% of our headers in the half.

78': Gordon AMC, Berthet MR, McKerr DR, Fryers in for Kang and he takes over at DC. After one highlight early in the half showing them shoot high, about 25 minutes fly off... we'll try to attack in the final 10 to get a goal here.

86': Berthet is hurt... he can stay in but he has the nasty injury symbol that always worries me.

88': We win the ball in the defensive end and send it forward, Constantino is first to it, he's not going to be able to get all the way into the area before they close down... he pulls up from 20+ yards out and shoots towards the far post... and it sails just wide.

94': We have a throwin in their end, its taken to Kirkland who immediately crosses... someone's made a huge mistake!!! Its a cross to the far end of the 6 yard box, and they aren't there. McKerr drifts over to the ball and none of their defenders move that way, we catch them completely off guard, McKerr gets his head to it and its in!!! With 5 minutes of extra time for the injuries, we may have just earned another shot at these guys. 2-2

That'll do it!

Ipswich 2 : 2 Aston Villa

Their goal scorer is easily man of the match.

Goals: Mariga (8.0), McKerr (7.5)
Assists: Kirkland (7.8), Gordon (7.2)

Alex Bruce just blows... 4.8.

Finally a result of some kind against a good team. Of course this just means a replay at their place, but we've been playing a lot better in the last 6 weeks as far as not getting blown out and generating legit chances to score, and its nice to see us come through here in a big way.


Injury Update

-- Donnelly is out about a week.

-- Berthet is also out about a week.

Could be worse.

The replay will be on the 27th, in 11 days. Donnelly and Berthet will be back by then. It'll be Jack Hughes final game under suspension so we'll have the same issues at DC.

The 6th round (quarterfinals) of the FA Cup are today. Should we somehow get by Aston Villa on the road we would host Blackburn, easily the best possible matchup available for us out of the final 8.

-- Sporting Moscow want to loan Kang Soo-Jin with an option to buy him. $850k for the loan and $5.25M if they wanted to buy him when it was over. I'm a little concerned that Kang hasn't settled in but I'm sure as hell not giving up on him yet.

February 20th, 2019

Everton(7-9-11, 14th) @ Ipswich(2-3-22, 20th)

We're 9:2 dogs today, they're 1:2 favorites at Portman Road. This is the type of match I feel like we can compete in with our improved play of late. I'd like to have our first string keeper, but whatever!

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Fryers/McKerr
M: Guarin/Yebda/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

We've got 5 starters out (depending on whether you count Troy Brown a starter or not at this point). This is the best lineup we can field.

2': A nice attaching move out of the gate for us sees a good deal of buildup leading to a shot from Kang from the 18 yard line, but the keeper easily saves it.

7': Henrique goes for a tackle on their striker 20 yards out, he turns by and has the first clear cut chance of the match, but its right at Mason and he stops it. They get it back though and after resetting the offense striker Brian Kelly goes around Fryers for another clear cut chance... this one is wide.

24': Mariga blasts a shot from 25 yards out, off a defender and out, corner is cleared though. I've already issued the "work ball into box" instruction... Mariga loves his long shots though.

31': They work the ball forward but we intercept a pass, quickly it goes to Mariga, he sends it down the right side, Constantino is first to it, his first touch is beautiful, poking the ball ahead to the edge of the box, allowing him to sprint ahead for it... the keeper comes out, Constantino aims far post, and its perfect, into the net!! 1-0

Just one highlight the rest of the half, a long shot for them saved easily by Mason.

HALF: We know we're going to have to face a hellish attack in the second half but this is the kind of play I wanted to see coming into the season, we hold them off and get the quick counter attack goal. Course, we withstood a couple clear cut chances and they could be up 2-1, but still! We have 5 shots, 3 on target. They have 7 shots, 3 on target. Possession is even, we're tackling really well (78%) and winning over half our headers, which is better than we can say many games.

I open the second half in a defensive mindset and with the "Retain Possession" instruction. Lets slow this up a little and try to hold off their initial attack that we expect to come.

54': Mariga doesn't retain possession either. We have a throwin, he gets it 35 yards out and just turns and fires... its a decent effort, just wide, but come on dude!

65': Free kick for Gordon outside the right edge of the area, he crosses in, the keeper goes for the ball, but fumbles it... Zeki Fryers is there and he pounces, poking the ball into the net!!! 2-0

68': Oh man!! Their defense is passing it around looking to start moving up, Constantino sees a lazy pass though and jumps on it, charging forward to the edge of the penalty box, shooting, but the keeper came out well to cut off the angle and he can't score. Its wide for a corner which we can't do anything about.

77': Coutts in for Yebda, Khan in for a very tired Kang. We move up to a 4-4-2 with that change.

82': We have it on offense, Khan goes forward but pulls the ball back instead of attempt a bad shot, a couple passes, Coutts to MAriga at the edge of the penalty area, he wheels and fires, and this one is on target!! It bends into the right side of the net, its a damn blowout!!!! 3-0

Well would you look at that.

Ipswich 3 : 0 Everton

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (9.1)
Goals: Mariga, Constantino (8.0), Fryers (7.9)
Assists: Mariga, Coutts (6.9) -- Fryers goal is unassisted, or it would have been credited to Gordon.
Notables: Mason (7.1), McKerr (7.6), Kirkland (7.8), Henrique (7.6), Gordon (7.0), Guarin (7.2)

Only Yebda and Kand are under 7.0 today out of the starters.


-- Blackburn fire their manager after the match, I'm expected to be a top choice, I deny that I have any interest.


-- With that win we move back into 19th place. Sadly we're still 12 out of a spot that would avoid relegation with 10 to go. I would totally get excited about trying to go on a run to end the season... except our next 4 in a row are on the road and our final 5 matches of the year are Arsenal, Man City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, and Newcastle. so if any sort of magic is to happen, it best happen now.

But hell, that was a fun and spectacular win and we're gonna enjoy it regardless.

-- Berthet is back to full training but won't be ready to start in time for our next match.

February 23rd, 2019

Ipswich(3-3-22, 19th) @ Sunderland(16-6-6, 3rd)

They're 1:3 favorites today, putting us at 7:1 to be able to win and even 3:1 to draw. I would have wished for something a little more realistic to try win 2 in a row after that last match we played.

GK: Johnson
D: Adriano/Henrique/Fryers/McKerr
M: Guarin/Yebda/Mariga/Gordon
ST: Bojinov/Khan

Johnson starts in goal. I'd love to rest a ton of guys today but with our injury issues its not realistic. I do give Adriano one of his 3 remaining starts today, giving Kirkland the day off at DL. I also rest Kang, but AMC/MR are huge issues for depth right now, so instead I run a 4-4-2 today with Bojinov and Khan up front.

24': After one very early highlight we jump to 24 minutes in. They end up settling for a shot from 25+ yards out, its a rocket that bends in and hits the right post, a scary chance there, but we did a good job not letting them get something easier.

25': Bojinov is fouled as we get the ball forward. Gordon takes the free kick from 30 yards out, he shoots from there and its right at the keeper, saved.

27': They pass the ball around, never getting it close, before midfielder Arismendi settles for a shot from 25 yards out, settles isn't the right word really, he crushes it on target and Johnson has no chance. Its into the back of the net. 0-1 Those kinds of shots specifically are what I was hoping our new keeper Carlos Antonio would prevent.

40': Arismendi with a yellow for them.

HALF: They shoot 7 times, 4 from long range and only 2 on target. Their goal was a really impressive long strike. We've got 4 shots, just 1 on target. Seems unlikely that we have any chance today, but we will of course keep trying.

64': They get a corner, we clear it after a couple headers, they try twice to push the ball back into the area.. the second time Fryers tries to clear but messes it up and the ball pops free in the area, striker Darren Bent is there to pounce and fire a shot in, we can't stop it and its a 2 goal deficit. 0-2

75': McKerr comes down injured... we'll check on it post-match.

82': The floodgates open fully as they get a long ball to star striker Nuno Goncalves who flies past Fryers with ease and scores. 0-3

That'll do it here.

Sunderland 3 : 0 Ipswich

Adriano 6.2, Fryers 6.3, Gordon 6.3 but nothing in the 5s or 4s as we often see in bad losses. We just can't hang with these guys on the road without a lot of luck.

February 27th, 2019

FA Cup Fifth Round Replay

Ipswich(3-3-23, 19th) @ Aston Villa(2nd, EPL)

Aston Villa are 1:2 favorites at their place, making us 9:2 dogs.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Fryers/McKerr/Berthet
M: Guarin/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

I give Chris Mason the start in goal. He's been playing fairly well, of course I've been setting him aside in our rougher matches but he played in the first match against these guys. Donnelly and Berthet are back in today. I go with Fryers/McKerr at DC with Henrique unavailable. I don't like it at all but I'm not letting Alex Bruce near the field.

5': They pass the ball around the left side. Their dangerman Delph receives it, crosses into the area, a header... Mason dives and just stops it, we clear it behind for a corner. We clear the corner, they retain possession but end up with a shot going wide in the end.

9': Their man Delph with a free kick from 25 yards out, he bends it around the wall, Mason dives again.. and just gets enough of his fingertips to it to push it aside. WHEW.

24': We have a corner, taken short to Fryers, he tries a shot, blocked, it falls to Constantino 18 yards out, he shoots, it deflects like a pinball through the area, the keeper gets to it and shoves it away, it seems like we've got a man there, we shoot... but wide. That was WILD.

33': We attack but Constantino loses the ball and they counter... they get a man forward behind the defense, he's approaching the penalty area, Zeki Fryers comes in with a sliding tackle and wins the ball away, great defense!

HALF: There were a lot of highlights in that half considering I dropped back to only key highlights to speed things along a little. And damn our defense played a great, great half. Mason was flying all over saving the ball (now of course that is in part b/c he's so young and has to make great saves sometimes to make up for lack of anticipation and positioning). We made a number of clutch tackles and clearances, and we almost got ourselves a freak goal. They shoot 10 times, but 7 are from range. 5 are on target. We have 7 shots, 4 on target, and only 1 from long range which is really good for us! We're tackling much better than them and winning exactly 50% of our headers... can we make something magical happen in the second half?

46': Hah I was afraid of that. They go straight down the field, a cross comes in from the left to the far end of the 6 yard box, their man Young is there and heads it home. Kirkland takes full blame for that one, missing a header he should have won. 0-1

67': Gordon with a yellow. Looks like with 20 minutes flying by they're just shutting things down with the lead.

80': We have a corner, its taken short for Fryers again, and agin he shoots and its blocked. It falls towards Constantino, he jumps on it, and on a full volley strikes it into the net before the keeper can reposition himself!!! 1-1

FULL TIME: A second freak play gives us a goal, we hold up on defense really well and we're headed to extra time. I go ahead and use Adriano's second game here, putting him out at ML for Guarin. I also bring in Khan for an exhausted Kang and go to the 4-4-2.

99': We have it on offense, Kirkland passes to Donnelly, he spots Constantino 20 yards out, Constantino tries to turn by his man but he's tackled and loses the ball. He goes down... but no foul. They look to counter quickly. They win a header and I fear a through ball here... they get it to their star Delph, its a clear cut chance... but Mason rushes out then dives for the shot and stops it!! They recover, a pass into the area, their man Delph has it again, and Kirkland comes in with a perfect tackle to knock it away. Corner for Aston Villa. We clear it nicely... and counter attack, it goes forward to Constantino who makes a long run down the right... hm I really think he shoulda shot... he tries to pass it through the area but they intercept and put it out for a throw, and finally an unbelievably hectic sequence comes to an end.

103': We give up 2 corner kicks... the second is a header by one of their strikers that's high.

ET HALFTIME: I knew what my last sub would be but delayed it as long as possible due to the talent difference. Yebda in for Donnelly. I think we've reached a point where the fresh legs matter more.

106': A highlight right after their kickoff... slow buildup, lots of passes, but in the end defender Darragh Byrne tackles Khan and its a yellow... I didn't note the first one but that's his second yellow and he's out of the match!

118': We have a corner, taken to Fryers, back out to Gordon, a cross goes in... and cleared. They push ahead on offense, getting it easily forward to their strikers, ST Derdiyok gets his foot to it... Mason with another diving stop!! What a game!!!!

That's it! Now... can we possibly beat them on penalties?

Penalty Kicks

1.

Gamez for Villa: Hits the left post!! No good!!
Khan: Shoots right.. keeper saves

2.

Derdiyok (Villa): Into the right side of the net.
Constantino: Saved by the keeper, he hit it right at him and the keeper didn't move.

0-1

3.

Delph (Villa): Off the left crossbar and in.
Yebda: Up high and to the left, in the net!

1-2

4.

Young (Villa): Right down the middle and Mason breaks left early. Goal.
Gordon: HE shoots left... keeper dives that way.. and makes the stop. Game over.


Aston Villa 1p : 1 Ipswich

Aston Villa wins 3-1 on penalties.


What an exciting match!! A great, great effort by our guys. Their goalscorer is man of the match.

Goal: Constantino (7.5)
Assist: Fryers (7.0)
Notables: Mason (7.1), Berthet (7.0), McKerr (7.0), Donnelly (7.3)

They shot 29 times, putting 14 on target. Our 17 year old kid Chris Mason was everywhere. He needs to fill out... a lot... before he'll be a legit keeper even for the Championship, but he was really fun to watch today.


-- We were expected to make the 4th round of the FA Cup. Making the 5th round makes the board and the fans happy, always nice to exceed expectations.

-- At some point in the last week Huddersfield picked up another win. We are once again 15 points out of 17th place, now with just 9 matches to go in the season.

March Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 17th, and 23rd. Light month. Three matches we are capable of competing in, though two are on the road.. @Blackburn, @Southampton, vs Watford. With 9 matches left and that nightmare finish coming up, its essentially over for us, but I'd love to put in a good showing in March and maybe make it exciting. Also, in the EPL your prize money depends on your place. $5.1M for 18th, $3.4M for 19th, $1.7M for 20th, so that's worth playing for. I will say though I'm really close to just turning off all highlights and spamming out the rest of the season as quickly as possible.

-- DL Stuart Kirkland is 3rd in Young Player of the Month voting.

-- The board remains pleased with my leadership. The January capture of Henrique is a positive for the fans. Our 0-3 loss to Birmingham pissed off the fans.

-- We made $1.24M in profit last month. Back up to $2.8M in the black as far as cash flow, and back up to $11M in profits.

March 2nd, 2019

Ipswich(3-3-23, 19th) @ Blackburn(8-9-12, 15th)

They're 4:6 favorites today, making us 7:2 dogs. That's the best odds we've seen for anything in a good long while.

GK: Mason
D: Hughes/Fryers/Henrique/McKerr
M: Guarin/Yebda/Donnelly/Berthet
AMC: Kang
ST: Khan

We are exhausted coming into this one, leading to lots of changes today. Jack Hughes is back from his suspension and starts for Kirkland today. Henrique is back in. Berthet up to MR, Gordon needs the day off. Yebda in at MC, Mariga needs a day off, and Khan in for Constantino. Even with that we are tired as hell.

13': A very, very long highlight, we have it on offense and pass it around for a good long while but can't find a shot, they steal it away and counter, getting a man near the area for a shot but Mason came out nicely and stopped it. We recover and get forward again, Khan earning us a corner as a shot is blocked behind. Corner is cleared away.

42': We've seen a few highlights here, all of Blackburn shooting from 25+ yards out though.

HALF: They shoot 8 times, but 6 from long range and only 2 on target. We shoot twice, both off target, both in the first 15 minutes. We're doing a fairly good job here defending at least, but we need to get something going to generate a shot or two.

53': They try to push the ball forward but McKerr makes an interception and catches them off guard with a long ball ahead to Kang. He's in the area after a good first touch, a man closing in fast to put pressure on him but its a clear cut chance... he shoots, wide left. Not a bad strike just a little wide. Dang.

57': They have it on offense, one striker passes to another, ST Griffiths blows by Fryers and gets into the area where he beats Mason to the near post. 0-1

71': Constantino in for Khan.

82': A highlight opens with us trying to counter, Guarin sends a ball to midfield for Constantino, he's got a lot of space and cuts between two defenders... Kang is running ahead, Constantino finds him, he's in the area, keeper coming out to pressure, but its a clear cut chance... shot is right at the keeper and saved. I cannot help but think that Gordon would score there and find it hard to believe that Kang could not.

That's the game.

Blackburn 1 : 0 Ipswich

We generate two great chances in the second half but cannot convert either. We played pretty well, frustrating!

McKerr 7.3, Yebda 7.1. Khan struggled a lot and had a 5.4 rating when it was done.

-- Arsenal beat Man Utd 4:2 to win the league cup. Wow, 21 y/o ST Hans Nooij has 0 goals in 7 league matches this year, they're just starting to break him in. But he had all 4 of their goals in the cup final. And to address Tellisto's comment from earlier on what it takes to get a 10 rating... apparently 4 goals isn't it! That's good for a 9.8.

Injury Update

-- DRC Michael McKerr turns his ankle and is going to miss 4 weeks. That's a shame. That's on March 9th.

-- McDonald Mariga hurts himself in the weight room and is out for 2 weeks. March 12th.

-- ST Valeri Bojinov hurts his calf in training. 3 weeks! March 15th.

-- GK Carlos Antonio resumes full training. Maybe we can finally get an extended look at our new keeper.


March 17th, 2019

Ipswich(3-3-24, 19th) @ Southampton(11-8-11, 10th)

They are 1:2 favorites at their place, making us 9:2 dogs. We beat these guys at our place 2:1 earlier in the year. We're on TV today.

GK: Antonio
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Henrique/Berthet
M: Hughes/Yebda/Donnelly/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

Southampton ST Tomas Necid has 15 goals, one of 7 players to have 15 or 16 league goals right now.

Hughes starts at ML today, Antonio starts in goal, I think everything else is pretty standard given our 4 current injuries.

3': Yebda turns it over in our end and they look to attack right away, a pass to one of their strikers, Henrique comes way out to defend, leaving a hole in the back, ST Sturridge fills the open space, receives a pass and shoots near post and Carlos Antonio has no chance. 0-1

23': We have a goal kick, its taken long and their defense is playing very high, there's a huge amount of space between the defensive line and the penalty area.. the ball bounces free, Kang runs onto it and into the area, he's got a clear cut chance.. but runs too far with it I think.. and the keeper easily pushes it behind for a corner, which they clear.

39': They earn a corner, taken short, we have to fight hard to tackle it away but finally do and clear. They have 11 shots, all the highlights are theirs.

45': Hughes has it in our end... but he doesn't seem to know what to do. He stands around awhile and passes ahead... right to one of their defenders to start up the action. They quickly work it to Sturridge who shoots from 20 yards out and its a strong blast into the upper right corner of the net.. no chance. 0-2

HALF: We don't look good at all today. Maybe they want revenge for us getting the win at home, or just inconsistency, but this is a huge dropoff for us.

51': Donnelly gets open for a shot from 20 yards out but not enough pace, the keeper saves pretty easily.

65': There's a long ball from Gordon out near midfield towards the area, Constantino runs by the defense and possesses it beautifully, great control of such a long pass through the air. After that its clinical, he easily beats the keeper! 1-2

66': they build up after kickoff.. the ball goes out wide left, a cross comes through the 6 yard box, Hughes goes up to try to win a header... and is called for a penalty... Sturridge takes it and that's his hat trick. 1-3

76': They're really piling it on.. Sturridge gets the assist this time to go with his 3 goals, hitting a man coming in from the left with a nice pass and easy goal. Berthet takes the blame for this one and we might see multiple men under 5.0 here.

87': At least our offense didn't stop playing, Gordon receives a pass 25 yards out well right, he lofts a ball into the area, Constantino runs onto it and strikes it very nicely by the keeper! 2-4

93': At the end of added time they get a sub on the board just for kicks. A free kick goes to a man 20 yards out and he drives a shot into the left side of the net. 2-5

Southampton 5 : 2 Ipswich

This just got completely out of hand.

Goals: Constantino 2 (8.8)
Assists: Gordon 2 (7.5)

Kang 5.7, Henrique 5.9, Fryers 5.0... Berthet 4.4........ Hughes 3.6.


That's it for Hughes. He got a solid taste of top level action after coming off loan but his last two matches have resulted in a red card and one of the lowest ratings I'll see all year. He's going to spend the rest of the year with the reserves and will be featured heavily at the Championship level next year.



We're now 16 points out of 17th with 7 to play. Our next match against Watford will very likely decide who finishes 19th and who finishes 20th, there's a million bucks or so riding on that placement, so we'll watch the highlights for that. After that we rush through the rest of the year.

The first knockout round of the Champions Cup is over.

-- Man U advance beating M Haifa of Israel 1:0 (over two legs)
-- Arsenal advance on away goals after a 1:1 draw against FC Bayern
-- Chelsea loses to Barcelona 2:0 aggregate.
-- Man City loses to Benifica, 2:2 but they lose on away goals.

Not such a good result for England!

March 23rd, 2019

Watford(1-8-22, 20th) @ Ipswich(3-3-24, 19th)

For the first and only time this season, we are favored in an EPL Match. We're even money favorites at home vs Watford. They're 11:5 to win, 11:5 to draw. We tied them 1:1 at their place back in November. We're 1 point ahead of Watford with 7 to play. Getting 4 points up would nearly guarentee us the extra Million or so from 19th place!

GK: Antonio
D: Kirkland/Fryers/Henrique/Berthet
M: Adriano/Guarin/Donnelly/Gordon
AMC: Kang
ST: Constantino

This will be the last match we see Adriano. Yebda is traveling so we're down 5 men today with 4 injuries still. Guarin starts at MC along with Donnelly. Lets have some fun and attack at home against a bad team.

4': We build up slowly after a foul in our defensive end. Constantino controls it 35 yards out, runs right, passes to Berthet and heads to the area, Berthet ahead to Gordon, Gordon centers it and Constantino is there 10 yards out to put it by the keeper! 1-0

14': they earn a corner, its taken low into the 6 yard box... man how did we not clear that? Guarin takes the blame for missing an interception, midfielder Wedgbury takes advantage and drills it by Carlos Antonio. 1-1

27': A long run through the area by one of their strikers pulls our defense out of position, allowing a man to get open for a clear cut chance... a dive by Carlos Antonio sees it wide and we clear the corner.

32': They buld up on offense, a ball goes to ST Costea... Henrique and Berthet are both on his ass, but neither can make the tackle... Berthet takes the blame... as its drillled into the net. 1-2

39': Constantino breaks free for what looks like a goal... but offsides.

45': A foul and yellow for Smalling for Watford. Gordon takes the free kick from 20 yards out at about a 45 degree angle, he sends a shot bending in from right to left.. the keeper gets to it and parries it away and they clear.

HALF: Our defense is just falling apart on us. I yell at them and tell them this is a must win match, now go out there and win.

55': Donnelly with a yellow.

59': we have a throwin in their end... its taken to Kang who shoots from 20 yards out and misses badly.

68': We have it and build up to attack, lots of passing down the left side before a pass in to Constantino, he turns left by his man and shoots, but its saved and turned over for a corner. Corner is cleared.

73': Well I guess 20th is where we belong. A through ball gets backup Grimes free in the area and Antonio can't stop it... easy goal. 1-3

88': Midfielder Kearney with a yellow.

91': Kirkland a yellow.

92': Gordon a yellow.

No goals in the end, a sad ending to this one, a total failure in a very very winnable match.

Ipswich 1 : 3 Watford

Goal: Constantino (7.5)
Assist: Gordon (6.6)

Kang Soo-Jin was noticeably awful today with a 5.3 rating. Carlos Antonio with a 6.2 and he hasn't really had a good match for us yet either.


-- We'll finish the season quickly tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to crushing the Championship and getting back up here for another shot.

Good attitude! What's your plan of action for the next 2 years?

That's a good question!

A couple simple things: No messing with facilities and stuff yet, ours are good and we're not that wealthy, just "safe" as far as our finances now. Improve the coaching staff if possible. I didn't look at that much this year but when a couple guys left I found very affordable upgrades very easily. Pay more attention!


Other goals I have by the time I start my next season in the EPL:

1) Spend, and spend lots if I can find the right people, on making sure I have strong Central Defenders. Going into this season thinking that Alex Bruce and Troy Brown were adequate was my biggest problem in hindsight.

2) Stick with some kind of wide formation and build for it, doesn't have to be this 4-4-1-1 and in fact I think I might rather it not be in the end, but the super narrow formation I had going made it very hard to change and be flexible. This means getting a real ML (Jack Hughes can play there but he's much better suited for defense). Even though I shoehorned some guys to make the 4-4-1-1 fit I felt like our possession and spacing was a lot better, I felt a lot more like with a little better talent I could be competing instead of "well nothing is coming close to working at all, ever" in the old narrow formation.

3) I like Khan and Constantino but I think I need a legit target man. Khan is ok at best in the air. With my current starting lineup Constantino and Kang at AMC are both terrible, this seems very limiting. Especially when we have a guy like Neil Gordon, creative, great dribbling, great anticipation and brilliant on crosses and corners both. So I think after shoring up the defense building a true "striker partnership" with Constantino and a big guy should be a priority. That would be foreshadowing a change to a 4-4-2 or something down the road. I guess I'm not dead set on this but it seems like we need to find some way to be a bigger threat in the air in general, whatever that way may be.

-- I'm wondering if I can find the guys I want (DC, ML, Target Man #1 priorities) while I'm int he Championship next year or if I won't be able to get someone high quality until I'm back up at the top level and I should use mostly loaners to fill these holes next season. That'll be a decision to make once I see my budget next season and what types of players are willing to come play for me.


Is there anything key to managing at this level that I have never talked about or that it seems I may be oblivous to? Advice always welcome!

-- March 27th: Gordon Donnelly is hurt in training and will miss 2 weeks. McDonald Mariga begins full training the same day.

-- March 28th: GK Chris Mason started for the England U19 squad against Azerbaijan and put up a very strong 7.5 rating in a 3:0 win.

-- March 30th: DL Stuart Kirkaland put up an 8.2 rating for the England U21's in a 5:0 win over Azerbaijan.


-- Contract notices come up but at this point its all guys we're letting go... Adriano/Yebda (age/1 year players), Bruce, Coutts and Fryers


April Update

-- Just 3 matches in April.

-- Stuart Kirkland gets a good training report... First Touch (13), Heading(10), Marking (12), Anticipation(11), Decisions (15), and Positioning (12) are all up. He's really becoming a strong all around player. If his technical skills will continue to rise and round out over the next few years he'll be a real stud.

-- The board is pleased still. The increase in stature is a positive, the 5-2 loss to Southampton is the new negative.

-- We made $497k last month.


-- April 2nd: Adriano hurts himself in trianing and he's out 6-8 weeks, the rest of the year basically, which is fine.

-- April 2nd: McKerr resumes full training

-- April 4th: Troy Brown and Bojinov resume full training... but Henrique hurts himself and is out for 3 weeks.

-- The media notes that our next match will be my 500th as a manager in my career. Neat!

April 6th: Wolves (18th) @ Ipswich(20th)

Constantino gets us a 18th minute goal on the counter attack, he receives a ball near midfield and does it all himself, a long run down the right, cutting inside and making one man miss before finishing! 1-0 Assist to Mariga.

They tie it back up in the 53rd minute, a cross and header won over Fryers and McKerr, both were there really.

Those are the only goals of the match. Wolves keep the pressure on til the 80 minute mark or so when we seem to take over and make a real effort to get the winning goal, but 3 different strong looking attacks end in nothing and its a draw.

Ipswich 1 : 1 Wolves

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.3)
Goal: Constantino
Assist: Mariga (7.9)

No one else above 7, Kang struggles with a 6.2, Carlos Antonio 6.3 in goal again.


Ipswich Relegated

-- We are offiically out of contention to stay up.

-- As we are relegated, McDonald Mariga tells us that he has no desire to finish his career at the Championship level and asks for a transfer. While he was one of my best players this year and I wanted him to help me win promotion back up, I go ahead and grant his request. He came over on a free transfer to us and maybe we can make some money and let him finish his career at a higher level if he wants.

Some minor points that you may already be carrying out:

a) make sure your coaches are only training the players in 1 area only and not training all categories. Specialisation is the way to go;

b) scout the eastern European countries. There's normally a wealth of talent there that is relatively cheap although sometimes work permits are required (for places like Ukraine). South America is good as well but the players are normally unable to obtain work permits. One thing I do is to make sure that my filter has "EU National" checked so that it identifies the players which have dual-nationality easily;

c) since the target is to play in the Premier League, your transfer targets should have Premier League level quality or potential, if possible;

d) making it back to the PL immediately is the most important thing probably and I wouldn't be scared to loan some PL players to achieve that goal. You know the massive difference in financial rewards by now so it's key to get back up there. See if you can structure loan deals that allow you to purchase the player at some point.

Hm explain? Training is one area I have not focused on a lot tbh. I try to balance good attacking and defending coaches but as far as which coaches train which areas I have tended to use the recommend button which usually puts some coaches in different roles.

For Strength training am i looking for a fitness coach type or are the other ratings besides fitness that are going to impact that?

For training schedules I am using a set of training schedules for each position that I pulled off fm base or somewhere very early on and I assign each player to one of those.

This is definitely an area where I took a default approach when I started and could get better at.



I'll have to focus more on this. My first season was silly as I couldn't spend any money on anything, the team only had one scout and for most of the year I wasn't allowed to hire more. I expanded greatly this year but the focus was still mostly on western europe and the british isles.


Yep!

April 13th: Ipswich(20th, EPL) @ Arsenal(7th, EPL)

For awhile it seemed like Arsenal was a lock for a Champions League spot (top 4), but now they're locked in what is a pretty tight battle among ~5 teams who seem likely to finish 4th-8th.

Arsenal score first in the 18th minute on a nice through ball to ST Kerrison, easy goal. 0-1 He gets his second goal in the 31st minute as a beautiful pass into space is made from like 35 yards out and he just races by the defense to get to it. 0-2 Midfielder Niundulu gets one in the 54th minute. 0-3

Arsenal 3 : 0 Ipswich

Kirkland struggles, and I gave Park a start today and he did poorly to the surprise of no one. Carlos Antonio put up a 6.8 today, the best rating on the team actually.


With just 4-5 matches to play, Chelsea has a stranglehold on the title, while Sunderland is a lock for a Champions League spot, Sheffield Utd and Newcastle control their own destinies as well. The big names you'd expect to see there are all fighting for the last two Euro Cup spots right now:

1. Chelsea (5 to go) - 71 pts
2. Sunderland (4 to go) - 67 pts
3. Sheffield Utd (5 to go) - 63 pts
4. Newcastle (5 to go) - 61 pts
5. Aston Villa (4 to go) - 59 pts
6. Arsenal (4 to go) - 59 pts
7. Liverpool (5 to go) - 59 pts
8. Man Utd (5 to go) - 57 pts
9. Man City - (4 to go) - 51 pts

Man City is almost surely out of any sort of European competition and it seems likely that only 1 of Arsenal/Liverpool/Man U would finish in the top 4, maybe none of them will.


-- April 17th: Chelsea beats Sheffield Utd, Man U and Liverpool tie in key league matches.


April 27th: Man City(9th) @ Ipswich(20th)

Man City are 6 out of 7th place with 2 to play. They seem screwed. Hopefully Carlos Antonio is hyped up to play his former team, and they are down about their position in the league.

We build up from the start, Berthet has it up out on the right, passes in to Kang who lays it off into the right side of the area, Mariga with a half volley.. keeper dives but can't stop it, its a 1st minute goal!! 1-0 In the 40th minute we have it, Kang sends a little cross into the 6 yard box, Constantino re-directs it with his head and the keeper can't get to it!!! [b]2-0[b]

In the 78th minute they have a free kick, a quick pass then a shot from 25 yards out is blasted by our keeper. 2-1

Well holy crap!!!

Ipswich 2 : 1 Man City

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (8.8)
Goals: Mariga, Constantino (8.0)
Assists: Kang 2 (7.2)
Notables: Carlos Antonio (7.1), Kirkland (7.5), Henrique (7.0), Gordon (7.0), Donnelly (7.2)


Sadly Watford have pulled out a couple good results in the last month as well and they're sitll 4 points ahead of us for next to last.



May Update

-- We play 3 matches in May, 4th, 11th, and 19th. All of them are against teams fighting for their place in the top 7.

-- Constantino's goal against Wolverhampton where he made a long run from the midfield down the right, skipping by a defender and scoring was the #2 goal of the month in the EPL.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. The positive is the solid play of late by constantino which is credited to my coaching abilities. The signing of GK Carlos Antonio is regarded to be a poor piece of business. Ugh. He's had a rough time of things, allowing 14 goals in 6 matches and putting up a 6.47 average rating. My assistant and goalkeeping coach both believe that Carlos Antonio is a quality player (4 stars) and is certainly an EPL caliber player.

-- We made $653k profit last month. Consistent profits since January have us at $4M in the bank and showing a proift of $12M this season. Last year we made $39.7M and spent $37.5M. This year we have made $88.5M and spent $76M.



With Just 3 matches left in the year, here's how we look:

1. Chelsea - 74 pts
2. Sunderland - 68 pts
3. Sheffield Utd - 66 pts
4. Arsenal - 62 pts
5. Newcastle - 61 pts (1 less match played)
6. Liverpool - 61 pts
7. Man Utd - 61p ts
8. Aston Villa - 60 pts

Chelsea/Sunderland/Sheffield Utd have top 4 spots almost certainly. Everyone else could finish 4th or 8th easily.


The Champions League has its final set.

Quarterfinals:

Real Madrid 0 : 2 Benifica
Barcelona 1 : 0 Lazio
Arsenal 2 : 2 Man Utd - Man Utd advances on away goals
Stuttgart 1 : 4 Inter


Semifinals

Benefica 4 : 5 Barcelona
Inter 3 : 2 Man Utd

So Barcelona will play Internazionale for the title. Inter are the defending champs (Italy were the hosts last year). Barcelona won 3 years ago.

April 4th: Ipswich (20th) @ Aston Villa (8th)

We have a throwin in the 15th minute... passed quickly to the center of the pitch, ball into the area and their defense has completely fallen apart. Neil Gordon is wide open 10 yards out and beats the keeper! 1-0 In the 35th minute Kirkland sends a cross in from about 35 yards out wide left... its right at the keeper... who mishandles the ball, it goes through his arms and into the net. Its counted as an own goal. [b]2-0[b]

They pressure non stop to start the second half, finally in the 65th minute they get Rinuado free in the area for an easy goal. 2-1. In the 79th minute Constantino with a long run down the left... into the area... skips over a diving tackle of a defender. The keeper dives on the ball but fails to hold it and it squirts away. Constantion recovers and puts it in the net! 3-1 85th minute a through ball to ST Byrne gives them a clear cut chance that they don't miss. 3-2

All of a sudden we decide we're awesome! I mean, you can't say this is like the Man City match where they are probably super dejected that they're out of Europe next year. Aston Villa is right on the edge with a real chance to finish 4th, and we just went into their house and scored 3 goals on them.

Aston Villa 2 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.3)
Goals: Constantino, Gordon (7.6), and an own goal
Assists: Mariga (8.0), Donnelly (7.1), Guarin (6.9)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0)

No idea how we have 3 assists and Kirkland isn't one of them, it was his cross that led to the own goal, I didn't see it hit anyone else.



-- Man U ties Chelsea to help their cause a bit. Sunderland loses a match though and its enough to clinch the EPL title for Chelsea.


May 11th: Liverpool(6th) @ Ipswich (20th)

Our last home match of the year. They get a goal 25 seconds in but its called offsides, whew. After that we go quickly to the halftime scoreless. 6 shots from each team, no clear cut chances. We shoot once in the second half, its a clear cut chance after a long run for Constantino but the keeper saves. They shoot 17 times total, it seems like 6 or 7 shots were in the last 10 minutes as they desperately wanted the 3 points, but we didn't give in.

Ipswich 0 : 0 Liverpool

One of their defenders is man of the match.

Notables: Kirkland (7.5), Berthet (7.0), Henrique (7.0)



We're actually tied now with Watford in points but they have a better goal differential. We'd need to finish this run to end the season with another point and have Watford lose to get out of last.


At the top of the league with 1 match to go for almost everyone:

1. Chelsea - 78 pts
2. Sunderland - 69 pts
3. Sheffield Utd - 69 pts
4. Arsenal - 68 pts
5. Newcastle - 65 pts (2 to play)
6. Liverpool - 65 pts
7. Man Utd - 65 pts


Aston Villa cannot finish in the top 7 now.


-- Our young defender Jack Hughes is man of the match for the England U19 squad in the U19 Euro Championship Qualifiers against Moldova, putting up an 8.5 rating and getting an assist in a 2:0 England win.


May 19th: Ipswich (20th) @ Newcastle(5th)

Newcastle has choked their chance at 4th away. A draw at Sunderland and a loss at home vs Nottingham Forest (15th). They need to beat us big and have Arsenal lose to Blackburn to get 4th.

They score in the 14th minute on a counter attack, wow, a ridiculous shot from 25 yards away in between two defenders and perfectly struck into the right side of the net. 0-1. Constantino with a run down the right side in the 32nd minute, he gets to the end line, draws the defense, passes back to Mariga who hits it on a half volley and into the net! 1-1 In the 36th minute their striker Cavani burns Henrique to get into the area and scores easily. 1-2

No scoring in the second half though they dominate it, all the chances to score were Newcastle's.

Newcastle 2 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (7.9)
Goal: Mariga
Assist: Constantino (6.7)
Notables: Carlos Antonio (7.3), Kirkland (7.1), Donnelly (7.1)


And that's it for our first season in the EPL. Hopefully we'll be back soon!

2018/19 English Premier Division Final Standings

1. Chelsea - 81 pts
2. Sheffield Utd - 70 pts
3. Arsenal - 69 pts
4. Sunderland - 69 pts
5. Newcastle - 68 pts
6. Man Utd - 68 pts
7. Liverpool - 68 pts
8. Aston Villa - 64 pts
9. Man City - 58 pts
10. Tottenham - 52 pts
11. Southampton - 51 pts
12. Birmingham - 50 pts
13. Blackburn - 47 pts
14. West Ham - 46 pts
15. Nottingham Forest - 43 pts
16. Everton - 38 pts
17. Huddersfield - 33 pts
-------------------------------------
18. Wolverhampton - 25 pts
19. Watford - 25 pts
20. Ipswich - 20 pts

We score 30 goals and allow 77.

In our last 8 matches we scored 10 goals and allowed 17 and earned 8 of our 20 points. That's still not great of course, but we really seemed to play a lot better later in the year, whatever the reason.


-- Ipswich are given $1,702,000 for our 20th place finish in the EPL.

-- We pay out a Squad bonus of $450,000 to share amongst the players.

Goalkeepers

Name	Age	$/Wk	GM	GA	SO	MoM	Yel	Red	Avg
Brian Murphy	36	XOUT	21	46	2	0	0	0	6.58
Chris Mason	17	$825	6	8	1	0	0	0	6.85
Carlos Antonio	26	$27,500	9	18	1	0	0	0	6.62
Dominic Johnson	20	$1,100	6	9	2	0	0	0	6.63

**GA = Goals Allowed | SO = Shutouts


Carlos Antonio played a lot better in our final few matches and I'm sure he'll settle in and be great for us next year. I was kinda careful about where I chose to play Chris Mason but he performed quite well when I did use him.


Defenders

Name	Age	$/Wk	Apps	GL	AST	MoM	Yel	Red	Tck	Pass	Avg
Stuart Kirkland	19	$7000	42	0	2	3	1	0	2.39	79%	6.94
Henrique	32	$37500	14	0	0	0	1	0	4.29	67%	6.82
Michael McKerr	29	$9500	32(1)	1	0	0	1	0	3.57	77%	6.76
Adriano	34	$23500	14(5)	0	0	0	0	0	1.94	79%	6.52
Sylvain Berthet	25	$40000	30(1)	0	2	0	4	0	3.17	75%	6.60
Zeki Fryers	26	$23000	15(7)	1	1	0	1	0	3.09	74%	6.39
Alex Bruce	34	$10750	17(2)	1	0	0	2	0	1.80	82%	6.33
Troy Brown	28	$19250	21(1)	0	0	0	0	0	2.57	74%	6.31
Jack Hughes	18	$675	8	0	0	0	2	1	1.84	76%	6.32
Park Sang-Ho	19	$575	1(2)	0	0	0	0	0	2.14	80%	5.85

**GL = Goals | TCK = Tackles/game


Bruce, Fryers and Adriano will be gone. I think the biggest surprise here is how badly Berthet struggled.

Midfielders

Name	Age	$/Wk	Apps	GL	AST	MoM	Yel	Red	Tck	Pass	Avg
McDonald Mariga	32	$36500	40	7	6	4	4	0	3.31	77%	7.23
Gordon Donnelly	24	$52000	33	0	3	0	7	0	3.23	81%	6.79
Fredy Guarin	32	$35000	29(6)	0	1	0	3	0	2.37	79%	6.74
Neil Gordon	23	$24500	32(5)	5	8	1	5	0	1.98	67%	6.74
Kang Soo-Jin	23	$18250	35(6)	6	6	2	1	0	2.04	76%	6.74
Paul Coutts	30	$17250	2(11)	0	2	0	0	0	1.76	83%	6.62
Hassan Yebda	35	$13000	13(12)	0	0	0	0	0	2.53	80%	6.57

**GL = Goals | TCK = Tackles/game


It seems like there some interest in Mariga so we're probably not going to have him around next year. Donnelly, Gordon and Kang Soo-Jin were all pretty solid and we expect to build around them for the long haul (though there are questions about how Kang will fit in).




Attackers

Name	Age	$/Wk	Apps	GL	AST	MoM	Yel	Red	Drb	Pass	Avg
Constantino	24	$23500	35(3)	14	6	2	1	0	6.85	65%	7.12
Matthew Khan	24	$47500	20(8)	5	1	1	0	0	5.59	69%	6.72
Valeri Bojinov	33	$12250	3(8)	0	0	0	1	0	2.55	75%	6.53

** GL = Goals | Drb = Dribbles/Game


Constantino really picked it up towards the end of the season. He's trained really, really well and has shown great improvement throughout the last 12 months. He's being recognized for it in a way too, by the endo f the season his value is $11.25 Million, the first player I've ever coached worth more than $10M I do believe.

Ipswich 2018/19 History/Leaders

Team History

Woking

2009/10 - BS South - 1st - 24 W - 12 D - 6 L - 62 for - 39 ag - +23 GD - 84 pts
2010/11 - BS Premier - 17th - 14 W - 10 D - 22 L - 60 for - 65 ag - -5 GD - 52 pts
2011/12 - BS Premier - 4th - 26 W - 12 D - 8 L - 87 for - 51 ag - +36 GD - 90 pts
2012/13 - BS Premier - 1st - 26 W - 11 D - 9 L - 88 for - 56 ag - 89 pts
2013/14 - League 2 - 18th - 12 W - 17 D - 17 L - 50 for - 54 ag - 53 pts
2014/15 - League 2 - 9th - 20 W - 9 D - 17 L - 57 for - 58 ag - 69 pts
2015/16 - League 2 - 1st - 30 W - 8 D - 8 L - 102 for - 50 ag - 98 pts
2016/17 - League 1 - 1st - 24 W - 14 D - 7 L - 103 for - 61 ag - 89 pts

Ipswich

2017/18 - Championship - 1st - 28 W - 12 D - 6 L - 91 for - 42 ag - 96 pts
2018/19 - Premier League - 20th - 5 W - 5 D - 28 L - 30 for - 77 ag - 20 pts

This year:

Top Goalscorer - Constantino - 14 goals
Top League Goalscorer - Constantino - 10 goals
Most Assists - Neil Gordon - 8 assists
Highest Average Rating - McDonald Mariga - 7.23
Most Man of the Match - McDonald Mariga - 4

-- Inter win their second straight Champions League title, beating Barcelona 3:0 in front of 51,000 fans at the National Stadium in Lisbon, Portugal.

-- We're not going to be active in June, there isn't anything to do until we turn over into the new season and see our new budget. But a lot of teams are planning for next year and the rumors fly on June first:

-- Udinese in Serie A are expected to bid on McDonald Mariga. We should get at least $3M for him, maybe more.

-- Aston Villa are rumored to be targeting Neil Gordon, Athletico Madrid are expected to try to buy Stuart Kirkland, and Wolves are expected to go after Kang Soo-Jin. None of these teams will have any luck.


June Update

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. The play of Mcdonald Mariga and my influence in him playing well is a highlight. Our 3-0 loss to Arsenal a lowlight.

-- We made $1.13M profit in May, giving us $5M cash on hand and a profit of $13M for the year now.


-- Newcastle beat Southampton to win the FA Cup.


-- The "Four Associations Tournament" is going on, a little thing among Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Actually it appears to be over now. We have 3 players involved in this tournament:

-- Michael McKerr of Northern Ireland puts up a 6.6 rating in a 2:1 loss to Wales. In the same match Troy Brown put up a 6.8 rating for Wales.

-- Gordon Donnelly is the big highlight for us though. He plays in Scoland's final match, a 2:0 win against Northern Ireland. He assists on both goals and has a stellar 8.2 rating for the match.


Retirements

-- Hassan Yebda is retiring. He played for 8 teams, seeing his first league ation in the 05/06 season in France's Ligue 2. He played 237 matches over the course of his career, scoring 34 goals and making 15 assists. He played one season for me.

-- Valeri Bojinov is retiring. He barely played for me but he had a really nice career, beginning with Lecce in Serie A in the 01/02 season. He scored 96 goals in 290 career matches between Serie A, the EPL, La Liga in Spain and Eredivisie. His best years were 11/12 and 12/13 where he was a dominant star for Ajax, scoring 14 goals one year, and the next scoring 21 goals and making 9 assists.

-- Adriano is also retiring. He began in the Brazilian first division in 2002. In 2004 he went to Sevilla in Spain, where he played for 8 1/2 years. Liverpool bought him for $16.25M in the 12/13 season and he stayed there until I picked him up for $650k for his last year. He played exactly 400 matches in his career, scoring 47 goals and making 30 assists.

-- Finally, Alex Bruce is retiring. Ipswich Co-Captain during my two years at the helm. Bruce came up with Blackburn in the 01/02 season but didn't see any action until loaned out in 04/05. He bounced around for a few years before Ipswich picked him up on a free transfer for the 06/07 season. He was loaned out once to Leicester but otherwise spent the last 12 years of his career with Ipswich. He played 433 matches over his career, scoring 6 goals and making 16 assists. He played 234 matches for Ipswich and is a backup on the all time best 11 for the squad.



-- Chris Mason is hurt in the English U19 4:0 win against Wales. He put up a 7.6 rating in the match before going out. And finally, we find out what it takes to get a 10.0 rating:

-- Jack Hughes starts at DL for the England Under 19s. He completes 53 of 67 passes, wins 5 of 6 tackles, 6 of 7 headers, makes 4 interceptions and 2 runs. He also has 3 assists. This is good for a 10.0 rating and man of the match!

What you want is to hire coaches to coach each specific area, eg attacking, defending, goalkeeping, tactics, set pieces, shooting, etc. Different abilities affect their star rating but generally you want high scores in the key stat, plus motivating, determination and determination (if I remember right).

When you go to your coach screen, you can clear all assignments and then click on each coach and assign a specific area for him to coach. You will see how many stars he has in that category. You basically want each category to have as many stars as possible, though it's not a cumulative calculation. So you can't hire 2 2-star coaches and get them to coach one area and get 4 stars.

Strength and aerobics are fitness coaches so you should get 2 of them and assign one to each category.


I do something similar, I downloaded a set of schedules because that area was too technical for me.


I don't know how good the AI is at assigning the coaches. Just play around with the coaches screen and see if you can kinda figure out what I'm saying, I think I'm not doing a fantastic job of it.

-- A strong $11M bid comes in for Neil Gordon from a french first division team, but we aren't even close to interested.

-- Dundee bids almost $3 Million for our young DR/MR Clive Jackson. I seriously consider this one, I have never viewed Jackson to be as good a prospect as Jack Hughes, but when I go to my coaches and scouts, they tell me he's trained really well and that he has the potential to be a better DR than Sylvain Berthet. I'm sold. I don't need money, I see he's trained well over the last year, he's pretty determined, fast as hell (18 pace/17 accel) and appears to have at least decent EPL potential. In fact he may well play for us some next year as a 20 year old.


European Club Rankings

Barcelona take the top spot in Europe back from Chelsea thanks to their much, much better showing in the Champions League i'm sure. Inter winning twice in a row has them in 4th. Current rankings:

1. Barcelona - 158.529
2. Chelsea - 156.759
3. Liverpool - 149.759
4. Inter - 147.169
5. Leverkusen - 146.677
6. Olympique Lyonnais - 144.020
7. Benfica - 142.481
8. Real Madrid - 141.529
9. Man Utd - 140.759
10. Man City - 133.759

Olympique and Athletico Madrid were #4 and #5 last year. Olympique Lyonnais fell to 6th this year, At. Madrid all the way down to 11th.

We moved up from 118th to 110th, but it doesn't seem to have squat to do with our playing in the EPL this year. A bunch of lower rated EPL and top rated Championship teams are tied from 104th to 116th.


Euro U21 Championships

-- There's 8 teams that qualified in this tournament. England is grouped with France, Spain and Bulgaria. The other group is Georiga(??), Portugal, Russia and Italy. The top two teams in each group advance. I care because Stuart Kirkland and Neil Gordon were both selected to represent England. PS Neil Gordon is 23. I guess the age limit was set maybe when qualifying began or something?

-- Kirkland plays 90 minutes and earns a 7.5 rating in a 3:0 win over Bulgaria.

-- Gordon plays 45 minutes against France in a 1:1 draw, putting up a 6.5 rating.

-- In their final group match Kirkland is back in. England draws Spain 1:1. Kirkland puts up the second best rating on the team, a 7.1.

-- England will play Georgia in the Semifinals. Spain and Russia in the other semi I believe.

June 19th: Celtic bid $13.2M for Neil Gordon. His dribbling recently rose to 18, giving him 5 skills rated 18 or 19 now (Corners, Crossing, Dribbling, Anticipation, Creativity). I make an incredibly outrageous counter requesting $50M to try to show how insane I am about not letting him go. If they pay that I'll just buy a better team. :P

-- Celtic withdraw their bid.


We're getting real close to the end of June here.

Nah I understand. I think I'm pretty close to what you're suggesting so hopefully I'm not suffering too much. And for those types of coaches I think the ratings you mention are the same ones I've read elsewhere. Motivating, Discipline, Determination and their area of focus, yep.

One other question though, as far as training what do you do with your "Assistant" and "1st team coach"? Put them training in their best area, or are they different?

I think I can manage the staff better, similar to what I've said about just looking for a better staff in general. My goalkeeper coach is great technically but his motivation and determination sucks, that's pretty damn important right now with Chris Mason coming up. Rio Ferdinand is a *great* defensive coach, to the point that I expect to lose him to an EPL team this season. I could do better in some other areas though.

Thanks!

My assistant just helps out in 1 category he has the most stars in.

First team coaches only work with your first team and do not coach the youth team or reserve team so bear that in mind if you hire first team coaches. If you have a whole bunch of them, it means your youth development might suffer since you essentially have no one working with the youngsters.

-- McDonald Mariga is named the Ipswich fans Player of the Year this year.

Ipswich Best Eleven

One real dumb decision here.

GK: Murphy
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Fryers/McKerr
M: Guarin/Donnelly/Mariga/Coutts
AMC: Gordon
ST: Constantino

Coutts doesn't belong anywhere near this team. Gordon played a lot of AMC before we changed formation so I assume that threw off the logic. But Kang AMC/Gordon MR is the only way to go here. McKerr on the team, Berthet off should be a huge wake-up call to him.

Ipswich All Time Best Eleven

GK: Brian Murphy (396 apps/6.79 rating)
DL: Danny Mathijssen (121 apps/2 goals/6.59 rating)
DC: Steven Caldwell (120 apps/1 goal/7.03 rating)
DC: Troy Brown (240 apps/2 goals/6.79 rating)
DR: David Wright (166 apps/2 goals/7.11 rating)
ML: Mario Licka (115 apps/8 goals/7.23 rating)
MC: Gordon Donnelly (202 apps/28 goals/6.88 rating)
MC: Owen Garvan (263 apps/18 goals/6.82 rating)
MR: Sylvain Berthet (167 apps/3 goals/6.89 rating)
ST: Jon Stead (241 apps/112 goals/7.00 rating)
ST: Achille Webo (152 apps/70 goals/6.91 ratings)

Brown, Donnelly and Berthet are active players. No one in this starting all time best 11 changed. Constantino was moved into the backup list though. He's played 79 matches and has 50 goals for Ipswich. He could take over a spot from Achille Webo if he has another superstar type year in the Championship.

Matthew Khan and Alex Bruce are both backups to the All Time Best Eleven also.


-- Ipswich receive $1.650,000 for TV rights. Ahh, $47 Million away from what we got last year.


Season Expectations

I tell the bosses that I expect no less than to win the league. This gives me a transfer budget of $4.7M and a wage budget of $475,000. That will give us some flexibility. We're spending $478,000 right now but that's before 4 or 5 players leave the club and everyone takes a salary reduction due to relegation. We should start the season under $350,000/wk I *think*.


-- 8 players are promoted from the U18 squad to the reserves. The only one worth noting is Chris Mason. I'm going to cut a bunch of U18 kids and clean up my squad a bit during July.


Youth Intake

We get 8 new players this year. 6 of them are complete crap and not worth my time.

DC/ST Duane Woodley has the potential "to be a decent player". Not someone expected to b a star and probably never an EPL player, but I'm interested because he's got some decent physical attributes and a determination of 19. Even if he never makes the EPL maybe we can make some money training him up and selling him to a Championship side.

ST Rob Kershaw has 2* potential, "to be a useful player". Nothing like that 19 determination to get me even a little excited. But he has decent flair, his dribbling and finishing are his best technical ratings. If there's room we'll get him a mentor and see if we can do anything with him.

Not too exciting this year.


Preseason Coaches Meeting

-- We're one of the younger squads in the league.
-- We're one of the most aggressive teams.
-- We're one of the best when it comes to concentration.
-- We're one of the best dribbling.
-- Our first touch is near the top.
-- Our flair is near the top.
-- We are short.
-- We are fast.
-- We pass really well.
-- We are the single most technically gifted squad in the league. This is the only one where we're at the top, but we're near the top basically everywhere.


-- Our coaches feel a 4-4-1-1, 4-2-3-1, or 4-1-2-1-2 would be our best formations. I'm happy with the 4-4-1-1 going into the season.


Promotion Odds

Wolverhampton are considered the favorite to win the league and promote back up at 5:2.

Ipswich and Watford are both 5:1. QPR 14:1, Exeter 16:1, Bristol City 33:1.


-- Neil Gordon and Stuart Kirkland both play in England's 3:0 win over Georgia in the U21 Euro Championship. Neil Gordon is an absolute stud in this one, he's got a part in all 3 goals, scoring once and assisting on the other two. He's got a 9.2 rating and man of the match. Kirkland puts up a strong 7.9 in defense.

-- In the U21 Euro Championship Final, Stuart Kirkland plays 120 minutes, earning a 6.9 rating as Spain beats England 3:2. Unfortunately, Kirkland was injured in this match. Fortunately, he's only out a week and will be ready when friendlies start.


-- June 30th hits and retirements occur, and a lot of kids that I didn't keep on as they turned 18 leave. Our wage budget drops to $445k/wk with that.


-- As we hit July 1st, Birmingham offer me $5.5M for Kang Soo-Jin. He's unsettled in england still, so why would he want to go to Birmingham? But, he releases a statement saying he's unhappy that I wont allow him to decide whether or not he wants to go to Birmingham.


July Update

-- The board is satisfied with my leadership. The positive atmosphere among the team is a high point. The signing of Carlos Antonio remains a concern.

-- We mad $5.76M in June.


-- Zeki Fryers and Paul Coutts leave the club as their contracts expire. Our wage budget drops to $398,000. And apparently the relegation salary drop doesn't work right or simply doesn't occur based on my reading of the forums... or both. I had assumed that everyone would take a 25% salary hit. It hasn't happened yet. Google points me to a thread that says its a known bug that "hopefully gets fixed in FM11"... but also people saying that the clause only kicks in if you're relegated below the level that the contract was initially signed in.

Either way, we're fine this year, we have tons of flexibility. But a guy like Gordon Donnelly got a huge raise from like $39,000/wk to $52,000/wk when we promoted up. Should I be concerned that its going to stay at $52,000/wk and then if we re-promote he'll get another raise to $65,000/wk??


Sleeping on that one, I'm at a good stopping point anyway.

Weird end of seasons where you beat two great teams and lose vs lousy opponents. As usual, an always appreciated read, you do have the proper formating done. Excellent !

And go back up to EPL !

Keep up the great work, very interested to see how you move forward!

For what it's worth - and this certainly may be a "me" thing - I don't read the detailed game reviews, so if you had desire to just type up the shorter post-game summaries instead of the play-by-play, at least as far as I am concerned I would enjoy that every bit as much.

:withstupid:

I appreciate the "month by month review", with list of games to play, notes on players news (contracts, injuries), overall board information. Game result with player notes and your comments on players, and the post game sequences (player injuries and notes).

I intend to go into every season with extended highlights and then to drop back to key highlights once I'm comfortable with my team. I always forget or just get into watching the games :D I do try to format things so that if you don't care about the play by play its easy to scan by and skip it. I know in other dynasties I skip by it.

If we're sitting in the top 2 spots and crushing things this year I may rush through the latter part of the year like I did the end of this year. That's just a balance between how in depth I want to be in the game vs pumping out seasons right now.

I fully intend to buy FM12(though maybe not right away, depends on how this is going) which is pushing me towards the "pumping out seasons" side of things :D

-- Kang Soo-Jin now "Wants to Leave the Club". I really want to give him another year to try to settle in if he doesn't completely go out of control and demand to leave. His value has gone up if I do have to sell him. I really don't want to though.

-- Dinamo Kiev and Stuttgart make offers for Stuart Kirkland that I reject.

Training Update

Most of my initial work is done with my coaching staff based on the great tips I got from you guys. I review my coaches and figure out what they're best at, I read a couple posts on assigning coaches and put together a list of attributes I'm interested in and go hunting. With too many of my coaches assigned to 2 positions and too many of them simply not as good as I would want, most of our training was at the 2-3* level at best.

-- I hire 4 new coaches and re-assign all my coaches, I'm not going to go too deep into individual ratings and all, but we're allowed 10 total coaches and I end up hiring that amount to cover first team/youth differences and that leaves me with the following:

Strength: 3 1/2*
Aerobic: 4 1/2*
Goalkeeping: 3 1/2*
Tactics: 4*
Ball Control: 4*
Defending: 4 1/2*
Attacking: 3 1/2*
Shooting: 4 1/2*
Set Pieces: 4*

Most youth coach training ratings are the same except keeper where we're at a 2*. Chris Mason is 18 now and training with the senior squad so right now that's irrelevant.

I feel pretty good about that!

-- Currently we're spending $393k/wk on salaries. I'm going on the assumption that for whatever reason I will not be getting any drops in salary since we're already into July and they haven't happened yet. I play with the transfer budget slider and I can increase my transfer budget to $6.2M with a $450,000/wk wage budget. I do that for now.


-- Another offer comes in for Kang Soo-Jin, this one for $6.25M from Birmingham, and he officially requests to be transfer listed. I paid $4M for him and he's valued at $5.25M, but I was really hoping to make it work out... I decide to give him what he wants but notify everyone that I want a premium since I've already gotten multiple offers for him. I do transfer list him, but I set my asking price at $10M.


-- Its now June 10th and I've done some cursory player scouting but advanced the game a few times with a hyperfocus on staff without doing any player searches. So its time to really bear down and look at loaners/player transfers.

-- I go ahead and scout a few strikers with good heading ratings, ML's and DC's both availble for transfer and available for loan.


-- Wow, maybe I should have shot even higher here. Within days I get about 10 offers for Kang Soo-Jin. Many are at his original price of $5.25M and I turn those down. But I do get 4 offers for $10M and I go ahead and accept them. I must say I'm a bit unsure of myself here but my tendency in the past has been to go for squad harmony at most costs... buying for $4M and turning around for $10M when he seems very, very unhappy is hopefully a success.


League Cup Draw

-- We'll play Aldershot in the first round of the league cup. They're in League 1.


-- More advice taken here, I hire a Ukranian scout with lots of knowledge in that region in general and assign him to scout Eastern Europe. Our Eastern European knowledge just goes from minimal to "decent" with this hire so I dunno if there would be a lot to expect just yet. This guy is more of an expert int he Ukraine and Russia but has no Czech knowledge, it seems like that'd be something to fill as well.


I do tons and tons of scouting and have made two loan offers (a young target man ST and a young DC). I'm considering buying a ML but haven't made the offer yet.

-- The ML I had my eye on starts getting some offers and I go ahead and make one myself. My hesitancy is that I don't think he's necessarily a sure thing at the EPL level... but hey we have to win here too and we are real weak at ML.


Transfer Out

Man that all happened so far. Like I mentioned above, I hope I made the right decision.

AMC Kang Soo-Jin quickly agrees to terms with Naploi in Seire A and wants to go there. I allow the deal to go through, raking in $10 Million in the process.


-- This changes things a bit if I want to try to do something big this year. My Transfer Budget is now $11,700,585 with a wage budget allowed of $475,000/wk. I don't know what the likelyhood of being able to sign a big player at this level will be... but the option is certainly there now.


New Loan In

Welcome 20 y/o ST Simon Hamilton on loan for the year from Southampton. He's 6'2", reasonably strong (13), can jump (15), and head the ball (15). He's got good teamwork and he's good off the ball. I'm hoping these things add up to a guy who could potentially be a good target man for Neil Gordon crosses and will make me a bigger threat when playing wide and on corners.

Physical: all 13-15.
Mental: Off the Ball 15, Teamwork 16, Work Rate 14, Determination 11. Other ratings 8-11. Some low ones, not creative, 10 anticipation I'd like to see higher.

Technical: Heading 15, Technique 15, First Touch 17, Dribbling 13. Finishing is 10.

With the departure of Kang and the arrival of Hamilton its become a near certainty that we'll play a 4-4-2 formation this year.


-- The players I'm looking to loan in are hot this year and its taking awhile for some to decide.

-- While that's going on I find a couple guys that scout very well that I feel like could be really strong additions to the club at this and at the next level and look to quickly blow some of that extra money I got from Kang.


-- And while some transfer offers really start to heat up, a loaner comes in that I'm really excited about:

New Loan In

Welcome 20 y/o DLC/ML Turgay Colak to Ipswich! Colak is a reserve at Inter and a spectacular technical talent. His physical attributes are a little less than I want but this is no James Chester situation... this is a kid that looks spectacular at least for the Championship. Right now all the guys I'm loaning in are guys i might be interested in trying to buy if we move back up too.

Physical: 13 pace/8 accel. 14 str/14 sta.

Mental: Positioning 16/Teamwork 14/Work Rate 16/Anticipation 14. All other ratings between 10-14 except Influence is 6.

Technical: Marking 16, Passing 17, Tackling 16, Crossing 18, Dribbling 14, Heading 13.

While I think his best position is likely DL, we are kinda set there and Colak seems to have what it takes at least at this level to play both ML and DC as well. At DC I'm a little concerned about only 11 jumping as far as winning headers goes. At ML I'm a bit concerned about his lack of acceleration. But I think at the Championship level he could succeed at both.


-- I actually get another loan accepted from a promising DC from Celtic, but I delay it because of a couple other things I have in the works at DC. The English Trialist matches just occurred and there was one player who really stood out, an unsigned Scottish DC who my scouts feel is "as good as Henrique". If I can sign this guy on a free transfer I may bet fairly set in defense.

-- Though really it gets a bit more intriguing... Murcia make a $7M offer for Henrique. Man, that's a tough call. Henrique can play. He'd definitely help me get back up to the EPL this year. But he's turning 33 this year. I paid $4.1M for him. If I sign this free transfer DC that I like so much, and take on this loaner that I've delayed... selling high on a guy that would turn 34 when I next go up to the EPL seems to have a lot of merit. I delay the offer for now.



-- Ahh, heartbreak. After a few negotiations, I make a deal for a 23 y/o MC from Arsenal that is deemed to be "as good as McDonald Mariga", getting him for $6.25M + a % of the profits of his next sale. I worked pretty hard for this one.. but he has no interest in playing for me. Oops. I offer him a contract and when he rejects it I may change the offer around to a loan w/ option to buy, assuming that if I make it back up to the EPL his views would change.

-- The ML I was trying to buy signs for Sporting CP in Portugal so while new loaner Turgay Colak will begin the season starting for me there I am still looking around at ML.

And with loan offers outstanding and a ton of transfer money, the Ipswich squad still hasn't fully taken shape. But that doesn't mean its not time to play some football anyway!

Friendly #1

We travel to Brighton today in one we should win easily. My lineup will look familiar here, its shocking how little I had to modify it:

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Henrique/Berthet
M: Colak/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

New loaners Turgay Colak and Simon Hamilton get into the lineup.

We get a goal in the first minute but we're offsides. In the 18th minute Constantino hits Neil Gordon for an easy goal. That's the score at the half and I sub out all my starters at the half as I traditionally do in my first few friendies. This means a number of U18 guys are out there running around, whee. One of their men burns my now useless DC Park and scores in the 52nd minute. Another defensive failure allows a 2nd goal through in the 63rd minute.

Brighton 2 : 1 Ipswich

We had a number of guys in there who were U18 kids who ought to be cut. That if nothing else reminds me of the need not just to find the big splash in the midfield but to add a bit of depth as well.


New Signing

Oh god after the unhappy Kang experience I'm worried all of a sudden. After saying he didn't think he'd want to play for me, Arsenal's MC accepts my contract offer.

We pay Arsenal a little more than half our transfer budget ($6.25M) and hope it's going to be worth it!

Welcome 22 y/o MC Steven Mills to Ipswich. Mills has mostly played for the arsenal reserves but played well when called upon last year. My assistant feels he's on the same level as McDonald Mariga as a player, his only weakness is in set pieces, and he's a good strong team player.

Physical: Strength 19, Balance 18, Pace 12/Acceleration 16. Nothing below 12.

Mental: Determination 16, Creativity 16, Decisions 12, Off the Ball 13, Teamwork 18. Positioning is low at 9, Influence and flair are under 10 as well. All other ratings that I didn't mention are between 12-15. After reading through some of SFraser's stuff I'm noticing Determination and Anticipation more and more and really like the 16 determination here.

Technical: Passing 18, First Touch, Technique 13. I'm hoping to see a little improvement here to round him out but the passing/first touch/technique combo I'm hoping will be a good basis for him to build up from. Dribbling, Marking and Heading are all 9. Tackling is 12 which will help in the midfield.

McDonald Mariga is still on the squad, but remember he wants to play for a higher level club and I have him transfer listed. I'd love to keep him around this year and will begin the year rotating Donnelly/Mariga/Mills quite a bit.

I did offer Mills a large contract, he and Donnelly are now my two highest paid players at $52,000/wk and $51,000/wk. That's almost 20% of the wage budget (though I'm pretty pissed off about the salary drop clause not working and that is inflating things an awful lot!).

Hell, offering mills $50k/wk may be a bigger gamble that I made with anyone I signed in the EPL last year.


New Signing #2

I mentioned an exciting DC in the England Trialist Matches. This kid just got released by Chelsea and hadn't been signed yet. He performed well and caught the eye of my scouts and many others. In the end he agrees to sign for Ipswich:

Welcome 23 y/o DC James Welsh on a free transfer! The scouting report on Welsh compares him favoribly to Henrique, touting his marking ability and pointing out no real weaknesses. He's got pretty good speed, he's determined, brave, positions himself well, he's great in the air and in man marking. Technique and Tackling leave a bit to be desired or I'd say he is an insanely complete player.

Still, Welsh will make $16,500/wk and comes in valued at $2.6M. Signing this kid on a free transfer is an absolute steal.

Physical: All ratings 13-14 except Agility 11/Accel 12.

Mental: Determination 16, Bravery 19, Positioning 15, Anticipation 12. Influence is 14 which is nice. Other ratings in the 11-12 range.

Technical: Marking 18, Heading 15, Tackling 12, First Touch 12. Technique 8.


I'm really really thrilled to have signed Welsh. I'm hoping he can make an immediate impact.



New Loan In

-- With Fryers and Bruce gone I don't really have the easy depth in defense that I did last year. So I get rid of the silly notion of selling my best DC, and also loan in the young DC I had left waiting in the wings.

Welcome 20 y/o DC Vinny Burke to Ipswich. Burke is a step down from Henrique and Welsh but not a big one. We'll be rotating him in with regularity if he plays well. He's a monster in the air, we could have used this kid to clear some crap out of the penalty area in the EPL last year I bet.

Physical: Jumping 17, Fitness 15, everything else 11-12.

Mental: Positioning 14, Teamwork 16, Work Rate 13, Bravery 16, Anticipation 15, Decisions 15, Determination 12. Composure is 8 so we'll see if he picks up any red cards. But he's really really strong in the areas I care about the most.

Technical: Heading 17, Marking 14, Tackling 13, Passing 15. He can't dribble the ball at all (2), and his Technique is poor (6). I'll be trying to make sure I get this kid forward on corner kicks for sure.



With a number of things coming in now lets look at a depth chart and see how we feel about things.

GK: Carlos Antonio/Chris Mason

Good.

DL: Kirkland/Colak/Hughes

Spectacular.

DC: Henrique/Welsh/Burke/Hughes

Probably better than I fielded in the EPL last year.

DR: Berthet/McKerr/Jackson

Okay. Shoudl be fine at this level, I am still worried a bit about Berthet's struggles at the next level last year. But he's fine for now.

ML: Colak/Hughes/Guarin

Guarin was actually pretty decent at ML last year for us so I'm sure he can do it now. Hughes I expect will be fine in the championship as well. In the EPL I'd have depth concerns but I think I'm good.

MC: Donnelly/Mills/Mariga/Guarin

I could run a bit thin on depth if I have injuriies, but I'm starting in a good place.

MR: Gordon/Jackson/Berthet

-- I love Gordon. Clive Jackson is an up and comer like Jack Hughes, he'll be Gordon's primary backup this year.

FC: Constantino/Hamilton/Khan/Taylor

Ian Taylor isn't ready for prime time and will mostly play with the reserves. But when i've needed that striker that won't see the field much unless we have injuries (Bojinov last year, Jon Stead my first year)... they've been massive failures, so might as well make that 4th guy a youngster who will play with the reserves until requested.


I actually feel pretty solid here. That all came togther really quickly with the signings of Welsh and Mills both going my way on back to back days in game. Hell I actually think this team is better than the one I took to the EPL last year. I guess that's the goal, keep improving.


Financial Update

Right Now I'm left with a transfer budget of $5.4 Million and I'm $25,000/wk under my wage budget. I see little reason to bring anyone else on, I've got 3 loaners that I think could be very big contributors and I think we're basically ready. If we start out the season with some sort of disaster maybe I change my mind, or if Mariga gets real unhappy, but right now I probably won't look to bring anyone else in during this transfer window.


I do notice that Troy Brown isn't even listed on my depth chart. I only noticed as a total afterthought. Maybe I should sell him.


Additionally, Park Sang-Ho no longer has any use to me at all. I transfer list him and offer him around. He's got some interest from lower level clubs so maybe I'll unload him easily. He isn't worth much, hardly worth mentioning.

Friendly #2

We travel to Shrewsbury. We've got a bit more depth, less U18s today! We also have 2 injured and 2 travelling internationally.

We score in the 35th minute but its offside. In the 42nd Hamilton feeds Constantino for an easy goal. No goals in the second half. We had a few solid chances that didn't come through but we got the win.

Shrewsbury 0 : 1 Ipswich



Friendly #3

We host the Glen Hoddle Academy.

14th minute goal as Mills hits Constantino for an easy one. 23rd minute goal as Mills passes to Constantino and Constantino does all the work to create this one. 30th minute goal on a counter attack, Constantino starts near midfield and makes the long run himself and scores easily. 36th minute goal as Donnelly takes a corner and Constantino heads it in... 40th minute goal as Mills plays a pretty ball into the area for Gordon who volleys it home.

Guarin adds one from long range in the 62nd minute. Mariga on a volley from 30 yards out after they try to clear one out of the area that's real damn impressive.

Well that's where all the goals went that we didn't get our first two matches I suppose.

Constantino 4, Gordon, Mariga, Guarin score goals.

Mills 3 assists, Donnelly, Gordon, and McKerr. Great to see Steve Mills hooking up with Constantino like that. Earn that $51,000/wk buddy!

Ipswich 7 : 0 GH Academy




Expiring Contracts

We've got 11 player contracts expiring this year.

Starters:

DL Kirkland is the top priority, keep at any cost.
MC Mariga turns 33 this year. If he's willing to stay and if his skills don't degrade I'd love to have him around.
MC Fredy Guarin will turn 34 by the time the next season starts. He's already a backup and won't be brought back.

Backups:

DR Michael McKerr - Turns 30 this year. He's been a solid backup, if he'll stay on for cheap I'll keep him.


Hot Prospects:

DLC Jack Hughes - I'd like to keep him, he's only 18. With my improved training maybe I can make something of him.

DR/MR Clive Jackson - Every time I look at him he looks better and better, despite me showering all my youth praise on Hughes for so long. Jackson will stay around too I'm sure.

ST Ian Taylor - Unless he shows a development miracle this year he's gone. He was on equal footing with Hughes/Jackson awhile back I believe. Those guys are worth $1M+, Taylor is worth $30,000, and it shows.


backup GK Dominic Johnson should be unneeded as Chris Mason gets closer, and we've got a few youth guys that appear to be crap that we'll let go.



-- I go ahead and offer Kirkland immediately. He wants a raise from $8000/wk to $24,000/wk for 4 years. Totally fair, and done.


August Update

We've still got a couple friendlies left, the auto scheduling of the ones with the feeder clubs stuck some things weird. But we're ok.

-- We play league matches on the 10th, 17th, 20th, 24th, and 31st. League Cup opens on the 13th with round 2 on the 28th should we win.

-- The board is satisfied at my coaching. The signing of Henrique remains a positive. Hopefully everyone is cooing over Mills soon. There is a concern over "a slight lack of harmony" in the locker room. And what that is... everyone on the team loves McDonald Mariga. I transfer listed him to be nice to him and because I generally do transfer list those that tell me they want out. But the team doesn't want him gone. I'd love for him to stay too, but a lot of players have expressed a desire for him not to leave. I can't un-list him I assume b/c I listed him at his request... hopefully this works itself out early in the season.

-- We made $10.5M last month. Between our shirt sponsorship of $2.7M, selling Kang for $10M offsetting buying Mills for $6.25M and selling about 20,000 season tickets, we're off to a strong start. So far this year we've turned a profit of $15.1M and have $21M cash on hand. Unlike last year this number will drop, and probably drop quickly, throughout the season. But we're in a good spot now!


-- I don't see anything about the parachute payments that get paid to teams that drop out of the EPL. We didn't have to stay up a year before falling to get that did we? When/where should I see info about that. Between the lack of salary drops and the lack of parachute payment info I feel like something is really fucked up here.

You can totally unlist Mariga if there is no interest. He may or may not be unhappy but nothing stops you from doing so. Alternatively, offer him out to clubs if you really want him gone.

For parachute payments, there should be something in your income about this but not sure if they have an announcement. The reason why I think it's in the game is because you sometimes get notices of a windfall when you manage a smaller team in the lower divisions if a club was promoted back up, which is the parachute payments being spread out amongst the clubs in the league. Maybe I'm wrong though.

When I go to his transfer status the options to change between "Transfer Listed" and "No Status Set" are greyed out. I can change everything else, including the setting to automatically reject all offers if I want. But at least for right now I can't take away the "Transfer Listed" option, I had assumed that had something to do with the fat that he requested to be put there or something and hadn't really given it much thought.

I do believe that since you granted his request to be listed for transfer the only way he'll come off that list is if he decides to be taken off it. Is how it's worked for me in the past, at least.

Tell

-- Park Sang-Ho is sold to Lemona in the Spanish Second Division for $60,000.

-- GK Carlos Antonio expresses concern over the lack of harmony in the clubhouse. I hold on to the hope that winning fixes everything, and that we'll be able to do that.

New Youth Signing

I decided to at least look a little into the youth program after reading some of the awesome SFraser posts that were documented in the FM11 thread, not expecting to turn into Man U but interested in learning more about this part of the game and maybe making some cash if nothing else. I released a bunch of total dead weight, 1/2* prospects that had been training under my inferior old coaching setup for the last couple years to clean things up.

With that done, I lucked into a scout recommendation for a youngster from Oxford and ended up paying $325,000 for 16 y/o ST Chris Bryan. Bryan looks to be better right now than Ian Taylor, the youth striker I had when I took over Ipswich who appears to not be panning out.

Physical: Pace 14, Accel 15, Fitness 17. Stamina is 9, everything else is 11+

Mental: Off The Ball 15, Anticipation 14, Flair 12, Determination 11, Decisions 12, Concentration 13. He seems to have an extremely good base to build from here

Technical: Finishing 15, Dribbling 15, First Touch 12, Technique 12.

A really well rounded and exciting youngster for my level. My scouts believe he has the potential to be as good as Khan and Constantino. I'm looking forward to training him and seeing how much he can improve in the next year and a half before he turns 18.

-- The fans are excited by my new signing and feel I've shown good vision and ambition.


Friendly #4

We travel to Braintree in the BS South, one of our feeder clubs. We score in the 7th minute as Mills gets into the area, crosses into the 6 yard box and Turgay Colak charges in to head it home. Constantino with a nice goal in the 19th minute receiving a pass 25 yards out, burning the defense and scoring easily. Henrique scores off a corner in the 43rd minute. Henrique scores his second goal on another corner in the 66th minute.

Henrique is man of the match with 2 goals. Colak and Constantino also score. Assists are 2 from Donnelly and 2 from Mills.

Braintree 0 : 4 Ipswich



-- Reading's boss declares interest in Mariga. Perhaps someone will come after him after all. Khan and Kirkland both receive offers as well from Sunderland and Sheffield Utd. I reject both.

-- It takes a few days but Stuart Kirkland signs the contract I offer him, locking him up for 4 years at $24,000/wk.


New Captains

-- Since I took over at Ipswich its been pretty automatic, Troy Brown and Alex Bruce for captain/vice captain. Bruce is gone and Brown doesn't start anymore. Its time for a change. After a quick google I'm actually a bit torn. Gordon Donnelly and Stuart Kirkland have the highest influence on the team after Brown at 15. Kirkland is younger than Donnelly, only 20 years old to Donnelly's 25. But Kirkland's other mental attributes seem better. If they were the same age Kirkland would be clear choice for captain with 17 teamwork/16 work rate/17 bravery/12 determination. Donnelly is more determined and that's it.

-- In the end I choose to go with experience, naming Gordon Donnelly my captain and Stuart Kirkland my vice captain.


Friendly #5

We travel to EPL side Huddersfield in our last friendly before opening league play. Constantino makes a great run in a crowded penalty area, beating 3 defenders and the keeper to score in the 14th minute. DC Welsh gives up a penalty in the 20th minute and they tie it.

We sub out the starters in the 60th minute. They get a goal from a starting striker on a strong header in the 65th. Same guy, Ibai Platas, scores in the 73rd. This is the guy they spent all their money on last year to stay up in the EPL.

Huddersfield 3 : 1 Ipswich



-- After our last friendly I go through and make sure the squad is set, getting guys reserve team time that don't figure to play much. I want Chris Mason getting all of the playing time on the reserve team but really GK Dominic Johnson is dead weight at this point. I offer him out to other clubs and get a few quick offers from League 2 sides.


-- Sunderland won't stop trying to raid the squad. They offer me $10.75M for Matthew Khan. Khan has slightly fallen out of favor as Constantino has trained incredibly well and I moved to a 1 striker formation last year and this year look to the strength & speed striker combo with Hamilton/Constantino... but Khan is 24 y/o, well liked, and talented, and I don't see a reason to let him go even for that amount right now.

-- Celtic shower praise on Neil Gordon and he is flattered by that praise and they seem to be winning him over a little. NO. I see you batting your eyes at that rich team across the way, stop it!


Despite all the harmony concerns and issues with bigger teams trying to make my best players want to leave me, we go into the regular season with superb morale all around. Its opening day vs Leicester!

-- A sellout is expected as we open the season at home.

August 10th, 2019

Leicester @ Ipswich

We're even money favorites in our first match back in the Championship today. Leicester finished 6th last year in the Championship, making the playoffs but failing to advance. We're 5-10-3 lifetime against Leicester. We beat them in the FA Cup last year 5:1 and tied them 5 of the last 6 times we met in the Championship prior to that.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Berthet
M: Colak/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

My backups are Mariga, McKerr, Khan, Hughes, Jackson, Burke, and Chris Mason. This leaves Guarin, Brown, and Ian Taylor out in the cold. With our speed and talent advantage my default behavior this year will be to play wide and to attack until I learn that i need to do something different.

3': they shoot first on a free kick from 25 yards out, a nice bending shot that hits the left post.

5': We earn a corner after some good possession, Constantino tried a ball to Hamilton that was tackled behind. Corner goes nowhere.

10': They try to clear a cross but Donnelly recovers, puts a great ball into the area for Turgay Colak, he's got our first clear cut chance of the season... but puts it into the side netting.

22': We have a throwin in their end, after a pass Henrique shoots from 25 yards out, it deflects off a defender and is easily saved. Their keeper kicks it long down the left side and oh dear god they have a man streaking down the left unmarked... midfielder Neokleous totally breaks free here, our defenders can't catch up, he's into the area and has a clear cut chance that he puts to the far post for a goal. 0-1

30': They show good patience and passing in controlling the ball on the left side for a good long while, they aren't able to threaten but we can't take it away either, eventually Gordon commits a foul. On the free kick we concede a corner and clear it away.

41': Two highlights in a row with crosses into the area for Simon Hamilton, on both of them he wins his header and puts the ball into the crossbar. So close!

HALF: We could be doing a lot better here, one jailbreak counter attack for them and a few missed chances for us. We have 7 shots to their 5, each team has just 1 on target so far. Possession is even and we struggle to win in the air here, winning 50% of our headers to their 65%. We'll be checking this a bit closer this year to see where our troubles lie and will try to adjust if possible. For now though, keep up the pressure.

46': We advance quickly after kickoff and earn a throwin in their end. Gordon takes it into the area... they head it out but Henrique is there to pick up the loose ball. He makes a run unmarked into the area and gets a strong shot off but its from a narrow angle and saved. We earn a corner but they head it away.

54': Long attacking move for Ipswich.. we try a couple through balls but they push it back out... eventually we get it out wide right, a brilliant cross is played in by Gordon, Hamilton gets to it around 8 yards out and heads it... but the keeper positioned well and was able to dive and push it away and they clear it.

75': Jack Hughes in for Colak, Mariga in for Mills.

91': As we push harder to try to get the tying goal, we are pretty high up on a goal kick. Berthet goes up with ST Carroll for a header... Berthet misses the header, they push it ahead and ST Wright is able to get to the ball and lob it over the head of Carlos Antonio to seal the deal. 0-2

Ipswich 0 : 2 Leicester

I'm pretty sure this is 3 years in a row where I've gotten off to a very disappointing first match for Ipswich. Doh!!

No one played well but no one was terrible either. ST Hamilton puts up a 6.3, our lowest rating, missing one of our 2 clear cut chances. Clearly some things we can improve upon.

I look at the headers... Henrique 12/18, Hamilton 8/14 on the good side. Gordon 2/11, Donnelly 1/9, Constantino 8/18, Welsh 5/13(that one surprises me, I expect him to get pretty good in the air in defense).


Prematch comments from my assistant indicate that "a number of our players are still trying to blend into the squad." I went with the same lineup every friendly to help with that but it makes sense that we'll need a bit more time for that.

-- We did sell out our last match.

-- AC Milan offer $5M for Kirkland. Murcia offer $6M. I reject both.

-- Reading offer $2.5M for Mcdonald Mariga. I'm real torn here, he's not really unhappy... I clearly jumped the gun transfer listing him, and I decide to reject the offer to see how he reacts. I feel like I'm being a bit wishy-washy here, and also that I'm gambling with our morale and unity. He lists me as favored personnel and enjoys playing with Constantino... I feel I made a mistake listing him and want to see if I can hang on to him and make everyone happy.

-- We announce our final season ticket sales numbers, we sold 19,475 season tickets. That's down from 22,912 last year, not bad considering the relegation.


-- Mariga is unhappy that I didn't let him chat with Reading. Crap, I screwed this up every way possible huh? Ahh, learning experiences.

August 14th, 2019

League Cup First Round

Ipswich(CH) @ Aldershot(L1)

We're huge 1:2 favorites on the road here. They're 9:2 to get a win. We've never met before. They've bounced between L2 and L1 since the 08/09 season. They actually just promoted back up from League 2 last year. The first year I managed Ipswich we lost to a lower level squad in my second ever match as their manager. Lets not repeat that. We're expected to reach the 3rd round of the League Cup.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Berthet
M: Colak/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

I start Mariga for Mills today. No other changes. attack attack attack.

7': We earn a corner as Constantino sprints through their defense with the ball, they desperately tackle it away and clear the corner. We retain possession, they foul us about 30 yards out but clear out the free kick.

16': Mariga wins a ball from a defender after they set up their offense. He passes to Hamilton, ahead for Constantino and he simply runs by his man,into the area, ignores the keeper rushing out and puts it into the net. 1-0

24': Foul by defender Ferrell on Constantino near the penalty area, its a yellow for him. Free kick is blocked by the wall.

28': Gordon dodges a couple defenders to get forward a bit, passes to Constantino, he has a shot just tipped by the keeper to go behind for a corner. They clear the corner.

33': Constantino with a long run down the right after receiving a ball near midfield.. He holds it up to let the offense get forward, finds Mariga in the area, Mariga shoots but its high.

44': A pass goes to Hamilton near midfield, their defenders shade that way and that's enough... Hamilton lays it back to Mariga, he puts it ahead into a huge hole down the middle. Constantino runs onto it, easily into the area, and easily scores. 2-0

HALF: This one looks to be an easy one. I bring Clive Jackson in at MR for Gordon and Khan in for Hamilton up front, holding on to one sub.

49': Khan has taken 3 terrible shots the second he touches the ball 20-25 yards out. Desparate to win his starting job? Ugly stuff.

75': Berthet comes down with an injury. His fitness takes a huge hit, we'll check on him post match. I sub in McKerr at first opportunity.

We end it easily.

Aldershot 0 : 2 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.0)
Goals: Constantino 2
Assists: Hamilton (6.9), Mariga (8.0)
Notables: Berthet (7.2), Kirkland (7.0), Henrique (7.1), Donnelly (7.3)


-- Berthet is hurt and out for 2 weeks.

League Cup 2nd Round Draw

We just hope to avoid the EPL to have our best chance to keep advancing. We end up getting a home match vs Fulham, a team spending their 8th year in a row in the Championsihp after a nice long EPL run in the first decade of the century. Fair enough.

August 17th, 2019

Exeter @ Ipswich

Even money favorites today against Exeter. We'd be embarrassed to start 0-2 at home. They finished 19th last year and have struggled each of the last 3 years in the league.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/McKerr
M: Hughes/Mills/Mariga/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

McKerr is in for the injured Berthet. Hughes starts for Colak out left today, Mills and Mariga are the central mids. Attack attack attack.

5': Hamilton earns us a corner with a shot from 25 yards out, saved and turned behind... corner is cleared, we fight to keep the ball in the attacking end but finally they make a good long clearance.

16': They get a free kick in our end and earn a corner off it, we clear easily though.

18': Mariga plays a ball forward to Constantino. He shows great control to get by his man and into the area but its crowded, he pulls out wide to the right, puts in a short cross, and Hamilton is there, wins the header, and its into the back of the net! His first goal for us. 1-0

33': An attacking move down the right... Gordon sends it to McKerr, a cross into the area, Hamilton wins a header 15 yards away, he gets a solid shot, but its a bit high, good effort.

HALF: I've dropped to key highlights for now so we're seeing a little less in low shot matches. We do have 8 shots, 4 on target, only allowing one shot all half. This is more like what I expect to see most of the year. We're winning in the air today too which is good to see. Go team!

48': They earn a corner and Carlos Antonio has to make two saves in the process of conceding another corner, this one we clear and look to counter. Its played quickly to midfield, then sent out left for us to build up, Hughes ends up sending a cross in, Hamilton gets his head to it but its easily saved.

54': A pass ahead to Constantino leads to a long run down the right... he plays a solid cross into the 6 yard box, Hamilton charges it, wins the header from very close range, but the keeper somehow stops it! That was a clear cut chance and he probably should have scored, there was a lot of the net open there.

58': Constantino receives a pass 30 yards out, splits two defenders, and is tackled just before he gets into the area... no card. Gordon's shot is blocked.

66': Free kick from 25 yards out, I didn't see how we earned it. Gordon takes it and shows some of the potential he has to be a set piece god, bending it around the wall and rocketing it into the right side of the net. 2-0

81': They counter attack, a long ball goes ahead to ST Rooney, he makes Welsh miss a tackle, gets into the area and puts a good shot by the keeper. 2-1

81': Jackson in for Gordon, Guarin in for Hughes, Burke in for Welsh. Guys i want to rest + guys I don't look to be playing as often. I made these subs before we gave up the goal but I'm confident we'll hold.

90': Hamilton with a foul about 25 yards out. They earn a free kick, its taken off the wall and Carlos Antonio holds it safely.

We hold out for the win pretty easily here.

Ipswich 2 : 1 Exeter

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.0)
Goals: Hamilton (7.2), Gordon (7.5)
Assits: Constantino 2
Notables: Kirkland (7.1)

Everyone else in the 6.8-6.9 range. Carlos Antonio had a 7.3 until that goal was let in, I want to see him do well.

We were much better in the air today. Steven Mills at MC is a big reason winning 10 of 13. Our four defenders combine to win 23 of 24 headers. I love Constantino and love his speed and flashy goals, but it made me real happy to see crosses being won by Hamilton and actually threatening them.

Ah I didn't know about the inability to remove the transfer-listed player! Good to know.

Transfer listing out the team beloved player causes team chemistry issues. I like that ;)

Very good offseason so far. Looking forward to reading more.

-- GK Dominic Johnson turned down 3 contracts, saying they weren't good enough for him, so he's still with us. And now he's broken his wrist and is out for 6-7 weeks.

August 20th, 2019

Ipswich @ Barnsley

We are slim 5:4 favorites on the road against Barnsley. Barnsley won League 1 last year and have a 1-1-0 start here in the Championship.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Burke/Henrique/McKerr
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

loaner DC Vinny Burke gets his first start of the year for Welsh today. Turgay Colak back at ML, Mills/Donnelly mids.

3': They get two quick shots on target but both are easily parried by Antonio... we get the ball forward, Constantino at the edge of the area, there's 3 defenders on top of him, one wins the ball, tries to clear, but it hits one of the other men in the area and trickles away... Constantino races to it and has space and puts it in the net! 1-0

14': A quick counterattack, a pass ahead to Constantino, he lays it off to Donnelly, Donnelly has space, runs into the area and easily beats the keeper! 2-0

33': Both teams have 7 shots, they've tried to press a little but our defense is faster than theirs and we aren't allowing any openings.

44': Buildup down the right, McKerr pulls up 30 yards out and crosses into the area and by god this is working. Simon Hamilton gets above his man, wins a header and its in the net! 3-0

HALF: Vinny Burke got hurt at the very end of the half and his fitness is shot. We're putting Welsh in immediately. We shoot 9 times with 6 on target, 2 clear cut chances, and 60% of the possession. They shoot 7 times, 4 on target. We're winning 80% of our headers and limiting them to 37% in the air, that's what I want to see.

46': We get a free kick from 40 yards out, Gordon takes it and its a great shot that hits the crossbar, close!

64': They clear a ball out of our end, a header goes from the midfield to say 30 yards out... and Carlos Antonio decides to rush out for the ball. Its a race between him and striker Weghorn... and he loses. A horrid decision by our keeper. They recover the ball first, their man skips over our keeper and puts it into the empty net. That was just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far out. 3-1

71': Hamilton ahead to Constantino, he's in the area.. and tackled hard, penalty! Constantino takes it and buries it. 4-1

79': They inexplicably get a long through ball by our defense and to a forward from way too far away, we've been intercepting these every time, Carlos Antonio comes out though and this time its a great decision, he blocks a clear cut chance.

85': We attack down the left side, Turgay Colak gets down near the end line, puts a cross into the area, it hits a defender and changes path a bit, falling in the penalty area. Steven Mills is the first one there and he puts it into the upper right corner of the net! His first Ipswich goal! 5-1


Great win, and maybe we're starting to get on a roll.

Barnsley 1 : 5 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.2)
Goals: Constantino 2, Donnelly (8.4), Hamilton (8.3), Mills (8.1)
Assists: McKerr (8.5), Turgay Colak (7.7), Constantino .. 2 of our goals are unassisted.
Notables: Carlos Antonio (7.4), Kirkland (7.6), Henrigue (7.2)

Good Stuff!


Injury Update

DC Vinny Burke is going to be out for 3 weeks.

-- I continue to play with fire. Sevilla offer me $3M for McDonald Mariga. I am very slowly resigning myself to the fact that he will be leaving, but I want to get paid (and drag it out). I tell them I want $8M.

August 24th, 2019

Ipswich(2-0-1, 7th) @ Stoke(1-0-2, 15th)

For the first time this year we're underdogs at Stoke on the road. They're 5:4 favorites, we're 7:4 dogs. We're 1-2-3 lifetime against them.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Burke/Welsh/McKerr
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

17': Donnelly passes ahead to Constantino, he turns by his man, sprints into the area and has a clear cut chance... and the keeper is able to get to it and make the save. He would normally score there.

37': They have a little counter attack after winning a ball in the midfield. We close down hard on the first man to get the ball but he gets it ahead to their other striker and he's got a complete breakaway. Into the area, Carlos Antonio rushes out... and makes a good stop.

HALF: Not a huge number of good looks here on either team. We actually have some pretty damn low ratings out there, 6.0 from Hamilton and 6.3 from Gordon, 6.2 McKerr, seems like we should be doing more. They actually take 8 shots to our 6, we don't see many of these at all. We do have a 56/44 possession edge, we're losing out in the air today.

63': They have a free kick and send it long towards the area, we've got a lot of men back but somehow let a ball through into the area for a striker... its a clear cut chance for Stoke and Carlos Antonio makes a really good save.

66': We build up on offense, Donnelly plays a pretty ball into the area for Hamilton, Hamilton has our second clear cut chance after making a great cut, but he can't finish.

84': Mariga in for Donnelly, Khan in for Hamilton, Jackson in for Gordon to try to get us a goal at the end.

Its a tie on the road against a decent team. I played a counterattacking strat today and never felt comfortable enough to come out and attack harder than that.

Stoke 0 : 0 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Henrique (7.6)
Notables: Kirkland (7.2), Colak (7.0), Constantino (7.1)

I tend to ignore milestones for reasons I can't explain, I love counting stats:

-- Gordon Donnelly played in his 225th league match
-- Constantino plays in his 75th league match for Ipswich today.


-- I turned down a $400,000 offer from Reading for backup DR Michael McKerr. He's unhappy that I don't let him leave.

-- I turn down yet another offer for Henrique and he's unhappy with me too. The transfer window is almost closed and we can get back to soccer for awhile and relieve the dramaz.

-- We play Fulham at home two matches in a row, league cup and league.

August 27th, 2019

League Cup 2nd Round

Fulham(3rd, CH) @ Ipswich(9th, CH)

We're an even money favorite at home vs Fulham today but they are off to a good start in the league. We're 5-2-5 lifetime against Fulham.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Burke/Welsh/McKerr
M: Guarin/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Khan

Couple lineup changes today to keep guys fresh. Guarin, Mariga, Khan in. Turgay Colak, Mills, Constantino out.

8': We win a ball deep in the defensive end, Kirkland sends it long to Hamilton, he runs down the left and lays a ball off for Mariga. Mariga plays a brilliant pass through the defense to Donnelly at the edge of the penalty area. Donnelly fires, its a solid shot, but off the post, so close!

20': Donnelly with a yellow.

22': Quick counter for Ipswich, a ball ahead to Khan, a pass to Hamilton who is 20 yards out, a strike... keeper has to dive to turn it behind. First corner is headed back for a second corner. This one is cleared away.

32': They have it in our end, a throwin, the penalty area is really crowded but they sneak a through ball for ST Dan Taylor, he's hurt and slowed and probably scores if he wasn't. Its still a clear cut chance for him but brilliant save by Carlos Antonio.

39': We're up to 9 shots, just had a very nice attacking move lead to a strong shot from Hamilton but its saved, we're looking really really good on the attack but just not getting the finish.

43': Disaster strikes... Donnelly makes a tackle in the midfield... he's given his second yellow and he's out of the match. Constantino in for Khan, Mills in for Hamilton. We change to a 4-4-1 and we're going to want Constantino up front for that.

HALF: We shoot 11 times, putting 6 on target, we do settle from long range a little much I think. They only have a 3 shots. The man down will be the big story of the second half. Can we hold them off? Can Constantino generate a goal to possibly win a man down?

71': They get a lob down the right side... a man forward, into the area but at a tough angle, Carlos Antonio covers the near post brilliantly and stops the shot.

75': After Mills and Gordon work the ball around a bit on the right a pass goes ahead to Constantino... he draws the defense and spots Guarin open in a dangerous position, a shot from 15 yards out... saved. Guarin needs to finish that.

76': We earn a throwin, Kirkland plays it up to Neil Gordon, he centers it to Steven Mills who is 20 yards out. Mills has a shot, its not struck too hard but its placed as perfectly as possible, into the upper left corner of the net, the keeper can't stop it!! 1-0

89': a strong attacking move as they are getting desperate and we exploit it well, Constantino receives a pass 30 yards out, sends it ahead to Gordon, the defense has come way high up and is converging on Gordon to try to take the ball away... Mariga cuts into the open space, Gordon finds him, Mariga shoots, on target!! We play a brilliant second half to get 2 goals a man down. 2-0


Ipswich 2 : 0 Fulham

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (7.9)
Goals: Mariga, Mills (7.6)
Assists: Gordon 2 (7.7)
Notables: Carlos Antonio (7.0), McKerr (7.3), Kirkland (7.5), Constantino (7.3)



-- We're up to August 29th... we get a random $8.75M offer from a french team for Berthet. Sorta tempting since McKerr is playing well and Berthet shit the bed in the EPL last year, but I'm sticking to my guns. This team is promoting back up, the one I have right now. I don't need millions of dollars right now, I need wins, and even though I have some concerns about Berthet, I'm not confident enough that I could go out and buy better reliably to take the risk.

-- Looking just very briefly at Europe, Champions League groups are drawn today. Sunderland didn't make it through the playoffs to the group stage, losing to Juventus. Chelsea draws Cagliari, Porto and AaB in Denmark. Sheffield Utd draws Dinamo Kiev, Juventus, and AS Monaco from France. Arsenal draws Ajax and a Turkish and Russian squad, they seem to have the best draw of the lot.

League Cup 3rd Round Draw

Looks like we're down to 32 teams in the League Cup so we expect mostly EPL and Championship teams here. We end up with one of the worst possible draws, we'll be traveling to Sheffield Utd, a top 4 finisher in the EPL last season.

August 31st, 2019

Fulham(3-1-0, 3rd) @ Ipswich(2-1-1, 9th)

Having just beaten them short handed in cup play, we're even money favorites in league play today against Fulham again.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Burke/Welsh/Berthet
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Mariga/Jackson
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

Berthet is healthy and starting. Clive Jackson gets his first start as Neil Gordon gets his first break, and Constantino is back in. Donnelly serving his suspension for his red card.

11': Through ball for Fulham to ST Acosta, he's quickly onto it very deep in the area and easily beats Carlos Antonio. 0-1

15': Brilliant run by Constantino from within our own end, down the right side, he sets up Jackson perfectly with a pass, Jackson on the volley... keeper is able to make the save and turn it back for a corner, which they clear.

27': We build up on offense, getting it forward to Jackson near the penalty area, he lays it off nicely for Hamilton who shoots.. but its saved and cleared away.

30': Clive Jackson is everywhere today but needs a finish... Constantino hits him with a beautiful ball in the area, its a clear cut chance from 15 yards out... but right at the keeper.

40': We have a throwin in their end, a pass goes to Mills, ahead ot Jackson, he splits two defenders with a great pass for Simon Hamilton. Hamilton has it 8 yards out and he doesn't miss this time, easy finish! 1-1

HALF: It looks like Welsh took the blame for the goal we let in, I can see that, we were out of position to let a ball in as easily as the one that they scored off of. Clive Jackson has really been everywhere today, he's been a huge part of the offense. On the one hand I think if that were Neil Gordon instead we lead 3-1. But Jackson has handled himself well and made some nice passes, I like what I see out of the youngster. Despite the tie we appear to be in full control with 11 shots, 4 on target to their 3 total shots. We've got possession edge and we're winning every stat.

56': All the highlights remain ours early, but we've ended up with a lot of possession and only speculative shots.

63': We allow two corner kicks but easily clear the second one. Its cleared really well and Constantino runs onto it and has a breakaway.. he's well ahead of the defense, into the area, the keeper comes out... and Constantino should have shoot sooner. His shot is blocked. Doh!

65': Constantino with another really nice run down the middle, Hamilton is off to his left, he's got our 5th clear cut chance of the match here as he cut inside his man nicely... but shoots wide.

79': We counter after winning a ball in the defense. Mills plays a long pass ahead to Constantino, one of their defenders takes the blame for missing an interception, allowing Constantino a free run at the keeper and this time he finishes! 2-1

82': Wow, huge lapse... we let them march right down the field and get it back... a run down the right, cross to the 6 yard box, a header without our defender even rising up for it, and a goal. 2-2

86': Mills wins a 50/50 ball in midfield, a quick pass ahead to Hamilton, another quick pass to Constantion who has lost the defense, and its our 7th clear cut chance and 3rd goal, great play there! 3-2

92': Simon Hamilton goes down near midfield trying to win a ball to keep possession for us.. he's hurt. ugh, we'll check on him postmatch. play continues, Constantino receives a pass and sprints towards the area, he's fouled as he tries to beat the last defender, just outside the area. Berthet takes the free kick and shoots wide.

That'll do it.

Ipswich 3 : 2 Fulham

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.0)
Goals: Constantino 2, Hamilton (8.4)
Assists: Hamilton, Mills (7.4)
Notables: Jackson (7.7), Mariga (7.8)

I'm absolutely thrilled with our young right midfielder Clive Jackson today. He wasn't perfect but it seemed like he was in the right place all the time and made really good decisions, just his finishing was slightly lacking.

September Update

-- Euro Championship qualifying gives us some time off in early September. We play on the 14th, 17th, 21st, 24th and 28th. The match ont he 24th is the 4th round of the League cup.

-- I receive a training update indicating that GK Chris Mason has trained well recently. Carlos Antonio is mentoring him and his Composure (13), Concentration (14) and Determination (6) have all gone up recently. It seems like our scouts view of Mason has dropped slightly, his potential is now presumed to be less than Carlos Antonio's level and he might be marginal as an EPL level keeper. I think I'll let him stay with me this year to train and be mentored and play every match with the reserves, hopefully make it back to the EPL next year, and then loan him to a championship squad that will start him next season. Then he'd be 20 y/o and I'll hopefully have a much better idea of whether he could ever start for me or not.

-- Constantino is the Championship player of the month. He's got 4 goals and 3 assists in 5 league matches and 2 cup goals as well. He's developed so well, the numbers he is capable of putting up this year could dwarf what he's done in the past. I don't expect a 50 goal season or anything. His last Championship season was 34 goals/11 assists. I would not at all be surprised to see 35 goals/20 assists this year with a rating over 8.0.

-- I win the manager of the month award. Right now there are 8 teams tied for 1st with a 3-1-1- record. We're one of them. Three managers in that group took 1st/2nd/3rd in the manager voting.

-- The board is satisfied with my leadership. The highlight is that I am "getting the best out of Constantino".

-- We lost $2.56M last month. Ouch. Our salary costs alone were higher than our revenue. If we lose $2.5M every month our early profits will be gone in February and we would end up losing about $12-$13M this season. That's worth it of course if we advance back up and as long as parachute payments work its actually ok if we don't b/c the parachute payment at the end of the season would cover it. I hate to keep harping on the salary drop that didn't happen but that's costing us about $80,000/wk right now. Basically not enough to make me want to stop playing or look into the game editor, but enough that I feel the need to continue bitching about it :D


-- Huddersfield offer Rio Ferdinand a job. I don't want to lose him. He's my 4* Ball Control coach. He's also a 4* tactics and 4* defending coach. I offer him a raise, but I suspect he'll leave anyway.

-- McDonald Mariga puts up an 8.1 rating and gets a goal in a 2:0 win for Kenya over Sao Tome in the African Cup of Nations Qualifiers. Morocco won their group unfortunately.

-- Clive Jackson scores for the England U19 squad against Finland in a friendly, a 5:0 rout, he puts up an 8.1 rating.

-- The England U21 squad beats Lithuania 7:0. Stuart Kirkland's performance is called "Magnificient" as he earns an 8.5 rating.

-- Chris Mason starts for the England U20s in a 4:1 win over Finland. He earns a 6.9 rating and is subbed out in the 79th minute.

-- In a coaches meeting I'm informed of more Chris Mason training goodness. In addition to the ratings mentioned at the start of the month (its Sept 12th now, good long break here) his Communication (8) and Handling (16) have also gone up.

September 14th, 2019

Ipswich(3-1-1, 4th) @ Cardiff(3-1-1, 7th)

Cardiff are 5:4 favorites today, making us 7:4 to win. We're 10-3-6 lifetime against them. Cardiff's worst finish in the Championship the last 5 years is 11th. They've only made the playoffs once though. A news report mentions that Rob Lewis is looking forward to playing against his old manager. He was our 3rd young ST behind Khan and Constantino that I decided to sell last year. He scored 4 goals in 6 matches for them to finish off last season, but has 5 games w/o a goal yet this year.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Welsh/Berthet
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

Donnelly and Gordon are back in, Mariga out. Standard mindset on the road.

5': We lose the ball while charging forward to start up an attack, they get a long ball to Rob Lewis, he gets into the area but has a shot stopped by Carlos Antonio.

22': They build up quickly on offense, a ball from midfielder Ellis to Rob Lewis... seems like Berthet needed to be on Lewis and just lost sight of him there. Lewis gets into the area and its their first clear cut chance... and he finishes. 0-1

44': yellow for midfielder Ellis.

HALF: We look like shit out there. They shoot 6 times, putting 4 on target. We have 5 shots, 4 from long range, just 1 on target and nothing remotely threatening. We're passing, tackling and winning headers better, but they are by far the more threatening of the two teams.

47': We have a throwin in their end, its taken to constantino, he's in the right side of a crowded penalty area, he runs up and around to the middle of the pitch, cuts right quickly, fires a bending shot around 2 defenders from 20 yards out and places it perfectly into the right side of the net! A spectacular individual effort. 1-1

60': Donnelly a yellow.

64': They have a corner, its taken to the far post, there's a ton of our guys there but they win the header, Carlos Antonio can't get to it, but Berthet heads it off the line!

66': Yellow for midfielder Ledley.

71': Yellow for Hamilton.

80': Mariga in for Donnelly, Hughes in for Turgay Colak.

94': They have a free kick 20 yards out, its taken well but sails just wide.

With the pressure they put on us in the first half I'm happy to get out of here with a draw. I thikn they were the better team but we had the best player on the pitch and he single handedly got us a point today.

Cardiff 1 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.4)
Goal: Constantino
Assist: Gordon (6.8)
Notable: Kirkland (7.0), Henrique (7.0)

Quit overselling your club! :P

hah, at that point based on the highlights I'd seen it was quite true, and I would have enjoyed yelling at every one of them in the locker room :D

September 17th, 2019

Swansea(3-1-2, 11th) @ Ipswich(3-2-1, 6th)

We are very large 4:7 favorites at home today. Its a close series over the last decade, we're 6-5-5 against them, winning both matches the year we promoted up.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Burke/Berthet
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Mariga/Jackson
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

We rotate some guys as we play again in 4 days. Mariga, Jackson start in the midfield, loaner Vinny Burke at DC. Attack attack.

11': Their striker scoots by Henrique to receive a through ball, he gets a clear cut chance but Carlos Antonio makes a good stop.

18': Fantastic quick attack, a ball goes forward, Hamilton wins a header in the midfield, flicking it over to Constantino. Constantino passes back to Mills, Mills with a ball into the area, Hamilton runs onto it and strikes it to the far post by the keeper! 1-0

25': Not so happy with the defense here. They get a throwin in our end, and its another through ball to a man who just ran right by Henrique... maybe we thought they were offsides... its another clear cut chance and this one is finished. 1-1

37': They have a goal kick, it comes down about 20 yards from our goal... Carlos Antonio ran out for the ball, a huge mistake... they win the header for it, heading it towards the net but its luckily just wide.

39': Another Swansea attack, and Henrique just looks bad, ST Spear receives it 20 yards out, Henrique flat out misses the tackle, he turns and is into the area, easy goal. 1-2

43': We have a corner, they clear it but we recover. Mills puts a ball perfectly into the area in between their two central defenders. Constantino is there to receive the ball and we're able to quickly equalize. 2-2

HALF: Henrique has been beaten badly 3 times so far today but somehow is rating is a 6.5. Lots of successful passes and 5/5 on headers. He's also made 6 interceptions. I'm going to drop back to a standard mindset here. Mariga and Mills are both way more offensive minded in the midfield, I wonder if leaving Donnelly out of the lineup allows these things to happen a little more often. Or just bad luck, who knows. We do shoot 7 times to their 5, each team has 3 on target. We've got an amazing amount of possession, 64%, they're just hitting us with a couple quick strikes.

56': Steven Mills is having an awesome game. A pass comes in from a defender as we set up on offense, Mills plays it forward with his first touch and its an inch perfect pass for Constantino, he's in the area, has a step on his man and is able to put it in the net! 3-2

80': More great passing for Ipswich, we build up after a throwin in the midfield. Mills with a pass to Constantino, a little ways out right, he passes ahead into the area, Hamilton runs onto it perfectly and hits it with his first touch... but its wide. I love Hamilton in the air but his finishing is not the best, he's going to miss some of those that Constantino almost never does.

87': We attack, a cross comes in from the right towards the far post, Turgay Colak is there, heads it, the keeper has to dive to push it away. A defender goes to make a clearance but mishits it and puts it into his own net! 4-2

94': We have a free kick in our own end. Carlos Antonio sends it down the left. Turgay Colak wins a header and sends it to Hamilton, he makes a run out wide to the left, passes to constantino who is 20 yards out, Constantino turns by his man and strikes and blows it by the keeper!! It was a slow start but we made it look like a huge blowout by the time the final whistle comes. 5-2

Ipswich 5 : 2 Swansea

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.5)
Goals: Constantino 3, Hamilton 1 (7.9), 1 own goal
Assists: Mills 3 (9.0), Hamilton, Turgay Colak (7.8)
Notables: Carlos Antonio (7.2), Berthet (7.0), Kirkland (7.1), Jackson (7.2), Mariga (7.3)



Solid win!

7 matches in there are 7 teams tied for first with 14 points and 3 more teams have 13 points.

September 21th, 2019

Ipswich(4-2-1, 2nd) @ Scunthorpe(4-1-2, 8th)

We're 5:4 favorites on the road today, Scunthorpe are 7:4 to win here. We're 4-4-5 against them lifetime.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Henrique/Welsh/Berthet
M: Hughes/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

Scunthorpe ST John Bullock has 7 goals in 7 matches. That's just one less than Constantino has in league play so far.

We change up most of the midfield (leaving Mills in, he's playing so well right now). We open up counter attacking on the road.

12': Two attacking highlights in a row, both throwins in their end, the first has Mills put a ball into the area for Hughes who has a clear cut chance but its right at their keeper. Next throwin, Mills ends up shooting from 25 yards out and its close, but a bit high.

21': Donnelly with a yellow.

40': 20 minutes go by without a highlight.

47': They have a free kick just out wide left, its taken into the area, Mills does a good job heading it out. Hughes recovers the ball and sends it long. Constantino outruns the defense, picking it up just past midfield and he's off... he makes a long run into the area, one defender keeps pretty close but he's clearly behind and shouldn't be putting any pressure on here... the keeper comes out but Constantino blasts it by the keeper and into the net. 1-0

HALF: A slow and fairly boring half with one beautiful counterattacking strike to end the half. We have 6 shots, 4 on target, they have 5. Just a long long lull after the first 15 minutes I suppose.

48': They have a corner, taken to the far end of the 6 yard box, there's a strong header, Carlos Antonio makes a strong save to turn it behind. We clear the second corner.

48': Yellow for their ST Townsend.

58': Jackson in for Gordon, Mariga in for Mills. A little early to sub out key guys but I want them in vs Sheffield Utd in a few days in the League Cup.

63': Hughes gets a yellow.

74': Henrique goes down and he's injured. He looks pretty bad, can stay in but horrible fitness.

77': They have a throwin deep in our end. We have our whole team in the box... we tackle the ball away from a defender, it falls to a man 20 yards out, eh blasts a shot that deflects off a couple of our defenders and falls to ST Bullock... and he takes advantage and sends it into the net. 1-1

The game ends there with neither team threatening again.

Scunthorpe 1 : 1 Ipswich

They get a bit of a lucky goal at the end and we leave with 1 point.

Man of the Match: Constantino (7.3)
Goal: Constantino
Assists: Hughes (7.2)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0)

Injury Update

Henrique has a thigh strain after that last match and he's going to miss 2 weeks.

-- Turgay Colak and Steven Mills are both named to the Championship team of the week.


September 24th, 2019

League Cup 3rd Round

Ipswich(7th, CH) @ Sheffield Utd(1st, EPL)

Sheffield Utd are 5-0-1 in the EPL and are currently rockin first place. The one advantage we may have is that they played their first Champions League match recently and their next two matches are at Arsenal and another champions league match, so it seems like there's a good chance we won't be taken seriously. They are 4:7 favorites and we're 4:1 dogs.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/Burke/Welsh/Berthet
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

Burke starts for the injured Henrique, Turgay Colak back in at ML today. We'll defend.

25': Sheffield Utd has their keeper get injured. Before he can be subbed off we have a strong attacking move and Hamilton has a nice shot just saved. They sub out their keeper and clear the corner.

29': Mills is hurt. He can stay in but I'll bring Mariga in at the half.

39': we have a throwin in their end, a pass goes to Mills, he puts a great ball into the area, Constantino runs onto it and its the first clear cut chance for either team... but the keeper makes the save. Dang!

43': They earn a corner, we clear it out of the area but they recover, settle for a long shot though and its high.

49': Lots of added time here, they have a throwin in our end, a pass goes into the area and ... I dunno, in the struggle for the ball Welsh goes down after missing a tackle, leaving their man wide open in the area. Carlos Antonio rushes their striker... and makes a brilliant save!! WHEW.

HALF: They have 7 shots, 3 on target with 1 clear cut chance. We're doing alright holding our own here, 6 shots, 4 on target with 1 clear cut chance. Carlos Antonio has a 7.3 rating at the half, no one else is anywhere close. Mariga in for Mills.

48': They build up and get a man free in the area after a nice through ball, its their second clear cut chance and another brilliant save by Carlos Antonio!

51': Another attack for Sheffield Utd, a cross into the area, Welsh tries to clear it but its a weak thing that doesn't even leave the area, their man Broers is there and blasts it into the net before we can react. 0-1

66': We earn a free kick from 25 yards out. Gordon takes it and puts in a nice shot, but the keeper gets to it and turns it over for a corner. Corner goes nowhere.

73': DC Welsh is hurt...

We try to attack in the last 10 minutes but can't get anything done.

Sheffield Utd 1 : 0 Ipswich

Their scorer is man of the match. We played pretty well here. Welsh took the blame for the goal and didn't win many headers and ended with an awful 4.8 rating before he got hurt. Everyone else is in the 6.5-6.9 range.

We did meet expectations making the 3rd round.


Neither of our guys that got hurt during the match have any long term issues, but it may impact their readiness for yet another game on short rest coming up.

-- Gordon Donnelly tells the BBC in an interview that he feels like Ipswich is underachieving. We're not running away with the league but I think that's going a bit far! Unless he is just pissed that we didn't beat Sheffield Utd at their house, in which case screw him.

Injury Update

backup ML Jack Hughes is injured in training and is going to miss 4 weeks.

September 28th, 2019

Ipswich(4-3-1, 7th) @ Bolton(3-0-6, 17th)

We are huge 4:7 favorites on the road today, Bolton are 4:1 dogs. Bolton finished 20th each of the last 2 seasons and is very lucky they haven't dropped back to League 1 yet.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Welsh/Berthet
M: Turgay Colak/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Khan/Constantino

McKerr starts for Burke today, and Khan gets a start for Hamilton. Standard mindset today.

4': Khan is hurt immediately. Neat. He'll stay in for now but I'll probably bring in Hamilton (or Ian Taylor if we're doing well) in the 2nd half.

24': Free kick for us, Gordon takes it from 25 yards but puts it just wide.

26': Corner for Bolton, they take it to the near man, we miss a tackle and Forward Smalley recovers the ball and blasts it into the net.. Carlos Antonio's positioning seemed really poor there. 0-1

30': We have a goal kick... its taken long, their last defender tries to go up for a header but the ball is past him. The keeper doesn't rush out and this allows Constantino to keep chasing it, he picks it up and easily scores from close range. 1-1

36': A pass from Mills to Khan, he shoots from the edge of the penalty box, keeper has to dive to save it. Gordon takes the corner but they clear it.

37': we push it forward and earn another corner. Gordon takes it, they win a header and send it out wide, throwin for us. They head it away and we're offsides as we try to head it back in.

HALF: We definitely need to do better than this today. Hamilton is in for Khan at the half. We have 7 shots to their 5, we've got 2 clear cut chances but missed one. I'm hopeful we keep it going here and put this one away.

47': Mills has it about 40 yards out, he plays a ball into the right side of the area for Gordon, Gordon is tackled trying to win it.. penalty!! Constantino takes it and buries it. 2-1

56': We have a corner, played in to Constantino, a shot is blocked, we recover and try to send it back in... and Constantino goes down injured. He takes a pretty big hit to his fitness.

66': We've seen Constantino take two more shots since he got hurt and both looked a bit weaker, but maybe that's just me panicing until I see if he's hurt long term.

74': Guarin in for Constantino. I drop him back to DMC and run a 4-1-4-1.

75': We've got a free kick near midfield. Kirkland takes it and plays it into the area, Hamilton wins a header there but the keeper saves it, but can only parry it away. Neil Gordon is in the right spot to followup and puts it into the net before the keeper can get back up. 3-1

87': I've long since dropped back to defensive but they can't keep us from controlling possession and here we see Donnelly spot Hamilton in the area, Hamilton shoots, but its right at the keeper. Keeper can only deflect it away, it falls back to Hamilton who puts this one in! 4-1

91': Welsh goes down hurt in added time.. and the match stops, he can't walk this one off. That's 3 injuries today.

Bolton 1 : 4 Ipswich

Solid win. Lets hope the damage isn't too bad.

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.6)
Goals: Constantino 2, Gordon (8.2), Hamilton (8.4)
Assists: Carlos Antonio (7.6), Gordon, Hamilton. Hamilton's goal was unassisted.
Notables: Kirkland (7.3), Donnelly (7.0)


Injury Update

Well the good news is that Constantino isn't hurt long term. The bad news is that James Welsh is, he's going to miss 5-6 weeks with an ankle injury picked up in added time today.


-- Right now Henrique, James Welsh, Jack Hughes and Troy Brown are all out injured. We've got 7 guys on the senior squad that can play the position at all, and 4 are hurt. That leaves us right now with Turgay Colak, Burke, and McKerr.

-- Carlos Antonio, Gordon, Constantino and Hamilton are all named to the Championship team of the week this week.

October Update

-- We play on the 1st, 5th, 9th, 19th, and 26th. All League Matches.

-- Constantino is player of the month again in the Championship. That's two in a row. He's played 9 league matches and been man of the match 7 times.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Constantino's play is the highlight. No negative.

-- We lost $2.96M last month.

October 1st, 2019

Leeds(6-1-3, 3rd) @ Ipswich(5-3-1, 5th)

We're 4:5 favorites today, making Leeds 3:1 despite their 3rd place standing currently.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Burke/Berthet
M: Guarin/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
ST: Hamilton/Constantino

McKerr and Burke DC's. Guarin starts at ML, Mariga over Mills at MC today. Standard mindset today.

8': We have a number of attacking highlights early, but just 2 shots so far, both saved.

12': We have a corner, taken to the far end of the 6 yard box, Burke heads it, keeper has to dive to turn it back for a second corner. We get a shot off that corner but its put wide.

30': we get another corner, they head it out, we recover and send it back wide to Gordon. Gordon crosses in, Hamilton wins a header... and its off the crossbar.

HALF: Scoreless here. We're in control, 55/45 possession, 12 shots for us/5 for them. 6 on target for us/1 for them. The big issues is that we have 8 shots from long range. I issue the "work ball into box" instruction for the second half.

48': Constantino is my hero. They have a goal kick and kick it to a defender... Constantino attacks, wins the ball, runs towards the center of the pitch, but the defense is set. He controls it very well, Mariga into the area, Constantino finds him with a great pass, and Mariga blasts a shot into the net!! 1-0

61': We have it in the offensive end, winning a couple 50/50 balls to keep possession in the midfield, Berthet ahead to Hamilton, Hamilton hits Guarin coming into the area, Guarin has a clear cut chance and he puts it by the keeper! 2-0

65': We build up on offense, Kirkland plays a long ball from the midfield to Hamilton, Hamilton into the left side of the area, a centering pass for Constantino and he volleys it into the net! 3-0 Three very quick goals.

68': Turgay Colak in for McKerr. Taylor and Khan in for Hamilton and Constantino. Lets finish this off without injuries heh.

86': we control it well on offense, Donnelly with a through ball to Khan, Khan with a nice shot from 15 yards out, near post by the keeper! 4-0

90': Donnelly with a yellow.

91': Their leading scorer Steve Carroll avoids a tackle by Turgay Colak and shoots from 20 yards out... he hits the bottom of the crossbar and it bounces in. 4-1

No shutout but that's ok!

Ipswich 4 : 1 Leeds

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (8.4)
Goals: Mariga, Constantino (8.3), Guarin (8.0), Khan (7.1)
Assists: Hamilton 2 (7.6), Constantino, Donnelly (7.4)
Notables: Berthet (7.3), Kirkland (7.1), Burke (7.2)

Strong win. We had 1 less match played than a few teams. Combine catching up to the rest of the league in matches played with a QPR loss and we now sit in first place by ourselves 10 matches into the season. Who's underperforming now?