FM10 - From the Bottom Up - Page 18

Radii · 09-14-2011, 03:27 AM

-- Chelsea lost to OM (france) in the first knockout round. Arsenal got by Feyenoord 2:0. Barcelona, Inter, Real Madrid all advanced.

Quarterfinal Matchups:

Inter vs Real Madrid
Arsenal vs Roma
OM vs Celtic
Ajax vs Barcelona

Inter have won twice in a row.

April Update

-- We play Wolverhampton on the 4th in a match that could easily decide who wins the league. After that, 13th, 18th, and 25th.

-- Chris Mason has trained well in the last month. Real well! Command of Area (9), Communication (9), Reflexes (17), Composure (14), Agility (14), Balance (15), and Strength (9) are all up. He's still just 18 but the Command of Area, Communication and Anticipation ratings (7) worry me more and more when we look at his ability to be a legit EPL keeper. For now though its great to see improvement and he could still make it for sure.

-- Constantino is 3rd in player of the month voting.

-- Constantino has the goal of the month vs Sheffield Wednesday. Khan vs Leyton Orient has the #2 goal of the month.

-- I am manager of the month in March after leading Ipswich to a 5-0-1 record.

-- The board is pleased. Our win over Norwich is still the high, 4:1 loss to Watford still the low.

-- We lost $2.77M last month. We're now sitting on a profit of $137K on the year and $6.2M in cash.

-- Watford play their extra match and win it, vaulting themselves into 6th place, 1 point up on the final playoff spot.

April 4th, 2019

Wolverhampton(27-8-6, 2nd) @ Ipswich (28-6-7, 1st)

The bookmakers feel its an even match, we are 6:4 favorites but they're right there at 13:8, this could go either way. We tied 1:1 at their place back in November. We're ahead of them by one point, so right now we both control our own destiny. Win out including this and win a title.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Henrique/McKerr/Jackson
M: Turgay Colak/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
ST: Khan/Constantino

Turgay Colak starts at ML, Donnelly/Mills in the middle. I use the "control" strategy. They're playing a 4-1-4-1, very very defensive looking, lets control possession and draw them out here.

15': We build up, Donnelly with a ball into the area, Khan breaks for it perfectly, he has a half step on his man at best but its enough, first touch shot and its by the keeper! 1-0

18': I drop back to counterattacking.

35': After a long break with no highlights (despite 12 total shots) Gordon earns us a corner here, they clear it though.

39': midfielder Adagsmar with a yellow.

43': We build up for a really long time, a couple minutes of possession here passing around, they try to clear as we attempt passes to the forwards but we recover a couple times and keep it going, finally Mills puts a ball into the area for Khan and its just like our last goal, Mills plays it to a perfect spot, Khan with the perfect break on the ball and the finish! 2-0

HALF: Matthew Khan is reminding everyone there's more than one striker on this team!!! We end up with 10 shots, 6 on target, didn't see a few of those, a few were in a crowded area where it seemed unlikely we could find anything. They shoot 6 times, not one on target yet. We look spectacular today.

58': They break through with a great through ball into the area, a clear cut chance, but no! Mason dives and stops it! Corner is cleared.

69': We fail to clear out of our end and I'm freaking stunned because their striker is like 4 yards offsides... its not til the replay that I realize that it wasn't passed to him, that Mills tried to clear the ball and it bounced off one of our guys and just looked like a perfect through ball... their dutch striker with what may be my favorite name ever Ricky van Wolfswinkel gets an easy goal. Really, van Wolfswinkel!!! 2-1

80': Mariga in for Mills.

82': Long possession on offense, Khan tries a shot, blocked, it falls to Mariga 25 yards out, he blasts it... crossbar! doh!

85': A fight for possession in our defensive half, they win it, there's a ball into the area for star striker Sam Vokes, its a little deep, but its still a clear cut chance and Mason is there to make the stop!!

We hang on and get a really solid win against the #2 team in the league!

Ipswich 2 : 1 Wolves

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.8)
Goals: Khan 2
Assists: Donnelly (7.0), Mills (6.9)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0)

Mostly 6.8-6.9. Constantino was not to be found today with a 6.5. The optimist is thrilled to see the rest of the guys step up around him. The pessimist points out that Wolverhampton are the other EPL quality team in the league and question how well he'll do in the EPL next year.

Ipswich have clinched promotion to the English Premier Division

-- the usual pleasantries, the fans are thrilled that I've brought the squad back up. The board praise me and are happy to see us go back up.

With 4 to go:

1. Ipswich - 93 pts
2. Wolves - 89 pts
-------------------
3. QPR - 80 pts
4. Leeds - 79 pts
5. Bristol City - 74 pts
6. Watford - 67 pts
------------------
6. Stoke - 65 pts
7. Cardiff - 64 pts
8. Derby - 64 pts

QPR and Leeds have clinched playoff spots.

to close out the post: Ricky van Wolfswinkel. Just think of the nickname potential! Wonder what his friends call him?

Radii · 09-14-2011, 03:49 AM

-- Its a non-Constantino record!! Steven Mills has an awesome 18 assists, breaking a team record of 17 set by Gordon Donnelly in our last promotion effort in 17/18. I am thrilled with Steven Mills.

Injury Update

-- Gordon Donnelly is suffering from crushing depression after having a record broken.. no, wait, he hurt his chest lifting weights. He's out 2 weeks.

-- Chris Mason hurts a finger in training and will miss a couple days. This comes pretty close to our next match so he might miss it.

April 13th, 2019

Ipswich (29-6-7, 1st) @ Gillingham(14-12-16, 16th)

We're 4:6 favorites at Gillingham, they're 7:2 to win. Their 16th place is considered a huge success this year.

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/Welsh/McKerr/Jackson
M: Turgay Colak/Mariga/Mills/Gordon
ST: Khan/Constantino

Welsh in for McKerr. Mason starts, he's had a day extra to come back from his little injury. Mills/Mariga with Donnelly hurt. Simon Hamilton is healthy again but there's no way in hell I'm sitting Matthew Khan right now.

1': They build up and Welsh lets a pass by him to ST Daly, its a 24 second goal. Whoops. 0-1

33': We try to get it ahead to Khan, they head it away.. Mariga is there to send it back into the area, Mills is there, he finishes easily. 1-1

45': Kirkland with a long clearance out of the defense, Khan is there 45 yards from goal, he controls it, sends it ahead and sprints to it, he's into the area and its an easy goal! 2-1

HALF: After the embarrassing start we appear to have settled down. We shoot 3 times, 2 clear cut chances, both goals. They are trying to attack, 7 shots, 1 on target, but 6 are off target.

51': Mills and Jackson pass back and forth to build up, Jackson passes to Constantino, he skips by a couple defenders and gets a solid goal. 3-1

76': I didn't note the yellow earlier but Stuart Kirkland got one earlier, and he gets another one here, he's sent off. Guarin in for Khan and back at DL.

Gillingham 1 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.3)
Goals: Constantino, Khan (7.0), Mills (7.6)
Assists: Kirkland (7.5), Jackson (7.4), Mariga (7.5)
Notables: Mason (7.0), McKerr (7.2)

Wolves have an embarrassing home tie vs #24 Barnsley. That puts us 6 ahead with 3 to go.

With 3 to go:

1. Ipswich - 96 pts
2. Wolves - 90 pts
-------------------
3. QPR - 83 pts
4. Leeds - 82 pts
5. Bristol City - 74 pts
6. Derby - 67 pts
------------------
7. Watford - 67 pts
8. Coventry - 66 pts
9. Leicester - 66 pts
10. Norwich - 66 pts
11. Stoke - 65 pts
12. Cardiff - 64 pts

7 teams fighting for the last playoff spot. Watford give up their lead and Derby have it for the moment.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 04:07 AM

April 13th, 2019

Ipswich (30-6-7, 1st) @ Hull(9-7-27, 21st)

We're 4:7 favorites on the road, Hull are 4:1 to win. Hull have 5 points on Barnsley and 6 points on Swansea and Leyton Orient. They aren't totally safe yet but one of those relegation teams would have to find 2 wins in 3 matches at minimum.

GK: Mason
D: Hughes/Welsh/McKerr/Jackson
M: Turgay Colak/Mariga/Mills/Gordon
ST: Khan/Constantino

Hughes is back to full training and covers for Kirkland while he serves the suspension for his red card.

2': Free kick for Hull from 30 yards, its taken well and Mason has to dive to stop it, it falls back into play, they pounce on it and score. 0-1

29': Turgay Colak and Khan have both missed clear cut chances.

31': There we go. Mills to Khan as they try and fail to clear, Khan puts this one home. 1-1

46': Constantino with a run down the right, into the area, a ball into the 6 yard box for Khan, Khan gets to it and scores! 2-1

46': In the final moments of the half, Turgay Colak goes down hurt and must be subbed immediately, I guess this is right while the whistle blows. The sub can be made at the half.

HALF: We've got this barring some bad mistakes. Guarin in for Turgay Colak. 10 shots to 2 for us.

53': Hat trick!! Gordon to Mills, Mills to Khan and Khan is in the area for an easy finish. 3-1

91': The pressure we put on them int he last 40 minutes is immense. It could be like 10-1 right now. Their keeper deserves man of the match I believe. We get a final goal here, Constantino has a shot blocked but it falls to Guarin for a very easy finish.

Hull 1 : 4 Ipswich

We shoot 28 times, we put 16 on target, we have NINE clear cut chances. It was just non stop aggression in the second half.

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (9.5)
Goals: Khan 3, Guarin (7.5)
Assists: Constantino 2 (7.5), Mills 2 (9.0)
Notables: Mason (7.4), Jackson (7.2), Hughes (7.7), Gordon (8.0)

-- Matthew Khan scores his 100th league goal today.

-- Turgay Colak is done for the year, out 6-7 weeks. He's a loaner and not one we'd go hard after for the EPL. He's done for Ipswich presumably.

With 2 to go:

1. Ipswich - 99 pts
2. Wolves - 93 pts
-------------------
3. QPR - 86 pts
4. Leeds - 85 pts
5. Bristol City - 77 pts
6. Derby - 70 pts
------------------
7. Watford - 70 pts
8. Norwich - 69 pts
9. Coventry - 66 pts
10. Leicester - 66 pts
11. Stoke - 65 pts

Likely down to Derby/Watford/Norwich here.

Wolverhampton have clinched promotion. Since we're up 6 points here with 2 left we'd have to lose both, they'd have to win both and make up a 13 goal differential.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 04:38 AM

-- Since we've got first unless we start losing by 4 or 5 goals, lets knock this out.

April 25th, Charlton (20th) @ Ipswich (1st)

Constantino gets two clear cut chances in the first 15 minutes, but the first goal is to Khan, Donnelly hits him in the 28th minute. They tie it up in the 34th though as we foul them 18.00001 yards out. Free kick for a goal, hard to stop from that range. 36th minute Khan does it again, and the pass again comes from Donnelly! We start to run away with it at Constantino hits Gordon who puts a great shot near post from a tight angle in the 41st minute.

We keep it going in the 2nd half, Neil Gordon gets his second goal running on to a wonderful pass from Mills made near midfield.

Ipswich 4 : 1 Charlton

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (9.0)
Goals: Gordon 2, Khan 2 (8.8)
Assists: Donnelly (8.7), Constantino (8.1), Mills (8.5)

Mason 6.9, Jackson 7.0, Kirkland 7.4, McKerr 7.3, Welsh 7.1, Guarin 7.2.

Ipswich have won the Coca-Cola Championship

The fans and the board love me. It was a done deal already but now its a mathematical certainty.

Watford win and Derby lose. With 1 to go:

6. Watford - 73 pts
-----------------
7. Derby - 70 pts

How good is this? Watford travel to Derby for the final match of the season. Derby have a significant goal differential advantage. If Derby wins, they're in the playoffs.

May Update

-- Just the one match left on May 3rd then we're done.

-- Steven Mills gets singled out for training well. His set pieces improve but they're still awful so meh. But his Anticipation (13) and Decisions (13) go up and that's awesome.

-- Matthew Khan is second in player of the month voting... QPR's Enrico Rocchini scores 8 goals in 4 matches to win that award. Khan did the same thing, oh well.

-- I am manager of the month for April.

-- The board is Delighted with my ledership now after winning the league.

-- We lose $2.73M last month.

May 3rd: Ipswich (1st) @ Middlesbrough (18th)

They score first in the 21st minute, Jackson is back too far out right and allows one of their forwards to hang out behind our defense for an easy pass and finish. We shoot 9 times to their 3. We'll get something in the second half.

We finally get one in the 69th minute, Constantino with a nice ball ahead to Gordon on a counter attack and Gordon scores.

Middlesbrough 1 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.5)
Goal: Gordon (7.5)
Assist: Constantino (7.3)
Notables: Welsh (7.0), Mills (7.2), Mariga (7.1)

-- Derby and Watford draw. That's all Watford needed. The playoffs will consist of Leeds, QPR, Bristol City and Watford.

Champions League

A quick update.

Quarterfinals

2-leg series

Inter 6 : 2 Real Madrid
Arsenal 3 : 2 Roma
OM 2 : 0 Celtic
Barcelona 6 : 1 Ajax

Semifinals

Inter 4 : 2 Barcelona
OM 2 : 1 Arsenal

Inter gets a chance for a 3rd straight Champions League title. OM is Olympique de Marseille from france. This is the first time they've even made the champions league since 2014 when they made the final 16.

That's it for now. We'll cover the Euro Championship during the offseason and prepare to go completely insane spending money on left midfielders and central defenders. Also, do we try to buy Simon Hamilton? Khan came on so well here but we need that target man don't we? Do we try to ride into the EPL with Carlos Antonio or do we consider looking in another direction? We'll be better prepared for the EPL this time around but I think there are still going to be big questions about whether or not we can stay up this time..

Barkeep49 · 09-14-2011, 07:07 AM

Exciting times! Glad to see you won't get the parachute payment after all

.

Tellistto · 09-14-2011, 08:44 AM

Grats!

Radii · 09-14-2011, 10:23 AM

Goalkeepers

Name	Age	$/Wk	GM	GA	SO	MoM	Yel	Red	Avg
Chris Mason	18	$1000	30(1)	35	6	1	0	0	7.08
Carlos Antonio	27	$27,500	21	23	6	1	0	0	6.96

**GA = Goals Allowed | SO = Shutouts

This is two years in a row that Chris Mason came in and played slightly better than Carlos Antonio during his injury problems.

Defenders

Name	Age	$/Wk	Apps	GL	AST	MoM	Yel	Red	Tck	Pass	Avg
Stuart Kirkland	20	$24000	40	0	2	2	4	1	3.52	76%	7.23
Michael McKerr	30	$13250	33(5)	2	1	0	3	0	3.87	74%	7.09
Clive Jackson	20	$11500	26(12)	2	7	0	3	0	3.48	71%	7.02
Henrique	33	$37500	40	0	1	1	0	0	3.57	75%	6.90
Vinny Burke	21	LOAN	6 (7)	0	0	0	1	0	3.54	70%	6.88
James Welsh	24	$16500	25(2)	0	0	0	3	0	3.75	69%	6.81
Jack Hughes	19	$2500	23(5)	0	3	1	9	1	2.65	75%	6.78
Troy Brown	29	$19250	1(5)	0	0	0	0	0	2.78	81%	6.76

**GL = Goals | TCK = Tackles/game

Kirkland and Jackson I'm thrilled with. Henrique is aging and unhappy and James Welsh did not impress this year leaving me with big questions as to what I can expect from him at the next level. I do think he's closer to Henrique than Troy Brown who just doesn't have the physical ability to hang at the next level and completely falls apart. McKerr always seems to do well despite being rated lower than many others here.

Alf · 09-14-2011, 10:24 AM

Hip Hip Hurray !

Radii · 09-14-2011, 10:34 AM

Midfielders

Name	Age	$/Wk	Apps	GL	AST	MoM	Yel	Red	Tck	Pass	Avg
Gordon Donnelly	24	$52000	36	5	17	2	14	1	4.97	75%	7.47
Steven Mills	22	$51000	38(2)	6	21	0	1	0	4.06	75%	7.39
McDonald Mariga	33	$26500	16(9)	2	4	2	1	0	3.80	75%	7.19
Neil Gordon	24	$28000	43	9	16	2	1	0	2.68	61%	7.11
Fredy Guarin	33	$18000	31(8)	7	5	0	2	0	2.52	71%	7.09
Darren Johnson	25	$11250	7(6)	0	4	1	1	0	3.63	76%	7.01
Turgay Colak	21	LOAN	18(3)	1	3	0	0	0	2.54	65%	6.86

**GL = Goals | TCK = Tackles/game

Dear lord our midfield was good this year. Steven Mills earned every penny of that huge contract.

Attackers

Name	Age	$/Wk	Apps	GL	AST	MoM	Yel	Red	Drb	Pass	Avg
Constantino	25	$25500	48(1)	52	17	22	0	0	8.64	63%	8.09
Matthew Khan	25	$47500	26(4)	23	5	4	0	0	2.83	72%	7.28
Simon Hamilton	21	LOAN	27(2)	15	7	1	2	0	1.94	68%	7.11
Ian Taylor	20	$300	1(6)	1	2	0	0	0	5.63	66%	6.90

** GL = Goals | Drb = Dribbles/Game

Constantino was amazing as expected, but how about Matthew Khan's run to finish the season with 23 goals? He turned it on when Hamilton got hurt a couple times and became a complete terror in the last 2 ½ months of the season. Most of our questions going into the EPL revolve around our defense, but the target man question is an important one up front. Do we try to buy Hamilton from Southampton?

Radii · 09-14-2011, 10:41 AM

Ipswich 2019/20 History/Leaders

Team History

Woking

2009/10 - BS South - 1st - 24 W - 12 D - 6 L - 62 for - 39 ag - +23 GD - 84 pts
2010/11 - BS Premier - 17th - 14 W - 10 D - 22 L - 60 for - 65 ag - -5 GD - 52 pts
2011/12 - BS Premier - 4th - 26 W - 12 D - 8 L - 87 for - 51 ag - +36 GD - 90 pts
2012/13 - BS Premier - 1st - 26 W - 11 D - 9 L - 88 for - 56 ag - 89 pts
2013/14 - League 2 - 18th - 12 W - 17 D - 17 L - 50 for - 54 ag - 53 pts
2014/15 - League 2 - 9th - 20 W - 9 D - 17 L - 57 for - 58 ag - 69 pts
2015/16 - League 2 - 1st - 30 W - 8 D - 8 L - 102 for - 50 ag - 98 pts
2016/17 - League 1 - 1st - 24 W - 14 D - 7 L - 103 for - 61 ag - 89 pts

Ipswich

2017/18 - Championship - 1st - 28 W - 12 D - 6 L - 91 for - 42 ag - 96 pts
2018/19 - Premier League - 20th - 5 W - 5 D - 28 L - 30 for - 77 ag - 20 pts
2019/20 - Championship - 1st - 32 W - 7 D - 7 L - 121 for - 54 ag - 103 pts

This year:

Top Goalscorer - Constantino - 52 goals
Top League Goalscorer - Constantino - 50 goals
Most Assists - Steven Mills - 21 assists
Highest Average Rating - Constantino - 8.09
Most Man of the Match - Constantino - 22

My god we scored 121 goals.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 11:16 AM

Contract Updates

-- Right around the time the regular season ended I changed my mind on Fredy Guarin. He was willing to take a pay cut from $35,000/wk to $18,000/wk to stay on for an extra year. He'll turn 34 June 30th and he's definitely shown decline, I can't put myself in a position where he needs to start 25 times or anything, but for $18k/wk I thought it would be worth having him next year.

-- Chris Mason asks for a new contract. He was my starter for much of the year. He wants a raise from $1000/wk to $9000/wk. Ok, you twisted my arm, its yours.

Championship Playoffs

Semifinal First Leg

Bristol City 3 : 0 QPR
Watford 0 : 0 Leeds

Semifinal Second Leg

QPR (2) 2 : 1 (4) Bristol City - Bristol City advance
Leeds (1) 1 : 0 (0) Watford - Leeds advance

Finals

Bristol City 4 : 1 Leeds

Bristol City will be coming up to the EPL along with Ipswich and Wolverhampton.

-- Chris Mason starts for the England U19 squad in U19 Euro Championship Qualifying against Hungray. England wins 4:0 and Mason puts up a 7.3 rating. Perhaps more impressive is that our youth striker Chris Bryan comes on in the 70th minute of the match and scores twice to earn a 8.5 rating!

-- England's U19s crush Scotland 5:0 a few days later. Mason plays 90 minutes again in goal, a second straight shutout and a 7.4 rating. Chris Bryan starts, scores 1 goal and makes 1 assist, and leaves in the 66th minute with an 8.9 rating.

-- England 3 : 1 N. Ireland, Mason a 6.8 rating, Bryan 7.4. Bryan plays the full match today, getting one assist.

FA Cup

-- Exeter may have only finished 14th in the Championship, but they won @Bolton, @Sunderland, @Coventry, vs Tottenham and vs Huddersfield to make a crazy improbable run to the FA Cup Finals. Its not meant to be though as Chelsea wins 2:0 in the finals.

-- Our loans are about to end. I go through a number of screens on Simon Hamilton, and the training screen gives me the push I need to make a decision on whether to go after him or not: "Kevin Hayward has indicated that he believes Simon Hamilton is somewhat prone to injury". Hamilton would be a big investment, and that's enough for me to shy away.

-- We pay out $2.3M to the players for winning the league.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 11:29 AM

2019/20 Championship Final League Standings

1. Ipswich - 103 pts
2. Wolves - 97 pts
------------------------------
3. Leeds - 91 pts
4. QPR - 90 pts
5. Bristol City - 80 pts - won playoffs
6. Watford - 74 pts
------------------------------
7. Leicester - 72 pts
8. Norwich - 72 pts
9. Derby - 71 pts
10. Scunthorpe - 69 pts
11. Stoke - 69 pts
12. Cardiff - 67 pts
13. Coventry - 67 pts
14. Exeter - 60 pts
15. Gillingham - 58 pts
16. Sheffield Wed - 57 pts
17. Fulham - 56 pts
18. Middlesbrough - 54 pts
19. Bolton - 49 pts
20. Charlton - 45 pts
21. Hull - 37 pts
--------------------------------
22. Leyton Orient - 32 pts
23. Barnsley - 30 pts
24. Swansea - 28 pts

Goals

1. Constantino - Ipswich - 50
2. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 33
3. Steve Carroll - Leeds - 27
4. Tom Matthews - Norwich - 26
5. Lee Smith - Derby - 26

Matthew Khan was 9th with 22. Simon Hamilton was 21st with 15.

Assists

1. Steven Mills - Ipswich - 21
2. Gordon Donnelly - ipswich - 17
3. Constantino - Ipswich - 17
4. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 17
5. Lee Smith - Derby - 16

Neil Gordon is 7th with 14. Score that many goals and this is what happens I guess.

Man of the Match Awards

1. Constantino - Ipswich - 21
2. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 14
3. Andy Carroll - Leicester - 12
4. Danny Gilligan - Leyton Orient - 9
5. Sam Vokes - Wolves - 8

Average Rating

1. Constantino - Ipswich - 8.11
2. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 7.65
3. Sam Vokes - Wolves - 7.63
4. Gordon Donnelly - Ipswich - 7.58
5. Victor - Derby - 7.50

Steven Mills is 7th at 7.42, Matthew Khan 9th (7.38), Stuart Kirkland 14th (7.24).

-- The goal that I posted to youtube from Constantino is the Championship goal of the year. A second Constantino goal against Leeds is the #2 goal of the year.

-- I am Manager of the year in the Championship. Congrats to me.

-- Stuart Kirkkland, Steven Mills, Neil Gordon and Constantino are all named to the Championship team of the year!

chesapeake · 09-14-2011, 11:40 AM

Congrats on another championship.

My sense from reading along is that you need to find an EPL level GK for the start of the season. Carlos Antonio doesn't look to be the answer and Mason simply isn't ready yet.

Troy Brown is turning out to be a dog for me, too. I picked him up from Ipswich in my game after a contract dispute shortly before you got the job there. I'm managing a League 2 side, though, so I thought he'd fare better.

So you were still playing and posting at 5 AM this morning? When do you sleep?!!

Radii · 09-14-2011, 12:14 PM

-- Mcdonald Mariga is getting up there in years but he's still the captain of the Kenyan National team and he has a busy summer ahead of him with World Cup Qualfying:

Kenya 5 : 0 Comoros - 8.6 rating - 1 goal
Gabon 3 : 1 Kenya - 7.1 rating
Egypt 3 : 0 Kenya - 6.0 rating - 53rd minute red card

June Update

-- The Euro Championship is this month. England is grouped with Holland, Norway and Turkey. Germany, Portugal and Spain are grouped together so that should be fun.

-- The board is delighted with my leadership.

-- Thanks to the squad bonuses we lose $5.94M in May. That puts us at a net loss of $8.6M for the year leaving us with -$2.4M cash.

-- Gordon Donnelly is called up by Scotland to play in the European Championship.

New Signing

Recently we got a report on youth players that were released. Man City is overloaded with young keepers and they let go 17 y/o GK Michael Rogers. He was the highest rated and highest scouted player I saw amongst those that were let go and I was able to grab him for free.

Physical: Balance 18, Jumping 9, Strength 11
Mental: Anticipation 7, Bravery 17, Composure 9, Decisions 12, Determination 12
Goalkeeping: Aerial 9, Command of Area 11, Communication 10, Handling 8, One on Ones 10, Reflexes 16, Rushing Out 12.

Like some other guys I've signed I don't know if he could ever really play for Ipswich but hey he came for free, I don't have a GK on my U18 squad, and maybe even if he wouldn't ever play for me I can make some cash off him.

June 13th News Report: Real Madrid are rumored to be interested in signing Ipswich's 24-year old midfielder Neil Gordon for a fee in the region of $49.5M Well its just a rumor. Last year when someone came after Gordon I shrugged and counter-offered saying I'd sell him for $50M. Is this where that kind of thing goes?

European Club Rankings

1. Barcelona - 165.343 (no change)
2. Olympique Lyonnais - 158.738 (+4 spots)
3. Inter - 153.111 (+1)
4. Chelsea - 145.501 (-2)
5. Man Utd - 145.501 (+4)
6. At. Madrid - 142.343 (was not in top 10)
7. Real Madrid - 137.343 (+1)
8. Liverpool - 135.501 (+5)
9. Benfica - 127.531 (-2)
10. Newcastle - 127.501 (not in top 10)

Leverkusen and Man City fell out of the top 10. Arsenal is 13th, Man City 19th for the other top England squads. Ipswich are rated 120th.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesapeake

Troy Brown is turning out to be a dog for me, too. I picked him up from Ipswich in my game after a contract dispute shortly before you got the job there. I'm managing a League 2 side, though, so I thought he'd fare better.

I would have expected him to fare better as well. He did great for me my first year in the Championship, he was just so bad in the EPL that he totally fell out of favor and got cast aside. I'm surprised he'd struggle in League 2.

Quote:

So you were still playing and posting at 5 AM this morning? When do you sleep?!!

I work from home part time (5-25 hours/wk depending on what I'm needed for) and help take care of my dad whose health is pretty darn bad. On a typical day I can work whenever I feel like it and start checking in on my dad around 2pm (mom and sister doing more for him in the mornings and me more in the afternoons/early evenings). So my schedule has gravitated around a day that starts at 1pm or so about 90% of the time. If dad has a morning emergency or work needs something in the morning(which happened today) shit goes haywire.

I think you're right about the keeper. I want to loan Chris Mason to a Championship squad this year if possible, and my confidence in Carlos Antonio to a) stay healthy, and b) perform well enough to keep us from relegating back down is very low.

Izulde · 09-14-2011, 12:48 PM

I'm not liking Carlos Antonio myself.

I'd personally still think aboit acquiring Hamilton depending on what the price is.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 01:05 PM

European Championship

Top two teams from each group make the quarterfinals

Group A

Italy - 2-1-0 - 7 pts
Belgium - 2-0-1 - 6 pts
Scotland - 0-2-1 - 2 pts
Russia - 0 1- 2 - 1 pt

Gordon Donnelly played a total of about 60 minutes and was average.

Group B

Holland - 1-2-0 - 5 pts
England - 1-2-0 - 5 pts
Turkey - 1-1-1 - 4 pts
Norway - 0-1-2 - 1 pt

England beat Turkey on the last day to advance, pretty close.

Group C

Spain 2-1-0 - 7 pts
Denmark 1-1-1 - 4 pts
Portugal 0-3-0 - 3 pts
Germany 0-1-2 - 1 pt

I don't think Denmark was supposed to come out of this group!

Group D

France 3-0-0 - 9 pts
Croatia 1-1-1 - 4 pts
Ukraine 0-2-1 - 2 pts
Czech Republic 0-1-2 - 1 pt

Quarterfinals

England 2 : 1 Italy
Holland 2 : 1 Belgium
Spain 1 : 0 Croatia
France 3 : 1 Denmark

Semifinals

France 4 : 2 England
Spain 1 : 0 Holland

Finals

France 3 : 0 Spain

France has now won 2 of the 3 European Championships that have taken place in this career (2012 and 2020). Croatia won in 2016.

Radii · 09-14-2011, 01:12 PM

Fans Player of the Year

-- Constantino, duh.

Ipswich Best Eleven

GK: Mason
D: Kirkland/McKerr/Henrique/Berthet
M: Guarin/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon
F: Constantino/Khan

Bethet is the only one that wasn't a sure thing. Clive Jackson took over in defense a bit late in the season I suppose.

Ipswich All Time Best Eleven

GK: Brian Murphy (396 apps/6.79 rating)
DL: Stuart Kirkland (124 apps/7.14 rating)
DC: Alex Bruce (234 apps/4 goals/6.73 rating)
DC: Troy Brown (240 apps/2 goals/6.79 rating)
DR: David Wright (166 apps/2 goals/7.11 rating)
ML: Mario Licka (115 apps/8 goals/7.23 rating)
MC: Gordon Donnelly (238 apps/33 goals/6.97 rating)
MC: Owen Garvan (263 apps/18 goals/6.82 rating)
MR: Sylvain Berthet (191 apps/3 goals/6.91 rating)
ST: Constantino (128 apps/102 goals/7.63 rating)
ST: Matthew Khan (156 apps/79 goals/7.06 rating)

Kirkland, Constantino and Khan are all new to the starting all time 11 this year. Good stuff!! No active players are among the list of backups at this point.

Promotion Raises

My confusion continues. The entire team has promotion raise clauses. The entire team has relegation salary drops. Here are the players listed that received raises for promotion:

Stuart Kirkland, Constantino, Jack Hughes, Troy Brown, Michael McKerr, McDonald Mariga, Darren Johnson, Steven Mills, James Welsh, Clive Jackson, Ian Taylor, Dominic Johnson, Rob Kershaw, Chris Bryan.

-- Lots of these guys are new to Ipswich in the last 2 years and get a pass. But why did Kirkland, Constantino and Khan get raises?? Their salaries didn't drop when we demoted.

-- Why did Gordon Donnelly, Henrique, Neil Gordon, Carlos Antonio, Fredy Guarin and Chris Mason NOT get raises?!

-- I don't understand what's going on, but seeing Donnelly not get that raise sets me at ease. I'm now convinced I just don't fully understand what's happening here, not that there's a massive bug screwing me over.

-- Steven Mills with that raise now makes $73,000/wk. We'll see where things end up as far as my budget shortly but that's a damn lot of money!

TV Contract

-- We receive $48,510,000 for TV Rights. right on.

Season Expectations

-- We clearly just want to attempt to avoid relegation. With that expectation, we are allotted $20.5M in transfer money and a payroll of $575k/wk. We're currently spending $479k/wk. We can play with that a lot. A $17.2M transfer budget allows for $650k/wk in payroll. We have a lot of room to get a lot done.

Youth Intake

-- We bring in 9 new players. Lets see if anything is worth getting excited about. Well.. 8 of them are 1* or less as far as potential. Yuck. The most exciting player is DC Sam Barnett. Unfortunately he gets a 1 1/2* recommendation and is scouted as "a good League 1 central defender in the future". We cut so much dead weight last year I assume I want to at least spend a season training these guys to see if there's a boom/bust thing happening here?

Premier Division Odds

Chelsea are favorites to win the league at 3:1. Behind them are Man City and Arsenal at 6:1, Man U 8:1. Newcastle and Tottenham are 20:1. We're 2000:1 as we were last time we came up.

With that we have our transfer money, we're pretty close to July 1st, we're getting our friendlies set up and its time to figure out how to throw around all this money available to us this year. The biggest advantage I think I have this year as opposed to the last time we promoted up is that I'm much, much more confident in who can perform at this level and what my needs are. I feel that the team needs are pretty clear: ML, DC, GK, Target Man/ST.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 06:33 AM

-- We've sold 4868 season tickets but expect to sell 22,000 by the time we're done.

-- I get a raise from $13,500/wk to $23,000/wk and a new 4 year deal to go along with it.

-- My coaches recommend a Turkish striker that looks amazing who wants to leave his squad and I go making an offer there.

-- I go through all of my scouts' work over the last year and look for goalkeepers, requesting some updated reports, I also look at players transfer listed all throughout europe. Heavy focus on GK right away.

July Update

We've got a couple friendlies but we need to get a couple more set up.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. signing Darren Johnson is the highlight.

-- We made $4.11M in June.

July 1st Player Moves

All of these have been mentioned in the past:

-- DC Troy Brown is out, we get $100k and he goes to Sunderland.

-- Youth GK Michael Rogers signs on a free transfer.

-- ML Lee Burton comes over from Aston Villa for $1.6M

Burton could start at ML but according to my assistant he would still be my worst starter. He's a huge upgrade over Jack Hughes though. To cover my assistant's view of my lineup:

4* - MR Gordon
3 1/2* - DL Kirkland, MC Mills, ST Constantino
3* - GK Carlos Antonio, MC Donnelly, ST Khan
2 1/2* - DR Jackson, DC Henrique, DC Welsh
2* - ML Burton

The need to upgrade the defense remains a huge obvious need.

-- Contracts expire and english squads all over release players. I go through the list pretty closely, looking at all of the guys dropped by the Chelsea's and Arsenal's of the world. I scout most of them as well, looking to see if there's an old guy or two who have one more EPL year left in them that might help me.

-- As July 8th rolls around my top DC target chose to go to Everton. I have an offer out on a GK but a couple other teams are going after him as well. I'm looking for a short term signing for a ST target man. I was looking at a potentially huge signing at ST but the guy makes like $200k/wk. A little much.

-- There's a quality DC in Germany that a lot of teams are going after, he'd be way better than any of our defenders, valued at $5.7M. I don't know what offers are being accepted, but I've tried $7M, $9M and $11M and all have been rejected. I don't think I can offer more than $11M. I've attached lots of profit clauses to the offer too.

-- I give up on the German DC. I've got a loan-to-buy offer for a french DC that would be promising as well.

-- On the 12th I lose out on my top GK target, he chooses Roma over us.

-- As the 14th rolls around I've done a lot more work with GK's. Burnley has a very, very good keeper, they relegated out of the EPL last year. I'm trying to get him at almost any cost. I have a couple other leads on solid keepers that I'd be happy with if this doesn't work out.

-- German DC Liam Rees, the one that I went as high as $11M on, ends up signing with FC Bayern for $17M.

-- We're at the halfway point of the month. We're going through each day slowly, lots of negotiations, a few spots of just waiting players out, but so far we haven't really improved the team. We're working on it!

Barkeep49 · 09-15-2011, 07:17 AM

The Burnley keeper sounds ideal because it seems like he'll be able to handle the losing and occasional shallacking without huge roll-off effects.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 07:20 AM

New Loan

-- I'm clearly looking to spend the bulk of my money on my defense this year, so even though I'm concerned about the injuries I go back to the well, loaning in ST Simon Hamilton. I have paid $1.7M for the right to loan him this season with a clause that I may purchase him for $5M at any point during the loan should I choose to do so. Hamilton is a solid looking target man, tall, jumps well, heads well, positions well. He had a strong year for me in the Championship. My fitness guys say that he's potentially injury prone and that slows me down a lot as far as buying him... but I feel the investment in loaning him in while I spend bigger elsewhere is an acceptable one.

-- The superstar keeper that Burnley have that I want so bad is out. They finally come back saying that they want $23.5M for him. If I had unlimited funds I would do it. He'd be a huge, huge upgrade and would be the best player on the team. But I don't have unlimited funds. I do think I've got my guy though, I have an offer for Liverpool's backup GK accepted and am in the contract negotiation stage.

New Signing

One of the players released at the start of the month by Chelsea has decided to come to Ipswich. This will be similar to say the Fredy Guarin signing I made last time I hit the EPL, a guy that I hope can contribute but that I don't expect to be a star.

Welcome 34 y/o ST Alvaro Negredo to Ipswich. Chelsea bought Negredo from Sevilla for $23M in the 13/14 season. He scored 19 goals his first season there and had a few more 10 goal seasons.

Physical: Strength 14, Balance 16, Jumping 15 (Pace 12/Accel 10)

Mental: Nothing lower htan 9. Determination 15, Off the Ball 13, Anticipation 13. Most ratings 11-13.

Technical: Heading 16, Finishing 15, Technique 12, First Touch 12, Dribbling 12, Passing 11.

I made this offer weeks before I tried to snag Simon Hamilton, he took a really long time to decide. However, I am perfectly happy having both on the roster, especially with the concerns over Hamilton's injury issues.

Negredo is here for $17,000 for this year only. He knows he's getting old and is happy to have another year in the top league it would appear.

Friendly #1

We start with a trip to Old Trafford to play Man U. It pays well /shrug. A few guys are out on international duty and Neil Gordon is out for a couple weeks with an injury he picked up that I may have missed between the 7000 scouting reports I've been reviewing.

They score twice early, star striker beats defense, scores. We get a goal near the end of the half as Darren Johnson takes a great free kick, keeper has to drive to stop it, and Hamilton is there to put the rebound in.

We sub everyone out at the half. They get 3 more goals with some really young guys of ours in there, we get a 90th minute goal as Khan puts in a rebound.

Man Utd 5 : Ipswich 2

-- As of July 16th we have 5 outstanding offers at various positions that we are waiting on. A few we've been waiting on for a couple weeks that would make a big difference.

New Signing

Welcome 25 y/o GK Michele Capitani to Ispwich. Capitani has been a backup for Liverpool for a number of years. The last two seasons each he played 11 matches, putting up ratings of 7.05 and 6.95.

We paid Liverpool $4M for the rights to Capitani and will pay him $26,500/wk for the next 4 years. He scouts to be on a similar level as Carlos Antonio, which *should* be good for us in a bid to finish in the top 17 in the EPL. Carlos Antonio just did nothing over the last 2 years to earn my confidence.

Physical: Strength 19, Stamina 16, Jumping 18. Everything else 11-15.

Mental: Determination 15, Positioning 12, Concentration 17, Anticipation 11.

Goalkeeping: Aerial Ability 18, Handling 17, One on Ones 16, Reflexes 16, Communication 12. Weaker areas are Command of Area - 9, and Rushing Out - 3.

With the changes we've made we are now spending $559,244/wk on salaries. Our current Payroll budget is $575,848/wk.

We've spent just under $6M on the transfer market. Without increasing our payroll budget we still could spend $14,900,000. But we obviously have to increase payroll.

I drop Transfer budget to $11.2M and get a payroll allowed of $650,000/wk.

And right after I do that my next signing comes in.

New Signing

Welcome 25 y/o ML Adagsmar to Ipswich. We payed Wolverhampton $4.2M for his services. He scouts out as a significantly stronger player than Lee Burton, the other ML signing we made during the offseason. We needed to sign another ML and it was just a question of whether we signed someone cheaper and rotated Burns/new guy or if we tried to improve on that and get a clear starter. I believe we've gotten ourselves a clear starter at ML now.

Adagsmar will make $35,000/wk for the next 5 years. He had a long history of 7.1-7.25 ratings for Benefica in Portugal before coming to Wolves last year where he put up a 7.1 rating in the Championship.

Physical: 16 pace/17 accel/14 sta/14 agi. Other ratings 12+ except he cant jump at all (5)

Mental: Determination 15, Off The Ball 14, Teamwork 12, Work Rate 14, Anticipation 13, Decisions 13. Composure is only 9, he has a little creativity as well.

Technical: Crossing 16, First Touch 15, Passing 11, Technique 12, Marking 7, Tackling 10.

This gives us wide midfielders on both sides who can send quality crosses into the box for our big guys.

This leaves us with $7M in transfer funds that are entirely dedicated to the DC position. I have two offers out now there and am not frustrated necessarily but a bit apprehensive that the position that killed us so bad in our last trip up is the one we're having the hardest time upgrading!

Henrique and Welsh are a step up from Brown/Bruce, but I am still worried that its not enough.

-- And on July 20th the top remaining DC target signs with AC Milan and we go back to work Things are coming together fairly nicely, I believe I've better identified our holes this year and better filled them than I did last time around, but I'd like to do just a little bit more.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

The Burnley keeper sounds ideal because it seems like he'll be able to handle the losing and occasional shallacking without huge roll-off effects.

Yeah, by the time I gave up I'd offered 65% of my transfer budget for him which would have prevented shoring up these other positions at all basically, but I think would have totally been worth it. Hopefully what I ended up with will work out instead.

cschex · 09-15-2011, 07:37 AM

On the DC's, do you scout/sort by transfer-listed players at all? Often time when I have a "smaller club" moving up to top flight you can find some veterans available at knock-down transfer fees or even 1 yr loan deals with an upfront fee who are transfer listed.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 08:49 AM

-- So basically there are a lot of defenders I can sign that are equal the level of James Welsh and/or Henrique. If I need to shore up depth at DC and go that route I can do so very easily. Finding any sort of players better than them that I can afford and that will come play for me has been an impossibility to date.

Friendly #2

We travel to Shrewsbury, one of our mandatory friendly feeder clubs.

We get an early Constantino goal but its pretty slow from there. They tie it back up after getting a man wide open on an unlucky deflection after a long shot is blocked and score. After that its over, we have one goal called back for an offsides, We get a few more clear cut chances but its a 1:1 draw.

Shrewsbury 1 : 1 Ipswich

Friendly #3

We travel to Brighton today. Clive Jackson gets us an early goal and we take a 1-0 lead into the locker room. Donnelly gets us a goal in the 75th minute and that'll do it.

Brighton 0 : 2 Ipswich

Friendly #4

We travel to Aberdeen. Constantino hits Donnelly for a 4th minute goal. Constantino scores but its offsides in the 13th minute. No offsides in the 35th inute, Mills to Constantino for a nice goal.

Mills and Adagsmar both come down hurt in the first half, I sub them both at halftime.

They get a penalty in the 81st minute and score. 85th minute Khan hits Mariga for a goal.

Aberdeen 1 : 3 Ipswich

-- Steven Mills is going to be out for 8-10 days.

August Update

-- We hit August with no significant update on our DC situation. We had a loan offer accepted for a Naples defender but he isn't interested. A couple other negotiations are ongoing.

-- We open at Huddersfield on the 15th, Liverpool 18th, Man City 22nd, Bristol City 29th.

-- Our training report for August indicates that Chris Mason continues to train well.

-- The board is pleased still.

-- We lost $1.46M last month. We spent $11.5M buying players, so that works for me.

-- All of a sudden we end up with 4 offers accepted for DC's that I'd been negotiating for all at once. One player is happy in Italy and has no interest in coming to Ipswich. the other three I offer deals to. These are all guy s at the same level of James Welsh. We're not signing a superstar here. What I'm hoping for is to sign at least one, maybe two of these guys and find a good rotation. Hopefully we find another Henrique in here and they don't all turn into Troy Brown.

-- August 2nd we've sold 21,170 season tickets.

Injury Update

Matthew Khan hurts himself in training and will miss the first 2-3 weeks of the season.

-- And one of the three guys we're trying to sign at DC turns us down to stay in France...

New Signing

Welcome 28 y/o DLC Cestor Mike to Ipswich. We buy him for $3.5M from Tolouse in League 1. I really wanted Mike, not necessarily because I'm convinced he'll be the defender to work out best, but because I really wanted Mike + 1 of the other guys we were looking at. Cestor Mike is an athlete. He's got ok technical abilities but he's by far the best athlete in our defense and hopefully that helps us out.

Physical: Pace 16/Accel 15/Sta 17/Str 16. Others 11+

Mental: Positioning 12/Teamwork 14/Work Rate 13/Decisions 11, Determination only 9. Ok but not great.

Technical: Heading 13/Marking 13/Tackling 13/Technique 9. Again, ok, but not great.

Mike will rotate in with Welsh and Henrique (and possibly McKerr) and hope that these guys can hold their own in this league.

Friendly #5

We travel to Sevilla for our last friendly. Hamilton scores a nice 4th minute goal to put us ahead early. They use a nice through ball to get the tying goal in the 20th minute. Hamilton to Constantino for a solid goal in the 25th for us.

2:1 halftime, Hamilton to Constantino again in the 46th minute for a 3:1 lead. Constantino returns the favor with a pass to Hamilton for a 64th minute goal.

Sevilla were 4:5 favorites here and they are a solid Serie A team, nice win!

Sevilla 1 : 4 Ipswich

A few days after the last friendly we make our last signing.

New signing

We pay OM in France $3.5M for 32 y/o DC Jonathan Quartey. Quartey has been a very consistent and successful DC for OM, a top 5 French League 1 team and the winners of the Champions League last year. So this guy has some legit experiences under his belt.

Physical: 16 str/16 balance/15 jumping, 12 pace/13 accel/14 agility.

Mental: Positioning 15/Teamwork 14/Work Rate 16/Anticipation 16/Concentration 14/Decisions 15. Determination is 11. Every mental attribute but flair is 11+ and most are 13+.

Technical: Heading 14/Marking 14/Tackling 14/Passing 12

Where Mike is more of an athlete and we hope he uses his speed to stay in front of players and keep us from getting beat, with Quartey we have a guy who is solid and consistent everywhere.

Our scouts view Henrique/Welsh/Mike/Quartey all as very similar levels of talent. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Henrique was a perfectly fine EPL defender once I brought him on two years ago, and all his issues with unhappiness went away once we promoted.

We started my last EPL season with Brian Murphy, Alex Bruce and Troy Brown at GK/DC/DC. We are light years ahead of that. The question is whether it'll be enough or not. Our midfield with Mills/Donnelly/Gordon is a lot better than what we took to the EPL last time too.

We have now spent everything, we maxxed out almost perfectly. None of that was spending just to spend, I think every move I made serves a solid purpose to make the team better, we improved our scoring chances, improved massively at ML, improved at keeper and I believe have given ourselves enough options at DC that something will stick. We're as ready as we're gonna be!

We are spending $663k/wk on salaries. Our limit is $650,000/wk. We'll look at contract renegotiations soon to see if we have some guys willing ot take little cuts to get under that. And of course just to lock up our best players.

Last thing before we start the season, we'll look at our depth chart to get all these new names out there.

GK: Capitani/Carlos Antonio
DL: Kirkland/Hughes
DC: Henrique/Welsh/Mike/Quartey
DR: Jackson/McKerr
ML: Adagsmar/Burton
MC: Donnelly/Mills/Mariga/Johnson
MR: Gordon/Johnson
ST: Hamilton/Constantino/Khan/Negredo

We come into the season witht he most depth/most players we've ever had on our roster. guys like Jack Hughes and Fredy Guarin are extremely marginalized with the way we've built up our team. Guarin is someone we could very well look to sell to get under payroll if we have trouble locking up players like Constantino to extended contracts because we're over our wage budget right now.

With that we go into the new season!!

Radii · 09-15-2011, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cschex

On the DC's, do you scout/sort by transfer-listed players at all? Often time when I have a "smaller club" moving up to top flight you can find some veterans available at knock-down transfer fees or even 1 yr loan deals with an upfront fee who are transfer listed.

Yeah. When it came down to it I didn't have trouble finding a couple guys (as you can see in the above post). I held out for a long time though trying to find someone who was a super clear upgrade over what I currently have. Once I decided that I needed to find guys who were decent players and find the ones that seem to best fit in with the team it came together pretty well.

Steps I took to try to identify players:

1 - ask my assistant for a loan report on DCs (that yields a list of 15ish players throughout Europe).
2 - Go through all of my scouts reports for the prior year, look at all the DC's they recommended, get new scouting reports if necessary and look for deals.
3 - Look for Transfer listed players.
4 - Look for "available for loan" players, looking to do fee + potential to buy loans. I had 3 or 4 of those approved this year for guys that were promising but all chose to go elsewhere.
5 - Look at players released by top clubs
6 - Look in general at free transfer players.

There may have been more but those were the primary ways I came up with lists of players to go after. Similar process was followed for the other positions as well.

Some players came in via coach meeting suggestions. I had a striker I was highly interested in who was unhappy at his team that one of my coaches found for me. I could have bought him for $11M but was trying to negotiate that down as I didn't' want to spend half my budget on a ST when I had other needs that were bigger. It fell apart in the end though when I realized the player was going to want to be paid at minimum $150k/wk and maybe $250k/wk.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 11:17 AM

Before we start playing out the games we did get our early season notice about contract expiry. With multi-year deals being more common at this level its not 20 people a year like it was at Woking so that's nice. We've only got 7 players expiring this season.

-- ST Alvaro Negredo - signed to a 1 year deal, he'll be 35 early in the season, I can't imagine he'll be here next year.

-- DC Henrique - while I still hope he can help us this season, he is starting to degrade and he'll turn 34 this year. Its extremely unlikely that henrique comes back next season either.

-- MC McDonald Mariga - Mariga has shown great resiliency to age so far. We'll keep an eye on his training and see what's up. He'll turn 34 in April.

-- DR Michael McKerr - he'll turn 31 this year but he's one of those guys who is affordable and his ratings aren't the best in the world but he always seems to come through for me. He'll actually take a $1500/wk pay cut down to $15,250/wk.

-- MC Gordon Donnelly - Clearly someone to retain. He makes $52,000/wk right now and will take a 4 year deal for the same amount. I offer it happily.

-- ST Constantino - Makes $35k/wk right now. He wants $47,500/wk. I offer it.

The 7th guy is Simon Hamilton, a loan guy.

Donnelly and Constantino quickly agree to their new deals. Giving Constantino a raise puts me a little more over my wage budget. We could stand to cut about $26k/wk. If the board isn't bitching and if we're still able to make a profit I'm not in a huge rush to do so.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 11:21 AM

Training Question:

Last year we were allowed a max of 10 coaches and that worked out just about right to get decent training going in every area.

At this level we're allowed to have up to 17. What advantages should I be looking for if I expand past 10?

I could try to find guys that specialize more with the youth squad vs the first team squad. But if I have a 4* tactics guy that is 4* for both the senior squad and U18s (and he's a "coach" so he's allowed to train both, is having a 4* tactics guy on the first team and a 4* tactics guy on the youth team better?

If I have two 4* tactics guys and I put them both training tactics, is that better than having just one?

cschex · 09-15-2011, 12:02 PM

I can talk to part of that. You don't necessarily need to max out your coaches. The main thing I typically look at is coaches workload. If its "Light" and 4* or better in a category then it's fine, if it's "Average" or higher then I might look to hiring another coach to help with that category. As for the First Team/Youth, I've always looked for high star coaches who can train both and had pretty solid results with that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radii

Training Question:

Last year we were allowed a max of 10 coaches and that worked out just about right to get decent training going in every area.

At this level we're allowed to have up to 17. What advantages should I be looking for if I expand past 10?

I could try to find guys that specialize more with the youth squad vs the first team squad. But if I have a 4* tactics guy that is 4* for both the senior squad and U18s (and he's a "coach" so he's allowed to train both, is having a 4* tactics guy on the first team and a 4* tactics guy on the youth team better?

If I have two 4* tactics guys and I put them both training tactics, is that better than having just one?

Barkeep49 · 09-15-2011, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radii

If I have two 4* tactics guys and I put them both training tactics, is that better than having just one?

I did some playing with that recently myself and the answer appears to be that yes, kind of at least in 11. In 11, even if the workload was "light", having two guys of higher skill did seem to boost the ratings, but if you're working with less than perfect coaching there is still a limit to how effective the training will be. If you have 10 guys who are all 1 star working in an area it's not going to get you to 5 stars, but it might get you to 2/2.5.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 12:47 PM

League Cup 2nd Round Draw

After 1 round without the EPL teams, we're inserted in. We get a solid draw, we'll be hosting Plymouth, a team that just promoted to the championship up from League 1 (though most of their history in this dynasty is in the Championship, they're just coming off a dip down).

August 15th, 2020

Ipswich @ Huddersfield

Its opening day! Huddersfield are 5:4 favorites at their place today, there are worse prospects with which we could be starting the season. Huddersfield promoted up with us 3 years ago but when we fell back down they stayed up. We lost to them both times that last EPL season and are 6-3-7 lifetime against them. They finished 17th each of their 2 seasons in the EPL, though last year they were 6 points better.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mike/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

Available off the bench: McKerr, Hughes, Negredo, Mariga, Johnson, Welsh, Burton. That leaves Guarin and our new DC Quartey unavailable. Matthew Khan is hurt. Definitely the deepest team I've ever had. We'll counter attack and use a deep defensive line.

10': We manage the first shot after a nice series of passing on the right side, Donnelly with a strong shot but right at the keeper.

15': We win a ball in midfield, Donnelly ahead to Constantino, he's got a step on the defense out right, he cuts into the area, its a pretty tough angle, but he pulls up and shoots low to the far post, its by the keeper, hits the post and bounces in!! 1-0

22': They attack quickly, a pass to the edge of the box, a shot is by Capitani but it hits the post and bounces away to safety.

32': Clive Jackson is hurt and has to leave the pitch for a time. Injury Symbol and all, we'll see if he needs to come out at halftime.

41': They try to send a ball forward but Kirkland clears it, their defender near midfield recovers, but Constantino is aggressive and takes it away and is off to the races! He's down the right side of the field, the defense is tracking hard... Constantino deep down the side, into the area but he doesn't have a shot, he lays the ball back to Mills who is 15 yards away, he blasts it with his first touch, goal!! 2-0

47': They earn a corner, they get a shot off it and Jackson has to clear it off the line, whew!

HALF: They control possession 52/48, they have 7 shots/2 on target. We have 5 shots, 4 on target. We've just created a couple really great chances and finished them. They did have a clear cut chance on a rebound and put it over so we got lucky there, but we're playing so great right now. Lets keep it up!

I start the second half dropping into a defensive mindset and telling the guys to retain possession, worried about the typical mega-attack that killed us in many EPL games after good halves.

65': Donnelly with a yellow. First highlight of the half.

68': Mariga in for Mills, Burton in for Adagsmar, fitness, etc.

72': We have a corner, it comes back out to Donnelly after he sends it in, donnelly with a long run to the middle of the pitch, nicely avoiding two tackles, bu he takes a stupid shot that's blocked and triggers a counter attack... we get back well though and Mariga is able to tackle the ball away for a throwin. We clear nicely.

75': Yellow for midfielder Kula.

77': Darren Johnson in for Gordon.

84': stupid stupid stupid. They counter after winning a cross... but we're back on defense. There's a pass to their star striker Platas like 30 yards out. Mike is back there and he's fast, he can stay in front of him... instead, he goes for a tackle 30 yards from the goal, misses, and that allows their best player a free run into the area where we aren't about to stop him from scoring. 2-1

91': A counter for Huddersfield as we lose the ball trying to build up on offense. Our defense is really out of position here and they take quick advantage, a pass goes ahead, then another to their other striker who is wide open but onsides b/c we're so out of position... an easy finish and we are very sad. 2-2

The match ends soon after.

Huddersfield 2 : 2 Ipswich

On one hand, we open our season with a well played match and a point on the road. On the other hand, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that was painful!!!

Their striker Platas is man of the match.

Goals: Mills (7.6), Constantino (7.5)
Assists: Constantino, Donnelly (7.8)
Notables: Kirkland (7.0)

Defender Cestor Mike takes the blame for at least one of those goals, maybe both? He ends up with a 6.3 rating, he played pretty well I do believe, but that mistake to allow the first goal was just awfully unnecessary.

Injury Update

Clive Jackson will miss ~2 weeks.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I did some playing with that recently myself and the answer appears to be that yes, kind of at least in 11. In 11, even if the workload was "light", having two guys of higher skill did seem to boost the ratings, but if you're working with less than perfect coaching there is still a limit to how effective the training will be. If you have 10 guys who are all 1 star working in an area it's not going to get you to 5 stars, but it might get you to 2/2.5.

Thanks. I had hired a couple coaches when we re-promoted just because "wow these look like great coaches!" but it turns out they were 4* just like the guys I already had. I stuck them where they were best anyway.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 02:07 PM

August 18th, 2020

Ipswich @ Liverpool

Liverpool are 4:6 favorites, we're 7:2 to get a win at their house today. We're 1-1-3 lifetime against Liverpool. The win was an FA Cup match in 2010. The tie was at the tail end of our last EPL season when we had a few really strong games after we'd been relegated. Liverpool has finished 7th the last two seasons.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Mariga/Mills/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

McKerr starts for Jackson at DR. Welsh in for Mike and Mariga in for Donnelly since we're going in on short rest.

8': They take the first shot, a crazy 35 yard strike that bends a ton and just hits the post.

10': A quick buildup on offense, Mariga ahead to Hamilton, Hamilton passes to Constantino, he beats his man into the right side of the area, stops and fires to the left post... the keeper dives but he can't react fast enough, its by him and in!!! 1-0

19': We have a throwin deep in their end, they head it out of the area, Mariga puts it back in, Hamilton is there and has a clear cut chance, a great look... but saved, dang!

26': Kirkland clears down the left side, Adagsmar picks it up at midfield and makes a great run down the left, he crosses to Constantino... but they win the header and clear.

38': They try to set up their offense but we win a ball out near midfield, pass ahead to Hamilton, he makes a run, the defense is keeping up though, he cuts out left, crosses, mills gets his head to it... but the keeper saves it. A great counter attack, good effort.

42': They earn two corners, Capitani seems to show really good poise when balls fly through the 6 yard box, he's getting to everything he needs to.

HALF: Another wonderful first half from Ipswich! Now what can we do to make sure the second half is as good as the first? They make all their subs, I hold off for now, we'll see what we should change. We have 8 shots to their 7 but we're totally getting the better of it, 5 on target to their 2. Possession 50/50, passing both around 66%, we're tackling a bit better and heading at the same rate as them. They have a couple long range shots struck with ridiculous pace and I'm worried that even if we play near perfect that they'll sneak in a goal from long distance. No change to start the second half.

46': We kick off and set up our offense, but when a pass goes to Hamilton they win it and pass to the keeper, the keeper sends it long, and they've got a man out ahead of the defense, Welsh comes in and makes a tackle about 22ish yards out... and I audibly gasp and say out loud "that's a red"... Welsh walks slowly over to the ref... and receives a yellow card. We just got a massive gift. That seemed like a very obvious red card to me. They take the free kick... off one of their attackers standing near the wall and out for a goal kick.

53': They counter after a bad Constantino pass, a very quick pass up ahead as we were trying to start our offense, there's a shot from 20 yards out and Capitani makes a great save. However, the rebound falls to ST Dalla Valle and he is unmarked at the edge of the box. He fires into the left side of the net and there's no chance to stop it. 1-1

60': Negredo in for Hamilton who got hurt and is a bit slowed, and Johnson in for Gordon who isn't playing that great.

77': They have a throwin, a pass quickly goes to bakcup striker Aubameyang, he turns by Welsh and drills a shot from 20 yards out that Capitani can't stop. 1-2

82': Donnelly in for Mariga. I tell the guys to attack, assuming they will sit back a bit more.

No chance in the final 10 minutes.

Liverpool 2 : 1 Ipswich

This was a constant issue against good teams last year, though last year it was usually "well ok we came out of the first half 0:0 now lets watch them score 4 goals in the second half when they wake up". We've had two great starts and we're seeing some strong play, I wonder if there's something I can try to do different in the second half. Maybe mix in a little more aggressive play at times to try to throw them off? I'm not sure if this is just a good team expecting to run over the new guys and playing one complacent half, or if they're getting used to us sitting in the same strategy for 90 minutes and finally break it down.

Goal: Constantino (6.9)
Assist: Hamilton (6.8)
Notable: Mariga (7.4)

Our wide midfielders had the worst time today, 6.2 from Gordon and 6.0 from Adagsmar. Neither are strong in the air so they miss a few headers and crosses just weren't connecting.

I was thrilled with Constantino's goal though, he's showing some great touch on those two goals he got, our first trip up to the EPL he came out missing everything and just not having the pace on his shots to beat EPL keepers when he was on target.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 02:45 PM

-- I list Chris Mason for loan. I may be a bit picky though, more SFraser goodness, I remember him mentioning being picky about finding good coaches to send your players off to so you know they'll get the best development possible. I'd really like to see him spend a year in the Championship starting every match.

-- We're expecting a sellout in our first home match.

August 22nd, 2020

Man City @ Ipswich

The fans are up for our first home match. Unfortunately its against Man City, but we've played pretty well on the road so far, lets see what we can do at Portman Road. They're even money favorites today, we're 11:5 to get a win. After a run of 5 straight seasons in the top 4, Man City has missed out on Europe 2 years in a row, 9th and 10th the last 2 years.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Quartey/Henrique/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

Donnelly back at MC, Quartey gets his first shot at DC. I start Lee Burton at ML to see what he can do.

3': We get the ball first but they take it away when we try to get forward.. on defense they get a quick through ball and clear cut chance but Capitani makes a good save. They recover and Mils commits a foul just outside the area... shot goes off the wall for a corner, which we clear. They recover again and push... This takes a few minutes but its all highlights from the opening kickoff and they've got 5 shots, 4 on target right away.

8': They win a ball in our end and attack fast, a long ball from midfield to AM Jovetic, it looks like he's barely onside if at all, but no call, he's behind the defense and in the area and makes a trivial finish. 0-1

13': We go up the middle on offense, Hamilton receives a pass, spots Burton coming in from the left, good pass, clear cut chance.. but tipped wide by the keeper. Corner is cleared.

16': We have a throwin, a couple passes up the right side, Gordon spots Burton open out left and crosses field. Burton into the area... tackled, its a penalty!!! Constantino takes it and buries it. 1-1

18': They are just putting a lot of pressure on us with long crisp passes that are perfectly controlled every time... another long pass here to Jovetic, he's in the area and has a clear cut chance... but Capitani makes another good save. They have 3 clear cut chances, we have 2.

32': Just like their first goal, they start to attack and bam, pass from near midfield well forward, a run timed perfectly, first touch is perfect, no chance for anyone here. ST Cavalieri with the goal. 1-2

36': Highlight opens with a random shot from Lee Burton from 25+ yards out that is just off the left post, wow close!

HALF: OOPS. Sometimes I'm dumb. I had our default tactic last year set for our defensive line to play up a bit, wanting to be aggressive in the Championship, so even with the "drop deeper" instruction we were still just in a kinda normal setting... I went in at the half to just pull everything much further back and noticed that. DOH. Mike in for Quartey at the half too, more speed, Quartey was getting killed out there. They put immense pressure on us that first half. 14 shots, 7 on target, 4 clear cut chances. We shoot 8 times, 6 on target, 2 clear cut chances, we're really playing fairly well here, I'm not unhappy except for with the fact that I didn't think to doublecheck all the settings in my tactic before any games!~

49': They have a free kick, we clear and a ball goes ahead to Neil Gordon, he's able to get to the edge of the box before they catch up, he shoots, deflected wide though. Corner is cleared.

56': Guarin in for Burton, Burton is playing well but not ready for 90 minutes yet, Guarin just to get him some minutes.

59': A goal kick for us, its played up ahead and Constantino controls, he dribbles forward, skips by a tackle, plays a great pass to Gordon coming in from the right, its our 3rd clear cut chance of the match... but saved. Damn! That should have been the tying goal, seriously.

64': Mills with a yellow.

66': Mariga in for Mills, fresh legs and make sure no stupid second yellow comes out.

70': Mariga with a nice sliding tackle to win us the ball near midfield, a pass up to Constantino, a nice run forward, a centering pass to Donnelly, shot from 20 yards out, the keeper has to dive for it but makes the stop.

73': They get forward, there's a strong shot from 20 yards, Capitani with a very good save, but theres a rebound, they get to it.. another shot, Capitani again!! Great great play from our keeper.

76': They commit a foul out left of the penalty area, yellow for defender Neven Subotic. They clear Gordon's cross into the area. We recover but give it away too easily.

87': Some very nice passing in tight spaces allows them to get their 3rd goal, AM Jovetic with a strong shot from 15 yards out. 1-3

90': Constantino with a yellow.

That'll do it.

Ipswich 1 : 3 Man City

They shot 21 times, putting 12 on target, 6 clear cut chances. We managed 14 shots, and again I'm seeing things that make me happy compared to our last start in the EPL, we're generating chances that we struggled a ton to get last time.

Goal: Constantino (7.0)
Assist: Burton (6.9)
Notables: Capitani (7.1), Mills (7.0), Donnelly (7.0)

McKerr and Quartey got burned today, 5.6 and 5.7 ratings. Gordon 6.1 missing a couple really great chances to get on the board.

The ratings kinda jive with what I felt I was seeing in the highlights... we gave up a couple very quick goals but we played really well most of the match against a clearly superior team.

Next up we host Plymouth in the League Cup. After that is a critical early game against Bristol City, a team we dominated last season in the Championship. This script is real similar to our last time up. A couple early games against teams we aren't supposed to beat, then an early season showdown against another relegation contender. Last time around we lost every one of these matches. I expect different this time.

Radii · 09-15-2011, 03:26 PM

-- I go change my tactic back closer to its default, in fact dropping my defensive line back a notch or two behind normal.

August 25th, 2020

League Cup 2nd Round

Plymouth (CH) @ Ipswich (EPL)

We're big 4:7 favorites today, making Plymouth 4:1 dogs. This will be our 4th match in 10 days and we play again in 4 more days so we'll be getting some backups playing time today and hope we can still win.

GK: Carlos Antonio
D: Hughes/Quartey/Welsh/Haskins
M: Adagsmar/Guarin/Mariga/Johnson
F: Negredo/Constantino

Kinda wholesale changes here. Youth player Denis Haskins in at DR as McKerr is exhausted and Jackson is still hurt.

16': Tons of possession here, they try to tackle a ball away as we build on offense, it comes to Guarin who lobs it into the area for Adagsmar, running in from the left, he shoots far post, by the keeper and in! 1-0

23': Mariga with a pass to Negredo who shoots to the same spot that Adagsmar put our first goal, both of them get their first ever Ipswich goals today! 2-0

30': Mariga to Constantino for what looked like our 3rd goal, but offsides.

HALF: Another great first half, I'm a little more confident in our ability to hold this one.

49': Perhaps I spoke too soon. A couple great headers in the area generate a wide open look for ST Sears and he scores. 2-1

56': Mariga to Constantino to start a counterattack, Constantino with a long run into the area, he's tackled before he can shoot... penalty! Constantino takes the PK and buries it. 3-1

83': Khan, who just resumed full training, in for Constantino.

Easy enough.

Ipswich 3 : 1 Plymouth

Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (8.3)
Goals: Constantino (7.8), Adagsmar (7.6), Negredo (7.3)
Assists: Mariga, Guarin (7.8)
Notables: Hughes (7.0), Quartey (7.7), Johnson (7.0)

Easy enough, and hopefully the solid win here keeps the morale up heading into the Bristol City match.

DR Denis Haskins is 16 years and 1 day old. That's the youngest ever to see the field for the Ipswich senior team. He's dead weight, one of the guys that is 1/2 star potential from our very poor youth pulls this year that I just didn't cut yet to see if any of those guys magically work miracles in training or something (I'd pared down the U18 squad a ton previously so there was some room).

Radii · 09-15-2011, 04:01 PM

-- Clive Jackson resumes full training.

-- Reading have made a couple offers for Jack Hughes now. He's been marginalized a bit here but we're not ready to give up on him quite yet.

League Cup 3rd Round Draw

Down to 32 teams so lots of EPL teams to run across. The only way our draw could be worse if it were on the road. We are playing the 2 time defending EPL Champion at home in round 3, Chelsea.

August 29th, 2020

Bristol City(0-1-2, 18th) @ Ipswich (0-1-2, 17th)

Huge match today. Most years a team needs 32ish points to avoid relegation (some years more/some less but generally). Our last time up we got 20. Matches like these are our best shots for 3 points, at home against teams that promoted up to the Championship with us last season. We cannot squander these chances this year. We're 5:4 favorites at home, Bristol are 7:4 to win. We're 2-8-6 lifetime against them, we actually lost both matches last year when we won the Championship.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mike/Henrique/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

Back to the starters today. Mike and Henrique at DL.

8': They're in a 5-3-2 and sitting pretty far back. I switch to a Control strategy to try to draw them out.

11': We are in total control so far but of our 6 shots 4 are blocked.

26': A throwin on the right near midfield for us, after a couple passes Gordon finds Constantino with a great pass, he's in the area free... but runs a bit far and the keeper has an easier time blocking his shot than he should have. It was a clear cut chance and he usually scores there with a bit better control.

HALF: We see them put a few shots off target to close out the half. We're in full control minus the goals, dammit. 11 shots, but just 2 on target. 5 blocked. They have 6 shots none on target yet and 4 from long range. We have a dominant 65/35 possession edge, we've just got to break them down here. We open the second half attacking, lets try to get more men forward and pressure more and hope it doesn't backfire.

63': After watching Ipswich pass it around forever, unable to break down their defense still, we finally see a shot on target for Bristol City, a strong shot that Capitani does a good job in saving. Corner is cleared easily.

66': Burton in for a tired Adagsmar.

78': Johnson in for a tired Gordon.

80': And there it is!! After more passing and more passing and even more passing McKerr hits Constantino with a quick ball, he turns as his man closes down, gets into the area and scores!! Whew, finally. Now hold it. 1-0

82': We try to give it away, they get a through ball into the area, a clear cut chance... but Capitani makes a great stop!

88': Welsh in for Henrique.

90': Mike with a foul just outside the area... they shoot on the free kick, the wall does its job, it goes behind for a corner. Mills makes the clearance on the corner.

that's it!

Ipswich 1 : 0 Bristol City

A strong performance against a team doing everything they possibly could to secure a 0-0 draw today.

Man of the Match: Gordon Donnelly (8.3)
Goal: Constantino (8.0)
Assist: McKerr (7.8)
Notables: Capitani (7.2), Kirkland (7.1), Henrique (7.1), Mike (7.2)

I continue to really struggle to get the best out of my wide midfielders. Neil Gordon is so damn talented but he just seems wasted here since we score most of our goals with pinpoint passes from the middle to Constantino instead of great balls flying in from out wide. Adagsmar 6.2, Gordon 6.8 today.

It feels great to have our first win of the season behind us and to come out of August with 4 points.

Radii · 09-16-2011, 01:28 AM

-- McKerr, Donnelly and Constantino are named to the EPL team of the week.

September Update

-- We play on the 12th, 19th, 22nd (League Cup), and 27th. Early in the month are a bunch of international matches.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Simon Hamiltion is the highlight. Our 2-2 draw with Huddersfield is the big complaint.

-- We lost $5.71M last month. We spent $7M purchasing two players in August. As of right now we've lost $1.4M on the year and have a balance of -$5.4M. Usually that'd be awful but we've spent our transfer budget and hopefully the TV Deal allows us to slowly gain cash throughout the year. We're spending $800k/mo more this year than we did in our last EPL season on salaries so that will hurt us but we should still make 2-3M most months I think.

-- Stuart Kirkland 8.1 rating in a 4:0 win for England U21's over Sweden in Euro Championship qualifying.

-- DC Jonathan Quatey 7.5 rating in a 5:0 Ghana win over Lesotho in World Cup Qualifying

-- MC McDonald Mariga 6.9 rating in a 0:1 Kenya loss to Gabon in World Cup Qualifying.

Injury Update

Lee Burton hurts his heel in training, 8-10 days. He'll miss a match or two.

September 12th, 2020

Ipswich (1-1-2, 13th) @ Sheffield Utd (1-1-2, 14th)

Sheffield United are 4:5 favorites at their place today, we're 3:1 to get a win here. We're 2-1-10 lifetime against them, we lost twice in our EPL year and in the league cup last season.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

Clive Jackson is back in the lineup, Welsh/Henrique at DC.

3': They work it down the left side, there's a pass in the area... Mills and Henrique are there covering their midfielder Barazite, but somehow they both let him turn around them and get an open look, shot is put into the net, awful defending. 0-1

9': We build up on offense, Mills to Gordon, Gordon to Constantino who is 25 yards out, Gordon cuts into the area, Constantino hits him perfectly, Gordon with the shot, its by the keeper and in! 1-1

17': A classic counterattack, we win a ball in our end, Henrique quickly to Mills, a pass ot Donnelly, he is at midfield and their defense isn't fully back yet, Donnelly with a long ball, Constantino gets behind the defense, into the area and he beats the keeper! 1-2

20': They get a man behind our defense deep in the area, a clear cut chance but Capitani saves! They earn a corner, then a second corner. we clear that one, we try to counterattack but pull it back at midfield and build up on offense. Donnelly with a ball into the area, they clear it out to the side, throwin deep in their end... soon after there's a foul out wide to the left, Gordon with the free kick... headed behind for a corner. Donnelly takes the corner, Constantino heads it... saved. Loooong sequence there.

35': With an eye on mixing things up so they won't always know what we're doing, we change to a Control strategy for the rst of the half.

37': They earn a corner, and its the first time I've seen Capitani make a huge mistake in the 6 yard box. Cross goes to the far post, Capitani tries to dive out to catch it, doesn't get to it and they win the header and score. 2-2

HALF: They are pressuring hard, they shoot 9 times with 5 on target, only 2 from range so they are getting some close looks. They have 63% of the possession and are better passing and heading. We shoot 3 times, all on target, 2 goals. Seems like one where we're destined to lose but maybe we can steal another goal or something!

47': Back to counter attacking.

58': They have a free kick, a couple passes before its sent into the area, a shot from the left side, Capitani has to make a diving save and its a corner. They earn a second corner, then a third. Then we clear it out safely.

68': Guarin in for Hamilton and moves to DMC, 4-1-4-1, Hamilton is playing bad and I want the extra man back. McKerr in for Jackson, he's struggling and I want the experience out there.

77': they have 17 shots to our 6, desperately trying to hang on for a point.

85': Gordon sends a free kick in from 30 yards out, off the crossbar! they clear it behind for a corner for us. That's cleared safely.

85': Defensive/retain possession, get that point!

89': 4 minutes of added time, Contain/play even safer, get that point!

We get the tie on the road!

Sheffield Utd 2 : 2 Ipswich

A very exciting first half and a nail biting second half for me as I keep seeing us make nice clearances and every time a highlight opens up I am hoping we can just avoiding giving up the game winning goal to them.

They shoot 19 times, we shoot 7. Not a shot on target in the second half for us, but we got our job done for sure. One of their goal scorers is man of the match.

Goals: Gordon (7.5), Constantino (7.4)
Assists: Constantino, Donnelly (6.8)

The fans are pleased with the draw here. 5 matches, 5 points.
Notable: Mills (7.1)

Simon Hamilton couldn't win anything in the air, 6 for 14 on headers, he didn't take any of our shots. 5.3 rating there. Clive Jackson 6.1, James Welsh 6.0. Everyone else in the 6.8-6.9 range.

Radii · 09-16-2011, 02:03 AM

September 19th, 2020

Nottingham Forest(3-1-1, 7th) @ Ipswich (1-2-2, 13th)

They're even money favorites at Portman Road today, we are 11:5 to get the win. We're 4-2-7 lifetime against these guys, a few years in the Championship. The last time we were in the EPL they won both matches.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Quartey/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Negredo/Constantino

Their star Ivan Popov has 4 goals already, but he's not starting today, Chris Wood is at ST instead, they run a 4-1-4-1. Quartey in for Welsh in defense, Negredo in for Hamilton up front.

13': they try to take it away from us in the midfield as we buildup on offense. Donnelly does a nice job keeping control of the ball and there's a really weird hole in the middle of their defense. Negredo fills it, Donnelly lobs the ball ahead, Negredo runs onto it at about 25 yards out, gets into the area and is able to put a shot by the keeper!!! 1-0

31': A highlight opens with us deep in their end on a break, Negredo crosses through the area, they head away but its a very weak header.. Gordon controls it 20 yards out, passes to Negredo who is wide open about 8 yards out, he turns and fires and scores! He was unmarked but they ahd many defenders back behind him in other spots in the penalty area. Very strange. 2-0

37': We build up on offense, Mills with a great ball into the left side of the area for Adagsmar, a clear cut chance coming in from the left, but its safed.

40': Throwin in their end, taken to Aadagsmar, he passes to Constantino in the left side of the box, he dribbles into the center of the area, dodges a tackle and buries a shot!! Holy crap!! 3-0

HALF: HELLO! We control 55% of the possession, they have 4 shots, all off target. We have 5 shots, 4 on target, 2 clear cut chances, we've gotten our guys in great positions to score and we've finished incredibly well.

46': Defender Jensen with a yellow as we attack right out of the gate. Gordon shoots 25 yards out, off the wall and behind for a corner.

55': Mills with a really stupid yellow card giving them a free kick 25 yards out. Its shot but put so far over its silly.

60': We build up on offense, they try to clear but Quartey wins a ball to keep it in the offensive end. He passes up ahead to Constantino, he's 25 yards out, he turns by his man, into the area and its an easy finish! That looked like Constantino vs a Championship opponent. 4-0

71': Hughes in for Kirkland, Mariga in for Mills, Mike in for Henrique.

75': We have a corner, taken into the area but headed away. Adagsmar recovers the ball, shoots from somewhere around 30 yards out, its a slow bending shot, the keeper dives for it but its placed absolutely perfectly, by the keeper and into the upper left corner!!!! 5-0

77': The shutout isn't meant to be, they get forward and get a cross in from the right, a header is won in heavy traffic and ST Wood heads it in. 5-1

We finish it off after that!!

Ipswich 5 : 1 Nottingham Forest

Hooooooooly crap!

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.1)
Goals: Constantino 2, Negredo 2 (8.9), Adagsmar (8.3)
Assists: Adagsmar, Donnelly (8.2), Gordon (8.2), Quartey (7.3)
Notables: Capitani (7.0), Jackson (7.5), Kirkland (7.5), Henrique (7.7), Mills (7.4)

We only shot 13 times today to get our 5 goals.

Nottingham Forest have spent 8 of the last 10 years in the EPL. They've never finished in the top 10, they're pretty consistently good for 11th-15th in the league. I'm simply shocked at what we just pulled off. That's 7 goals in 6 league matches for Constantino. He scored his 100th league goal for Ipswich today.

Alf · 09-16-2011, 03:09 AM

Hip Hip Hurray Constantino !

Izulde · 09-16-2011, 02:17 PM

Whoa way for Constantino to step up! And did Negredo just steal Hamilton's starting spot?

JonInMiddleGA · 09-16-2011, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

Whoa way for Constantino to step up! And did Negredo just steal Hamilton's starting spot?

For real.

Radii · 09-16-2011, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

And did Negredo just steal Hamilton's starting spot?

He'll be starting the next time he's rested that's for sure. Both his goals were kinda flukey, he had to finish, but in both cases the man who should have been defending him had wandered off. Since the whole idea a big guy to send crosses in to isn't really playing out(and if Constantino can score like this against EPL level talent there's no reason for me to force the issue) I may try Khan/Constantino a bit more as well.

Radii · 09-16-2011, 05:09 PM

-- Five of our team are picked in the EPL Team of the Week after that destruction of Nottingham Forest. Henrique, Gordon, Adagsmar, Constantino and Negredo.

September 22nd, 2020

League Cup 3rd Round

Chelsea (EPL) @ Ipswich (EPL)

Not surprisingly, Chelsea are 4:6 favorites today, we're 7:2 to get a win. Chelsea are off to a slow start for them this season, just 2-2-2 (the same as us). They're dealing with not just the league cup but the Champions League group play as well, so we can hope to get Chelsea's 2nd team and have a shot.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mike/Henrique/McKerr
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Johnson
F: Hamilton/Constantino

We make a few changes since we're on short rest. Mike and Henrique at DC, McKerr in for Jackson at DR, Johnson in for Gordon at MR and Hamilton back in at ST. Drop deeper and play narrower. Chelsea plays a 4-1-2-1-2 with the DMC/AMC so we narrow up a bit to defend that.

8': Johnson in to Mills, Mills to Constantino 20 yards out, he's into the right side of the area and draws 3 Chelsea defenders, one tries a tackle and misses, Constantino to the baseline, passes up to Donnelly at the 18 yard line, Donnelly reverses it to Adagsmar on the left who is at point blank range, their keeper goes down but can't stop the shot, Adagsmar puts it in!!! A beautiful, beautiful goal. 1-0

15': They build up and attack for a good long while but we keep making good tackles to disrupt them, finally forcing a bad shot high.

28': They have 7 shots but 5 are from range and only 1 on target. they earn a corner here but we head it out of the box and they take a long shot that goes miles wide.

38': We continue to do a great job disrupting their attacks, here after a tackle there's a deflection and they get a solid shot from 20 yards out, but Capitani dives and makes a solid save. We clear the corner. They have 14 shots to our one now.

40': A strong Chelsea attack, they get it to a forward just outside the area and have midfielder Alvarez streaking in, good pass and no one comes back to cover him. There's a clear cut chance, Capitani gets to the shot but can't deflect it wide enough, it is off Capitani and into the net. 1-1

HALF: The early goal we got was a thing of beauty, but the pressure Chelsea was able to apply after that was impressive as well. By the half Chelsea has 16 shots to our 2. They only put 3 on target and take 10 from long range but with their talent the long shots are scary too if they start making Capitani dive around to stop them. Hamilton is once again playing pretty poorly. Khan isn't match fit after coming off injury and Negredo is tired too, I could use him but instead I decide to bring Guarin in for Hamilton and drop to a 4-1-4-1. I change to defensive and "retain possession" at least ofr the start of the second half.

57': We attack, cross into the area from the left, Donnelly goes down, and its considered a dive, yellow for Donnelly.

68': They build up on offense, a ball to the right edge of the 6 yard box, Capitani doesn't go after it, he sits on the line, but Balotelli blasts a shot by him with perfect precision. 1-2

70': They attack again, a pass to Balotelli 20 yards out, he turns by Henrique and shoots from there, again perfect precision and Capitani can't sotp it. 1-3

74': Mariga in for donnelly, Negredo in for Constantino, resting them for the next match.

Ipswich 1 : 3 Chelsea

We caught them off guard early with a beautiful goal, but that just woke them up and they pressured us non stop for the next 82 minutes.

Goal: Adagsmar (7.4)
Assist: Donnelly (7.0)
Notable: Capitani (7.0)

Mike (5.3), Henrique (5.8), Hamilton (5.7) struggled today.

Radii · 09-17-2011, 02:50 AM

-- Our expectations were to make the 3rd round of the leauge cup and we did that, so the board is pleased with us still.

-- DC Cestor Mike has been our worst defender, and his morale is very poor when the rest of the team is all happy. I tell him I'm giving him a week off (afraid that just benching him due to morale will make it worse) and will drop my DC rotation to Henrique/Welsh/Quartey for now.

September 27th, 2020

Wolves(1-1-4, 17th) @ Ipswich (2-2-2, 9th)

We're 4:7 favorites today, damn! Wolverhampton are 4:1 to get a win at Portman Road, I guess we've been impressing the bookies. We beat them once and tied once last season in the Championship, in the EPL the year before we tied twice, 2-4-3 lifetime. And yes, for this second at least, we are in the top 10 in the EPL!

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Johnson
F: Negredo/Constantino

Welsh/Henrique today, Jackson back at DR, Negredo up front with Constantino.

12': Gordon with a shot from out pretty far wide right, keeper has to save and send it behind for a corner, our first on target shot. We earn a second corner, they clear that one out. We have 4 early shots but all from range.

15': The highlight opens with them clearing a ball out of the box, Mills recovers, sends it to Constantino, he gets into the area and shoots, its saved but there's a rebound, Neil Gordon is there, he shoots and its a goal!! 1-0

20': A nice move down the middle, Adagsmar to Mills to Negredo who spots Donnely coming into the area with a nice pass, but they clear it away for a throwin. We build up after the throw but they again clear out of the area when we try to send it in.

30': We are putting a ton of pressure on them, 66/33 possession, only 6 shots but we are winning everything.

35': We build up on offense, Mills ahead to Negredo, he's 30 yards away or so. He stands strong and shrugs off a tackle, Constantino comes into the area from the right, Negredo hits him with a great pass and Constantinio drils a shot far post by the keeper! 2-0

HALF: Somehow Henrique comes out of this half with a 5.9 rating, the rest of the team is 6.8+. We haven't allowed a goal, only two shots, we have 61% of the possession, what could he possibly doing so poorly. 3/13 on headers is it, but I think since we control so much of possession a lot of that is out near midfield or something. Anyway, very strong half, 10 shots to 2, none on target for them.

48': We give up two corners before clearing. Its cleared to midfield, Constantino wins the ball there and charges down the right side, crossing into he area, they head it away. We retain possession but they get it out of there after giving up a throwin to us.

60': Hamilton in for Negredo, Quartey in for Henrique, whose rating has continued to drop despite everyone else playing great.

64': Mills with a yellow.

80': Defend/Retain Possession, no late crap please.

80': We attack from the midfield, Gordon has it out right and lobs a beautiful ball ahead to Constantino, he draws a defender from the middle and slides a pass over to Hamilton, Hamilton into the area and he buries a shot by the keeper! 90% of the credit there goes to Neil Gordon. 3-0

86': Donnelly with a yellow.

Ipswich 3 : 0 Wolves

A simply beautiful performance from start to finish today. We controlled 59% of the possession over the course of the entire match and only allowed them to take 4 shots, all off target.

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.1)
Goals: Constantino, Gordon (8.1), Hamilton (7.1)
Assists: Constantino 2, Negredo (6.9)
Notables: Jackson (7.7), Kirkland (7.6), Welsh (7.2), Mills (8.0), Donnelly (8.1)

Henrique is 3/17 on headers today and ends with a 5.6 rating. Welsh has a very solid game and Quartey does well off the bench.

A second straight win bumps us to 7th place. If the season were to end today we would qualify for the Euro Cup. *ahem* ok settle down, but it feels great to be getting some wins.

Radii · 09-17-2011, 03:45 AM

October Update

-- We play on the 3rd, 17th, 24th and 31st. Sunderland, Tottenham, Aston Villa and Everton, all but Aston Villa on the road. It'll be very interesting to see our status after this month, our schedule has been easy so far, we've played the 3 teams sitting in the bottom 3 spots.

-- Newcastle's Vladimir Weiss is the EPL Player of the month. Cesc Fabregas at Arsenal is 2nd, Ipswich's own Constantino is 3rd!

-- Stuart Kirkland is the EPL young player of the month! As good and reliable as he is for me its crazy to realize that he's still only 21.

-- Adagsmar's long range goal vs Nottingham Forest is the #3 goal of the month for September.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership (pleased!? Just pleased!? We're in 7th bitches!). Signing Alvaro Negredo is the highlight, signing Cestor Mike is the weak point.

-- We made a profit of $840k last month. That's not much, but the board isn't complaining about us being a bit over wage budget.

October 3rd, 2020

Ipswich (3-2-2, 7th) @ Sunderland(2-1-4, 11th)

Sunderland are 5:4 favorites over us today, we're 7:4. Only 4 matches ever against Sunderland, we're 0-0-4, 3:0 losses both times we met last time we were up in the EPL. Sunderland have 3 goals in 7 matches, they're struggling to score badly.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Quartey/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
F: Hamilton/Constantino

Troy Brown plays for Sunderland. Well, he sits on their bench, he doesn't actually play. I still don't understand why they purchased Brown. Henrique sits today, Welsh/Quartey. Mariga gets a start for Mills, and Hamilton starts up front.

7': They put 2 early shots on target, earning a corner on the second one, but we clear.

9': Donnelly with two quick fouls, the second one sets up a free kick 20 yards out, the wall blocks the shot behind for a corner. Mariga heads out the corner, they recover and shoot very high.

13': Mariga is hurt, he can stay in, Mills will probably play the second half though.

13': Donnelly with a yellow.

20': their star Nuno Gonclaves receives a pass 25 yards out, turns by Welsh and gets their first clear cut chance, but Capitani makes the stop!

23': We earn a corner, its headed out, Mariga follows up with a shot, its our first shot of the match, blocked and its a second corner which they clear.

38': Another ball to Gonclaves, another clear cut chance, this one is off the right post! Whew.

43': Midfielder Fontas with a yellow for a hard tackle as Constantino skips by him. Gordon takes the free kick, crossing towards the far post, Hamilton gets his head to it... off the crossbar, damn!

HALF: We got a little bit going late in the half, but its all Sunderland right now and we're quite lucky to be scoreless. They shoot 10 times, putting 3 on target and earning 2 clear cut chances. We shoot 4 times, just 1 on target. They win 85% of their tackles, winning everything in the midfield where we have been getting some occasional breakaways from, Sunderland are getting all of those little advantages today. I use two of my subs at the half. Guarin in for Donnelly who is just committing too many fouls with his yellow and I fear a red badly. Mills in for the injured Mariga.

47': We control and build up on offense, Mills puts a beautiful ball into the area, Adagsmar runs on to it and shoots from 15 yards out... its saved, rebound to Hamilton, he shoots... saved! Damn!!

49': They build up, Gonclaves has it 25 yards out... Kirkland sees something shiny on the ground and stops defending, allowing midfielder Sinclair to hang out behind him until Gonclaves finally spots him, he gets an easy finish... wtf Kirkland!! I think that was just a very, very poor attempt at an offside trap. Very poor. 0-1

67': defender Hutchinson with a yellow. So this just isn't working, we aren't getting anything done here, I decide to get a little frisky. McKerr is in for Kirkland. Gordon AMC, Jackson MR, 3-4-1-2.

85': They earn a corner, its taken to the near post, a header goes into the net.. but the goalscorer is called for a foul.

87': Constantino with a yellow.

90': Awwwwwwwwww, we finally get something going, Guarin to Mills, a great through ball to Constantino for a clear cut chance and a goal... but he's deemed to be offsides. That was a very very close call.

Sunderland 1 : 0 Ipswich

No one is really great today on either side, one of their defenders earns a 7.5 and man of the match today.

Notable: Jonathan Quartey (7.0)

Adagsmar with a 6.1, Hamilton a 6.2, Constantino 6.4. Fairly solid defending to keep it 1:0, they shot 22 times and kept the pressure up pretty well. We just struggled so much to generate chances, they tackle so so well and keep us from building up any kind of an attack.

Injury Update

McDonald Mariga has a turned ankle and is out for 3-4 weeks.

Radii · 09-17-2011, 04:45 AM

Injury Update

-- Chris Mason is hurt in training and out for 3 weeks. This is his second significant injury this year.

-- Stuart Kirkland starts at ML for the English U21's against Hungary in a 3:0 win, putting up a 6.8 rating. First time Ive seen him used outside of DL.

-- Gordon Donnelly earns a 6.6 rating, James Welsh 6.7 as a sub in a 1:1 tie for Scotland against Slovenia in World Cup Qualifying.

-- Jonathan Quartey puts up a 7.1 rating for Ghana in a 2:0 win over Mozambique in African World Cup Qualifying. The second round of qualifying in Africa has ended. That was a massive stage with 12 4 team groups, Every group winner and many 2nd place teams continue on. Ghana went 6-0 in their group to advance. McDonald Mariga's Kenya fails to advance. The next round consists of 5 groups, 4 teams each. the winner of each group qualifies for the world cup after home and home round robin play (6 matches total). Quartey's Ghana is grouped with Morocco, Burkina Faso and Benin. It seems they should be heavy heavy favorites.

October 17th, 2020

Ipswich (3-2-3, 8th) @ Tottenham(3-1-4, 9th)

Tottenham are very slim 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8 dogs. They finished 4th in the EPL last year and are doing well in the Champions League very early on. Similar to Sunderland we've played them 4 times and never won.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Quartey/Jackson
M: Burton/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Negredo/Constantino

Lee Burton needed a little reserve time action to get match fit and I go ahead and start him today to keep him that way. Mills back in at MC, Negredo up front. Khan is match fit as well and I need to get him some playing time.

Tottenham's Jan Molnar is worth $20M, makes $130k/wk and is a great striker. He's got 3 goals in 5 league matches (he's crushing the champions league with 4 goals in 3 matches). He's their biggest threat by a lot.

1': We kick off and build up on offense, but a pass back is intercepted by one of their midfielders. They rush forward and earn a corner, a header comes in off the corner but Capitani easily catches it.

14': We try to build up on offense, Gordon plays a ball in from the right side, it seems like its aimed at Constantino but it bounces ahead and Negredo is able to run onto it at the penalty spot... no one between him and the keeper, but a very poor first touch allows a defender to come in and clear.

25': They have 2 shots, we have none. We are getting forward a fair bit but not getting anything out of it. We are keeping the pressure off the defense.

26': Donnelly makes a great run from midfield to get us into an attack position, he draws a couple defenders, passes to Negredo who shoots from 20 yards out but its wide.

38': Donnelly is having a hell of a match, he's been making some great plays... here Mills sends a ball out right for Neil Gordon, he makes a run down the right and crosses into the area, Donnelly is playing extremely aggressively here and charges in to win a header... its off the crossbar. The keeper leapt for the shot and seems to come down awkwardly, he's slow to recover. The ball comes back into the area, Constantino is there and basically walks it into the net without a challenge from the keeper. 1-0

HALF: We quickly make it to the half and I have to say that the scoreline accurately reflects the play I'm seeing in the highlights. We look great. Tottenham are still sitting on 2 shots, we have 5, 2 on target. We've got 55% of the possession and have been passing extremely well. Gordon Donnelly has looked great, he's made some very nice runs that I don't expect to see out of him to get us in some strong forward positions, and he was attacking hard on our goal.

To start the second half I drop to defensive and "retain possession", at least for now.

54': Donnelly with a yellow. That's his 5th and he'll miss our next match.

57': They have a free kick out left, a pass goes to defender Chukwu 20 yardso ut, he shoots, not a lot of pace, it seemed to me like Capitani should have stopped it... but its by him and into the net to tie it up. Steven Mills takes the blame for missing an interception. 1-1

60': Back to our default counter attacking strat.

62': We have a free kick on our end but they win the ball and get forward quickly, there's a strong shot by Molnar from 25 yards out, Capitani has to dive and makes a great save on a shot that was rocketing towards the net. Its behind for a corner which we clear.

71': Guarin in for Negredo, back to DMC, 4-1-4-1. Adagsmar in for Burton at ML. We haven't found a shot this half, they have 8.

We see them attack a bit more but we defend well to finish it off and earn a point on the road.

Tottenham 1 : 1 Ipswich

We didn't take a single shot in the second half. Their goal scorer is the man of the match.

Goal: Constantino (7.3)
Assist: Donnelly (7.4)
Notables: Kirkland (7.2)

Jonathan Quartey struggles today with a 5.3 rating, he won 11 headers, more than anyone, but he challenged for the ball in the air 27 times. We hang on to a top 10 spot with a point here, we've got 12 points now, I'm fairly certain that we made it into February before we got 12 points our last EPL season.

Radii · 09-17-2011, 05:28 AM

Injury Update

-- Jack Hughes pulls a hamstring in training and is out 3-4 weeks.

-- Simon Hamilton has a groin strain and is out 2-3 weeks.

October 24th, 2020

Aston Villa(7-0-2, 4th) @ Ipswich (3-3-3, 9th)

Aston Villa are even money favorites today, we're 11:5 to get a win. We beat these guys on the road at the very end of our last EPL season, making us 1-2-3 lifetime against them. Only 5 places separate us in the standings but this is a really, really strong team.

Aston Villa are led by 32 y/o FC Eren Derdiyok, he's got 5 goals in league play so far.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Johnson/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Lots of changes, Henrique back in, Darren Johnson starts for the suspended Donnelly, Adagsmar back in at ML, Matthew Khan gets a start today.

2': They get a shot from 20 yards out right away, Capitani makes a diving save and its behind for a corner. We clear that.

4': We have to fight to keep possession a couple times here but end up getting it to Constantino 20 yards out, he's able to make a turn and get a shot, its actually a clear cut chance, he shoots near post but its saved and turned back for a corner which they clear.

11': They attack quickly, a quick long ball from the midfield into the area for Ismail Sevini, one of their mids, and he finishes nicely. 0-1

14': we have a good shot to get that goal back, Johnson with a through ball for Constantino, his second clear cut chance and this is a really good one, but its saved... I expected a goal watching this one.

20': They try to put it into the area, Welsh heads it out and its sent ahead to Constantino. He pulls up and passes to Mills as our offense sets up. Mills puts a ball into the area from 35 yards out, Khan breaks on it beautifully and has our 3rd clear cut chance of the day... keeper dives and makes yet another stop, damn!

36': Yellow for midfielder Sandro.

40': Constantino has been hurt twice in the first half here, he's got no long term issues but his fitness is way lower than everyone else. He might not finish this one.

HALF: Its a very even match, 8 shots for us, 6 on target, 9 shots/4 on target for them. But we generated better shots and we really ought to be in the lead here. Not getting at least one goal out of those looks that we got is a big problem.

48': We counter attack, a pass to Constantino, he sends it over to Khan near the midfield circle, Khan takes off, he dribbles between two defenders and makes a crazy strong run, he's almost in the area... and tackled. I swear that ought to be a red, I'm making umpire ejection motions sitting in my chair... but nope, yellow for defender Long. Gordon shoots and its off the wall for a corner, they clear it.

56': They build up on offense, a pass goes to ST Valpoort 25 yards out, Henrique makes a challenge and fails completely, allowing his man to go by him, get into the area and score. Very poor play by Henrique. 0-2

67': Negredo in for Constantino, Burton in for Adagsmar. I tell the guys to attack, I don't expect much, we've had our chances here and squandered them and that second goal really makes it difficult.

76': We work the ball forward after winning it in defense, Burton to Negredo, Negredo with a brilliant ball from 35 yards out to Khan who cuts by his man. Khan earns our 4th clear cut chance and this one is in, he puts it into the lower left corner of the net and we have a chance! 1-2

83': We have it already working our offense, Negredo spots an opening in their defense and passes a ball for Khan, Khan seems slow to break on it, seems like we could have done better there, they tackle it away.

87': We have a free kick 20-25 yards out a bit wide left, Gordon shoots, its a strong bending shot that the keeper barely gets to... they clear it behind for a corner which we can't do anything with.

That's it.

Ipswich 1 : 2 Aston Villa

Its at least a bit of a positive that we can end a match against a team fighting for a spot in the Champions League and legitimately feel that we were the better team today. We should have won this.

Goal: Khan (7.7)
Assist: Negredo (6.8)
Notable: Kirkland (7.1), Mills (7.1)

Matthew Khan was damn good. I'd been wanting to bring him in for awhile now, it took me too long to realize he was very far out away from match fitness and to get him some action on the reserve team. He made some moves there today that he just didn't have in him the last time we were up here.

Radii · 09-17-2011, 06:02 AM

Injury Update

-- Steven Mills strains his groin in training and is out 2-3 weeks.

-- McDonald Mariga resumes full training, that helps a little to balance out the Mills injury.

-- On the 28th Kirkland catches a cold and we send him home for a couple days. He may not play against Everton.

October 31st, 2020

Ipswich (3-3-4, 10th) @ Everton(2-3-5, 15th)

Everton are even money favorites at their place today, we're 11:5 to win. We're 1-1-2 lifetime against Everton.

GK: Capitani
D: Mike/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Mike starts at DL, Donnelly's suspension was just 1 match so he's in, Mariga too.

7': We've taken a bad free kick and allowed 3 corners without giving up a shot, that's all the early highlights.

20': We have a goal kick, Capitani sends it long, their defenders don't track it well, Constantino receives the ball 20 yards out, his first touch is beautiful, perfect control with a step on the defense, he's into the area and finishes!!! 1-0

24': There have been a *lot* of highlights so far, due to the 7 free kicks and 4 corners that Everton have taken, tons of quick crosses and poor headers off of these set pieces. 6 shots, 2 on target for Everton so far.

28': Make that 9 free kicks and 6 corners... a free kick leads to a corner here, we head the cross out of the area but barely, they recover 20 yards out and Mariga commits a foul, earning a yellow and setting up ST Brian Kelly from a very dangerous spot. Kelly shoots around the wall and into the left side of the net, Capitani had no shot. 1-1

36': Everton's 12th free kick shows up here and I finally go about realizing this isn't going to change and issue the "Stand-off Opponents" order.

46': We build up down the left side, passes between Mike and Donnelly and Adagsmar, Adagsmar sends a ball into the area from 35 yards out near the sideline, its met perfectly by Matthew Khan with a half step on his man, he controls it and blasts it into the right side of the net!! Great pass and solid finish. 2-1

HALF: We manage 5 shots, 3 on target, scoring on both or clear cut chances. They shoot 8 times, 3 on target and the one set piece goal. Hopefully our fouls will be limited going forward without allowing them too much easy access to generate chances. No changes going into the second half.

49': Hey look they earn a free kick 25 yards out, the wall blocks the shot and they earn a corner. Welsh heads it away, they head it back in and Mike goes up for it... and comes down injured.

53': Oh this blows. We clear a ball out of the area, they win it and send it back forward... our defensive line is basically fine except that Cestor Mike has just run back on the field after receiving treatment. That leaves their forward onside a few yards behind Welsh and Henrique... and its an easy finish after the pass comes in. 2-2

53': Burton in , Mike out.

67': A run down the right for Everton, a cross comes to the far end of the 6 yard box, a header... Capitani jumps for it, dunno if he touches it or not, its hard to tell, but it hits the underside of the crossbar, bounces nearly straight down... just over the line and in for a goal. 2-3

69': Gordon with a foul coming in from behind on a man just outside the area, free kick... saved by Capitani and turned behind. Whew. Darren Johnson is in for a tired Mariga, we clear the corner. They send it back forward though and there's a scorching shot by defender Scheepens after Darren Johnson misses a tackle and its by everyone and in... 2-4

74': We build up on offense, Donnely with a ball into the area, a perfectly timed break by Constantino, its a clear cut chance from 10 yards out... but saved, ugh!

92': Yellow for defender Cicman just about 20 yards out going for a through ball with Constantino. Gordon shoots, of the wall and behind for a corner. They clear the corner and that's the end of the match.

Everton 4 : 2 Ipswich

We were not the better team today, no sir. It was a weird match though, we score off a goal kick, allow a goal entirely because an injured player took the field at the wrong time, have a header hit the crossbar and bounce straight down and just go in... but they were definitely better and earned this one.

Goals: Constantino (7.4), Khan (6.9)
Assists: Capitani (7.5), Adagsmar (6.9)

Giving up 4 goals will make your defense look bad. Jackson 5.4, Mike 5.8, Henrique 5.4, Welsh 6.0, and Burton 5.9 after coming in early in the second half.

-- Cestor Mike is out for 8-10 days with the injury he picked up today.

-- That concludes a tough month for us with 3 road games against solid teams and a home game against a top 4 team. We only managed one point but we finish the month sitting in 11th place. November won't be much better with 3 teams in the top 6. We do get a home match against Blackburn who are in a relegation position now and we'll see if we can pull than one point out of November.

Simbo Klice · 09-17-2011, 06:16 AM

I love that whenever it is I happen to log on, there will almost certainly be some Ipswich goodness waiting for me. Good to see Constantino continuing to put up numbers in the EPL, and great to see that Ipswich has a very good chance of staying up here and possibly contending for the title in the coming seasons.

Radii · 09-17-2011, 07:55 PM

November Update

-- We play on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th. Man U (1st), Blackburn (18th), West Ham (3rd), and Chelsea (6th).

-- The board is delighted with my leadership, damn right! Alvaro Negredo is the highlight, Cestor Mike the lowlight.

-- We actually lost money last month, $41K. We did play only once at home, our revenue was down $1.5M from the month prior.

November 7th, 2020

Man Utd(9-2-0, 1st) @ Ipswich (3-3-5, 11th)

Man U are 2:5 favorites today, they are off to a brilliant start without a loss in 11 matches. We're 13:2 to get a win, 11:4 to tie.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Kirkland and Quartey start today, Welsh has randomly Poor morale and sits.

12': They earn a corner, taken to the far end of the 6 yard box, a strong header from midfielder Wynter and a goal, we looked quite outclassed on that. 0-1

30': We are forward attacking, Mariga passes to Constantino who is coming in from the right, he's got a great look, shoots, its saved but the rebound falls right to Neil Gordon and the keeper hasn't recovered yet, Gordon easily puts it in!! 1-1

34': We work to win the ball in the midfield and after a good bit of back and forth finally do, Gordon plays a great ball ahead to Khan, he's got a clear cut chance from the edge of the box, but the keeper saves it.

39': We're really taking it to them, two more quick attacks, Gordon with another great pass to Constantino, into the area, he's coming in from the right and has a tough angle, it seems like he could hit Khan coming down the middle, but instead he shoots and its a really weak shot right at the keeper and saved.

40': Clear cut chance #4 as Donnelly finds Khan who loses his man.. but again its saved, we earn a corner but its cleared.

HALF: Man that was fun. We seriously took it to them for the final 10 minutes, that was great to watch. I don't expect us to come out ahead (maybe if we had a 3-1 lead from a couple of those chances!), but we are putting up a great fight here. We have 8 shots, 6 on target and 4 clear cut chances, they have 6 shots, 1 on target for their one goal.

59': Henrique picks up an injury and has to leave the pitch for a few minutes.

64': Welsh in for Henrique, Johnson in for Mariga, Henrique injured/Mariga tired.

67': midfielder Parejo with a yellow for a tackle on Donnelly.

78': They're attacking hard this half but our defense is coming up big, they're really only getting shots from long range and haven't put another on target yet.

83': We build up on offense, Jackson ends up passing ahead to Constantino, he's into the area, tackled... its a penalty!! but Constantino is hurt and won't be taking the PK. Neil Gordon takes it instead.. and its saved by the keeper. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. They clear and we recover, Johnson with a through ball, Khan is there and puts it into the net.... but he's offsides... NOOOOOOOOOOOO

86': They have a throwin in their end, a couple passes lead to a shot from 20 yards out, on target... but saved nicely.

88': Kirkland wins the ball from their mid Parejo, Parejo tries ot get it back, but fouls Kirkland, that's his second yellow, he's out!

91': Oh man, Neil Gordon goes down injured... two of their men are hurt today too.

The whistle blows and we earn a point!

Ipswich 1 : 1 Man Utd

Much like the Aston Villa game, we just played one of the best teams in the world and come away from the match with a point... and feel disappointed because it seems like we were really the better team today. But hell, its a spectacular result. Their keeper is man of the match.

Goal: Gordon (6.7)
Assist: Constantino (6.8)
Notables: Kirkland (7.2), Mariga (7.1), Donnelly (7.4)

5 clear cut chances for us, zero for them, including a missed penalty shot in the final 10 minutes.

Neither Henrique or Neil Gordon have long term injuries, so we feel quite lucky/happy for that.

12 matches in we have 13 points and sit in 8th place (though a couple teams below us have 11 matches and we'll likely drop to 9th or 10th). We're actually only 6 points clear of Blackburn in 18th for relegation, we play them next though with a chance to widen the gap to 9. Also while its awesome that we're in 8th there is a very clear gap between the haves and have nots in the EPL this year and its between 7th and 8th place. Chelsea 6th with 21 points, Newcastle 7th with 20 points, Ipswich 8th with 13 points. There's a big gap there.

Radii · 09-18-2011, 12:25 AM

-- Jack Hughes, Simon Hamilton and Steve Mills all resume full training. None will play vs Blackburn but very nice to have them back, especially Mills.

November 14th, 2020

Blackburn(1-4-7, 18th) @ Ipswich (3-4-5, 10th)

We're slim 6:4 favorites today, they're 13:8 to win. Important match for both teams, winning against other relegation candidates is the best way for us to guarantee we stay up.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/McKerr/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

McKerr starts at DC instead of Henrique who has had a rough time lately.

11': Clive Jackson comes down with an injury, didn't see how, he can stay in and we'll check on him postmatch.

21': We have 3 shots to their 1, a pretty darn slow start.

32': They earn a corner, we clear it out, they try to retain possession... Mariga makes an outstanding sliding tackle to win the ball, it goes right to Khan and he plays it long immediately for Constantino who outruns everyone, gets into the area and easily beats the keeper. Mariga made that happen, so awesome! 1-0

41': I had gone to a standard mindset around the 20th minute, it seemed they were playing real defensive. After scoring I drop back to counter attack again.

47': Mariga gets a yellow for a bad tackle, much like the one he made to trigger out goal, except here there wasn't much upside and he missed pretty badly.

HALF: Its a pretty slow match minus the one very quick counterattacking goal we scored. Each team shoots 5 times, we put 2 on target, they put 1 on target. We're seeing a fair number of highlights in their offensive end but we are defending rather well so far.

60': Pretty poor defending, we allow their best striker Griffiths to get wide open in the area, McKerr is too far back allowing him to stay onsides behind Quartey and we don't handle it well, once they get him the ball its an easy finish. 1-1

67': Highlight opens with Constantino attacking, looks like we just won possession and are trying to get forward quickly, two defenders converge on Constantino, one pokes it away but it falls right to Donnelly, Donnelly puts a ball forward to the edge of the box, Khan runs onto it and drills it in the left side of the net! There was a big hole there as they were scrambling to close down on Constantino and got out of position. 2-1

67': I'd already called for 3 subs, Welsh in for Jackson (McKErr to DR, Welsh DC), Johnson in for Mariga and Negredo in for Khan. After the goal I woulda left Khan in, oh well.

76': They have a free kick out left deep in our end, a pass into the area... Neil Gordon brings down his man and its a penalty. PK is taken... Capitani dives and makes the save!!!!! We clear it away.

78': Johnson intercepts a pass near midfield to start our attack, ahead to Constantino, he tries to turn by his man but there's a nice sliding tackle to dispossess him. Gordon recovers the ball and sends it forward again to Constantino, he gets a shot off, its saved... but rebound to Negredo, he follows up well and buries it!! 3-1

We close out the rest of the match easily.

Ipswich 3 : 1 Blackburn

A nice 2 goal win but it was much closer than that and Michele Capitani made a critical save of a penalty to keep the lead 2-1 late.

Man of the Match: Gordon Donnelly (8.1)
Goals: Constantino (7.7), Khan (7.4), Negredo (7.1)
Assists: Donnelly, Constantino, Khan
Notables: Kirkland (7.6)

Neil Gordon had a 6.1 rating in no small part to allowing the penalty I would assume. He passed very poorly today as well. Everyone else on the team had a 6.8-6.9 rating.

-- This was the last straw for Blackburn, they fire their manager and its speculated that I'll be their next manager if I want the job. I release a statement saying that I'm not.

-- Blackburn drops to 19th with their loss. A Wolves win moves them up to 18th. The win moves us to 9th and we're now 7 points clear of relegation.

-- Constantino has 11 goals and 6 assists in our first 13 league matches. That's tied for first in the EPL in goals and tied for second in assists.

09-14-2011, 10:24 AM	#858
Alf Pro Starter Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Rennes, France	Hip Hip Hurray ! __________________ FOFL - GML - IHOF - FranceStats

09-14-2011, 12:48 PM	#866
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	I'm not liking Carlos Antonio myself. I'd personally still think aboit acquiring Hamilton depending on what the price is. __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

09-16-2011, 03:09 AM	#888
Alf Pro Starter Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Rennes, France	Hip Hip Hurray Constantino ! __________________ FOFL - GML - IHOF - FranceStats

09-16-2011, 02:17 PM	#889
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	Whoa way for Constantino to step up! And did Negredo just steal Hamilton's starting spot? __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

09-14-2011, 03:27 AM	#851
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Chelsea lost to OM (france) in the first knockout round. Arsenal got by Feyenoord 2:0. Barcelona, Inter, Real Madrid all advanced. Quarterfinal Matchups: Inter vs Real Madrid Arsenal vs Roma OM vs Celtic Ajax vs Barcelona Inter have won twice in a row. April Update -- We play Wolverhampton on the 4th in a match that could easily decide who wins the league. After that, 13th, 18th, and 25th. -- Chris Mason has trained well in the last month. Real well! Command of Area (9), Communication (9), Reflexes (17), Composure (14), Agility (14), Balance (15), and Strength (9) are all up. He's still just 18 but the Command of Area, Communication and Anticipation ratings (7) worry me more and more when we look at his ability to be a legit EPL keeper. For now though its great to see improvement and he could still make it for sure. -- Constantino is 3rd in player of the month voting. -- Constantino has the goal of the month vs Sheffield Wednesday. Khan vs Leyton Orient has the #2 goal of the month. -- I am manager of the month in March after leading Ipswich to a 5-0-1 record. -- The board is pleased. Our win over Norwich is still the high, 4:1 loss to Watford still the low. -- We lost $2.77M last month. We're now sitting on a profit of $137K on the year and $6.2M in cash. -- Watford play their extra match and win it, vaulting themselves into 6th place, 1 point up on the final playoff spot. April 4th, 2019 Wolverhampton(27-8-6, 2nd) @ Ipswich (28-6-7, 1st) The bookmakers feel its an even match, we are 6:4 favorites but they're right there at 13:8, this could go either way. We tied 1:1 at their place back in November. We're ahead of them by one point, so right now we both control our own destiny. Win out including this and win a title. GK: Mason D: Kirkland/Henrique/McKerr/Jackson M: Turgay Colak/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon ST: Khan/Constantino Turgay Colak starts at ML, Donnelly/Mills in the middle. I use the "control" strategy. They're playing a 4-1-4-1, very very defensive looking, lets control possession and draw them out here. 15': We build up, Donnelly with a ball into the area, Khan breaks for it perfectly, he has a half step on his man at best but its enough, first touch shot and its by the keeper! 1-0 18': I drop back to counterattacking. 35': After a long break with no highlights (despite 12 total shots) Gordon earns us a corner here, they clear it though. 39': midfielder Adagsmar with a yellow. 43': We build up for a really long time, a couple minutes of possession here passing around, they try to clear as we attempt passes to the forwards but we recover a couple times and keep it going, finally Mills puts a ball into the area for Khan and its just like our last goal, Mills plays it to a perfect spot, Khan with the perfect break on the ball and the finish! 2-0 HALF: Matthew Khan is reminding everyone there's more than one striker on this team!!! We end up with 10 shots, 6 on target, didn't see a few of those, a few were in a crowded area where it seemed unlikely we could find anything. They shoot 6 times, not one on target yet. We look spectacular today. 58': They break through with a great through ball into the area, a clear cut chance, but no! Mason dives and stops it! Corner is cleared. 69': We fail to clear out of our end and I'm freaking stunned because their striker is like 4 yards offsides... its not til the replay that I realize that it wasn't passed to him, that Mills tried to clear the ball and it bounced off one of our guys and just looked like a perfect through ball... their dutch striker with what may be my favorite name ever Ricky van Wolfswinkel gets an easy goal. Really, van Wolfswinkel!!! 2-1 80': Mariga in for Mills. 82': Long possession on offense, Khan tries a shot, blocked, it falls to Mariga 25 yards out, he blasts it... crossbar! doh! 85': A fight for possession in our defensive half, they win it, there's a ball into the area for star striker Sam Vokes, its a little deep, but its still a clear cut chance and Mason is there to make the stop!! We hang on and get a really solid win against the #2 team in the league! Ipswich 2 : 1 Wolves Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.8) Goals: Khan 2 Assists: Donnelly (7.0), Mills (6.9) Notables: Kirkland (7.0) Mostly 6.8-6.9. Constantino was not to be found today with a 6.5. The optimist is thrilled to see the rest of the guys step up around him. The pessimist points out that Wolverhampton are the other EPL quality team in the league and question how well he'll do in the EPL next year. Ipswich have clinched promotion to the English Premier Division -- the usual pleasantries, the fans are thrilled that I've brought the squad back up. The board praise me and are happy to see us go back up. With 4 to go: 1. Ipswich - 93 pts 2. Wolves - 89 pts ------------------- 3. QPR - 80 pts 4. Leeds - 79 pts 5. Bristol City - 74 pts 6. Watford - 67 pts ------------------ 6. Stoke - 65 pts 7. Cardiff - 64 pts 8. Derby - 64 pts QPR and Leeds have clinched playoff spots. to close out the post: Ricky van Wolfswinkel. Just think of the nickname potential! Wonder what his friends call him?

09-14-2011, 03:49 AM	#852
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Its a non-Constantino record!! Steven Mills has an awesome 18 assists, breaking a team record of 17 set by Gordon Donnelly in our last promotion effort in 17/18. I am thrilled with Steven Mills. Injury Update -- Gordon Donnelly is suffering from crushing depression after having a record broken.. no, wait, he hurt his chest lifting weights. He's out 2 weeks. -- Chris Mason hurts a finger in training and will miss a couple days. This comes pretty close to our next match so he might miss it. April 13th, 2019 Ipswich (29-6-7, 1st) @ Gillingham(14-12-16, 16th) We're 4:6 favorites at Gillingham, they're 7:2 to win. Their 16th place is considered a huge success this year. GK: Mason D: Kirkland/Welsh/McKerr/Jackson M: Turgay Colak/Mariga/Mills/Gordon ST: Khan/Constantino Welsh in for McKerr. Mason starts, he's had a day extra to come back from his little injury. Mills/Mariga with Donnelly hurt. Simon Hamilton is healthy again but there's no way in hell I'm sitting Matthew Khan right now. 1': They build up and Welsh lets a pass by him to ST Daly, its a 24 second goal. Whoops. 0-1 33': We try to get it ahead to Khan, they head it away.. Mariga is there to send it back into the area, Mills is there, he finishes easily. 1-1 45': Kirkland with a long clearance out of the defense, Khan is there 45 yards from goal, he controls it, sends it ahead and sprints to it, he's into the area and its an easy goal! 2-1 HALF: After the embarrassing start we appear to have settled down. We shoot 3 times, 2 clear cut chances, both goals. They are trying to attack, 7 shots, 1 on target, but 6 are off target. 51': Mills and Jackson pass back and forth to build up, Jackson passes to Constantino, he skips by a couple defenders and gets a solid goal. 3-1 76': I didn't note the yellow earlier but Stuart Kirkland got one earlier, and he gets another one here, he's sent off. Guarin in for Khan and back at DL. Gillingham 1 : 3 Ipswich Man of the Match: Constantino (8.3) Goals: Constantino, Khan (7.0), Mills (7.6) Assists: Kirkland (7.5), Jackson (7.4), Mariga (7.5) Notables: Mason (7.0), McKerr (7.2) Wolves have an embarrassing home tie vs #24 Barnsley. That puts us 6 ahead with 3 to go. With 3 to go: 1. Ipswich - 96 pts 2. Wolves - 90 pts ------------------- 3. QPR - 83 pts 4. Leeds - 82 pts 5. Bristol City - 74 pts 6. Derby - 67 pts ------------------ 7. Watford - 67 pts 8. Coventry - 66 pts 9. Leicester - 66 pts 10. Norwich - 66 pts 11. Stoke - 65 pts 12. Cardiff - 64 pts 7 teams fighting for the last playoff spot. Watford give up their lead and Derby have it for the moment.

09-14-2011, 04:07 AM	#853
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	April 13th, 2019 Ipswich (30-6-7, 1st) @ Hull(9-7-27, 21st) We're 4:7 favorites on the road, Hull are 4:1 to win. Hull have 5 points on Barnsley and 6 points on Swansea and Leyton Orient. They aren't totally safe yet but one of those relegation teams would have to find 2 wins in 3 matches at minimum. GK: Mason D: Hughes/Welsh/McKerr/Jackson M: Turgay Colak/Mariga/Mills/Gordon ST: Khan/Constantino Hughes is back to full training and covers for Kirkland while he serves the suspension for his red card. 2': Free kick for Hull from 30 yards, its taken well and Mason has to dive to stop it, it falls back into play, they pounce on it and score. 0-1 29': Turgay Colak and Khan have both missed clear cut chances. 31': There we go. Mills to Khan as they try and fail to clear, Khan puts this one home. 1-1 46': Constantino with a run down the right, into the area, a ball into the 6 yard box for Khan, Khan gets to it and scores! 2-1 46': In the final moments of the half, Turgay Colak goes down hurt and must be subbed immediately, I guess this is right while the whistle blows. The sub can be made at the half. HALF: We've got this barring some bad mistakes. Guarin in for Turgay Colak. 10 shots to 2 for us. 53': Hat trick!! Gordon to Mills, Mills to Khan and Khan is in the area for an easy finish. 3-1 91': The pressure we put on them int he last 40 minutes is immense. It could be like 10-1 right now. Their keeper deserves man of the match I believe. We get a final goal here, Constantino has a shot blocked but it falls to Guarin for a very easy finish. Hull 1 : 4 Ipswich We shoot 28 times, we put 16 on target, we have NINE clear cut chances. It was just non stop aggression in the second half. Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (9.5) Goals: Khan 3, Guarin (7.5) Assists: Constantino 2 (7.5), Mills 2 (9.0) Notables: Mason (7.4), Jackson (7.2), Hughes (7.7), Gordon (8.0) -- Matthew Khan scores his 100th league goal today. -- Turgay Colak is done for the year, out 6-7 weeks. He's a loaner and not one we'd go hard after for the EPL. He's done for Ipswich presumably. With 2 to go: 1. Ipswich - 99 pts 2. Wolves - 93 pts ------------------- 3. QPR - 86 pts 4. Leeds - 85 pts 5. Bristol City - 77 pts 6. Derby - 70 pts ------------------ 7. Watford - 70 pts 8. Norwich - 69 pts 9. Coventry - 66 pts 10. Leicester - 66 pts 11. Stoke - 65 pts Likely down to Derby/Watford/Norwich here. Wolverhampton have clinched promotion. Since we're up 6 points here with 2 left we'd have to lose both, they'd have to win both and make up a 13 goal differential.

09-14-2011, 04:38 AM	#854
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Since we've got first unless we start losing by 4 or 5 goals, lets knock this out. April 25th, Charlton (20th) @ Ipswich (1st) Constantino gets two clear cut chances in the first 15 minutes, but the first goal is to Khan, Donnelly hits him in the 28th minute. They tie it up in the 34th though as we foul them 18.00001 yards out. Free kick for a goal, hard to stop from that range. 36th minute Khan does it again, and the pass again comes from Donnelly! We start to run away with it at Constantino hits Gordon who puts a great shot near post from a tight angle in the 41st minute. We keep it going in the 2nd half, Neil Gordon gets his second goal running on to a wonderful pass from Mills made near midfield. Ipswich 4 : 1 Charlton Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (9.0) Goals: Gordon 2, Khan 2 (8.8) Assists: Donnelly (8.7), Constantino (8.1), Mills (8.5) Mason 6.9, Jackson 7.0, Kirkland 7.4, McKerr 7.3, Welsh 7.1, Guarin 7.2. Ipswich have won the Coca-Cola Championship The fans and the board love me. It was a done deal already but now its a mathematical certainty. Watford win and Derby lose. With 1 to go: 6. Watford - 73 pts ----------------- 7. Derby - 70 pts How good is this? Watford travel to Derby for the final match of the season. Derby have a significant goal differential advantage. If Derby wins, they're in the playoffs. May Update -- Just the one match left on May 3rd then we're done. -- Steven Mills gets singled out for training well. His set pieces improve but they're still awful so meh. But his Anticipation (13) and Decisions (13) go up and that's awesome. -- Matthew Khan is second in player of the month voting... QPR's Enrico Rocchini scores 8 goals in 4 matches to win that award. Khan did the same thing, oh well. -- I am manager of the month for April. -- The board is Delighted with my ledership now after winning the league. -- We lose $2.73M last month. May 3rd: Ipswich (1st) @ Middlesbrough (18th) They score first in the 21st minute, Jackson is back too far out right and allows one of their forwards to hang out behind our defense for an easy pass and finish. We shoot 9 times to their 3. We'll get something in the second half. We finally get one in the 69th minute, Constantino with a nice ball ahead to Gordon on a counter attack and Gordon scores. Middlesbrough 1 : 1 Ipswich Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.5) Goal: Gordon (7.5) Assist: Constantino (7.3) Notables: Welsh (7.0), Mills (7.2), Mariga (7.1) -- Derby and Watford draw. That's all Watford needed. The playoffs will consist of Leeds, QPR, Bristol City and Watford. Champions League A quick update. Quarterfinals 2-leg series Inter 6 : 2 Real Madrid Arsenal 3 : 2 Roma OM 2 : 0 Celtic Barcelona 6 : 1 Ajax Semifinals Inter 4 : 2 Barcelona OM 2 : 1 Arsenal Inter gets a chance for a 3rd straight Champions League title. OM is Olympique de Marseille from france. This is the first time they've even made the champions league since 2014 when they made the final 16. That's it for now. We'll cover the Euro Championship during the offseason and prepare to go completely insane spending money on left midfielders and central defenders. Also, do we try to buy Simon Hamilton? Khan came on so well here but we need that target man don't we? Do we try to ride into the EPL with Carlos Antonio or do we consider looking in another direction? We'll be better prepared for the EPL this time around but I think there are still going to be big questions about whether or not we can stay up this time..

09-14-2011, 07:07 AM	#855
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Exciting times! Glad to see you won't get the parachute payment after all .

09-14-2011, 08:44 AM	#856
Tellistto College Prospect Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Whitman, MA	Grats!

09-14-2011, 10:41 AM	#860
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Ipswich 2019/20 History/Leaders Team History Woking 2009/10 - BS South - 1st - 24 W - 12 D - 6 L - 62 for - 39 ag - +23 GD - 84 pts 2010/11 - BS Premier - 17th - 14 W - 10 D - 22 L - 60 for - 65 ag - -5 GD - 52 pts 2011/12 - BS Premier - 4th - 26 W - 12 D - 8 L - 87 for - 51 ag - +36 GD - 90 pts 2012/13 - BS Premier - 1st - 26 W - 11 D - 9 L - 88 for - 56 ag - 89 pts 2013/14 - League 2 - 18th - 12 W - 17 D - 17 L - 50 for - 54 ag - 53 pts 2014/15 - League 2 - 9th - 20 W - 9 D - 17 L - 57 for - 58 ag - 69 pts 2015/16 - League 2 - 1st - 30 W - 8 D - 8 L - 102 for - 50 ag - 98 pts 2016/17 - League 1 - 1st - 24 W - 14 D - 7 L - 103 for - 61 ag - 89 pts Ipswich 2017/18 - Championship - 1st - 28 W - 12 D - 6 L - 91 for - 42 ag - 96 pts 2018/19 - Premier League - 20th - 5 W - 5 D - 28 L - 30 for - 77 ag - 20 pts 2019/20 - Championship - 1st - 32 W - 7 D - 7 L - 121 for - 54 ag - 103 pts This year: Top Goalscorer - Constantino - 52 goals Top League Goalscorer - Constantino - 50 goals Most Assists - Steven Mills - 21 assists Highest Average Rating - Constantino - 8.09 Most Man of the Match - Constantino - 22 My god we scored 121 goals.

09-14-2011, 11:16 AM	#861
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Contract Updates -- Right around the time the regular season ended I changed my mind on Fredy Guarin. He was willing to take a pay cut from $35,000/wk to $18,000/wk to stay on for an extra year. He'll turn 34 June 30th and he's definitely shown decline, I can't put myself in a position where he needs to start 25 times or anything, but for $18k/wk I thought it would be worth having him next year. -- Chris Mason asks for a new contract. He was my starter for much of the year. He wants a raise from $1000/wk to $9000/wk. Ok, you twisted my arm, its yours. Championship Playoffs Semifinal First Leg Bristol City 3 : 0 QPR Watford 0 : 0 Leeds Semifinal Second Leg QPR (2) 2 : 1 (4) Bristol City - Bristol City advance Leeds (1) 1 : 0 (0) Watford - Leeds advance Finals Bristol City 4 : 1 Leeds Bristol City will be coming up to the EPL along with Ipswich and Wolverhampton. -- Chris Mason starts for the England U19 squad in U19 Euro Championship Qualifying against Hungray. England wins 4:0 and Mason puts up a 7.3 rating. Perhaps more impressive is that our youth striker Chris Bryan comes on in the 70th minute of the match and scores twice to earn a 8.5 rating! -- England's U19s crush Scotland 5:0 a few days later. Mason plays 90 minutes again in goal, a second straight shutout and a 7.4 rating. Chris Bryan starts, scores 1 goal and makes 1 assist, and leaves in the 66th minute with an 8.9 rating. -- England 3 : 1 N. Ireland, Mason a 6.8 rating, Bryan 7.4. Bryan plays the full match today, getting one assist. FA Cup -- Exeter may have only finished 14th in the Championship, but they won @Bolton, @Sunderland, @Coventry, vs Tottenham and vs Huddersfield to make a crazy improbable run to the FA Cup Finals. Its not meant to be though as Chelsea wins 2:0 in the finals. -- Our loans are about to end. I go through a number of screens on Simon Hamilton, and the training screen gives me the push I need to make a decision on whether to go after him or not: "Kevin Hayward has indicated that he believes Simon Hamilton is somewhat prone to injury". Hamilton would be a big investment, and that's enough for me to shy away. -- We pay out $2.3M to the players for winning the league.

09-14-2011, 11:29 AM	#862
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	2019/20 Championship Final League Standings 1. Ipswich - 103 pts 2. Wolves - 97 pts ------------------------------ 3. Leeds - 91 pts 4. QPR - 90 pts 5. Bristol City - 80 pts - won playoffs 6. Watford - 74 pts ------------------------------ 7. Leicester - 72 pts 8. Norwich - 72 pts 9. Derby - 71 pts 10. Scunthorpe - 69 pts 11. Stoke - 69 pts 12. Cardiff - 67 pts 13. Coventry - 67 pts 14. Exeter - 60 pts 15. Gillingham - 58 pts 16. Sheffield Wed - 57 pts 17. Fulham - 56 pts 18. Middlesbrough - 54 pts 19. Bolton - 49 pts 20. Charlton - 45 pts 21. Hull - 37 pts -------------------------------- 22. Leyton Orient - 32 pts 23. Barnsley - 30 pts 24. Swansea - 28 pts Goals 1. Constantino - Ipswich - 50 2. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 33 3. Steve Carroll - Leeds - 27 4. Tom Matthews - Norwich - 26 5. Lee Smith - Derby - 26 Matthew Khan was 9th with 22. Simon Hamilton was 21st with 15. Assists 1. Steven Mills - Ipswich - 21 2. Gordon Donnelly - ipswich - 17 3. Constantino - Ipswich - 17 4. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 17 5. Lee Smith - Derby - 16 Neil Gordon is 7th with 14. Score that many goals and this is what happens I guess. Man of the Match Awards 1. Constantino - Ipswich - 21 2. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 14 3. Andy Carroll - Leicester - 12 4. Danny Gilligan - Leyton Orient - 9 5. Sam Vokes - Wolves - 8 Average Rating 1. Constantino - Ipswich - 8.11 2. Enrico Rocchini - QPR - 7.65 3. Sam Vokes - Wolves - 7.63 4. Gordon Donnelly - Ipswich - 7.58 5. Victor - Derby - 7.50 Steven Mills is 7th at 7.42, Matthew Khan 9th (7.38), Stuart Kirkland 14th (7.24). -- The goal that I posted to youtube from Constantino is the Championship goal of the year. A second Constantino goal against Leeds is the #2 goal of the year. -- I am Manager of the year in the Championship. Congrats to me. -- Stuart Kirkkland, Steven Mills, Neil Gordon and Constantino are all named to the Championship team of the year!

09-14-2011, 11:40 AM	#863
chesapeake College Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Arlington, VA	Congrats on another championship. My sense from reading along is that you need to find an EPL level GK for the start of the season. Carlos Antonio doesn't look to be the answer and Mason simply isn't ready yet. Troy Brown is turning out to be a dog for me, too. I picked him up from Ipswich in my game after a contract dispute shortly before you got the job there. I'm managing a League 2 side, though, so I thought he'd fare better. So you were still playing and posting at 5 AM this morning? When do you sleep?!!

09-14-2011, 12:14 PM	#864
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Mcdonald Mariga is getting up there in years but he's still the captain of the Kenyan National team and he has a busy summer ahead of him with World Cup Qualfying: Kenya 5 : 0 Comoros - 8.6 rating - 1 goal Gabon 3 : 1 Kenya - 7.1 rating Egypt 3 : 0 Kenya - 6.0 rating - 53rd minute red card June Update -- The Euro Championship is this month. England is grouped with Holland, Norway and Turkey. Germany, Portugal and Spain are grouped together so that should be fun. -- The board is delighted with my leadership. -- Thanks to the squad bonuses we lose $5.94M in May. That puts us at a net loss of $8.6M for the year leaving us with -$2.4M cash. -- Gordon Donnelly is called up by Scotland to play in the European Championship. New Signing Recently we got a report on youth players that were released. Man City is overloaded with young keepers and they let go 17 y/o GK Michael Rogers. He was the highest rated and highest scouted player I saw amongst those that were let go and I was able to grab him for free. Physical: Balance 18, Jumping 9, Strength 11 Mental: Anticipation 7, Bravery 17, Composure 9, Decisions 12, Determination 12 Goalkeeping: Aerial 9, Command of Area 11, Communication 10, Handling 8, One on Ones 10, Reflexes 16, Rushing Out 12. Like some other guys I've signed I don't know if he could ever really play for Ipswich but hey he came for free, I don't have a GK on my U18 squad, and maybe even if he wouldn't ever play for me I can make some cash off him. June 13th News Report: Real Madrid are rumored to be interested in signing Ipswich's 24-year old midfielder Neil Gordon for a fee in the region of $49.5M Well its just a rumor. Last year when someone came after Gordon I shrugged and counter-offered saying I'd sell him for $50M. Is this where that kind of thing goes? European Club Rankings 1. Barcelona - 165.343 (no change) 2. Olympique Lyonnais - 158.738 (+4 spots) 3. Inter - 153.111 (+1) 4. Chelsea - 145.501 (-2) 5. Man Utd - 145.501 (+4) 6. At. Madrid - 142.343 (was not in top 10) 7. Real Madrid - 137.343 (+1) 8. Liverpool - 135.501 (+5) 9. Benfica - 127.531 (-2) 10. Newcastle - 127.501 (not in top 10) Leverkusen and Man City fell out of the top 10. Arsenal is 13th, Man City 19th for the other top England squads. Ipswich are rated 120th.

09-14-2011, 01:05 PM	#867
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	European Championship Top two teams from each group make the quarterfinals Group A Italy - 2-1-0 - 7 pts Belgium - 2-0-1 - 6 pts Scotland - 0-2-1 - 2 pts Russia - 0 1- 2 - 1 pt Gordon Donnelly played a total of about 60 minutes and was average. Group B Holland - 1-2-0 - 5 pts England - 1-2-0 - 5 pts Turkey - 1-1-1 - 4 pts Norway - 0-1-2 - 1 pt England beat Turkey on the last day to advance, pretty close. Group C Spain 2-1-0 - 7 pts Denmark 1-1-1 - 4 pts Portugal 0-3-0 - 3 pts Germany 0-1-2 - 1 pt I don't think Denmark was supposed to come out of this group! Group D France 3-0-0 - 9 pts Croatia 1-1-1 - 4 pts Ukraine 0-2-1 - 2 pts Czech Republic 0-1-2 - 1 pt Quarterfinals England 2 : 1 Italy Holland 2 : 1 Belgium Spain 1 : 0 Croatia France 3 : 1 Denmark Semifinals France 4 : 2 England Spain 1 : 0 Holland Finals France 3 : 0 Spain France has now won 2 of the 3 European Championships that have taken place in this career (2012 and 2020). Croatia won in 2016.

09-14-2011, 01:12 PM	#868
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Fans Player of the Year -- Constantino, duh. Ipswich Best Eleven GK: Mason D: Kirkland/McKerr/Henrique/Berthet M: Guarin/Mills/Donnelly/Gordon F: Constantino/Khan Bethet is the only one that wasn't a sure thing. Clive Jackson took over in defense a bit late in the season I suppose. Ipswich All Time Best Eleven GK: Brian Murphy (396 apps/6.79 rating) DL: Stuart Kirkland (124 apps/7.14 rating) DC: Alex Bruce (234 apps/4 goals/6.73 rating) DC: Troy Brown (240 apps/2 goals/6.79 rating) DR: David Wright (166 apps/2 goals/7.11 rating) ML: Mario Licka (115 apps/8 goals/7.23 rating) MC: Gordon Donnelly (238 apps/33 goals/6.97 rating) MC: Owen Garvan (263 apps/18 goals/6.82 rating) MR: Sylvain Berthet (191 apps/3 goals/6.91 rating) ST: Constantino (128 apps/102 goals/7.63 rating) ST: Matthew Khan (156 apps/79 goals/7.06 rating) Kirkland, Constantino and Khan are all new to the starting all time 11 this year. Good stuff!! No active players are among the list of backups at this point. Promotion Raises My confusion continues. The entire team has promotion raise clauses. The entire team has relegation salary drops. Here are the players listed that received raises for promotion: Stuart Kirkland, Constantino, Jack Hughes, Troy Brown, Michael McKerr, McDonald Mariga, Darren Johnson, Steven Mills, James Welsh, Clive Jackson, Ian Taylor, Dominic Johnson, Rob Kershaw, Chris Bryan. -- Lots of these guys are new to Ipswich in the last 2 years and get a pass. But why did Kirkland, Constantino and Khan get raises?? Their salaries didn't drop when we demoted. -- Why did Gordon Donnelly, Henrique, Neil Gordon, Carlos Antonio, Fredy Guarin and Chris Mason NOT get raises?! -- I don't understand what's going on, but seeing Donnelly not get that raise sets me at ease. I'm now convinced I just don't fully understand what's happening here, not that there's a massive bug screwing me over. -- Steven Mills with that raise now makes $73,000/wk. We'll see where things end up as far as my budget shortly but that's a damn lot of money! TV Contract -- We receive $48,510,000 for TV Rights. right on. Season Expectations -- We clearly just want to attempt to avoid relegation. With that expectation, we are allotted $20.5M in transfer money and a payroll of $575k/wk. We're currently spending $479k/wk. We can play with that a lot. A $17.2M transfer budget allows for $650k/wk in payroll. We have a lot of room to get a lot done. Youth Intake -- We bring in 9 new players. Lets see if anything is worth getting excited about. Well.. 8 of them are 1* or less as far as potential. Yuck. The most exciting player is DC Sam Barnett. Unfortunately he gets a 1 1/2* recommendation and is scouted as "a good League 1 central defender in the future". We cut so much dead weight last year I assume I want to at least spend a season training these guys to see if there's a boom/bust thing happening here? Premier Division Odds Chelsea are favorites to win the league at 3:1. Behind them are Man City and Arsenal at 6:1, Man U 8:1. Newcastle and Tottenham are 20:1. We're 2000:1 as we were last time we came up. With that we have our transfer money, we're pretty close to July 1st, we're getting our friendlies set up and its time to figure out how to throw around all this money available to us this year. The biggest advantage I think I have this year as opposed to the last time we promoted up is that I'm much, much more confident in who can perform at this level and what my needs are. I feel that the team needs are pretty clear: ML, DC, GK, Target Man/ST.

09-15-2011, 06:33 AM	#869
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- We've sold 4868 season tickets but expect to sell 22,000 by the time we're done. -- I get a raise from $13,500/wk to $23,000/wk and a new 4 year deal to go along with it. -- My coaches recommend a Turkish striker that looks amazing who wants to leave his squad and I go making an offer there. -- I go through all of my scouts' work over the last year and look for goalkeepers, requesting some updated reports, I also look at players transfer listed all throughout europe. Heavy focus on GK right away. July Update We've got a couple friendlies but we need to get a couple more set up. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. signing Darren Johnson is the highlight. -- We made $4.11M in June. July 1st Player Moves All of these have been mentioned in the past: -- DC Troy Brown is out, we get $100k and he goes to Sunderland. -- Youth GK Michael Rogers signs on a free transfer. -- ML Lee Burton comes over from Aston Villa for $1.6M Burton could start at ML but according to my assistant he would still be my worst starter. He's a huge upgrade over Jack Hughes though. To cover my assistant's view of my lineup: 4* - MR Gordon 3 1/2* - DL Kirkland, MC Mills, ST Constantino 3* - GK Carlos Antonio, MC Donnelly, ST Khan 2 1/2* - DR Jackson, DC Henrique, DC Welsh 2* - ML Burton The need to upgrade the defense remains a huge obvious need. -- Contracts expire and english squads all over release players. I go through the list pretty closely, looking at all of the guys dropped by the Chelsea's and Arsenal's of the world. I scout most of them as well, looking to see if there's an old guy or two who have one more EPL year left in them that might help me. -- As July 8th rolls around my top DC target chose to go to Everton. I have an offer out on a GK but a couple other teams are going after him as well. I'm looking for a short term signing for a ST target man. I was looking at a potentially huge signing at ST but the guy makes like $200k/wk. A little much. -- There's a quality DC in Germany that a lot of teams are going after, he'd be way better than any of our defenders, valued at $5.7M. I don't know what offers are being accepted, but I've tried $7M, $9M and $11M and all have been rejected. I don't think I can offer more than $11M. I've attached lots of profit clauses to the offer too. -- I give up on the German DC. I've got a loan-to-buy offer for a french DC that would be promising as well. -- On the 12th I lose out on my top GK target, he chooses Roma over us. -- As the 14th rolls around I've done a lot more work with GK's. Burnley has a very, very good keeper, they relegated out of the EPL last year. I'm trying to get him at almost any cost. I have a couple other leads on solid keepers that I'd be happy with if this doesn't work out. -- German DC Liam Rees, the one that I went as high as $11M on, ends up signing with FC Bayern for $17M. -- We're at the halfway point of the month. We're going through each day slowly, lots of negotiations, a few spots of just waiting players out, but so far we haven't really improved the team. We're working on it!

09-15-2011, 07:17 AM	#870
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	The Burnley keeper sounds ideal because it seems like he'll be able to handle the losing and occasional shallacking without huge roll-off effects.

09-15-2011, 07:20 AM	#871
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	New Loan -- I'm clearly looking to spend the bulk of my money on my defense this year, so even though I'm concerned about the injuries I go back to the well, loaning in ST Simon Hamilton. I have paid $1.7M for the right to loan him this season with a clause that I may purchase him for $5M at any point during the loan should I choose to do so. Hamilton is a solid looking target man, tall, jumps well, heads well, positions well. He had a strong year for me in the Championship. My fitness guys say that he's potentially injury prone and that slows me down a lot as far as buying him... but I feel the investment in loaning him in while I spend bigger elsewhere is an acceptable one. -- The superstar keeper that Burnley have that I want so bad is out. They finally come back saying that they want $23.5M for him. If I had unlimited funds I would do it. He'd be a huge, huge upgrade and would be the best player on the team. But I don't have unlimited funds. I do think I've got my guy though, I have an offer for Liverpool's backup GK accepted and am in the contract negotiation stage. New Signing One of the players released at the start of the month by Chelsea has decided to come to Ipswich. This will be similar to say the Fredy Guarin signing I made last time I hit the EPL, a guy that I hope can contribute but that I don't expect to be a star. Welcome 34 y/o ST Alvaro Negredo to Ipswich. Chelsea bought Negredo from Sevilla for $23M in the 13/14 season. He scored 19 goals his first season there and had a few more 10 goal seasons. Physical: Strength 14, Balance 16, Jumping 15 (Pace 12/Accel 10) Mental: Nothing lower htan 9. Determination 15, Off the Ball 13, Anticipation 13. Most ratings 11-13. Technical: Heading 16, Finishing 15, Technique 12, First Touch 12, Dribbling 12, Passing 11. I made this offer weeks before I tried to snag Simon Hamilton, he took a really long time to decide. However, I am perfectly happy having both on the roster, especially with the concerns over Hamilton's injury issues. Negredo is here for $17,000 for this year only. He knows he's getting old and is happy to have another year in the top league it would appear. Friendly #1 We start with a trip to Old Trafford to play Man U. It pays well /shrug. A few guys are out on international duty and Neil Gordon is out for a couple weeks with an injury he picked up that I may have missed between the 7000 scouting reports I've been reviewing. They score twice early, star striker beats defense, scores. We get a goal near the end of the half as Darren Johnson takes a great free kick, keeper has to drive to stop it, and Hamilton is there to put the rebound in. We sub everyone out at the half. They get 3 more goals with some really young guys of ours in there, we get a 90th minute goal as Khan puts in a rebound. Man Utd 5 : Ipswich 2 -- As of July 16th we have 5 outstanding offers at various positions that we are waiting on. A few we've been waiting on for a couple weeks that would make a big difference. New Signing Welcome 25 y/o GK Michele Capitani to Ispwich. Capitani has been a backup for Liverpool for a number of years. The last two seasons each he played 11 matches, putting up ratings of 7.05 and 6.95. We paid Liverpool $4M for the rights to Capitani and will pay him $26,500/wk for the next 4 years. He scouts to be on a similar level as Carlos Antonio, which should be good for us in a bid to finish in the top 17 in the EPL. Carlos Antonio just did nothing over the last 2 years to earn my confidence. Physical: Strength 19, Stamina 16, Jumping 18. Everything else 11-15. Mental: Determination 15, Positioning 12, Concentration 17, Anticipation 11. Goalkeeping: Aerial Ability 18, Handling 17, One on Ones 16, Reflexes 16, Communication 12. Weaker areas are Command of Area - 9, and Rushing Out - 3. With the changes we've made we are now spending $559,244/wk on salaries. Our current Payroll budget is $575,848/wk. We've spent just under $6M on the transfer market. Without increasing our payroll budget we still could spend $14,900,000. But we obviously have to increase payroll. I drop Transfer budget to $11.2M and get a payroll allowed of $650,000/wk. And right after I do that my next signing comes in. New Signing Welcome 25 y/o ML Adagsmar to Ipswich. We payed Wolverhampton $4.2M for his services. He scouts out as a significantly stronger player than Lee Burton, the other ML signing we made during the offseason. We needed to sign another ML and it was just a question of whether we signed someone cheaper and rotated Burns/new guy or if we tried to improve on that and get a clear starter. I believe we've gotten ourselves a clear starter at ML now. Adagsmar will make $35,000/wk for the next 5 years. He had a long history of 7.1-7.25 ratings for Benefica in Portugal before coming to Wolves last year where he put up a 7.1 rating in the Championship. Physical: 16 pace/17 accel/14 sta/14 agi. Other ratings 12+ except he cant jump at all (5) Mental: Determination 15, Off The Ball 14, Teamwork 12, Work Rate 14, Anticipation 13, Decisions 13. Composure is only 9, he has a little creativity as well. Technical: Crossing 16, First Touch 15, Passing 11, Technique 12, Marking 7, Tackling 10. This gives us wide midfielders on both sides who can send quality crosses into the box for our big guys. This leaves us with $7M in transfer funds that are entirely dedicated to the DC position. I have two offers out now there and am not frustrated necessarily but a bit apprehensive that the position that killed us so bad in our last trip up is the one we're having the hardest time upgrading! Henrique and Welsh are a step up from Brown/Bruce, but I am still worried that its not enough. -- And on July 20th the top remaining DC target signs with AC Milan and we go back to work Things are coming together fairly nicely, I believe I've better identified our holes this year and better filled them than I did last time around, but I'd like to do just a little bit more.

09-15-2011, 07:37 AM	#873
cschex High School Varsity Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Austin, TX	On the DC's, do you scout/sort by transfer-listed players at all? Often time when I have a "smaller club" moving up to top flight you can find some veterans available at knock-down transfer fees or even 1 yr loan deals with an upfront fee who are transfer listed.

09-15-2011, 08:49 AM	#874
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- So basically there are a lot of defenders I can sign that are equal the level of James Welsh and/or Henrique. If I need to shore up depth at DC and go that route I can do so very easily. Finding any sort of players better than them that I can afford and that will come play for me has been an impossibility to date. Friendly #2 We travel to Shrewsbury, one of our mandatory friendly feeder clubs. We get an early Constantino goal but its pretty slow from there. They tie it back up after getting a man wide open on an unlucky deflection after a long shot is blocked and score. After that its over, we have one goal called back for an offsides, We get a few more clear cut chances but its a 1:1 draw. Shrewsbury 1 : 1 Ipswich Friendly #3 We travel to Brighton today. Clive Jackson gets us an early goal and we take a 1-0 lead into the locker room. Donnelly gets us a goal in the 75th minute and that'll do it. Brighton 0 : 2 Ipswich Friendly #4 We travel to Aberdeen. Constantino hits Donnelly for a 4th minute goal. Constantino scores but its offsides in the 13th minute. No offsides in the 35th inute, Mills to Constantino for a nice goal. Mills and Adagsmar both come down hurt in the first half, I sub them both at halftime. They get a penalty in the 81st minute and score. 85th minute Khan hits Mariga for a goal. Aberdeen 1 : 3 Ipswich -- Steven Mills is going to be out for 8-10 days. August Update -- We hit August with no significant update on our DC situation. We had a loan offer accepted for a Naples defender but he isn't interested. A couple other negotiations are ongoing. -- We open at Huddersfield on the 15th, Liverpool 18th, Man City 22nd, Bristol City 29th. -- Our training report for August indicates that Chris Mason continues to train well. -- The board is pleased still. -- We lost $1.46M last month. We spent $11.5M buying players, so that works for me. -- All of a sudden we end up with 4 offers accepted for DC's that I'd been negotiating for all at once. One player is happy in Italy and has no interest in coming to Ipswich. the other three I offer deals to. These are all guy s at the same level of James Welsh. We're not signing a superstar here. What I'm hoping for is to sign at least one, maybe two of these guys and find a good rotation. Hopefully we find another Henrique in here and they don't all turn into Troy Brown. -- August 2nd we've sold 21,170 season tickets. Injury Update Matthew Khan hurts himself in training and will miss the first 2-3 weeks of the season. -- And one of the three guys we're trying to sign at DC turns us down to stay in France... New Signing Welcome 28 y/o DLC Cestor Mike to Ipswich. We buy him for $3.5M from Tolouse in League 1. I really wanted Mike, not necessarily because I'm convinced he'll be the defender to work out best, but because I really wanted Mike + 1 of the other guys we were looking at. Cestor Mike is an athlete. He's got ok technical abilities but he's by far the best athlete in our defense and hopefully that helps us out. Physical: Pace 16/Accel 15/Sta 17/Str 16. Others 11+ Mental: Positioning 12/Teamwork 14/Work Rate 13/Decisions 11, Determination only 9. Ok but not great. Technical: Heading 13/Marking 13/Tackling 13/Technique 9. Again, ok, but not great. Mike will rotate in with Welsh and Henrique (and possibly McKerr) and hope that these guys can hold their own in this league. Friendly #5 We travel to Sevilla for our last friendly. Hamilton scores a nice 4th minute goal to put us ahead early. They use a nice through ball to get the tying goal in the 20th minute. Hamilton to Constantino for a solid goal in the 25th for us. 2:1 halftime, Hamilton to Constantino again in the 46th minute for a 3:1 lead. Constantino returns the favor with a pass to Hamilton for a 64th minute goal. Sevilla were 4:5 favorites here and they are a solid Serie A team, nice win! Sevilla 1 : 4 Ipswich A few days after the last friendly we make our last signing. New signing We pay OM in France $3.5M for 32 y/o DC Jonathan Quartey. Quartey has been a very consistent and successful DC for OM, a top 5 French League 1 team and the winners of the Champions League last year. So this guy has some legit experiences under his belt. Physical: 16 str/16 balance/15 jumping, 12 pace/13 accel/14 agility. Mental: Positioning 15/Teamwork 14/Work Rate 16/Anticipation 16/Concentration 14/Decisions 15. Determination is 11. Every mental attribute but flair is 11+ and most are 13+. Technical: Heading 14/Marking 14/Tackling 14/Passing 12 Where Mike is more of an athlete and we hope he uses his speed to stay in front of players and keep us from getting beat, with Quartey we have a guy who is solid and consistent everywhere. Our scouts view Henrique/Welsh/Mike/Quartey all as very similar levels of talent. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Henrique was a perfectly fine EPL defender once I brought him on two years ago, and all his issues with unhappiness went away once we promoted. We started my last EPL season with Brian Murphy, Alex Bruce and Troy Brown at GK/DC/DC. We are light years ahead of that. The question is whether it'll be enough or not. Our midfield with Mills/Donnelly/Gordon is a lot better than what we took to the EPL last time too. We have now spent everything, we maxxed out almost perfectly. None of that was spending just to spend, I think every move I made serves a solid purpose to make the team better, we improved our scoring chances, improved massively at ML, improved at keeper and I believe have given ourselves enough options at DC that something will stick. We're as ready as we're gonna be! We are spending $663k/wk on salaries. Our limit is $650,000/wk. We'll look at contract renegotiations soon to see if we have some guys willing ot take little cuts to get under that. And of course just to lock up our best players. Last thing before we start the season, we'll look at our depth chart to get all these new names out there. GK: Capitani/Carlos Antonio DL: Kirkland/Hughes DC: Henrique/Welsh/Mike/Quartey DR: Jackson/McKerr ML: Adagsmar/Burton MC: Donnelly/Mills/Mariga/Johnson MR: Gordon/Johnson ST: Hamilton/Constantino/Khan/Negredo We come into the season witht he most depth/most players we've ever had on our roster. guys like Jack Hughes and Fredy Guarin are extremely marginalized with the way we've built up our team. Guarin is someone we could very well look to sell to get under payroll if we have trouble locking up players like Constantino to extended contracts because we're over our wage budget right now. With that we go into the new season!!

09-15-2011, 11:17 AM	#876
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Before we start playing out the games we did get our early season notice about contract expiry. With multi-year deals being more common at this level its not 20 people a year like it was at Woking so that's nice. We've only got 7 players expiring this season. -- ST Alvaro Negredo - signed to a 1 year deal, he'll be 35 early in the season, I can't imagine he'll be here next year. -- DC Henrique - while I still hope he can help us this season, he is starting to degrade and he'll turn 34 this year. Its extremely unlikely that henrique comes back next season either. -- MC McDonald Mariga - Mariga has shown great resiliency to age so far. We'll keep an eye on his training and see what's up. He'll turn 34 in April. -- DR Michael McKerr - he'll turn 31 this year but he's one of those guys who is affordable and his ratings aren't the best in the world but he always seems to come through for me. He'll actually take a $1500/wk pay cut down to $15,250/wk. -- MC Gordon Donnelly - Clearly someone to retain. He makes $52,000/wk right now and will take a 4 year deal for the same amount. I offer it happily. -- ST Constantino - Makes $35k/wk right now. He wants $47,500/wk. I offer it. The 7th guy is Simon Hamilton, a loan guy. Donnelly and Constantino quickly agree to their new deals. Giving Constantino a raise puts me a little more over my wage budget. We could stand to cut about $26k/wk. If the board isn't bitching and if we're still able to make a profit I'm not in a huge rush to do so.

09-15-2011, 11:21 AM	#877
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Training Question: Last year we were allowed a max of 10 coaches and that worked out just about right to get decent training going in every area. At this level we're allowed to have up to 17. What advantages should I be looking for if I expand past 10? I could try to find guys that specialize more with the youth squad vs the first team squad. But if I have a 4* tactics guy that is 4* for both the senior squad and U18s (and he's a "coach" so he's allowed to train both, is having a 4* tactics guy on the first team and a 4* tactics guy on the youth team better? If I have two 4* tactics guys and I put them both training tactics, is that better than having just one?

09-15-2011, 12:47 PM	#880
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	League Cup 2nd Round Draw After 1 round without the EPL teams, we're inserted in. We get a solid draw, we'll be hosting Plymouth, a team that just promoted to the championship up from League 1 (though most of their history in this dynasty is in the Championship, they're just coming off a dip down). August 15th, 2020 Ipswich @ Huddersfield Its opening day! Huddersfield are 5:4 favorites at their place today, there are worse prospects with which we could be starting the season. Huddersfield promoted up with us 3 years ago but when we fell back down they stayed up. We lost to them both times that last EPL season and are 6-3-7 lifetime against them. They finished 17th each of their 2 seasons in the EPL, though last year they were 6 points better. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mike/Henrique/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Hamilton/Constantino Available off the bench: McKerr, Hughes, Negredo, Mariga, Johnson, Welsh, Burton. That leaves Guarin and our new DC Quartey unavailable. Matthew Khan is hurt. Definitely the deepest team I've ever had. We'll counter attack and use a deep defensive line. 10': We manage the first shot after a nice series of passing on the right side, Donnelly with a strong shot but right at the keeper. 15': We win a ball in midfield, Donnelly ahead to Constantino, he's got a step on the defense out right, he cuts into the area, its a pretty tough angle, but he pulls up and shoots low to the far post, its by the keeper, hits the post and bounces in!! 1-0 22': They attack quickly, a pass to the edge of the box, a shot is by Capitani but it hits the post and bounces away to safety. 32': Clive Jackson is hurt and has to leave the pitch for a time. Injury Symbol and all, we'll see if he needs to come out at halftime. 41': They try to send a ball forward but Kirkland clears it, their defender near midfield recovers, but Constantino is aggressive and takes it away and is off to the races! He's down the right side of the field, the defense is tracking hard... Constantino deep down the side, into the area but he doesn't have a shot, he lays the ball back to Mills who is 15 yards away, he blasts it with his first touch, goal!! 2-0 47': They earn a corner, they get a shot off it and Jackson has to clear it off the line, whew! HALF: They control possession 52/48, they have 7 shots/2 on target. We have 5 shots, 4 on target. We've just created a couple really great chances and finished them. They did have a clear cut chance on a rebound and put it over so we got lucky there, but we're playing so great right now. Lets keep it up! I start the second half dropping into a defensive mindset and telling the guys to retain possession, worried about the typical mega-attack that killed us in many EPL games after good halves. 65': Donnelly with a yellow. First highlight of the half. 68': Mariga in for Mills, Burton in for Adagsmar, fitness, etc. 72': We have a corner, it comes back out to Donnelly after he sends it in, donnelly with a long run to the middle of the pitch, nicely avoiding two tackles, bu he takes a stupid shot that's blocked and triggers a counter attack... we get back well though and Mariga is able to tackle the ball away for a throwin. We clear nicely. 75': Yellow for midfielder Kula. 77': Darren Johnson in for Gordon. 84': stupid stupid stupid. They counter after winning a cross... but we're back on defense. There's a pass to their star striker Platas like 30 yards out. Mike is back there and he's fast, he can stay in front of him... instead, he goes for a tackle 30 yards from the goal, misses, and that allows their best player a free run into the area where we aren't about to stop him from scoring. 2-1 91': A counter for Huddersfield as we lose the ball trying to build up on offense. Our defense is really out of position here and they take quick advantage, a pass goes ahead, then another to their other striker who is wide open but onsides b/c we're so out of position... an easy finish and we are very sad. 2-2 The match ends soon after. Huddersfield 2 : 2 Ipswich On one hand, we open our season with a well played match and a point on the road. On the other hand, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that was painful!!! Their striker Platas is man of the match. Goals: Mills (7.6), Constantino (7.5) Assists: Constantino, Donnelly (7.8) Notables: Kirkland (7.0) Defender Cestor Mike takes the blame for at least one of those goals, maybe both? He ends up with a 6.3 rating, he played pretty well I do believe, but that mistake to allow the first goal was just awfully unnecessary. Injury Update Clive Jackson will miss ~2 weeks.

09-15-2011, 02:07 PM	#882
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	August 18th, 2020 Ipswich @ Liverpool Liverpool are 4:6 favorites, we're 7:2 to get a win at their house today. We're 1-1-3 lifetime against Liverpool. The win was an FA Cup match in 2010. The tie was at the tail end of our last EPL season when we had a few really strong games after we'd been relegated. Liverpool has finished 7th the last two seasons. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/McKerr M: Adagsmar/Mariga/Mills/Gordon F: Hamilton/Constantino McKerr starts for Jackson at DR. Welsh in for Mike and Mariga in for Donnelly since we're going in on short rest. 8': They take the first shot, a crazy 35 yard strike that bends a ton and just hits the post. 10': A quick buildup on offense, Mariga ahead to Hamilton, Hamilton passes to Constantino, he beats his man into the right side of the area, stops and fires to the left post... the keeper dives but he can't react fast enough, its by him and in!!! 1-0 19': We have a throwin deep in their end, they head it out of the area, Mariga puts it back in, Hamilton is there and has a clear cut chance, a great look... but saved, dang! 26': Kirkland clears down the left side, Adagsmar picks it up at midfield and makes a great run down the left, he crosses to Constantino... but they win the header and clear. 38': They try to set up their offense but we win a ball out near midfield, pass ahead to Hamilton, he makes a run, the defense is keeping up though, he cuts out left, crosses, mills gets his head to it... but the keeper saves it. A great counter attack, good effort. 42': They earn two corners, Capitani seems to show really good poise when balls fly through the 6 yard box, he's getting to everything he needs to. HALF: Another wonderful first half from Ipswich! Now what can we do to make sure the second half is as good as the first? They make all their subs, I hold off for now, we'll see what we should change. We have 8 shots to their 7 but we're totally getting the better of it, 5 on target to their 2. Possession 50/50, passing both around 66%, we're tackling a bit better and heading at the same rate as them. They have a couple long range shots struck with ridiculous pace and I'm worried that even if we play near perfect that they'll sneak in a goal from long distance. No change to start the second half. 46': We kick off and set up our offense, but when a pass goes to Hamilton they win it and pass to the keeper, the keeper sends it long, and they've got a man out ahead of the defense, Welsh comes in and makes a tackle about 22ish yards out... and I audibly gasp and say out loud "that's a red"... Welsh walks slowly over to the ref... and receives a yellow card. We just got a massive gift. That seemed like a very obvious red card to me. They take the free kick... off one of their attackers standing near the wall and out for a goal kick. 53': They counter after a bad Constantino pass, a very quick pass up ahead as we were trying to start our offense, there's a shot from 20 yards out and Capitani makes a great save. However, the rebound falls to ST Dalla Valle and he is unmarked at the edge of the box. He fires into the left side of the net and there's no chance to stop it. 1-1 60': Negredo in for Hamilton who got hurt and is a bit slowed, and Johnson in for Gordon who isn't playing that great. 77': They have a throwin, a pass quickly goes to bakcup striker Aubameyang, he turns by Welsh and drills a shot from 20 yards out that Capitani can't stop. 1-2 82': Donnelly in for Mariga. I tell the guys to attack, assuming they will sit back a bit more. No chance in the final 10 minutes. Liverpool 2 : 1 Ipswich This was a constant issue against good teams last year, though last year it was usually "well ok we came out of the first half 0:0 now lets watch them score 4 goals in the second half when they wake up". We've had two great starts and we're seeing some strong play, I wonder if there's something I can try to do different in the second half. Maybe mix in a little more aggressive play at times to try to throw them off? I'm not sure if this is just a good team expecting to run over the new guys and playing one complacent half, or if they're getting used to us sitting in the same strategy for 90 minutes and finally break it down. Goal: Constantino (6.9) Assist: Hamilton (6.8) Notable: Mariga (7.4) Our wide midfielders had the worst time today, 6.2 from Gordon and 6.0 from Adagsmar. Neither are strong in the air so they miss a few headers and crosses just weren't connecting. I was thrilled with Constantino's goal though, he's showing some great touch on those two goals he got, our first trip up to the EPL he came out missing everything and just not having the pace on his shots to beat EPL keepers when he was on target.

09-15-2011, 02:45 PM	#883
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- I list Chris Mason for loan. I may be a bit picky though, more SFraser goodness, I remember him mentioning being picky about finding good coaches to send your players off to so you know they'll get the best development possible. I'd really like to see him spend a year in the Championship starting every match. -- We're expecting a sellout in our first home match. August 22nd, 2020 Man City @ Ipswich The fans are up for our first home match. Unfortunately its against Man City, but we've played pretty well on the road so far, lets see what we can do at Portman Road. They're even money favorites today, we're 11:5 to get a win. After a run of 5 straight seasons in the top 4, Man City has missed out on Europe 2 years in a row, 9th and 10th the last 2 years. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Quartey/Henrique/McKerr M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Hamilton/Constantino Donnelly back at MC, Quartey gets his first shot at DC. I start Lee Burton at ML to see what he can do. 3': We get the ball first but they take it away when we try to get forward.. on defense they get a quick through ball and clear cut chance but Capitani makes a good save. They recover and Mils commits a foul just outside the area... shot goes off the wall for a corner, which we clear. They recover again and push... This takes a few minutes but its all highlights from the opening kickoff and they've got 5 shots, 4 on target right away. 8': They win a ball in our end and attack fast, a long ball from midfield to AM Jovetic, it looks like he's barely onside if at all, but no call, he's behind the defense and in the area and makes a trivial finish. 0-1 13': We go up the middle on offense, Hamilton receives a pass, spots Burton coming in from the left, good pass, clear cut chance.. but tipped wide by the keeper. Corner is cleared. 16': We have a throwin, a couple passes up the right side, Gordon spots Burton open out left and crosses field. Burton into the area... tackled, its a penalty!!! Constantino takes it and buries it. 1-1 18': They are just putting a lot of pressure on us with long crisp passes that are perfectly controlled every time... another long pass here to Jovetic, he's in the area and has a clear cut chance... but Capitani makes another good save. They have 3 clear cut chances, we have 2. 32': Just like their first goal, they start to attack and bam, pass from near midfield well forward, a run timed perfectly, first touch is perfect, no chance for anyone here. ST Cavalieri with the goal. 1-2 36': Highlight opens with a random shot from Lee Burton from 25+ yards out that is just off the left post, wow close! HALF: OOPS. Sometimes I'm dumb. I had our default tactic last year set for our defensive line to play up a bit, wanting to be aggressive in the Championship, so even with the "drop deeper" instruction we were still just in a kinda normal setting... I went in at the half to just pull everything much further back and noticed that. DOH. Mike in for Quartey at the half too, more speed, Quartey was getting killed out there. They put immense pressure on us that first half. 14 shots, 7 on target, 4 clear cut chances. We shoot 8 times, 6 on target, 2 clear cut chances, we're really playing fairly well here, I'm not unhappy except for with the fact that I didn't think to doublecheck all the settings in my tactic before any games!~ 49': They have a free kick, we clear and a ball goes ahead to Neil Gordon, he's able to get to the edge of the box before they catch up, he shoots, deflected wide though. Corner is cleared. 56': Guarin in for Burton, Burton is playing well but not ready for 90 minutes yet, Guarin just to get him some minutes. 59': A goal kick for us, its played up ahead and Constantino controls, he dribbles forward, skips by a tackle, plays a great pass to Gordon coming in from the right, its our 3rd clear cut chance of the match... but saved. Damn! That should have been the tying goal, seriously. 64': Mills with a yellow. 66': Mariga in for Mills, fresh legs and make sure no stupid second yellow comes out. 70': Mariga with a nice sliding tackle to win us the ball near midfield, a pass up to Constantino, a nice run forward, a centering pass to Donnelly, shot from 20 yards out, the keeper has to dive for it but makes the stop. 73': They get forward, there's a strong shot from 20 yards, Capitani with a very good save, but theres a rebound, they get to it.. another shot, Capitani again!! Great great play from our keeper. 76': They commit a foul out left of the penalty area, yellow for defender Neven Subotic. They clear Gordon's cross into the area. We recover but give it away too easily. 87': Some very nice passing in tight spaces allows them to get their 3rd goal, AM Jovetic with a strong shot from 15 yards out. 1-3 90': Constantino with a yellow. That'll do it. Ipswich 1 : 3 Man City They shot 21 times, putting 12 on target, 6 clear cut chances. We managed 14 shots, and again I'm seeing things that make me happy compared to our last start in the EPL, we're generating chances that we struggled a ton to get last time. Goal: Constantino (7.0) Assist: Burton (6.9) Notables: Capitani (7.1), Mills (7.0), Donnelly (7.0) McKerr and Quartey got burned today, 5.6 and 5.7 ratings. Gordon 6.1 missing a couple really great chances to get on the board. The ratings kinda jive with what I felt I was seeing in the highlights... we gave up a couple very quick goals but we played really well most of the match against a clearly superior team. Next up we host Plymouth in the League Cup. After that is a critical early game against Bristol City, a team we dominated last season in the Championship. This script is real similar to our last time up. A couple early games against teams we aren't supposed to beat, then an early season showdown against another relegation contender. Last time around we lost every one of these matches. I expect different this time.

09-15-2011, 03:26 PM	#884
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- I go change my tactic back closer to its default, in fact dropping my defensive line back a notch or two behind normal. August 25th, 2020 League Cup 2nd Round Plymouth (CH) @ Ipswich (EPL) We're big 4:7 favorites today, making Plymouth 4:1 dogs. This will be our 4th match in 10 days and we play again in 4 more days so we'll be getting some backups playing time today and hope we can still win. GK: Carlos Antonio D: Hughes/Quartey/Welsh/Haskins M: Adagsmar/Guarin/Mariga/Johnson F: Negredo/Constantino Kinda wholesale changes here. Youth player Denis Haskins in at DR as McKerr is exhausted and Jackson is still hurt. 16': Tons of possession here, they try to tackle a ball away as we build on offense, it comes to Guarin who lobs it into the area for Adagsmar, running in from the left, he shoots far post, by the keeper and in! 1-0 23': Mariga with a pass to Negredo who shoots to the same spot that Adagsmar put our first goal, both of them get their first ever Ipswich goals today! 2-0 30': Mariga to Constantino for what looked like our 3rd goal, but offsides. HALF: Another great first half, I'm a little more confident in our ability to hold this one. 49': Perhaps I spoke too soon. A couple great headers in the area generate a wide open look for ST Sears and he scores. 2-1 56': Mariga to Constantino to start a counterattack, Constantino with a long run into the area, he's tackled before he can shoot... penalty! Constantino takes the PK and buries it. 3-1 83': Khan, who just resumed full training, in for Constantino. Easy enough. Ipswich 3 : 1 Plymouth Man of the Match: McDonald Mariga (8.3) Goals: Constantino (7.8), Adagsmar (7.6), Negredo (7.3) Assists: Mariga, Guarin (7.8) Notables: Hughes (7.0), Quartey (7.7), Johnson (7.0) Easy enough, and hopefully the solid win here keeps the morale up heading into the Bristol City match. DR Denis Haskins is 16 years and 1 day old. That's the youngest ever to see the field for the Ipswich senior team. He's dead weight, one of the guys that is 1/2 star potential from our very poor youth pulls this year that I just didn't cut yet to see if any of those guys magically work miracles in training or something (I'd pared down the U18 squad a ton previously so there was some room).

09-15-2011, 04:01 PM	#885
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Clive Jackson resumes full training. -- Reading have made a couple offers for Jack Hughes now. He's been marginalized a bit here but we're not ready to give up on him quite yet. League Cup 3rd Round Draw Down to 32 teams so lots of EPL teams to run across. The only way our draw could be worse if it were on the road. We are playing the 2 time defending EPL Champion at home in round 3, Chelsea. August 29th, 2020 Bristol City(0-1-2, 18th) @ Ipswich (0-1-2, 17th) Huge match today. Most years a team needs 32ish points to avoid relegation (some years more/some less but generally). Our last time up we got 20. Matches like these are our best shots for 3 points, at home against teams that promoted up to the Championship with us last season. We cannot squander these chances this year. We're 5:4 favorites at home, Bristol are 7:4 to win. We're 2-8-6 lifetime against them, we actually lost both matches last year when we won the Championship. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mike/Henrique/McKerr M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Hamilton/Constantino Back to the starters today. Mike and Henrique at DL. 8': They're in a 5-3-2 and sitting pretty far back. I switch to a Control strategy to try to draw them out. 11': We are in total control so far but of our 6 shots 4 are blocked. 26': A throwin on the right near midfield for us, after a couple passes Gordon finds Constantino with a great pass, he's in the area free... but runs a bit far and the keeper has an easier time blocking his shot than he should have. It was a clear cut chance and he usually scores there with a bit better control. HALF: We see them put a few shots off target to close out the half. We're in full control minus the goals, dammit. 11 shots, but just 2 on target. 5 blocked. They have 6 shots none on target yet and 4 from long range. We have a dominant 65/35 possession edge, we've just got to break them down here. We open the second half attacking, lets try to get more men forward and pressure more and hope it doesn't backfire. 63': After watching Ipswich pass it around forever, unable to break down their defense still, we finally see a shot on target for Bristol City, a strong shot that Capitani does a good job in saving. Corner is cleared easily. 66': Burton in for a tired Adagsmar. 78': Johnson in for a tired Gordon. 80': And there it is!! After more passing and more passing and even more passing McKerr hits Constantino with a quick ball, he turns as his man closes down, gets into the area and scores!! Whew, finally. Now hold it. 1-0 82': We try to give it away, they get a through ball into the area, a clear cut chance... but Capitani makes a great stop! 88': Welsh in for Henrique. 90': Mike with a foul just outside the area... they shoot on the free kick, the wall does its job, it goes behind for a corner. Mills makes the clearance on the corner. that's it! Ipswich 1 : 0 Bristol City A strong performance against a team doing everything they possibly could to secure a 0-0 draw today. Man of the Match: Gordon Donnelly (8.3) Goal: Constantino (8.0) Assist: McKerr (7.8) Notables: Capitani (7.2), Kirkland (7.1), Henrique (7.1), Mike (7.2) I continue to really struggle to get the best out of my wide midfielders. Neil Gordon is so damn talented but he just seems wasted here since we score most of our goals with pinpoint passes from the middle to Constantino instead of great balls flying in from out wide. Adagsmar 6.2, Gordon 6.8 today. It feels great to have our first win of the season behind us and to come out of August with 4 points.

09-16-2011, 01:28 AM	#886
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- McKerr, Donnelly and Constantino are named to the EPL team of the week. September Update -- We play on the 12th, 19th, 22nd (League Cup), and 27th. Early in the month are a bunch of international matches. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Simon Hamiltion is the highlight. Our 2-2 draw with Huddersfield is the big complaint. -- We lost $5.71M last month. We spent $7M purchasing two players in August. As of right now we've lost $1.4M on the year and have a balance of -$5.4M. Usually that'd be awful but we've spent our transfer budget and hopefully the TV Deal allows us to slowly gain cash throughout the year. We're spending $800k/mo more this year than we did in our last EPL season on salaries so that will hurt us but we should still make 2-3M most months I think. -- Stuart Kirkland 8.1 rating in a 4:0 win for England U21's over Sweden in Euro Championship qualifying. -- DC Jonathan Quatey 7.5 rating in a 5:0 Ghana win over Lesotho in World Cup Qualifying -- MC McDonald Mariga 6.9 rating in a 0:1 Kenya loss to Gabon in World Cup Qualifying. Injury Update Lee Burton hurts his heel in training, 8-10 days. He'll miss a match or two. September 12th, 2020 Ipswich (1-1-2, 13th) @ Sheffield Utd (1-1-2, 14th) Sheffield United are 4:5 favorites at their place today, we're 3:1 to get a win here. We're 2-1-10 lifetime against them, we lost twice in our EPL year and in the league cup last season. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Hamilton/Constantino Clive Jackson is back in the lineup, Welsh/Henrique at DC. 3': They work it down the left side, there's a pass in the area... Mills and Henrique are there covering their midfielder Barazite, but somehow they both let him turn around them and get an open look, shot is put into the net, awful defending. 0-1 9': We build up on offense, Mills to Gordon, Gordon to Constantino who is 25 yards out, Gordon cuts into the area, Constantino hits him perfectly, Gordon with the shot, its by the keeper and in! 1-1 17': A classic counterattack, we win a ball in our end, Henrique quickly to Mills, a pass ot Donnelly, he is at midfield and their defense isn't fully back yet, Donnelly with a long ball, Constantino gets behind the defense, into the area and he beats the keeper! 1-2 20': They get a man behind our defense deep in the area, a clear cut chance but Capitani saves! They earn a corner, then a second corner. we clear that one, we try to counterattack but pull it back at midfield and build up on offense. Donnelly with a ball into the area, they clear it out to the side, throwin deep in their end... soon after there's a foul out wide to the left, Gordon with the free kick... headed behind for a corner. Donnelly takes the corner, Constantino heads it... saved. Loooong sequence there. 35': With an eye on mixing things up so they won't always know what we're doing, we change to a Control strategy for the rst of the half. 37': They earn a corner, and its the first time I've seen Capitani make a huge mistake in the 6 yard box. Cross goes to the far post, Capitani tries to dive out to catch it, doesn't get to it and they win the header and score. 2-2 HALF: They are pressuring hard, they shoot 9 times with 5 on target, only 2 from range so they are getting some close looks. They have 63% of the possession and are better passing and heading. We shoot 3 times, all on target, 2 goals. Seems like one where we're destined to lose but maybe we can steal another goal or something! 47': Back to counter attacking. 58': They have a free kick, a couple passes before its sent into the area, a shot from the left side, Capitani has to make a diving save and its a corner. They earn a second corner, then a third. Then we clear it out safely. 68': Guarin in for Hamilton and moves to DMC, 4-1-4-1, Hamilton is playing bad and I want the extra man back. McKerr in for Jackson, he's struggling and I want the experience out there. 77': they have 17 shots to our 6, desperately trying to hang on for a point. 85': Gordon sends a free kick in from 30 yards out, off the crossbar! they clear it behind for a corner for us. That's cleared safely. 85': Defensive/retain possession, get that point! 89': 4 minutes of added time, Contain/play even safer, get that point! We get the tie on the road! Sheffield Utd 2 : 2 Ipswich A very exciting first half and a nail biting second half for me as I keep seeing us make nice clearances and every time a highlight opens up I am hoping we can just avoiding giving up the game winning goal to them. They shoot 19 times, we shoot 7. Not a shot on target in the second half for us, but we got our job done for sure. One of their goal scorers is man of the match. Goals: Gordon (7.5), Constantino (7.4) Assists: Constantino, Donnelly (6.8) The fans are pleased with the draw here. 5 matches, 5 points. Notable: Mills (7.1) Simon Hamilton couldn't win anything in the air, 6 for 14 on headers, he didn't take any of our shots. 5.3 rating there. Clive Jackson 6.1, James Welsh 6.0. Everyone else in the 6.8-6.9 range.

09-16-2011, 02:03 AM	#887
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	September 19th, 2020 Nottingham Forest(3-1-1, 7th) @ Ipswich (1-2-2, 13th) They're even money favorites at Portman Road today, we are 11:5 to get the win. We're 4-2-7 lifetime against these guys, a few years in the Championship. The last time we were in the EPL they won both matches. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Quartey/Henrique/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Negredo/Constantino Their star Ivan Popov has 4 goals already, but he's not starting today, Chris Wood is at ST instead, they run a 4-1-4-1. Quartey in for Welsh in defense, Negredo in for Hamilton up front. 13': they try to take it away from us in the midfield as we buildup on offense. Donnelly does a nice job keeping control of the ball and there's a really weird hole in the middle of their defense. Negredo fills it, Donnelly lobs the ball ahead, Negredo runs onto it at about 25 yards out, gets into the area and is able to put a shot by the keeper!!! 1-0 31': A highlight opens with us deep in their end on a break, Negredo crosses through the area, they head away but its a very weak header.. Gordon controls it 20 yards out, passes to Negredo who is wide open about 8 yards out, he turns and fires and scores! He was unmarked but they ahd many defenders back behind him in other spots in the penalty area. Very strange. 2-0 37': We build up on offense, Mills with a great ball into the left side of the area for Adagsmar, a clear cut chance coming in from the left, but its safed. 40': Throwin in their end, taken to Aadagsmar, he passes to Constantino in the left side of the box, he dribbles into the center of the area, dodges a tackle and buries a shot!! Holy crap!! 3-0 HALF: HELLO! We control 55% of the possession, they have 4 shots, all off target. We have 5 shots, 4 on target, 2 clear cut chances, we've gotten our guys in great positions to score and we've finished incredibly well. 46': Defender Jensen with a yellow as we attack right out of the gate. Gordon shoots 25 yards out, off the wall and behind for a corner. 55': Mills with a really stupid yellow card giving them a free kick 25 yards out. Its shot but put so far over its silly. 60': We build up on offense, they try to clear but Quartey wins a ball to keep it in the offensive end. He passes up ahead to Constantino, he's 25 yards out, he turns by his man, into the area and its an easy finish! That looked like Constantino vs a Championship opponent. 4-0 71': Hughes in for Kirkland, Mariga in for Mills, Mike in for Henrique. 75': We have a corner, taken into the area but headed away. Adagsmar recovers the ball, shoots from somewhere around 30 yards out, its a slow bending shot, the keeper dives for it but its placed absolutely perfectly, by the keeper and into the upper left corner!!!! 5-0 77': The shutout isn't meant to be, they get forward and get a cross in from the right, a header is won in heavy traffic and ST Wood heads it in. 5-1 We finish it off after that!! Ipswich 5 : 1 Nottingham Forest Hooooooooly crap! Man of the Match: Constantino (9.1) Goals: Constantino 2, Negredo 2 (8.9), Adagsmar (8.3) Assists: Adagsmar, Donnelly (8.2), Gordon (8.2), Quartey (7.3) Notables: Capitani (7.0), Jackson (7.5), Kirkland (7.5), Henrique (7.7), Mills (7.4) We only shot 13 times today to get our 5 goals. Nottingham Forest have spent 8 of the last 10 years in the EPL. They've never finished in the top 10, they're pretty consistently good for 11th-15th in the league. I'm simply shocked at what we just pulled off. That's 7 goals in 6 league matches for Constantino. He scored his 100th league goal for Ipswich today.

09-16-2011, 05:09 PM	#892
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Five of our team are picked in the EPL Team of the Week after that destruction of Nottingham Forest. Henrique, Gordon, Adagsmar, Constantino and Negredo. September 22nd, 2020 League Cup 3rd Round Chelsea (EPL) @ Ipswich (EPL) Not surprisingly, Chelsea are 4:6 favorites today, we're 7:2 to get a win. Chelsea are off to a slow start for them this season, just 2-2-2 (the same as us). They're dealing with not just the league cup but the Champions League group play as well, so we can hope to get Chelsea's 2nd team and have a shot. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mike/Henrique/McKerr M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Johnson F: Hamilton/Constantino We make a few changes since we're on short rest. Mike and Henrique at DC, McKerr in for Jackson at DR, Johnson in for Gordon at MR and Hamilton back in at ST. Drop deeper and play narrower. Chelsea plays a 4-1-2-1-2 with the DMC/AMC so we narrow up a bit to defend that. 8': Johnson in to Mills, Mills to Constantino 20 yards out, he's into the right side of the area and draws 3 Chelsea defenders, one tries a tackle and misses, Constantino to the baseline, passes up to Donnelly at the 18 yard line, Donnelly reverses it to Adagsmar on the left who is at point blank range, their keeper goes down but can't stop the shot, Adagsmar puts it in!!! A beautiful, beautiful goal. 1-0 15': They build up and attack for a good long while but we keep making good tackles to disrupt them, finally forcing a bad shot high. 28': They have 7 shots but 5 are from range and only 1 on target. they earn a corner here but we head it out of the box and they take a long shot that goes miles wide. 38': We continue to do a great job disrupting their attacks, here after a tackle there's a deflection and they get a solid shot from 20 yards out, but Capitani dives and makes a solid save. We clear the corner. They have 14 shots to our one now. 40': A strong Chelsea attack, they get it to a forward just outside the area and have midfielder Alvarez streaking in, good pass and no one comes back to cover him. There's a clear cut chance, Capitani gets to the shot but can't deflect it wide enough, it is off Capitani and into the net. 1-1 HALF: The early goal we got was a thing of beauty, but the pressure Chelsea was able to apply after that was impressive as well. By the half Chelsea has 16 shots to our 2. They only put 3 on target and take 10 from long range but with their talent the long shots are scary too if they start making Capitani dive around to stop them. Hamilton is once again playing pretty poorly. Khan isn't match fit after coming off injury and Negredo is tired too, I could use him but instead I decide to bring Guarin in for Hamilton and drop to a 4-1-4-1. I change to defensive and "retain possession" at least ofr the start of the second half. 57': We attack, cross into the area from the left, Donnelly goes down, and its considered a dive, yellow for Donnelly. 68': They build up on offense, a ball to the right edge of the 6 yard box, Capitani doesn't go after it, he sits on the line, but Balotelli blasts a shot by him with perfect precision. 1-2 70': They attack again, a pass to Balotelli 20 yards out, he turns by Henrique and shoots from there, again perfect precision and Capitani can't sotp it. 1-3 74': Mariga in for donnelly, Negredo in for Constantino, resting them for the next match. Ipswich 1 : 3 Chelsea We caught them off guard early with a beautiful goal, but that just woke them up and they pressured us non stop for the next 82 minutes. Goal: Adagsmar (7.4) Assist: Donnelly (7.0) Notable: Capitani (7.0) Mike (5.3), Henrique (5.8), Hamilton (5.7) struggled today.

09-17-2011, 02:50 AM	#893
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Our expectations were to make the 3rd round of the leauge cup and we did that, so the board is pleased with us still. -- DC Cestor Mike has been our worst defender, and his morale is very poor when the rest of the team is all happy. I tell him I'm giving him a week off (afraid that just benching him due to morale will make it worse) and will drop my DC rotation to Henrique/Welsh/Quartey for now. September 27th, 2020 Wolves(1-1-4, 17th) @ Ipswich (2-2-2, 9th) We're 4:7 favorites today, damn! Wolverhampton are 4:1 to get a win at Portman Road, I guess we've been impressing the bookies. We beat them once and tied once last season in the Championship, in the EPL the year before we tied twice, 2-4-3 lifetime. And yes, for this second at least, we are in the top 10 in the EPL! GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Welsh/Henrique/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mills/Johnson F: Negredo/Constantino Welsh/Henrique today, Jackson back at DR, Negredo up front with Constantino. 12': Gordon with a shot from out pretty far wide right, keeper has to save and send it behind for a corner, our first on target shot. We earn a second corner, they clear that one out. We have 4 early shots but all from range. 15': The highlight opens with them clearing a ball out of the box, Mills recovers, sends it to Constantino, he gets into the area and shoots, its saved but there's a rebound, Neil Gordon is there, he shoots and its a goal!! 1-0 20': A nice move down the middle, Adagsmar to Mills to Negredo who spots Donnely coming into the area with a nice pass, but they clear it away for a throwin. We build up after the throw but they again clear out of the area when we try to send it in. 30': We are putting a ton of pressure on them, 66/33 possession, only 6 shots but we are winning everything. 35': We build up on offense, Mills ahead to Negredo, he's 30 yards away or so. He stands strong and shrugs off a tackle, Constantino comes into the area from the right, Negredo hits him with a great pass and Constantinio drils a shot far post by the keeper! 2-0 HALF: Somehow Henrique comes out of this half with a 5.9 rating, the rest of the team is 6.8+. We haven't allowed a goal, only two shots, we have 61% of the possession, what could he possibly doing so poorly. 3/13 on headers is it, but I think since we control so much of possession a lot of that is out near midfield or something. Anyway, very strong half, 10 shots to 2, none on target for them. 48': We give up two corners before clearing. Its cleared to midfield, Constantino wins the ball there and charges down the right side, crossing into he area, they head it away. We retain possession but they get it out of there after giving up a throwin to us. 60': Hamilton in for Negredo, Quartey in for Henrique, whose rating has continued to drop despite everyone else playing great. 64': Mills with a yellow. 80': Defend/Retain Possession, no late crap please. 80': We attack from the midfield, Gordon has it out right and lobs a beautiful ball ahead to Constantino, he draws a defender from the middle and slides a pass over to Hamilton, Hamilton into the area and he buries a shot by the keeper! 90% of the credit there goes to Neil Gordon. 3-0 86': Donnelly with a yellow. Ipswich 3 : 0 Wolves A simply beautiful performance from start to finish today. We controlled 59% of the possession over the course of the entire match and only allowed them to take 4 shots, all off target. Man of the Match: Constantino (9.1) Goals: Constantino, Gordon (8.1), Hamilton (7.1) Assists: Constantino 2, Negredo (6.9) Notables: Jackson (7.7), Kirkland (7.6), Welsh (7.2), Mills (8.0), Donnelly (8.1) Henrique is 3/17 on headers today and ends with a 5.6 rating. Welsh has a very solid game and Quartey does well off the bench. A second straight win bumps us to 7th place. If the season were to end today we would qualify for the Euro Cup. ahem ok settle down, but it feels great to be getting some wins.

09-17-2011, 03:45 AM	#894
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	October Update -- We play on the 3rd, 17th, 24th and 31st. Sunderland, Tottenham, Aston Villa and Everton, all but Aston Villa on the road. It'll be very interesting to see our status after this month, our schedule has been easy so far, we've played the 3 teams sitting in the bottom 3 spots. -- Newcastle's Vladimir Weiss is the EPL Player of the month. Cesc Fabregas at Arsenal is 2nd, Ipswich's own Constantino is 3rd! -- Stuart Kirkland is the EPL young player of the month! As good and reliable as he is for me its crazy to realize that he's still only 21. -- Adagsmar's long range goal vs Nottingham Forest is the #3 goal of the month for September. -- The board is pleased with my leadership (pleased!? Just pleased!? We're in 7th bitches!). Signing Alvaro Negredo is the highlight, signing Cestor Mike is the weak point. -- We made a profit of $840k last month. That's not much, but the board isn't complaining about us being a bit over wage budget. October 3rd, 2020 Ipswich (3-2-2, 7th) @ Sunderland(2-1-4, 11th) Sunderland are 5:4 favorites over us today, we're 7:4. Only 4 matches ever against Sunderland, we're 0-0-4, 3:0 losses both times we met last time we were up in the EPL. Sunderland have 3 goals in 7 matches, they're struggling to score badly. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Welsh/Quartey/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Mariga/Gordon F: Hamilton/Constantino Troy Brown plays for Sunderland. Well, he sits on their bench, he doesn't actually play. I still don't understand why they purchased Brown. Henrique sits today, Welsh/Quartey. Mariga gets a start for Mills, and Hamilton starts up front. 7': They put 2 early shots on target, earning a corner on the second one, but we clear. 9': Donnelly with two quick fouls, the second one sets up a free kick 20 yards out, the wall blocks the shot behind for a corner. Mariga heads out the corner, they recover and shoot very high. 13': Mariga is hurt, he can stay in, Mills will probably play the second half though. 13': Donnelly with a yellow. 20': their star Nuno Gonclaves receives a pass 25 yards out, turns by Welsh and gets their first clear cut chance, but Capitani makes the stop! 23': We earn a corner, its headed out, Mariga follows up with a shot, its our first shot of the match, blocked and its a second corner which they clear. 38': Another ball to Gonclaves, another clear cut chance, this one is off the right post! Whew. 43': Midfielder Fontas with a yellow for a hard tackle as Constantino skips by him. Gordon takes the free kick, crossing towards the far post, Hamilton gets his head to it... off the crossbar, damn! HALF: We got a little bit going late in the half, but its all Sunderland right now and we're quite lucky to be scoreless. They shoot 10 times, putting 3 on target and earning 2 clear cut chances. We shoot 4 times, just 1 on target. They win 85% of their tackles, winning everything in the midfield where we have been getting some occasional breakaways from, Sunderland are getting all of those little advantages today. I use two of my subs at the half. Guarin in for Donnelly who is just committing too many fouls with his yellow and I fear a red badly. Mills in for the injured Mariga. 47': We control and build up on offense, Mills puts a beautiful ball into the area, Adagsmar runs on to it and shoots from 15 yards out... its saved, rebound to Hamilton, he shoots... saved! Damn!! 49': They build up, Gonclaves has it 25 yards out... Kirkland sees something shiny on the ground and stops defending, allowing midfielder Sinclair to hang out behind him until Gonclaves finally spots him, he gets an easy finish... wtf Kirkland!! I think that was just a very, very poor attempt at an offside trap. Very poor. 0-1 67': defender Hutchinson with a yellow. So this just isn't working, we aren't getting anything done here, I decide to get a little frisky. McKerr is in for Kirkland. Gordon AMC, Jackson MR, 3-4-1-2. 85': They earn a corner, its taken to the near post, a header goes into the net.. but the goalscorer is called for a foul. 87': Constantino with a yellow. 90': Awwwwwwwwww, we finally get something going, Guarin to Mills, a great through ball to Constantino for a clear cut chance and a goal... but he's deemed to be offsides. That was a very very close call. Sunderland 1 : 0 Ipswich No one is really great today on either side, one of their defenders earns a 7.5 and man of the match today. Notable: Jonathan Quartey (7.0) Adagsmar with a 6.1, Hamilton a 6.2, Constantino 6.4. Fairly solid defending to keep it 1:0, they shot 22 times and kept the pressure up pretty well. We just struggled so much to generate chances, they tackle so so well and keep us from building up any kind of an attack. Injury Update McDonald Mariga has a turned ankle and is out for 3-4 weeks.