FM10 - From the Bottom Up

[Radii]

December 19th, 2027

Newcastle (10-3-2, 4th) @ Ipswich (10-4-3, 1st)

We get to play at home today, we're big favorites despite Newcastle's success, we're even money to win, they are 11:5. One of those weird stats... we've never played Newcastle to a draw, 13-0-10 lifetime against them. We've won the last 6 meetings.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Darcy

We run the same lineup today that we ran against Chelsea. Standard mindset today.

22': Highlight opens with a long ball ahead, one of their defenders goes up to head it and seems to mis-hit it. It goes back towards their goal and Di Giuseppe is the closest to it, he gets a free run into the area, a clear cut chance and scores! 1-0

41': Ros with a nice run down the left, a cross and a header by Darcy is just high. Very slow half.

HALF: We end up with 6 shots but only 1 on target, they shoot 3 times, none on target. Possession is even, both teams are passing well and heading well, they are tackling a little better. All in all its been even but they made one massive mistake that Di Giuseppe jumped on.

56': Yellow for Connolly

66': Jean and Mills in for Connolly and Di Giuseppe. This has been a kinda slow, ugly game, I'm going to back into a more defensive formation and into a counterattacking mindset, it feels more likely here that we make a mistake to let them tie it than we go out and score more. Lets try to prevent that.

84': Connor a yellow.

Ipswich 1 : 0 Newcastle

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (7.6)
Goal: Di Giuseppe (7.3)
Notables: Hayward (7.0), Hughes (7.3), Ros (7.0), Connolly (7.0)

No assist on our goal, this is the second game in a row where Neil Gordon earns man of the match honors.


We've got 18 matches played, some other teams in the top 5 are at 17, 16, and Huddersfield is at 15 played, so we're still all over the map as to where we could settle in. We are hanging on to first for now though.

[Radii]

-- Huddersfield play two matches in the week we have off, they still have 1 less played than us. They win both their extra matches and move into first place with a 13-0-4 record.

Contract Updates

I make offers to scouts and coaches, none are getting canned and so far all of them that are expiring are willing to stay.

-- Constantino hadn't been offered a new deal, he's declining but playing well in small doses, and really I just want him to end his career here if at all reasonable. I offer him $41,000/wk for another year. That's a pay cut down from $54k/wk.

December 26th, 2027

Ipswich (11-4-3, 2nd) @ Liverpool (6-6-6, 12th)

Liverpool are struggling a bit this year, but they are 6:4 favorites at their place for this Boxing Day matchup. We're 7-5-7 lifetime against them. In 19 meetings the road team has only won one time, Liverpool with a 1:0 win in 2015, over a decade ago. We're 0-3-2 the last 5 years at Liverpool.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Mills/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Darcy

Aldrovandi has been a little off, Mattle gets a start today. Mills is in, Kirkland is back healthy today. Counterattacking mindset today.

6': Corner for us, Gordon takes it near post, Mattle with the header, and its by the diving keeper and into the back of the net! 1-0

10': A throwin for Liverpool on their offensive side of midfield, one pass to midfielder Setaro, he blasts a shot from 25 yards out and its by Bogdanovs.. we don't hold the lead for long. 1-1

41': Mills a yellow.

46': Connolly intercepts a pass as Liverpool tries to drive forward. Di giuseppe ends up with it but he can't get going immediately on the break, he passes it back to Gordon, receives the ball right back and drives down the right side of the pitch. Di Giuseppe with a cross to the far side of the 6 yard box, David Ros is there, wins the header and it gets by the keeper, goal! 2-1

HALF: After a blistering start there's a huge lull in the middle of the half and then a big extra time goal for us right before the half ends. Liverpool shoot 8 times with 4 on target. We shoot 4 times with 3 on target. Possession is even so far.

46': We kick off, move up the right side of the pitch, Gordon to Connolly, Connolly with a ball into the area for Darcy, he controls it well, shoots and scores! That goal comes 25 seconds into the second half. 3-1

51': Connor is hurt, but can stay in.

64': Garcia Mut in for Gordon.

82': We build up down the left side, Ros plays the ball into the area for Di Giuseppe, he passes it through to the right side of the area, Darcy is there and puts it in! 4-1

82': Bryan in for Di Giuseppe

Liverpool 1 : 4 Ipswich

Great road play!!

Man of the Match: David Ros (8.8)
Goals: Darcy 2 (8.8), Ros, Mattle (8.4)
Assists: Di Giuseppe 2 (8.7), Connolly (8.0), Gordon (7.3)
Notables: Hayward (7.0), Kirkland (7.3), Connor (7.3)


Huddersfield win to remain in first today. We have 40 points at the halfway point of the season. Last year we picked up 80 points and Arsenal won the league with 81. Two years ago we earned 81 points, as did Arsenal with a better goal differential. We're right in line for that kind of thing again this year.

Big road match at Arsenal in 3 days to finish off the calendar year.

[Radii]

-- Everyone accepts their contract offers, Constantino included.

December 29th, 2027

Ipswich (12-4-3, 2nd) @ Arsenal (10-4-3, 6th)

Arsenal have two less matches played and sit 6 points behind us. We choked horribly against Arsenal in our second game of the season, giving away a 2 goal lead in the final minutes, allowing goals in the 8th, 88th, and 92nd minutes to fall 3:2. Arsenal are slim 5:4 favorites today, we're 7:4 to win.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
DM: Jean
M: Ros/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe

We'll go with our 4-1-4-1 counterattacking formation today.

3': They get a header off a corner kick that's just high.

11': Gordon a free kick from about 20 yards out, off the wall and behind. They clear the corner.

25': I think we just got our goal of the month. Ros to Di Giuseppe out wide left, he makes a run down the left side, cuts by his defender near the right end line, cuts into the 6 yard box and beats the keeper!!!! 1-0

42': Connolly is hurt.

47': Free kick about 25 yards out wide left. Gordon takes it, bending it in towards the right side of the net, its on target but their keeper makes a nice diving save.

HALF: A brilliant Di Giuseppe effort is the difference so far. Mills is in for the injured Connolly. They have 6 shots to our 5. we control 55% of the possession and are passing well. Tackling is... weird, 36% tackling for ipswich, I'm not sure I've ever seen the stat that low. The back line are mainly winning headers to secure possession, all tackle attempts but 2 come out of the midfield and up. Gordon 1/4, Di Giuseppe 0/3, Ros 2/4, Connolly 3/6, Hayward 1/2... that's all our tackle attempts, none from our DC's, but Mattle is 10/10 winning headers.

67': Bugra Yildirim gets a decent shot off in the area but Bogdanovs saves it. Not a lot of action so far this half, to the credit of our defense.

79': After some buildup for Arsenal there's a pass back to Bugra Yildirim 30+ yards away, he shoots and Bogdanovs makes the save, but there's a rebound, backup midfielder Weiz is there and puts it in before Bogdanovs can recover. 1-1

79': Garcia Mut in for Gordon.

87': Throwin in their end, Hayward throws it to Garcia Mut, receives the ball back, passes to Mills. Mills to Di Giuseppe at the 18 yard line, he turns by his man and has a run into the area, he lines up a shot, goes near post and puts it by the keeper, goal!!!!!! 2-1

93': They try to counterattack after clearing the ball out of our end. Hans Nooij is making a run down the left, if he beats Hayward they definitely will be getting a cross into the area for one last shot to tie it... Hayward however comes up huge and tackles the ball away from Nooij. Nooij commits a foul trying to win it back, we kick it long and the game ends. Arsenal of course weren't guaranteed, or even likely to score on that last play, but I love seeing the one on one tackle to take the ball away from a world class striker to prevent any chance of scoring.

Arsenal 1 : 2 Ipswich

We make up for our awful effort at home against Arsenal, Yuri Di Giuseppe shows all kinds of class in this one!!

Man of the Match: Yuri Di Giuseppe (9.0)
Goals: Di Giuseppe 2
Assists: Kirkland (7.5), Mills (6.8)
NotableS: Bogdanovs (7.4), Hayward (7.0), Mattle (7.0)


Huddersfield beat Man U at home to stay in first.


Injury Update

Brett Connolly will miss about 10 days with a thigh strain suffered in the match today.

[Radii]

January Update

--We play on the 1st, 8th, 12th, 15th, 22nd, 25th and 29th. 1st is FA Cup, and we'll play another FA Cup match this month if we win. League matches against Man City and Huddersfield highlight the month.

-- Yuri Di Giuseppe is the player of the month in the EPL.

-- Di Giuseppe's first goal against Arsenal is indeed the goal of the month, just as I called it when it happened.

-- Huddersfield's coach is manager of the month, I do come in 3rd there.

On to some yearly awards!


World Footballer of the Year

Ipswich's Yuri Di Giuseppe has won the World Footballer of the Year award!!! The 20 year old played in 47 matches in 2027, scoring 44 goals and making 10 assists, earning an average rating of 7.77. Inter Attacking Mid Alberto Casali was second and Roma's Rory Wright 3rd. Both had higher average ratings for the year but 44 goals in 47 matches at this world class level is simply stunning.


World Player of the Year

Real Madrid's Stefano Padula scored 34 goals in 40 matches with an 8.16 rating earning this award. Arsenal's Bugra Yildirim had 41 goals and 24 assists in 51 matches for second. Yuri Di Giuseppe is 3rd this year.



Which brings up a question... what's the difference in world footballer of the year and world player of the year?


World Team of the Year

Yuri Di Giuseppe is named as a starting striker up front along with Real Madrid's Stefano Padula on the world team of the year!

Additionally, Brazilian First Division GK Baiano is the keeper on this team, but our own Dmitrijs Bogdanovs is the substitute!!


European Footballer of the Year

This award also goes to Real Madrid's Stefano Padula, but Di Giuseppe comes in second.


European Goalkeeper of the Year

Each of the last two years Monaco's Mario Masella was named Europe's top goalkeeper, with our keeper Dmitrijs Bogdanovs coming in 3rd each time. This year its Bogdanovs turn, with 57 matches played and 57 goals allowed, a 7.13 rating, our own Dmitrijs Bogdanovs is the top Goalkeeper in Europe!!!

[Radii]

Here is Di Giuseppe's goal against Arsenal, as always you probably need to full screen it to see anything worthwhile:

[Radii]

2027-28 Mid-Season Update

Standings

20 games played unless otherwise noted

1. Huddersfield - 45 pts - 1 less played
2. Ipswich - 43 pts
3. Man City - 43 pts
4. Chelsea - 36 pts - 1 less played
5. Man Utd - 35 pts
6. Arsenal - 34 pts - 2 less played
7. Newcastle - 33 pts- 3 less played
8. Southampton - 33 pts
9. Sunderland - 30 pts - 1 less played
10. Sheffield Utd - 26 pts
11. Everton - 25 pts
12. QPR - 24 pts
13. Blackburn - 24 pts
14. Liverpool - 24 pts
15. Aston Villa - 24 pts
16. Exeter - 19 pts
17. Burnley - 13 pts
18. Watford - 12 pts - 2 less played
19. Tottenham - 8 pts - 1 less played
20. Leeds - 8 pts - 1 less played


Even with a game or two in hand from some other teams we're clearly looking at Huddersfield, Ipswich and Man City pulling away from the pack at the halfway point. That's not to say one of us three will win the title, any one of 4 or 5 teams could get back in it quickly.

Ipswich have the best goal differential in the league at +23 (43 for/20 against). Huddersfield +14, Man City +18. Arsenal +19, no one else is remotely close (the next best is +10).

Huddersfield are the only team in the league yet to have played to a draw, they are 15-0-4.


Goals

1. Yuri Di Giuseppe - Ipswich - 24
2. Matteo Cavalleri - Huddersfield - 17
3. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 16
4. Edson - Sunderland - 13
5. Jonas Gustavsson - Blackburn - 9
...
8. Eoin Darcy - Ipswich - 8
32. Neil Gordon - Ipswich - 4

Di Giuseppe is dominant this year, if he keeps it up he could break records.


Assists

1. Ruud van der Velden - Arsenal - 9
1. Simon Greenhouse - Sunderland - 9
3. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 7
3. Colin McCoy - Southampton - 7
3. Andrew Silveri - Man City - 7
...
7. Steven Mills - Ipswich - 5
7. Brett Connolly - Ipswich - 5
17. Constantino - Ipswich - 4
17. Craig Smith - Ipswich - 4
17. Yuri Di Giuseppe - Ipswich - 4


Average Rating

1. Yuri Di Giuseppe - Ipswich - 8.15
2. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 7.72
3. Leif Nylin - Chelsea - 7.59
4. David Moreno - Man City - 7.46
5. Eoin Darcy - Ipswich - 7.44
...
14. Stuart Kirkland - Ipswich - 7.30
39. Craig Smith - 7.14
41. Brett Connolly - 7.13
43. Neil Gordon - 7.12
50. Dmitrijs Bogdanovs - 7.09
56. David Ros - 7.07
64. Kieran Connor - 7.04
70. Steven Mills - 7.02
73. Juan Pablo Crespo - 7.01



David Ros is one of the biggest surprises of the season for me. Crespo has been hurt, allowing Ros to play more than I'd originally intended to play him, and he's been outstanding. Ros and Crespo each have 10 league starts. Crespo has been unhappy that I didn't let hm move teams in August, so he could probably be doing better... but Ros is playing way above expectations right now.


Di Giuseppe with an all time great first half, if he can keep it up he'll be a lock for player of the year in England.

[Radii]

Transfer Window Opens

-- I mentioned him when we signed him, 16 y/o Austrian DL Jurgen Berg joins Ipswich and will begin training with the youth team immediately.

-- Man City offer me $69M for Kieran Connor. We say no, remember how much we paid for him. Also we're aging at DC, he's indispensible.

-- We have $37 Million available and may sell a player or two during January (when's the last time you saw me mention Sergio Roberto, for example). I have a team right now that can compete for any title just fine, but there are really a couple things I wouldn't mind having... one is another world class striker. Darcy and Bryan are really, really good, and we're just fine up front, but a duo of truly world class strikers could take Ipswich to another level. The other would be a young starting quality Central Defender. Connor is great, but we are really aging at DC. Gareth Williams and Pablo Olvera have potential and I'd love if one or both stayed with the club and in our rotation long term... but Aldrovandi is declining fast and I would feel a bit better if I had some more true quality at DC.



January 1st, 2028

FA Cup Third Round

Ipswich (13-4-3, 2nd) @ Tottenham (1-5-13, 19th)

Note that this is an FA Cup match, I just tend to leave the league standings in there when we're playing another EPL team. We're 4:5 favorites over struggling Tottenham. Could they really relegate down to the Championship?

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Hughes/Smith/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Darcy/Constantino

We play many backups on short rest today. We don't want to risk going out of the FA Cup early but this is our 3rd match in a week and we went all out for the last two. Counterattacking on the road.

8': A bad start, a ball into the area for ST Wayne Ellis and he scores his first ever goal for Tottenham after some rather poor positioning by Aldrovandi and Connor both. 0-1

10': We control the ball around midfield, Connor sends it up to Constantino 20 yards away. Constantino beats his man, into the area, shoots and scores!! 1-1

12': A quick counterattack after we win a ball in their end, Constantino gets behind the defense after a pass from Darcy, a second clear cut chance in 2 minutes... but this one hits the right post, he really should have scored, that was much easier than the first attempt.

16': Hayward a yellow.

31': Garcia Mut with a great run down the right, a cross, Darcy heads it, its on target but the keeper makes the save and its behind for a corner. corner taken to the far post, Connor is there with the header... it hits the right post,doh!!

45': A through ball for midfeilder Smart for tottenham, he's completely behind the defense and has a clear cut chance, but he pushes his shot wide. Lucky break for us.

HALF: We're doing fine here, 10 shots for us, 5 for them. 6 on target for us, 4 for them. We have a 57% possession edge, most other stats are pretty even. No changes at the half.

47': They earn a corner, taken far post and ST Rocchini heads it in. 1-2

60': Standard mindset.

70': Jean in for Mills, Bryan in for Constantino

71': Lets attack

81': Buildup on offense, we get a lot of men forward and Bryan ends up with the ball wide right, he crosses it in, Darcy wins the header, its off the crossbar, off the keeper and in!! Its considered an own goal and we've tied it up. 2-2

95': One last chance, Darcy a cross to the far side of the 6 yard box, Garcia Mut gets up to head it but its a weak header right at the keeper.

Tottenham 2 : 2 Ipswich

I'm ok with the draw here on the road, we'll get 'em on the replay.

Man of the Match: Ruben Garcia Mut (7.8)
Goal: Constantino (6.8)
Assists: Darcy (7.2), Connor (7.8)
Notables: Hughes (7.0)


-- The replay is schedued for January 12th. We've got a week off then we're going to be playing every 3-4 days for the rest of the month.

[Radii]

-- We scout a large number of DC's known throughout Europe and man maybe I'm underestimating my young DC's... I scout tons of guys valued at $6-$8 Million and they come in as "would be our 7th best Central Defender" ... ok...

FA Cup 4th Round Draw

If we can get by Tottenham it doesn't get any better... we'd be going to play at Man City, sheesh.


January 8th, 2028

Exeter (5-7-9, 16th) @ Ipswich (13-4-3, 2nd)

We're huge favorites today, 4:6 to win at home over Exeter. They're struggling this year and sit in 16th now. We dominate Exeter, 12-3-2 lifetime against them. We did play them to a draw at their place though.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Connor had the flu for a couple days and could use the day off. Hughes starts for Kirkland today. Standard mindset.

8': Hayward with a cross in from the right, Bryan is free in the 6 yard box but heads it over... shoulda scored.

12': Gordon with a free kick 30 yards out, it bends around the right side of the wall, the keeper tries to stop it but cannot, goal!! 1-0

23': After some slow buildup Mills feeds Bryan in the penalty area, he gets a shot by the keeper, goal! 2-0

HALF: We're totally dominant. Lets just put this away.

50': Right, of course. They earn a corner, taken into the 6 yard box and they head it in. 2-1

62': more brilliance from Di Giuseppe, Smith gets it ahead to him about 40 yards out, he beats a defender, makes a run into the are and scores! 3-1

65': Mills to Bryan for his second goal!! 4-1

68': Mills to Di Giuseppe for a very easy goal and we're running away with this. 5-1

68': Darcy in for Di Giuseppe, Garcia Mut in for Gordon

We finish it out easily.

Ipswich 5 : 1 Exeter

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.2)
Goals: Bryan 2, Di Giuseppe 2 (8.8), Gordon (8.8)
Assists: Mills 3 (9.1), Smith 2 (8.9)
Notables: Hayward (8.0), Hughes (7.4), Mattle (7.2), Aldrovandi (7.1), Ros (7.5)



Huddersfield played their makeup match, and won, during our week off. They're now even in matches with us and 5 points ahead of us.

[Radii]

Transfer Out

Atletico Madrid bid $7 Million for Sergio Roberto and we let him go. Probably my biggest financial mistake, we spent $25 Million on him and he just didn't work out for us, he sucked at MC and we didn't use formations with DMC enough to keep him happy, leading us to use him even less and finally just let him go.


-- We have our eye on a young DC, our scouts say he's nowhere near as good as Connor (but Connor is a wonderkid, so that's ok) and would be our 3rd best DC... his Turkish team wants $33 Million. Ok so I want another young defender, but $33 Million for "would be our 3rd best" ... I'm not quite there yet.

-- Real Madrid enquire about Di Giuseppe, we tell them to go away. Barcelona are interested in Jean, Southampton in Bryan.

January 12th, 2028

FA Cup Third Round Replay

Tottenham (1-6-13, 20th) @ Ipswich (14-4-3, 2nd)

We're large 4:7 favorites today at home, hopefully this'll work better than our road match against them, we really do want another deep FA Cup run.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Williams/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Bryan

Young DC Gareth Williams gets another start today. Darcy/Bryan, Di Giuseppe will sit. Standard mindset.

3': Buildup on offense, they try to clear a ball out but we recover and keep the pressure on. Mills passes ahead to Darcy who puts a great shot by the keeper from the left side of the area for an early goal! 1-0

9': A strong shot from 20 yards out by one of their strikers is saved by Bogdanovs, a difficult diving save. First corner is headed behind, second one is cleared.

34': Neil Gordon is hurt, but can stay in.

42': Random long shot success, ST Amoako scores from 25 yards out after receiving a pass with a little bit of space, he shot before anyone closed down.

HALF: Both teams have 7 shots, they have 3 on target to our 2. They have 58% of the possession so far which is a pretty big deal. I bring Mattle in for Williams at the half, we really need to do what we can to win this. We're going to attack this half.

75': We win a ball in our end and look to attack, its quickly up to Darcy, back to Jean in the midfield circle, he lobs the ball towards the penalty area, Bryan is there, splits two defenders that were closing in and scores! 2-1

75': Di Giuseppe in for Bryan, I had ordered that change before the goal and to the best of my knowledge it can't be cancelled? We back into counterattacking mode to hang on to this lead hopefully...

84': Ugggggh, a pass ahead to ST Ellis, he blasts a shot from 20 yards and scores. SIGH! 2-2

84': Back to attacking.

89': Mills steals a ball in our offensive end and quickly feeds Di Giuseppe, he hits Darcy in the area and Darcy misses a clear cut chance, saved.. the rebound falls on the end line out to the right a little ways, Darcy is first to it, tries a pass through the area, it deflects off the keeper and falls free in the 6 yard box, Di Giuseppe is on top fo it in an instant and puts it in!!!! 3-2

93': Darcy hits Gordon for a last second goal to make it look like a bigger margin than it really was! 4-2

Ipswich 4 : 2 Tottenham

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (7.9)
Goals: Bryan, Gordon (7.5), Darcy (7.5), Di Giuseppe (7.2)
Assists: Darcy 2, Jean (7.1), Mills (7.5)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.5), Kirkland (7.2), Connor (7.1)

It wasn't easy at all, Steven Mills had the play of the game, taking possession from a defender 1v1 to start up the attack for our winning goal, great stuff!


-- WHOA! Huddersfield gets a 10th minute penalty, then goals in minutes 16, 28, 31, 32, 52 and 56 in a league match today. Their leading scorer Matteo Cavilieri didn't score the first 2... but he scored the last FIVE for a five goal game in 7-0 win. Against Arsenal. Huddersfield just beat Arsenal 7-0 in league play, holy shit.

-- We receive $110,000 for our FA Cup win

-- This officially means we're going to play Man City, on the road in about 10 days.


Injury Update

Neil Gordon suffered a groin strain in the match against Tottenham and he is going to miss 2-3 weeks.

[Radii]

January 15th, 2028

Ipswich (14-4-3, 2nd) @ Sheffield Utd (8-6-9, 10th)

We're even money favorites on the road today. We have a long history in both the EPL and Championship with these guys, 9-4-15 lifetime. The last 5 matches in a row have all been shutouts, and we've won 4 of them.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Hughes/Smith/Connolly/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Hughes starts at ML, Garcia Mut for the injured Gordon. Standard mindset today on the road.

2': They go straight down the middle of the pitch after kickoff and get a clear cut chance that Bogdanovs makes a great diving save to stop. Not good defense!

26': free kick a little over 20 yards out, Di Giuseppe takes it and earns us a corner. its cleared out though.

HALF: really really boring half. Possession is 50/50, they shoot 6 times with 3 on target, we shoot 3 times with 1 on target. All but two shots in the game have been from long range.

47': Connolly to Di Giuseppe, he beats his man and gets a look from 15 yards out but sends it wide.

68': Crespo in for Hughes, Jackson in for Garcia Mut.

72': Lets attack.

84': Di Giussepe is hurt and must leave the game. Darcy is in and we anxiously await injury reports.

87': Jackson tries to make a run up the right side of the pitch but the ball is tackled away.. the defender looks to control it and clear it, but Jackson recovers, he takes the ball back, rushes towards the area, sends a cross in and Darcy volleys it into the net!!! 1-0

91': Darcy picks up an injury... uggggh, please no long term.

Sheffield Utd 0 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.5)
Goal: Darcy (7.3)
Assist: Jackson (6.9)
Notables: Hayward (7.0), Connor (7.0), Aldrovandi (7.3)


We're happy to win but all we care about right now are injury reports...

Injury Update

-- Nothing on Darcy, he's clean.

-- Di Giuseppe has a bruised rib and will miss 4-5 days. Whew. I was fearing serious disaster with those two both getting hurt.


-- Huddersfield have been running off matches like crazy, they now have one MORE than us played... and they haven't lost in a long long time. They are now 19-0-4 with 57 points. We have a match in hand but are 15-4-3 and trail by EIGHT points. Yeah, Huddersfield have won 11 straight league matches. They do play Chelsea, Ipswich and Newcastle in back to back to back matches at the end of January, we'll need to beat them ourselves and root for those other teams too.

[Radii]

-- Its looking more and more like we might end up unable to reasonably spend our $38 Million in transfer money. Perhaps we'll change directions a bit and look to pick off a player or two unhappy towards the end of the year.

January 19th, 2028

Man City (13-7-3, 3rd) @ Ipswich (15-4-3, 2nd)

We're even money favorites at home today which is a bit of a surprise to me. We've been spending a lot of time looking up at Huddersfield but Man City is right on our heels and this is a huge match as well. We're 9-7-12 lifetime against Man City, we beat them 1:0 at their place earlier in the year.


GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Darcy/Bryan

We play Man City again in the FA Cup in 3 days. Mills starts for Connolly, Mattle for Aldrovandi, not a lot of other good chances to rest players really. Standard mindset at home.

13': Hayward a cross, Darcy puts a header just wide left.

28': Hayward with a run down the right, a cross in, Darcy wins the header and this one he puts low and left and by the keeper, goal!! 1-0

34': Man City with a corner, they end up controlling the ball in the area for a good long while before finally getting a shot, Bogdanovs makes a nice save.

38': We drop back to counter the rest of the half, they're trying to pile on the pressure and tie it up.

HALF: They shoot 9 times to our 5, 5 on target to our 3, but we've got the only goal. They have a couple nice shots that Bogdanovs had to save. We'll start the second half counterattacking as well, expecting an early charge from Man City.

50': We clear a ball out of our end, Darcy heads it on but no one else is back for us. Their defense is slow to get to the ball, Darcy and Bryan both charge after it, a defender gets to it but makes a very lazy pass, Darcy intercepts and pokes it ahead into the penalty area, Bryan gets to it and its a clear cut chance and he scores!!! Great hustle by Darcy and Bryan both but if that were my defense I would be really pissed off right now. 2-0

60': Bogdanovs makes a number of saves in the last 10 minutes they are really trying to get back into this.

75': Constantino in for Bryan, Crespo in for Ros.

84': Jackson in for Garcia Mut

Ipswich 2 : 0 Man City

Really solid win for us today.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.2)
Goals: Bryan, Darcy (7.1)
Assists: Hayward (8.1)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.6), Kirkland (7.5), Connor (7.3), Mattle (7.6)

Apparently our second goal was unassisted, I thought Darcy directly put it in the area for Bryan but maybe there was a deflection or something.

-- Huddersfield finally get their first draw of the season, a 1:1 tie on the road with Burnley.

We build quite a nice lead over 3rd place with that win.


1. Huddersfield - 58 pts - 24 played
2. Ipswich - 52 pts - 23 played
3. Man City - 46 pts - 24 played
4. Chelsea - 43 pts - 22 played
5. Man Utd - 42 pts - 23 played
6. Southampton - 42 pts - 24 played
7. Newcastle - 39 pts - 21 played
8. Arsenal - 36 pts - 21 played

I'm very happy to see Arsenal that far behind.


Next up another match against Man City, this time in the FA Cup.

[Radii]

January 22nd, 2028

FA Cup Fourth Round

Ipswich (16-4-3, 2nd) @ Man City (13-7-4, 3rd)

We just played a solid game against Man City at home, but no we've got to go to their house for the FA Cup. We're favored here too, just 5:4 though.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Hayward
DM: Jean
M: Hughes/Smith/Connolly/Garcia Mut
F: Darcy

Fatigue issues (though hopefully Man City will have similar issues). We're going to run a 4-1-4-1 and counterattack at thier place.

4': Darcy takes a long shot that's saved, there's a rebound that falls to Hughes but he puts a shot over.

7': We have a corner, they head it out to the side, Darcy goes and gets it, crosses it back in and Smith heads it into the net!! 1-0

28': A long shot from Man City that's bending towards the right side of the net, Bogdanovs makes a diving save. There's a corner that we clear it out.

HALF: We pretty much fly to the half after that, that works. They do shoot 8 times but 5 are from long range and we've only seen a couple in highlights. We have 5 shots with 2 on target. At this point our defensive formation and counterattacking to hang on to the lead seems obvious, we'll keep doing what we're doing, god we'd love to not have a replay. Jackson comes in for Garcia Mut at the half.

58': Mattle is hurt, can stay in but he's slowed.

67': Their ST Mihci receives a through ball in the area and scores easily. He beat Aldrovandi to get open and a poor pass from Darcy caused a turnover to start it all. 1-1

75': Mills in for a tired Connolly, Bryan in for Darcy up front.

77': Bogdanovs has to make two saves in pretty quick succession here.

79': Another spectacular save by Bogdanovs after Jean has it taken away...

93': Kirkland is tackled on a throwin in our offensive end and he goes down injured.

Man City 1 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Dmitrijs Bogdanovs (9.4)
Goal: Smith (7.3)
Assist: Darcy (7.2)
Notables: Hayward (7.1), Kirkland (7.1), Mattle (7.0)

Garcia Mut struggled with a 6.0 in the first half, Bryan a 6.2 in limited backup minutes.

Bogdanovs was a superstar today and is the entire reason we get a replay at home to try to keep our FA Cup run going.


Injury Update

Stuart Kirkland will miss about 10 days with an elbow injury he picked up today.

[Alf]

shitty additional time injury

[Radii]

FA Cup 5th Round Draw

We're not throuhg the 4th round yet, we play Man City again soon. With still nearly half the field in the Championship and below... we could get Middlesbrough in the Championship, but they have a replay, and its against Man Utd. So most likely if we win we get Man Utd.

January 25th, 2028

Ipswich (16-4-3, 2nd) @ Leeds (4-2-16, 17th)

We're on short rest yet again but leeds is a team we should really have a big advantage against. We're 4:7 favorites even on the road.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Connor/Williams/Heywood
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe/Constantino

Some changes today against a lighter opponent, Gareth Williams gets a start, Heywood instead of Haywood at MR, also Crespo at ML, he's been struggling to get back into shape after injury problems. Standard mindset on the road.

20': Smith intercepts a pass in our offensive end as they try to clear, he passes to Constantino who shoots from 20 yards out and scores! 1-0

HALF: We take the 1-0 lead into the half. We shoot 8 times with 5 on target. They shoot 2 times, none on target. We should score more often here but we haven't come close to allowing anything.

77': Ros in for Crespo, Jean in for Smith.

79': Jean to Constantino for a goal but he's clearly offsides.

Leeds 0 : 1 Ipswich


Man of the Match: Constantino (8.7)
Goal: Constantino
Assist: Smith (6.9)
Notables: Heywood (7.3), Hughes (7.2), Di Giuseppe (7.4)

Garcia Mut has a bad game here, 5.7.

A pretty pedestrian win here but its 3 points.


-- Huddersfield 0 : 1 Chelsea -- hooray!


-- We are now 3 points behind Huddersfield with 1 less match played. We also host Huddersfield in 4 days.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Alf

shitty additional time injury

last minute of injury time as well, our last chance to score before the final whistle

[Radii]

-- We turn down a $70 million offer for Kieran Connor from Man City ($20M now + 50M over the next 2 years)

January 29th, 2028

Huddersfield (19-1-5, 1st) @ Ipswich (17-4-3, 2nd)

We are 4:5 favorites today, I think that's a bit much but ok. Huddersfield are having an amazing season and this is a huge game for both teams. We are 11-9-12 lifetime against Huddersfield. One of their 5 losses is a 0:2 loss to Ipswich at their house back in October.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Connor/Aldrovandi/Hayward
DM: Jean
M: Ros/Smith/Connolly/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe

Its an extremely rare case of us running a 4-1-4-1 at home. Our scouts specifically tell us that Huddersfield do not play well against this formation, and we beat them 2-0 using this formation on the road. We won't counterattack today, we'll play a standard mindset.

2': Smith with a ball into the area for Di Giuseppe and somehow he gets some room, one of their DC's takes the blame for poor defending on the play, Di Giuseppe with an early goal! 1-0

43': Their two strikers work a give and go and ST Uwe Aksoy gets a through ball and scores, it looks like Hayward takes the blame there. 1-1

HALF: We have 8 shots, they have 7, but 2/3 of the total shots are from long range and we just don't see a lot of interesting highlights here. We control 58% of their possession.

52': Di GIuseppe with a strong strike from 25 yards out, diving save by the keeper.

74': Connolly with a shot from just outside the area that hits the crossbar and goes out wide and gets cleared.

77': Darcy in for Jean, Crespo in for Ros, we'll try to switch things up on them.

No real chances for either side in the end.

Ipswich 1 : 1 Huddersfield

Man of the Match: Ruben Garcia Mut (7.3)
Goal: Di Giuseppe (6.9)
Assist: Smith (6.9)
Notables: Hayward (7.0)

Can't be too upset here, we're still down 3 with a game in hand and we went 1-1-0 against Huddersfield this season.


25 played unless otherwise noted:

1. Huddersfield - 59 pts - 1 more played
2. Ipswich - 56 pts
3. Man City - 49 pts
4. Chelsea - 47 pts - 1 less played
5. Man Utd - 46 pts


Its turning into a 2 team race Arsenal have 3 matches less than us but they sit at 37 points, even if they win them all they're still only at 46 pts.

We have the goal differential lead on Huddersfield, +31 to +25.

[Radii]

Injury Update

Neil Gordon resumes training and then hurts himself the next day, he's out 10 days. Clive Jackson can play MR and has been backing up Garcia Mut. This happens on January 31st and I do take some time to scout out MR's but the only promising one is from Japan and doesn't speak English and is already 28 years old, it doesn't seem like the type of guy I'd want to pull into this situation for a stretch run, I'll tough it out with Jackson.

Transfer Window Closes

We go January without a major signing.


February Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 12th, 15th, and 20th. FA Cup on the 2nd, Champions League on the 15th.

-- Aaron, a youth GK I signed from Spain trains well this month. Whee.

-- Chris Bryan scores 3 goals in 3 league appearances in January and that's good for player of the month! Its not unfair to say that he's fallen to 3rd on our depth chart since Darcy played so well while Bryan was hurt, but hey, player of hte month, good job!

-- Di Giuseppe is 3rd in young player of the month voting

-- I win manager of the month as Ipswich goes 4-1-0 in January, scoring 10 goals and allowing 2.

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. Our increase in stature is the highlight. Ruben Garcia Mut's poor play recently is a negative.

-- We lost $1.4M last month.


February 2nd, 2028

FA Cup Fourth Round Replay

Man City (14-7-5, 3rd) @ Ipswich (17-5-3, 2nd)

We're heavily favored at home, 4:6 to Man City's 7:2 to win.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Connor/Aldrovandi/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Darcy/Bryan

Di Giuseppe needs a break, Mills starts for Connolly. Standard mindset at home today.

24': Mills is about 35 yards out, plays a ball into the left side of the area, Ros runs onto it perfectly, controls it well, shoots far post and scores!!! A really quick strike and a great play by David Ros. 1-0

33': A through ball to midfielder Smulders, he's got a clear cut chance for Man City but Bogdanovs makes the save. Smulders is hurt too and maybe its a bit tough for him.

39': Darcy from 20 yards out... just wide.

HALF: We've got 7 shots to their 6, but we only put 2 on target, 4 of theirs have requied a save. We dominate possession, 57/43, just need to hold our lead.

47': a quick man city strike, they get the ball to their superstar Mihci behind our defense and he scores easily, Aldrovandi came out to defend a midfielder about 30 yards away and Mihci got into the open space and we couldn't close down. 1-1

73': Jackson in for Garcia Mut, Di Giuseppe in for Darcy.

82': Connolly in for Smith.

93': Jackson is hurt.

FULL TIME: We aren't able to get a goal in regulation and we've got 30 more minutes.

98': Mills is hurt and must leave the match. We've used all our subs so we're down to 10 men. Its ugly but Bryan moves into the midfield.

EXTRA TIME HT: We're counterattacking now a man down and likely need to just play for penalties.

117': Connor is hurt. This is becoming a serious problem. He can stay in but that's 3 injuries this match.

118': Nope, there it is, We try to clear a ball long but they take it back right away, push the ball back into the area and Mihci scores an easy goal. 1-2


Ipswich 1 : 2 Man City

Goal: Ros (7.6)
Assist: Mills (7.8)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.8), Hayrward (7.1), Aldrovandi (7.0), Bryan (7.1)


Sucks to lose at home and to get knocked out of the FA Cup way earlier than our board will be ok with.


Injury Update

-- Clive Jackson is out for a week
-- Steven Mills is out for 4-5 days

Connor no long term injury. Whew. We just didn't play our best there, in the end I'm more relieved about our lack of long term injuries than anything.

[Radii]

February 5th, 2028

Sunderland (11-4-10, 9th) @ Ipswich (17-5-3, 2nd)

Sunderland are having a pretty solid season in the top 10, but we're massive 1:3 favorites today. We lost to them 2:1 on the road back in October so there is some revenge to be had today.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Mattle/Williams/Hayward
M: Crespo/Jean/Connolly/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe/Constantino

We play guys that are fit today basically.

Its raining very very hard today, standard mindset.

23': Sunderland gets their first shot and its a clear cut chance from just inside the penalty area, Bogdanovs makes a solid save.

28': Hughes takes a free kick out very near midfield wide to the left, he sends a long ball to the penalty spot. Garcia Mut is there and wins the header. Its a weak header but the keeper came out and is stuck in no mans land, the header floats over the keeper and lands in the net! 1-0

42': Di Giuseppe with a strong shot from 25 yards out, their keeper dives to save it. Corner goes nowhere.

HALF: We shoot 7 times to their 5, 3 on target to their 2. Its really pretty even though, we're a little better in the air, they're tackling a little better. We could use another goal, it doesn't feel like either team is really looking great today and anything could still happen.

50': Garcia Mut gets down to the end line near the right corner and sends a cross to the far post, Crespo is there and has a clear cut chance but he puts the header wide. Really poor effort, that needed to be a goal.

53': We clear a ball out of our end long to the right, Constantino gets to it and runs down the right side, into the area, he centers the ball, Di Giuseppe is there and pokes it into the net! 2-0

58': Neil Bartlett in for Di Giuseppe, back to DMC. Heywood in for Hayward. We're mainly getting rest with those moves and will counterattack.

65': Constantino has it 25 yards out, makes a run into the area, shoots, its saved but there's a rebound, Garcia Mut is there and puts it into the net before the keeper can recover! 3-0

Ipswich 3 : 0 Sunderland

Man of the Match: Ruben Garcia Mut (9.2)
Goals: Garcia Mut 2, Di Giuseppe (7.9)
Assists: Constantino 2 (8.5), Hughes (8.6)
Notables: Williams (7.7), Mattle (7.2), Crespo (7.2), Connolly (7.6)

Young DC Gareth Williams wins 12 of 13 headers and makes 8 interceptions and puts up a spectacular 7.7 rating for us here. Garcia Mut has been struggling too so I'm very happy to see him break out today.


-- Huddersfield play a tough game at Newcastle and get a 0:0 draw.

1. Huddersfield - 60 pts - 27 played
2. Ipswich - 59 pts - 26 played
3. Chelsea - 50 pts - 26 played
4. Man City - 50 pts - 27 played
5. Man Utd - 47 pts - 26 played
6. Arsenal - 46 pts - 25 played
7. Newcastle - 46 pts - 25 played


9 points ahead of 3rd, 1 point behind first with a match in hand.

[Radii]

February 8th, 2028

Ipswich (18-5-3, 2nd) @ Everton (8-8-10, 12th)

Everton are 3:1 to win today, we're 4:5 favorites even on the road in this one. We beat them 3:1 at our place earlier in the year and are crushing this series. The last 4 meetings we're 4-0-0 with 14 goals scored and 2 allowed.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Jean/Smith/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe/Darcy

Some fatigue issues, Mills and Jackson and Crespo are all exhausted, most of the guys that are playing aren't anywhere close to fully rested. Standard mindset on the road.

14': They win a ball deep in their own end, a pass across the goal though goes astray, Di GIuseppe gets to it and has a clear cut chance from 18 yards, but he puts it off the left post, doh!

21': Garcia Mut is hurt.

28': Smith with a through ball into the left side of the area, Ros runs onto it and puts it in, a great pass and good finish!! 1-0

34': Throwin in our offensive end, thrown to Garcia Mut, passed to Darcy, passed into the area for Di Giuseppe, he turns by his man and has a clear cut chance from 10 yards out.... and the keeper stops it. Wow.

44': Kirkland clears a ball out of our end with a header but they get to the loose ball, a quick pass into the area and ST Galuppi is there and has a clear cut chance and finishes easily. 1-1

HALF: Di Giuseppe with two clear cut chances and no goals... we should be WAY ahead right now. Even match, 9 shots for us, 7 for them, 5 on target for us, 3 for them, possession is even as are ratings. We need to get a win here though.

57': Di Giuseppe receives a ball 20 yards out, beats his man, gets a clear cut chance and blasts it right at the keeper. Saved.

64': Jean is hurt.

77': Bryan in for Darcy, Hughes in for Ros, we are going to attack.

84': We get a ball out on the break, Bryan ahead to Di Giuseppe, he gets into the penalty area before they close in, his FOURTH clear cut chance and he finally finishes one! 2-1

91': Everton free kick, they send it out right, a quick cross to the far post, midfielder Doyle beats Garcia Mut on a header and puts it in the net... late tie, ugh... 2-2

Everton 2 : 2 Ipswich

Their midfielder Doyle is man of the match.

Goals: Di Giuseppe (7.6), Ros (7.4)
Assists: Smith (8.0), Bryan (6.8)
Notables: Darcy (7.3)

Very frustrating draw here. Di Giuseppe is so damn reliable, I'm amazed he struggled to finish with so many great looks. Most games that play out like this Di Giuseppe has a hat trick.


Injury Update

Jean is out for ~10 days with an injured elbow.


Huddersfield beats Liverpool and makes their 2 points back. They lead us by 3 points once again, we still have a match in hand and a better goal differential (by 6 goals, Huddersfield won 3:0 today).

[Radii]

February 12th, 2028

Ipswich (18-6-3, 2nd) @ Blackburn (7-9-10, 15th)

Another road game, but another one where we are large favorites, 4:6 today to win, Blackburn are just 7:2. We struggled with them at home, 1-1 draw. We're 7-8-4 lifetime against them still though.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Williams/Connor/Hayward
M: Hughes/Connolly/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Bryan/Constantino

Our team is freaking exhausted, and we play Benfica in the Champions League in 3 days. We're resting everyone we can today, and guys like Garcia Mut may just pass out on the pitch, but we'll hope we've got enough to get a win. standard mindset on the road.

4': Mills and Connor both go down hurt in the opening minutes. Both can stay in but the fitness hits hurt when we're already super fatigued.

22': Connor a yellow.

30': Mills with a through ball to Hughes, Hughes has a clear cut chance but the keeper saves it.

HALF: They shoot 8 times, we shoot 6, each of us put 3 on target. We have a 59/41 possession edge but just haven't been able to capatalize. Constantino with a 6.3 in the first half, I tell him to step it up.

47': they get a bit of a break on a long pass into the area, a good looking shot comes in, not a clear cut chance but close, Bogdanovs with the save. They clearly abused our youngster Gareth Williams to generate that chance.

58': Smith in for Mills, Darcy in for Constantino

75': Aldrovandi in for Williams. I want to attack for the final 15 minutes and I don't think I can do that safely with the kid back in defense.

Nothing, a little slump here for us eh?

Blackburn 0 : 0 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Kieran Connor (7.5)
Notables: Hayward (7.2), Kirkland (7.5), Garcia Mut (7.3), Hughes (7.1)


This may have been our makeup game, most of hte rest of the league was playing in the FA Cup today. Two draws in a row, even on the road, are a little disappointing today:

1. Huddersfield - 63 pts
2. Ipswich - 61 pts
3. Chelsea - 53 pts - 1 less played
4. Man City - 53 pts

10 matches to go in the season, we are +6 in goal differential but two points behind.

[Radii]

Newcastle has a superstar young AML Jay Chapman. Way better than Ros, would possibly be our 3rd or 4th best player (behind Di Giuseppe/Connor/Bogdanovs) if we were able to pick him up. He's valued at $25M, I only have $36M available, I offer $35M and over the course of a couple weeks keep throwing in players. I finally give up when they won't take Heywood, Crespo, Bartlett and youth ST Marney and youth GK Aaron, about $25 Million in value in players.

February 15th, 2028

European Champions Cup - First Knockout Round - First Leg

Ipswich (2nd, EPL) @ Benfica (1st, Liga Sagres)

Benfica are dominating Portugal. Their most valuable player is Moroccan ST Mounir El Haloui who has 11 goals in 24 matches this year. Portugese ST Pedro Magalhaes has 14 goals in 18 matches. They have a third strong striker who is suspended for this match.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Darcy

I would normally tend to want to go with my 4-1-4-1 here, on the road in leg 1, but I just can't today, I don't have enough midfielders fully healthy and fit. Jean is hurt, Bartlett isn't someone I want to rely on here and is tired anyway, so screw it, I'm going with a strong 4-4-2 instead. Neil Gordon is finally uninjured and fit, he gets his first start in a little over a month today. Counterattacking mindset today.

3': a through ball from one of their strikers to the other leads to a clear cut chance about 15 yards out, but Bogdanovs makes the save on what turned out to be a rather weak shot.

13': Mills with a strong shot from 18 yards out, saved.

16': Kirkland a yellow.

29': Another very scary attack from Benfica, we clear one shot and Bogdanovs saves another.

40': After winning a ball in our end they get the ball quickly to ST Magalhaes, he is extremely quick and gets down the pitch before we can close down, he shoots from 18 yards out and beats Bogdanovs. 0-1

HALF: They seem to be solidly in control, 12 shots to our 5, 5 on target to our 2. They certainly have the more threatening shots.

58': Free kick for Gordon, a cross into the area, Di Giuseppe wins the header but sends it high.

62': corner for us, they clear but we push it back ahead, Smith with a shot from 20 yards out, just barely wide right.

62': Connolly in for an exhausted Mills, standard mindset for us.

76': Free kick about 25 yards out for Gordon, its blocked by the wall and behind for a corner. Corner is cleared out easily.

81': Darcy a yellow.

82': A long pass into the area for their ST Magalhaes, he gets behind our defense and scores easily. Looks like Kirkland takes the blame there. Uhoh. 0-2

Benfica 2 : 0 Ipswich

An absolutely terrible start to the knockout round for us.

Their ST is clearly man of the match.

Notables: Bogdanovs (7.0), Kirklnad (7.1), Smith (7.2)

We were just outplayed today, big time. We're capable of crushing them, and it looks like we'll need to do so at our place in a couple weeks.

[Alf]

Ouch for the 2-0 loss. Will be difficult to overcome.

[Radii]

February 20th, 2028

Tottenham (5-6-15, 17th) @ Ipswich (18-7-3, 2nd)

We host still struggling Tottenham, though they have won 3 straight to get out of the dreaded relegation spots. We're only 5:4 favorites today, things change quick with just a couple draws here and there.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Standard mindset at home today.

16': After a number of strong attacking moves we get a quick strike here, Smith ahead to Bryan who turns and shoots quickly from 20 yards out, beating the keeper! 1-0

19': Ros with a long run down the left, a cross into the area, Bryan heads it from about 8 yards out and the keeper can't get to it! 2-0

27': We control it in their end for a good long while after a corner kick, Di Giuseppe receives a pass way out left, he cuts into the area, dodges a tackle, lofts the ball into the 6 yard box where Chris Bryan completes a hat trick with another header! 3-0

29': Bryan with a long run from the midfield through the defense, he gets to the edge of hte penalty box and gets his fourth goal in 30 minutes!! Bryan clearly took exception to my comments about how Eoin Darcy may have taken over the #2 striker job while Bryan was injured.. 4-0

HALF: An incredible half from Chris Bryan. No need to change anything.

63': Gordon with a run down the right, a low hard cross into the area, Di Giuseppe heads it... and puts it wide. He normally scores there.

67': Constantino in for Di Giuseppe, Heywood in for an exhausted Neil Gordon.

74': Tottenham get one back as ST Ellis beats Connor. 4-1

77': Ros in to Bryan, he gets a clear cut chance from the penalty spot but can't get his fifth goal.

Ipswich 4 : 1 Tottenham

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.8)
Goals: Bryan 4
Assists: Di Giuseppe (8.0), Smith (8.1), Ros (8.2), Kirkland (8.5)
Notables: Hayward (7.0), Gordon (7.0)

Bryan scored his first goal 16 minutes in and his 4th by the 29 minute mark, an incredible performance today.


-- We have two full weeks off, much needed after 6 matches in the first 20 days of February.

[Radii]

-- Betis in La Liga offer me a job as they're down in 8th place in Spain this year and have fired their coach. Obviously I'm not interested.

-- During our long break Man City beat Huddersfield at Huddersfield. With 9 matches to go in the year we are in first place!!

1. Ipswich - 64 pts
2. Huddersfield - 63 pts
3. Chelsea - 59 pts
4. Man City - 57 pts - 1 more played
--------------------------------------------
5. Southampton - 52 pts - 1 more played
6. Arsenal - 49 pts - 3 less played
7. Man Utd - 49 pts - 1 less played
8. Newcastle - 49 pts - 1 less played

-- With a couple wins Arsenal makes the top 4 very interesting. Man Utd/Newcastle are fighting for the last Euro Cup spot.


March Update

-- We play on the 7th, 11th, 18th, 22nd and 25th. Our match on the 7th is our second leg Champions League match against Benfica. If we can make the huge comeback against them to get to the Champions League quarterfinals we'll play another Champions League match this month too.

-- Connolly is noted for training well, his abilities off the ball and with positioning improve, as does his concentration. Connolly has roared ahead of the rest of our midfielders and is now clearly our best MC.

-- Neil Gordon is noted for poor training, he's 32 years old now and he's declining pretty fast. He's still playing great this year though.

-- Everton's Martyn Doyle is the young player of the month, but Di Giuseppe and David Ros pick up 2nd and 3rd.

-- We lost $7 Million last month. We've lost $60 million this year, ~$40 million in transfer spending and then $20 million as the season has gone on. We'll make most of that back in prize money, though probably a loss on the year if we aren't able to turn around our Champions league first knockout round.



March 7th, 2028

European Champions Cup First Knockout Round - Second Leg

Benfica (2) @ (0) Ipswich

We're even money favorites to get a win here today, but the issue is that we need to win and win big. If we lead 2-0 we go into extra time, if we win 3-1 Benfica would win the series... so its got to be a big big win.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Same lineup we had so much success against Tottenham with. We'll attack, obviously.

2': Smith with a header in the area after a throwin, its considered a clear cut chance for some reason, but its a weak header and saved.

5': Attack straight up the middle, Connolly to Bryan who gets our second clear cut chance but its right at the keeper.

10': Di Giuseppe receives a pass 20 yards out, beats his man, gets a clear cut chance... saved. WOW.

15': Hayward gets into the area after a strong attack and a weak clearout by Benfica... he gets our fourth clear cut chance in 15 minutes, but we're still goalless. Sigh.

30': Clear cut chance #5 as Smith finds Bryan, and this time its in the net! Bryan beats his man and scores from 10 yards out. 1-0

HALF: We control 63% of the possession, generate 10 shots, 6 on target and FIVE clear cut chances. 2 shots for them. We manage only the 1 goal despite such huge dominance on offense. Lets keep it up in the second half!

67': Bryan is hurt and we'll look to get him out, he can stay in though.

70': Gordon with a free kick from 40 yards out. A short pass to Connolly, he sends it long into the area for Bryan who has just a little room, he turns and shoots before the defense closes down and scores!! 2-0

70': Darcy does come in for Bryan.

80': Cross from Benfica in from the right. Mattle controls it and turns to clear it but its a... mis-hit? Something just terrible, the ball falls to their ST El Haloui 15 yards out and he easily puts it in the net. Just terrible. 2-1


Ipswich (2) 2 : 1 (3) Benfica

We win the match 2-1 but lose the series and we're out of the Champions League early this year.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.0)
Goals: Bryan 2
Assists: Connolly (7.4), Smith (7.4)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.1), Hayward (7.0), Kirkland (7.1), Connor (7.1), Di Giuseppe (7.3)


Mattle's awful clearance at the worst possible time... such a huge disappointment. We got 4 clear cut chances in 15 minutes, we could have just blown this open but couldn't finish. Highly, highly disappointing.

-- We receive $4.3 Million for playing in this round of the champions league.


-- We were expected to make the quarterfinals of the Champions League and fell short, we also came up two rounds short of expectations in the FA Cup. The one and only positive out of this is that we get to turn our complete focus on to winning the EPL.

[Radii]

-- Arsenal travels to the worst team in the league, Leeds, and can only manage a draw. They still have two matches (or three for a couple teams) in hand on everyone but now they sit 7 points behind 4th.


March 11th, 2028

Burnley (6-4-20, 18th) @ Ipswich (19-7-3, 1st)

We're 1:2 to win this one, Burnley are 9:2 dogs. One we should waltz over, lets not have a letdown guys.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Williams/Connor/Jackson
M: Crespo/Jean/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe/Constantino

Lots of changes today to get lesser used guys some action. Standard mindset at home.

2': Some very nifty passing, Garcia Mut to Di Giuseppe, he lays it off for Mills who gets it ahead to Crespo on a volley. Crespo controls it, shoots from 18 yards out, goal! 1-0

18': Garcia Mut tries a cross after a long run but its cleared out. Mills is first to it, passes it back into the area, Di Giuseppe is there and scores with relative ease! 2-0

27': Mills to Di Giuseppe for a shot from 20 yards out, he beats the keeper! 3-0

37': Jean to Di Giuseppe, again he's 20 yards out, again he turns and shoots and the keeper doesn't have a chance in hell, a hat trick! 4-0

HALF: We're steamrolling them, lets keep it up.

69': Darcy in for Di Giuseppe, Heywood at DL for Kirkland.

Ipswich 4 : 0 Burnley

easy win!

Man of the Match: Yuri Di Giuseppe (9.6)
Goals: Di Giuseppe 3, Crespo (8.2)
Assists: Mills 3 (9.1), Jean (7.4)
Notables: Jackson (7.8), Kirkland (7.6), Connor (7.3), Williams (7.2), Garcia Mut (7.4)

Young DC Gareth Williams with another solid match today. Mills with a great 3 assist game in the midfield.


-- Huddersfield struggles to a 0:0 draw on the road at Blackburn.

-- With 8 matches to go (at least for us and Huddersfield):

1. Ipswich - 67 pts
2. Huddersfield - 64 pts
3. Man City - 60 pts - 1 more played
4. Chelsea - 59 pts - 1 less played
5. Southampton - 55 pts - 1 more played
6. Arsenal - 51 pts - 2 less played
7. Man Utd - 49 pts - 2 less played
8. Newcastle - 49 pts - 2 less played

9th place has 39 points.

[Radii]

-- Newcastle beats Tottenham while Man U ties Chelsea. For now this drops Man U to 8th.

-- Arsenal lose to OM and are also out of the Champions League in the first knockout round. Not a good showing for England this year.

Our remaining schedule:

-- @Southampton, @Man Utd, vs Aston Villa, vs QPR, @Watford, vs Chelsea, @Newcastle, vs Liverpool

Huddersfield remaining schedule:

-- vs Exeter, vs Leeds, @Arsenal, @Sheffield Utd, @Aston Villa, @Sunderland, vs Everton, @Tottenham

-- We have more home games but I think Huddersfield's schedule is a little easier. These next two matches are big as we travel to two teams in the top 8 and they play at home against two bottom five teams. Huddersfield are also still in the Euro Cup so they may hold matches in hand over us for awhile.


March 18th, 2028

Ipswich (20-7-3, 1st) @ Southampton (5th)

We're even money favorites against #5 Southampton at their house. We're 10-5-5 lifetime against them and crushed them 4-1 at home in November.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Back to a stronger starting lineup today, I start Mills over Connolly due to how well Mills played our last match. Bryan is on fire and is taking over for Darcy for now as my #2 guy.

We'll counter on the road.

2': Bryan receives the ball 20 yards out, he beats his man but another defender closes down, Bryan takes advantage and passes to the penalty spot for Di Giuseppe who scores! 1-0

16': Kirkland is hurt. He can stay in for now though.

18': Craig Smith superstar!!!! He steals a ball in the midfield to start a break for us, passes ahead to Di Giuseppe, Di Giuseppe back to Smith, Smith with a long ball ahead that is inch-perfect for Chris Bryan. Bryan controls it well, gets into the area with a step on his man and scores!!! 2-0

39': after an attempted clearance by Southampton Mills gets to a loose ball and plays it ahead to Di Giuseppe, he's in the area and scores his second goal!! 3-0

HALF: A brilliant half from Ipswich, they shoot 8 times to our 4 but we obviously are getting great looks and are in control here. Heywood in for the injured Kirkland at the half.

53': We give up a goal as I was tabbed out reading an e-mail. Oh well, missed something there! 3-1

70': Bryan picks up a bit of a knock, he's got no injury to speak of but his fitness drops into the 50% range. I bring Connolly in for Bryan, Smith to DMC, Connolly/Mills in the middle and we'll just play this one out in super safe fashion, 4-1-4-1 counterattacking.


Southampton 1 : 3 Ipswich

A huge road win against a top 5 team today!!

Man of the Match: Yuri Di Giuseppe (8.8)
Goals: Di Giuseppe 2, Bryan (7.9)
Assists: Bryan, Smith (7.7), Mills (7.1)
Notables: Kirkland (7.3), Connor (7.2), Ros (7.0)

-- Huddersfield beat Exeter at home as expected. We have 7 to play now:

1. Ipswich - 70 pts
2. Huddersfield - 67 pts
3. Man City - 63 pts - 1 more played
4. Chelsea - 63 pts
-------------------------------------
5. Southampton - 55 pts - 1 more played
6. Man Utd - 53 pts - 1 less played
7. Newcastle - 52 pts - 2 less played
8. Arsenal - 51 pts - 2 less played

We haven't lost in 17 league matches now. With some disappointments in cup play I must say I had no idea we'd been on *that* long a run in the EPL.

Arsenal lose a makeup match, they still have matches in hand but now they've fallen to 8th.

-- Next up is a HUGE road match against Man Utd, Huddersfield will be playing the worst team in the league at the same time. If we can get by Man Utd our schedule gets a little easier for a bit.

[Radii]

March 22nd, 2028

Ipswich (21-7-3, 1st) @ Man Utd (14-11-5, 6th)

Its the first time in awhile we've been underdogs I think, and its only 6:4 for Man Utd vs our 13:8. We won 2:0 at home back in October, we actually lead the lifetime series now as a result, 9-11-8.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Ros/Smith/Mills/Garcia Mut
F: Di Giuseppe/Darcy

Darcy starts over Bryan, Connolly is out on international duty so Smith/Mills again up front, Garcia Mut gives Gordon a rest. We'll counterattack.

21': A long ball leads to a good chance by Stuart Wray for Man Utd, Bogdanovs makes a diving save and we clear the corner. It wasn't a clear cut chance, I thought it probably would be.

24': Garcia Mut crosses it into the 6 yard box, Di Giuseppe with the header but its off the crossbar.

33': Yellow for Mills

HALF: A really boring half. Man Utd controls 55% of the possession and shoots 7 times with 3 on target. We shoot twice only and neither on target. Pretty even, Man U got a couple legit chances but the half pretty much flew by.

50': A long ball from midfielder Wynter is picked up by ST Wray in the right side of the area, he's behind our defense by a couple steps and gets the finish, beating Bogdanovs. 0-1

53': A strong shot from 25 yards out by Di Giuseppe, it hits the right post, soooo close.

64': Di Giuseppe has it 35 yards out and makes a long run into the area, he ends up generating his own clear cut chance wiht a great run, but its saved.

65': Jean in for Smith, standard mindset now.

80': Gordon in for Garcia Mut

84': Attacking.

Man Utd 1 : 0 Ipswich

Tough place to get a win, alas.

Notables: Bogdanovs (7.2), Kirkland (7.4)

Di Giuseppe with one of his worst performances on record with a 5.9 rating.

Huddersfield didn't play today and they now have a match in hand over us. With 6 to go for us/7 for Huddersfield:


1. Ipswich - 70 pts
2. Huddersfield - 67 pts - 1 less played
3. Man City - 63 pts
4. Chelsea - 63 pts - 1 less played
-------------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 56 pts - 1 less played
6. Southampton - 55 pts
7. Newcastle - 53 pts - 1 less played
8. Arsenal - 52 pts - 2 less played

Our goal differential is +42, Huddersfield +29.

[Radii]

March 25th, 2028

Aston Villa (9-7-16, 15th) @ Ipswich (21-7-4, 1st)

We are 2:5 favorites at home today in a spot where every match is a must win going down the stretch neck and neck with Huddersfield. We tied them 1:1 on the road earlie this year and are 6-7-8 lifetime against Aston Villa. We haven't lost to them at home in 7 years.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Williams/Connor/Jackson
M: Crespo/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Some backups in due to being heavily favored, plus just rotating a couple guys around. Gareth Williams gets another run out there. Standard mindset today.

3': Long ball for Aston Villa, Hughes misses a header, they pass it through the area and Williams appears to miss a tackle and their ST Tyrone Ho-Sang gets an easy goal. 0-1 Ugh.

25': They counterattack after winning a ball in our end, Ho-Sang gets it at midfield where Connor misses a tackle and allows a break all the way into the area, its a clear cut chance but Bogdanovs makes a great save. They get a corner and we clear it long to Di Giuseppe, he's got his own long run, and clear cut chance.. and their keeper makes the save this time.

31': Di Giuseppe gets it 20 yards out, turns by his man and gets our second clear cut chance.. and its saved.

HALF: We just don't look good right now. We shoot 7 times and dominate possession but we need to get on the damn board. They shoot twice but get the one goal... Mattle in for Williams at the half, I'm afraid of getting counterattacked with Williams out there when we start to really press forward. Jean is in for Connolly, my assistant notes that Connolly seems jet-lagged and a bit tired after flying in from Australia. We attack.

53': Jean is brought down in the penalty area, foul and a penalty for us!! Jean sets up to take the penalty himself and scores!! 1-1

76': Long ball ahead from Smith to Di Giuseppe, he controls it and passes over to Bryan, Bryan beats his man and gets into the area and beats the keeper! 2-1

76': back to a counter attacking mindset.

88': They get the ball forward to ST Ho-Sang about 25 yards out, he tries a shot that looks like a pretty weak shot but it deflects off Mattle, Bogdanovs had moved over to the left side of the net and when it deflected into the middle he couldn't recover... that's a fluke goal that ties it up. 2-2

88': We'll try to go back on the attack again.

We can't get a goal though and that's it.

Ipswich 2 : 2 Aston Villa

Goals: Bryan (7.7), Jean (6.9)
Assists: Di Giuseppe (6.7)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.7), Smith (7.2)

Really really ugly, this one hurts us bad.

-- Huddersfield hosted #20 Leeds today and the game ended up a 0:0 draw. If they'd won they'd be in a position to get back into first, and if we'd won we would be threatening to put away first place. Instead its a stalemate and we stay where we are.

-- 5 to go for us:

1. Ipswich - 71 pts
2. Huddersfield - 68 pts - 1 less played
3. Chelsea - 66 pts - 1 less played
4. Man City - 64 pts
-------------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 57 pts - 1 less played
6. Arsenal - 55 pts - 2 less played
7. Southampton - 55 pts - 1 less played
8. Newcastle - 54 pts - 1 less played


Our goal differential is still huge. The fight for 5th-8th is pretty tight.

[Simbo Klice]

Chelsea sneaking back into the mix as well. Better make sure to win that one!

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Simbo Klice

Chelsea sneaking back into the mix as well. Better make sure to win that one!

Yep, we play them at home in a couple matches as well, that's going to be big.


EDIT: misread that, yeah, we better beat them

[Radii]

-- Burnley beats Tottenham and Tottenham now sit in 19th. They are just a couple points from 15th so long way to go there, but Tottenham have been in the EPL since 1978 and only spent one year in the Championship since 1950. They have won the EPL once in this dynasty and had 15 straight top 10 finishes... to see them relegate would be amazing.

April Update

-- We play on the 1st, 8th, 22nd and 30th. QPR, Watford, Chelsea, Newcastle.

-- David Ros is singled out for training well, his Agility, Decison Making, Teamwork, Corners and Marking are all up. Good stuff!

-- Di Giuseppe is 2nd in young player of the month voting.

-- Di Giuseppe scores the goal of the month vs Burnley, it'd been a little while since he was back on this list!

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. The play of Yuri Di Giuseppe is a highlight, our early exit in the FA Cup is a slight disappointment.

-- We lost $532K last month.

April 1st, 2028

QPR (9-12-12, 14th) @ Ipswich (21-8-4, 1st)

We are 4:6 favorites at home today.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Crespo/Connolly/Mills/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Darcy

Standard mindset to start.

11': Good passing and control in our offensive end after a throwin, after 7 or 8 passes we get it to Di Giuseppe, he puts it into the area for Neil Gordon who is charging in from the right, Gordon controls it and is behind the defense, he's got a clear cut chance and scores! 1-0

28': Free kick just outside the area taken by Gordon, its off the wall and falls free in the penalty area where one of their playres is called for a foul for holding back Darcy, penalty!! Gordon takes it and buries it! 2-0

40': give and go between Connolly and Di Giuseppe, Di Giuseppe has a half step on his man and takes advantage, getting into the area and beating the keeper! 3-0

41': Connor a yellow.

43': They have a corner, taken near post, their man wins the header but Bogdanovs goes down and makes the save, we clear the rebound, whew.

HALF: We have 6 shots to their 4. All four of theirs on target but 2 from long range and we are finishing very well here.

46': Darcy has it after kickoff, makes a great run into the area, a clear cut chance... but saved. Rebound ricochets off a defender and Di Giuseppe gets to the loose ball, he puts it in! 4-0

65': Jackson in for Hayward, Garcia Mut in for Gordon, Williams in for Connor.

76': Aldrovandi turns it over in our end and this leads to a difficult shot for ST Kay from 20 yards out, his shot hits the left post and bounces in. 4-1

87': Mills with a great lob into the area, Crespo controls it perfectly with his first touch and blasts a shot into the right side of the net! 5-1

Ipswich 5 : 1 QPR

Man of the Match: Yuri Di Giuseppe (9.3)
Goals: Di GIuseppe 2, Gordon 2 (8.9), Crespo (8.2)
Assists: Darcy 2 (8.3), Di Giuseppe, Connolly (7.5), Mills (8.1)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.1), Hayward (7.2), Connor (7.3), Aldrovandi (7.5)


-- Chelsea play Southampton to a draw so that helps us quite a bit. In fact a Man City crushing 5:0 win over Everton moves Man City into 3rd and Chelsea back to 4th.

-- Huddersfield travel to Sheffield Utd and play to a 0:0 draw and things are looking up!

-- We have 4 to play:

1. Ipswich - 74 pts
2. Huddersfield - 69 pts - 1 less played
3. Man City - 67 pts
4. Chelsea - 67 pts - 1 less played
-------------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 60 pts - 1 less played
6. Southampton - 57 pts
7. Newcastle - 57 pts - 1 less played
8. Arsenal - 55 pts - 2 less played

-- Tottenham just beat Arsenal to drop Arsenal to 8th and move Tottenham to 16th.

[Radii]

New Signing

-- We'll discuss it more when the new season rolls around and he actually joins our team but we will be welcoming 20 y/o AMR Dobrin Ivanov to Ipswich next season. We signed him from greek side Panathinaikos for $6.25 Million. He's a Bulgarian who also speaks English. He isn't going to light the EPL on fire, but Neil Gordon is declining noticibly and Garcia Mut isn't a long term answer. Ivanov has the potential to become a good right midfielder for us and we're happy to have a promising young guy at this position for the first time in many many years. Time will tell if Ivanov is our replacement for Neil Gordon or just another piece in the depth chart as we look for more of a superstar option with our money down the road.

-- Man City fall to Inter in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. We're down to Chelsea, who beat Olympique Lyonnais to make the semifinals.

April 8th, 2028

Ipswich (22-8-4, 1st) @ Watford (6-8-20, 17th)

We are 4:6 favorites today on the road. Chelsea and Huddersfield are playing in the FA Cup soon and both are still in Europe so we get a bit ahead of everyone here, doing so with a win would save us a lot of anxiety later.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Standard mindset on the road here. Smith and Bryan in, Connolly/Darcy sit today.

23': Smith a yellow

26': Mills passes ahead to Bryan who beats his man, he gets into the area for a clear cut chance, but its saved. Corner is cleared.

32': Second clear cut chance as Mills feeds a ball to Di Giuseppe in a dangerous spot, but its saved. The defense was putting on some pressure there, surprised it was a clear cut chance really.

HALF: We dominate with 64% of possession, 10 shots, 4 on target, 3 clear cut chances... to their 2 shots. But no goals. Hoepfully we'll break through soon.

55': Corner for us, Gordon sends it to the far post, Di Giuseppe is there with the header, but its high.

56': Di Giuseppe is tripped just outside the area... in fact I am shocked its not a penalty, he certainly went down in the area. Either way its a professional foul and that's a red card for their defender!! We'll have a man advantage. The free kick is saved and turned behind for a corner, but they save that.

64': Gordon takes a corner and sends it to the penalty spot where Di Giuseppe comes in with a driving header, its off the keeper and in!! Finally! 1-0

74': Counterattacking the rest of the way.

78': Beautiful individual move by Bryan, Di Giuseppe passes it to him and he makes a run through the penalty area, by one man, then jukes a second to get a wide open shot 6 yards out that he finishes! 2-0

84': Piling on, Connor heads one in off a corner!! "That's his first ever goal for Ipswich" ... I'm surprised by that with as many chances as he's had on corner kicks. 3-0

Watford 0 : 3 Ipswich

Now this is a team that plans to win the EPL this year!!

Man of the Match: Yuri Di Giuseppe (8.8)
Goals: Di Giuseppe, Bryan (8.4), Connor (8.6)
Assists: Gordon (8.5), Di Giuseppe, Garcia Mut (6.9)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.2), Hayward (7.6), Kirkland (7.4), Aldrovandi (7.4), Crespo (7.7), Mills (7.2), Smith (7.9)


Most other teams off today. THREE to go for us!

1. Ipswich - 77 pts
2. Huddersfield - 69 pts - 2 less played
3. Man City - 67 pts
4. Chelsea - 67 pts - 2 less played
-------------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 63 pts - 1 less played
6. Southampton - 57 pts
7. Newcastle - 57 pts - 2 less played
8. Arsenal - 55 pts - 3 less played

-- Man City loses today to kill any outside chance they might have had. They lost to Tottenham, who apparently just finally got their shit together in time to make a statement that they aren't going to be dropping down. They are safe now.

[Radii]

-- Huddersfield make up a match with Aston Villa. They win 4-0 to keep pace as best they can. We are now 5 points ahead of Huddersfield, they have one match in hand.

-- Man Utd beat Arsenal to keep them down in 8th place. Newcastle beat Liverpool.

-- Clive Jackson wants to find a new club. I can't blame him, he lost a LOT of playing time with the signing of Hayward. Neil Bartlett is pissed that I'm not using him. Jack Hughes and Jean are in the "wants a new challenge" realm that sometimes goes somewhere and sometimes doesn't. None of these guys are key players, however, all of them but Bartlett have legitimate value to the squad.

Injury Update

Steven Mills hurts himself badly in weight training and will miss 2-3 months, he's done for the season. This is a massive disappointment as Mills has been absolutely clutch in EPL matches this year, he leads the league with 13 assists despite playing in only about half our matches due to the emergence of Brett Connolly.

April 22nd, 2028

Chelsea (19-11-4, 3rd) @ Ipswich (23-8-4, 1st)

We're 5:4 favorites today at home. A win would kill any slim hopes chelsea had of winning the league. "Di Giuseppe has urged his team to beat title rivals Chelsea on Saturday to maintain their advantage in the race for the title" There you go, team leaders!

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Connor/Hayward
M: Crespo/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Bryan

Standard mindset.

9': We have a corner, Aldrovandi heads it back out wide to Gordon, Gordon crosses it, Di Giuseppe the header.. its off the crossbar, hits the goalkeeper and goes in!!!! Its credited as an own goal there. 1-0

14': We have 4 shots to their 0, Connolly has made two really good steals in open space to generate attacks for us.

40': Two on target shots for Chelsea, their first of the match, one is a long range effort that was a bit scary, the other a shot by ST Thomas in the area that is saved pretty easily.

HALF: Possession is even. We shoot 7 times to their 5, we just have two on target to their 3. We aren't really passing all that well (56% to their 70%), but we are tackling much better than them to even things out a bit.

54': We give up 4 corner kicks in a row before finally saving one.

68': Jean is in for Bryan, we fall back to a counterattacking 4-1-4-1 here.

84': Ros is in for Crespo who picked up an injury a few minutes ago.

That'll do it!

Ipswich 1 : 0 Chelsea

Its not the most exciting win but its a solid win at a critical time of the season!

Man of the Match: Juan Pablo Crespo (7.7)
Assist: Di Giuseppe (7.3)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.5), Hayward (7.3), Kirkland (7.2), Connor (7.0), Aldrovandi (7.5)

No goals since the only goal was an own goal.

-- With this Man City and Chelsea are mathematically eliminated.

-- Huddersfield travel to Sunderland with all the pressure on the world on them the day after our win.. and Sunderland win the match 2:0!!!!

We have TWO matches left:

1. Ipswich - 80 pts
2. Huddersfield - 72 pts - 1 less played
3. Man City - 70 pts
4. Chelsea - 68 pts - 1 less played
-------------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 66 pts - 1 less played
6. Newcastle - 63 pts
7. Southampton - 60 pts
8. Arsenal - 58 pts - 2 less played


We are 8 points up. We have 2 matches left, they have 3 matches left. Our goal differential is 19 points better than Huddersfield. The only way for us to fail to win the EPL at this point is if we lose our final two matches and Huddersfield win their final three matches. Any deviation from that at all would seal it.

[Alf]

Now, that smells like League Championship shaping up !

[Radii]

Huddersfield travel to Arsenal a few days before our next match.

Arsenal 4
Huddersfield 1

That makes it official.

Ipswich have won the English Premier Division Title

-- The board release a statement that of course a club of Ipswich's stature should always be able to challenge for the EPL title. They are pleased that we've won and note that this is the 150th anniversary of the founding of the club and a fitting year to win our first title in many, many years.

-- Former ST Matthew Khan is still "favored personnel" for Ipswich and has been watching the team from afar and announces how happy he is for fans of the club. Kahn plays for Sporting CP in Portugal.


I'll finish up the season tonight or later this weekend. We host Liverpool in our final match. Wonder how much it would cost in royalties to blast Queen's We Are The Champions through the stadium for 90 straight minutes?

[chesapeake]

Congratulations! Have you now won the league championship as a coach at every professional level in England?

[Barkeep49]

What an excellent end. The beginning of the season had me a little worried about your dreams of an EPL victory, but you came through. How exciting for Ipswitch!

[Simbo Klice]

Woo-Hoo! Where do I cash in this 16:1 odds bet stub?

[Radii]

April 30th, 2028

Ipswich (24-8-4, 1st)

We're slight underdogs on the road here, Newcastle are 6:4 favorites, we're 13:8 to win.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Aldrovandi/Connor/Jackson
M: Crespo/Jean/Connolly/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Some backups today but not super young kids or anything. Counterattacking mindset on the road.

11': Cross in from their MR, a volley by ST Meade and he beats our defense. Meade is an old vet and that's his 200th goal. 0-1

14': wow they're really up for this, cross in from the right, header by Meade, ouch. 0-2

HALF: Lets get this over with. Newcastle has a lot to play for and we don't, I can't be too upset here.

Newcastle 2 : 0 Ipswich

No one under 6.0, a few guys in the 6.1-6.5 range though. Its ok guys.

ONE match to go:

1. Ipswich - 80 pts
2. Man City - 73 pts
3. Huddersfield - 72 pts - 1 less played
4. Man Utd - 72 pts
-------------------------------------
5. Chelsea - 71 pts - 1 less played
6. Newcastle - 66 pts
7. Arsenal - 62 pts - 1 less played
8. Southampton - 60 pts

Man City, Huddersfield, Man Utd, Chelsea are all within 2 points of each other, though Huddersfield and Chelsea both have a match in hand. Arsenal seems likely to sneak into Europe in the end.

[Radii]

May Update

-- Just one match left for us, we host Liverpool on the 7th

-- Yuri Di Giuseppe is 2nd in Player of the Month voting, and 3rd in Young Player of the Month voting.

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. Increase in stature good, FA Cup bad.

-- We lost $9.79M last month.

May 7th, 2028

Liverpool (14-9-14, 10th) @ Ipswich (24-8-5, 1st)

We're 4:6 favorites here in our final match. Neither team has anything to play for.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Connor/Hayward
M: Hughes/Smith/Connolly/Gordon
F: Di Giuseppe/Constantino

I start my vets for the most part. Mills would start if he wasn't hurt, Di Giuseppe and Constantino up front. Lets have some fun, we'll attack.

HALF: Constantino with a 5.8, most everyone else is average. The thing is... they have 6 shots, 3 on target, and Bogdanovs has made 3 "fantastic" saves on all 3 of their shots... and he's got a 9.0 rating at the half. Lets get a goal!

52': They get the ball out into the right side of the area and we end up with 4 defenders following somehow, a pass to a midfielder in the area leads to a goal. 0-1

67': Smith to Hughes, he puts it into the area for Di Giuseppe who shoots immediately and scores! 1-1

78': Smith to Di Giuseppe who shoots from 25 yards out and its a great strike, into the left side of the net by the diving keeper!!! 2-1

81': They get it back basically right away, Connor misses a tackle and allows ST Acosta to get by him and he gets a great goal. 2-2

Ipswich 2 : 2 Liverpool

Man of the Match: Dmitrijs Bogdanovs (9.2)
Goals: Di Giuseppe 2 (8.8)
Assists: Hughes (8.1), Smith (7.7)


I was hoping to see Constantino get a goal here but hey, a brilliant performance by Bogdanovs, one of the best keepers in the world, and 2 goals from Di Giuseppe, even though we didn't get the win it was a fitting way to end the season!


1. Ipswich - 81 pts
2. Huddersfield - 76 pts
3. Chelsea - 75 pts
4. Man City - 74 pts
-------------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 73 pts
6. Newcastle - 67 pts
7. Arsenal - 63 pts
--------------------------
8. Southampton - 63 pts


Huddersfield and Chelsea win their makeup games to hang on to top 4 spots. Man Utd with a home draw against Sheffield Utd on the last day of the season, if they won that they finish 4th and Man City 5th, pretty big choke for them.

[Radii]

-- We have been given $34,042,000 for winning the EPL

-- We have officially qualified for the Champions League

-- We pay out $8 million to be shared amongst the squad for winning the league. I went with "high bonuses" this year to try to get any possible edge to push us into 1st.

Awards

Yuri Di Giuseppe wins English Footballer of the Year -- no surprise at all, but glad to see it officially happen! You'll see when I review stats... Di Giuseppe was so much better than anyone else in the league this year.

-- Yuri Di Giuseppe is the EPL top goalscorer. He scored 39 league goals. Huddersfield Matteo Cavalieri scores 34 goals while Arsenal's Bugra Yildirim scored 29 goals.

-- I am the manager of the year in England! WOOHOO

EPL Team of the Year

GK: Alphonse Areola - Man Utd - 7.17
DL: Stuart Kirkland - Ipsiwch - 7.30
DC: Kieran Connor - Ipswich - 7.07
DC: Michael Holt - Liverpool - 7.11
DR: Khalid Adelaar - Blackburn - 7.20
ML: David Moreno - Man City - 7.53
MC: Bob Van Schijndel - Man Utd - 7.24
MC: Christian Setaro - Liverpool - 7.25
MR: Simon van der Poel - Man City - 7.25
ST: Lei Nylin - Chelsea - 7.48
ST: Yuri Di Giuseppe - Ipswich - 8.04

Bench players on the team include Dmitrijs Bogdanovs in goal and Craig Smith at MC.

[Radii]

[Radii]

[Radii]

Darcy and Bryan were both simply outstanding as compliments to Di Giuseppe. Darcy was in favor early in the year mostly because of playing well while Bryan was injured, but once I put Chris Bryan back in the lineup he was crazy dominant.

David Ros stood out putting up a 7.12 average rating given as much playing time as he got. My coaches asked me to put him on the transfer list, they don't like him much at all, and his numbers don't lead me to believe he'll consistently put up ratings like that.

Clive Hayward wasn't a superstar but was a solid consistent performer for us. I hope to see his ratings go up a bit after a year to fit in and get used to playing with everyone.

[Radii]

Soooo good, and 21 years old. I've made a lot of decisions that have been critical to getting Ipswich an EPL title, but signing Di Giuseppe is clearly the most important.

[Radii]

I take the time to look through the EPL since I have money left over at the end of the year here, looking for unhappy players and the best players on relegating teams. Exeter has been up for a few years and is relegating back down this year, their starting MR is pretty damn good and wants out. I make a bid for him and hope to sign him. My scouts also keep making recommendations and i find a young DC in Turkey that I'd really like to pick up.

-- Arsenal beat Huddersfield 2:1 in the finals of the FA Cup.

-- Exeter's MR got offers from Inter, AC Milan, Napoli and Real Madrid in addition to us... he chose Real Madrid.

-- With Exeter's MR gone I'm willing to go all in on this young defender from Turkey. His team asks for my entire remaining transfer budget ($29.5M), I drop it down to $25M out of general principle, they accept my offer and he accepts a contract, but there are work permit issues. His name is Denny Junaedi, an indonesian who speaks 5 languages, including english. He's the highest valued player on the #1 team in Turkey right now at $7 Million. My scouts say he'd be my #3 DC. With Mattle and Aldrovandi aging and Aldrovandi falling off quickly I'd be very happy to get a guy who would become a solid rotation player for me here.


-- OM beat Chelsea 2:0 in the finals of the Champions League. With us and Arsenal going out early I'm happy to see England represent pretty well.

-- We receive $35.87M for Champions League TV Revenue. I don't know if everyone in the knockout rounds gets the same or not, but I'm happy with that amount!

-- We end up losing $11 Million (though that'll go up to about $40 Million if my transfer goes through). We'll end with a positive cash balance either way though.

-- My potential DC signing has his work permit initially turned down, i appeal.

-- Wayne Rooney is a youth coach at Chelsea, it comes out in the media that he'd love to coach for me. He has some pretty decent skills so i'll give him an offer.

-- Well yeah... Man Utd also makes Rooney an offer to coach, of course he takes that, he's listed in Man Utd's info page as one of their Legends, I assume that means something.


New Signing

After his work permit goes through 23 y/o Indonesian DRC Denny Junaedi will be joining Ipswich at the start of the new season!

Physical: Pace 15/Accel 17/Agility 16/Balance 16/Fitness 16... Jumping is 4, so he's going to be a liability in the air. Connor is a god in the air so hopefully having a pacey defender will work out.

Mental: Determination 14, Decisions 16, Anticipation 16, Teamwork 18, Work Rate 17, Aggresion 15, Positioning 13. Pretty damn solid mentally, only Creativity and Flair are below 13.

Technical: Marking 17/Tackling 15/Heading 16/Technique 11/Passing 11.

So this guy is solid heading the ball... if he can get up to it.


We signed him away from Besiktas where he earned a 7.12 average rating for the #1 team in Turkey.

We pay $25 Million for him. He asked for $28,000/wk for 4 years so he'll be a good bargain for awhile as well.

Junaedi scouts out as our 3rd best DC as of right now. Aldrovandi will turn 33 before matches start next year, Mattle is 31, Connor 23, and then Olvera/Williams vying for playing time. Junaedi will hopefully settle in as a rotation player pretty quickly for me.

[Radii]

-- Australia beats Afghanistan 8-0 in world cup qualifying... ouch. Brett Connolly gets a goal.

-- A story came up earlier in the year that ML Juan Pablo Crespo took on British Citizenship after he'd been with us for long enough. He's Spanish but never got any callups there. I didn't even blink at the story, assuming it wouldn't make a difference for him... but he just got called up to play for England in the European Championship this summer!!

-- In addition to Crespo Kieran Connor is called up to play for England. Hayward and Kirkland are not, that's a disappointment.

-- Yuri Di Giuseppe and Carlos Aldrovandi are called up to play for Italy in the European Championship.

June Update

The European Championship group stages are in June so we'll go through that here.

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. Stature increase good, FA Cup bad.

-- We made $52 Million last month.

-- One of my fitness coaches is signed away by Southampton.

2028 European Championship

-- A powerhouse opener, Spain beats Italy 2:1. Di Giuseppe scores the goal and puts up a 7.5 rating. Aldrovandi has a poor match with a 5.9 rating.

-- DC Jose Antonio Ballester plays for Spain and gets a red card. We sold him to Roma after a few mostly pedestrian seasons for Ipswich... and he started 36 matches for Roma and put up a 7.54 rating, far and away his best season ever. Amazing.

-- England 2:0 over Romania. Kieran Connor with a solid 7.0 playing all 90 minutes at DC.

-- Italy 0 : 0 Bulgaria. Di Giuseppe plays 90 minutes and has a really poor game, 5.6 rating. Aldrovandi came on as a sub and put up a 6.6. Italy is in trouble.

-- England 2 : 2 Germany. Connor a 6.8 rating today. One of the goals was scored by Newcastle's ML Jay Chapman. I mention that because there's a fair chance I throw a large amount of my transfer money at trying to land him next season.

-- England 1 1 : Poland. Connor with a 6.5 rating. Crespo starts but only puts up a 6.2 rating.

-- Italy 2 : 1 France. Aldrovandi a 7.1 rating and an assist. Di Giuseppe a 6.9 rating. an 84th minute own goal by France give italy the win that gets them out of the group stages.


Group A

Holland 9 pts
Belgium 4 pts
Switzerland 3 pts
Ukraine 1 pt

Group B

Turkey 9 pts
Croatia 4 pts
Serbia 3 pts
Greece 1 pt

Group C

Germany 7 pts
England 5 pts
Poland 2 pts
Romania 1 pt

Group D

Spain 7 pts
Italy 4 pts
Bulgaria 3 pts
France 1 pt


Italy plays Germany, England plays Spain in the quarters.

[Radii]

European Club Rankings

1. Inter - 158.877 (unchanged)
2. OM - 158.766 (+3)
3. At. Madrid - 151.419 (-1)
4. Ipswich - 149.444 (+5)
5. Man City - 148.444 (+1)
6. Arsenal - 139.443 (-1)
7. Genoa - 137.877 (+2)
8. Olympique Lyonnais - 136.766 (-1)
9. Barcelona - 130.419 (-3)
10. Real Madrid - 129.419 (unchanged)


Two major notes... every team in the top 10 stayed there this season. More importantly, we just jumped up to #4 in Europe and #1 in England!!!!

We now have 5 spectacular seasons on the board for this rating. The rating that will fall off next year is our 2nd best out of the last 5 years, so we need a big showing next year.

[Radii]

Ugh, I usually don't type up posts in the reply box here except for a couple offseason ones where I'm just writing up stuff as it comes in off the cuff and I just hit the back button on a huge writeup.

-- Di Giuseppe is the fans player of the year, no suprise at all.

Ipswich Best Eleven

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Connor/Mattle/Hayward
M: Ros/Mills/Smith/Gordon
F: Bryan/Di Giuseppe

No surprises at all.

Ipswich All-Time Best Eleven

GK: Dmitrijs Bogdanovs (213 apps/7.05 rating)
DL: Stuart Kirkland (471 apps/7.18 rating)
DC: Otmar Mattle (240 apps/6.99 rating)
DC: Carlos Aldrovandi (219 apps/6.99)
DR: David Wright (166 apps/2 goals/7.11 rating)
ML: Juan Pablo Crespo (131 apps/17 goals/7.09 rating)
MC: Craig Smith (185 apps/15 goals/7.18 rating)
MC: Steven Mills (325 apps/20 goals/7.10 rating)
MR: Neil Gordon (426 apps/104 goals/7.05 rating)
ST: Constantino (415 apps/290 goals/7.48 rating)
ST: Chris Bryan (192 apps/87 goals/7.25 rating)

Bogdanovs AND Crespo make the starting team this year.

Di Giuseppe (125 matches/102 goals/7.69 rating) and Jackson (198 matches/6.97 rating) are the only two active players on the bench.

Three players now over 400 matches played for Ipswich. Kirkland has the most by far and he's the youngest. Gordon (426 apps) is 32 and Constantino (415 apps) is 33. Kirkland with 471 appearances just turned 29 a couple days ago.


Season Expectations

Our minimum expectations are to qualify for the Champions League. We'd get $64 Million in transfer money and $1.9m/week with that ambition.

A Title Challenge would get me $77 Million and $2M/wk. I'll take that. We currently are only spending $1.59M/wk so we actually have tons of room there.


-- We're going to play Arsenal in the Community Shield this year, we won the league, they won the FA Cup.


Youth Intake

Mostly crap and released. But a couple noteworthy:

ST Liam Mitchell - scouted as a 2* player but the fact that we have these world class guys seems to mess up the curve. I'm more interested in the potential "to become a good EPL player". decent->fairly good->good->leading star I think is the ratings there. So "good" potential is noteworthy. 15 finishing, 14 determination, 16 flair. Not great physically (ratings 9 to 11), we'll see how he develops.

DMC/MC Brian Leather - My assistant manager calls him "one of the best players of his generation". And yeah, we haven't seen a youth pull like this in a damn long time outside of goalkeeper. Leading star potential at either MC or DMC, though he is a natural DMC. A couple of my scouts say he's as good as Jean at DMC right now.




Comments welcome on what I should do with this guy. I'm sure Di Giuseppe and Connor were better at age 16 but they were with other clubs. I'm not sure if I've ever had anyone better to manage myself. I see some stuff I don't like (determination) but still there's some serious numbers here. My initial inclination is that he needs to be training with the senior team right now, starting against weaker competition and playing with the reserves. Is that enough playing time at such a young age though, would he be better getting the 40+ games that he'd get with the U18's?


That takes us to our pre-season meeting and I'm a little too tired to focus on making sure I get all our preseason tasks done without skipping something important, so this'll wait til tomorrow.

[Barkeep49]

I think your plan sounds like a good one. If he's of the quality to play with the senior team, I'd go for it, provided between reserves and senior club play you can get him 30+ starts.