[NoSkillz]

Sat. August 8, 2020 - Preseason Friendly

Dover vs. Athletic Club Bilbao
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK

Our last preseason friendly of the year against the reputable Athletic Club Bilbao from Italy. I'm not going to go with a full strength side but we'll put in Andrea Rocca against the Italian side, along with Cristian Rodriguez and brand new signing Laurent Koscielny at the back. We'll go with our 4-4-2 DM formation (4-2-3-1)

Dover: 4-4-2 DM (4-2-3-1) Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - L. Koscielny, P. Tjiuoro, C. Rodriguez, R. McLaughlin
M - A. Rocca, L. Craig
AM - C. Murray, Roberto, M. Prochazka
S - P. Simek

Dover 5 - 1 Athletic Club Bilbao
Goals - Petr Simek 3 (9.5), Paulus Tjiuoro (8.2), Gerardo Escobar (7.4)
Assists - Andrea Rocca 3 (9.1), Cameron Murray (8.0), Darren Pratley (7.0)
Man of the Match - Petr Simek
Other Dover Notables - Ingo Wilke (7.0), Ross McLaughlin (7.5), Cristian Rodriguez (7.4), Laurent Koscielny (7.4), Martin Prochazka (7.2)
Attendance - 4332

We actually were tied at 1-1 at halftime but our men came storming out of the gates in the second half and won in a walk over a very strong Athletic side. Perhaps our finest preseason performance and we only fielded about 4 projected opening day starters.



-- A number of teams submit bids on our newly transfer listed DC Luke McCullough - I asked for £8,000,000, an admittedly inflated number and the teams have basically offered up to £5,750,000 - I reject all of the bids. At this point, until I get the dreaded "he's causing issues in the locker room" note, I have no reason to overreact, as he's under contract at a very reasonable wage until June 2022.



Dover Captains for 2020

-- He won't play an awful lot this year but we keep MC Darren Pratley on as captain for a fourth consecutive season. He won't be back next year so we'll have to begin a transition program to a new captain. I strip Luke McCullough of vice captain duties and give that to goalkeeper Ingo Wilke, a very respected player in our room. Ideally, I'd like newcomer Cristian Rodriguez to eventually take the captain's armband but he's only 20 and doesn't speak English yet so he's at least two years away.



-- Chelsea comes back with yet another bid on Zoltan Bardi, this time with a bid worth £12,750,000 plus clauses that could add another million or so. There is very little money upfront in this deal and I'm afraid of another rejection so I up the bid to 20 million and see what they'll do. The next day, they withdraw their bid. Cool by me.

-- I see the first rumblings of someone coming after Giorgos Gesios - remember, I paid an ungodly sum for him last year and his value has dropped all the way to £5,250,000 - simply put, someone would have to bid at least £20 million to make me interested at this point. Gesios had a really solid camp, scoring in every game but one from my recollection so I'm expecting a great bounce back year from him and see no reason to give up on him yet.



International Update - Olympic Games

-- Both Salim Loucif and Gianluca Bolis play well in their last group stage games for Algeria and Italy respectively. Algeria is knocked out of the competition after finishing third in Group C behind England and Brazil while Italy moves onto the quarterfinals after finishing 2nd in Group D behind Mexico and ahead of South Africa and China. Loucif will return to Dover in time to play in our league opener while Bolis will stay abroad and finish out his Olympic experience.



League Cup - Second Round Draw

-- We enter the competition at this stage and are fortunate to draw League One Rochdale in a home match. The game will be played on Tuesday August 25th.



Transfer OUT

-- We bid adieu to DC Lukas Stetina after only one season at Dover. Stetina was arguably our most consistent defender last year but never really settled in with the club and had no success picking up English during his time here. He was expendable due to all of our transfer window signings and easily the most marketable player I could move. In the end, we get £3,500,000 from Italian Serie A side Livorno in the transfer. The 29 year old Stetina leaves Dover after 23 league games, where he scored 1 goal and added 1 assist.



2020-21 Premier League Season About to Begin

-- We played nine preseason friendlies, not including our intrasquad match, and came away with a record of 5 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. I've already done a thorough breakdown of our roster by including screenshots of all our players and their attributes but I'll just document our senior team here one last time, by position, as we are about to embark on a quest for continental play next year. Projected "Best Eleven" noted in bold.

GOALKEEPERS -
Ingo Wilke, Lukasz Fabianski

Wilke was named vice captain this year and I will likely give him at least two thirds of our games, barring injury or a poor run of form.

DEFENDERS -
Cristian Rodriguez, Oliver Nicholas, Salim Loucif, Paulus Tjiuoro, Laurent Koscielny, Renato Gaucho, Thomas Andersen, Jozef Kuciak, Ross McLaughlin, Jozef Varga

We are incredibly deep now, especially down the middle. Tjiuoro had a great preseason and will start immediately. I'm unsure yet whether I'm going to play our big offseason signing Cristian Rodriguez right away. He didn't look great in his first two friendlies with us and his inability to speak English will hurt his cause. I'm excited to see what Loucif can bring at DR and if Gaucho can build upon a spectacular half-season last year as an 18 year old.

MIDFIELDERS -
Mancini, Martin Prochazka, Arsene Bamba, Liam Craig, Neil Cairney, Petr Kostal, Gianluca Bolis, Cameron Murray, Darren Pratley, Andrea Rocca

We added two elite pieces in Cairney and Bamba. Bamba especially was spectacular in the preseason, picking right up where he left off a few years ago when he dominated as a loan player for us during our League 1 days. I'm still trying to figure out how to best use Cairney to be honest - he's extremely skilled but I already have a star "advanced playmaker" in Andrea Rocca and it will be interesting to see if these two skilled players can gel in the middle of the park. I was very worried about depth on both wings before the season began but Cameron Murray was excellent in the preseason, as was Petr Kostal.

STRIKERS -

Zoltan Bardi, Roberto, Petr Simek, Gerardo Escobar, Giorgos Gesios

Bardi has elevated himself into our first choice at deep lying striker over Escobar, at least for now. Gesios was fantastic in the preseason, scoring 4 goals in 5 games. Simek is a speed demon and clinical finisher and a great choice to come off the bench and Roberto, after playing at West Ham on loan last year, will be our depth striker. He's shown a penchant for being a clutch performer in late game situations so he's an ideal sub candidate, like Simek.

RESERVE TEAM -

Luke McCullough, Andrew Stanley, Emmanuel Agbo, Jamie Matthews, Jonathan Adam, Dennis Kunz

McCullough is here only because he's currently transfer listed and I don't want him causing issues in the locker room. He could still make an impact for the senior team at some point. The other five guys are strictly reserves and will only be called upon in an injury crisis.

U18 SQUAD -

Garry Doyle, Mohamed Lamine Yilmaz, Abdallaye Kokaina, Matt Hewitt, Steve Sinnott, Gary Cook, Johnny Mardenborough, Gregoire Lambert, Carlo Cerbone, Chris Paterson

Kokaina and Yilmaz are the two best prospects here and Kokaina could see some action on the senior team at some point, perhaps in a cup match.

PLAYERS AWAY ON LOAN -

Gareth Mace, Matthew Thompson, Andy Brown, Jonathan Gauthier, Steve Ingram, Aitor Zubizarreta, Ryan Bodin