[NoSkillz]

Sat. July 29, 2023

Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. AJ Auxerre
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK

AJ Auxerre are a mid-table constant in French Ligue 1, finishing 8th last year. We played them in a friendly five years ago and beat them handily at the time. They are a relatively small club and we should be able to beat them today, even with a less than full strength lineup.

We get young midfielders Gian Marco Fanfoni and Emmerson Harvey back from their long-term injuries and both will start. Fanfoni will only last a half and I’ll bring in newcomer Jose for him at that point. I want to see Chiquinho score today - he’s been very pedestrian in his two preseason games so far. I’ve also got two youngsters at wide midfield today - Felix Hernandez, an U18 prospect is on the left and Lyubomir Kunchev is on the right. Two other newcomers are in today - Saber Nasri and Rafinha are on defence.

Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - C. Guzman, M. Yilmaz, S. Nasri, Rafinha
M - F. Hernandez, E. Harvey, G. Fanfoni, L. Kunchev
S - P. Moses, Chiquinho

Dover 4 - 2 AJ Auxerre
Goals - Paul Moses 2 (8.8), Mohamed Lamine Yilmaz (7.5), Chiquinho (7.8)
Assists - Gian Marco Fanfoni (7.0), Emmerson Harvey (7.8), Jose (6.9), Shanon Andrea (6.9)
Man of the Match - Paul Moses
Other Dover Notables - Ingo Wilke (7.1), Saber Nasri (7.0), Carlos Guzman (7.2), Lyubomir Kunchev (7.0)
Attendance - 9,763

From a boring game against Werder Bremen to a crazy, back and forth affair. We were way too loose on defence and gave them so much room to move - we held 55% of the ball but shots were 17-16 (9-12 on target) in our favour…yes, they had 12 shots on goal! Not good. Moses was superb and scored two beauties and Chiquinho finally got on the board with a goal from in tight on a great pass from substitute Shanon Andrea. Emmerson Harvey looked great in midfield too.



Season Ticket Update

-- We are up to 4684 season tickets sold, which already exceeds our total from last year, which was 4562. We are now expected to sell around 5700 before the season begins, a bit more than originally expected. We have a 23,000 seat stadium so it will be great to keep adding more to our season ticket base.



August Update

-- Alright, our preseason is starting to wind down, with three more friendlies upcoming against Genoa (Home), Ferencvaros (Away) and Celtic (Home). We have two Premier League games this month, opening at home against Everton and then heading to Craven Cottage to face Fulham. So a pretty light month.

-- I get positive training notices for Paul Moses along with U18 players Ben Lee, Adam Hyde and Dominic Beard. Negative reports come in for Gian Marco Fanfoni and Lyubomir Kunchev. I’ll give Fanfoni a pass since the kid was on the shelf for 4 months due to injury and just returned but there is no excuse for Kunchev so I have a little heart to heart with him and he says he’ll work harder in the future.



Injury Update

-- Our only injury at the moment is to wide midfielder Graham Allan but he is close to returning to full training.



August Board Confidence Update

-- The board are very pleased with my overall leadership. Our stature increase, as always, is the main positive and for a second consecutive month, the board can’t come up with anything negative.

-- That said, we did lose £17.79 MILLION last month!



Transfer Talk

-- We come to terms on a potential move for an 18 year old Argentine striker and now await word on a work permit. He’s a 3.5 star prospect and would be placed on our U18 team for the year to develop. My scouts feel it will go through but I’ll hold off on introductions until that happens - we should hear back on him early next week.



Cairney Unhappy?!

-- So I have been getting some notices during games that star midfielder Neil Cairney has been feeling pressure to perform due to interest from other teams. Then we get word that Arsenal want him and I decide to tell the press that he’s not going anywhere. This obviously triggers something with Cairney, who tells me he’s unhappy at Dover and wants to move to a bigger club. Sheesh. Arsenal are considered the largest club (by estimated value) in England but I sit down with Neil and tell him our club will continue to grow and I want him to be a part of it. He’s fine with that and everything seems okay as he leaves my office. Something to keep an eye on…



Next Up

-- We welcome Italian club Genoa to Crabble Athletic Ground in preseason friendly action.