Sat. August 1, 2020 - Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Panathinaikos
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK
We return from our Italian trip to face Greek Superleague side Panathinaikos, which happens to be our star striker
Giorgos Gesios's childhood club. We revert back to our 4-4-2 for this game and will field a pretty good side, with new signing
Cristian Rodriguez going in right away. We are missing two key contributors in
Gianluca Bolis and
Salim Loucif, with both taking part in the Olympics.
Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - L. Fabianski
D - R. Gaucho, P. Tjiuoro, C. Rodriguez, J. Kuciak
M - A. Bamba, A. Rocca, N. Cairney, P. Kostal
S - G. Gesios, Z. Bardi
Dover 2 - 2 Panathinaikos
Goals - Zoltan Bardi (7.3), Roberto (7.3)
Assists - Neil Cairney (6.8), Andrea Rocca (7.2)
Man of the Match - Jose Francisco de la Torre (Panathinaikos - 8.0)
Other Dover Notables - None
Attendance - 4142
We need an extra time goal from substitute
Roberto to equalize late and salvage the draw. Gesios was terrible (6.0) versus his former club and our new central defence, Rodriguez and Tjiuoro had issues stemming perhaps from lack of communication. It's strange - I'm playing very large teams in this preseason (well, most of them are anyway) and my demands are much higher than normal - perhaps I should be happy we're competing well but I'm upset we're not winning some of these games. We outshot them 23-9 and possession was dead even. I'm still trying to find a good balance at central midfield too - Rocca and Cairney are similar types of players but one has to play a defensive role (right?) and I don't think I'm getting everything I can out of Cairney especially.
August Board Confidence Update
-- The board is very pleased with my overall leadership and our increased stature again is the reason. They are slightly disappointed with the departure of DC/MC Shaun Halsall? Hahaha!!! The guy was a complete non-factor for us and never had the talent for the Premier League anyway. Maybe he's buddies with our new chairman - that said, if that's all they can find wrong with my management, I'm doing all right!
-- We recorded a whopping loss of £25.22 million last month! Yikes! That's obviously all transfer activity and we should be fine going forward despite a negative bank balance at the moment. We get a note saying that our transfer spending has reached a record high of £29.5 million so far this year, eclipsing last year's record of £24.4 - it's nice to be rolling with the big boys this year!
-- Teams continue to make bids on our players. I have to issue another hands off warning to Reading as they keep talking about
Ingo Wilke in the press. Then I get an £8,500,000 bid put in on
Zoltan Bardi by Chelsea. Oh boy - that's a LOT of money for a guy who is our #2 or #3 striker. I still decline the offer, saying it isn't good enough - again, I'm in the mode where I want to win now and my depth will prove to be important if I'm to go anywhere. Bardi, of course, is very flattered by the interest.
-- The next day, a story comes out on skysports.com where Wilke says he's never asked to leave Dover nor requested that he be allowed to talk to Reading. He says he's under contract to us and will continue to work hard for the club and his teammates. Sounds good to me.
-- Now Huddersfield get into the act, offering me £5,000,000 for vice captain
Luke McCullough - hmm, now this one is interesting. He's been here forever and still is more than capable of contributing (26 years old, 3.0/3.0) but I've added so much depth at DC that even with fellow DC
Lukas Stetina half way out the door, I guess I'd be willing to move McCullough if the right offer came along. So I throw them a bone, saying I'll consider moving him for £8.5 million. If they want him that bad, that's good by me.
Loan OUT
-- DC
Gareth Mace will be heading to Rushden & Diamonds on a six month loan. He's not in my plans, now or in the future.
Loan IN
-- We bring in our first loanee of the year, ironically enough from Reading. 20 year old MR/WBR
Martin Prochazka will be coming here on a season long loan. I needed cover behind
Gianluca Bolis and
Petr Kostal, as I had no one else on the roster who could play right midfield besides those two. I should be able to get the youngster at least 10 games. At 2.5/3.5, he's a decent prospect for Reading - I had to pay an upfront fee of £275,000 for Prochazka.
-- I'm still in the market for one more player, as I need cover at left fullback before the season starts. I've got a transfer offer in on a veteran DL that hopefully goes through.