FM10 - From the Bottom Up

[Izulde]

This is just unreal.

[Radii]

-- Capitani, Mills and Constantino are named to the EPL team of the week.

September 21st, 2022

League Cup 3rd Round

Ipswich(EPL) @ West Ham(EPL)

We are 5:4 favorites today, making West Ham 7:4 dogs. We play West Brom in 3 days and then have a week off so we can afford to give a bit more effort here as far as starters than we did in our last cup match. West Ham are struggling at 2-0-4 in EPL play so far.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/McKerr
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Smith/Jackson
F: Khan/Constantino

We do make a few changes today but not wholesale like we did in the last round. Aldrovandi needs a day off, O'Brien is in. Crespo starts for Hughes, Clive Jackson slides up to MR to give Gordon a day off and McKerr is in at DR. Matthew Khan will see his first action since his injury. So there's a lot of changes but still a pretty strong lineup.

Standard mindset on the road.

1': It begins immediately, Khan receives a ball 25 yards out, puts it ahead into the area, Constantino outruns the defense to get there and easily scores. 1-0

6': A cross in by Crespo, Constantino is free in the 6 yard box and its the second clear cut chance of the match... but he heads it wide.

25': McKerr with a free kick near midfield, quickly passed to Constantino, he lays it off nicely to Jackson who is cutting into the area, its clear cut chance #3... but Jackson sends it right at their keeper.

30': We've been attacking for the last 4 minutes straight but can't quite get anything going, a couple corners, free kicks, etc, but no serious looks and eventually they clear.

45': Free kick for West Ham just outside the area, sent just wide left, whew.

HALF: A solid lead for us at the half. We have 5 shots to their 4, we have 3 clear cut chances and hope we won't come to regret not finishing more than 1 of them. We do appear to be in solid control so far though really. Clifford comes in for Craig Smith. Smith did well but he's not far removed from a U18 match and can't go 90 here.

50': Donnelly a yellow

52': MC Blundell a yellow.

63': Constantino is hurt *gulp*

67': Bryan in for Constantino.

69': We have a throwin in their end, Khan receives it out wide left, passes back out to Donnelly, to Clifford, Clifford with a ball into the area for Clive Jackson.. the keeper stays on his line and that seems to be a mistake, allowing Jackson all the time in the world to line up a shot from 6 yards out, and he scores!! 2-0

78': Hughes in for a tired Donnelly, I made a mistake of not leaving another MC in as a sub (I wanted Mariga), back to a 5-3-2 with Hughes at DC.

81': We win a ball in our end and attack quickly, down the left side for Crespo, Crespo ahead to Khan, Khan makes a really nice move to beat his man, the keeper rushes out, Khan goes around the keeper as he tries to dive on the ball and puts it in the empty net! 3-0

86': Khan is hurt... and can't stay in the match. UGH. We've used our subs so 5-3-1 for the rest.

West Ham 0 : 3 Ipswich

We're playing amazing soccer right now... worried about injuries though.

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.6)
Goals: Khan, Jackson (8.1), Constantino (7.3)
Assists: Khan, Crespo (8.0), Clifford (6.9)
Notables: Capitani (7.0), McKerr (7.6), Kirkland (8.1), Mattle (7.7), O'Brien (7.1), Donnelly (7.9)


Injury Update

Constantino, Durable as ever, has no long term injury. This will be enough to impact his fitness for our match vs West Brom though probably.

Matthew Khan has broken his wrist and is out 5-6 weeks. Khan had an injury history but just nothing like this... January 2021, 3 weeks. July 2021, 2 weeks. September 2021, 3 weeks. December 2021, 4 months. July 2022, 4 weeks. September 2022, 5-6 weeks. Bryan and Bendtner are working out just fine for now and Darcy is really promising (one of the ST's I have loaned out to Shrewsbury) so I'm ok hopefully, but its really disappointing after Khan had that amazing 21 goal season the year I finished 6th to see him come crashing to a halt w/ injuries.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Izulde

This is just unreal.

That is a good word for this start (both the team's and Constantino's).

[Brian Swartz]

KUTGW!

And stop making the rest of us hacks look bad.

That is all :P

[Radii]

League Cup 4th Round Draw

Down to the round of 16 and mostly EPL teams left here. We're going to be playing on the road, but its against #20 Watford, a team we'll be favored heavily against.

Septemeber 24th, 2022

Ipswich(4-2-0, 2nd) @ West Brom(3-1-2, 7th)

We're 5:4 favorites today, West Brom are 7:4. They are picked 19th by the media and are very clearly playing well above expectations. They demoted 2 years ago and promoted back up last year. We're 2-1-4 lifetime against them with a win and a draw in that EPL season 2 years ago.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Heywood
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Bryan

Heywood at DR, Gordon at MR (I specifically went McKerr DR/Jackson MR with the intent of resting Gordon last match and resting Jackson today). Mills is back at MC and Bendtner/Bryan up front. Constantino can play but probably wouldn't finish the match. I'd rather sub him in only if I need to.

Standard mindset today.

1': We attack all out right at the starts, Crespo down the left, a cross into the area but we can't win the header... we recover and push it back in, Bendtner finds Gordon coming in from the right, he has a clear cut chance, but his shot is saved.

40': We've seen them miss two shots wide but this half has flown by.

HALF: West Brom shoots 6 times but only 1 on target, and that on target shot was from 30 yards out. We shoot 3 times, all on target, but the one clear cut chance. Possession is even at 50/50, they are tackling very well but otherwise things are basically even at this point. We'll stick to our guns for now but won't hesitate to attack later if necessarily.

47': They have a free kick out left of the penalty area, crossed in, we head it away but it falls to ST Thonre about 20 yards out, he blasts a shot in and its through the crowded area and into the net. Damn! 0-1

63': Constantino is coming in for Bryan.

71': Hughes in for Crespo and we will attack the rest of the way.

75': Free kick for Gordon from 25 yards out... just over.

We get forward a few times but just don't have a goal in us today.

West Brom 1 : 0 Ipswich

Their goal was really awesome, I thought we were going to be able to get it back but they did just enough to disrupt us and keep us from scoring.

Notables: Kirkland (7.4), Aldrovandi (7.0), Bendtner (7.0)


-- Donnelly picked up a yellow in today's match and that's his 5th already, he's suspended a match.

[Radii]

October Update

-- We play on the 1st, 17th, 22nd, 26th, and 29th. 26th is our League Cup match against Watford. Newcastle (17th) and Chelsea (29th) are both on the schedule this month, both are at home.

-- 18 y/o ST Eoin Darcy is the Championship player of the month for Shrewsbury, he's got 8 goals in 6 matches for them. Shrewsbury seems to be holding steady in the Championship, they're in 14th about 1/4 of the way through the season (24 teams there so 22nd-24th are relegated back down).

-- The board is very pleased (up from Pleased) with my leadership. Our signing of ML Crespo is the highlight. Our 1-0 loss to West Brom the only negative.

-- We lost $404k last month. Much better than the $3 Million we lost the previous month.

October 1st, 2022

Everton(2-1-4, 16th) @ Ipswich(4-2-1, 2nd)

Time to find how we can recover from a loss for the first time this season. We are big 4:6 favorites today, Everton are 7:2 dogs at Portman Road. Much like last season, they are slow out of the gates and are hanging out pretty close to 18th. We are 3-3-3 lifetime against Everton, including a very solid 2-1-0 last year with a FA Cup 4th Round win as one of the 3.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson
M: Crespo/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Jackson back at DR today, Clifford starts for the suspended Donnelly, and Bryan/Constantino are up front. I tell the team I expect them to win. Standard mindset.

Its raining quite hard today.

12': A quick attack from Everton, a pass into the area from 35+ yards out leads ot a clear cut chance but a great save is made by Capitani.

32': A throwin in their end leads to a shot by Mills that goes high. Both teams seem to be struggling to build up anything in this weather.

HALF: We take 5 shots but all off target and 3 from long range. They get 4 shots, they seem to be generating the more dangerous opportunities, but few and far between. They're passing and heading much, much better than we are, but we're winning tackles when we need to in the back. I change our tactics at the half, choosing a more direct passing game. I mentioned it somewhere above but both teams seem to be getting bogged down by short passes that are dying in the soaked grass. Lets just get it straight to Constantino and let him go to work.

51': Clifford with our first on target shot, a blast from 18 yards out that's basically right at the keeper.

62': Crespo is hurt, he can stay in.

68': Hughes in for Crespo.

75': Lets attack, maybe I should have a lot earlier.

Neither team can do anything at all.

Ipswich 0 : 0 Everton

A very disjointed match that, at least in the highlights I saw, seemed to be influenced by a very very heavy rain. Still I feel like we should have done more.

Man of the Match: Steven Mills (7.7)
Notables: Capitani (7.6), Jackson (7.0), Kirklnad (7.1), Mattle (7.3), Aldrovandi (7.0)

The defenses on both teams performed well.


Injury Update

-- ML Juan Pablo Crespo is out for 3 weeks with a turned ankle.

[Radii]

New Signing

We pay $950,000 to Spanish LIGA adelante(that's their second division) side Osasuna for 16 y/o AMLC David Ros. We're not training up anyone in the left midfield right now and he comes fairly highly recommended. He's young enough that if he does make it with us we'll have another trained at Ipswich home grown player. Ros is speedy (16 pace/14 accel), pretty determined (13), and has some technical abilities (13 crossing/10 dribbling) for a 16 year old. He won't come over til January, and we do have more exciting prospects, but this seems a solid buy for us out off a lower level team to maybe get a home grown player on the way, or to turn a profit selling him off later.


Injury Update

-- DR Anthony Heywood is injured in training and will miss 2-3 weeks.

October 17th, 2022

Newcastle(2-4-1, 13th) @ Ipswich(4-3-1, 4th)

Newcastle have been struggling a bit to get wins early on, but they're involved in the Euro Cup so perhaps their focus has been there. Newcastle are 5:4 favorites today at our place, we're 7:4 to get a win. We're 4-0-8 lifetime against Newcastle, splitting the season series each of the last two years.

We're on TV in prime time today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson
M: Hughes/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Hughes is in with Adagsmar and Crespo both hurt. Bendtner starts up front today. Standard mindset at home today.

2': Gordon passes ahead to Constantino, he makes a run to the area, draws the defense and passes to Donnelly, Donnelly with a clear cut chance but their keeper dives and stops the shot.

15': Bendtner gets a pretty good look from the edge of the area at the end of a counter attacking move, but his shot is saved.

16': They have a throwin in our end, there's a low driving cross into the 6 yard box, Capitani stops it but doesn't hold it, rebound falls to MC Torric who blasts it into the net. 0-1

31': Lets try to attack for a bit.

32': Mattle with a yellow.

38': highlight opens with us deep in their offensive end, Mills to Constantino, he cuts left and draws both DC's, Bendtner fills the hole left by that move and Constantino puts a very nice pass into the open space, Bendtner drills it with his first touch and its by the keeper and in! 1-1

HALF: Newcastle have 10 shots, 4 of them on target, 6 are from long range We have 57% of the possession but only 3 shots. The big question is whether to continue attacking going into the second half. I think for now we will.

64': We push quickly up the right side, Gordon with a cross through the penalty area, Hughes goes up for a header... but he's fouled, penalty given! Constantino to take it... the penalty is saved, but the rebound comes right back to Constantino and he drills it into the left side of the net!! 2-1

69': We have a free kick near midfield, after a few passes Donnelly puts it into the area for Bendtner, he shoots, its by the keeper!! 3-1

74': Kirkland is hurt.

76': Bryan in for Bendtner, O'brien in for Gordon, Clifford in for Kirkland. Hughes drops to DL, O'Brien is our 3rd DC, Clifford 3rd MC and we go to a 5-3-2.

We easily kill off the final 15 minutes!

Ipswich 3 : 1 Newcastle

A great win today!

Man of the Match: Nicklas Bendtner (8.8)
Goals: Bendtner 2, Constantino (6.8)
Assists: Constantino, Donnelly (7.2)
Notables: Capitani (7.2), Jackson (7.2), Kirkland (7.2), Mattle (7.0), Aldrovandi (7.2), Mills (7.2)

Solid play all around but once again the entire defensive line is excellent.


-- No long term injury for Kirkland, whew.

[Radii]

-- MR Doran resumes full training.

-- MC Gordon Donnelly has grumbled for awhile now about possibly wanting a new challenge, and it seems perhaps he's reached a breaking point. Its now a "major concern" of his and he "feels like he's accomplished all he can" at ipswich. I respond to the news report stating that I want Donnelly to remain here and for us to raise Ipswich's stature even further to fulfill his ambitions.

-- wow, I did not at all expect this... Donnelly responds via the media again stating that he was wrong to want to leave Ipswich, and that his head coach(that's me!) has persuaded him that our club can meet his expectations and he immediately returns to "Happy to stay at the club" with a slight concern that he may want a new challenge in the future. Donnelly lists myself and my assistant coach as favored personnel so perhaps we have solid sway over him (to be fair, most of my players list me as favored personnel, the assistant is pretty cool to see though).

-- Adagsmar resumes full training. He's been out a good long while though and isn't at all ready to play. He'll play for the reserves quite possibly for a couple weeks before even being remotely close to ready.


October 22nd, 2022

Ipswich(5-3-1, 3rd) @ Nottingham Forest(2-1-5, 17th)

They're underperforming heavily this year and fighting relegation right now. Despite that they're slim 6:4 favorites over us, we're 13:8 to win here today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson
M: Hughes/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Same lineup today that we ran against Newcastle. Our next match is against Watford in the League Cup and we'll get some rest then. Standard mindset on the road today.

33': We have a throwin in our own half, but its a long throw ahead to Bendtner, he heads it on to Contantino, he's 40 yards out, but he jukes a defender, they actually have someone faster than him racing in from behind... but he doesn't catch up quickly enough, Constantino into the area, a shot... the keeper gets to it, tries to push the ball away.. but can't do it, its deflected but still into the net!!! 1-0

HALF: We're solidly on control here with 8 shots, 2 on target. They only have 1 shot and it was long range and not close at all. Hughes is underperforming a bit but overall we look really good, lets get a second goal and put this out of reach!

61': Bendtner shoots from 20 yards.. off the left post, bounces inward, off the diving keeper... and over, damn! Corner goes nowhere.

70': Clifford in for Bendtner, 4-1-4-1

83': Mariga in for Mills.

We finish this one off nicely.

Nottingham Forest 0 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.6)
Goal: Constantino (7.6)
Assist: Bendtner (6.9)
Notables: Jackson (7.1), Mattle (7.1), Aldrovandi (7.3)

Once again solid play all the way across our defensive line, I really like seeing that.


We've played 10 matches with an incredible 6-3-1 record. Most teams have played 10 along with us so its a good time for an early look at the standings:

1. Chelsea - 26 pts
2. Tottenham - 22 pts
3. Ipswich - 21 pts
4. Arsenal - 18 pts
5. Liverpool - 17 pts
6. Birmingham - 17 pts
7. Man City - 16 pts (1 less played)
8. Man Utd - 16 pts (1 less played)
9. Sheffield Utd - 16 pts
10. Huddersfield - 13 pts (1 less played)
11. Exeter - 13 pts
12. West Brom - 13 pts
13. Everton - 11 pts
14. Newcastle - 10 pts (2 less played)
15. Southampton - 10 pts
16. West Ham - 9 pts (1 less played)
17. Blackburn - 8 pts (1 less played)
--------------------------------------
18. Nottingham Forest - 7 pts (1 less played)
19. Aston Villa - 7 pts
20. Watford - 0 pts


Aston Villa have finished in the top 10 every year since 07/08. They finished 4th last year and are competing in the Champions league. Surely they won't relegate but its incredibly to see them struggling like this. They're 2-1-7, last year they only lost 11 total!

And then Watford... 0-0-10. Ouch.

[Radii]

October 26th, 2022

League Cup 4th Round

Ipswich (3rd, EPL) @ Watford (20th, EPL)

We're 1:2 favorites today, Watford are 9:2 to get a win. We're resting a lot of guys today with Chelsea coming up in 3 days, but we'd love to have enough strength to continue on here anyway.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Hughes/Clifford/Smith/Mariga/Doran
F: Bryan

We play a 4-5-1 today in an effort to rest as many players as we can. Bryan up front by himself.

Standard mindset today.

2': Craig Smith with a pass up ahead to Bryan... they win a tackle, but Bryan stays on his feet and tracks the ball down, he goes out wide right, burns a defender, streaks into the area, shoots near post and beats the keeper!! Spectacular individual effort. 1-0

10': Ball ahead from Mariga for Bryan, Bryan is free in the area with a clear cut chance... but saved.

16': Smith this time gets it into the area for Bryan, another clear cut chance... another save.

28': we buildup down the right, after 3 or 4 passes Doran makes a run down the right very near the end line, he plays a long cross to the far post, Hughes loses his man and is there all alone... heads it, the keeper can't stop it, goal!! 2-0

34': They have a corner, we clear it out but they recover, There's a long shot... its going well wide left but deflects off a defender and ends up falling at the feet of ST Banton on the right side of the area, crazy bad bounce there for us, and an easy finish, they get one back. 2-1

HALF: We're dominating them today, the one freak goal allows them some hope though. We have 7 shots, 4 on target, 4 clear cut chances. They have 5 shots, all of them but the goal from long range and nowhere close.

58': Bryan a yellow.

60': They have a free kick from 30 yards out, a strong shot comes in, Capitani saves it and pushes it out right, they get to the rebound though and its a clear cut chance... Capitani recovers extremely well and saves this shot too! We clear the corner.

74': Clifford back to DMC and we're in a 4-1-4-1 instead of a 4-5-1 now, just a bit more defensive to hold our lead.

93': they attack quickly after a Chris Bryan foul, ST Banton with a shot from 20 yards out after a Clifford missed tackle allows a pretty open shot.. its bent inward and its into the right side of the net by Capitani. Damn! 2-2

FULL TIME: We were seconds from winning there and let in the tying goal, frustrating! We should be ok. Constantino in for Bryan, Donnelly in for Craig Smith, Clive Jackson in for Doran out right. All three are simply desperately tired and we've got to bring someone in at each spot. Hopefully the 3 starters coming on help get us the win in extra time.

98': Clive Jackson is hurt. That's just great.

HT: We get it ahead to Constantino a couple times but can't quite get anything going.

FT: Nope, we go on to penalties, nothing at all doing here.

Watford: Banton right down the middle, good. 0-1
Ipswich: Clifford into the right side, good. 1-1

Watford: Johannsen into the left side, good. 1-2
Ipswich: Kirkland into the left side, good. 2-2

Watford: Brooks into the right side, good. 2-3
Ipswich: Jackson shoots high down the middle... saved. 2-3

Watford: Mommers down the middle.. saved!! 2-3
Ipswich: Constantino left side, good. 3-3

Watford: Frain right side, good. 3-4
Ipswich: Donnelly left side, good. 4-4

tied after 5 kicks...

Watford: Hurst.. misses wide left!! 4-4
Ipswich: O'Brien to win... down the middle and good! 5-4


Watford 2 : 2 Ipswich

Ipswich 5:4 Penalty Win

whew. Their goalscorer is man of the match.

Goals: Hughes (7.6), Constantino (7.2)
Assists: Smith (7.6), Doran (7.1)
Notables: Kirkland (7.5), O'Brien (7.2), Mariga (7.4)

We advance to the quarters of the league cup and hopefully got enough rest to be ready for Chelsea. Kirkland and Hughes played forever today and we're short on depth in both of those spots due to injuries so that is a concern.

Injury Update

Clive Jackson was hurt in extra time and he's going to miss 2 weeks, that hurts too. Really bad actually, McKerr ran himself to death today. We may be looking at a 3-5-2 or something for Chelsea.

[Radii]

League Cup Quarterfinal Draw

8 EPL sides and Stevenage in League 2... Man City luck out with the Stevenage draw. We are going to play Newcastle at home. Not bad. That'll be in late November. That forces a match against Tottenham to be pushed off til mid-December. December is usually busy as hell as it is, so that's not going to help us any.


-- Steven mills and McDonald Mariga have worked out their differences. They haven't spent a minute on the pitch together this season, its nice to know its an option again. Mills no longer hates Craig Smith either. Victory!

October 29th, 2022

Chelsea(8-2-0, 1st) @ Ipswich(6-3-1, 3rd)

Chelsea are 4:6 favorites today, we're 7:2 to win. We're 2-2-5 lifetime against Chelsea, 2-1-1 in the last 2 years though, we've really seemed to have Chelsea's number. We're 5 points out of first right now.

GK: Capitani
D: Mattle/O'Brien/Aldrovandi
DM: Clifford
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Jackson's injury kills us. Heywood is still hurt and McKerr really can't even go 45 today. We have to run 3 Dc's. We've got 3 good ones, its just not what we're used to. Clifford DMC, a normal 4 man midfield and Bendtner/Constantino up front.

33': We get a header off a corner early that's high... then we fastforward 30 minutes.

41': They earn a corner, taken towards the near post, there's a header by defender Huston, Donnelly and 2 others for Ipswich are there... but they win the header and put it into the net. Donnelly does take the blame. 0-1

HALF: They shoot twice, we shoot 3 times. Both of their shots are on target though, none of ours are. We actually have a crazy 60/40 possession edge, we need to generate more shots if that's how its going to go for us though. We're going to try to attack in the second half, we need chances.

56': Bendtner takes a knock, he's not hurt hurt but slowed for today.

70': Brayn in for Bendtner, Hughes for Crespo.

We don't see a single offensive highlight aside from a 2nd minute corner kick... Chelsea just play a brilliant match today.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Chelsea

Their goalscorer is man of the match.

On our side O'Brien 5.5, Bendtner 5.5. Everyone else is in the 6.5-6.8 range. Having to go into penalties against Watford really took us off our game today, but also, Chelsea are really, really good.

[Alf]

That stretch was really awesome. Brilliant.

[Radii]

-- Nottingham Forest Fire their manager and I'm rumored to take that job over. Why would I want that. No thanks!

-- Matthew Khan has resumed full training. So does Anthony Heywood.

November Update

-- We're playing on the 5th, 12th, 21st, and 28th. League Cup is 28th, and we might get into the FA Cup on the 26th as well. Its a big month in league play as all 3 teams we play are in the top 10, including Man City.

-- The board are absolutely delighted with my leadership. Our fantastic EPL Performance is the highlight, and they have nothing negative to say at all. We lost $43K last month, not bad!


November 5th, 2022

Ipswich(6-3-2, 3rd) @ Sheffield Utd(5-2-4, 7th)

Sheffield Utd are 4:5 favorites today at their place. We're 2-3-12 lifetime against them going back to some Championship years very early on. In our last two years back up in the EPL we're 0-2-2.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/McKerr
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Sheffield Utd are led by ST Luca Vanelli, he's scored 10+ goals the last 5 seasons in the EPL and 15+ every year but last when injuries limited him to 12. He's got 5 this year already. Their #2 scorer is Harry Kane, a forward we made brief overtures towards when he was unhappy during the offseason.

We go back to our normal 4-4-2 today and happily so.

9': They attack quickly, a pass to Vanelli 30 yards out, Mills is blamed for losing possession here, but he goes by Aldrovandi, gets into the area and scores a very quick goal. 0-1

20': We win a ball in their end and counter attack, a pass ahead to Crespo, he makes a nice run down the left side and as a defender comes to close down from the middle he fits a nice cross into the area for Bendtner. Bendtner shoots near post and the keeper can't stop it!! 1-1

29': Donnelly ahead to Bendtner, he spots Gordon coming in from the right side and hits him int he penalty area, they close down on Gordon but that leaves Constantino free at the penalty spot, Gordon with a nice pass in traffic, Constantino strikes it with his first touch and scores! 2-1

37': Constantino with a yellow.

47': They have a corner, taken to the near man, he can't get a shot off but passes to ST Kane 20 yards out, a shot is fired in... Capitani dives for it, can't get it, but it hits the crossbar and bounds away. We clear and the halftime whistle blows.

HALF: Not a lot of highlights here, they shoot 5 times but only 1 is on target. We have 3 shots, all on target. Possession is about even, passing is even, they're tackling a little better and winning balls in the air way more often, 76% header rate to our 42%. It appears a lot of that though is long clearances that Constantino never really wins. DC Mattle is having a poor game when no one else really is, I decide to get O'Brien in there at the half and hope that helps us prevent any more goals.

48': They get an early 25 yard shot that is just wide.

52': Simply beautiful. They try to get their offense going but Bendtner wins a key tackle as they pass it backwards to allow men to get forward. Bendtner passes to Constantino who is 25+ yards out with 3 defenders closing in. He beats one immediately, cuts right to keep the other two from getting in range to make a tackle and puts a perfect shot by the keeper as he's rushing out into the upper right corner of the net! 3-1

56': Yellow for Mills

57': Yelow for their defender Khalaf

63': Yellow for Aldrovandi

65': Yellow for midfielder Broers.

77': Clifford in for Constantino, back to a 4-1-4-1, Adagsmar in for Crespo, a semi-risky sub if they get a goal back as he's really just out there to work on his fitness a little while he waits for our next reserve match.

We close out the match nicely, no more highlights!

Sheffield Utd 1 : 3 Ipswich


Man of the Match: Constantino (8.8)
Goals: Constantino 2, Bendtner (8.3)
Assists: Bendtner, Crespo (7.6), Gordon (7.1)
Notables: McKerr (7.1), Kirkland (7.1)

Inexplicable 5.9 from Mattle and 5.8 from Mills (Mills got blamed for our goal allowed but that was very early on, his rating dropped a lot AFTER halftime).


Tottenham ties Arsenal and that bumps us up into 2nd place for now. A really strong win on the road here!!

[Radii]

-- ML Crespo is named to the EPL team of the week. He's playing quite well and we need to consider using our buy-out clause on him. We'll also need to consider whether we sell Jack Hughes or not once we do this. If we make Continental play Hughes would be a perfect rotation guy for Kirkland but we could also potentially sell him for $10M and that'd be hard to pass up.


November 12th, 2022

Birmingham(6-2-4, 6th) @ Ipswich(7-3-2, 2nd)

We're even money favorites against Birmingham today, they're 11:5 to get a win. That's pretty impressive for a team that we're only 4 points ahead of. We're 4-2-4 lifetime against Birmingham, 2-1-1 over the last two seasons.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

They're led by Matthias Konrad with 6 goals in league play so far. Clive Jackson is healthy again and back into the lineup, otherwise no changes.

Standard mindset today.

22': They seem to have a 9 man defensive line. That's good as far as our likelihood to allow a goal, but we may struggle to score here. Donnelly shoots from 20 yards out here and hits the crossbar.

42': Mattle with a yellow.

HALF: They have 5 shots, we have 2, just 1 total on target (one of theirs from long range). We have a 56/44 possession edge and will work much harder to attack in the second half.

52': I've been watching one really long highlight here with no shots, but all the possession is ours!

64': Aldrovandi with a yellow.

72': We have a throwin in their end, we build up on offense, a pass from Mills to Constantino, he tries to split the defense but they tackle the ball away, it falls free in the area and Gordon is there, he pounces on the ball, shoots and scores!! 1-0

73': Bryan in for Bendtner, Mariga in for Mills, changes I had set up to try to get a late goal before we took the lead there.

76': After a fight over the ball near midfield we win it and break on offense, Gordon a run down the right, cross into the area, Constantino with a volley from the penalty spot.. right at the keeper and saved, that was a clear cut chance, we should have scored there.

84': Donnelly a yellow.

We finish it easily.

Ipswich 1 : 0 Birmingham

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.3)
Goal: Gordon
Goal was unassisted
Notables: Capitani (7.0), Jackson (7.2), Kirkland (7.4), Aldrovandi (7.0), Crespo (7.1)

A solid shutout and we finally found a goal with them dug in to defend the entire match.

[Radii]

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

November 21st, 2022

Ipswich(8-3-2, 3rd) @ Man City(6-4-3, 8th)

Man City are only 5:4 favorites at their stadium today, we are close 7:4 dogs. We're 2-3-7 lifetime against Man City. We've played them 6 times in the past 2 years thanks to the FA Cup 2 years ago. We're 1-3-2 in those 6 games.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Hughes/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Man City's Romelu Lukaku leads Man City with 7 goals. Lukaku was the #2 goalscorer and #2 in English Player of the Year voting.

Hughes and Clifford start for Crespo and Donnelly today. Standard mindset today.

29': They build up down the left side, a cross into the area, ST Mihci wins a header over Aldrovandi but he's still 12-15 yards out, he drills it low and far post by Capitani, impressive goal. 0-1

38': They win a ball in midfield and attack, ahead to Lukaku, into the area for Mihci... and he's wide open in the area and scores easily. Two goals for their "other" striker today. Mattle seems to take the blame but personally I blame Clive Jackson, he's way too far back out right and it allows their man to stay onside well behind our DC's. 0-2

HALF: We only see a couple highlights in the first 30 minutes but then they seem to take over, 8 shots, 5 on target, we've only got 3 shots and one on target that wasn't a serious threat. We've made some great comebacks before so I can't say its over but we are just not looking good right now. O'Brien comes in for Mattle.

69': We give up a free kick just outside the penalty area. Mihci takes it and he drills it into the left side of the net. Ugh! 3-0

77': Our first clear cut chance as Clifford sends a ball into the area for Hughes, he's got a great look and needs to score here... and shoots way wide...

81': Doran in for Gordon, Heywood in for Kirkland.

Well, we've got our match that the board is going to be pissed off about in December!

Man City 3 : 0 Ipswich

Jackson 5.7, Mattle 5.4, pretty rough showings there.

[Radii]

-- We're not the only major surprise this season. Huddersfield beats Newcastle and hops up into 2nd place all of a sudden. And really, we're all playing for 2nd it would seem. Chelsea are 12-2-0. Only 14 matches into the season and they are already 10 points above second place. Huddersfield and Arsenal have 28 points for 2nd and 3rd. Ipswich, Tottenham and Man Utd all have 27 points for 4th/5th/6th. Its very crowded and just a 2 or 3 match losing streak could see us drop to 9th very quickly, so we know we can't have many letdowns!.

FA Cup 3rd Round Draw

We get a good draw, we're going to be on the road but we're playing Bristol Rovers in League 1 at the end of December.

November 28th, 2022

League Cup Quarterfinals

Newcastle (13th, EPL) @ Ipswich(4th, EPL)

We're 5:4 favorites to advance to the League Cup Semis today. We're favored, we're at home, we're competing for the Champions League nearing the midpoint, but its still Newcastle. We played Newcastle 5 weeks ago at home, we gave up a goal early but came back for a strong 3:1 win. We have 6 days off before our next match and can go all out here.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Clifford/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Mattle sits today, O'Brien starts. Crespo and Donnelly are back in and Clifford starts for Mills. Chris Bryan starts for Bendtner.

3': Donnelly bends a shot in from 20 yards out, it looks like its heading on target and the keeper has to dive to save it. Corner goes nowhere.

13': Yellow for MC Clarker

16': Donnelly is racing straight down the middle, he's inches outside the area when tackled... the foul is committed by MC Clarke, he's given his second yellow in 4 minutes and we're a man up the rest of the way! Gordon sends the free kick wide.

27': We build up on offense, half our team is camping out in their penalty area it seems, Donnelly is able to get it to Constantino just outside the 6 yard box and he pushes it by the keeper and in! 1-0

36': Donnelly is everywhere right now. Another pass with perfect touch, this one to Crespo who found a bit of space in the penalty area, he shoots into the left side of hte net and scores! 2-0

40': Donnelly to Clifford, clifford passes to the penalty spot, once again there's a hole in the middle of their defense, constantino is there and scores! 3-0

HALF: We have 14 shots, 11 on target. Newcastle has not taken a shot today. We were pressing hard before their early red and they can't compete after that. Doran in for Gordon, Heywood in for Kirkland.

50': Aldrovandi misses a tackle 30 yards out and their man is getting a free run into the area while O'Brien tries to come over and close down. Aldrovandi comes in and tries to win the ball back, its a foul and i'm really worried about a red card... but no, just a yellow. They can't score on the free kick.

65': Mariga in for Constantino, 4-5-1 the rest of the way.

Commentary only the rest of the way and we finish them off easily.

Ipswich 3 : 0 Newcastle

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.1)
Goals: Constantino 2, Crespo (7.9)
Assists: Donnelly 2 (8.7), Clifford (7.7)
Notables: Jackson (7.4), Kirkland (7.0), Aldrovandi (7.8), O'Brien (7.1)



-- Aldrovandi picks up his 5th yellow card and will miss our next match. We're through to the League Cup Semifinals!

[Radii]

Injury Update

-- Matthew Khan has been working himself back into shape with the reserves and was very likely to play in our next match vs Aston Villa. Right on schedule, he suffers a thigh strain against Exeter's reserves and is going to miss 10-12 days.

December Update

-- December is always crazy after international breaks in October and November. We play on the 4th, 13th, 18th, 21st, 26th, 28th, and 31st. The 31st is the FA Cup. We're at home for 4 of our 6 league matches. Matches against teams ranked 17th, 8th, 19th, 5th, 2nd, and 18th. Our schedule has been really balanced out this year, we've not had a stretch where we have like 4 brutal matches in a row, always a match or two against a lower half team mixed in.

-- The board is absolutely delighted still. Our 3-0 League Cup win over Newcastle is the highlight. No negative, I am surprised the Man City loss isn't worth mentioning.

-- We only lost $662k last month. Right now we're sitting on a loss of $7.1M on the season. Hopefully we can make money in December and January and keep this down to a slow bleed during the year so we can turn a profit with our final standing, even if we drop down to 10th or whatever.

League Cup Semifinals

We're going to play the winner of Aston Villa and Chelsea in the League Cup Semifinal. They don't play til December 21st with both of them in Continental play. The other semifinal is Huddersfield vs the winner of Man City and Stevenage in League 2, somehow they're still pushing on. The semis are a two leg event so we'll get an extra sellout out of this.

December 4th, 2022

Ispwich(8-3-3, 4th) @ Aston Villa (2-4-9, 17th)

Aston Villa are slim 6:4 favorites at their place, we are 13:8 to win here. We're 1-4-5 lifetime against Aston Villa. Last year we tied twice, the year before we lost twice. Despite their horrible struggles in EPL play Aston Villa are leading their Euro Cup Group and seem likely to keep playing into the knockout rounds there.

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

Aston Villa's star is still MC Fabian Delph, he's 33 years old but still one of their best players. He's hurt today though. Their leading goal scorer has only 4 league goals, ST Magaye Gueye.

Mattle starts for the suspended Aldrovandi today. Adagsmar is finally back to full fitness after a 3 month injury suffered in early August and some reserve team time to get himself into shape. I start him to make sure he knows he isn't stuck on the reserves forever.

3': Mills a yellow.

8': We build up with some passes on the right side of the field, finally Mills spots an opening, he passes ahead to Constantino, he's way out wide right, but he rushes into the area, shoots from a tough angle, he blasts it high towards the far post... a beautiful finish!! 1-0

10': They try to get that goal back immediately, a strong strike from 20 yards out is barely saved by Capitani, they earn a corner. The corner is taken into the 6 yard box... defender Fitzgerald wins the header and puts it int he net. Looks like Jackson takes the blame for that one. 1-1

43': yellow for their scorer, Fitzgerald. Not a lot of highlights so far, just 6 shots total.

HALF: They've had 5 shots, all 5 on target. A couple shots from 20-25 yards have been very scary. We've got 3 shots, 2 on target. We each had one great early goal and then it was a lot of boredom outside their long range scares. O'Brien goes into the half with a 5.8 rating. Adagsmar doesn't play well either but in his first match back I'm not going to be hard on him. I do sub him out, Crespo is in.

48': Mattle a yellow.

51': They have a corner, taken near post, a header by ST Valpoort, Capitani gets a his body in front of it but can't fully stop it, its by him and in... 1-2

58': yellow for Donnelly.

60': A counter attack as Mills sends a long ball to Constantino, he's into the right side of the area, but its a tough shot... and saved.

65': Time to attack.

79': Bryan in for Bendtner, Welsh in for O'Brien, who never stopped sucking.

No highlights the rest of the way though, we just can't get that goal back.

Aston Villa 2 : 1 Ipswich

Their corner taker is man of the match with 2 assists.

Goal: Constantino (8.0)
Assist: Mills (7.2)
Notables: Capitani (7.5), Kirkland (7.0), Gordon (7.0)

Mattle is unhappy and putting up a lot of really average numbers. O'Brien is just damn inconsistent and today he sucked. 5.6 rating. Adagsmar ended with a 5.9 before he came out.


We've got one less match played than most teams, and right now we've fallen to 6th.

[Radii]

-- Man City beat Stevenage 4:1 in their league cup match, Man City vs Huddersfield in one semifinal. We still await our opponent.

-- Matthew Khan resumes full training, again.

December 13th, 2022

Liverpool(8-3-5, 8th) @ Ispwich(8-3-4, 7th)

We've still played 1 less match than most of these teams but we've now fallen to 7th after 2 straight losses. Liverpool are even money favorites today, we're 11:5 to get a win at Portman Road. I'd really like a good showing at home today, don't want to risk a tailspin as we play like our next 8 or 9 matches going into January on short rest. We're 2-2-5 lifetime against liverpool, 1-0-3 over our last two seasons. They destroyed us 4:0 towards the end of last year the last time we met.

-- Heh, Liverpool ST Chris Wood is considered their biggest threat and my assistant was asked how we were going to stop him in the pre-match press conference. The headline after the presser? "Burns Confident of Handling Wood." That's not an area I lack confidence with either, but I'm not running around telling the media about it.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

With O'Brien struggling and Mattle permanently unhappy I decide to start Welsh and Aldrovandi today. Standard mindset today.

1': We attack from the outset, after a couple passes Donnelly sends a ball 30 yards ahead into the area, Bendtner breaks through the offside trap and gets behind the defense, runs onto the ball with perfect timing and beats the keeper!! Great start!! I really thought Bendtner was offsides, but it looks like their DL was hanging back a foot or two. 1-0

10': We have a corner, they clear it but we work the offense after recovering the ball. Kirkland passes to Donnelly, he comes forward, he's always looking for the through ball here, but its not available, he pulls up and shoots from 20+ yards out, its a rocket heading into the upper right corner of the net, on target and the keeper can't get there!! Its a great long range goal, Donnelly's first goal of the season. 2-0

18': Jackson is hurt.

42': We have a throwin in their end... Mills after a couple passes launches a shot from 25 yards out, saved by the keeper... Constantino ... well, he scores on the rebound but he's a mile offsides. Alas.

44': Crespo is hurt.

46': We have the ball on offense again, it looks just like the last goal by Donnelly, from nearly the same spot. Hah! Donnelly puts a ball right on the penalty spot.. the commentary says "Donnelly looks for Bendtner" ... and why not, Bendtner is by far our closest man to it. But his break is a little slow, Constantino is twice as far away but he breaks on the ball from the other direction, he beats Bendtner to it, BOTH of them beat the entire defense to the ball, and Constantino drills it into the left side of the net. Just funny to see that it was clearly placed for Bendtner and Constantino just outran him to the ball to score. 3-0

HALF: Two injuries sucks but we'll worry about that later, its a 3-0 lead on the 8th place team int he league! This is what we needed after our Man City and Aston Villa losses! Hughes is in for Crespo at the half. Clifford is in for Bendtner and we're going to play a 4-1-4-1 the rest of the way.

73': Khan in for Constantino to get a little garbage time action.

76': They attack and there's a ball into the area, a shot by ST Bailey is saved, but the rebound falls to midfielder Sissoko who puts it into the net. 3-1

88': They attack again, but here Gordon wins a ball in our end and sends it long. They're pressing trying to score and Matthew Khan is able to break onto the ball and pick it up out ahead of the defense.. he pulls up and shoots from the edge of the area before the keeper can rush out and he scores! 4-1

Ipswich 4 : 1 Liverpool

Man of the Match: Gordon Donnelly (9.2)
Goals: Donnelly, Constantino (7.5), Bendtner (7.2), Khan (7.2)
Assists: Donnelly 2, Gordon (8.3), Kirkland (8.4)
Notables: Mills (7.1)

An outstanding performance today! Great to see Khan get a goal in his first league match of the year. Even better to see him not get hurt. Donnelly was spectacular.


We push up to 5th with a win here, we still have a match in hand over most of the top 10. If we win that extra match we would move up to 4th and maybe 3rd(tottenham are 1 point ahead of us with a match in hand as well).


-- Clive Jackson has a bruised rib and will miss 4-5 days. Crespo will be fine.

[Radii]

-- I've brought it up a couple times recently but I'm concerned about Otmar Mattle, one of my "starting" DC's. I paid $15M for him last year and he was far and away my best DC with nearly a 7.0 average rating during a season where we struggled with consistency. A couple teams bid for him in July and August, I tried to counter with high requests to get teams to back off, but he never got over it. If Mark O'Brien were more reliable I probably wouldn't think twice about trying to sell Mattle for say $10-$12M for squad harmony purposes and stuff. But O'Brien just randomly puts up 5.5 halves all the time. Mattle has actually been ok, 6.83 rating in 15 league matches, but as January rolls around I'm going to have to decide if I want to risk him becoming a bigger problem, or if I want to risk losing b/c my defense gets worse if I sell him off. I really have no idea what I want to do right now.


December 18th, 2022

Ispwich(9-3-4, 5th) @ West Ham(3-0-14, 20th)

We're massive 4:6 favorites on the road today, West Ham are 7:2 to win. Watford started 0-0-10 but have gotten some points finally, they are currently 3-2-12 and have pushed West Ham down into last place. This seems like a match where complacency might be a problem. We did beat them 3:0 in the league cup earlier this year. We're 2-3-5 lifetime against West Ham, 2-2-1 in the last two years, though the loss was a 5:1 massive failure last season.

We're on TV today.

GK: Capitani
D: Hughes/Welsh/Mattle/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

We're taking a chance today, I'm afraid that if I start my best 11 we just don't even try today. So I start a number of guys who are good but aren't currently top 11 guys. Hughes at DL, Welsh at DC, McKerr since Jackson is hurt. Craig Smith gets another callup from the U18's, and Khan/Bryan up front. I have guys like Mills and Constantino available in case this seems to backfire early.

4': They have a free kick in midfield, two passes ahead and ST Singh has it, he shoots from 20 yards out, and its into the left side of the net.. ouch. 0-1

16': We have a corner, they head it away but we recover, Gordon passes in to khan, he's got a clear cut chance though its in fairly heavy traffic... shot is saved and turned behind for a corner. We earn another corner after that... and they finally clear.

29': they have a free kick out wide right, crossed into the area, its headed but not all the way behind for a corner... they get a man to it, headed to Capitani.. he saves it, but doesn't hold onto it.. he loses the ball and it rolls into the net. That's an own goal and I wonder if I needed to start a stronger lineup... or start mason instead. No clue! 0-2

44': We build up on offense but they clear out whenever we try to push the ball into a scoring position, finally Craig Smith passes from 30 yards out into the area, Khan has to fight for the ball, but he controls it and gets a shot off with a defender right there... its by the keeper and in!! 1-2

HALF: We give up an early goal from fairly long range, a crappy own goal and finally get one back right at the end of the half. They have 8 shots and 59% of the possession today, we have 5 shots only. We are tackling well but they are passing really well. Welsh, Gordon, McKerr are struggling quite a bit. I decide to bring Heywood in for McKerr, and Constantino comes in for Bryan. Khan/Constantino will win this for us.

49': Gordon and Smith with yellows.

57': Donnelly a yellow.

58': We build up on offense, Smith passes ahead to Constantino and he does it all himself, he beats one defender, into the area, as their DL is closing down, Constantino shoots far post, and scores!! 2-2

And that's it. We go 25 minutes without even a highlight, we were attacking all out but we just dug a bit too big of a hole early.

West Ham 2 : 2 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Craig Smith (8.6)
Goals: Constantino (7.0), Khan (6.9)
Assists: Smith 2

Lots of 6.4-6.6 ratings today. Just not good enough. I know my lineup decisions cause problems today, but I still can't figure out if its b/c I should have started Kirkland and Constantino from the start, or if I should have sat Capitani. Really, their two goals were an own goal and a 20 yard strike.


-- Gordon Donnelly has 10 yellow cards now, he's going to miss the next two matches.

-- A win would have bumped us up to 3rd, but the draw keeps us in 5th.

[Radii]

-- Birmingham have fallen down to 13th and have a few unhappy players. They fire their manager and I'm expected to be a leading candidate for the job. I go ahead and say I'm not interested.

-- Capitani better be careful.. on the same day our backup keeper Chris Mason suffers a hip injury and is out for 2 months, and our U18 keeper Rob Lines has a back injury and is out a month.

December 21st, 2022

Tottenham(9-5-3, 5th) @ Ispwich(9-4-4, 6th)

Just like a couple matches ago against Liverpool we have a huge home match against a team right next to us in the standings. A win would move either team into 3rd. We're 0-1-7 against Tottenham. We haven't even scored against them the last 3 times we played.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Tottenahm bought ST Emmanuel Mangan from Benfica for $17M at the start of the year. He's their leading scorer with 7 goals in 12 league matches. Their #2 scorer is Jan Molnar, he's scored lots of goals against Ipswich the last 2 years, another name I recognize immediately.

Clifford starts for the suspended Donnelly. Otherwise "standard" starters. Khan is available off the bench today. Welsh is getting a chance to win a starting DC job before January rolls around. I'm probably going to keep Mattle but I really want to see what Welsh can do for me.

21': First highlight for either team... Mills passes ahead to Constantino, he attempts a long shot, its blocked but the rebound is right back at his feet, he charges into the area and has a clear cut chance.. keeper makes a diving stop, damn!

33': Aldrovandi a yellow.

HALF: yawn! We have 57% of the possession, we're passing/tackling/heading better than them. But we only have 3 shots, 2 are on target with one clear cut chance. They have 2 shots, both off target.

47': They put their first shot on target, a strong strike from 20 yards out that Capitani dives and saves.

49': Jackson a yellow.

55': Khan in for Bendtner.

72': Attacking the rest of the way.

78': Mariga in for Clifford.

Nothing doing the rest of the way.

Ipswich 0 : 0 Tottenham

That's 4 matches in a row going back 2 years where we've been unable to score a goal against Tottenham. At least we held them scoreless this time!

Man of the Match: Carlos Aldrovandi (7.5)
Notables: Capitani (7.1), Jackson (7.3), Crespo (7.0)

Khan is struggling to get back into form, not too surprising I suppose, a 5.7 rating here though off the bench.


-- Chelsea beat Aston Villa in the league cup. That means we're going to be playing Chelsea in the two leg semifinal in January.

-- Aston Villa fire their manager after this loss. I decline to comment on any speculation about that job. I want to see if I get an offer just to see what kind of offer it is. I won't consider taking it, just curious about the resources they'd throw at me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Radii

(Mills got blamed for our goal allowed but that was very early on, his rating dropped a lot AFTER halftime)

What was your halftime speech to him "go forth & shit the bed"?

[Radii]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

What was your halftime speech to him "go forth & shit the bed"?

hah. With a lead as an underdog my default is to tell the team I'm pleased with their play, pretty sure that's what I did there. He may well just have a tendency to get complacent with a lead, but since we held the lead just fine I didn't bother making a change.

[Radii]

-- Contract update time, I keep on my scouts and coaches, I'm happy with their ratings and performance in general. Mariga, Bendtner, and Doran all have expiring contracts and at this point I still have no intention of keeping them on. Doran's performance isn't noteworthy and Bendtner and Mariga are having attributes dropping constantly now.

December 26th, 2022

Huddersfield(9-5-4, 6th) @ Ispwich(9-5-4, 7th)

We've really wasted a couple chances the last two matches. Two wins and we're very nicely in 3rd place. Things are very crowded though and instead we're in 7th. This match brings us to the halfway point. We've got another huge match today against a Continental contender. We're 9-4-7 lifetime against Huddersfield. The last two seasons we're a very strong 3-1-0 against them.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Mariga/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Bryan starts for Bendtner, Mariga/Mills at MC with Donnelly out for one more match. Standard mindset today.

6': Constantino a yellow.

21': yellow for Aldrovandi.

35': Three highlights so far, all showing Huddersfield attacking but nothing on target until a shot here is saved by Capitani and turned behind for a corner. We clear the corner.

HALF: They manage 7 shots here but we only see a few of them. We shoot twice, once on target, I never see a highlight with us in possession, no counter attacks after they miss shots, nothing. I try to make a change because we are having a lot of trouble all of a sudden scoring and even creating chances against some of these strong teams. I bring in Clifford for Bryan and drop Clifford to DMC. Constantino is by himself up front. Adagsmar comes in for Crespo, I move Adagsmar and Gordon up to AM's and change my formation up to try to just do something different. Additionally, attack.

46': Well that's a solid start... they attack out of the gate, getting forward and a through ball to ST Platas leads to an easy goal. That's nearly 100% on James Welsh. 0-1

50': They attack again, there's a run by midfielder Williams, he gets a solid shot off, but Capitani saves. Clifford utterly fails to clear the ball out and Platas pounces, scoring easily. 0-2

69': Gordon gets the ball to Constantino after a lot of buildup, Constantino turns by his man and generates a clear cut chance, but they make the save.

That's it.

Ipswich 0 : 2 Huddersfield

So I watched one highlight showing us on offense all match. Huddersfield just completely shut us down today and scored twice in quick succession to make it very easy for them.

Kirkland 7.0, Gordon 7.0. Clifford 5.3, Bryan 5.7, Jackson 5.8. Ugly ugly ugly.

[Radii]

2022/23 Midseason update

19 matches in unless otherwise noted.

Standings

1. Chelsea - 44 pts (1 less played)
2. Arsenal - 41 pts
3. Tottenham - 36 pts
4. Man City - 35 pts
5. Huddersfield - 35 pts
6. Man Utd - 34 pts (1 less played)
7. West Brom - 33 pts
8. Ipswich - 32 pts
9. Liverpool - 28 pts (1 less played)
10. Sheffield Utd - 28 pts
11. Exeter - 27 pts
12. Newcastle - 23 pts
13. Birmingham - 21 pts
14. Everton - 20 pts
15. Aston Villa - 17 pts
16. Southampton - 17 pts
17. Nottingham Forest - 15 pts
-----------------------------------
18. Blackburn - 12 pts
19. West Ham - 11 pts
20. Watford - 11 pts


Goals

1. Constantino - Ipswich - 20
2. Hans Nooij - Arsenal - 13
3. Romelu Lukaku - Man City - 12
4. Ibai Platas - Huddersfield - 9
5. Alex McBride - Exeter - 9

Bendtner has 6 goals and is tied for 15th. No one else has more than 2 league goals which is kinda a problem for us. Neil Gordon has 1 goal so far this year, he is usually good for a lot more than that when things are going well.


Assists

1. Emmanuel Mangan - Tottenham - 7
2. Peter Wynter - Man Utd - 7
3. Sam Collins - Huddersfield - 6
4. Ruben Garcia Mut - Exeter - 6
5. Muhiddin Aqbarov - Nottingham Forest - 6
6. Jonjo Shelvey - West Ham - 6
7. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 6

Gordon Donnelly and Steven Mills are both tied for 8th with 5 assists. Bendtner has 4 assists.


Average Rating

1. Davide Santon - Chelsea - 7.68
2. Hans Nooij - Arsenal - 7.62
3 Constantino - Ipswich - 7.60
4. Peter Wynter - Man Utd - 7.57
5. Ronan O'Brien - Huddersfield - 7.55
...
11. Gordon Donnelly - 7.34
19. Nicklas Bendtner - 7.23
36. Steven Mills - 7.12
57. Michele Capitani - 7.04

Neil Gordon (84th) and Carlos Aldrovandi (90th) are both also in the top 100 in the league.


We go into the midpoint of the season 1-2-3 in our last 6 matches. With only 5 losses total that is kinda rough.

Our next 3 league matches are against teams closer to the bottom (Blackburn, Watford, Southampton) and hopefully we will be able to find a way to get wins there. FA Cup and League Cup matches abound among those matches though.

[Radii]

December 28th, 2022

Blackburn(2-6-11, 18th) @ Ispwich(9-5-5, 8th)

We're huge 4:5 favorites over Blackburn today. We struggled at Blackburn, tying them 1:1 back in August.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Clifford/Doran
F: Bendtner/Constantino

We're on 2 days rest here, FA Cup is in 3 days and League Cup not far out after that. We need to win today. Mills and Gordon pretty much have to sit, I give Jackson a rest too. Bendtner/Constantino back up front.

13': First highlight for either side, Clifford wins a ball and sends it long for Constantino, he runs down the right, centers for Bendtner, a ball into the area for Crespo, who finishes nicely!! 1-0

16': Another buildup for us, after a few quick passes, Donnelly into the area and Crespo has cut by his man again, and again he finishes very nicely! 2-0

36': Free kick near midfield for us, Mattle ahead to Clifford, ahead to Constantino, he lays it off to Bendtner who has no one else near him in the area and its an easy goal! 3-0

HALF: very very good to see us scoring goals again, and as much as I love Constantino I'm happy to see someone else scoring. Crespo out of nowhere today! Khan in for Constantino, O'Brien in for Aldrovandi, in both cases resting key guys that are a bit tired.

Hopefully commentary only is good enough here.

76': McKerr in for Kirkland. Heywood to DL, McKerr DR.

85': Their defense gets stuck really out of position, Clifford plays a great ball into the area, Bendtner is wide open and scores easily. Their defensive line just totally lost its form and Bendtner was able to camp out behind his man and stay onside. 4-0

Ipswich 4 : 0 Blackburn

Man of the Match: Juan Pablo Crespo (9.2)
Goals: Crespo 2, Bendtner 2 (8.8)
Assists: Clifford 2 (8.7), Bendtner, Donnelly (8.0)
Notables: Capitani (7.4), Heywood (7.7), Kirkland (7.1), Mattle (7.3)

6.8-6.9 for anyone not mentioned.

[Radii]

December 31st, 2022

FA Cup Third Round

Ipswich (6th, EPL) @ Bristol Rovers(13th, L1)

We're 2:5 favorites, they are 13:2 to win and 11:4 to draw today. We play Chelsea in the League Cup Semis in 4 days, we are using this match for rest.

GK: Capitani
D: Heywood/Welsh/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Mariga/Smith/Doran
F: Khan/Bryan

Full backups today except for Capitani. Commentary only today.

20': 5 shots with a clear cut chance that Doran couldn't finish so far.

22': Doran down the right side, crosses into the area, Bryan heads it towards the far post, Khan is there and heads it in! 1-0

30': A couple nice passes by Bristol Rovers lead to a shot from 18 yards out by MC Batt and Capitani can't get to it... a nice goal for them. 1-1

HALF: We've got 9 shots but have only managed to put 2 on target. They have 2 shots only. We've got 64% of the possession and are dominating every category, but not finishing well enough.

We attack all second half, Gordon in for a very tired Doran midway through the half but I insist on resting most of my key players and want to see these guys find a goal, but they simply can't and we're going to have a replay.

Bristol Rovers 1 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (7.3)
Goal: Khan
Assist: Bryan (6.7)
Notables: Heywood (7.0), Doran (7.0)


We cost ourselves an extra few days of rest at some point for a replay with this one but I am insistent on being fully rested for Chelsea in a few days.

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by Radii

December 31st, 2022

FA Cup Third Round

Ipswich (6th, EPL) @ Bristol Rovers(13th, L1)

We're 2:5 favorites, they are 13:2 to win and 11:4 to draw today. We play Chelsea in the League Cup Semis in 4 days, we are using this match for rest.

GK: Capitani
D: Heywood/Welsh/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Mariga/Smith/Doran
F: Khan/Bryan

Full backups today except for Capitani. Commentary only today.

20': 5 shots with a clear cut chance that Doran couldn't finish so far.

22': Doran down the right side, crosses into the area, Bryan heads it towards the far post, Khan is there and heads it in! 1-0

30': A couple nice passes by Bristol Rovers lead to a shot from 18 yards out by MC Batt and Capitani can't get to it... a nice goal for them. 1-1

HALF: We've got 9 shots but have only managed to put 2 on target. They have 2 shots only. We've got 64% of the possession and are dominating every category, but not finishing well enough.

We attack all second half, Gordon in for a very tired Doran midway through the half but I insist on resting most of my key players and want to see these guys find a goal, but they simply can't and we're going to have a replay.

Bristol Rovers 1 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (7.3)
Goal: Khan
Assist: Bryan (6.7)
Notables: Heywood (7.0), Doran (7.0)


We cost ourselves an extra few days of rest at some point for a replay with this one but I am insistent on being fully rested for Chelsea in a few days.

And another inflated-ticket price sellout! Good for the bottom line at least!

[Radii]

-- Our new youth AM, David Ros, joins the squad as the transfer window opens. We complete our $950,000 transfer to Osasuna in Spain. Ros comes in and begins training with the U18's immediately. Our scouts view of him has gone way up since we bought him as well, our initial impressions were 3* potential, no one views him as lower than 3 1/2* now and a couple guys give him 4 1/2* potential. If he gets anywhere close to that he'll outshine Adagsmar/Hughes/Crespo with ease.

-- In other youth news, our young ST Eoin Darcy, a very promising striker who has helped lead Shrewsbury to a very strong position in their first year in the Championship, has picked up the most severe injury I've seen over the entire course of this dynasty. He has a broken leg and is out for 6 months.

FA Cup Fourth Round Draw

-- An unfortunate draw for us after making the quarterfinals the last two years in a row with pretty easy roads into the later rounds. If we beat Bristol Rovers we're going to be traveling to Man Utd.

January Update

-- We play on the 4th, 7th, 11th, 14th, 17th, 21st, 24th, and 29th... 8 matches! 4th and 17th are League Cup, 11th is our FA Cup Replay. If we win our replay against Bristol Rovers we'll likely have another league match postponed into February.

-- The board is delighted (down from "absolutely delighted") with my leadership. Our League Cup win over Newcastle is the highlight, and our league loss to Huddersfield is the lowlight.

-- We actually turned a profit last month, just $275,000.

January 4th, 2023

League Cup Semi-Final First Leg

Ipswich (6th, EPL) @ Chelsea (1st, EPL)

Chelsea are massive 4:7 favorites at home in the first leg of this semifinal. We are 4:1 to get a win today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
DM: Clifford
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Constantino

We set out to defend today and maybe Constantino can catch them off guard to steal a goal somewhere.

Chelsea Mileston: "GK Tommaso Pellegrini has not conceded a goal in 532 consecutive minutes of soccer for Chelsea" ... damn.

We're big enough underdogs today that I just tell the team there's no pressure on them and to go have fun.

15': They've got 5 shots already but 4 off target.

17': We have a free kick near midfield. Gordon lobs the free kick high into the penalty area. Constantino goes up for it, so do 3 of their defenders.. and a penalty is given!!! Maybe that's what it takes to get us through, Constantino buries the penalty! 1-0

HALF: We only see one more highlight the entire half, its a corner for Chelsea that they head over. We're doing everything right here. Chelsea shoots 6 times, 5 of them in the first 15 minutes or so. We only have 2 shots, one is the penalty that gave us the 1-0 lead. We'll just keep doing what we're doing, we know Chelsea is going to put pressure on us but we've got our best team out there and just have to withstand it.

47': They build up after kickoff and end up settling for a shot from 25 yards out from ST Balotelli, its a strong shot but Capitani saves it and we clear.

55': Two dangerous clearances and two saves by Capitani but still they don't score. Capitani deflects a shot and we clear horizontally instead of vertically out of the area..

75': Donnelly is hurt.

81': Hughes in for Crespo (Hughes is a stronger defender). Clifford is struggling a bit and I drop Donnely to DMC and Clifford to MC.

Chelsea 0 : 1 Ipswich

And we cause the second half to be a crazy bore which is 100% perfect for us! They shoot 17 times but only put 5 on target, they just did not threaten much at all that second half. We didn't shoot a single time in the half, didn't see a single offensive possession. We got the early penalty and did a brilliant job in defense the rest of the way!!!

Man of the Match: Michele Capitani (8.2)
Goal: Constantino (7.2)
Unassisted
Notables: Kirkland (7.6), Gordon (7.2)

Clifford had a rough second half and finishes with a 5.9 rating, but everyone else had a 6.8-6.9 and were perfectly solid.


Man City and Huddersfield draw 1:1, that first match was at Man City.

Donnelly has no long term injury.

[SirFozzie]

No away goals for Chelsea, so if you score in the return leg, they need three.. nice!

[Radii]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

No away goals for Chelsea, so if you score in the return leg, they need three.. nice!

Hm, the first leg was @Chelsea, so we've got 1 away goal. If they were to win 2:1 at our place they'd win the series, correct?

[Radii]

-- ML Crespo has played 18 matches for us this year and has a rating of 7.24. 14 league matches with a 7.09 rating there. 2 goals/2 assists/1 man of the match award. I've been very happy with his play obviously. He's on loan from Napoli. We have a clause in the loan with an option to purchase him for $4.1M during the loan. I decide to go ahead and do that now to try to lock up his services. He's very clearly earned it. There's another clause with Crespo that allows Barcelona to match any offer, so if they choose to go after him they'll get a shot as well. I'm assuming they will not be interested, but we'll see.

January 7th, 2023

Ipswich (10-5-5, 7th) @ Watford (3-2-14, 20th)

We're only 6:4 favorites here on the road, Watford are 13:8. We beat them 3:0 at home earlier int he year in league play, then took penalties to get through the 4th round in the league cup. We haven't played quite as perfectly lately but I'm still really surprised to only be slight favorites here. Our FA Cup replay is in 4 days, we'll go backups there and can go pretty strong here.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Crespo/Crespo/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

We do make a couple changes here, Donnelly got hurt last match, no long term effects but a bit slow to recover and he could use the day off. Clifford is in as a result. Heywood DR, and Khan/Constantino up front.

1': We kick off, go straight forward, Mills ahead to Constantino, he gets by one man, runs with another defender into the area, its not a clear cut chance at all but its a great finish to beat the keeper! We may have a new record there, that's a 21 second goal. 1-0

25': After a little back and forth, a couple saves from Capitani, we get off a counter attack here, a ball to midfield for Constantino, he dribbles forward a bit and then finds Khan open further ahead. Khan into the area, its our first clear cut chance and Khan beats the keeper! 2-0

35': We give one back here, a buildup right down the middle for Watford, Aldrovandi takes hte blame here missing a header as midfielder Mohammed receives a pass in the area, he controls it well and shoots far post, beating Capitani. 2-1

HALF: We have 7 shots with 3 on target, 59% of the possession and are passing and tackling quite well today. Watford only had 3 early shots but finished the half strong trying to get back into it, they've got 6 shots now. No changes at the half.

53': They have a corner, we clear but its a really poor clearance, I really thought we were about to trigger a counterattack here but Crespo has a really crappy header, they pass back into the area.. they have a man in the 6 yard box, we're crowded around and he doesn't have anything easy here, but Aldrovandi commits a foul and its a penalty... their ST Brooks steps up to take it... Capitani saves!!! We clear it away.

59': They build up on offense and there's a really nice through ball to ST Banton, it looks like Mattle gets the blame here and they even up the match. 2-2

62': We're attacking as the highlight opens, Constantino dribbling through their defense, into the area, near the right baseline, he tries to shot from a super narrow angle, its saved but there's a rebound, Gordon is there and puts the rebound in the net!! 3-2

63': Wow, come on guys. They kick off and go... and its on Mattle again, a pass out wide left, cross into the 6 yard box, trivial finish. 3-3 Mattle misses an interception.

75': Attack, win this.

80': midfielder Carlisle with a yellow, I didn't note it earlier but its his second and we're up a man.

81': O'Brien and Welsh in for Aldrovandi and Mattle. Mariga in for Mills.

86': Mariga with a shot from 20 yards out, saved and turned back for a corner... they clear the corner but we recover. Kirkland passes to Mariga, he puts it into the area, Constantino runs onto it just a few feet from the keeper, he shoots but has no angle to do anything. Its blocked... the rebound falls to Khan though and Khan scores easily!!! 4-3

We come away with a win in a wild one.

Watford 3 : 4 Ipswich

Whew, craziness.

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.1)
Goals: Khan 2 (8.8), Constantino, Gordon (7.6)
Assists: Constantino 3, Mills (6.9)

Aldrovandi 6.5, Mattle 6.7, they both frustrated the hell out of me but came out looking... ok at least. Everyone else on the team 6.7-6.8.


-- We briefly move up to 5th, but we have 1 more played than Man City and 2 more played than Man Utd who sit 6th/7th.


New Signing

-- Just a brief mention to make it official, Juan Pablo Crespo is happy to stay full time at Ipswich. We pay Napoli $4.1M and will pay Crespo $22,000/wk for 4 years (the rest of this season + 3 more). Crespo is 22, he turns 23 during the offseason in July.

[SirFozzie]

Ah, whoops. yeah, (then again, check the League Cup rules, away goals may not be in effect)

but coming home with a 1-0 lead is even better!

[Radii]

January 11th, 2023

FA Cup Third Round Replay

Bristol Rovers @ Ipswich

We're 1:6 favorites at home today, they are 10:1 dogs. But we have so much going on I once again am relying on my backups to get this done for us.

GK: Capitani
D: Hughes/Welsh/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Smith/Doran
F: Bendtner/Bryan

Youngster Smith is called up and its backups at literally every position but keeper.

We attack.

12': 3 early shots, one solid look from Clifford, but a nice save by their keeper.

21': Two attacks by Bristol Rovers, one generates a very close range shot but its out wide right and at a tough angle, Capitani makes two nice saves.

23': We build up on offense, Smith is 30-35 yards out, he plays a ball deep into the penalty box, Doran runs in from the right, he gets to the ball just outside the 6 yard box, drills it near post and its a goal! 1-0

26': Chris Bryan receives a pass near midfield, a long run through their defense, by two defenders and into the penalty area, he finishes well once he gets there! 2-0

HALF: We close out the half easily after that second goal. We've got 11 shots, 5 on target, and 63% of hte possession. Bristol Rovers have 3 shots and seem like they don't have much of a chance left.

49': Clifford is hurt.

76': Mattle in for a tired Smith, 5-3-2 the rest of the way.

We could have scored a few more times in the second half, Bryan misses a couple clear cut chances but we don't come close to allowing anything.

Ipswich 2 : 0 Bristol Rovers

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.9)
Goals: Bryan, Doran (8.4)
Assists: Bendtner (7.8), Smith (6.9)
Notables: Capitani (7.1), McKerr (7.4), Hughes (7.4)


-- We receive $110,000 for winning today.

-- We've drawn Man U in the FA Cup 4th round. With Chelsea in the league cup, Man U in the FA Cup plus our league schedule January has turned into a crazy month where we play Chelsea twice, Man Utd twice and Arsenal once.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Radii

... a crazy month where we play Chelsea twice, Man Utd twice and Arsenal once.

But other than that Mrs. Lincoln ...

[Radii]

-- Interesting Decision #1: Birmingham offer me $8.5M for Jack Hughes. Now I won't take that, but I could counter with $15M and might lose him or might not. Or I can reject the bid. Hughes has value for me for sure, he's still young (22), very determined and his skillset is solid. He's got a 6.86 rating in 16 matches (8 off the bench), though with Adagsmar returning his playtime will drop. I think I want to keep him, I'm waffling though.

-- Interesting Decision #2: On the 14th we host Man Utd in a league match. 17th, host Chelsea in the League Cup semis. 21st, @ Man Utd in the FA Cup. Our starters won't all be good for all 3 of those, so how do we split our focus? I know I want my best lineup out there for Chelsea no matter what and I think I have to balance around that.

January 14th, 2023

Man Utd(11-7-3, 4th) @ Ipswich(11-5-5, 7th)

We're 2 points behind Man U and still totally in the race for 3rd or 4th if everything were to break our way. Man U are even money favorites today though, we're 11:5 to get a win. We had a fairly epic match at their place back in September, they went up 2:0 at the half but Constantino scored 69th and 88th minute goals to get us a tie.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Hughes/Mariga/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

We leave Constantino and Donnelly out of the lineup today, Constantino will be available for the second half if needed. Hughes and Heywood start for Crespo/Jackson as well.

5': We attempt a pass into the area once and they clear it away, we recover and build up again, Mills to Khan, he's 25 yards out, passes to Bryan near the penalty spot, their DC is on him and goes for an aggressive tackle... misses completely and Bryan is free for a clear cut chance, he finishes and we score early! 1-0

13': Watching non stop highlights today. Both teams are tackling really well and neither team can get any sustained possession going, we're just trading it back and forth and it seems like eventually someone is going to get a breakaway the second a tiny mistake is made.

21': Bryan shoots from 25 yards out, the keeper had come out a little for i dunno why, Bryan tries a shot over his head, their keeper tips the ball... and it floats towards the goal, but lands out of play about a foot wide.

38': We build up on offense, a pass ahead to Bryan, he jukes by two defenders and gets a solid shot from 18 yards out, its saved, the rebound comes out wide right, Neil Gordon fires it back in... its on target, but the keeper leaps and redirects the ball... again just barely, it hits the crossbar and goes out. Its a corner but we can't do anything with it.

44': khan with a long run down the left, a cross in, Bryan wins the header... their keeper is diving all over the place today, he makes another great save and we earn a corner, but can't do anything with it.

HALF: We play a spectacular first half, if only we could have gotten more than one goal. We've got 8 shots, all 8 are on target and we've earned 9 corners (they have 0). We allowed 2 shots, one on target and neither showed up in a highlight. Chris Bryan is having a brilliant game so far, we just need him to finish one more and get us a 2 goal lead here.

59': They try to build up but Mills makes a great tackle and kicks off the break, he passes to Bryan at midfield and Bryan takes off, he's by one man who tries to make the takle right there and he's got a lot of room. One DC begins to come over to close down but Khan is charging down the middle, the defender goes to cut off the easy pass/goal and its Bryan vs their keeper one on one... Bryan pulls up 15 yards out, shoots near post, and scores!!! 2-0

64': We can't keep the lead at 2 goals for long, a nice move with 4 quick passes sees a hole open up, a pass to ST Steer and he gets a clear cut chance and a finish. 2-1

72': Doran in for Gordon.

80': We'll defend.

We see them put one long shot on target but that's it the rest of the way!!

Ipswich 2 : 1 Man Utd

I've seen Chris Bryan do some really good things before but this feels like a huge breakout game for him against one of the best teams in the world. He was just incredible today.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.0)
Goals: Bryan 2
Assists: Khan (7.2), Mills (7.5)
Notables: Aldrovandi (7.1)

Khan seems to be finding his game a little as well.


We bounce up to 5th with this win. Tottenham are 3rd with 43 points but one more game than everyone else. Man City, Ipswich, Huddersfield have 41 points, Man U 40. Quite a tight race! 16 to go, looooong ways.

[Radii]

-- West Brom bid $10.25M for Jack Hughes. I'm not responding to these offers btw, I'm going to wait until forced.

-- Our gate receipts for the month are currently at $2.978M. Just noting that to see what it goes up to after this our home game against Chelsea.

-- Gordon Donnelly is once again unsettled and wants a new challenge. I try the same response as last time, that I want to bring Ipswich up to a level that matches his expectations. I can't imagine that will work many times, we'll see what happens.

-- Yup. Donnelly refuses to back down, he officially requests a transfer. I decide to accept it but I set my asking price at 3 times his value. He's valued at just over $8M, I want $24M. I love this guy, but he's been making noise about maybe wanting a new challenge for 2+ years, so this is probably inevitable. For now though I am going to try to get maximum value out of him.

January 17th, 2023

League Cup Semifinal Second Leg

Chelsea (0) @ (1) Ipswich

Chelsea are only slim 6:4 favorites to win today, we are 13:8, with a draw 2:1.

Chelsea are 2nd right now but they have 3 less matches played than Arsenal in league play and are only 4 points down. But who cares about that right now, the winner of this series makes the League Cup Final! We're up 1:0. Any draw or win gets us through. A 1:0 score after 90 would see us going to extra time/penalties. Any other loss (1 goal where more are scored, 2:1 etc) or a 2 goal loss, would see us losing out, as away goals are in play here.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
DM: Clifford
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Constantino

Donnelly picked a really shitty time to get angry, his morale sucks all of a sudden. I make an extra MC available off the bench as a result, both Mariga and my youngster Smith, who I don't want to play today but if Donnelly decides to pout I will. 4-1-4-1 entirely because it worked at Chelsea to hold them scoreless.

We'll defend.

2': My biggest fear right here. They advance straight down the pitch, ST Thomas has it 20 yards out, he embarrasses Clifford, going straight by him to get a clear cut chance and a goal. 0-1

22': they build up on offense, a pass to ST Hamel, he fires from out left, 20 yards from goal... its a strong shot bending inward.. no way anyone stops that, its into the right side of the net. 0-2

32': Khan comes in for Clifford, we go back to a 4-4-2 and now we know we have to score.

HALF: We quickly move to the half after that. I try to rile the team up, Chelsea has an amazing defense but we've got to get 2 goals now. They shoot 7 times int he half to our 2, 55/45 possession. They got two really good goals, one one which was just a world class strike, and we'll see what we can do.

55': We earn a corner kick as Mills tries to find Constantino in the area, they clear behind. Gordon takes the free kick to the far post... Aldrovandi is there, he wins the header over their defenders... and puts it into the net!!! 1-2 We've got an opening.

72': We build up on offense, Kirkland to Donnelly, ahead to Mills, he's 28-30 yards out or so, he passes ahead to Constantino at the edge of the penalty box. Constantino is between two defenders in a little hole that is open for god knows why, but he can't move into the area, they'll close down instantly. He shoots from there, its not a pacey shot.. but the precision is perfect, its by the diving keeper and into the left side of the net!!! 2-2

God what do we do now. do we defend and let the press us? Do we keep pushing? do I bring another midfielder back in or stay in the 4-4-2? Seriously, the game is paused and I'm staring at my lineup, fairly clueless! I stay in my 4-4-2 and switch to a counter attacking strategy.

76': Mariga in for Mills who is tired.

78': a promising attack as we steal the ball in midfield but Mariga kills it with a silly 25 yard shot.

80': Their man Thomas with a strike from 20 yards, Capitani makes a diving save and sends it behind, we clear the corner.

89': Aldrovandi with a key tackle to slow a counter attack, they still generate a shot but its sent well wide.

90': We give up a corner heading a cross behind. 3 minutes of added time. They commit a handball on the corner.

92': they try to build up again but Gordon makes a nice interception and we actually attack. After minimal stalling Jackson plays a cross in, its headed away and its a corner. They head the corner out of the danger zone but we control it and build up, trying to maintain possession til the final whistle now.

94': We get a throwin at the 93 minute mark, pass it around for a little bit, and around 93:45 full time is called!!!

Ipswich (3) 2 : 2 (2) Chelsea

Series score in parenthesis, so its a 2:2 draw today, since we won 1:0 at Chelsea we win the series 3:2 and advance to the League Cup finals!!!

Boy, we sure as shit made that dramatic, didn't we?

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.6)
Goals: Aldrovandi (7.3), Constantino (6.9)
Assists: Gordon, Mills (6.9)
Notables: Capitani (7.6)

The rest of the team ends up in the 6.8-6.9 range. Chelsea ends up with 11 shots, 8 on target. We have 6 shots/5 on target. They had 3 clear cut chances, Capitani stopped two of them (one of their goal was a really difficult long range effort). We had one clear cut chance that I assume was the Aldrovandi goal since it was a header at close range.

Seriously, we fall behind by two goals very quickly, change our formation, get a goal off a corner kick, which we basically never do, and erase a 2:0 deficit. What a match!


After a 1:1 draw at Man City, Huddersfield wins 3:1 at home. Man City are out and its going to be a Huddersfield - Ipswich final!!

[Radii]

-- The FA Cup is definitely more prestigious than the League Cup, but, the League Cup winner qualify automatically for the EURO cup in Europe. Huddersfield and Ipswich are both currently in the top 7 but neither would be favored or expected to make the Champions League(though anything is still possible). Winning the League Cup and getting an automatic spot would take a huge amount of pressure off us the rest of the way.

-- The League Cup Final will be February 26th. Its only 40 days away but our schedule remains freaking packed. We play 8 matches between now and then. If we can somehow advance in the FA Cup, maybe 9 matches. If there's an FA Cup Replay, maybe 10 matches! The final is in front of upwards of 90,000 fans in Wembly Stadium.

-- Our gate receipts are now at $3.710M for the month. Looks like we made about $740,000 on that match.

-- Whatever the reason, more success this year, the expanded stadium available all season, etc... our gate receipts this year currently sit at $17.05M with a long ways to go in the season. Last year we took $17.87M from the gate. Can't wait to see the final numbers there.

-- I stop to look at guys with expiring contracts that I might be able to get to sign for me for free going into next year. I do a bunch of scouting. I am mainly interested in two MC's that are very unhappy at their current clubs, though Im scouting a number of other players to see if I can find a bargain out there.

-- I end up rejecting the offers for Jack Hughes outright. Between the league cup and our play in the EPL, there is just too high a chance that we make Europe next year and if I was on the fence before, Hughes value as a rotation DL behind Kirkland is just way too high.

-- We're going to be going on short'ish rest for a good while, a few matches with 5 days rest but nothing more than that for our next like 7 or so.

-- One of the MC's I was going after reasonably hard signs with Porto, and the other has no interest at all in joining Ipswich. It seems unlikely that I'll make any sort of move with any of the guys I scouted.

January 21st, 2023

FA Cup Fourth Round

Ipswich @ Man Utd

Man U are 4:5 favorites at Old Trafford today, we are 3:1 to win. We just beat them in a spectacular home match.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Doran
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Heywood starts for Jackson, Adagsmar and Doran in for Crespo/Gordon, and we run Bendtner/Constantino up top today. We'll counterattack today.

1': They kick off but Mills makes a great tackle to win the ball for us almost right away. Doran builds up down the right, avoiding a tackle along the way, ahead to Constantino, it seems like the defense is converging in a way that should leave Bendtner wide open... but Constantino cuts back right and gets into the area, he jukes one defender and tries to do it all himself, an early clear cut chance... but its saved.

11': buildup down the left, Bednter to Kirkland to Donnelly, into the area, trying for Constantino, the ball deflects off a defender, Constantino and their star MC Wynter go for it... Constantino goes down, penalty!! Constantino steps up for the PK... and they save it. 2 clear cut chances for our star scorer, no goals. Damn.

18': They spend a long time attacking but we make many timely tackles/interceptions to keep them at bay. Heywood is impressing in highlights here.

20': After a foul by Mils they have a free kick about 35 yards out well wide left. They pass straight ahead to MC Wynter, he lays it off to defender Digne who came forward for the set piece, and he's in the area all alone and scores an easy goal. 0-1

25': We build up on offense, Donnelly sends it wide to Adagsmar, he plays a beauty of a ball to the near edge of the 6 yard box, Bendtner times his break perfectly, shoots near post and beats the keeper! 1-1

42': Yellow for Kirkland.

HALF: We allow 9 shots, 4 on target, they seem to control most of the half after our early attacking moves. At the time of Bendtner's goal we had 3 shots, all clear cut chances. We finish the half with 5 shots. They have a 59/41 possession edge and we're only completing 61% of our passes, we need to control the ball a bit better.

53': Free kick just outside the area for us, Doran takes it and sends it inches wide.

65': Bryan is in for Constantino, who hasn't had the best day.

78': Mills with a foul.. he's already got a yellow today, and he's given his second one, crap! That's a red and we've got to withstand the last 12 minutes with 10 men. Clifford is in for Bendtner, 4-4-1.

83': Their star ST Wray gets a pretty good look from 18 yards out but Capitani makes the save.

90': they earn a corner but we clear. They only keep one defender back with Bryan and Bryan wins the ball, skips by a tackle and he's got a free run from midfield in... he pulls up around the edge of the box as their keeper rushes out... shoots... its deflected by the keeper and just wide for a corner. Our 4th clear cut chance, damn!!!!

What the hell, our schedule isn't crowded enough, its another replay!

Man Utd 1 : 1 Ipswich

Their goal scorer is man of the match.

Goal: Bendtner (7.2)
Assist: Adagsmar (6.9)
Notable: Aldrovandi (7.1)

Doran 6.3, Constantino 6.3. Usually I keep Constantino in all 90 minutes even when not playing his best b/c he is so crazy explosive, but I decided to bring Bryan in since he had a hot hand against Man U from his last match,and he almost won it for us.


-- Steven Mills is suspended for our next match after picking up a red card. He wasn't playing our next match anyway, fatigue was catching up to him.

-- Our replay is scheduled for Feb 1st. The bad news with that is it causes a league match with Exeter to be moved back to Feb 22nd. We were going to play a league match on the 18th and then have a week off before the League Cup Final, it would have been our first full week off since we played on Dec 4th and again on Dec 13th... we've been going at a hectic pace for a good while here, and this is without adding Europe into the mix!

-- Still, the prospect of a replay at home to bring in even more money will be nice. Presumably we'll sell out vs Man U.

[Radii]

New Signing

This transfer won't take place until the offseason:

23 y/o DC/DMC/MC Neil Bartlett - $0 to Rangers - will make $45,000/wk - Bartlett is a promising younger defender/midfielder, I feel like his skillset works better in the midfield though we'll see when we he joins the squad. Bartlett is unhappy in Scotland and ready to make the move up to a bigger club, he jumps at the chance to come to England. He's currently valued at $3.7M, so hopefully even if he doesn't work out on the pitch, we have a good deal here and will make a few million, but clearly I'm hoping for more than that. Mariga is done after this year, Donnelly may or may not be around, and we may or may not be in Europe next year. Given all those factors this feels like a strong pickup for us.

Pysical: Pace 17/Accel 10 (never seen that before). Jumping 17, all others 13-15.
Mental: Determination 16, Positioning 16, Work Rate 16, most others betwen 11-14. Composure just 9.
Technical: Heading 15/Marking 13/Passing 13/Tackling 10/first touch 13.

His lack of tackling makes me wonder how he'd do at DC. If he's best there though we'll make it work in the end. He could take over as my default DMC when I run one and if he does work out in the midfield it'll be great to have someone who can win headers there.

FA Cup 5th Round Draw

The winner of the Man Utd/Ipswich replay will be home in the next round of the FA Cup and will host EPL Side West Brom... the team we're playing right now.

New Signing

Another signing for next year.

28 y/o MRC Darryl Hutchinson - $0 to Grenoble Foot 38 (French Ligue 1) -- Hutchinson came up with Newcastle but never played for their senior team. Grenoble bought him 6 years ago and he's been solid for them with 7.00-7.10 ratings in league play and he's also played in the Euro Cup 3 times. Hutchinson is basically Aaron Doran's replacement, Doran isn't coming back.

Physical: 14 pace/15 acel/16 sta/17 str.
Mental: Determination 14/Teamwork 15/Work Rate 16. All ratings 11-15 but Bravery (9) and Influence (9).
Technical: Passing 15/Dribbling 15/First Touch 14/Crossing 11/Marking 12/Tackling 12.


So we didn't land the top targets I found but we do pick up two new assets for free for next season. These guys will both serve a purpose whether or not we end up in the Euro Cup.

[Radii]

January 24th, 2023

West Brom(11-4-8, 8th) @ Ipswich(12-5-5, 6th)

We are 4:5 favorites today, West Brom are 3:1 to win. We're 2-1-5 lifetime against them and lost last time we played 1:0 at their house. West Brom has mostly been in the EPL the last decade, but last year they were down in the Championshp and they haven't finished better than 13th in forever, but here they're up in 8th. There's a huge difference between west brom and the top 7 though. All the top 7 have +17 goal differential or better, West Brom is +2.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Clifford/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

West Brom's Peio leads them with 7 goals, Trevor Bartlett 6 goals, Javier 5 goals.

Mills is suspended, Donnelly tired, I go with Clifford and decide to give my youth MC Craig Smith another start today. Khan/Bryan up front. Our next two matches are Arsenal and Man Utd again so Constantino needs today off.

2': They kick off but we win the ball fairly early on, we try a quick counter down the left but can't get it going right away. We pull it back out and build up, Kirkland ends up playing a cross to the far post from out left, Neil Gordon gets free and wins a header.. but he hits the crossbar.

8': midfielder Hood with a yellow for them.

10': We build up on offense, Clifford to Smith, he's 20 yards out, pretty much dead center, he cuts out to the right, their midfielder Hood tries a tackle and misses completely, Smith continues deep into the area, shoots, and its a goal!! That's Craig Smith's first goal for Ipswich. 1-0

15': Yellow for defender Cazaux.

18': Craig Smith steals a ball as they try to push it out of their end... just outright tackle/win the ball 30 yards from their goal, he passes to Bryan immediately, Bryan is in the area, our first clear cut chance and its a goal!! 2-0

31': Khan with a shot from 20 yards out, saved by the diving keeper. Corner is pushed out, we recover but can't do anything with it.

47': Aldrovandi with a yellow.

HALF: We've got 9 shots today, 4 on target. We've limited them to just 3 shots with 1 on target. I hope our lead is solid here, Doran in for Gordon, Hughes in for Kirkland.

50': We have a throwin in their end, taken to Khan, passed to Smith, Smith makes a little move and shoots from 20 yards out, its a rocket of a shot into the left side of the net, holy crap this kid... wow!!!! 3-0

68': Chris Bryan is hurt, he'll stay on.

75': They get one back, a long run down the left, cross to the 6 yard box and a header for backup striker Peio and its a goal. 3-1

78': Jackson plays a ball up to Bryan to start our offense and Bryan just does it all himself from 30 yards out, he dodges two defenders while making his run into the area, shoots from 15 yards out and beats the keeper! 4-1

81': They play a long ball forward, Aldrovandi just screws it up horribly and allows their ST Peio to win the ball before he clears it away, he makes a quick run into the area and scores easily. 4-2

We finish it off from there.

Ipswich 4 : 2 West Brom

Man of the Match: Craig Smith (9.3)
Goals: Smith 2, Bryan 2 (8.8)
Assists: Smith, Bryan, Jackson (7.0), Clifford (6.8)
Notables: Capitani (7.2), Aldrovandi (7.3)

Aldrovandi was well on his way to an 8.0+ rating until they scored their two goals. He made 3 key tackles and won 3 key headers and made 6 interceptions, a very strong game despite the errors.


Chris Bryan just turned 20 3 weeks ago. Craig Smith turned 18 back in November. I've used Smith sparingly but he's been absolutely brilliant.

[Alf]

All things are clicking.

[Simbo Klice]

Wow, it's really starting to look like you're going to take this thing all the way From the Bottom Up to the top! And only 2 teams to do it, impressive!

[Radii]

-- We have 5 days off between West Brom and Arsenal, that's the longest rest we've had in awhile.

-- Donnelly's morale is back up to very good, so he's fine to play, though he's unhappy and "expects to leave the team". No offers for him. Mills/Kirkland/Gordon are all much heavier transfer targets traditionally.

January 29th, 2023

Ipswich(13-5-5, 5th) @ Arsenal (17-3-4, 1st)

Chelsea only have 1 EPL loss and have only allowed 7 goals in 21 matches. They have 3 less matches played due to all their cup play I assume, but I thought awhile back Chelsea was absolutely running away with the league and I was dead wrong about that. If Chelsea wins their 3 extra matches they're only up 3 points on Arsenal with 14 to play still. And from our perspective we're 2 points behind 3rd and in a 4 way tie for 4th with the 2nd best goal differential but only by 1 goal. Stealing a point from Arsenal would be huge.

Arsenal are 4:7 favorites today, we are 4:1 to get a win. We gave Arsenal one of their 4 losses at Portman Road earlier in the year, allowing a 1st minute goal but scoring 2 later to win 2-1. We give up too many early leads! But anyway. We're on TV Today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bendtner/Constantino

Arsenal are led by Hans Nooij with 13 goals and Bugra Yildirim with 11. Nooij is now making almost 1/3 of my team's payroll at $275,000/wk. His current value is $50 Million. Yildirim makes $225,000/wk and is valued at $37.5M. Both are 25 years old.

Donnelly/Mills/Bendtner/Constantino are all back in today, the rest of the lineup is unchanged. We counter attack.

8': Nooij flies by Aldrovandi to get into the area and earns a clear cut chance, Capitani with a great stop, there's a rebound, another clear cut chance, shot is blocked and we clear. Whew.

23': Neil Gordon is hurt and forced to come off immediately. Jackson moves up to MR, Heywood in at DR.

25': ST Bergsma receives a pass about 35 yards out and just slowly comes forward, we can't win the ball, Donnelly misses a tackle and he scoots into the area, shoots and scores. Not a clear cut chance, a solid finish before our defense closed in. Our tackling is terrible right now. 0-1

32': An attempt to send a ball forward by Mattle is blocked, Nooij recovers the ball 30 yards out, we track him well but he gets a powerful shot off at the edge of the area, Capitani with a good save.

39': A long ball on a counter for Constantino,he's down the left side... waits for help, a pass to Crespo...to Mills at the edge of the box unmarked, he fires a shot... off the crossbar! By far the best thing I've seen for us.

HALF: They have 9 shots, 5 of them on target, 2 clear cut chances in that one early flurry. We're lucky to not be losing by more. We shoot 3 times, all off target. Constantino and Donnelly not playing well here so far, the defense is ok. Early highlights were disgusting, no ability to take the ball away at all, but our numbers improved and we saw less long highlights and chances for them later on.

68': Yellow for MC Ramsey. Khan comes in for Bendtner.

68': We get a free kick 20 yards out, Crespo takes it and puts it on target but their keeper dives and stops it.

70': Attacking time.

73': They counter attack after winning a ball as we try to build up, one long ball and its lal over, Yildirim runs onto it behind our defense, we close in on him, he centers for Nooij who has a very easy finish. 0-2

We can't do anything here.

Arsenal 2 : 0 Ipswich

Nooij is man of the match for them.

Capitani puts up a 7.1 for us. Constantino 6.3, Khan and Gordon 6.4 in short work each, otherwise the ratings aren't that awful.

Injury Update

Neil Gordon is out 3-4 weeks, crap.

[kingfc22]

This is getting me fired up to continue my own rags to riches story in FM10.

[Radii]

Captain Change

-- My assistant feedback during our last match pointed out that many players aren't comfortable with Gordon Donnelly being their captain anymore. That sucks, when Donnelly was happy I felt like having him on the field as captain was one of the keys to our success, so many players mention his influence in their personal pages. Its the main reason I resisted the temptation to put 20 Influence Clifford in as one of my captains. But now there's no reason to not change. Stuart Kirkland is my new team captain and Conor Clifford is vice captain.

-- Interesting results.. about half the team and most of the starting lineup is "happy at the appointment of Stuart Kirkland as captain." Kirkland himself however, "feels he is being put under too much pressure by being appointed captain at a young age". Kirkland is 23. Hopefully it doesn't impact his play much.

-- Rio Ferdinand, an exceptional defensive and tactical coach for me, may have an interest in coaching at Birmingham. They make him an offer, and I offer him a new contract. We'll see what happens there.

February Update

-- First lets review an incredible January. We played 2 League Cup Matches, 2 FA Cup Matches and 4 league matches. Chelsea twice, Man U twice, Arsenal once, and West Brom was a top 10 team when we met as well. Our results? Still in both cups for now, 4 wins, 3 draws, and only 1 loss and that was a road loss to the #1 team in the league in Arsenal. We haven't had a full week off in 13 matches. We've played on 2 days rest once and 3 days rest five times going back to mid December. This has been an exhilarating couple months!

-- We play on the 1st, 4th, 7th, 15th, 18th, 22nd and 26th. If we can beat Man U in the FA Cup we'll also play on the 11th. Our match on the 1st is the FA Cup replay. The 26th is the big League Cup Final at Wembly. Our first 3 league matches in a row are on the road but all against lower rated teams, it'll be very interesting to see how we come out there. We made it through January in 6th and 3rd place is still in sight.

-- Michele Capitani is noted for training poorly last month. WTF? Reflexes and Positioning have both dropped Hopefully those are some temporary thing but he's fully fit.

-- Chris Bryan is 3rd in Player of the Month voting for January! He's also 3rd in Young Player of the Month voting.

-- Arsenal ran through January with a 5-1-0 record in league play and their manager is manager of the month. I am second though!

-- The board is back to Absolutely Delighted with me. Our League Cup win over Chelsea the highlight. Our 1:1 draw with Bristol Rovers (even though we won the replay) is the complaint.

-- We lost $2.67M last month. We made $6.3M in gate receipts, one of the first times I've ever seen our main source of income be something other than TV Revenue in the middle of the season (outside of when we have sold a big player). The loss is due to the $4M we put out to purchase Crespo.


February 1st, 2023

FA Cup Fourth Round Replay

Man Utd @ Ipswich

We are 5:4 favorites today at home, a drastic change from our last match. Man U 7:4 to win. We are 1-2-0 against them this year so far, tying twice on the road and winning at home.

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

Lots of midfield changes, Hughes in for Crespo, Clifford in for Donnelly, Doran starts for the injured Gordon. Khan up front next to Constantino. Standard mindset.

16': Mattle with a long ball, Constantino gets behind the defense and is going to have a great chance here, their keeper immediately charges out, Constantino manages a shot but the keeper is just a couple feet away by the time he gets it off... and Constantino can't put it by him, its off the keeper and cleared to safety.

24': We build up, they tackle away a couple efforts to get the ball forward, Hughes with a pass to Khan, Khan is 20 yards out, he puts it into the 6 yard box... their keeper doesn't come get it!? expecting a clearance I guess, Constantino gets to the ball at the same time as their defender, but Constantino is quicker, he puts his boot on it first and pokes it into the net!!! I *think* that's a catastrophic decision by their keeper, that was slowly developing and the keeper could have easily picked it up. 1-0

26': They try to attack, midfielder Stabile has it 30 yards out and makes a run instead of passing to a forward, we don't react well at all, one solid move to get by a man and he's wide open in the area and scores. 1-1

34': Two clear cut chances for Ipswich! Mills gets free in the area after a throwin, but his shot hits the right post... Doran to the rebound... shoots it right at the keeper. ugggggh!

HALF: Wild match so far, we seemed in solid control for much of it, shooting 4 times before they got a shot off, we end the half with 7 shots/5 on target. They have 6 shots with just 2 on target, half of theirs from long range. One solid individual effort on their end (with what seemed like a little mental breakdown/super poor reaction by us to let it happen), and we've had a couple incredible chances not finished. Still, tied at the half.

52': Constantino is hurt, his fitness is trashed. He can stay in but Bryan will come in soon.

54': They earn a corner, its crossed to the penalty spot, they win the header and its rocketed at Capitani, he makes a reflex save, whew.

55': Bryan is in for Constantino and we'll check on him post match.

61': Goal kick, Bryan heads it to Khan, he dodges a tackle and makes a run into the area, but the keeper saves his shot. We had a great chance there except Bryan positioned himself badly, they got in each other's way after a terrible tackle attempt took one defender out of the play early.

68': We counter after winning a ball in defense, Jackson plays it long down the right side, Bryan is there and takes off, he's only got a couple steps on his man, but he avoids the tackle attempt, gets into the area, shoots near post and scores!!! 2-1

73': They earn their second clear cut chance here, a lot of short passes near the area, finally midfielder Pinho gets free, but his shot is off the left post.

75': Mariga in for an exhausted Mills.

80': A through ball for their star ST Wray, clear cut chance #3 for them... Capitani stops it!

81': They have a throwin near midfield, getting forward quickly, there's a ball into the area for AM Lalkovic, and Capitani can't stop this one.. easy finish. He blew by Mattle with a nice rn there. 2-2

81': Heywood in for Jackson.

88': We counter after clearing out a corner, a ball ahead ot Bryan, he controls it well and moves down the right, Khan runs with him, Bryan draws a defender, passes to Khan near the penalty spot, he tries to score on his first touch, its our 5th clear cut chance... but their keeper gets a hand to it, saved.

93': We earn a corner, they clear it and that should be full time... yep.

END OF 90 MINUTES: Man U with a ridiculous second half barrage. They shoot 9 times, putting all 9 on target in the half. We're up to 11 total shots, 8 on target. Both teams have average ratings over 7. With the attack coming from Man U Capitani has an incredible 9.5 rating right now.

This being the FA Cup Replay, we have two extra time halves and penalties if needed.

There's one highlight in the 1st Extra time period, Mariga shoots from 25 yards out, a really weak effort.

107': We win a corner, they head it out wide, we have a throwin, taken short and crossed into the area, but Mattle heads it wide.

111': We build up on offense. Kinda out of nowhere Heywood plays a ball ahead to Bryan, its inch perfect, Bryan has a man draped all over him, its played to a spot only Bryan can reach it, he gets a half step on his man, shoots from 15 yards out... its by the keeper, GOAL!!!! 3-2

111': We'll defend.

119': They earn a corner but Capitani comes out and grabs the cross as it comes through the 6 yard box.

That's it!!

Ipswich e 3 : 2 Man Utd

The e is notation for a win in extra time for matches that must end with a winner.

Man of the Match: Michele Capitani (9.5)
Goals: Bryan 2 (9.0), Constantino (7.0)
Assists: Khan (7.8), Jackson (7.0), Heywood (6.9)
Notables: Kirkland (7.4), Aldrovandi (7.9), Mattle (7.4), Doran (8.4), Hughes (7.0), Clifford (7.3)

Mills is the only starter under 7.0 today, he scored a 6.9 before coming out.


The Aldrovandi purchase is clearly paying off, if I've never mentioned that before. There's a very consistent patter with him putting up a the best rating amongst our DC's by .3 or .4 or so.


-- That was a hell of a lot of work for $150,000, the reward for advancing to the 5th round.

-- Constantino is out for 10-12 days with an elbow injury. Chris Bryan is on fire and will step into his role.

-- We dont sell out our match, putting 31,052 people in seats today (36,311 is a sellout). But those FA Cup tickets are outrageous. We set a club record for gate receipts today at $1.9M.

-- Our next FA Cup Match is in 10 days. It'll be at home against West Brom, a team we beat 4:2 at home a week ago.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

This is getting me fired up to continue my own rags to riches story in FM10.

Glad you are enjoying it!

[JonInMiddleGA]

The Cup win is nice & all but I think I'm more encouraged by seeing 4 goals scored against West Brom without Constantino in the lineup. That's exciting given the increasingly hectic schedule you're up against.

[Radii]

-- Rio Ferdinand accepts my new contract offer. Presumably that means he won't be ditching us for Birmingham.

February 4th, 2023

Ipswich (13-5-6, 7th) @ Everton (9-7-10, 11th)

We're in 7th but have 1 less match played than the teams above us. We're slim 6:4 favorites over Everton today at their place. We're 3-4-3 lifetime against Everton, goals scored are even perfectly even, 14:14 over the 10 matches. We tied earlier this year, 0:0 at our place.

GK: Capitani
D: Heywood/Mattle/O'Brien/McKerr
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Jackson
F: Bendtner/Bryan

They are led by Brian Kelly with 10 goals, no one else has more than 2 for Everton. With Constantino out our leading league goalscorer is Bendtner with 8, Khan has 4, Bryan only has 4 league goals but 5 more goals in cup play.

Playing 120 minutes 3 days ago has left us really tired. Aldrovandi is out today, Kirkland isn't starting, he's available but I'd rather not need him. Standard mindset on the road here.

14': They build up on offense, try a pass into the area but we push it away, AM Fitzgerald crosses into the area... Kelly is waaaaay behind O'Brien, O'Brien had just headed away a pass attempt and he reacted awfully there. 0-1

30': a long run by Bryan down the right, into the area near the baseline... a lob to the 6 yard box, Bendtner wins a header over 2 defenders, its a veeerrrrrrry slow header but its out of the keeper's reach and into the upper left corner of the net, goal!!! 1-1

41': Everton with a cross and header, Capitani saves it easily though.

HALF: Quickly to the half here. We only have 3 shots, 2 on target. Everton was in control in most of the highlights and shoot 7 times, 3 on target and with 3 clear cut chances (I think I missed one somewhere!). We're tackling really well, 81% success rate there, 50% for them, but we haven't taken advantage building up strong attacking moves. No changes at the half.

50': We earn a corner... then a second... then a third... they clear the third one out.

62': Mariga in for Mills

75': Khan in for Bendtner, Doran in for Jackson. I decide to go aggressive, lets attack and get 3 points here.

88': A great ball from Mariga into the left side of the area for Crespo, he shoots but the keeper stops it easily, there's a rebound, Donnelly tries a shot, but its blocked.

91': Bryan earns us a corner with a run out right. They head the first one behind, corner #2, they clear the second one.

There are 3 late injuries that drag this out to 97 minutes, but neither team can do anything.

Everton 1 : 1 Ipswich

We're really tired, we were weak in a few spots, so getting a draw is really a fine result.

Man of the Match: Anthony Heywood (7.8)
Goal: Bendtner (6.9)
Assist: Bryan (7.2)
Notables: Capitani (7.0), Mattle (7.2)

Heywood with 11 interceptions, two key headers, a really strong game for him. O'Brien had a terrible first half and recovered pretty well to finish with a 6.8 rating.

Most everyone around us tied today as well. Most teams have 26 games played and thus have 12 left. Here's the current standings:

1. Arsenal - 57 pts
2. Chelsea - 54 pts (3 less played)
3. Tottenham - 49 pts
4. Man City - 48 pts
5. Huddersfield - 48 pts
6. Man Utd - 46 pts
7. Ipswich - 45 pts (1 less played)
8. West Brom - 40 pts
9. Sheffield United - 39 pts (1 MORE played)
10. Liverpool - 37 pts


There's a 5 point gap between 7th and 8th and we've got one match in hand. Our goal differential is the worst out of the top 7 but its close. We're +18, Man U +19, Huddersfield +22, Man City +25, Tottenham +20. Man City have a noteworthy edge there.

[Radii]

February 7th, 2023

Ipswich (13-6-6, 7th) @ Newcastle(6-10-10, 15th)

Newcastle never recovered from their poor start, still in 15th, only 5 points clear of relegation. This is a team that has made the Euro Cup 7 times and the Champions League once in the last decade, 15th must be killing them. Newcastle are slim 6:4 favorites today at their place, we're 13:8 to win. We're 6-0-8 lifetime against Newcastle, winning twice at home this year, handily really, 3:0 in league play and 3:1 in the league cup quarterfinals. We come into this quite tired still though, 3 days between Man U/Everton and now 3 days between Everton/Newcastle.


GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Aldrovandi/Heywood
DM: Clifford
M: Mills/Smith
AM: Adagsmar/Doran
F: Khan

Bryan needs to rest and Bendtner couldn't go 90 minutes, so its just Khan up front today. I make Donnelly and Mariga both available off the bench, and we are running attacking mids instead of the flat 4-1-4-1 today. Welsh gets a rare start too.

We'll start counter attacking.

3': Their star ST Joel takes advantage of Welsh, blowing by him into the area and scoring an easy goal. 0-1

21': Heywood sends a long ball down right for Doran to start an attack, Doran with a long run, a low cross into the area, they clear, but Smith is there to pick up the ball, a pass into the left side of the area for Adagsmar, he's wide open, they haven't gotten set up after that break yet, easy finish! 1-1

35': they have 9 shots but only 2 on target, they earn a couple corners here but don't put anything on target with them.

43': we earn a corner, sent to the near man, passed back out, Doran crosses into the 6 yard box, Aldrovandi with a header... just barely wide.

44': We build back up, after a few passes Doran settles for a shot from 20 yards out, not much pace on it but well placed... almost in, hits the left post, the keeper dives after it and is on the ground as the ball bounces off the left post, off the back of the keeper and it rolls into the net. That's an own goal! 2-1

HALF: Once again we give up an early goal and once again we recover from it. Newcastle attack hard with 12 shots but just 3 on target. We shoot 6 times, only one on target, with an own goal to help us out too. Our ratings are generally much higher, we're tackling much better and surprise surprise they're winning all the headers. Since we're in the lead we'll just keep counter attacking.

53': A quick counter attack after winning a ball deep in our end, Heywood a long ball, Doran runs onto it, into the area and a clear cut chance... he's just not the strongest finisher, their keeper positions well and makes the save.

62': Mariga in for Smith.

81': After nearly 20 minutes without any highlights we give up a corner, but clear it very well.

No more highlights after that, we close this out really nicely.

Newcastle 1 : 2 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.6)
Goal: Adagsmar (7.2), one own goal
Assists: Doran (6.8), Smith (7.0)

Everyone else 6.8 or 6.9. Craig Smith once again a really solid performance. I can't wait to see this guy grow over the next few years.



Everyone else wins today too and we don't make anything up. Tottenham are off today and drop but gain a match in hand like us. 11 to go unless otherwise noted.

1. Arsenal - 58 pts
2. Chelsea - 57 pts (3 less played)
3. Man City - 51 pts
4. Huddersfield - 51 pts
5. Man Utd - 49 pts
6. Tottenham - 49 pts (1 less played)
7. Ipswich - 48 pts (1 less played)
8. Sheffield United - 40 pts (1 MORE played)
9. West Brom - 40 pts
10. Liverpool - 38 pts (1 MORE played)

[Radii]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The Cup win is nice & all but I think I'm more encouraged by seeing 4 goals scored against West Brom without Constantino in the lineup. That's exciting given the increasingly hectic schedule you're up against.

Absolutely, at the midpoint of the season it was Constantino and nobody else scoring and that changed a ton in January and has been huge for us.

[Radii]

-- We get a huge break in scheduling. The Four Association Tournament is starting, an international event between Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. We've got 5 players called up for the start of that on Feb 15th (O'Brien and Clifford for Ireland, McKerr for N. Ireland, Donnelly and Welsh for Scotland). Those 5 guys won't get a rest, but, our match on the 15th vs Southampton is rescheduled for March. We play on short rest on the 11th, our next FA Cup Match, but after that, everyone not playing in the Four Associations tournament get a much, much needed full week to rest.

February 11th, 2023

FA Cup Fifth Round

West Brom @ Ipswich

We've made the 6th round of the FA Cup the last two years in a row, a win today would make it 3 straight years in the quarterfinals. We lost the first time we met back in September 1:0 but crushed them 4:2 just a couple weeks ago, hopefully we can repeat that type of performance at Portman Road today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Doran
F: Bendtner/Bryan

We start the best lineup we can field given the injuries we have (Gordon/Constantino still hurt). Standard mindset today.

Its raining quite hard.

6': Mills with the first shot of the match, a solid effort from 22ish yards, turned over by the keeper for a corner, they clear the corner, counterattack hard and earn their own corner. We clear that one and its our turn to counter, they intercept a cross attempt from Bryan and everyone gets to take a breather finally.

31': After a lot of buildup we get Bendtner open 18 yards out for a strong shot, keeper saves though. The rain is having an impact today, not a lot happening.

HALF: We go into the half with 4 shots only, 2 on target. They only have 1 shot. We have 67% of the possession and are better than them in every category, we're just having trouble generating good shots.

51': Lets attack.

53': We counter after winning a ball in our end, Bendtner with a beautiful long pass to Bryan, but he can't get a shot, instead cutting out wide, a pass back to Jackson, centered to mills, mills plays a beautiful ball into the area, Bendtner breaks perfectly, gets behind the defense and finishes well, a solid goal! 1-0

73': Hughes in for Crespo, Clifford in for Mills, both cases subbing in better defensive players.

81': They have a throwin in midfield, a long ball is immediately played to ST Javier, he's in a small space between Jackson and Aldrovandi, no excuse not to close down there... but we don't, and he shoots, and scores. A bit of a lapse on the defense, but also a really tough finish there. 1-1

92': We're pressing to try to get a goal and end this here... Clifford to Bryan, he gets a shot off in the area... keeper dives and saves it. We can't do anything with the corner.

Ipswich 1 : 1 West Brom

We were the better team by such a ridiculous margin today, one defensive lapse though and we give them a chance to win in a replay at their house. We controlled 60% of the possession over the course of the entire match, outshooting them 11-3, 2 of their shots were long range and off target, and their goal, while we should have never even allowed the shot, it was a really tough shot and a great finish by their scorer... frustrating, we gave this win away. One of their defenders is man of the match.

Goal: Bendtner (7.6)
Assist: Mills (7.6)
Notables: Jackson (7.0), Kirkland (7.2), Aldrovandi (7.0)

Crespo with an inexplicable 5.8, much worse than everyone else today, he was on the opposite side of the field when they scored, he had nothing to do with that. He just didn't contribute anything.

-- The replay is Feb 22nd, forcing a league match against Exeter to be pushed back to March

[Radii]

-- Constantino resumes full training.

FA Cup 6th Round Draw

-- Two Championship teams will make the quarters here, Hull beat Man City, and Sheffield Wednesday drew Swansea, they've got a replay to see who advances. If we beat West Brom, we won't be getting one of those, we'd be hosting EPL side Birmingham.

-- Conor Clifford is the Irish Captain and has 2 assists in a 3:0 win over Northern Ireland. O'Brien and McKerr both play in this match too. Welsh and Donnelly both play for Scotland in a 1:1 draw against Wales.

February 18th, 2023

Nottingham Forest(6-6-16, 17th) @ Ipswich(14-6-6, 7th)

We're massive 4:7 favorites today. We beat them 1:0 on the road earlier this year.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Doran
F: Khan/Bryan

I give Craig Smith another start today, wanting to rest Donnelly and Clifford since they were two of the guys that played 3 days ago. Khan starts for Bendtner. Constantino could play today but I'd rather hold him for the FA Cup and League Cup coming up over the next week.

Standard mindset today.

19': They try to counter attack after winning the ball in our end, there's a long ball played ahead, their striker looks to run onto it right at the edge of the area, Mattle trying to keep up, seems like he's doing a good job and will have a shot at the ball... but 4-5 yards early Mattle brings down his man... its a straight red card. I hate subbing out Khan here... but Bryan is the hot hand, Welsh in for Khan, 4-4-1 formation.

33': They counter after winning a ball in our end, a run down the right, low cross into the area, Aldrovandi misjudges it and ends up moving away from the man who receives the ball... allowing for an easy shot and finish. 0-1

HALF: For the most part we did ok a man down here but we did give up the one goal and just aren't a threat to score like this. We have 5 shots but all off target, they have 6, 2 on target only. I decide I need to take a risk for points, not getting any vs the #16 team would really suck. Hughes in for Jackson, Bendtner in for Kirkland, we go to a 3-4-2 formation with 3 DC's and will play aggressively.

53': Well using up all our subs just backfired. Bryan is hurt and forced out of the match. Since I've used my subs, we now play with 9 men.

Commentary only the rest of the way, we can't do anything at all.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Nottingham Forest

Its a pretty big success to only give up the 1 goal really playing with 10 and then 9 men. All players ratings are between 6.5-6.8 today.


Injury Update

-- As Constantino comes back, Chris Bryan goes out, he's going to miss 2-3 weeks with a groin strain.

-- I give Mattle a warning after that red instead of a fine. I bitched him out in postgame as well.


Teams are anywhere between 27-29 matches played now. Here's the current standings:

1. Chelsea - 61 pts (12 left)
2. Arsenal - 61 pts (10 left)
3. Man Utd - 53 pts (9 left)
4. Man City - 52 pts (10 left)
5. Huddersfield - 51 pts (11 left)
6. Tottenham - 50 pts (11 left)
7. Ipswich - 48 pts (11 left)
8. West Brom - 42 pts (9 left)
9. Sheffield Utd - 41 pts (9 left)


We're still totally in a spot where if we win games we can challenge for 4th. And the best news right now is that we are 6 points ahead of 8th even though we have 2 less matches played than the 8th and 9th place spots.

Most everyone in league play will get another match ahead of us, as the rest of February will be cup play for Ipswich. Next up, FA Cup Replay against West Brom, after that the League Cup Final, the first time I'll have managed a match in Wembly Stadium in this career I think (unless there's a playoff final I forgot about with Woking).