[NoSkillz]

Barclays Premier League Awards

-- With Enrique now in Spain, we have a new English Footballer of the Year for the first time in five seasons. The award goes to Man United striker Yaya Sanogo. Enrique’s replacement, Jelle Hoegee, comes in second and our very own Neil Cairney comes in third!

-- Chelsea’s Miguel Sousa wins the English Player’s Player of the Year award. Giorgos Spanoudakis from Man City comes second and Luis Carballo from Chelsea comes in third. Gianluca Bolis won this award last year, if you recall.

-- Sheffield Wednesday forward Steve Pates wins the Players' Young Player of the Year award for the second year in a row. Mario Brito, the big new signing with Man City, comes in second and Everton’s Daniele Bentivoglio comes in third.

-- Chelsea manager Leonardo wins English Premier League Manager of the Year, with last year’s winner Malky Mackay finishing runner up and Man United’s Jurgen Klinsmann finishing third. Nothing for me this year!

-- Barclays Premier League Players' Team of the Year
GK - Antonio, Reading
DL - Danny Wilson, Manchester City
DC - Salah Abbes, Manchester City
DC - Nchimunya Munyao, Arsenal
DR - Jonathan Keat, Manchester City
ML - Luis Carballo, Chelsea
MC - Giorgos Spanoudakis, Manchester City
MC - Neil Cairney, Dover
MR - Miguel Sousa, Chelsea
ST - Yaya Sanogo, Manchester United
ST - Jelle Hoegee, Manchester City

Neil Cairney is rewarded for his incredible season with his first ever “All-Star” nod. We placed three additional players on the substitutes list, with Chiquinho, Shanon Andrea and Arsene Bamba all getting nods.


Yearly Dover Training Summary

-- I get positive reports on Claudio Contreras, Helder Cruz and reserve Jay Doyle, with significant praise bestowed on youth find Mwemere Mutesa.

-- Negative reports come in for midfielder Mancini, who was injured most of the year and veteran Wayne Rooney, who will be retiring next month.

-- On the youth side, Eddie Robinson, Phil Whitbread and Ben Lee get positive reports, with Robinson and Lee ending up on this list for the second consecutive season.



Youth Recruitment Investment

-- The board announce that construction has begun on an upgrade to our training and youth facilities. The planned expansion will cost us an estimated £3.7 million.



Heading to Spain?

— I get a rare job offer, with Atletico Madrid offering me £48,000 per week, a £18.25 million transfer budget and a whopping wage budget of £1.9 million per week to manage at Estadio de Madrid. Pretty cool - this is definitely one of the largest clubs in the world (ranked fourth in game, only behind Real Madrid, Barcelona and Arsenal) but I’m not going anywhere. Offer declined.



FA Cup Final

-- Newcastle upend Huddersfield 3-1 to win the 2023 FA Cup, thereby earning a Europa League spot. Newcastle finished in 14th place in the Premier League so it’s quite a feat to see them make Europe.

-- We pay out £195,000 in bonuses to our squad for our semi-final FA Cup run.



Champions League Final

-- Man United win 3-0 over Dortmund to win the Champions League title for the fourth time ever and first time since 2008!

-- We see a significant increase in Champions League television revenue, as we are given £21,739,000 for our quarterfinals run this year after receiving about £18 million last season. Our bank balance is currently north of £37 million and we’re currently showing a profit of over £7.6 million for this season. That said, I have about £25 MILLION in last season’s transfer budget that has gone unspent as I continue to be patient in hopes of luring young striker Paul Moses to our club on a permanent basis.

-- We pay out bonuses totalling £600,000 for our quarterfinal appearance in the Champions League to the players.

-- Next year's final will be played in France at Stade Velodrome.

-- Enrique wins the competitions Best Player award for the third consecutive season, not much of a surprise after scoring 26 goals in 11 games! He obviously wins the Golden Boot as well.



International Call-Ups

-- Thirteen players get called up by their respective countries: Marcel Quade (Austria U20s), Hans Briers (Belgium U20s), Carlos Guzman (Argentina U20s), Emmerson Harvey (England U21s), Felix Hernandez (France U21s), Zoltan Bardi (Hungary), Arsene Bamba and Daniel Traore (Ivory Coast), Gianluca Bolis (Italy), Chiquinho (Belgium), Lyubomir Kunchev (Bulgaria), Kostas Zagos (England) and Giorgos Gesios (Greece).



Dover Shareholders Payout

-- Dividends totalling £5.25 million will be paid to our shareholders on turnover of approximately £174 million this year - the shareholders received about £4.5 million last year so a nice increase once again.



Future Transfer IN

— We come to terms on a deal for Olympique Lyonnais GK Mathis Imbert on a free transfer. I’ll have more details on this 22 year old when he arrives in July. He isn’t going to supplant Ingo Wilke or Manuel Perez but he’ll help from a organizational depth perspective.



Dover Contracts Expiring

-- Three of our senior team players are on expiring contracts, with midfielder Mancini being the most notable. I have tried to re-up him but can’t get a work permit so he’ll be leaving the club at the end of June. Also leaving without contract extensions will be long-time reserve players Emmanuel Agbo and Andrew Stanley. I have a number of youth contracts expiring as well - 14 in total! I offer extensions to Hans Briers, Louis Read and Marcel Quade - all three have played for their country at the youth level so I’ll try to get them re-signed on the cheap and perhaps loan them out or keep them around as reserves.

-- I still have 3 staff members with expiring contracts and I attempt to bring back only one of them.