FM10 - From the Bottom Up

[Radii]

Injury Update

Bendnter has a torn hamstring and is out 3 months. Well shit.


New Signing

30 y/o MR Aaron Doran - $2.3M to Blackburn - $24,500/wk for 2 years - Doran is a fairly solid midfielder, he's been a rotation player for Blackburn for 10 years, often putting up ratings over 7.0. He'll help fill our rotation beind Neil Gordon without having to pull Clive Jackson up to the midfield too often.

Physical: Jumping is 5, all other ratings 14-16. Fitness is 16, Pace 15, all others actually 14.
Mental: Determination 17, Anticipation 16, Off the Ball 15, Creativity 15... all his other mental ratings outside of bravery are 11-15.
Technical: Passing 10/Dribbling 15/First Touch 14/Technique 11

He's not the greatest technical player, he'll control the ball well and dribble well but may not put his passes spot on consistently enough. We'd already identified MR as a spot of weakness and then Neil Gordon got hurt. Doran will help, even if we are done with the Euro Cup already.

August 26th, 2021

Euro Cup 4th Qualifying Round Second Leg

Ipswich (2) @ (3) Livorno

They're even money favorites at their place today, we're 11:5 to win. That's not good since we likely need to win by 2 here!

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Quartey/Heywood
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Clifford/Jackson
F: Khan/Constantino

-- Mills isn't really ready to go yet, I might bring him in as a sub but he can't start. Same goes for Neil Gordon, he shouldn't play but could in a desperate moment. We have to attack right?

8': What a start! We have a long buildup on offense, Clifford passes to Khan 25 yards out, Khan blows right by his man, into the area, and he finishes!! 1-0

8': Back to defensive/drop deep/retain possession. We need more goals but I assume they're going to try to come as us for a bit, lets back off and stop that.

24': More buildup for us, Constantino receives a pass 25 yards out, beats his man, but his shot is saved, tough angle there.

30': They have 5 shots and we've seen a few highlights, but mainly we're looking at headers that go 10 feet over.

38': Lets attack the rest of the half.

HALF: They have 7 shots, we just have 2. They have 63% of the possession, it seems like they're mostly playing to tie here and are not being very aggressive, we're going to come out of the locker room and try to take it to them and get that second goal we need.

50': They have a free kick and retain possession after we clear it, a shot ends up coming in from 20 yards out pretty far out tot he right, its bending sharply, Capitani dives ans parries it off the post. Whew.

60': Highlight opens with us on what looks like a counterattack, Khan is coming up the middle, draws a defender, lays it off left for Hughes, Hughes passes it across the area to Constantion, he shoots near post... and their keeper dives over and stops it. That was a clear cut chance and again I really think anyone but a world class keeper has no shot in hell, that ball was crossed from the left side of the goal to the right and shot pretty quickly. Impressive stop.

66': Donnelly goes down injured, but play continues, they win the ball from Donnelly, a pass goes ahead to backup ST Richardson, he's one on one against Quartey, goes around him, shoots on Capitani... and scores. Crap. 1-1

75': Gordon in for Kirkland, Mattila in for Heywood. We change to a 3-4-1-2 with Gordon at AMC.

And that's it.

Livorno (4) 1 : 1 (3) Ipswich

We tie them on the road which normally would be a solid result but we knew we either needed a really high scoring affair or a 2 goal win and we couldn't pull it off.

Goal: Khan (6.9)
Assist: Clifford (6.9)
Notables: Capitani (7.2), Kirkland (7.3), Quartey (7.1)



-- We receive $244,000 for playing in this round of the Euro Cup.

-- Checking the expectations we were expected to reach the group stage. "The board is disappointed at the team's performance... However, they can understand why the team were knocked out by Livorno". Damn right. This isn't some super elite club, don't get me wrong. But its a team on the same level as we are, and it played out that way with two close matches that we just didn't quite do enough in.


Injury Update

-- Gordon Donnelly has a twisted knee suffered in this last match. He's out 2 weeks.

[Radii]

Player Moves

With the need for a rotation system out the door I don't do too many drastic things, we brought in some talent that I want to keep around. But what did happen is that many players that were backups for us were completely marginalized by our new signings.

-- I was in talks with Olympiakos to sign ST Carlos Brieseno, a good looking target man who I thought could score some goals for me. The problem is that he's worth $4M and it was going to take all $16M I have available to me to get him. If we were playing in the Euro Cup Group Stage I would have wanted him badly and would have spent that much money. Now that I'm out of that I'm much, much more content to use Khan/Constantino and get our youngster Chris Bryan into matches whenever I can until Bendtner is healthy. I withdraw my offer and save my cash.

-- I'd been sitting on an offer by QPR for ML Lee Burton. He was left out of my Euro Cup 25 and was understandably pissed. With the emergence of Jack Hughes as a legitimate ML along with Adgasmar, Burton was seriously marginalized. After this loss Burton really has no place on the squad anymore. I sell Burton for $3.8M to QPR. They're paying me $1M now and $2.8M over the next 2 years.

-- DRC Andy Parsons isn't good enough to play for us. He's only worth $900,000 and I got no offers for him even when I offered him out for free. I end up offering him mutual termination just to free up the roster spot and keep things a little smaller for harmony's sake. I have to buy him out for a grand total of $120,000. Sure thing, pal, hope you latch on somewhere.

-- MRC Darren Johnson is not a bad player at all, he was a very workmanlike backup for me for 2 seasons. But I just signed Aaron Doran to cover at MR and have a lot of depth at MC. Johnson can get on the field but he can't hang with most of the talent in the EPL, basically in our effort to build up for Europe we just improved ourselves enough that Johnson got marginalized out. I have accepted multiple offers for him that will pay me $4M assuming a deal gets done.

-- GK Carlos Antonio I would have forced in had I needed to, but he's not happy being my backup. He still gets attention from high level teams, Juventus offers me $1.3M for him. I accept it, and maybe he'll see the field more for them. I'm perfectly happy with Capitani and Chris Mason, with young keeper Michael Rogers off at Shrewsbury but able to be recalled if need be.


-- Mills isn't unhappy with me anymore, neither is Capitani. Lee Burton and Kirkland are, Burton is gone though real soon and Kirkland will get over it I hope. Once these moves are all made we'll revisit the squad and depth chart and see how deep we run.

League Cup 3rd Round Draw

-- By the time we get in we're already down to 32 teams. We get a good draw here, we're going to play Watford in the Championship.


August 29th, 2021

QPR @ Ipswich

We finally get our first league home match and its against QPR, a team that promoted back up from the Championship after 4 very long seasons for them (they made the Championship playoffs four years in a row before finally winning the playoffs last year, never could quite get 1st or 2nd). Reading and Southampton are the other two teams that made it back up.

QPR have a win over Reading and are 1-1-1, looking solid early, so we can't ignore them, but we are even money favorites today and should be able to get 3 points out of this.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Welsh/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Mariga/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Welsh and Jackson in defense, Mariga/Mills at MC, Gordon in his first match back from injury.

11': We give up a free kick, they get a lot of men forward and we miss a couple tackles, giving up a clear cut chance in the crowded penalty area from very close range, shot is pretty much right at Capitani and we are really lucky to not be down a goal.

21': We shot 4 times in the first 7 minutes, they've shot 7 times in the last 10 minutes or so, they're attacking hard and we're not doing a great job winning the ball away to get our counter going.

25': A second clear cut chance as a cross goes into the area for midfielder Basham and he ahs a great look from 10 yards out... right at Capitani again. Our defense looks terrible.

35': Standard mindset instead of counter, lets push these guys a bit more.

HALF: I hate it when i miss stupid stuff. Constantino was stuckin a support role instead of an attacking one, something that happens when I drag a man back to DMC and then put him back up to FC later, it defaults back to support, not what I want. I like that I know my team well enough to know that Constantino isn't doing what I want just by watching highlights. They shoot 10 times, we shoot 7, we actually have 58% of the possession but aren't using it well. We did get forward a lot more later in the half but had shots blocked, long range shots, etc, but Constantino's setting did noticibly screw up the way we were playing, actively going away from our strength at times.

48': Mariga with a great ball ahead for Constantino from about 40 yards out to the right edge of the box, Constantino comes in, shoots from a tough angle... keeper makes the save.

49': Mariga a yellow.

57': midfielder Franks for QPR with a yellow.

64': they send a cross into the area, we go up for it... Welsh with a handball and its a penalty. They take it, Capitani dives to his right... and stops the shot!!!! Woohoo!

66': Clifford in for Mills, Johnson in for Gordon, both tired in their first matches back after injury.

75': Attacking the rest of the way.

But they defend well, the next 18 minutes go by without a single highlight.

Ipswich 0 : 0 QPR

Notables: Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.2), Welsh (7.0), Mariga (7.0), Constantino (7.1)

We played fairly well but couldn't manage a goal. Draws against the teams that just earned their way back up to the EPL are not acceptable at home.


Transfers Out

The day after the match Carlos Antonio is off to Juventus and Darren Johnson is off to Wolfeburg in the German First Division. $1.3M and $4M for the two transfers, though we do give $275k to Man City due to a clause we set when we bought Carlos Antonio. We bought Darren Johnson for $975k, got a couple really strong years out of him for that value, and sold him for $4M. Not bad there at all!

[Radii]

-- Lee Burton is mad at me, but trying to pull a fast one at the same time instead of getting the hell out. He only makes $13,750/wk, but tells me that if he's going to leave ipswich for QPR... another EPL team... I'm going to have to pay him $11,000/wk for the duration of his contract (this season and next). He wants 80% of his current salary to go to another team in the same league that will actually use him? Screw you buddy.

Transfer Deadline Signing

-- On the 29th of August my coaches point me to a DC in Turkey that looks like a clear upgrade over everyone but O'Brien. He's valued at $5M, I decide to go after him, offering $9M, they negotiate and say they want $15M. I compare him to my defenders... and he's just better. Quartey is about done, Welsh I would be happier having as a 3rd DC. It may take some time for the squad to gel but I think we'll be a lot better off in the end, so I decide this is my spot to overpay like hell. Luckily everyone knows that its August 31st and time is short (the last day is actually Sept 1st, but still glad to not have to go back and forth too much here), and we get the deal finalized very quickly, in time for me to give him a squad number and get him registered and everything.

24 y/o DC Otmar Mattle - $15,000,000 to Besiktas (in Turkey) - $53,000/wk salary - After coming up in Austria Besiktas, a top team in the Turkish Premier League and consistent performer in the Euro Cup (making it to the knockout rounds 4 years running) snapped him up for $7.75M. He put up ratings over 7.00 the last two years and its on to the EPL.

Physical: Pace 11/Accel 12... str 15/Jumping 18/Balance 16/Fitness 17. He's 6'2" as well.
Mental: Determination 13, Decisions 14/Positioning 15/Bravery 16/Anticipation 12. Aggression is only 9, everything else looks solid, though not world class necessarily.
Technical: Heading 15/Marking 18/Tackling 15/Passing 10 ... yes indeed.

My coaches vary a lot on Mattle's abilities, the worst feel he's a 3* "good player", two of my coaches make him a 4 1/2* key player, while most of them rate him in the 3 1/2* range. The concern will be whether his speed drags him down any. If his pace and accel were even 13 instead of 11, I'd have no reservations at all. As long as he just isn't getting outrun, he looks like a smart, strong, technically gifted player in the back. With O'Brien/Mattle/Kirkland back there we should not be getting beaten in the air very much at all and we should have 3 very sound, well positioned, solid tackling defenders. Jackson isn't half bad either.


-- I didn't plan this at all. I had basically resigned myself to working to get the squad to gel and hoping the addition of O'Brien + a year's experience in the EPL would give me enough to compete for a continental spot again this year. This was a last minute find via a coaches meeting and a last minute and really gut decision to spend the bulk of my remaining transfer money on this one guy, and now we'll see if it was the right call or not over the next 7-8 months!


As we hit the transfer deadline and we've unloaded a few guys and made this surprise pickup and a couple more during August, lets look at the depth chart again:

GK: Capitani/Mason
DL: Kirkland/Heywood/Hughes/Burton (or maybe Burton/Hughes)
DC: O'Brien/Mattle/Welsh/Mattila/Quartey/McKerr
DR: Jackson/Heywood/McKerr
ML: Hughes/Adagsmar/Burton
MC: Donnelly/Mills/Clifford/Mariga/Guarin
MR: Gordon/Doran/Jackson
ST: Constantino/Khan/Bendner/Bryan

Everyone on the first team is listed here. I'll obviously use Burton if I need to, and he's really not a bad player, I'm just pissed at his handling of the transfer to QPR, I thought I was doing him a favor.

Quartey, McKerr, Burton and Guarin are going to have a lot of trouble finding playing time with our current depth unless injuries rip us to shreds at MC or DC.

[Radii]

-- We break all kinds of $$ records. We've spent $29,000,000 on new players this year. Our old record was $17.75M. The $15M I spent on Mattle broke the old team record by $4M.

September Update

-- We play on the 1st, 11th, 18th, 21st, and 25th this month. In the break between the 1st and 11th we have 13 players called up for international matches. Most of that is World Cup Qualifiers.

-- Jack Hughes and young DC Sam Barnett train well this month. Barnett isn't one of my top prospects but that's always nice to see. Hughes is showing tons of improvement. Strength (12), Balance (12), Positioning (10), Anticipation (15), Dribbling (12), Marking (13), Tackling (14), Creativity (11), and Crossing (11) have all gone up in the last 2 months.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Our increase in stature is the positive. Our 4:1 defeat to Sheffield Utd is the lowlight.

-- We lost $10.5M last month. Right now I'm sitting on an $8.8M loss so far this year and a balance of -$2.1M. I'm sure our budget counted the expectation of a few more million from the Euro Cup.

September 1st, 2021

Tottenham(2-0-1, 8th) @ Ipswich(0-2-1, 18th)

Tottenham are 6:4 favorites at Portman Road today, we're 13:8 very slim dogs. We've never beaten these guys, 0-1-5 lifetime with a loss at home and tie on the road last season.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Welsh/Heywood
M: Hughes/Mariga/Clifford/Doran
F: Khan/Constantino

Heywood starts for Jackson today. Doran gets his first start at MR. Clifford starts for the tired Mills.

13': They earn a clear cut chance after a lot of possession and buildup on offense, they finally get a through ball to one of their strikers... but Capitani makes the save.

17': Another ball into the area for Tottenham... this one O'Brien misses an interception, he was right there.. and ST Stuer gets a clear cut chance and they won't miss again. O'Brien's fault. 0-1

HALF: And we see them miss a shot long and then 20 minutes go by to get us to halftime. We've got no offense at all. They have 10 shots, we have 1. I didn't see our one shot in a highlight. They have a 60/40 possession edge and lead (though not by much) in every statistical category. Neil gordon is in for Doran at the half, doran will be ok but he got hurt in the first half and is noticeably slowed. Chris Bryan comes in for Constantino. My assistant is still talking about how the team is struggling to gel.

57': Highlight opens with us already on offense, Bryan has it, passes ot Khan, gets it back in the area... Bryan shoots, but the keeper dives and pushes it away.

79': Mills in for a tired Mariga.

81': O'Brien is hurt... he went after a ball hard and got hurt attempting to make the tackle. Play continues, they get into the area in the hole O'Brien left and Capitani makes a good save to stop a goal. Unfortunately, O'Brien can't continue... we have to play the last 10 minutes with 10 men since we've used our subs.

84': Neil Gordon goes to the ground after making a pass... he's hurt and off the field for a bit, we've got 9!

Ipswich 0 : 1 Tottenham

We've scored 1 league goal in 4 matches.

Man of the Match: Michele Capitani (9.1)
Notable: Clifford (7.0)

Mark O'Brien... my new star DC signing... earned himself a 4.2 rating today before getting hurt. Neil Gordon a 5.7 as a sub.

Injury Update

Neil Gordon has a pulled hamstring and is out 3 weeks.

Mark O'Brien has a groin strain and is out 2-3 weeks.

Fantastic.

[Radii]

-- international break here, we have like 8 or 9 guys playing in world cup qualifiers almost entirely for nations that have no chance to make the world cup. Scotland's James Welsh and Gordon donnelly have an outside shot, and Jonathan Quartey with Ghana will make the world cup. New DC Otmar Mattle plays for Austria, they have an outside shot at finishing 2nd in their qualifying group and earning a playoff. The rest of our guys aren't likely to be seeing any world cup time.

-- Donnelly resumes full training but probably not in time for Huddersfield.

September 11th, 2021

Ipswich(0-2-2, 18th) @ Huddersfield(1-2-1, 12th)

Huddersfield are 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8. We've got to find some semblance of an offense if we are to start earning points though.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Mattle/Jackson
M: Hughes/Mills/Clifford/Doran
F: Khan/Constantino

Mattle gets his first start. Mills/Clifford in midfield and Doran starts again with Neil Gordon hurt.

1': Well they get a 1st minute goal but its erased due to an offsides.

2': Capitani takes the goal kick long... Constantino gets behind the defense and controls it fairly well as it comes down... the keeper rushes out, clear cut chance for Constantino... but saved, damn.

6': A well timed through ball leaves Mattle standing still as their ST Platas gets behind our defense and scores easily... ugh. 0-1

11': Capitani has been forced to make two more saves from shots taken in the penalty area... they're pressuring us hard.

34': They have 9 shots to our 2, I change us to a standard mindset, maybe we give up more goals but our inability to generate any sort of offense is troubling right now.

42': Highlight opens with them heading it out of their own penalty area, we try twice to send it back in but have it tackled away. Finally Mills to Khan, Khan turns and fires from 20 yards out and its by the keeper and in! Solid shot there! 1-1

46': We win the ball in defense, Jackson sends it down the right side, Consatntino has it... a run down the right, he gets near hte end line and crosses to the 6 yard box, Khan is there and Khan volleys it into the net! 2-1

HALF: Ahh, that feels good. We haven't won, but its damn nice to get a couple goals and to open things up a bit. I don't know if we've outgrown our default counter attacking mindset and its time to open up a bit, or if we just happened to have something click then... I'm going to start the second half defensive, something I often did last year with a lead going into the second half.

46': We kick off and advance immediately. After a few passes Clifford sends it up to Khan, their defender charges out to try to disposses Khan, he turns and shrugs his man off, into the area... strong finish near post by the keeper, and Khan has a hat trick!!! 3-1

53': They have a corner, we head it out but they control it well... there's a pass to ST Platas... he's just standing in between Welsh and Mattle, this has to be a "settling in" issue, like they don't know who's supposed to be covering the guy and neither go to him... easy finish and its a one goal game again. 3-2

65': Oh the injuries. Our new MR Aaron Doran comes down hurt... he's forced out of the match immediately. Jackson up to AMR, Heywood in at DR. I go ahead and get Mariga in for Mills at this point too.

69': They steal the ball from us in midfield and counter... a run down the right, pass to a striker... he beats Mattle after a missed tackle, clear cut chance for them, but Capitani saves. That's their 5th clear cut chance, I must have missed one or two or something!

82': They attack hard after winning it from us on a corner, Mattle makes one interception to slow them down but the ball pokes away and they recover, a through ball to Platas... its their 6th clear cut chance, but he puts it wide.

The only other highlight is us winning a corner... we get outo f here with 3 points.

Huddersfield 2 : 3 Ipswich

I am relieved more than anything. That was awkward and uncomfortable, we kept giving up big chances to them but were able to hang on to our lead. They outshoot us 17-8 today.

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (9.5)
Goals: Khan 3
Assists: Constantino (7.9), Clifford (6.9), Mills (6.9)
Notables: Capitani (7.0), Kirkland (7.0), Mattle (7.0)

Mattle wins 13 of 15 headers, 4 key ones, solid tackling as well. The mistakes were more miscommunication type mistakes that should get better. Technically quite sound.


Injury Update

MR Doran is out for 3 weeks. Clive Jackson will step up there.


The win gets us out of 18th and moving up the table. Even 4 matches in I don't like sitting below that relegation line in the standings.

[Radii]

Injury Update

Lee Burton is injured playing for the reserve team, he's got a broken rib and is out 3-4 weeks.

September 18th, 2021

Chelsea(3-0-2, 6th) @ Ipswich(1-2-2, 16th)

Not exactly the next team I would have preferred to see to try to get a winning streak going. We owned them last year though! Chelsea are 4:7 favorites making us 4:1 dogs to get a win here today. We beat them twice last season. We're on TV in Prime Time for this one.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Mattle/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Jackson
F: Khan/Constantino

McKerr at DR, I wanted to get him in anyway, but today its not an option as Heywood is travelling with the England U20 squad. Donnelly gets right back in the lineup after his injury and Adagsmar is at ML today just to keep him fresh. I'm really hoping having our captain back out there will begin to help the squad get together.

We are not getting Chelsea's best todya, they're starting two backup strikers .

19': Our first highlight all match, we see them get two shots, one is a strong bending shot saved, the other right at Capitani. Capitani kicks it out left after holding the second shot.. but not deep... like 40 yards out? They win the header for the ball and its immediately sent forward to ST Thomas who has miles of open space in all directions, as we were going forward assuming we'd control possession.. Thomas is in the area and scores easily. 0-1

36': After a lot more dead time we see two highlights for our offense, lots of nice passing trying to find an opening but just poor shots that deflect out into safe space or go right at their keeper.

HALF: Its a pretty dull half, they shoot 9 times but 5 are from long range, they do get 4 on target. We have 6 shots but just 1 on target. Possession is even, they are tackling much better (80%/60%). I had once again started this match counter attacking figuring that's stil viable against a bigger club, but perhaps not!

50': Highlight opens with us attacking Adagsmar puts a ball deep into the penalty area, almost to the 6 yard box, their keeper stays back, Constantino gets to it... but carries it too far and the keeper pushes it away. He could have shot sooner than he did.

62': They build up on offense, a ball goes into the area for Balotelli, who came in at the half... and he scores a nice goal. 0-2

74': Bryan in for Constantino, Mariga in for Donnelly...

no more highlights the rest of the way, with a 2 goal lead Chelsea lock it down.

Ipswich 0 : 2 Chelsea

After a slow start in our first EPL season Constantino's confidence was just shot. I worry that's happening here. Of course, this is Chelsea, and they are very very good. No one was really bad or anything, entire team between 6.6-6.8.

-- O'Brien resumes full training and may be able to play against Watford in our League Cup match coming up soon.

[Radii]

September 21st, 2021

League Cup 3rd Round

Watford(CH) @ Ipswich(EPL)

We're 4:6 favorites today at home against a championship level opponent to move on in the League Cup. We're not as concerned about the League Cup as the later FA Cpu though and play again in a few days, I give some guys a rest today.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Mattila/Quartey/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mariga
F: Khan/Bryan

Standard mindset today.

16': Matthew Khan is hurt... and forced to leave the match. Guarin is in, 4-1-4-1 with Bryan up front by himself.

22': We've got 5 off target shots so far... i've seen 2 in highlights is all.

28': Yellow for Midfielder Mohammad.

31': We have a throwin in their end, leading to a pass from Kirkland into the area for Clive Jackson, he's got a clear cut chance... but pushes his shot wide.

42': They have a corner, taken to the near man, he shoots but its off a defender, one of their guys gets a head on it, Mason is there... but doesn't control the ball well, its hard to tell what happens in the highlight, but he fumbles the ball around and it ends up in his own net, an own goal. 0-1

42': Well, time to attack.

45': They have a throwin in our end, intercepted by McKerr and sent long.. Chris Bryan runs on to it, he's got no one near him, able to take the ball all the way into the area by himself, shoots... and saved by the keeper, our second clear cut chance.

HALF: We trail here with an own goal and an inability with these backup players to get the ball in the net. We've got 9 shots, just 2 on target, but 2 clear cut chances. They have shot 7 times, 3 on target, but haven't really threatened. We have a crazy 64/36 possession edge and are doing well everywhere but when it comes to winning headers.. and scoring goals of course.

47': We go straight down the middle here, Mariga into the area for Adagsmar, he shoots from the left side, but right at the keeper.

75': We've had four corner kicks shown in highlights.. that's it. Here we recover the ball after a corner is headed away, but only end up with a long shot by Mariga, its on target but saved.

80': We manage a goal but Chris Bryan is very clearly offsides, nothing to note here.

83': Kirkland a yellow.

We're not able to do anything else.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Watford

I could have brought guys like Donnelly and Constantino in, and I suspect we'd have a different result today if Matthew Khan wasn't hurt so early, but having our starters in a position to get points against Nottingham Forest in a few days is so much more important, I decided to let it ride and see what Chris Bryan coudl do. He had chances but just couldn't quite finish any of them.

[Taz13]

Your second season in the EPL is off to a tough start. The nice thing is that it is still early and your guys can still turn it around.

[Radii]

Injury Update

Matthew Khan turned an ankle today and is out for 3-4 weeks.

September 25th, 2021

Ipswich(1-2-3, 17th) @ Nottingham Forest(2-1-3, 14th)

Nottingham Forest are picked 18th by the media, so they're expected to relegate before one of the teams that came up out of the Championship. Today though they're even money favorites against us, understandable given our problems.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
DM: Clifford
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mills/Jackson
F: Constantino

Khan and Bendtner are out and Chris Bryan is off to play in the U20 World Cup, so today we run a 4-1-4-1 with Clifford as our DMC.

18': defender Veseli with a yellow. No highlights yet at all.

23': They build up on offense but end up settling for a shot from 30 yards away. Capitani turns it over for a corner, which we clear. They recover and build up again... but Clifford makes a steal in defense and we get to set up our own offense.. but they take it away from Donnelly before we can do anything useful at all and that's the end of a very boring highlight.

43': Their ST Popov has it 25 yards out, O'Brien goes for a tackle, misses and Popov has a little space... we do a pretty good job of closing down and he takes a tough shot, Capitani with the save.

HALF: They have 9 shots, 4 on target but 5 from long range. We haven't managed a shot yet. Mattle and Heywood struggling to blend in... but fewer problems in our assistant's report than usual, so maybe that's good.

56': they have a free kick from ~22 yards out, but its sent well wide.

68': After another long stretch with no highlights, our new DR Heywood comes down injured, and he's forced to leave the match immediately. The injury bug is biting us a bit harder this year eh? McKerr is in. At the same time I bring Neil Gordon in at MR and Adagsmar in at ML and push them both forward to AML spots to try to get a bit more offense going here.

74': A highlight opens with Constantino attacking down the left side... the defense is back but he has options. He tries to lay the ball off for Adagsmar, but its blocked and right back to him, Constantino is in the area but deep near the end line out left of the goal... he tries a shot from a very tough angle, and its not even remotely close.

77': McKerr is hurt, but he can stay in.

82': Neil Gordon pushes down the right side, a quick cross into the area near the 6 yard box, Adagsmar is there, wins a header... right at the keeper. He didn't have to move to save it. We had a great shot there, the only clear cut chance of the match by either team.

93': A long highlight that sees each team get a couple shots, try a couple counters... in the final minute of extra time here, we win it from them in defense, the ball is cleared to Adagsmar, Constantino is up ahead and I keep wondering why the hell he doesn't send it forward.. but instead its a long run down the left, and Adagsmar shows a burst of speed I really hadn't seen from him before, he gets deep into the left corner, sends a cross to the 6 yard box, Neil Gordon is there, its a diving header...and its into the right side of the net by the keeper!!!! 1-0

Nottingham Forest 0 : 1 Ipswich

I had totally been ready to accept a 0:0 draw on the road here but we came up with some magic in the final seconds and get a huge win!

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.7)
Goal: Gordon (7.3)
Assist: Adagsmar (6.8)
Notables: Mattle (7.1), Donnelly (7.0), Constantino (7.0)

Jackson put up a 6.3 rating before he was subbed out. Mark O'Brien sat with a high 5.x rating and low 6.x most of the match but helps us out late and ends up with a 6.9 rating.

Whew, we needed that!

Injury Update

-- DLR Anthony Heywood is out 2 months with a dislocated shoulder...

-- DR Michael McKerr is out 2-3 weeks with a groin strain.


That win bumps us up to 13th, lets get a couple more going guys and get into the top half and go from there.


Our current list of injuries:

ST Bendtner - 5-7 weeks
ST Khan - 2-3 weeks
ML Burton - 2 weeks
DR McKerr - "unknown"
MR Doran - 3-7 days
DR Heywood - 2 months

I love how the injury problems always seem localized to one or two positions to make it really tough to manage

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Taz13

Your second season in the EPL is off to a tough start. The nice thing is that it is still early and your guys can still turn it around.

hah yeah this is what I expected last year!

[Radii]

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

Contract Update

-- The first contract notice we got went largely ignored because I was so focused on acquiring players. We haven't gotten another one yet but lets take a look at who's coming up this year.

-- DC Sakari Mattila - signed to a 1 year deal, not playing well yet, probably wouldn't re-sign him but will wait until January to decide even if that risks him signing elsewhere.

-- MC Fredy Guarin - 35 y/o, this is his last season playing for sure for me.

-- MC McDonald Mariga - will be 35 by the end of the season. He's holding on to his ratings amazingly well and I could see perhaps signing him for another year but will wait.

-- DRC Michael McKerr - Makes $15,250/wk now. Will extend for another season for $12k/wk and a $40k signing bonus. Still playing acceptable football off the bench, he'll turn 32 this year. I go ahead and offer him the new deal.

-- DC Jonathan Quartey - $45,500/wk, he's 33 and will be 34 by the end of the year. He's seeing some drops in abilities, and he wouldn't take a pay cut to re-sign. Unless he's willing to take less than $30k/wk and maybe even less than that, I wouldn't consider keeping him.

-- MR Neil Gordon - Makes $37,500/wk now. Wants $47,500/wk and a 4 year deal (this year + 3 more). Clearly, yes, offered.

-- ML Jack Hughes - Makes $4100/wk, he just turned 21. Wants a 4 year deal and $18,000/wk. Again clearly yes.

-- ST Chris Bryan makes $6000/wk now and is only asking for $7,000/wk for a 3 year deal. Absolutely.

That's all this year, a pretty easy year for contract work.


Injury Update

-- ST Chris Bryan suffers a groin strain in the U20 world cup, he's out 3 weeks. Hey injury gods, we still have one striker on the roster. HAVE AT IT. I look through the free transfers available and nothing comes close to the 17 year old we have in our youth program in Eoin Darcy.

October Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 17th, 23rd and 30th. Some time to recover from early season injuries.

-- Not related to our monthly update so much but our stadium expansion is complete and we can now seat 36,311 fans!

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Our increase in stature is the positive, our 4-1 loss to Sheffield Utd the negative. I'm glad to see that, as it means that our coming up below expectations in the Euro Cup and the League Cup aren't really bothering the board much.

-- We lost $1.2M last month.

October 1st, 2021

Everton(2-3-2, 12th) @ Ipswich(2-2-3, 13th)

We are even money favorites to get a win at home today. We tied them once and lost to them once last year, 1-2-3 lifetime.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
DM: Clifford
M: Donnelly/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Gordon
F: Constantino

I start us out today with the two attacking mids. Jackson back at DR, Adagsmar/Gordon AM's. The only problem with this formation is Jack Hughes doesn't play AML. Everton run a 4-1-4-1 with Brian Kelly up front. Kelly is noteworthy as a 21 y/o ST worth $19.5M. He won the Young Player of the Year award in the EPL the last two years in a row. How long before someone bigger pays $40M to buy him away from Everton?

Standard mindset today at home.

23': two highlights so far, both leading to off target shots. Their 4-1-4-1 is, well, like ours, it leads to TONS of players sitting back in defense when they play defensive/counter attacking, and its hard to get through. I change to an attacking mindset.

25': We attack down the right, Gordon passes to Constantino 30 yards out, he dodges a tackle and sprints into the area... he doesn't have an easy shot at this angle but he'll shoot for sure... tackled first though, and its a penalty! Yellow for midfielder Lowry and Constantino drains the PK. 1-0 Extra important as Constantino had gone nearly 500 minutes without scoring.

32': Yellow for midfielder Luisma.

35': They put their first shot on target, a solid effort from 20 yards out that Capitani dives to save. They earn a corner, we clear it easily.

35': Back to a standard mindset.

37': We counter attack after winning the ball in midfield, ahead to Constantino, defenders are near but he generates a clear cut chance... saved by the keeper. They clear the corner.

HALF: We have 8 shots, just 2 on target, they have 8 shots, just 1 on target. But all of the highlights have been ours and it feels like we're playing much, much better. They are winning 84% of their headers, but I think that's a sign of how well we're doing on offense as Constantino is 0/12 in the air. I go into my tactics and make sure that we are set up to play the ball ahead of Constantino, less stuff in the air please.

71': Just one highlight all half so far, fine for us. Mariga in for Mills.

80': We win the ball in defense, Adagsmar racing down the left... a cross into the area but they head it out. We recover, Mariga forward to Neil Gordon, he's all alone, doesn't shoot right away though, holds it, advances on the keeper, and gets a little close, by the time he does shoot there's no angle and its saved. They easily clear a corner.

We kill off the last 10 minutes with ease.

Ipswich 1 : 0 Everton

Ahh, two wins a row, everything is starting to feel okay.

Their captain, MC Rodwell is man of the match. No one was really great or anything, we just played solid defense after earning our penalty.

Goal: Constantino (7.3) (unassisted)
Notables: Capitani (7.2), Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.4), O'Brien (7.0)

O'Brien seems to be struggling to fit in more than Mattle, O'Brien should be the better player IMO though, so its nice to see him turning in a solid performance.


-- Today was Capitani's 100th league match
-- Constantino scored his 225th league goal
-- Constantino ended a scoring drought of 489 minutes.

-- Our attendance today is 31,286. The old stadium capacity was 30,311, so that is a new record!

[Radii]

-- My 4* Tactics coach has been offered a job by Leeds to become their head coach. He accepts. My assistant is also a 4* tactics coach so I'm fine there. A lot of our positive training has been in tactics, even though our workload and * ratings don't seem different it has me wondering if doubling up has helped any.

-- DC Welsh has a strained wrist and is out 2 weeks. This is on the 6th, we don't play again til the 17th due to international matches, and I've been sticking heavily with Mattle/O'Brien to get them settled in anyway.

World Cup Qualifying

DC quartey plays for Ghana, DC Mattila for Finland, MC Donnelly for Scotland, DC Mattle for Austria, MC Clifford, MR Doran and DC O'Brien all for Ireland as world cup qualifying nears its end.

-- Ghana has qualified for the world cup.

-- Group play has finished in Europe. Holland, Ukraine, Albania, Spain, Croatia, Serbia, Switzerland, Portugal, and France win their groups and qualify. You may notice 3 big name teams missing from this list. England are the hosts of the next world cup so they automatically qualify. Italy finished second in their group behind Albania (!!??) and have to win a playoff to qualify. Germany... well Germany started out 4-1-1 in their group and were solidly in first, but finished with a loss to Ukraine, win over Bulgaria, a home loss to Cyprus, and a draw to Estonia, a 1-1-2 finish that allowed Ukraine to win their group and Estonia to take 2nd by 1 point. So Germany will miss the world cup entirely.

-- Speaking of missing the world cup, things got dicey for the USA. They started group play 1-1-2 and found themselves in 5th early on. They recovered but still going into the final match they were in 4th. In North America 3 teams qualify automatically, the 4th has to play aaginst a South American team in a playoff. Jamacia had a 2 point lead over the US, but Jamacia lost at home to Guatemala and the US beat Canada to take over 3rd and automatically qualify at the last possible moment.

-- Back to Europe, the playoff matches are Greece vs Turkey, Estonia vs Bosnia & Herzogovinia, Belarus vs Russia, and Hungary vs Italy. Jonathan Quartey ends up the only player on my team to help his nation to the World Cup.

-- McKerr and Lee Burton resume full training. Matthew Khan a couple days later.

October 17th, 2021

Ipswich(3-2-3, 9th) @ Sunderland(2-1-5, 16th)

We are 6:4 favorites today on the road, they're 13:8 at their house. We are 1-0-5 lifetime against them after a split last season where the home team won each matchup. We are on TV today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
DM: Donnelly
M: Mariga/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Gordon
F: Constantino

Khan is back and could sub today if necessary, I stay in this 4-1-2-2-1 formation, Donnelly to DMC, Mariga at MC, Clifford will rest today. Gordon at AMR.

Sunderland run the same formation with ST Nuno Gonclaves, a name we've gotten to see a lot as one of the top strikers. He had a bad year last year though, After 7 straight years of 10+ goals he only scored 4 last year.

We start today defending all out/retain possession/drop deeper

5': Mark O'brien picks up an injury, they're building up on offense and pass it ahead to Nuno Gonclaves, he goes by the hurt O'Brien and puts it into the net, really eaasy that. 0-1

30': Yeah 25 minutes just flew by. Mariga took a shot way high from long range, that's it. I go from defending to counter.

48': One last attack for us, some ok passing but we never try to get it into the area and Mills settles for a shot from 25 yards out that is well wide.

HALF: They have 5 shots, 1 on target. We have 4 shots, 0 on target. 6 of the 9 shots between the two teams are from long range. We're probably going to have to try to attack them to score, they are dug in pretty well. WE will open the second half continuing to counter though and see if we can catch them.

60': Constantino with ay ellow.

62': Time to attack.

78': Burton in for Adagsmar, Khan in for Mariga, Donnelly up to MC and we drop the DMC for a second forward.


Damn. Never seen a half go by faster.

Sunderland 1 : 0 Ipswich

We saw literally two highlights in the second half. The last 30 minutes or so we were doing everything we could to attack, they just held that 1-0 lead like pros. In the end both teams managed 9 shots, but we settled for 7 from long range and never put a single one on target. They put 2 on target only.

Notables: Kirkland (7.3), Mattle (7.1), Mills (7.2)

Capitani with a 6.1, Constantino with a 6.1 today.


-- No lasting injuries after the match today.

[Radii]

October 23rd, 2021

Man City(5-2-2, 4th) @ Ipswich(3-2-4, 12th)

Man City are even money favorites at our place today. More bad teams at home please! This is making it hard to get on a run and to get everyone's confidence up. We played Man City 4 times last year and fought them hard, getting two draws but losing the other two. We're 1-2-7 lifetime against them.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Constantino/Khan

Back to 4-4-2 today and a couple lineup changes, Hughes ML, McKerr DR and Khan is back at forward along Constantino. Standard mindset today, defensive line dropping back deep.

2': Back and forth from the start, we drive forward but they intercept a pass and send it long... their ST Alipio is there with a 1/2 step on O'Brien, O'Brien can't stop him, into the area, clear cut chance... and saved, whew!

8': We get our first shot on a counter attack as well, a long ball to Constantino, he got into the right side of the area but their keeper was able ot make the stop as well.

18': Free Kick man city from 30 yards out, its taken around the wall.. but bends into the right post and behind, whew.

30': Mills has it 25 yards out, runs east/west for a bit, spots Gordon cutting to the goal and passes it perfectly, clear cut chance for Gordon, but pretty much struck right at the keeper.

40': We win a ball in defense and its sent to Constantino, he lays it off for Gordon and we are pushing hard trying to counter... Gordon crosses, its intercepted and headed around a couple times, Mills heads it to Donnelly who is a bit over 20 yards from goal, he fires it hard on a volley, keeper makes a save but cannot hold it, the rebound falls to Khan and he gets it in the net before the keeper can react!!! 1-0

HALF: We are playing a fine match so far. We have a 56/44 possession edge, 7 shots with 5 on target (they have 11 shots but 3 on target, 7 from long range). With a 1-0 lead the big question is whether to defend or keep pressuring... I decide to stay in my standard mindset for now.

52': After clearing out a cross into the area Man City counter attack, our defense is back but they put a great ball from 40 yards out into the right side of the area for an in-rushing midfielder... he's got their second clear cut chance, Capitani dives as he shoots... and saves it! Whew again.

62': We have a free kick in our end, Capitani takes it long, after a couple headers Hughes has it 35 yards out, he comes to the center and plays a ball between two defenders just perfectly, Neil Gordon charges in from the right, shoots with hsi first touch... its by the keeper and in!!! 2-0

62': Doran in for Gordon. I was making this sub as we scored heh.

77': Mattila in for Constantino, back to DMC for a 4-1-4-1. Welsh in for O'Brien.

79': With a 2 goal lead its time to defend.

86': They attack quickly after clearing a cross out of our end, nice ball into the area by MC Vezzoli, ST Jovetic is there... and puts it in. McKerr was trying to stay with him but lost him by a step. 2-1

We give one back but do hold on for the win pretty easily. Our ability to win headers consistently in defense definitely helped us in those final highlights as they were desperately trying to send the ball into the box the second they got ahold of it.

Ipswich 2 : 1 Man City

Man of the Match: Jack Hughes (8.7)
Goals: Khan (7.7), Gordon (7.9)
Assists: Hughes, Donnelly (7.9)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0)

Everyone else was 6.8-6.9. Hughes had a great game today and we get a huge win over a title contender! This is the first sign that we are capable of repeating what we did last year in league play.


-- We haven't had a sellout in the upgraded stadium yet but today we had another new record as 33,195 fans were in attendance today.

[Radii]

-- Neil gordon and Jack Hughes are named to the EPL team of the week, Hughes at ML where he belongs (the last time he had a spectacular game at ML he made the team of the week in defense...).

Injury Update

-- Steven Mills pulls a hammy in training running sprints, and he's out for 3 weeks. Ugh.

October 30th, 2021

Ipswich(4-2-4, 10th) @ Birmingham (5-1-4, 7th)

Birmingham are slim 6:4 favorites at their house today, we're 13:8 to get a win. They were predicted to finish 8th with us 9th, and last year we beat them on the final day of the regular season in what was basically a playoff to decide who got into Europe. We're just 2 points behind them right now and a win on the road would be a big boost for us.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Welsh/Jackson
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Clifford/Gordon
F: Constantino/Khan

Welsh is in at DC over O'Brien, just to keep him fresh. Jackson back at DR. Clifford starts for the injured Mills at MC. Standard mindset on the road.

15': They build up down the right, getting near the right corner before sending a cross in near the 6 yard box... there's a strong header from ST Konrad, Capitani goes to the ground to make the save though! Ther's a rebound, Konrad possesses it for a split second but we are able to clear it away.

32': We have a throwin in their end, taken to Khan, he passes to Constantino at the edge of the area, he's got 3 defenders on top of him but somehow makes a little juke move to get an inch of space, shoots.. and its by the keeper and a goal!! Spectacular control from Constantino to score just his second league goal (and first that isn't off a penalty), and really some poor defending as well. 1-0

HALF: The half comes without another highlight. We shoot 5 times, just 1 on target. They shoot 3 times, 2 of them on target and they have the only clear cut chance on the header that Capitani saved. We're playing really well on the road and now that we seem to be playing a bit more sound defensively we are flying through some of these halves with very very few highlights to be seen.

47': Welsh a yellow for us.

50': We control the ball in their defensive end, after a number of passes Kirkland sends in a cross, its actually less of a cross and more of a line drive forward pass.. Constantino sprints by the last line of defenders and redirects it with his head, its our first clear cut chance... but it hits the left post and is cleared. Damn! good try there.

53': Yellow for defender Cruz right outside the area. Neil Gordon lines up to take it with a 5 man wall in front of him... he aims far post, strikes it well... it deflects off the last man in the wall, redirects towards the near post, the keeper was of course going the other way to try to make the save... and it floats into the net!! 2-0

62': Clive Jackson is hurt.

66': They build up on offense, after a pass back tot he midfield they send it up to a midfielder near the area, an immediate through ball deep into the penalty area, ST Konrad runs onto it and has a wide open look and beats Capitani. 2-1

73': Adagsmar in for Hughes.

77': Ugly, ugly defending. They win a ball in our end and counter quickly, but our defense is totally back... drop deeper you fools what does that mean!? We're sitting with our defensive line a good 20+ yards out as they come forward and it allows for a very easy through ball, their ST Konrad is faster than our defenders are, he's behind the d line and scores easily. 2-2

84': They earn a corner, taken to the near post... their defender Cruz wins the header and puts it in. Oh crap. 2-3

84': We'll attack...

Birmingham 3 : 2 Ipswich


A disastrous finish. We clearly needed to become way more defensive, but I am a bit hesitant to do that at times b/c it seems like our attack completely disappears and we're just facing non stop pressure at times. But clearly I needed to pull back with my 2:0 lead on the road here. James Welsh took the blame for each of the last two goals and basically takes the blame for the loss.

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.8)
Goals: Constantino 2
Assists: Khan (7.0), Gordon (7.1)
Notables: Kirkland (7.2), Hughes (7.0)

Capitani ended up with a 5.7 rating as well, just a poor effort.

Also, I wrote up the second goal of ours as a goal by Neil Gordon, I thought the free kick he took hit the wall and redirected in... the goal is credited to Constantino whether its pure luck or not Gordon blasted it and Constantino redirected it. I don't think that was planned, that was a shot by Gordon and we got lucky.

Regardless... awful job closing it out at the end.

[Radii]

Injury Update

Clive Jackson turned an ankle after a bad fall in our last match and he's out 3-4 weeks. That hurts us at DR a good bit for the next couple weeks with Anthony Heywood out 2-3 weeks still as well.

November update

-- We'll play on the 6th, 20th and 27th this month. Another nice light month to rest.

-- my youth striker Eoin Darcy is highlighted as having trained well last month. Corners (14), Finishing (12), Long Shots(8), Marking (6), Anticipation (13), Composure (14), and Decisions(12) are all up.

-- ML Jack Hughes is 3rd in young player of the month voting for October.

-- Our young GK Michael Rogers is the League 1 Young Player of the Month out on loan for Shrewsbury. Go go! He's helped lead Shrewsbury to 1st place in League 1, I'd love to have a feeder team in the Championship to loan players to, so I'm cheering for them. My reserve striker, Rob Kershaw was sent to Shrewsbury to try to help them win as well (and since I'm not sure he has a place on Ipswich really). In league 1 he's got 8 goals in 10 matches.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Our increase in stature is the highlight, the signing of Sakari Mattila is the lowlight. I haven't used him enough since I suck at rotating players when I don't have to (also I *really* wanted Mattle and O'Brien to gel at DC). Matilla has played in 3 league matches with a 5.95 rating, so he hasn't done much for me, but calling him a failure is a bit much.

-- We lost $1.48M last month. We've lost $11.5M this year and have a balance of -$4.8M. It would seem that's only going to get worse. We could really use a deep FA Cup Run this year, and are relying on meeting our league expectations with a top half finish to get the $18.5M or better payout that will keep us even this season.

November 6th, 2021

Arsenal(9-1-1, 1st) @ Ipswich(4-2-5, 11th)

Arsenal are on fire and off to a 9-1-1 start, 21 for/6 against. They're 4:5 favorites today, we're 3:1 to get a win. We are 1-1-5 lifetime against Arsenal, we beat them 3:2 at portman road last year. They should win but we are nothing if not inconsistent and certainly capable of beating anyone at home.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mariga/Doran
F: Constantino/Khan

Their star ST Bugra Yildirim has 10 goals already in 11 league matches. I see another name I recognize as well, Lauri Dalla Valle has 4 goals in 10 league matches. He's been with Liverpool since 07/08 and has been their star striker for the last 7 years, scoring 20 goals twice and 15 two other times.

Mariga starts for Clifford, Doran gets a start over Gordon today and McKerr is in since Jackson and Heywood are hurt.

21': We have 4 shots, they have 4 shots, not a one on target yet.

28': Mariga a yellow.

32': Dalla Valle with a yellow

34': midfielder Gamliel with a yellow.

38': Khan with a yellow...

39': First on target shot of the match as they get a through ball into the area for ST Nooij, he has a great look, a clear cut chance, but Capitani dives and pushes it away, it hits the post and goes free, we clear.

HALF: We end the half with 4 shots, all off target. They shoot 11 times and end up with 3 on target, but 9 are from long range. They have a 53/47 possession edge, their passing (74/56), Tackling (80/54), and Heading (66/50) are all way better, just a lack of finishing for them.

48': Constantino is hurt... and he's got to come off. Uh oh. Our youngster Chris Bryan is in. We'll check in on our fan favorite after the match, I don't think he's ever been forced out of a match like that in his entire career.

56': Donnelly with a yellow. This gives them a free kick from 30 yards out. Its struck by Bugra Yildirim, rockets around the wall and bends into the right side of the net... a great shot there. 0-1

69': We get forward on offense, Donnelly with a beautiful ball into the area, Chris Bryan gets to it in between their two central defenders, strikes it into the right side of the net... but offsides. Really? That was close...

85': midfielder Gamliel with a yellow... that's his second and he's off. Can we tie it up with a man up in the last 5+ minutes?

92': We have been passing it around forever over 2 highlights without being able to find a shot or an opening in their defense... Mariga pulls up and shoots from 25 yards out way to the right, its on target and the keeper has to dive for it... but he saves it. Good effort.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Arsenal

Not a bad effort today. They get only a goal on a great free kick from 30 yards out and we are unable to find the net.

Notables: McKerr (7.0), Kirkland (7.0), Mariga (7.4)

Doran has a 6.2 out right and Consatntino a 5.9 before he got hurt.


-- After the matches today Sheffield Utd and SUnderland both fire their head coaches (they're in 17th and 18th right now). I release statements indicating I'm not interested in either job.


Injury Update

-- Jack Hughes turned an ankle today and is out 3-4 weeks.

-- Constantino has a thigh strain and is out 10-14 days.


WE play relegation candidates Reading in 2 weeks so we've got time to rest up. Constantino won't likely be ready and that'll be one where we really need 3 points.

[Alf]

Much more difficult season.

[Radii]

-- I receive an offer to take over as Real Betis' head coach in La Liga. $41M transfer budget and $1.4M/wk payroll budget sounds nice but Ipswich will get there. No thanks!

-- The England U20's crush Romania 5:0. My young striker Chris Bryan scores 3 goals in this match, earns a 9.5 rating and is man of the match.

-- French squad AS Saint-Etienne offers me $13M for Stuart Kirkland. Transfer window doesn't open again for awhile but, especially while we are underperforming like this, Kirkland is really unhappy with me turning down these offers and that worries me.

-- Constantino resumes full training on the 19th, we play on the 20th. So he won't be playing.

November 20th, 2021

Ipswich(4-2-6, 14th) @ Reading(1-1-10, 20th)

We are 4:5 favorites over a Reading team clearly in over their heads. They are 3:1 favorites. We're at a point in the season where there is a huge logjam from like 6th to 15th being separated by just 5-6 points. We must get wins in spots like this.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

Reading's Rob Miller has 5 goals in 12 matches, their only player with more than one league goal. They bought him 2 years ago when they relegated down from the EPL.

Standard mindset today, we may attack if we can't score in the first half, they have a very defensive formation.

24': midfielder Gough with a yellow, giving us a free kick just outside the area, Gordon takes it... but its just over.

36': We've shot 4 times, 2 on target so far. They have 2 off target shots and nothing at all threatening.

41': Yep, attack time.

44': twice they've had long goal kicks and had ST Campbell get behind our defense... once they had an awful first touch and Capitani grabbed it, the other Capitani makes a save of a clear cut chance.

HALF: They are packing it in trying to stop us with a couple little counter attempts so far. I believe a half attacking will take care of things here.

57': Donnelly a yellow.

72': Mills in for Mariga. doran in for Kirkland, we leave 3 DC's in defense (McKerr moving over). Gordon to AMC, Doran MR...

87': Donnelly picks up a second yellow, he's got a red and he's done... this is sad.

Reading 0 : 0 Ipswich

We pushed as hard as we could and our ratings really aren't bad, but in the end they did nearly as good a job attacking as we did. We're just not playing that great right now, and the question about how much we can score without Constantino comes up here.

Man of the Match: Michael McKerr (7.9)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0), O'Brien (7.0), Mattle (7.2), Gordon (7.2)


-- Donnelly is suspended for a match.

-- Maybe i should wait for this until Donnelly isn't serving a suspension, but hey, he's the captain and the team respects him. I go to him and ask him to call a meeting with the players to try to get them focused on getting the ship righted and moving more in the right direction.

[Radii]

-- Clive Jackson and Anthony Heywood resume full training.

November 27th, 2021

West Ham(3-7-3, 10th) @ Ipswich(4-3-6, 12th)

West Ham are even money favorites today at Portman Road, we're 11:5 to win today. Again points are critical. We're 5 points behind 7th, 4 points ahead of 18th, and 1 point behind our opponent West Ham.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Jackson is back in today, Clifford and Mills start at MC with Donnelly suspended, and Constantino is back in the lineup today.

Standard mindset at home to start.

19': First highlight, our first shot of the match, we win a ball in defense and send it forward quickly, Khan to Constantino 35 yards out, he's off to the races, into the area, he has to skirt by a defender, generates his own shot.. and its in!! 1-0

41': No highlights for the last 20 minutes.. and still none, but Steven Mills has been injured and he's forced to leave the match. Shit. Mariga is in.

46': Mariga wastes no time getting a yellow.

49': They earn a corner as added time drags on and on and on... taken to the far post, Clive Jackson misses a header, they head it... off the right post, it deflects inward, bounces off Capitani who was diving that way to try to stop, and falls in the net. Its an own goal. 1-1

HALF: We shoot 1 time. They shoot 4 times with just 1 on target, not the one for the goal. They have 60% of the possession which we need to correct. We're tackling well, they're heading well. That goal we allowed was damn depressing given our current struggles.

52': We win a ball in our end after a throwin and a cross, Kirkland heads it out... sent to Khan, passed ahead to Constantino, he splits two defenders to get into the area, cuts out right though as I guess he doesn't like his angle... or maybe it just seems too easy, because after going out wide to the right Constantino makes a man miss, comes into the 6 yard box and shoots at a crazy difficult angle and beats the keeper! 2-1

59': Constantino rushes up the middle as we work on offense, a pass out wide right for Gordon, cross into the area, a strong header from Matthew Khan is just saved by their keeper, that was on target and really an inch from being a goal.

65': Guarin in for Khan, 4-1-4-1, defensive, retain possesion, hopefully this isn't too early.

70': Adagsmar with a yellow.

We do a very strong job of defending and holding on to our lead in the final 25 minutes, I'm quite pleased with that.

Ipswich 2 : 1 West Ham

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.0)
Assists: Khan 2 (7.5)
Notables: Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.2), Mattle (7.1)

Adagsmar with a 6.4, everyone else was 6.7-6.9, we put in a strong effort today.

-- Constantino scores his 125th league goal for Ipswich today.

-- We sell out our expanded stadium for the first time! 36,311 fans showed up today, I'm very glad we gave them a good showing.


Injury Update

Steven Mills is struggling to stay on the field this year. He's got a fracture in his arm after an awkward fall today and will miss 3-4 weeks.


-- We're 14 matches into thee season now and sit in 11th place. I feel this team shoudl be strong enough to compete for a spot in Europe again, but as long as we can stay near the top 10 I will be satisfied. We're still 5 points behind 6th (there's a 3 way tie for 6th/7th/8th) and 4 points ahead of 18th (there's a crazy 5 way tie for 14th... which means that goal differential is all that separates 14th place and a relegation spot in 18th).

We have two matches against relegation contenders before a rather nightmarish run of Liverpool, Newcastle, Man Utd, Aston Villa and Tottenham... lets win our next two please!

[law90026]

Re Kirkland: Gotta know when you have to cut ties with him I think. Some players will just want to leave for a bigger club and there's no way to keep them happy once they get swayed by the bright lights and big cash.

I faced similar issues with my Bath team when bigger clubs started trying to sign my players away and I had up to 5-6 unhappy players at one point. However, once any player became not unhappy, I quickly signed them to a long-term extension.

Having said that, there was one Croatian defender that flat out refused to sign and continued to be unhappy over 2 seasons, missing something like 15 training practices. I sold him on the last year of his contract for a large fee and used that to sign a comparable player to replace him.

Still a great read btw!

[Radii]

Originally Posted by law90026

Re Kirkland: Gotta know when you have to cut ties with him I think. Some players will just want to leave for a bigger club and there's no way to keep them happy once they get swayed by the bright lights and big cash.

So it turns out Kirkland isn't unhappy with me. Perhaps this bid remained private, I am not sure. Perhaps he just doesn't want to go to France. I had that typed out in advance because he is *always* pissed when I reject offers for him and didn't go back to fix it.

I think I'm going to take the Neil Gordon strategy with him next time I receive an offer. I'm going to counter with $30 Million and take it if the other team is willing to pay it. I did this with Neil Gordon when there was so much interest being shown in him. There are still some overtures here and there but no serious offer has come in for Gordon since I did that, and he's been happy ever since.

[Radii]

FA Cup 3rd Round Draw

-- We're going on the road to play Charlton from the Championship. We'll take this a lot more seriously than the league cup. This match will be played on Jan 1.

December Update

-- After a very light October and November things are going to heat up like crazy in December. We play on the 4th, 11th, 14th, 20th, 26th and 28th. I mentioned at the end of last sim, our first two matches are against teams fighting relegation then our next 4 are against teams in the top 7. We do get 4 of our 6 matches at home. I think a reasonable expectation would be to get 8 points out of the 6 matches this month. If we want to make a serious push for 7th we probably should shoot for 10 points.

-- Two of our youngsters, ST Eoin Darcy and ML Daniel King, are singled out for having trained extremely well this month. Darcy is being tutored by Matthew Khan and that seems to be working out amazingly well.

-- Constantino's great goal vs West Ham last match is the EPL goal of the month. I have this one uploading in the background and will post the video soon, whee.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. The increase in stature is the positive, the signingo f Sakari Mattila is the negative.

-- We lost $600,000 last month. With 4 home matches in December I hope we can turn a profit.


-- I briefly check in on the Euro Cup and notice that the team that knocked us out, Livorno, are solidly in second place in their group with two matches left. Barring a terrible collapse, they will advance to the knockout rounds. Tottenham are 4-0-0 and have already clinched advancement. Same with Aston Villa. Looking over at the Champions League, Man City is out, they're going to finish 3rd in their group. Man Utd have advanced. Chelsea are in 3rd with 1 match to play but their circumstances are pretty decent. They play the worst team in the group. The 1st and 2nd place teams are tied just 3 points ahead of Chelsea. If the top two teams tie and Chelsea wins by 2 goals they will advance. And lastly, Arsenal have clinched a spot in the knockout rounds. So outo f the 7 teams that qualified for Europe last year, only Ipswich and Man City are done.

December 4th, 2021

Southampton(4-2-8, 17th) @ Ipswich(5-3-6, 11th)

Southampton are only 4 points behind us, but if we beat them we could likely drop them into 18th today. We're only 5:4 favorites, they are 7:4. We need this one at home today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Welsh/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

We rotate Welsh in at DC, and Donnelly/Clifford start in the midfield with Mills hurt again. Standard mindset today.

17': Adagsmar is hurt... and forced out of the match. I had set up subs to get in a couple other guys and somehow left Hughes out (he just came back from injury, I pulled Burton out but forgot to put Hughes in.) I do some really awesome things some times! Mariga is in at MC. Donnelly DMC, Gordon up to AMC and we run our narrow diamond formation.

18': we have a throwin near midfield, after a couple passes Clifford just gets to run into the area and fire a shot, their defense doesn't close down at all... its a clear cut chance, but saved.

24': Matthew Khan is hurt. He's forced to come off. Holy christ. Chris Bryan is in.

31': One of their mids is forced out of the match with an injury... dangerous game today.

42': They have a free kick near midfield, very quickly a pass ahead, through ball into the area and a clear cut chance for Southampton... but the shot is right at Capitani.

HALF: Each team shoots 5 times, kinda boring so far. We're going to attack this half.

63': We build up on offense, down the left side, Donnelly passes out wide to Kirkland, ahead to Bryan at the left corner of thep enalty area, he beats a defender, attacks the keeper, shoots near post... and its in!! Bryan's first ever league goal! 1-0

83': We win a ball in our end, Mariga sends it ahead, Chris Bryan is there and he takes off, a 30 yard run into the area, his 2nd clear cut chance... but shot at the keeper and saved.

87': Heywood in for Jackson.

95': 3 minutes of added time... but somehow we're at 94:30 and its not over yet.. Donnelly with a foul just outside the penalty area, they're getting one last chance... but the free kick is off the wall and we get the win.

Ipswich 1 : 0 Southampton

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.6)
Goal: Bryan (7.2)
Assist: Kirkland
Notables: Jackson (7.2), Mattle (7.2)


Very happy to see Chris Bryan get his first goal, and all of a sudden we're winning 1-0 matches instead of all these 3-2 games we played last year.


Injury Update

-- Adagsmar is out for 2 weeks with a twisted knee.

-- Oh dear. Matthew Khan is out for Four Months with a broken foot.

[Radii]

December 11th, 2021

Ipswich(6-3-6, 10th) @ Blackburn(4-2-9, 19th)

Blackburn are actually 5:4 favorites today, we're 7:4 dogs. The bookmakers are a bit slow to catch up to our improved play, bet Ipswich! We're 2-1-3 against Blackburn lifetime. They barely avoided relegation last year and we crushed them (7:2 in two matches). We hope to continue that trend.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
M: Hughes/Clifford/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

O'Brien is back at DC, Heywood starts for Clive Jackson today at DR. Hughes at ML with Adagsmar hurt, and Bryan is up front in Khan's spot. Bendnter is back from his long term injury but not fully match fit yet. I'll try to get him some time off the bench if we're winning late.

18': we build on offense, Constantino makes a nice run to break the defense down a bit, but a shot is stopped by the keeper. We recover the rebound out wide left, passed in to Donnelly and he beats a defender and has a clear cut chance... but saved again.

22': They have it on offense, a midfielder coming forward, Donnelly goes in for an aggressive slide tackle and misses horribly... their MC Potts shoots from 20 yards out after that miss... and its by Capitani and into the net. 0-1

41': They have a free kick out left near midfield, its curled into the box, Capitani comes out for it, but their midfielder Davi wins the header.. it hits theleft post and bounces in. 0-2

45': We build up on offense, Gordon with a ball into the area for Constantino, he's got a great look... but their keeper dives and turns it literally inches wide. Getting a goal back before the half would have been huge.

HALF: They shoot 8 times, but 4 from long range and no clear cut chances... they just have two solid finishes. We shoot 4 times, 3 on target, 2 clear cut chances... we should simply not be down 0:2 here. We will come out attacking this half to try to get something out of this one.

60': Gordon with a free kick from 30 yards out wide right... the keeper has to dive to make the stop, a great shot attempt.

74': Welsh in for Kirkland, Jackson in for Heywood.. Gordon to AMC, Jackson MR, 3-4-1-2 as we get desperate.

87': We get a bit of a breakaway... Clifford finds Constantino and he's free in the area... a clear cut chance from 15 yards out... wide. He just flat out missed.

94': We get something I guess... Hughes to Bryan, Neil Gordon breaks on goal, Bryan finds him with a nice pass, Gordon scores. But there's no time left. 1-2

Blackburn 2 : 1 Ipswich

Their first scorer Potts is man of the match.

Goal: Gordon (7.4)
Assist: Bryan (7.3)

Everyone else ends up in the 6.5-6.8 range. I could have accepted a point on the road today but a loss is really not acceptable with the stretch we have coming up. Constantino had chances today and couldn't finish, unusual for him.

[Radii]

December 14th, 2021

Liverpool(7-3-6, 9th) @ Ipswich(6-3-7, 10th)

We're still in 10th and today we're playing a tough Liverpool team that is exactly 3 points ahead of us. Liverpool haven't made the Champions League in 6 years and last season had their worst finish since relegating out of the top division in 1954 with a 14th place finish. Today they're 4:5 favorites at Portman Road. We're 3:1 to win. We're only 4-1-3 at home so far, not really all that spectacular.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
M: Burton/Clifford/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Burton starts at ML, that'll be fun, he hates my guts. Bendtner at ST and Mariga in for Clifford today. We set up to counter attack today and hope that with our defense gelling a bit that will be a more viable option than it was early in the year.

9': not a viable option. They attack down the left, a simple pass into the area for midfielder Chapman sees him left wide, wide open for a trivial finish. 0-1

18': they should have gone up 2-0, a through ball to ST Bailey, he's got a clear cut chance, though a defender is stuck on him fairly well.. shot is by Capitani, but off the left post and we clear.

24': we have a throwin in their end, taken to Constantino, he passes to Mariga who shoots from 20 yards out... solid effort but a little high.

27': yellow for O'Brien

HALF: A couple more Liverpool shots to end the half but we go into the locker room down a goal and lucky to only be down 1. They have 10 shots, 3 on target, we have 5 shots, 2 on target. We have a bit of a possession edge, 56/44, passing and tackling is even, they're dominant in the air. Hughes is in for Burton and Bryan in for Bendtner at the half.

58': Jack Hughes is hurt, he can stay in...

65': They build up down the right side, Hughes and Kirkland make a couple tackles to slow them down but we can't get it fully cleared, there's a cross into the area, controlled by one of their strikers... O'Brien and Mattle are both on top of the guy but O'Brien misses a tackle, they get a shot and a goal out of it. O'Brien is playing awful today. 0-2

69': We win a ball as they try to clear out in defense and get a bit of an advantage, Donnelly passes ahead to Neil Gordon, Gordon shoots from a tough angle out right on a half volley... and its a beauty of a strike, by the keeper and in! 1-2

72': Donnelly is hurt, fairly badly.

76': We counter down the right after winning the ball in defense.. Gordon into the area for Constantino, he's brought down... its a penalty!! Constantino takes it, and finishes well. Tie game! 2-2

85': Mattila in for the injured Donnelly.


We make a great comeback after falling behind by 2 goals today!

Ipswich 2 : 2 Liverpool

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (9.0)
Goals: Gordon, Constantino (6.9)
Assists: Donnelly (6.9)
Notables: Hughes (7.0)

O'Brien finishes with a 5.8 rating today and he has often been really solid for us but has given us some very inconsistent performances as well at times.

-- We get out of this one with no long term injuries to Donnelly or Hughes.

[Radii]

Constantino's goal of the month for November. As always full screen is probably needed to see WTF is up.

[CAsterling]

Nice goal, Constantino is impressive

This dynasty has become a must read each day to keep up with the latest on Ipswich.
I loved the Irony of this bit
Blackburn are actually 5:4 favorites today, we're 7:4 dogs. The bookmakers are a bit slow to catch up to our improved play, bet Ipswich!
Only for it to be a loss.....maybe the bookmakers aren't as slow as you hope.

I also love the fact that just like me, certain players annoy you, and others you grow to trust and like. It is so hard to explain to people who don't play FM how it sucks you in and how you become attached to a club or its players and how hard it is to leave one team for another.

Great dynasty, love the content and the style.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by CAsterling

This dynasty has become a must read each day to keep up with the latest on Ipswich.

Thanks!

Blackburn are actually 5:4 favorites today, we're 7:4 dogs. The bookmakers are a bit slow to catch up to our improved play, bet Ipswich!
Only for it to be a loss.....maybe the bookmakers aren't as slow as you hope.

Yeah, if nothing else, I never edit what I write, I find it amusing how a lot of stuff is just like the real world in that regard, a change or just a comment I make with 100% confidence backfires minutes later, doh!

I also love the fact that just like me, certain players annoy you, and others you grow to trust and like. It is so hard to explain to people who don't play FM how it sucks you in and how you become attached to a club or its players and how hard it is to leave one team for another.

This is really one of the best aspects of the game to me. I'm churning through this as fast as I possibly can to get as many seasons in as I can but its still a slow pace that involves a *lot* of time getting to know my players. In the FBCB Online league I run I just came off a final four season but I can't name even 2 of my starters. When I played OOTP my bench guys didn't have names to me, they were "that 2 1/2 * guy that can backup SS and 2B". Here I can list off my entire roster including my U18's without having the game open and would probably only miss about 5 players.


The attachment factor is huge too, I'm not sure how obvious it is from reading the updates... but Constantino is clearly on an otherworldly level. After him, I feel a very very strong attachment to Kirkland and Neil Gordon and Gordon Donnelly. I love that Steven Mills and Capitani came in and made the team better, but its not quite the same. Then there's a desire to see the guys that were in the youth program when I took over, Hughes and Jackson (ML/DR) do well, etc. No other game I've ever played has that kind of immersion for me.

[Radii]

December 20th, 2021

Ipswich(6-4-7, 11th) @ Newcastle(10-3-4, 4th)

After qualifying for Continental play 7 straight years, Newcastle finished 10th last year. They're back in a strong position this year and a road match will be very difficult today. They're even money favorites, we are 11:5 to win or draw. Last year the home team won each match by 1 goal. We're 3-0-7 lifetime against them but 1-0-7 in the last 8.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
DMC: Clifford
M: Hughes/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Constantino

We run a 4-1-4-1 today with Clifford at DMC. Constantino today is given the "Complete Forward" role instead of Advanced Forward or Target man which is what I usually give to the guy up front in a formation like this. Lets see if he handles that better. We shall try a counter attack today.

1': They build up with the ball right away, after passing back to the defense and trying to move up again a through ball to ST Joel leads to a clear cut chance but Capitani makes a great diving save.

10': We have a throwin in their end, taken to Kirkland, he passes to Constantino who is 20 yards out, Constantino simply turns by his man, steps to the edge of the area, its not a super strong shot with a ton of pace but its placed perfectly, off the right upright and bounces in! 1-0

22': Lets defend for a bit instead of counter.

31': We earn a corner, Gordon takes it, sends a cross to the penalty spot, Mariga with a strong header, the keeper has to turn it over... second corner is cleared easily.

HALF: The fans must be bored to death. We have 2 shots, both on target. Newcastle shoots 3 times, putting 1 on target (their first minute clear cut chance). 2 of their 3 are from long range and just well off target. We're tackling extremely well (81%) and heading better than them (68% to 46%). Our defensive position is probably the reason, we lose headers in the midfield and up front but win the ones in the back. For now at least we continue to defend.

46': Just like the start of the first half... here we give it away right away and they attack, a through ball goes in to one of their strikers.... he scores on a trivial finish. 1-1

62': They have a corner kick, its headed out of the area. Constantino picks it up on our end and is off to the races, he cuts out wide to the right and sprints down the field, cutting back into the area ... not sure what he is going to do because no one else on our team is remotely close. They make it easy on us, DC Vitali comes in and tries to take it away from Constantino, he's tackled and goes down... penalty given!! Constantino takes the PK and drills it. 2-1

67': Yellow for defender Graham.

78': Mattle is injured. He can stay in.

81': Mattila in for Mariga, defensive minded player in for an offensive player at MC.

That's the match, 3 points!!

Newcastle 1 : 2 Ipswich

Sure, lets lose at Blackburn and win at Newcastle, that's just the type of team we are this year. Great win!

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.6)
Goals: Constantino 2
Assists: Kirkland (7.8), 1 goal unassisted
Notables: Jackson (7.0), Mariga (7.0)


Injury Update

DC Otmar Mattle is out for 2 weeks after a thigh strain suffered in the match today. He's been by far our most consistent DC.

[Radii]

-- Steven Mills resumes full training.

Contract Update

-- Lets take another look as we near the end of December.

-- DC/MC Sakari Mattila expires. Perhaps it'd be different if we had made it to the Euro Cup group stage. But we didn't, and he's not going to stay around. If we jump into the top 7 in the second half of the year we'll either reconsider with Mattila or try again with a different player next year for this kind of depth.

-- MC Fredy Guarin is done after this year.

-- MC McDonald Mariga is starting to fade but he's still giving me some acceptable play out there,and he wants to get into coaching and I'm curious about how he'll turn out there, and he'll take $15,500/wk to sign on for another year. So what the hell, come on back for another season buddy.

-- DC Jonathan Quartey - still wants 1st team money to be our #4 guy at DC. He's done.

-- we hang on to a number of coaches who are 4* or better and a scout who has some Eastern European knowledge.


December 26th, 2021

Man Utd(6-4-8, 11th) @ Ipswich(7-4-7, 10th)

We've had a successful month so far, we are 4 points out of 7th and 8 points ahead of 18th, so we've made solid progress this month. Today we reach the midpoint of the season, it kinda snuck up on me. Seems like everything has kinda snuck up on Man Utd this year, they are seriously struggling. They haven't missed a spot in Europe since the 1989/90 season, but they're risking it so far this year. We are 5:4 favorites at home, they are 7:4 to beat us. I'm surprised by that, strong teams like Newcastle when they struggled last year were still massive favorites when they played us.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/O'Brien/Heywood
DMC: Clifford
M: Hughes/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Constantino

Welsh starts for the injured Mattle. Otherwise I leave everything alone b/c I kinda liked how that turned out. Man U also run a pretty aggressive formation 4-2-3-1 with 2 MC's and 3 attacking mids, so something a little more defensive to counter that seems like a good idea. I do like the standard mindset at home instead of counterattacking.

4': We earn a corner, they push it back out wide, Donnelly gets into the area and shoots, but saved by the keeper, we earn a corner... then a second corner... then a 3rd. Then they clear finally.

17': We build up on offense, they try to clear a couple times but Clifford keeps sending it back forward... Donnelly with a great pass to Hughes cutting in from the left, he shoots, but its saved. We earn a corner but can't do anything with it. Not a bad effort there at all.

30': They have a free kick deep in our end, way out wide right, passed into the area and Kirkland makes two great tackles to keep them from getting anything good. They earn a corner, its taken to the far post... Capitani comes off his line to go for the cross, misses, and ST Wray wins his header and puts it in the net. 0-1

HALF: We fly to the half after that goal. Welsh and O'Brien are having pretty poor games so far. They only have 4 shots, 3 on target with the one clear cut chance. We have 10 shots but 7 are from long range and outside of Hughes effort nothing really threatening yet. I bring Adagsmar in for Hughes at the half. This allows me to push Adagsmar and Gordon up to AML/AMR for a bit more offensive a look to try to get some better offense going.

70': They earn a corner.. taken to the near man in the area, he immediately shoots and its by two defenders and Capitani and in. Damn. 0-2

72': Guess we shall try to attack.

73': Donnelly a yellow.

75': Quartey in for Jackson, Bryan in for Kirkland, we drop to 3 DC's and add an extra attacker.

79': Cross comes in from Neil Gordon, Bryan gets his head to it... and sends it just over.

Yeah we just aren't scoring today.

Ipswich 0 : 2 Man Utd

They looked so much better than us today. We just couldn't get anything going at all.


Capitani puts up a 7.4 rating today. Jackson 6.0, Adagsmar 6.1 off the bench. Most everyone was just average and that's it.

[Radii]

2021-22 Midseason Update

Not everyone has played 19 matches yet, but most have.

Standings

1. Arsenal - 44 pts (1 less match played)
2. Chelsea - 41 pts (1 less match played)
3. Tottenham - 36 pts
4. Aston Villa - 36 pts
5. Newcastle - 34 pts
6. Man City - 32 pts
7. Birmingham - 32 pts
8. Liverpool - 28 pts
9. Huddersfield - 27 pts
10. Man Utd - 25 pts
11. Ipswich - 25 pts
12. Blackburn - 21 pts
13. Southampton - 20 pts
14. Nottingham Forest - 20 pts
15. Sheffield Utd - 20 pts
16. West Ham - 18 pts
17. Sunderland - 18 pts
----------------------------
18. QPR - 17 pts
19. Everton - 16 pts
20. Reading - 11 pts


There's a long way to go still, especially given that the top teams will likely be spending more money in January, but we are in an ok spot, competing for a place in the top 10 and feeling perfectly safe as far as relegation goes.


Goals

1. Bugra Yildiriim - Arsenal - 17
2. Andy Singh - West Ham - 11
3. Rob Miller - Reading - 11
4. Sam Vokes - Aston Villa - 10
5. Luca Vanelli - Sheffield Utd - 10

Constantino is 9th with 8 league goals so far. We only have 18 goals in 19 league matches, the offense hasn't quite produced what it did last year.

Assists

1. Aaron Ramsey - Arsenal - 9
2. Harry Kane - Sheffield Utd - 7
3. Yoann Gourcuff - Chelsea - 7
4. Ryan Lambert - Southampton - 7

7 players tied w/ 6 assists.

Matthew Khan has 4 assists to lead us.


Average Rating

1. Aaron Ramsey - Arsenal - 7.74
2. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 7.64
3. Davide Santon - Chelsea - 7.45
4. Fabian Delph - Aston Villa - 7.44
5. Brahim Ba - Newcastle - 7.43

Constantino has a 7.18 rating in league play, good for 26th in the league. Kirkland and Khan (7.09) are tied for 42nd. Neil Gordon at 7.06 is 54th. They are our only players averaging above a 7.0 rating in league play.


And at the midway point we are 7 points out of 7th and 8 points ahead of 18th. If we can turn a couple losses into draws and/or wins in the second half we could still challenge for 7th place. Trying to move up to 7th, and of course giving it our best in the FA Cup are the clear goals for the rest of the year.

[Radii]

December 28th, 2021

Aston Villa(11-3-4, 4th) @ Ipswich(7-4-8, 11th)

Aston Villa are 4:5 favorites at Portman Road today, we are 3:1 dogs. We're 1-3-5 lifetime against them, with a 0:0 draw on the road in our opening match of the season back in August. Our coaches tell us that Aston Villa struggle against a 4-1-3-2 formation with a DMC and 3 MC's. I decide that's a good excuse to rest Hughes and Gordon and try it out.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Quartey/O'Brien/Jackson
DMC: Clifford
M: Donnelly/Mills/Mariga
F: Bryan/Constantino

Aston Villa have Sam Vokes with 10 goals and Arsenio Valpoort with 7 goals, two very dangerous strikers that I've been playing against for years now (Vokes back to the Championship when he was with Wolverhampton). Only Valpoort starts today.

9': We look to start up our offense as Clive Jackson has the ball ... but its taken away from him by star MC Fabian Delph, a pass ahead to ST Coutinho... he blows by Quartey as a tackle is missed, and two huge mistakes lead to an easy clear cut chance and goal. 0-1

30': We've taken 3 shots, Donnelly just missed one a little wide from 20 yards out... Aston Villa 7 but we haven't seen any more in highlights.

33': they take a goal kick, Kirkland wins the header on our side of midfield and directs it forward to Constantino... Constantino draws 4 defenders, makes a nice move to get a little space and passes ahead to Chris Bryan. Bryan is free in the penalty area, shoots near post... and beats the keeper!! His second league goal! 1-1

HALF: We see them send a couple shots wide but that's it for the rest of the half. They certainly feel like the much stronger team, with a 64/36 possession edge and an 11-6 edge in shots. They do have 8 shots from long range and only 3 on target, but we need a bit better control of possession to keep them from overwhelming us here.

62': Mattila in for Mills, Guarin in for Mariga. Donnelly and Mattila take over the more aggressive MC roles. We also change to a defensive mindset.

83': Hughes in for Bryan, moves to DC so 5-1-3-1 now to try to close it out. We are just tired and not as deep as them on 2 days rest so we play for the tie.

Ipswich 1 : 1 Aston Villa

Aston Villa have owned Ipswich for the most part so I'm thrilled to pick up two draws against them.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (7.8)
Goal: Bryan
Assist: Constantino (7.3)
Notable: Kirkland (7.4)

Everyone else is 6.8-6.9.

Some round numbers as Donnelly plays in his 300th league match and Mariga his 100th league match for Ipswich. Chris Bryan was good today. He was poised and handled himself really well when one on one against their keeper.

[Radii]

January Update

-- We play on the 1st, 8th, 12th, 15th, 25th and 29th. We'll also play on the 22nd if we win our FA Cup match which is the first match of the month.

-- "decent potential" youth DC sam Barnett and probably not good enough to make it DLRC Michael Hollis both are singled out for training well.

-- ST Chris Bryan is named the young player of the month in the EPL! He played in 5 of our 6 matches in December, scoring twice, one assist, and ratings of 7.2, 7.3, 5.7, and 7.8. One appearance was a short sub. I bought Bryan from Oxford last year and am really excited about seeing him have some success.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. The signing of Nicklas Bendtner is the highlight, the signing of Mattila is the lowlight. I'm surprised at the love for Bendtner. He got hurt, missed a ton of time and Chris Bryan has sort of moved into the #3 striker spot.

-- We lost $164k last month.

-- The Transfer window opens, we're not looking to buy anyone, we may try to sell off Lee Burton, and we'll see who comes after our players.

January 1st, 2022

FA Cup 3rd Round

Ipswich (EPL) @ Charlton (CH)

We are 4:5 favorites over a team currently sitting in 14th in the Championship. They are 3:1 to win. We have a great history against them with an 11-0-3 lifetime record.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Welsh/O'Brien/Jackson
M: Hughes/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Chris Mason gets a start in goal today. We go back to a 4-4-2 with what is basically my ideal midfield of Hughes/Mills/donnelly/Gordon. Bryan gets another start.

9': Jackson and Gordon pass it around a bit before Gordon passes to Chris Bryan who is 40 yards out. He starts a foot race with his defender and stays a half step ahead for a full run into the area, he shoots and scores! A great individual effort, his defender was on him pretty tightly there the entire way. 1-0

21': We earn a corner, they clear it out but we send it back forward. O'Brien to Mills, Mills into the area for Hughes who has a step on his man. He shoots from 10 yards out as the keeper is rushing out and aims well, its a goal! 2-0

30': Donnelly with a long ball into the right side of the area from 40 yards out. Gordon with perfect control , he's way behind his man who is caught horribly out of position and scores! 3-0

HALF: 6 shots for us, 5 on target and 2 clear cut chances. We allow 3 shots from long range, we're well in control here.

48': Bendtner in for Constantino, Clifford in for Donnelly.

68': Heywood in for Kirkland.

We finish this easily.

Charlton 0 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.3)
Goals: Gordon, Hughes (7.9), Bryan (7.5)
Assists: Gordon, Mills (7.1), Donnelly (7.1)
Notables: Jackson (7.6), Kirkland (7.4), Welsh (7.0)

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

-- Mattle resumes full training on match day.

[Radii]

-- I accept two offers for Lee Burton.

-- Man Utd send an enquiry about Mark O'Brien. I paid $9M for him and he hasn't been quite as good as I'd hoped so far but he's a clear starter for me at DC and I'd be just happy keeping him. I do respond and tell Man U I want $33M for him. A few days later they decline to make an offer.

FA Cup 4th Round Draw

32 teams left. There's a LOT of low level teams left, one in the BS South, a few league 2 and league 1... what do we get? The winner of a replay between EPL sides Sunderland and Everton... on the road.

Transfer Out

ML Lee Burton signs a deal with Reading. This is a deal worth $4.5M. We receive $1.2M now and will receive $3.3M over the next 18 months. We also will pick up 10% of the profit if Burton is sold for more later. We paid $1.6M to buy Burton from Aston Villa when we moved back to the EPL last year. Burton played 15 matches for us putting up a rating of ~6.3, 0 goals/1 assist. The emergence of Jack Hughes is really the primary reason for this.

January 8th, 2022

Ipswich(7-5-8, 11th) @ QPR(3-8-10, 18th)

We're even money favorites on the road here today. This is one of those early season matches where we pulled a 0:0 draw in a match where I pushed crazy hard for a win. Perhaps we can get it done on the road here.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Clifford/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Capitani is back in, Clifford at MC for a tired Mills, Mattle right back in as well. Standard mindset on the road.

5': Gordon passes ahead to Bryan, Bryan goes around one man, a second is sticking close to him but he manages to get a solid shot off, keeper has to save it and push it wide, a great play by Bryan. We can't do anything on the corner.

15': A free kick at midfield, pass ahead to Bryan, through ball to Neil Gordon, a great pass and Gordon has a clear cut chance... but puts it wide. Gordon needed to score there.

35': We have 8 shots but just 2 on target.

38': Jackson is hurt, but can stay in.

HALF: We basically control the half but no serious chances after the first 20 minutes. We shoot 9 times but just put 2 on target. QPR shoots 5 times with 3 on target. We have a 62/38 possession edge and control every stat minus the goals. I decide that the offense is going too much through Chris Bryan, even though he's done some neat things if Constantino was getting the ball there we'd be ahead. I could have just changed the roles but decide to randomly experiment instead. Doran in at MR, Gordon up to AMC, Bryan is out.

49': They get forward and pass around a few times, a ball goes to ST Franks, he turns by O'Brien and gets a shot from the edge of the box, shoots, Capitani dives and gets a hand to the ball but can't push it wide... its in the net. 0-1

68': Mattle with a handball inches outside the area. They shoot wide on the free kick. We attack the rest of the way.

QPR just has our number this year. We don't score on them in two full matches and tie them at home and lose 1:0 on the road.

Notables: Capitani (7.1), Jackson (7.0), Kirkland (7.2)


Injury Update

-- Clive Jackson is going to miss 2 weeks.

[Radii]

-- We loan out youth ST Eoin Darcy to Shrewsbury for 3 months. They're my best feeder team and are in 2nd in League 1. They've already got my youth GK Roberts and reserve ST Rob Kershaw. Darcy should push them over the edge.

January 12th, 2022

Ipswich(7-5-9, 11th) @ Tottenham(13-3-6, 3rd)

Tottenham are 4:6 favorites today, we're 7:2 to get a win. Tottenham are having a hell of a season to be up in 3rd place at this point. They beat us 1:0 in September and we're 0-1-6 lifetime against them.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Mills/Clifford/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Bryan

We play again in 3 days, I rest Hughes (Adagsmar in), Donnelly(Mills in) and Constantino (Bendtner in).

14': We earn a corner, its cleared but Kirkland sends it out wide for Gordon, he puts a great cross into the area for Bryan who heads it in... but he's very clearly offside.

22': Kirkland with a foul about 23ish yards out. They shoot on the free kick but its wide.

24': Yellow for defender Zimmerman.

34': yellow for Neil Gordon.

43': yellow for midfielder Dvorak

HALF: We get into the locker room scoreless after a very boring half, a good sign for us. We shoot 3 times, nothing on target yet. They have 5 shots, 1 on target. 5 of the 8 total shots are from long range. We are passing, tackling and heading better than them, though all 3 are close, and we have a slight possession edge. We'll face more pressure after halftime and we'll see how that works out.

68': There it is, we look sloppy trying to clear it out and finally give the ball away in midfield. They get ST Rix positioned to scoot behind our defense during a couple loose balls that all seem to fall right to Tottenham players, he receives a pass and scores easily. O'Brien takes the blame for that one. 0-1

70': Constantino in for Bryan, Doran in for Gordon, we'll make an effort to come out of our defensive shell here.

91': They win a ball in midfield and get a run down the right side... a pass comes into the area, Kirkland slows it down but doesn't fully get the interception there, ST Molnar is there in the area and gets the shot off and scores. 0-2

Tottenham 2 : 0 Ipswich

The ratings don't really reflect what I saw in the highlights. What I saw in the highlights were Mills and Clifford losing the ball non stop in midfield to start breaks for Tottenham.

Kirkland earns a 7.0 rating today. Capitani 6.1, Heywood 5.9, O'Brien 5.5, Gordon 5.9.

By sitting Constantino we basically signaled that we feel like we have a better shot against Huddersfield in our next match, but still, the effort today was pretty shitty.

[Radii]

-- The top 7 teams haven't been losing much. Newcastle and Birmingham are 6th/7th with 38 points each. Man Utd is up to 8th with 32 points. We are still sitting on 26 points, 12 back. There's a lot of teams below us but we best be careful as we're only 6 points ahead of 18th. The relegation candidates aren't nearly as bad this year as they have been in other seasons.

January 15th, 2022

Huddersfield(8-6-8, 9th) @ Ipswich(7-5-10, 11th)

We are even money favorites at home today, but Huddersfield have been running well and are above us in the standings. We beat Huddersfield at their place 3:2 on a hat trick by Matthew Khan... 3 of the 4 goals he scored in league play before breaking his foot.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Hughes/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Hughes/Mariga/Donnelly in the midfield today, Constantino starts up front with Bryan, and McKerr starts for an exhausted Heywood.

1': They kick off but lose possession quickly, we try once to get it ahead but have it tackled away. We send it back to the defense, Mattle with a long ball, Chris Bryan runs onto it and sprints into the area... he's one on one against their keeper, and scores! 1-0 46 seconds in.

7': We've got it again on offense, Hughes to Mariga.. to Bryan, the penalty area is super crowded, Bryan makes a turn and gets by two men going east to west to find a little space 18 yards out, he blasts a shot, the keeper has to make a quick save to turn it over, but we can't do anything with the corner kick.

23': Embarrassing defense as they build up on offense, a give and go gets ST Ghisleni into the area where Mattle tackles air and allows him a clear cut chance which he finishes. 1-1

24': We build up down the left side, Hughes ahead to Bryan, Bryan with a cross.. Neil Gordon is at the 6 yard box, the keeper stays on his line... Gordon heads it into the net! We take the lead right back. 2-1

35': Donnelly loses possession in midfield and it allows a long pass ahead to Ghisleri, he shoots from 18 yards out, its a clear cut chance as he's alone against Capitani, but Capitani makes the save. Corner is cleared easily.

HALF: Chris Bryan looks like a star out there today. We shoot 7 times, they shoot 9, but 6 of their shots are from long range. I am worried about a couple easy chances we gave up but in general we are in control of things, we just need to not give the ball away in the damn midfield!

53': Mariga ahead to Constantino, he turns by his man and gets a clear cut chance from 15 yards out... he sends it wide though.

74': Clifford in for Constantino, 4-1-4-1 formation.

We close this one out easily and sweep Huddersfield.

Ipswich 2 : 1 Huddersfield

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.4)
Goals: Bryan, Gordon (7.5)
Assists: Bryan, Mattle (7.5)
Notables: Capitani (7.0), McKerr (7.1), Kirkland (7.2), Mariga (7.0)

We get a week off before Everton in the FA Cup. Our next 5 matches after that will be played on 4 days rest or less.

[Radii]

-- Lazio make a $13M offer for Kirkland (though its $3.6M now and $500k/mo for awhile...). I counter and say that I want $33 Million. They withdraw the bid a few days later.

-- Hopefully we have a big advantage over Everton. Due to replays and other reschedules, they played an extra match on the 19th and we will be much better rested.

January 22nd, 2022

FA Cup Fourth Round

Ipswich (11th, EPL) @ Everton (14th, EPL)

Everton are huge 4:5 favorites at home today, we are 3:1 to win, 2:1 to draw. We're going to play conservative today in a 4-1-4-1 formation.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
DM: Clifford
M: Hughes/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Constantino

3': They have a corner kick, taken to the near man but Clifford makes a nice tackle to win it. He sends it long down the left line to Constantino. Constantino picks itup at midfield and runs for the left corner... he has to wait for some help, we get a few players trailing the play, Constantino makes a nice turn to get a passing lane, passes ot Hughes charging into the area from the left, Hughes blasts it with his first touch... the keeper gets his hands to it, but can't really stop it, its through and in the net! 1-0

18': We get a corner, taken to O'Brien, he heads it and its just saved.

HALF: We pretty much race to the end of the half after that. We shoot 6 times, putting 4 on target. At the 20 minute mark we had 5 shots. They have a 4 shots, 2 on target.

50': We have a corner, they head it away but Kirkland recovers, sent ahead to Gordon, centered to Clifford, he passes to Constantino, who turns and fires from 18 yards out... its by the keeper but off the left post. So close!

51': We win the ball in our end, a pass ahead to Donnelly, to Constantino, he turns by his man and has a 30 yard sprint to the penalty area for a clear cut chance... he shoots from the right side of the area.. but saved.

58': They win a corner, crossed into the 6 yard box, headed out wide a bit but not that far... they head it back in, win a header from like 8 yards out, Capitani came out for it, its over his head... Mattle rushes over and heads it behind, beautiful clearance off the line, that was basically in.

77': Doran in for Gordon, Bryan in for Constantino.

92': They get one last shot at the very end, a decent look in the area but Mattle defends well and Capitani makes the save. They can't do anything with the corner and the final whistle blows.

Everton 0 : 1 Ipswich

We advance to the round of 16!

Their keeper is man of the match, totally deserved. Constantino put 3 shots on target today and we had 5 others on target as well, it could have been 4-0 easily.

Goal: Hughes (7.8)
Assist: Constantino (6.9)
Notables: Heywood (7.1), Kirkland (7.3), Mattle (7.8)

Mattle goes 16 for 17 on headers, 6 key headers, including one to head away a ball that was essentially in the net with the keeper nowhere to be found. He saved the game for us today.

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

[Radii]

-- Clive Jackson resumes full training.


FA Cup 5th Round Draw

6 of the 16 spots remaining are not EPL teams. We cross our fingers, see our name pop up at home, and are thrilled to learn that we will face the winner of a replay between League 2 side Crewe and Championship side Coventry.

January 25th, 2022

Nottingham Forest(5-6-12, 18th) @ Ipswich(8-5-10, 11th)

Its another home match against a team fighting relegation. We are 4:5 favorites today making them 3:1 to win. We need to be able to put this one away and get 3 points. We beat them 1:0 on the road back in September and are 6-3-7 lifetime against them with about half the matches played in the Championship and half in the EPL.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Mariga/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

McKerr is at DR today, Adagsmar and Mariga in for Hughes and Mills, and Bryan is starting again today up front.

3': They have a goal kick... its taken all the way into their penalty area and their ST Ivan Popov is behind Mattle, he shows great control and blasts a shot by Capitani. Spectacular start... 0-1

5': Screw it, we are attacking, win this thing.

15': A long ball down the left side from Kirkland to Bryan, he passes to Constantino who is 20 yards out, he beats one man but both DC's are back with him, he gets a strong shot off but the keeper makes the save.

16': Their ST Popov gets open again and into the area for their second clear cut chance, but Capitani comes up big and stops it.

18': For the third time today... here Popov has it 35 yards out and Mattle tries a tackle with no help behind him, its another run into the area, and its another brilliant save by Capitani.

HALF: After that we fly to the half... Capitani has an 8.0 rating right now. They have 6 shots, all on target, 3 clear cut chances and only 1 from long range. We have 4 shots, 2 on target. We are tackling and heading the ball really well but they really look to be outplaying us today, we need a much better second half.

48': Donnelly a yellow.

73': We fly 25 minutes ahead without a highlight. We earn a corner but its cleared easily.

76': Mills in for Mariga.

77': We earn two corners after a shot by Constantino is blocked and goes behind... nothing comes from the corners.

That's it. They pack it in and we just can't break down their defense after giving up the early goal. Our wildly inconsistent play continues.

Capitani 8.1, Kirkland 7.1.

No one is especially bad today, we just cannot score.

[Radii]

-- Its funny how last year this would have been an *amazing* season but after we experience a little success sitting in 11th place but seeing a run at 7th quickly fade from the realm of possibility feels like a disappointment. We've blown a few solid chances to get ourselves firmly entrenched in the top 10, and at this point its starting to really just come down to money and pride, and just making sure there isn't a wild nosedive towards relegation. We should be safe, but its not a lock yet.

January 29th, 2022

Ipswich(8-5-11, 11th) @ Chelsea (16-3-4, 2nd)

Chelsea are crazy 1:4 favorites today. We're 9:1 to get a win at their place.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
DM: Clifford
M: Donnelly/Mills
AM: Hughes/Gordon
F: Bryan

I've got Hughes training to play AML and he's starting to learn it. Its probably not ideal to rush out and get him some time there against Chelsea but screw it, I like this formation. Clifford DMC, Hughes/Gordon AM, Bryan up front alone today.

7': they have a free kick about 20 yards out, a bit wide left, instead of shooting they pass to midfielder Haworth who is dead center 25 yards out, he blasts it, Capitani gets a hand to it but no, its a goal, no real chance to stop that. 0-1

19': Neil gordon is hurt, he can stay in though.

24': We build up on offense with a number of passes, finally Mills spots the smallest of openings and puts a ball into the area for Chris Bryan, he gets to it, its a clear cut chance but his man recovered quick and was going for a tackle... but Bryan finishes well, its in! 1-1

31': Jackson is hurt, again.

43': Yellow for defender Huston.

HALF: This is going to be tough to hang on to, they are putting tons of pressure on us with 13 shots total, but just 1 is on target and they settle for too many from long range. We shoot just 4 times but manage a goal. They're passing way better than we are and are clearly the better team, but we're fighting to get something out of it. McKerr is in for the injured Jackson at the half.

59': Donnelly with a yellow.

61': Constantino in for Bryan, Adagsmar in for Hughes.

72': Mills with a yellow.

79': They should have scored, a ball into the area for Balotelli and our defense looks really out of position, but he doesnt shoot right away and lets Capitani close a bit, the save is made.

We get out of here with a point!

Chelsea 1 : 1 Ipswich

They shoot 24 times, we shoot 5 times. They only put 5 on target, but we are thrilled with the point here.

Goal: Bryan (6.9)
Assist: Mills (7.6)
Notable: Donnelly (7.0)

Hughes with a 5.7, totally not fair to put him at a position he's not comfortable with yet on the road at Chelsea, not his fault.


Injury Update

-- Clive Jackson is having a tough year. He's out for 3 more weeks with a pulled hamstring this time.

-- Neil Gordon is out a week.

[bbgunn]

Still a lot of season left to be played!

[Barkeep49]

To me this season should be seen in the same light as your brief run in the EPL. Hopefully just as you came out of the CH the second time stronger, you can get back into European play in a stronger fashion next time around.

[Radii]

February Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 19th and 26th. We'll play perhaps on the 12th too in the FA Cup. I think we're waiting on a replay for that to be officially scheduled.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Bendtner is the highlight, the lowlight has changed to the signing of Aaron Doran at MR, who has not been as good as I'd hoped.

-- We made a profit of $1.31M last month.

-- We're expected to sell out our next match vs Sheffield Utd.

February 2nd, 2022

Sheffield Utd (9-2-13, 14th) @ Ipswich(8-6-11, 12th)

We're 11 points behind 7th but only 5 points ahead of 18th and we're only 1 point ahead of Sheffield Utd here. We've been underperforming against some of the teams below us, but this one is a bit different, they're a good team and they're even money favorites at our place. We're 11:5 to win, hopefully we are up for this one!

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mills/Doran
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Doran and Heywood in for the injured Gordon and Jackson. Bendtner and Constantino up front today and back to a straight 4-4-2.

Standard mindset today. Its raining rather hard.

25': They have 4 shots we have 2, nothing threatening yet. We have a few corner kicks going nowhere as well.

42': We have a free kick in our side of midfield, a ball ahead to Mills, pass to Bendtner, pass to Constantino, he turns by his man, gets into the area, clear cut chance.. and its saved. Constantino is seriously suffering, he gets really down when he goes awhile without scoring. Last year he scores there 100% of the time.

HALF: They shoot 7 times but only put 1 on target. We shoot 4 times with 2 on target and should have a Constantino goal but we don't. They control much of the possession, they pass and head the ball much better, but all in all it feels like its totally anybody's game. Preidction: at least 2 goals this half, but no idea which team scores them.

66': We start a highlight in the midfield, ball ahead to Constantino and he takes it into the area... the keeper rushes out well and its not a clear cut chance this time but its still a good look... but its saved and pushed wide by the keeper.

67': Hughes with a yellow.

69': Bryan in for Bendtner, Mariga in for Mills.

73': We have a breakaway, as the highlight opens Mariga passes to Constantino, its his second clear cut chance... blasted right at the keeper. Sigh!

88': We build up on offense, Mariga puts a through ball... too deep in the area I think? But the keeper doesn't rush out for it, Bryan gets to it and its clear cut chance #3... off the keeper... rebound to Constantino but their entire defense is in the area and he doesn't have a shot, its tackled away and they clear to the side.

Ipswich 0 : 0 Sheffield Utd

So about that 2 goal prediction... well we generated 2 clear cut chances!

They have a defender earn man of the match. We were far superior in the 2nd half, just couldn't finish.

Notables: Heywood (7.2), Kirkland (7.4), Mattle (7.1)

Constantino a 6.0 today.

A quick standings update to see what we're looking up at trying to reach and looking down upon trying to stay clear of.

This is with 12 matches left to play (except where otherwise noted)

7. Man Utd - 41 pts
8. Birmingham - 41 pts
9. Huddersfield - 33 pts (1 less match played)
10. Southampton - 31 pts
11. Ipswich - 31 pts
12. Blackburn - 21 pts
13. Sheffield Utd - 30 pts (1 less match played)
14. Liverpool - 27 pts
15. West Ham - 27 pts (1 less match played)
16. Everton - 27 pts (2 less matches played)
17. Sunderland - 25 pts
------------------------
18. Nottingham Forest - 25 pts
19. QPR - 21 pts
20. Reading - 18 pts


Our current spot, 11th, pays out $17M at the end of the year. We promised a top half finish so the difference between 11th and 10th is important to me.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by bbgunn

Still a lot of season left to be played!

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

To me this season should be seen in the same light as your brief run in the EPL. Hopefully just as you came out of the CH the second time stronger, you can get back into European play in a stronger fashion next time around.

Agree on both counts. We're in really good shape. Our attendance will climb with the bigger stadium, we're getting enough transfer money to do significant things and we still have a core of loyal, solid players. We even have a few badass youth pulls. I'm really happy with the big picture. But in the moment, I still grumble like crazy when we lose to QPR

[Alf]

♪ Money Money Money ♪

[Radii]

February 5th, 2022

Ipswich(8-7-11, 11th) @ Everton(6-9-9, 16th)

We're 4 points ahead of Everton... but they've played two fewer matches than us. We beat them 1:0 at their place in the FA Cup recently. They were big favorites then and even bigger now, 4:6 to win, we're 7:2.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
DM: Clifford
M: Donnelly/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Doran
F: Bryan

Two teams with star strikers underperforming a little. Everton's Brian Kelly scored 16 goals 2 years ago, 13 goals w/ 10 assists last year. 7 goals/3 assists this year. Constantino has 8 league goals to lead us, after 27 last year and even 10 the year we got demoted. And.... neither of them play today.

We go back to our 4-1-2-2-1 formation with Chris Bryan up front today. Everton run the same formation. Everton are starting ST Julio Osorio who they just bought from Inter for $12.25M. He has a couple 10+ goal seasons in Serie A.

30': We've had 3 offensive highlights, all a bit disjointed. They're the only highlights we've had all match though so that's good, nothing for Everton at all.

39': We build up on offense, Doran down the right side... he crosses into the area, Bryan with a soft header, the keeper drifts back for it, but it hits the crossbar and comes out. Adagsmar rushes to the rebound and the keeper still appears to be in the net behind the line... Adagsmar shoots it and its in!! 1-0

41': Doran is hurt... he can stay in, and pretty much has to.

HALF: We saw them take a shot at the end of the half. We have 6 shots to their 3, we have 2 on target, 0 for them. We aren't looking spectacular when we have the ball but we're doing enough that the highlight engine isn't even bothering to show me anything with Everton in possession, so that says something.

50': Heywood with a tackle about .5 inches outside the penalty are... midfielder Fitzgerald takes the free kick and sends it into the left side of the net. 1-1

59': We win a ball in defense and send it quickly to Bryan, he makes a long run down the right but he's not ahead of the defense, no way he can score. He does stay out right, draws a defender and lofts a ball into the 6 yard area. Adagsmar rushes in and he gets his head to the ball... and scores! Great counter attack and solid goal! 2-1

63': They have a corner, taken to the far end of the 6 yard box, Capitani dives out for the cross, doesn't get it, ST Rodwell wins the header and scores. They answer almost immediately. 2-2

77': Donnelly with a yellow.

79': We win in defense again, long ball to Bryan, another run down the right side.. another cross, Adagsmar with another header... but its not as good a look as his last one, this one is saved. Solid effort nonetheless.

82': Gordon in for Doran. Gordon just resumed full training and can give us a few minutes. Mattila in for Clifford, Mariga in for Mills.

Nothing in the last 10 minutes.

Everton 2 : 2 Ipswich

We get a good road result in the end. We were better today and they scored on two solid set pieces.

Man of the Match: Adagsmar (9.0)
Goals: Adagsmar 2
Assists: Bryan 2 (6.9)
Notable: Capitani (7.0)

Lots of 6.7-6.9. Adagsmar looks really solid every time we get him at AML. Way way better than in our standard 4-4-2.


A Southampton loss bumps us up to 10th today. With 11 to go.

7. Man Utd - 44 pts
8. Birmingham - 41 pts
9. Huddersfield - 34 pts (1 less match played)
10. Ipswich - 32 pts
11. Blackburn - 31 pts
12. Sheffield Utd - 31 pts (1 less match played)
13. Southampton - 31 pts
14. Liverpool - 28 pts
15. Everton - 28 pts (2 less matches played)
16. Sunderland - 28 pts
17. West Ham - 27 pts (1 less match played)
------------------------
18. Nottingham Forest - 26 pts
19. QPR - 21 pts
20. Reading - 18 pts

Huge mixup in the standings from 10th-17th, that'll probably continue for the next few weeks. Any team 14th or above could win 2 games and totally separate from the crowd. No reason that can't be us!

Injury Update

MR Aaron Doran is out for 2 weeks.

[Radii]

-- Ghana wins the Africa Cup of Nations. 3 group matches and 3 single elimination matches in January and February and Jonathan Quartey made an appearance in every one. His ratings: 6.2, 6.8, 7.3, 6.9, 6.6, 6.9. Ghana beat Tunisia in the finals 3:1. Congrats to Quartey!

-- Adagsmar is named in the EPL team of the week.

February 8th, 2022

Sunderland(8-4-15, 16th) @ Ipswich(8-8-11, 10th)

We're 5:4 favorites at home, they are 7:4 to win today. Its another home match against one of the teams stuck very close to relegation. We are 1-0-6 lifetime against them, our win coming last season during our great run. We lost 1:0 at their house in October.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
DM: Clifford
M: Mariga/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Gordon
F: Constantino

Constantino up front, Gordon is back at AMR, Mariga in for Donnelly, and McKerr in for Heywood. I talk to Constantino before the match and tell him I have faith in him. Standard mindset at home.

15': they earn a clear cut chance after building up on offense and having a clearance attempt bounce off of someone and fall free at the penalty spot. Capitani is paying attention though and charges, the shot can only go off him and we clear it.

19': We get our first clear cut chance after a throwin, Mills passes ahead to Gordon who is 18 yards out, he turns by his man just like a striker and gets a shot... turned behind by the keeper.

20': Bend it like Neil Gordon!!! We have a throwin, a pass from Clifford to Gordon who is well wide of the goal 20-23 yards out.. he shoots a shot that looks like its going to go 10 yards wide but its bending in from the start and its in the right side of the net!! Brilliant strike!!! 1-0

36': Gordon down the right side... a cross to Adagsmar, they try to tackle it away, loose ball falls to Constantino in the 6 yard box and its an open net for him. He scores!! That ends a streak of 10+ hours on the pitch without a goal I do believe. 2-0

43': Adagsmar with a yellow.

HALF: We have 7 shots to their 3, 4 of ours on target to 2 of theirs. Capitani did make a smart play to cut off their only clear cut chance. Right now we're doing everything better than they are and have an unbelievable 71/29 possession edge. Lets keep it up!

60': They're attacking harder and we drop back from a standard mindset to a counterattacking one.

66': Bentdner in for Constantino, Hughes in for Adagsmar, Mattila in for Mills.

78': They attack, a through ball for ML Smart... he's all alone at hte penalty spot, but he hesitates and Capitani gets in front of him and stops the shot... I would have argued heavily for an offsides there.

80': They continue to press, a cross comes into the 6 yard area from out right, ML Smart is there, heads it.. capitani really seems positioned badly there, and its in the net. 2-1

80': I drop back to containment, to hold possession, to stall out the final 10 minutes. Too many times we've allowed the final tying goal in these spots.

93': They earn one last corner, taken to the near post... there's a header, not really well defended,but Capitani falls to the ground and stops it from getting by. Clutch save at the end.

Ipswich 2 : 1 Sunderland

Man of the Match: Michele Capitani (9.2)
Goals: Gordon (9.0), Constantino (7.5)
Assists: Clifford (6.9), one unassisted.
Notables: McKerr (7.6), Kirkland (7.3), Mattle (7.0)

Big win! Constantino had gone 726 minutes without a goal, that was huge for him.



We pick up a couple points on Huddersfield. They still have a match in hand though.

7. Man Utd - 45 pts
8. Birmingham - 41 pts
9. Huddersfield - 35 pts (1 less match played)
10. Ipswich - 35 pts
11. Blackburn - 33 pts
12. Liverpool - 32 pts
13. Sheffield Utd - 31 pts (1 less match played)
14. Southampton - 31 pts
17. West Ham - 30 pts (1 less match played)
15. Everton - 29 pts (2 less matches played)
16. Sunderland - 28 pts
------------------------
18. Nottingham Forest - 27 pts
19. QPR - 21 pts
20. Reading - 21 pts

FA Cup next!

[Radii]

February 12th, 2022

FA Cup Fifth Round

Coventry(21st, CH) @ Ipswich (10th, EPL)

We're huge 4:7 favorites today, coventry are 4:1 to get a win in our house. We made the 6th round (ie Quarterfinals) last year, a win today puts us back there.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

We have a week off after this so no reason not to play our starters except for rotation which is happening less and less as matches spread out anyway. I especially want Constantino in there, hoping that he'll fully get out of his slump with a strong performance today.

20': Hm we may not be very motivated today. Two highlights in their favor, Capitani just saved a free kick.

35': Donnelly with a yellow.

37': Our first clear cut chance, Kirkland plays a long free kick ahead, Neil gordon runs onto it in the penalty area, and he's got a great look... but shoots wide.

40': Donnelly is hurt.

HALF: We have 7 shots, they have 5. Each team with 1 on target. We're just a bit overconfident today and hopefully we can snap back into shape. I bring Bendtner in for Bryan at the half.

52': Donnelly with a solid shot after getting by his man, but saved.

58': Hughes iwth a yellow.

68': Mattila in for the injured Donnelly.

69': Gordon with a corner, they clear it out wide and Gordon is first to it, he passes ahead to Constantino and rushes into the area, back to Gordon... gordon shoots from 15 yards out, shoots around a defender and bends his shot neatly into the right side of the net! 1-0

Ipswich 1 : 0 Coventry

We were pretty complacent out there today, my coaches comment on it in their feedback and the assistant advice for the postgame talk is to tell them they weren't good enough, I agree.

Man of the Match: Neil gordon (8.3)
Goal: Gordon
Assist: Constantino (7.4)
Notables: Capitani (7.3), McKerr (7.3), Kirkland (7.9)

Bryan with a 5.8 rating when I pulled him at the half.

-- We receive $297,000 for the win.

-- No teams in the Championship or below survive this round. We're down to 8 EPL teams.


Injury Update

MC Gordon Donnelly is out for 3-4 weeks after the turned ankle he sufferd today.


FA Cup 6th Round Draw

There is one replay, QPR vs Exeter (currently #2 in the Championship). As we watch the short draw here we see 5 of the top 8 teams in the EPL, Liverpool (12th), Ipswich (10th), and then QPR/Exeter. We get lucky and draw the winner of the QPR/Exeter rematch. It will be on the road, and we root especially hard for Exter as QPR has mysteriously had our number this season. I'd *almost* rather play Chelsea who we seem to always do well against. Ok not really, but the thought at least runs through my head.

Next round in Early March.

[Radii]

-- Clive Jackson once again resumes full training, ready to go run around for 30 more minutes before falling down again I'm sure! rough year for the kid, he's missed 8 weeks of the regular season between 3 injuries.

February 19th, 2022

Ipswich(9-8-11, 10th) @ Man City(14-6-8, 6th)

Man City are 4:5 favorites today, we are 3:1 dogs. We beat them at home 2:1 earlier in the season and are 2-2-7 lifetime against them. We're on TV Today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Hughes/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Man City's ST Romelu Lukaku leads them with 12 goals. He came over from Anderlecht in Belgium for $30M 4 years ago and this is his best season so far for Man City.

Our only change today is Clifford in for the injured Donnelly. We'll counter today on the road.

27': We've only seen 3 highlights all match, all are poor long range off target efforts for Man City.

32': The first on target shot of the match, we control it in midfield and build up on offense, Bryan to Constantino, it looked like Clifford was making a run into open space, but he doesn't get the ball, instead its a through ball to Jack Hughes, he's behind his man, clear cut chance... but saved. Damn!

39': Another Ipswich buildup, Bryan with a poor pass to Constantino that slows him down, Bryan gets it back, a ball into the right side of the area to Neil Gordon for our second clear cut chance... he beats the keeper, but its just inches wide.

HALF: Man City shoot 7 times in the first 25 minutes, our first shot is the clear cut chance mentioned at the 32nd minute mark. We control the rest of the half really well though, ending with 6 shots, only 2 on target. They have 8 shots, none on target so far. They are dominating possession 60/40 but we are getting our dangerous looking counter attacks. We'll try to keep it up.

46': Their first on target shot comes 30 seconds into the half, cross in from the right, header by Lukaku, but Capitani saves it.

48': We build up on offense, passing around the midfield, we go from right to left and Clifford finally sends it forward to Chris Bryan, Bryan turns by his man and cuts out pretty wide left, a beautiful move to cut back inside to generate a shot, and he puts it by the keeper!! A spectacular individual effort by our 19 year old to score on the road, in prime time, on TV, against Man City!! Huge moment. 1-0

73': They earn a corner kick, its sent with some pace to the near post, a header... Capitani with a diving save, WHEW. Their best chance yet by far. They earn a second corner... then a third... this one is headed over for a goal kick.

78': We allow yet another corner, taken to the near man, he runs out side, a pass is blocked but we don't clear fully, their star Lukaku gets to it, turns and beats Capitani from 10 yards out. 1-1

85': Mattle with a yellow.


Man City 1 : 1 Ipswich

We had a chance to score more than 1 goal there, but in the end, we get a draw with Man City on the road, we don't complain. Their goal scorer is man of the match.

Goal: Bryan (7.4)
Assist: Clifford (6.8)
Notables: Kirkland (7.1), Constantino (7.0)

[Radii]

-- Aaron Doran resumes full training and isn't match fit so I set him to play in our next reserve match, where he gets hurt and will miss another 5-6 days.

-- Exeter in the Championship beats QPR and we're going to be playing Exeter in the FA Cup Quarterfinals. They won't be an easy win, they made it into Continental play a couple years ago out of the Championship with a miracle run to the FA Cup final.

February 26th, 2022

Birmingham(14-2-13, 8th) @ Ipswich(9-9-11, 10th)

We are actually 4:6 favorites I assume in part due to having not lost in 5 matches (1 win and 4 draws). Birmingham only has two draws at this point so they win or lose most of the time.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
DM: Mattila
M: Clifford/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Gordon
F: Constantino

We go to our 4-1-2-2-1 today with Constantino up front, Mattila plays DMC today with Clifford and Mills at MC. Standard mindset for us today.

10': Kirkland is injured.

33': After a really boring start they get the ball ahead out left to ST Lovgren and he dribbles by Jackson, into the area, dodges a tackle attempt by O'Brien and scores... a great individual effort and very poor defending by O'Brien. 0-1

HALF: We shoot 4 times, they shoot 6, the only shot on target is their great goal. I bring Bryan in for Mattila and decide to play a more offensive formula that I haven't used since my woking days. 4-2-2-2, we'll see if they just break that down easily but Birmingham are playing a very defensive formation with a sweeper and two wing backs and I want the extra man forward trying to pick them apart.

48': Kirkland a yellow.

53': midfielder Bolzoni a yellow.

74': Mariga in for Clifford, a more offensive minded midfielder.

93': After 92 minutes of frustration we get the ball ahead quickly after passing all the way back to Capitani, ahead to Mattle, to Mills, to Constantino who is 35 yards out, their entire defense is behind him and has been for the last 30+ minutes. Constantino passes ahead to Chris Bryan, he's got two men nearby but does have a space to shoot, he shoots at the edge of the area... and its by the keeper and in!!! A spectacular finish in heavy, heavy traffic. 1-1

Ipswich 1 : 1 Birmingham

Their scorer is man of the match.

Goal: Bryan (6.9)
Assist: Constantino (6.8)
Notables: Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.0), Gordon (7.5), Adagsmar (7.0)


-- Kirkland has a twisted knee and is out for 2 weeks.

-- So we haven't lost in 6 matches... but that's 5 draws and 1 win. Its enough to push us away from relegation, but not good enough to give us any hope of 7th.

We've only got 8 matches left:

7. Man Utd - 48 pts
8. Birmingham - 45 pts
9. Huddersfield - 38 pts (1 less played)
10. Ipswich - 37 pts
11. Liverpool - 36 pts
12. Southampton - 34 pts (1 less match)
13. Everton - 34 pts (1 less match)
14. Blackburn - 34 pts
15. West Ham - 33 pts (1 less match)
16. Sheffield Utd - 31 pts
17. Nottingham Forest - 31 pts
------------------------------
18. Sunderland - 29 pts
19. QPR - 25 pts


11 points behind 7th with only 8 matches to play. And look below us at all the teams with 33 or 34 points, some of which have a game extra to play that could end up tying us. We're 8 points ahead of relegation with 8 left and are pretty damn safe there but we would really like to find a few wins to make sure there's no slip up down to 14th!

[SirFozzie]

Ouch. Would have been a real good chance to cut the gap with the teams in the Euro qualifying spots.. as it is, you're only three wins away from a spot in Europe via the FA Cup. (or two wins and the right opponent!)

[Radii]

-- Man Utd beat Arsenal to win the League Cup.

-- Neil Gordon is named to the EPL team of the week.

March Update

-- We play on the 6th (FA Cup), 14th (Arsenal), 19th (Reading) and 26th (Blackburn).

-- Our youngster Eoin Darcy has 11 goals in 9 matches for Shrewsbury and wins young player of the month in League 1. Shrewsbury are 1st in league 1 and seem well on their way to bumping up to the Championship next year.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Our rise in stature is the highlight. The board is "slightly disappointed" at the signing of Aaron Doran.

-- We made $1.19M last month. A couple profitable months have helped out our finances. We've lost $9.6M on the season and sit with a balance of -2.8M. For awhile it seemed like we were headed towards much worse. With fewer matches the rest of the way I expect we'll lose some more money but if we can stay in 10th we would still come out ahead on the season, a pretty remarkable thing given that we spent $33M buying players this year.

March 6th, 2022

FA Cup 6th Round

Ipswich(10th, EPL) @ Exeter(2nd, CH)

We're even money favorites on the road today against a solid enough team but still a team in the Championship that we should be far superior than. Exeter have beaten West Ham and QPR so far to reach the quarterfinals.

GK: Capitani
D: Hughes/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
DM: Clifford
M: Mariga/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Gordon
F: Bryan

Hughes starts for the injured Kirkland at DL. Mariga/Mills MC and Clifford DMC today. I'm hoping Chris Bryan up front helps to avoid the whole overconfidence problem that we faced against Coventry, also Bryan has been playing as well as Constantino of late.

11': Mills makes a nice tackle and we win a ball in their end, passed ahead to Bryan, he hits Gordon coming in from the right and he has a clear cut chance... but its saved.

13': Another buildup, its sent into the area for Adagsmar, our second clear cut chance... but his shot is saved as well.

18': Exeter with a free kick from about 22 yards out,midfielder Rooney drills it into the left side of the net... 0-1

30': Gordon with a free kick from 25 yards out... just high.

44': Neil Gordon is injured.

HALF: Man, we just do not show up against these teams. This is f'ing ridiculous. I demand a win from the team. Nothing less is acceptable.

48': They have it on offense, a pass to MC Rooney about 25 yards out... he launches a shot from there... and its in the upper right corner... I just shrug. WTF. 0-2

66': Constantino in for Clifford, 2 men up front. We're not even getting offensive highlights. Are we even better than these guys? Shouldn't we be piling on massive amounts of pressure!?

90': We can't even get the damn ball forward to attack, they win it in the midfield as we try to push, a counter and a goal from backup ST Ranger. 0-3

92': They send a ball long, just clearing it out of our end... Mark O'Brien just flat out misses a header and it goes towards the penalty area. Capitani comes all the way out to send it back forward. He... I dunno... mis-hits it? loses his god damn mind and passes it to one of our DC's... but Capitani is 20 yards from goal, Mattle isn't exactly all alone, their ST Ranger takes it away and puts it into the empty net. 0-4

Exeter 4 : 0 Ipswich

Really? You can't get up and play in the quarterfinals of the FA Cup?

Capitani 5.8, Jackson 5.3, O'Brien 3.5, Mills 5.3, Gordon 5.8, Adagsmar 5.8.

Bryan 6.6, Mattle 6.4, Clifford 6.7.

Unbelievable.


-- Neil Gordon is out for 2 weeks.

-- I attend the press conference myself and give the most negative answer available to every question.

-- I fine Mark O'Brien a week's pay for his fantastic 3.5 rating, which he accepts and apologizes for being an overconfident shithead.

[bulletsponge]

looks like your going thru the traditional "1st year in Europe" slump that always follows. i dont think ive ever qualified for europe the 2nd year after i get there the 1st time. and yes it usually bleeds into the cups too