FM10 - From the Bottom Up - Page 25

SirFozzie · 10-07-2011, 04:53 PM

Wow, better resign Darcy quick, Radii, if I'm reading the dates right he has less then one year left on his contract, and several growing years to go.

Radii · 10-07-2011, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Wow, better resign Darcy quick, Radii, if I'm reading the dates right he has less then one year left on his contract, and several growing years to go.

Yup! We have more guys to negotiate with this year than we have the last couple, probably a good idea to get an early start on that, eh? I never think about it til that first notice comes in during... early august? reminding me of contracts expiring that year.

Radii · 10-07-2011, 05:41 PM

It took a long time but we've made what's becoming our "yearly big signing".

New Signing

23 y/o MC Jean - $23M paid to Dinamo Kiev - $51,000/wk for 4 years.

Jean is Brazilian, Dinamo Kiev paid $16M to buy him away from the Brazilian top league 2 years ago. Jean crushed it in the Ukraine with 7.4+ ratings for them. He also has two years of experience in the group stages of the Champions League. Jean has been part of the Brazil U23 gold medal in the Olympics, he was captain of the Brazil U20 team for a time and he has 5 caps for the Brazilian senior team.

Physical: Pace 17/Accel 15/Agi 18/Sta 18/Balance 17. Can't jump at all, 5'10"

Mental: Determination 14/Decisions 16/Creativity 15/Anticipation 15/Work Rate 17, Off the Ball is poor (6), no flair, everything else 10+.

Technical: Passing 16/First Touch 15/Technique 14/Marking 11/Tackling 10

Most of my coaches view Steven Mills as my best MC and all of my coaches view Jean to be as good as Mills. Some list him as a 3* (good) player, half of my coaches/scouts view him as 3 1/2* or 4* (4* = important first teamer).

Jean wasn't who I was looking at when I asked about language, but it applies, he knows Brazilian and Ukranian. He only spent two years with Dinamo Kiev so I'm taking the fact that he's fluent in Ukranian (ie not "basic" knowledge of the language) to be a very good sign.

With this move I am nearly done, I have $4M transfer budget left and a payroll of $1,039,697/wk.

While this is the only big purchase I have also brought in 3 players for free who are all making decent salaries. Add Craig Smith and Darcy to the mix and we have a full slate of players to work with this year.

Depth Chart

GK: Capitani/Mason/Rogers/Lines

DL: Kirkland/Hughes/Heywood (Adagsmar can function here, two youth players can be a warm body)

DC: Aldrovandi/Mattle/Bartlett/Welsh/O'Brien/McKerr + youth

DR: Heywood/Jackson/McKerr + youth

ML: Adagsmar/Crespo/Hughes/Ros (Ros is my prospect I bought from Spain last year, not likely to play a lot)

MC: Mills/Jean/Donnelly/Clifford/Smith/Bejaoui + MR/ML that can fill + youth

MR: Gordon/Hutchinson/Jackson + 1 youth guy

ST: Constantino/Khan/Bryan/Darcy/Kershaw

We have 6 central midfielders that I really don't know how to slot in a depth chart. Mills/Jean seem to have the most love from the scouts, Donnelly has always produced but he's still unhappy. Smith maybe should be higher but i don't want to overload him too young and Bejaoui may or may not work out and may or may not be someone i want to keep long term.

I'd best not lose early in the Euro Cup this year, that's all I have to say about that, b/c we have a nice sized rotation here and if it shrinks due to early exits again its really going to suck.

Radii · 10-07-2011, 07:41 PM

Contract Update

Now that things have settled in the transfer market we go and take care of our own guys.

We appear to have 13 players expiring this year.

DC Mark O'Brien - wants $63k/wk to extend a year. I'll re-consider in December based on how he is doing and how my other DC's are doing. I am not impressed with O'Brien, but not quite confident enough to sell him outright.

MC Conor Clifford - We'll extend him year at his current rate, $30,500/wk. He's been solid, though not spectacular. $30k/wk is solidly affordable and we're happy to keep him on.

DR Michael McKerr - this is his last year. He's 33 and playing less and less.

GK Michele Capitani - he only makes $26,500 right now. He only asks for $46,500/wk and a $350,000 signing bonus. Absolutely dude I was expecting to see $70k/wk or more!

ST Constantino - currently makes $47,500/wk, asking for $54,000/wk and a $775k signing bonus. He only asks for a 1 year extension, I try to offer him 3 more years instead, that would keep him here until he's 31.

MC Steven Mills - currently makes $110,000/wk and may not quite be worthy of being my highest paid player, but that doesn't mean he isn't a really good player worth keeping on as long as possible. He wants 3 additional years at the same rate and I offer it.

DR Anthony Heywood - makes $30,500/wk, wants $32,000/wk for 2 additional years. I try to make it 3 additional years for a bit bigger signing bonus.

ST Rob Kershaw - Makes $450/wk, wants $9500/wk. He hopefully gets a chance to prove himself this year, but if he can't, he is still valued at $5M and I want the chance to make some money with him, $9500/wk is nothing.

ST Chris Bryan - makes $9250/wk, wants 3 years at $30,000/wk. I try to offer him 5 years at $35000/wk, we'll see what he says too.

ST Eoin Darcy - makes $2000/wk, wants $3500/wk for 3 years, I try to bump that to 4 years too.

Friendly #1

We play Brighton, feeder club mandatory game. Constantino scores twice in the first half, Khan once. Khan is hurt. We sub players around at the half. In the second half we don't score and Heywood is hurt. Jackson had two assists, constantino one.

Brighton 0 : 3 Ipswich

-- Khan is fine, Heywood is out 5-6 days.

-- Our stadium expansion is officially complete, we now have a 40,000 seat stadium.

Friendly #2

We played Barcelona last year and they offered us a friendly this year as well. They score in the 4th minute off a corner kick. In the 12th minute Craig Smith puts a beautiful through ball into the area, Khan is first to it and beats their keeper. They get a goal on a give and go before the half ends and we trail 2:1. Gordon to Khan actually ties it up for us early in the second half but we throw young GK Michael Rogers to the wolves once we make our subs and he gives up 3 goals in the final 30 minutes.

Ipswich 2 : 5 Barcelona

Board Update

Ipswich Chairman Simon Clegg could step down sooner rather than later, allowing another member of the board to take his place.

That means nothing now but could have some sort of impact if a major change is made.

-- We have 7 matches chosen to be aired on live TV in the first half of the season. Its the ones you'd expect mostly, Man U, Aston Villa, Man City, Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Sheffield Utd.

Friendly #3

We travel to Shrewsbury, no longer a walkover as we propped them up into the Championship with our loaners now they've gotten pretty decent! At least that's my excuse for not scoring in the first half :P In fact we dont score until Craig Smith finds Chris Bryan for a goal 80 minutes in. That's the only goal today.

Shrewsbury 0 : 1 Ipswich

hahahah. Fuck You Injury Gods. You did this with Aldrovandi last year too I think?

Injury Update

In the same practice, Steven Mills hurts his knee and is out 2 weeks, and our new splash signing Jean has a torn groin muscle and is out 5-6 weeks.

That'll put Jean out til early/mid September

That also takes us to the beginning of August, just a couple more Friendlies before the regular season starts!

Radii · 10-07-2011, 08:38 PM

August Update

-- We play friendlies on the 5th and 12th. We'll see if things get moved once the Euro Cup Draw takes place in a week or so, but right now we are scheduled for league matches on the 19th, 22nd and 26th. The Euro Cup Fourth Qualifying Round would be played on the 24th and 31st.

-- The only training report this month is on 17 y/o keeper Rob Lines. 12 different ratings have gone up recently. Command of Area (15), Communication (13), Kicking (14), One on Ones (11), Reflexes (12) among them.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. They are sad to see Bendtner go but happy with our increase in stature.

-- We lost $19.98M last month. We brought in $17.45M selling season tickets. But we spent $23M buying Jean, $4.7M in signing bonuses for all our new contracts and $5M in salaries plus some other general costs

-- Adagsmar resumes full training. He got hurt for 3 months before going on vacation at the end of last season. He'll play in our last two friendlies and will surely need a little more time after that to be ready for the season.

Friendly #4

We travel to Florence to play Fiorentina from Serie A. We end up in a scoreless draw. All of our guys are match fit now exept Adagsmar I believe.

Fiorentina 0 : 0 Ipswich

Captains

-- I keep Stuart Kirkland as my captain and Conor Clifford as my vice-captain.

New Youth Signing

16 y/o DC Pablo Olvera - $825,000 to Hercules in Spain's Liga Adelante (2nd tier league ala our Championship). 3 1/2 - 4 * potential. "potential to play at a similar level to Aldrovandi"

Olvera is pretty damn polished at age 16.

Physical: Pace 14/Accel 13/Sta 15/Str 14

Mental: Determination 13/Concentration 16/Bravery 17/Anticipation 15. Positioning 11.

Technical: Heading 16/Marking 15/Tackling 12/Technique 10/Passing 14

Seems really strong already. He doesn't jump well at all so I dunno how that would jive with his strong heading ability.

Injury Update

Right, all our MC's and DC's falling over dead is the way to tell me that I was right to carry so many. Just why does it have to be all the ones at the very top of my depth charts??

DC Carlos Aldrovandi has strained knee ligaments suffered in training and he is out 6-7 weeks. That may put him out til October.

.. a couple days later

GK Chris Mason sprains an ankle and is out 4 weeks.

EURO Cup Fourth Round Qualifying Draw

We're one of the very last 'seeded' teams which appears to be based purely on European Coefficients (rankings basically) and not what round teams entered. It looks like us and Reading, who made it here through 3 rounds, are the last two seeded teams, whew. Basically the top half teams play the bottom half. So since we're in the top half we can't get a strong team like Livorno like we did last time we were here.

-- Ipswich will be playing FC Sheriff Tiraspol from Molodva. They have a striker valued at $2.7M, no other players valued at more than $500k.

They're referred to as Sheriff, and check out the logo:

Love it.

Rescheduled Matches

Matches bookending our Euro Cup first leg on both sides are rescheduled for September, that's matches vs Sunderland and tottenham. That leaves us playing Man U on the 19th, Sheriff on the 24th and again on the 29th. That works out really well for us.

Friendly #5

We host Rangers in our last friendly. Kirkland to Khan for a 21st minute goal. Gordon with a free kick from 25 yards out. 27th minute Khan is forced out of the match with an injury. Donnelly to Gordon for a 3rd goal before the half. We give up a goal in the final seconds of the first half. The backups give up a goal very late

Ipswich 3 : 2 Rangers

Injury Update

Matthew Khan has a broken wrist and will miss the first 5-6 weeks of the season.

So that's nice, in the final two weeks of preseason, 4 guys I had penciled in as opening day starters (Khan, Jean, Mills, and Aldrovandi) get hurt, all of them but Mills for a month+.

-- We reject offers for Jack Hughes, Anthony Heywood, and freaking Chelsea sends us an inquiry about Steven Mills. I tell them to screw off.

-- Shrewsbury ask if we'll loan them young ML David Ros. He is only 17 1/2 and I am unsure if he'd benefit more from playing in the Championship or learning at our club. Right now he's in the middle of being tutored by Adagsmar. I decide to wait until that's completed and then will offer Ros back to Shrewsbury.

With that, we hobble our injured asses into opening day, welcoming Man Utd to Portman Road. We've blown through the offseason pretty damn fast. Getting so many hits on my transfer targets this year was a refreshing surprise and made my life a lot easier.

Radii · 10-07-2011, 09:12 PM

-- After finishing 1 point behind Man Utd for the final spot in the Champions League at the end of last season, we host Man Utd on opening day this year. With stadium expansion we'll set attendance records again this year, and a full sellout of 40,000 is expected for opening day.

-- Mills resumes full training and looks to be set for the opener.

August 19th, 2023

Man Utd @ Ipswich

Man Utd had a new manager take over towards the tail end of last season, I missed that completely. Claude Peul ran Olympique Lyonnais for the full duration of this dynasty, leading them to a status as one of the top 10 clubs in Europe for awhile, and now he takes over Man Utd.

Man U are 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8 to get a win, quite even! We are 3-4-6 lifetime against Man Utd, but have not lost to them the last 5 times we met. 4 of those were last year, we tied on the road in league play and tied on the road in the FA Cup. We won at home in league play and in the FA Cup Replay.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Bartlett in defense ends up being the only new player starting today, and only because I don't trust Mark O'Brien more than an unknown to replace Aldrovandi. Man Utd change their look, 4-1-2-2-1 with a DMC and two AM's out wide. They'd run a 4-2-3-1 for a good long time before this.

22': van Schindel, new midfielder for them, yellow card.

30': Heywood a cross, Constantino a header, over the bar. That's the first shot I've seen in a highlight today.

39': They get a dangerous shot from ST Wray after a counter attack, but Bartlett runs him out wide a little and Capitani makes a nice stop.

48': Gordon with a foul just outside the left edge of the penalty box. Too tight an angle to shoot from I think, we head a cross out and its halftime.

HALF: We shoot 7 times, they shoot 6 times, both teams put 2 on target. 4 of ours were from long range and midway through the half I gave the "work ball into box" instruction to try to find better. Possession is even, both teams are passing well, we are tackling really well (84%), and they're winning more headers.

46': We kick off, Mills and Donnelly pass to each other a couple times, Donnelly ahead to Bryan, their DC comes waaaay out to defend Bryan, Constantino fills the opening, Bryan passes it ahead, Constantino is open in the penalty area and drills a shot into the net! 1-0

48': Donnelly turns it over in midfield as a highlight opens. AM Lalkovic gets a strong run into the area, their first clear cut chance... but its just wide.

52': Donnelly picks up his yellow card for the match.

60': Smith in for Mills, Darcy in for Bryan, subbing a couple guys that are tiring a bit faster that I want available for the Euro Cup.

65': Smith to Gordon, Gordon has our second clear cut chance behind the defense in the area... but his shot is saved. corner goes nowhere.

66': They win a header on our corner kick and still have it in their end, but Heywood attacks their man about 25 yards out (instead of getting back... HUGE RISK), he wins the ball, passes quickly to Constantino and everyone is caught off guard, that's a clear cut chance and a goal!! 2-0

73': new MR Hutchinson in for Gordon. We defend the rest of the way.

We kill off the rest of the match with ease!

Ipswich 2 : 0 Man Utd

A fantastic start to the season! their keeper saved a couple clear cut chances and put up a 9.1 rating, earning man of the match.

Goals: Constantino 2 (9.0)
Assists: Heywood (7.1), Bryan (7.3)
Notables: Kirkland (7.8), Bartlett (7.7), Donnelly (7.3)

Everyone played well today, Kirkland and Bartlett though, dominating in defense. Bartlett is a 24 y/o DC that I picked up for free from Rangers. He's the one I debated for awhile whether I would play him in midfield or back in defense. Darcy a 6.8 rating in his first ever senior club match off the bench.

-- We did indeed sell out the stadium today, 40,000 fans for a new record.

-- West Brom offer me $12.2M + 20% of the profit from his next sale for Jack Hughes. That starts to get tempting considering he's a backup/rotation guy, but if we sold him we'd have to use that money to immediately replace him so I'm not sure there's a lot of value in that. I sit on the offer, I may counter with $20M or something like that since the interest seems pretty high right now. But its already Aug 22nd at that point and I'd really need to replace him immediately.

Radii · 10-07-2011, 09:33 PM

-- Long time Man Utd defender Rio Ferdinand has been a coach for me since 2018. He finally found a job he wanted more though, and leaves to join Arsenal as a coach. It turns out not to impact us much as my new assistant coach is a 4* Ball Control trainer, which is how I was using Rio Ferdinand as well.

August 24th, 2023

Euro Cup Fourth Qualifying Round, Leg One

Ipswich @ Sheriff

We're 4:6 favorites on the road out in Moldova today, they're 7:2 to get a win.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Just a couple changes today, Adagsmar and Clifford start over Crespo/Donnelly and Jackson in for Heywood.

7': We build up on offense, Mills ahead to Bryan, he beats his man badly and beats the keeper! 1-0

15': We have a corner, after a few headers in the area Adagsmar wins one that puts the ball at Bryan's feet. He passes to Clifford who shoots from close range but right at the keeper, Constantino pounces on the rebound and walks it into the net! 2-0

18': Clifford with a ball into the right side of the area for Constantino who charges behind the defense and scores easily. 3-0

25': I bring Darcy on for Constantino.

26': Darcy passes to Bryan who scores easily. 4-0

33': I go ahead and issue all the orders I can to tell the team to press a little less, control possession and not risk injury.

HALF: We go into the locker room up 4:0 and coasting. Hutchinson in for Gordon and Bejaoui in for Mills. Hopefully using all my subs won't hurt.

Commentary only the rest of the way and we breeze to the end without anyone getting hurt, perfect.

Sheriff 0 : 4 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.8)
Goals: Bryan 2, Constantino 2 (8.5)
Assists: Clifford 2 (8.6), Darcy (7.0), Mills (7.3)
Notables: Jackson (7.5), Kirkland (7.8), Bartlett (7.4), Mattle (7.1), Adagsmar (7.1)

We go into the second leg with a 4 goal lead, all but assured to get to the Euro Cup Group Stage this year, woohoo!

Radii · 10-07-2011, 11:45 PM

Injury Update

Chris Bryan is injured in a collision with Stuart Kirkland in training... he's got a broken ankle and is out 2-3 months. Well then.

August 29th, 2023

Euro Cup Fourth Qualifying Round Second Leg

Sheriff (0) @ (4) Ipswich

We're 2:5 favorites to win this second leg at home. They're 13:2 to win at all and need to win by 4 to have a chance to advance.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Bartlett/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Smith/Hutchinson
F: Kershaw/Darcy

Lots of rest, young guys, new guys in today. Kershaw/Darcy up front, lets see if they can score here. Smith with a MC start, Gordon gets a rest at MR.

14': We have a free kick in their half, taken short to Smith, ahead to Hutchinson, he finds Darcy as he breaks behind the defense, a perfect pass and a finish for Darcy, his first goal! 1-0

18': Darcy to Kershaw for a goal but blatantly offside.

27': Crespo with a free kick 30 yards out wide right, he shoots from there instead of playing a cross, and their keeper has to dive to stop it, impressive free kick!

32': Smith 35 yards out, he plays a low ball into the area, Darcy splits their two DC's and gets to the ball first, shoots and its by the keeper and a goal! 2-0

HALF: Heywood in for Kirkland and Bejaoui in for Donnelly.

79': Smith runs around the right corner of the penalty area after a free kick, passes to Bejaoui 20 yards out straight out in front, he blasts a shot and its a goal! 3-0

82': Oof, Craig Smith is hurt and forced to come out. Adagmsar is in for him.

Ipswich (7) 3 : 0 (0) Sheriff

Slightly different than our previous Euro Cup experience, we have 6 more matches in Europe to play at least as we advance to the Group Stage!

Man of the Match: Juan Pablo Crespo (8.9)
Goals: Darcy (8.8), Bejaoui (7.2)
Assists: Smith 2 (8.7), Hutchinson (7.3)
Notables: Jackson (7.6), Kirkland (7.1), Bartlett (7.1), O'Brien (7.3)

Our other young striker Rob Kershaw puts up a 6.8 today, he got caught offside a few times, once calling back a goal.

-- We receive $244,000 for competing in this round of the Euro Cup and $130,000 for winning this round.

Injury Update

Craig Smith has a twisted knee and will miss about 2 weeks.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 12:29 AM

Injury Report

Here's how we look as of September 1st:

ST Matthew Khan: 2-3 weeks
ST Chris Bryan: 2-3 months
MC Craig Smith: 9-12 days
MC Jean: 3-7 days
DC Aldrovandi: 2-3 weeks
GK Mason: 4-10 days

Excited to get Jean soon, debating whether to play Darcy and/or Kershaw a lot next to Constantino or run 1 striker formations some until Khan is back.

September Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 16th, 21st, maybe 23rd, 27th, 30th. We'll have a match against Sunderland on the 20th rescheduled for a Euro Cup Group Stage match on the 21st. League Cup 27th

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. "the positive atmosphere amongst the players" is the highlight, no negative, and the board asks for my patience while they figure out who is taking over.

-- We lost $633K last month.

-- Some offers are made for our players during August but no one freaks out when I reject offers. Gordon Donnelly remains unhappy and hopes to leave the club in the near future, everyone else is in great shape and happy to be here.

League Cup 3rd Round Draw

We're going on the road for the League Cup but we get a good draw, we'll be playing Hull in the Championship.

September 2nd, 2023

Ipswich @ Nottingham Forest

Nottingham Forest is 6:4 to win today, we're 13:8 to win. They've started poorly, 0-0-3 in league play. We're 7-3-9 lifetime against them. The road team has won the last four matches 1:0. Maybe we can continue that streak today and then break it at home later this year. They barely avoided relegation last year, finishing 17th. They have no top 10 EPL finishes during this dynasty.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

1': yellow for midfielder Avarmescu.

5': A few passes down the left and Kirkland all of a sudden plays a ball into the area from 40 yards away. Darcy is there, heads it.. and the keeper saves it and turns it over for a corner. We earn a second corner. That one is taken to the far post by gordon, Bartlett is there, wins his header, over the keeper rushing out and into the net! 1-0

9': We head a cross out of the area and try to turn it around on offense, Darcy loses the ball in their end though after he receives a pass, they get a clear cut chance out of our turnover but they put the shot wide.

19': Constantino runs down the center after receiving a pass 30 yards out. He passes ahead to Darcy, Darcy shoots from 20 yards out, its blocked, flies to the right, Neil Gordon is there and blasts a shot into the net! 2-0

26': Beautiful precision by Constantino, Clifford with a long pass from the midfield circle, Constantino with a shot from 25 yards out as the keeper is trying to come out, assuming Constantino will charge, his shot doesn't have a lot of pace on it, but its perfectly struck, no way the keeper can get to it and it rolls inches inside the right post, goal! 3-0

HALF: We rush to the half after that. We have 9 shots, 5 on target, they have 6 shots, 2 on target. Kershaw comes in for Constantino, Hughes in for Kirkland.

71': they score quickly here, a cross from the right side to the far post, MC Curtis wins the header for them over Mattle and he heads it in. 3-1

81': Hutchinson in for Gordon.

We coast to the end.

Nottingham Forest 1 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.3)
Goals: Gordon, Bartlett (8.0), Constantino (7.9)
Assists: Gordon, Constantino, Clifford (7.1)
Notables: Capitani (7.3), Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.3), Mattle (7.1), Mills (7.2), Darcy (7.1)

Kershaw has a 6.0 rating, losing a few headers and having a clear cut chance saved.

Next up, the only team in the EPL that we've never beaten, Tottenham.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 01:10 AM

-- We have 14 players called up to international duty (Euro Championship Qualifying). 11 of them are senior squad members, called up for matches on the 9th and 13th. We're scheduled to play on the 5th and 16th, and it doesn't look like either are getting postponed.

-- Neil Bartlett is named to the EPL team of the week. I really wish Aldrovandi didn't get injured, but its great that one of my new signings has been able to shine given the opportunity.

-- Wonder when the Euro Cup Groups are drawn, I'm excited to see my opposition! I keep checking every day, like checking the mailbox for my tax return or something.

September 2nd, 2023

Tottenham @ Ipswich

Tottenham are slim 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8. That's been the case for all of our league matches so far. We've never beaten these guys, 0-3-7 lifetime. Last year we played to two scoreless draws. In fact, going back to the 20/21 season, we haven't scored a single goal against Tottenham in our last 5 matches, losing 2:0, 1:0 and 2:0 before these two 0:0 draws. Sheesh.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Some changes with Crespo and Donnelly in for Adagsmar/Clifford. Heywood starts at DR.

9': They have a man rush down the right, play a low cross drilled into the 6 yard box, a strong header, reflex save by Capitani and it goes wide, whew.

18': Defender Singh with a yellow for them.

22': We clear it out of their end, Crespo with a run down the left, a cross to the 6 yard box... someone heads it, gordon/darcy/constantino are all right there, and its just like their first shot... keeper makes a reflex save.

25': Free kick from 35 yards out for us, Neil Gordon takes it. He's aiming for the left post with his shot, the keeper clearly hedges that way, but his shot is not aimed well, its off the right side of the wall, kinda looks like it hit a guy in the head... and it just bounces straight... slowly... and rolls into the right side of the net as the keeper fails to recover after lunging the other way!!! 1-0 Our first goal against Tottenham in almost 500 minutes of in game action over 3 years, and that's how it happens, crazy.

HALF: We fly to the half pretty fast after that, watching a header off a corner go off target for us and that's it. We have 4 shots, 2 on target this half. They have 2 shots, both on target, and that's been it. 53/47 possession edge for us, 70% passing, 52% tackling (which is godawful) and 60% heading for us. They are tackling really well, in the highlights I saw they were trying lots of crosses into the area and Bartlett was winning headers everywhere... checks stats... he's only won 6 out of 12 headers but 3 key ones. We drop back from standard mindset to counterattacking at the half.

50': yellow for defender Brangman tackling Darcy out near midfield.

52': Darcy receives a pass 30 yards out, dodges a tackle, skips by a second defender and gets forward, shooting from 20 yards out... keeper just saves hiss shot and tips it wide.

58': Donnelly is in the game today, therefore he receives a yellow card.

77': Through ball into the area for them, ST Molnar is by Bartlett, but Bartlett recovers fast and makes a tackle as molnar gets to the ball. Bartlett is impressing the hell out of me, seriously.

78': Hutchinson in for Gordon, Clifford in for Mills.

84': We've got it on offense, passing around the left side, Crespo to Donnelly, he lays it off for Clifford. Clifford pulls up from 25 yards out and shoots... and surprises everyone, its into the upper left corner, no chance to stop it, great goal for Clifford!! 2-0

86': We needed that second goal. Molnar with a ball to Mangan, their two star strikers, Mangan has a step on Mattle and shoots from 10 yards out and scores. 2-1

87': Contain, dammit. I want to beat these guys, hang on to that lead, play safe, stall, whatever you have to do.

And we do just that, actually getting forward a bit in added time but just stalling mostly.

Ipswich 2 : 1 Tottenham

Our first win against Tottenham ever!

Man of the Match: Gordon Donnelly (7.6)
Goals: Gordon (7.5), Clifford (7.3)
Assists: Donnelly, one unassisted.
Notables: Heywood (7.1), Kirkland (7.2), Mills (7.0), Darcy (7.3)

Our DC's had 6.8s today, Constantino 6.5.

Arsenal and ????Southampton???? are off to 4-0-0 starts for 1st and 2nd. We're the only 3-0-0 team and we're in 3rd early on. Southampton have beaten Liverpool, Aston Villa and Man City. WTF. They beat Barcelona 2:0 in a friendly. They didn't spend a ton, looks like they have a couple younger players (22-24 y/o) who have really come into their own and are off to awesome starts.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 01:36 AM

Euro Cup Update

Finally, the Fourth Qualifying Round is done and Groups are drawn for the Euro Cup! There's 12 groups, all the way to Group L alphabetically, and thus 48 teams. Top two from each group advance to knockout rounds (and are joined by teams that failed to advance past the Champions League Group Stages too).

Lets meet our Group L Opposition:

NEC Nijmegen - Holland - Playing in their 3rd Euro Cup in this dynasty (they've never made the Champions League), this is the first time NEC has made the Group Stage, twice falling much earlier. They're a club valued at $65 Million. Their best finish in the dutch top league Eredivisie is 6th and they've hovered between 8th-11th most of the time. Only 18 teams in that league so that's barely top half most years. Their highest valued players are their 3 full season loaners, from Bordeaux, Chelsea and MAn Utd.

AEK Athens - Greece - The only name that stands out in Greece to me is Olympiakos from my time glancing at European results all the years I wasn't involved, but AEK is consistently right behind them. And in this dynasty... always right behind them. They won the Greek Superleague in 2011 and every season since have finished 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. They actually qualified for the Champions League this year and lost in a preliminary playoff to drop into the Euro Cup at this stage. The club is valued at $58M and their player values are way way less than ours in general, that could just be the respect that anyone in the EPL gets though. AEK Athens has played in the Euro Cup each of the last 11 seasons. Four times they've lost in the First Knockout Round, 5 times they've made the group stage and lost, twice they didn't make it that far.

AS Roma - Italy - Roma have won Serie A 4 times during this dynasty and have not finished worse than 5th. They're one of the top teams in the world. Three times they've made the quarterfinals of the Champions League. They've won the Euro Cup once and made the semifinals twice. Valued at $389 Million, they're in another world compared to the other 3 teams in the group. Their star striker is a 21 year old kid named Rory Wright who came up with Man Utd. Roma spent $29 Million on him when he was 18. He was in the running for World Footballer of the year last season. They have 8 players valued over $10 Million and have 4 players who make more per week than I'm allowed to offer anyone by my board.

So there it is, we'll play each of those teams twice and the top two will advance to the knockout round. It should be a formality for Roma to advance but there's no reason at all we can't compete with the other two.

-- We receive $1,435,000 just for being placed in the group stage. Every win in this phase is worth $201k and every draw $100k in prize money

-- We have 7 matches rescheduled due to conflicts with the Euro Cup, all 6 of our matches conflict with a match and then Man City has a conflict.

-- We travel to AEK Athens on Sept. 21st to open Group Play.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 05:06 PM

Injury Updates

-- Jean resumes full training and is immediately called up for a Brazil/Portugal friendly. Perhaps they will run him back into shape a little bit.

-- Chris Mason resumes full training.

-- Craig Smith resumes full training.

-- Jack Hughes hurts himself in training and will miss 3 weeks.

-- James Welsh suffers a groin strain in a Euro Championship match against Montenegro. He'll miss 3 weeks.

-- Gordon Donnelly scores in a 1:1 Scotland draw against Wales in the Euro Championship Qualifiers. Conor Clifford scores for Ireland in a 3:0 win over Montenegro.

-- Not a lot of surprises about 75% of the way through Euro Championship Qualification. Austria is winning their group (Mattle's team!) and that's probably the biggest surprise, no super powerhouses there but Croatia and Czech Republic would both be expected to finish above Austria. Scotland is only one point ahead of Ireland for second in their group (2nd place makes a playoff to get in), we have multiple players on both teams so seeing either one advance would be cool.

-- Anthony Heywood has been playing well for the England U21's and Michael Rogers has seen some time in goal for The English U21's as well.

September 16th, 2023

Bristol City(1-0-3, 15th) @ Ipswich(3-0-0, 3rd)

We're big 4:5 favorites today against a Bristol City team that just promoted up from the Championship. Bristol is more of a Championship level team, they've spent two seasons in the EPL in the past 15 years and both times went right back down.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/O'Brien/Jackson
DM: Clifford
MC: Donnelly/Mills
AM: Adagsmar/Hutchinson
F: Conststantino

We've got new guys injured, guys coming off injuries, and guys coming out of Euro Championship play, and oh yeah Euro Cup match in 5 days. So we've got a strange lineup today as a result. Constantino alone up front, Adagsmar/Hutchinson AM's, Gordon can play but I don't want him going 90 today. I'm hoping we're strong enough today to win and will be able to field a strong lineup for AEK.

Standard mindset today.

6': Throwin in their end, a pass into the area for Mills, he shoots and the keeper makes a good save.

7': Mills is hurt... ugh. Can stay in.

11': Passing around the left side, Jean ahead to Constantino, back to Mills and Mills puts it into the area, Hutchinson receives it with a step on the defense, shoots near post and scores! 1-0

31': yellow for their midfielder Coquelin.

46': Jean ahead for Constantino, he passes back, Jean with a beautiful pass between two defenders to Hutchinson, he blasts a shot, but the keeper saves and it goes out behind. We can't do anything on the corner.

HALF: A few highlights for Bristol City today but the best they can do is send long shots wide. We're playing well. Bejaoui is going to come in for the injured Mills. We shoot 6 times, 3 on target. They have 3 shots, all off target. We dominate possession, 60/40 and seem to be solidly in control, but another goal would be nice.

54': They earn a corner, Bejaoui heads it away and Adagsmar picks it up and we're off on a counter, he runs down the left, Constantino down the center... a cross earns us a corner, but we can't do anything with it.

65': Throwin in their end for us, taken to Hutchison, immediate cross to Adagsmar, a header... just saved, good effort.

73': Darcy in for Constantino.

79': We build up on offense, Bejaoui a beautiful ball to Adagsmar in the area, he's got a clear cut chance but shoots it right at the keeper, we really should have scored there.

89': We win a ball in their end and look to counter, Bejaoui plays a beautiful long ball ahead for Adagsmar down the left side, he makes a run towards the area, passes to Darcy, they try to intercept but fail and Darcy puts it in, we seal the win! 2-0

Ipswich 2 : 0 Bristol City

Man of the Match: Daryl Hutchinson (8.4)
Goals: Hutchinson, Darcy (7.2)
Assists: Mills (7.3), Adagsmar (6.9)
Notables: Jackson (7.5), Kirkland (7.4)

Everyone else 6.8-6.9.

I would have been thrilled for Hutchinson to just play average enough so that I didn't need to bring Gordon in at the half, to see him get the goal and man of the match is awesome! And of course seeing our young kid Darcy get a goal is exciting.

-- So we've played 4 league matches and two Euro Cup matches (the qualifying round). Results: 2:0, 4:0, 3:0, 3:1, 2:1, 2:0 in our favor. Four of those matches we were heavy favorites and Man U and Tottenham were at home, so the schedule has broken heavily in our favor early, but these results have been spectacular.

-- next 4 matches for us are on the 21st, 24th, 27th, and 30th of September. AEK, Sunderland, Hull (league cup), Huddersfield. We'll likely play some U18's against Hull and if we lose early in the league cup, so be it.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 05:11 PM

Wait wat?

News item:

Consortium targets Ipswich takeover

Ipswich Town will name Simon Grayson as their new head coach if the consortium's bid to take control led by businessman Paco Gomez proves successful.

-- The Ipswich Board have placed an embargo upon transfers as a result of the rumors regarding a possible takeover.

Holy shit if I get fired in a takeover... well, we just keep pushing an see what happens.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 06:08 PM

-- Aldrovandi resumes full training. Slowly but surely we are getting more healthy, but right now we have a lot of guys lacking match fitness and not much more w/ all these guys that have recently resumed training.

-- Khan resumes full training as well the day before our next match, whee!

September 21st, 2023

Euro Cup Group L

Ipswich(2nd, EPL) @ AEK Athens(3rd, Greek Superleague)

Our coaches feel that we are stronger here by a lot, better dribbling, speed, touch and strength. Our biggest weakness is always in the air, and the only disadvantage pointed out by our coaching staff is height.

AEK are super slim 6:4 favorites at their place today, we're 13:8 to win and its 2:1 for a draw. I attend this press conference and most of the questions are about the fact that we really should beat AEK and that we're the better team. I guess we'll see!

-- Their leading goalscorer, ST Michal Hruby with 4 goals in 7 matches is hurt.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Mattle/Jackson
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Conststantino

We're fit and ready here, Khan/Aldrovandi/Jean just aren't ready yet. Hopefully they'll all play in our next Euro Cup match in early October. Never thought a guy like Eoin Darcy would be starting our first ever Euro Cup Group match, he's been good though!

They run a 4-1-4-1.

We'll go with a standard mindset at the start, I was going to counterattack but that 4-1-4-1 is so defensive. Expanded highlights.

3': Gordon with a free kick out wide right, cross into the area but Darcy heads it over.

17': They have a free kick very near the penalty area, we head it out but they try to keep pushing. Neil Gordon makes a great steal out to the right, passes ahead to Constantino, back to Gordon and Constantino takes off. Gordon passes it ahead, Constantino with a long run down the right, Darcy down the middle but Constantino instead into the area, a shot from a tight angle out right, by the keeper, off the left post and it bounces in!!! 1-0

31': Crespo with a cross but they head it behind, corner kick. gordon takes it, they head it out. We have 6 shots to their 2.

45': Throwin in their end, after a couple passes we earn a corner off a blocked cross. Gordon with the corner, but headed out easily. We recover... and earn another corner. They clear this one too and its halftime.

HALF: Our entire team is at 6.8 or 6.9 at the half, even our goal scorer Constantino. Possession is even but our defense is playing great. We've allowed 3 shots, 2 from range and all off target. We're winning 77% of our tackles and even 58% of our headers, really good for us! We've shot 8 times, 3 on target, 6 from range, that's not good, but understandable against this defense. I drop to a counterattack strategy for the second half.

53': They have a corner, win a header in the 6 yard box.. but its way off target wide.

54': Yellow for midfielder Terron.

55': After another AEK foul Gordon with a free kick 25 yards out, a bit wide left. He plays a lob into the area instead of a shot, they head it behind for a corner. They head the corner away.

59': They try to attack down the middle but in a 45 second span Bartlett wins 3 headers and draws a foul to keep them from doing anything at all. I'm so happy with his play so far!

64': We get caught out of position in a quick highlight, they have a give and go and get a shot from 15 yards out, a clear cut chance, its not a bad shot, near the left side of the goal, but Capitani dives and saves it and we clear!

78': Clifford in for Darcy and we'll use our own 4-1-4-1.

91': Donnelly with a steal in midfield as they try to get forward, their defense is still set though, we pass around a couple times, Mills then wiht a quick pass to the penalty spot from 30 yards out, Constantino breaks on the ball, the keeper rushes out, Constantino controls it right as the keeper tries to dive on it. Constantino sidesteps the keeper and passes it into the now empty net!!! 2-0

Strong win for ipswich in our first Group match!

AEK Athens 0 : 2 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.8)
Goals: Constantino 2
Assists: Gordon (7.2), Mills (7.6)
Notables: Capitani (7.2), Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.6), Bartlett (7.5)

6.8/6.9 for Crespo/Donnelly/Darcy.

-- Roma beats Dutch side NEC 4:0 at home in the other match in our group today.

-- We receive $201,000 for the win today.

-- October 5th is our next match, we'll host Roma to see who takes the early lead in the group.

Taz13 · 10-08-2011, 08:02 PM

Since I have never gotten far enough in with a season, I am shocked to see the possiblity of being fired during a takeover. I guess that just adds some realism to the game. Hopefully your success will keep you in your post.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 08:03 PM

September 24th, 2023

Ipswich (4-0-0, 2nd) @ Sunderland(1-3-0, 9th)

Sunderland are 6:4 favorites today at their house, we're 13:8, basically even. Sunderland demoted down to the Championship two years ago but won the league in dominating fashion to rise back up. They haven't lost yet but their schedule has been even more favorable than hours. We're 2-0-6 lifetime against them, 2-0-2 the previous two years before they demoted down.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Mattle/Heywood
M: Crespo/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Conststantino

Sunderland ST Casper Pique is off to one of the weirdest starts imaginable. He's got 4 goals in 4 matches despite not starting a single match. Super Sub indeed. He starts today.

Most of our starters from the last match go again today. Jean in today, O'Brien gives Bartlett a rest. Most of these guys will be resting against Hull in our next match so I'm ok with them going again here on short rest.

3': ST Edson receives a pass 25 yards out, cuts right and runs by both our DCs in embarrassing fashion. He has a clear cut chance but doesn't hit it well, Capitani saves it.

5': Throwin in their end, 3 quick passes, Constantino has it 20 yards out, sprints by his man and has a clear cut chance for us, tries to go far post but the keeper dives out for it and makes a good stop.

18': They're playing better than us so far, controlling a small possession edge and generating more shots.

19': They get into the area, midfielder Sa has it, Mattle tries to tackle it away, but brings him down, its a foul, and a penalty... midfielder Emery takes it and buries it. 0-1

28': Gordon has it out wide, the penalty area is crowded, a cross in, Darcy wins a header but not to send it towards the goal, its to Constantino who is free... he heads it down, by the keeper... and off the left post and out. Damn!!

29': Crespo a yellow.

32': Their man Edson gets by O'Brien and has their 3rd clear cut chance... Capitani rushes out and its a really weak shot, Capitani actually saves it and holds on to it.

40': We earn a corner, Gordon sends it in, O'Brien wins a header... but its just high.

43': Free kick out left, practically a corner at that angle, and just like most corners, they head it out safely.

HALF: We aren't playing well at all today. I try to push the team to shake it off and perform better in the second half. Mattle's rating dropped to 5.8 after the penalty and continued to fall, 5.3 by the end of the half. I tell him I'm pissed off at him and bring McKerr in for the second half. They shoot 8 times this half, putting 6 on target. We shoot 3 times, just 1 on target. They are tackling really well, 86%, we're not (65%, actually not awful but meh).

49': lets see if we can attack and pressure them.

58': Constantino is making lots of really strong runs, but there's no one on the other end of his passes, Darcy gets tackled as soon as he touches it, just struggling to even get a shot.

61': Another strong run by Constantino, looks like he's heading for a goal here but tackled just outside the area. Yellow for their defender, shoulda been a red I think. Gordon's free kick is saved.

68': smith in for Jean, Kershaw in for Darcy.

87': They have a free kick in the midfield, we head out their ball forward, a quick pass to Constantino, Craig Smith breaks forward and Constantino passes ahead, Smith runs onto the ball, gets into the area and drills a shot by the keeper and in! 1-1

90': I leave the order to attack on, we clearly seem to have the edge now. They have a throwin in their end, Smith intercepts the throw and passes to Constantino, he makes a run down the right, passes inside to Mills, Mills shoots from 18 yards out, the keeper dives, the ball hits the keeper but he can't push it away, it's still in the net!!! 2-1

That's it, great ending for us!

Sunderland 1 : 2 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.9)
Goals: Mills (7.6), Smith (7.4)
Assists: Constantino 2
Notables: Kirkland (7.3), O'Brien (7.4), Gordon (7.0)

Mattle left at the half with a 5.3, Heywood a 6.3 on the day. Once we began to attack we saw Constantino running around causing confusion in their defense, we couldn't get him a goal but his speed was such a disruption and got us both our goals. Youngster Craig Smith once again makes a huge impact too, scoring once and making the interception that started the attack on the winning goal.

-- GK Capitani tells the press after the match that my halftime talk to the team turned them around. I check my assistant report on pep talks, Mills and Constantino both "seemed motivated" after the half. Constantino loves me and responds well to almost anything I say.

-- Sheffield Utd are 4-2-0, they're the only other team without a loss, but we don't even have a draw yet at 5-0-0 and move up into first.

JonInMiddleGA · 10-08-2011, 08:16 PM

edit: wrong thread

Radii · 10-08-2011, 08:22 PM

-- O'Brien and Constantino are named to the EPL team of the week. We've had players picked every week, but I haven't always been listing them, whoops.

September 27th, 2023

League Cup Third Round

Ipswich @ Hull

Hull are 8th in the Championship right now. We're 4:5 favorites on the road today, they're 3:1 to win. Hm, I was going to play guys like Khan/Aldrovandi to get them warmed up some more here but I'd had them set to play with the reserves til match fit and they just played yesterday, so in the end I just play a bunch of backups and don't' do anything really huge with my lineup outside of goalkeeper.

GK: Rogers
D: Heywood/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Bejaoui/Smith/Hutchinson
F: Darcy/Kershaw

Michael Rogers gets his first ever senior team start today. Darcy/Kershaw up front. I end up running Heywood DL, Jackson DR to get Kirkland a rest. Just commentary today.

5': They earn a corner, crossed to the near post, defender Watt heads it and its in... Rogers positioning was laughable. He'd come out as if it was being crossed far post.

25': Mattle a yellow.

HALF: Rogers still has a 6.9 rating and that's actually the best on the team after a couple nice saves throughout the half. O'Brien 5.6, Kershaw 5.7, Darcy 5.9. We have 6 shots but 5 are off target. We actually have 63% of the possession, we just can't do anything on offense. We'll attack int he second half and give these guys more time, i'm not bringing Constantino in today.

69': Heywood is injured here.

86': Smith a yellow.

93': As we get desperate they counter attack, a cross in from the left, header from ST Bates and a goal to end it for us.

Hull 2 : 0 Ipswich

Lots of backups, young strikers, and overconfidence after no losses all year all add up for a poor result here. I don't much care, unhappy that some players were so poor, but I'm not that upset to not be dealing with the League Cup and wasn't going to sub in starters in the middle of this stretch of games.

We shot 11 times today and never put a single one on target.

O'Brien 5.3, Hutchinson 5.9, Adagsmar 5.7.

Craig Smith earned a 7.3 rating, once again standing out.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

edit: wrong thread

I'm always worried I'm going to accidentally post a game writeup in a "thoughts and prayers requested" thread one of these days.

youcancallmeal · 10-08-2011, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radii

Wait wat?

News item:

Consortium targets Ipswich takeover

Ipswich Town will name Simon Grayson as their new head coach if the consortium's bid to take control led by businessman Paco Gomez proves successful.

-- The Ipswich Board have placed an embargo upon transfers as a result of the rumors regarding a possible takeover.

Holy shit if I get fired in a takeover... well, we just keep pushing an see what happens.

I am still bitter about an FM 08 game where this happened to me. I had just taken Bath City to the Championship. The embargo went on and off for a few months (takeover imminent...takeover collapses...) Soon after that, I was gone. I hope you can avoid the same fate, I just found this thread a few days ago and it has been a great read.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 09:16 PM

September 30th, 2023

Huddersfield (1-2-3, 17th) @ Ipswich(5-0-0, 1st)

Huddersfield's schedule is basically the exact opposite of ours. Man City, Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea... that was their first four matches in league play and they lost 3 of them. Then they get a Champions League Group with Ajax and Inter. We're 4:7 favorites today and hope to keep them down.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson
DM: Clifford
MC: Donnelly/Jean
AM: Adagsmar/Gordon
F: Constantino

I started Darcy/Kershaw last match with the intent of saving Constantino for Huddersfield and running this formation.

39': Constantino out left, crosses into the area but they head it away, Clive Jackson has it out right and shoots, he doesn't get a lot of pace on his shots and its going in slow motion... over the arms of the keeper... and off the crossbar, hah close!

HALF: Yeah that was really really boring. We have 6 shots but 5 from long range and only 1 on target. 2 off the woodwork. Huddersfield shoot 4 times, 3 long range, all off target. We'll try to attack next half, we need to do better than this.

56': After a few passes Jean pulls up from 25 yards and shoots, incredible pace on his shot, but it hits the right post and bounces free, close!

79': Gordon misses a shot then 25 minutes go by. Here Jean sends a ball into the area and Gordon scores... but he's offsides and its not that close. They have like 9 guys in the box when we build up.

86': We earn a free kick 25 yards out, Gordon strikes it off the wall and its behind for a corner.

90': Adagsmar a cross into the area, headed behind for a corner. They clear the corner but we recover, Constantino ends up with a little space 18 yards out for a shot, but saved.

And Huddersfield proves to be a team that all of a sudden we just can't get by. My first two years up in the EPL we did real well against them, but last year and this one so far we just struggle with them.

Ipswich 0 : 0 Huddersfield

Kirkland is man of the match with a 7.7 rating. Jackson 7.6, Mattle 7.0.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by youcancallmeal

I am still bitter about an FM 08 game where this happened to me. I had just taken Bath City to the Championship. The embargo went on and off for a few months (takeover imminent...takeover collapses...) Soon after that, I was gone. I hope you can avoid the same fate, I just found this thread a few days ago and it has been a great read.

Glad you're enjoying it! And yeah, I keep hoping for news, I know I'd be in pretty big demand if I got fired. Taking over the next big England Job to open and stomping the crap out of Ipswich a couple times for letting me go would probably be motivation enough to keep going. But man it would kill all the momentum I've built up with this team.

SirFozzie · 10-08-2011, 11:45 PM

Unless you're already close to being fired in FM10, you'll keep your job.

If they fired you while you were undefeated, the new owner's time at the helm would be short, till they threw him out of office. Literally

Radii · 10-08-2011, 11:45 PM

-- Welsh and Hughes both resume full training.

-- Chris Bryan is still out 4-6 weeks. Outside of that we now have no injured players, but still have big name guys dealing with match fitness,etc.

October Update

-- We play on the 5th (Euro Cup), 8th, 11th, 23rd and 26th (euro cup). We had a match postponed into November due to Man City still being in the league cup. There's a break for Euro Championship Qualifying on the 18th.

-- Anthony Heywood is singled out for training well. I only see free kick taking going up and that's at 4, at least in the recent gains. He's being tutored by Kirkland and a lot of his ratings have gone up in the last 6 months.

-- Eoin Darcy is 2nd in Young Player of the Month voting. He's got 1 league goal and 2 goals in continental play so far this year.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Neil Bartlett has been the highlight, and our league cup loss is the lowlight. Odds that my free pickup of Bartlett ends up being more important than my $23 Million payout for Jean are improving and depressing! But Jean is still working his way into things.

-- We made $161k profit last month.

-- The board ask for my continued patience regarding rumors about the clubs future. Can I ask to not be shitcanned after doubling the value of the squad since I took over please?

October 5th

Roma(2nd, Serie A) @ Ipswich(3rd, EPL)

We are actually favored slightly at home today, 6:4 to their 13:8, but they're clearly the superior side. We'll hope to use home field advantage to get something out of it. We've proven we can on our best days hang with any team in the world.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Aldrovandi and Jean are both match fit now but I'm not ready to go away from Donnelly/Mills or for Aldrovandi's first match to be this one. They are set as backups.

Rory Wright is their stud, 8 of his ratings are 18-20. He's got 11 goals in 9 matches between league and continental play so far. He's got 5 goals in 2 Euro Championship Qualifier matches for England too.

Standard mindset today.

12': We earned a couple really early corners but no shots yet. They have 4 shots and seem to be in firm control after the first 2-3 minutes.

28': They have 8 shots to our 0 now. I change to a counterattacking mindset.

33': We earn another corner, but they head it away, still no shots.

35': We have a goal kick, Capitani takes it really long, almost to their penalty box, Constantino gets behind their last man, but his first touch could be better, he leaves just enough time for a defender to come clear it away.

36': Mattle with a tackle but before he can clear, their star Wright takes it away from him, he's 20 yards out, moves into the area and beats Capitani, no chance in hell to stop that. 0-1

44': Crespo passes to Constantino 20 yards out, he turns by his man, and he's got a clear cut chance.. but right at their keeper. Its our first shot.

HALF: They shoot 12 times this half, 3 on target. We have 2 shots, both on target. They have a 56/44 possession edge. They're completing passes at an 80% rate and I think that's probably our biggest problem, we aren't stopping them from holding on to the ball forever until they decide to shoot. Constantino has a poor half but I won't sub him of course. Crespo hasn't been the best either and I bring Adagsmar in for him.

46': They move straight down the pitch, a pass ahead to Wright, he's got space 20 yards out and its honestly like anyone else being wide open 10 yards out. He blasts a shot into the right side of the net and we don't have a chance in hell of stopping it. 0-2

We'll attack and see if we can get anything going.

50': Aldrovandi in for Mattle.

62': Adagsmar just got a straight red card and I can't even begin to explain why. I wasn't even sure it'd be a yellow. But yeah, lets just get the hell out of this. Jean comes in for Gordon so we can play a 4-3-2.

75': They have a corner, taken to near the penalty spot, their "other" ST Ceccaroni wins a header over Mills and scores. 0-3

86': Wright with a hat trick on a penalty. Didn't see how it happened b/c i am in commentary mode now, don't care to go look, get this over! 0-4

Ipswich 0 : 4 Roma

Bartlett ends up with a 5.0, he was fine at the half so i assume he allowed at least 2 of those goals. Mattle 5.6, Heywood 5.4, most others 6.0-6.3.

-- I still don't get it but in the news note about Adagsmar's red card my assistant tells me that Adagsmar's foul was "vicious" and he ref's decision was justified. I've never seen "vicious" used to describe anyone's actions in my entire career before. I go straight to a 1 week salary fine, that bothers me. Adagsmar accepts his fine. He'll miss our next Euro Cup Match.

-- NEC and AEK play to a 0:0 draw.

-- Roma take control of the group with 6 points. We have 3 points. AEK and NEC each have 1 point. We host Netharlands side NEC next, they seem to be the worst team in the group and we expect to be heavy home favorites there. Roma destroying AEK and us beating NEC would put us in an extremely strong position to advance.

-- We set a record for gate receipts today at $2.4 Million. No revenue sharing here, I check our finances page and we keep all of that.

Radii · 10-08-2011, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Unless you're already close to being fired in FM10, you'll keep your job.

If they fired you while you were undefeated, the new owner's time at the helm would be short, till they threw him out of office. Literally

That seems realistic, good to know!

Current Job Status: Secure (55%). That'll shoot way up the longer we stay near the top I believe.

Radii · 10-09-2011, 12:15 AM

October 8th, 2023

Ipswich(5-1-0, 3rd) @ Everton(2-0-3, 15th)

We're 3-5-3 lifetime against Everton. We haven't lost to them in a really long time though. Going back to February 2021 we are 2-4-0 against them. We've tied our last 3 meetings. Today we're even money favorites at their place.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Darcy

Short rest and we play again in a couple more days. Aldrovandi in, Jean in, Craig Smith in, Khan really isn't 100% ready but I'm itching to bring him on, Consatntino is available though.

2': Smith ahead to Khan, a through ball to Darcy, he's behind the defense for a clear cut chance.. but saved and we get a corner. Then a second corner, they clear that one, we recover but a long shot is wide.

16': They counterattack with a long run down the right, a cross into the area and a header from ST Mills who beat Jackson for the ball... but his header is well over. A great play to generate a good shot but poor finish.

29': Aldrovandi a yellow.

37': Smith with a yellow.

38': We clear out a corner but they recover, a through ball into the area for ST Mills, he's behind the defense and has a clear cut chance from about 8 yards away and he scores. 0-1

41': Steady buildup down the left side for Everton, a cross into the area and their star ST Brian Kelly wins the header and drills it into the net. 0-2

HALF: Possession is even but we can't do jack shit with ours, we've got 2 shots, 1 on target but they are 100% in control after our early clear cut chance. They have 11 shots, 4 on target. Bartlett comes in for O'Brien who gave me a classic O'Brien 5.7 first half, and Constantino is in for Khan who shouldn't have been out there anyway probably.

50': highlight opens with us already right at their penalty area, Darcy has it, avoids one tackle, is in the penalty area, shoots, but its saved. It wasn't a clear cut chance and he did a good job getting that shot, would have loved a better finish.

55': We'll attack.

59': Smith ahead to Darcy, he avoids a tackle and has a free run into the area, its our second clear cut chance, this from 15 yards, but its saved, right at the keeper really. There's a rebound and Crespo is there, he could finish this with a good strike... but blasts it over. There was a big opening as the keeper has come out to stop Darcy.

70': they have a free kick from 30 yards out and midfielder Szatan takes a beautiful shot that bends around the wall to the far side of the goal (he was out a bit wide right and shot to the left). We're falling apart here. 0-3

78': Clifford in for Smith.

89': Darcy finally finishes one. Constantino avoids a tackle and draws a defender, leaving Darcy a lot of room, Constantino with a good pass and Darcy in the area for a strong finish. 1-3

Everton 3 : 1 Ipswich

While we're on a bit of a tough run here, this is our first loss in league play, we'll have to remember that.

Goal: Darcy (7.0)
Assist: Constantino (6.9)

O'Brien 5.3, Gordon 5.8, Jackson 6.1. We get a chance to turn this around against Cardiff in a few days.

Radii · 10-09-2011, 12:43 AM

-- I'm selling Mark O'Brien in January. This is the last straw. He just gives me too many games like that last one where he is under 6.0 at the half. Sometimes he recovers, sometimes not, sometimes I get fed up and just pull him. He's done for Ipswich.

-- The takeover of Ipswich has fallen through as the group trying to take over has failed to prove they have the funds required. The chairman talks to me personally and thanks me for my patience but warns me that I shouldn't rule out the chance that these guys invest in the club in the future. Our transfer embargo for now at least is lifted.

October 11th, 2023

Ipswich(5-1-1, 3rd) @ Cardiff(1-0-6, 20th)

We're 4:7 favorites over newly promoted Cardiff today. This is Cardiff's first trip up to England's top division since the early 1960s. They've been in the Championship since 2003. We hope to avoid overconfidence going into this one.

GK: Capitani
D: Heywood/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Jean/Hutchinson
F: Kershaw/Constantino

A number of guys have morale falling to "okay" after our recent run. Its been spread across 3 competitions (league cup/euro cup/EPL) but we are 0-1-3 in our last 4 matches. I mostly start players for morale today. Kershaw gets a start b/c Khan can't go and I've been overusing Darcy.

18': We counter after winning a ball in their end, a little slowly at first but Adagsmar makes a great long pass forward from midfield, Constantino gets behind the defense to receive it and blasts a powerful shot from 18 yards out past the keeper! 1-0

25': Just awful awful play in defense, tackle after tackle missed, overcommitting to go for aggressive tackles, two missed tackles in a row leaves their ST Johnson wide open in the area, clear cut chance and he finishes... 1-1

34': We'll attack.

35': Jackson sends a long ball down the right after a clearance from them, Consatntino is there and makes a run towards the right corner, he tries to play a cross for Kershaw, they have a man there, but he mishits the ball and it falls dead in the area a few feet away. Kershaw runs onto it and puts it in the net! Happy to see him get a goal here. 2-1

HALF: We have the lead but it feels like we just aren't playing our best. Only 5 shots, 2 on target for the 2 goals. They have more possession and they are winning 78% of their headers to just 38% for us. They have 2 shots only, but both were pretty scary and it seems like our defense is capable of lapses today. I bring Craig Smith in for a quickly tiring Jean.

47': There's another set of defensive lapses. We have it first but a poor cross gives them the ball... they get it to ST Phillips about 35 yards out, he begins a run towards the area and Aldrovandi badly misses a tackle, he continues his run... Bartlett badly misses a tackle... he's into the area and has a clear cut chance that he finishes. The defense was there. They just fucked up, miserably. 2-2

62': O'Brien in for Aldrovandi, oops, forgot to move another defender into my list of subs.

70': Capitani with a free kick from about 25 yards away from our goal. He plays it basically to the penalty spot.. their keeper comes out but stays back, not challenging for the ball. Constantino wins a header for it over a defender who was there as well, and its in! 3-2

77': They earn a corner, taken to the far post... and headed in. Jesus. 3-3

80': They have a throwin, thrown into the penalty area, they win it and take a shot, saved by Capitani but there's a rebound and one of their men is first to it... this is their FIFTH clear cut chance of the match, but Capitani bails us out with a great diving save.

82': There's a run down the right, a cross, they head it back out, Hutchinson is first to it, crosses it right back in... it hits a defender in the 6 yard box, deflects off him and into the goal, we're going to beat the worst team in the league on a damn own goal. 4-3

82': Donnelly in for Kershaw, 4-1-4-1, do not give up another goal.

We finally close it out after that.

Cardiff 3 : 4 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.8)
Goals: Constantino 2, Kershaw (6.9)
Assists: Capitani (7.5), Constantino, Hutchinson (6.9), Adagsmar (7.7)

Aldrovandi 6.3, Gordon 6.2 today. We get a win and hopefully that's all that matters here, but I'm not really happy at how it happened.

Radii · 10-09-2011, 09:05 PM

-- Kirkland and Gordon are called up for a Oct 18th England Match.

-- Adagsmar has been suspended for two additional European matches (3 total) for his vicious red card against Roma. So we basically have to make sure Crespo is ready to go for all our Euro Cup matches from now on.

-- Capitani and Constantino are named to the EPL Team of the Week

-- Ireland can't qualify for the Euro Championship and our youngster Eoin Darcy gets into the last "meaningless" qualification match. He gets a goal, his first international goal!

-- The group stage is complete for Euro Championsihp Qualifying. Group winners are in: Italy, Serbia, Holland, Turkey, France, Germany, England, Austria, Spain, Portugal. Norway are the hosts. That's 11 spots out of 16. The final 5 will be decided by playoffs between the second place teams from the qualifying groups:

Bosnia & Herzogovnia vs Poland
Romania vs Israel
Slovakia vs Hungary
Scotland vs Switzerland
Greece vs Croatia

Donnelly has been playing a lot for Scotland. Mattle starts every match for Austria, Aldrovandi and Kirkland both get called up and occasionally used by Italy/England.

October 23rd, 2023

Aston Villa(4-0-4, 12th) @ Ipswich(6-1-1, 2nd)

Aston Villa are 6:4 favorites today, we're slim 13:8 dogs. Not quite Tottenham levels historically(we'd never beaten Tottenham until this year) but close, we're 1-5-6 lifetime against Aston Villa, 0-3-3 the last 3 seasons.

We're in prime time on TV today for this match. We play NEC in the Euro Cup in 3 days. We *should* be heavy favorites there but I'm not going to take a lot of chances there.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson
F: Khan/Constantino

Aston Villa have a 24 y/o ST Danny Clark leading them early on with 3 goals in league play... his first 3 goals ever in the EPL despite being on Villa his entire career.

We hold out some starters for our next match, Crespo, Donnelly, Gordon, Heywood, Bartlett are sitting today, the guys in their place are damn solid too though (except Hutchinson is a pretty big dropoff for Gordon). Khan/Constantino start up front, Khan is now match fit and we need to get him going. His morale is poor so we'll worry about that some.

Standard mindset with a slightly high defensive line.

11': Adagsmar up the left side, slowly, he dodges a slide tackle and keeps going, passes ahead to Khan who is way wide, Khan to Constantino at the penalty spot, his man makes a tackle but the ball just squirts away a few feet and Constantino recovers and gets to it immediately, shoots, its barely in the right side of the net! 1-0

16': A steal for Mills, pass ahead to Jean, he makes a run coming in from the left, shoots from 15 yards out, but right at the keeper. Tough angle, could have waited for Khan or Constantino.

21': Mattle with a yellow.

26': Adagsmar a cross, Constantino a header... keeper has to dive to get it and turns it behind for a corner. They clear the corner, but we control and stay pushed up. Eventually though they intercept a through ball attempt and clear.

37': Throwin in their end on the right side, thrown to Constantino who is a ways out, he plays it forward to Hutchinson at the edge of the area, backwards to Khan, right back ahead for Hutchinson and he's free in the area now! He makes a move on the keeper, holding the ball forever given how crowded the penalty area is, then sticks it in the net!! 2-0

HALF: We've done a great job here, totally different than the team that struggled in our last what, 5 matches in a row? We just need to keep it up for the second half. We've taken 6 shots, 4 on target. They have 5 shots, none on target, I am not sure I saw a single one in a highlight. Darcy in for Constantino, Smith in for Mills at the half.

56': Highlight opens with Khan out left 30 yards from goal, he runs down the left, dodges a tackle, near the end line, moves towards the penalty are, dodges another tackle... tries a shot from very close range but at a very very tough angle, saved.

72': midfielder Sandro a yellow.

83': Aldrovandi a yellow.

We kill off the second half superbly well, only seeing a few highlights at all, and only watching them shoot twice.

Ipswich 2 : 0 Aston Villa

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.3)
Goals: Constantino (7.4), Hutchinson (7.7)
Assists: Khan 2
Notables: Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.4), Mattle (7.2), Adagsmar (7.3)

Darcy with a 5.9 in the second half.

-- This win comes along with a Chelsea 1:0 win over Arsenal, and 9 matches into the season we take over 1st place by 1 point. We're 7-1-1, Arsenal 7-0-2

Radii · 10-10-2011, 12:47 AM

October 26rd, 2023

Euro Cup Group L

NEC Nijmegen (7th, Eredivisie) @ Ipswich (1st, EPL)

Eredivisie is the top dutch league, dominated by Feyenoord and Ajax. NEC isn't one of their top sides and we go into this one 4:6 favorites, NEC are 7:2. With a win here we'd be 2-0-1 at the midpoint of group play and would be in really strong shape.

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

They have a 21 y/o Brazilian ST Lailton who is scoring like crazy for them in league play and continental play so far, he's our main concern. I start what I believe to be my strongest possible lineup right now. Donnelly/Mills still feels like my most reliable midfield, I need to see more from Jean (and he does have that language barrier). He's available as a sub though. One good match with the senior team fixes Khan's morale and I'm happy to get him in here right away.

Standard mindset.

7': We have it deep in their end already, Mills a short pass to Gordon, a short pass to Donnelly, he's 20ish yards out, runs into the area, by one man, gets a clear cut chance and puts it by the keeper!! 1-0

10': Gordon a free kick from ~28 yards out, its a rocket, by the wall, but off the right post, so close!

18': We allow a corner, but head it away cleanly.

26': Yellow for Aldrovandi. One of their mids has a yellow too. Donnelly usually picks his up in the first 15 minutes of the second half, so be on the lookout for that.

36': We earn a corner, taken to the near post, they head it across the area but not strong enough to get it to safety... Aldrovandi is there on the other side of the 6 yard box, gets his head to it and drives it home!! 2-0

HALF: We are playing a fine match today and as long as we don't let up will take a commanding hold on 2nd in the group. we have 5 shots, 2 on target for the 2 goals. They haven't taken a shot yet.

53': Free kick 25 yards out, Gordon hits it into the wall, we recover and end up earning a corner. Gordon with the corner, but they head that out. We recover and keep pressing, they clear.

56': We get a second corner, taken again to the near post, Bartlett heads it... its off the defender on the line, bounces through to the other side of the 6 yard box, Aldrovandi is there and drills it into the net!!! 3-0

63': LOLZ. My timing was a little off, I said first 15 minutes of the second half. Its 18 minutes in when Donnelly gets a yellow card.

70': Jean in for Donnelly, Hughes in for Kirkland, Darcy in for Khan. We got this!

72': Right, 2 minutes after making my subs, an injury. Darcy goes down on a corner kick and must immediately leave the match. 4-4-1 the rest of the way.

We end it easily even a man down, almost scoring a couple times more and only allowing 1 shot all match.

Ipswich 3 : 0 NEC

Man of the Match: Carlos Aldrovandi (9.1)
Goals: Aldrovandi 2, Donnelly (7.9)
Assists: Gordon 2 (8.1)
Notables: Heywood (7.4), Kirkland (7.2), Bartlett (7.8), Crespo (7.1)

Great win!

-- We receive $201,000 for the victory.

Injury Update

ST Eoin Darcy is out 3 weeks with a pulled hamstring he suffered today.

-- Roma crushed AEK 4-0 as expected. That AEK/NEC draw a couple weeks ago was the best thing that could have happened to us, here's the table halfway through group play:

Roma - 3-0-0 - 12 for - 0 against - +12 - 9 pts
Ipswich - 2-0-1 - 5 for - 4 against - +1 - 6 pts
AEK - 0-1-2 - 0 for - 6 against - -6 - 1 point
NEC - 0-1-2 - 0 for - 7 against - -7 - 1 point

We play @ NEC, @ Roma, vs AEK. We still have to execute but we are heavy heavy favorites to advance out of the group along with Roma now.

@NEC on November 9th. If we win that and Roma beats AEK, we will mathematically clinch advancement.

Man Utd (who lost early in the Champions League) and Man City are both winning their groups easily.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 01:26 AM

November Update

-- We play on the 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 25th. The 9th is our Euro Cup match against NEC. The rest of it is a month of hell. Newcastle, Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea. AYUP.

-- Two of our U18's are mentioned as training well. One is our super promising 17 y/o GK Rob Lines. his Strength (9), Pace (8), Agility (9) go up, this is in addition to basically every goalkeeping rating of his going up 1 during early training in July/August. "decent potential" DR Felix Gabriel is also noted for tactical improvements, though all I see is a strength increase.

-- I'm 3rd in Manager of the Month Voting for October.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing MR Daryl Hutchinson is the highlight (he's had a couple very strong matches). Our league cup defeat is the lowlight.

-- We made a profit of $369k last month. that's with two inflated gate receipts from the Euro Cup. Even though we're not raking in the prize money from Group Play just the few home games we get are making a noteworthy difference.

-- Conor Clifford is injured on November 4th, a damaged heel coming down from a header, but he'll be back in a week.

-- Arsenal played two matches in the week+ we had off here, tying Blackburn and losing to Sheffield Utd. We've now got 2 less matches than them and a few other teams. We're in 3rd as a result, but with the same number of points as both Sheffield Utd and Arsenal, just a slightly worse goal differential. If we can navigate our difficult schedule well this month we could be in amazing shape.

November 6th, 2023

Newcastle(2-2-6, 18th) @ Ipswich(7-1-1, 3rd)

Newcastle have seriously fallen all of a sudden. We're 1:2 favorites today, they are 9:2 to win, huge odds there. We're 7-0-8 lifetime against Newcastle and we did win all 3 meetings last year (including league cup quarters). We've 5-0-2 in our 3 seasons since we promoted back up against them.

We are once again on TV in Prime Time. And once again we play in the Euro Cup in 3 days.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Welsh/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Hutchinson
F: Kershaw/Constantino

With us going again in 3 days I change out the whole midfield, Jean and Smith at MC with the obvious backups out wide. Welsh gets his first start of the year at DC and Kershaw gives Khan the day off. Standard mindset with a slightly high D Line.

7': First highlight all we see is a pass to ST Joel, he turns and shoots from 25 yards out, Capitani dives, gets a hand to the ball but can't push it away, its through and into the back of the net. Ugh. 0-1

13': Wow. From bad to Worse. Constantino is hurt and must be taken out of the match immediately. Khan is in.

25': Smith with a nice pass forward to Adagsmar but a shot from 18 yards out is well off the mark.

31': Welsh a yellow.

HALF: We see a couple corners and thats it before the half. We've got 5 shots but just 2 on target and 3 from long range. They've only been allowed 3 shots, and one was just a great long range strike. We'll try to attack this half, no subs yet.

60': Hutchinson does a great job to steal a ball right as they start to try to turn from deefnse to attack, a pass ahead to Kershaw, a quick ball into the area for Khan, he's got a good look, but saved... rebound falls back to Khan, but his shot is wide.

uh yeah that's it. We don't get another highlight until the 93rd minute when they earn a corner and its all over.

Ipswich 0 : 1 Newcastle

Adagsmar 7.1, Smith 7.2, no one is below 6.5 (that's Jean who is not showing me $23M in value so far!). Just a rough day and with DArcy and Bryan already out, Constantino going down really really limits us.

The injury gods continue to be firmly on our side when it comes to Constantino. He's out for 4-5 days.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 01:49 AM

-- Roma plays the day before we do. They beat AEK 3:0. Roma have officially clinched a spot in the knockout rounds. If we win our match we will do the same.

November 9th, 2023

Euro Cup Group L

Ipswich(2-0-1, 2nd) @ NEC(0-1-2, 3rd)

Those standings are in the group. Its a lot different than at home, we're only 5:4 favorites here today. And we've got Constantino out.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson
DM: Jean
MC: Donnelly/Mills
AM: Hughes/Gordon
F: Khan

I'm not starting Kershaw today. I will start Jean at DMC though, and Hughes gets his first start of the year since he can play AML and Crespo can't. Donnelly/Mills as the old standard in the middle. Standard mindset on the road.

17': We earn a clear cut chance as a number of passes lead to Jackson making a deep run down the right side, crossing to the far end of the 6 yard box, and getting Hughes a header... but he can't put it on target.

24': Donnelly wins a ball in their end but a poor clear gives it right back, one pass later, there's a through ball and a shot by ST Soltani, and its by Capitani and in. Crap. 0-1

We only see one more highlight all half and its of them attacking, Aldrovandi has to make a strong tackle to finally win it away as they spend forever looking for an opening in the defense.

HALF: We end up with 7 shots but I only see a couple of them early on. 4 are from long range and only 3 are on target. They shoot twice with the clear cut chance and goal in the mix. I egg the team on and am going to attack this half.

48': Yellow for Donnelly.

66': Jean with a run up the middle and a shot from 20 yards out, just high. Time's ticking...

71': Smith in for Mills, Mattle in for Bartlett.

73': They blast a shot from 20 yards out, Capitani has to make a diving save, but we win the corner easily.

75': Hutchinson in for a tiring Neil Gordon too.

86': Khan doesn't seem to know how to play up front by himself, a couple times I've seen him receive a pass in a semi-dangerous spot and turn away and look for a pass instead of try to make amove. Here he runs wide, passes to Jean who shoots from range but has it saved.

And that's it. We've still got a home match with AEK left but damn it would have been nice to get the pressure off early.

NEC 1 : 0 Ipswich

Their keeper is man of the match though to be honest we didn't get nearly the pressure on him we should have.

Capitani put up an 8.0, Kirkland 7.1, Aldrovandi 7.0 and Hughes a 7.2 today. We just couldn't get a damn goal. Khan only shot once and I blame him as much as anyone. I won't put him in a spot like that ever again, I'd run the 4-4-2 and start Kershaw with him if I had to do it over again.

That leaves us with 6 points in 4 matches and NEC with 4 points in 4 matches. We assume that if we beat AEK, Roma will take care of NEC for us, but we can't really be 100% confident that roma will give a shit anymore now that they've qualified. We play AEK on December 7th. By then (assuming no other injuries) Constantino, Bryan and Darcy will all be healthy again.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 11:32 AM

-- Chris Bryan resumes full training. He's missed the last 3 months though and we can't expect him to be available for league play for at least a couple weeks. He'll join

up with the reserves and get back into practice.

November 12th, 2023

Ipswich(7-1-2, 3rd) @ Arsenal(7-1-3, 2nd)

They've still got one match played on us, but we're shorthanded with Constantino still hurt and Arsenal are 4:6 favorites at their place. We're 2-1-9 lifetime against arsenal. Last year we beat them at home for our first ever win and then lost twice, at their house in league play and in the FA Cup Semis in Wembley.

This is our fourth match in a row on TV, and once again we're on in prime time.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Bejaoui/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Kershaw

Their two scoring stars remain the same, Hans Nooij leads them with 6 league goals and Bugra Yildirim has 4.

Bejaoui gets a start today, I've used him less b/c he's been playing more internationally than anyone else (for Tunisia in the African Cup of Nations qualifiers). Constantino will be ready to go against Man City in a few days but not available today.

We'll defend today.

2': We kick off but give the ball away, they counter attack hard, Nooij is 25 yards out, puts a through ball into the area and new signing Colin Meade is there for his first ever Arsenal goal. 0-1

14': They attack again, a pass to Nooij 20 yards out, Aldrovandi tries to intercept it but fails, allowing Nooij to get a solid look and he buries the shot from there. 0-2

38': We get a bit of a counter attack ourselves, Khan ends up pushing it ahead to Kershaw who finds himself with a clear cut chance in the right side of the area... but the keeper saves it.

HALF: We just don't' have it here. They have 9 shots, 5 on target, we have 3 shots, one on target. possession is about even but they are winning 82% of hteir tackles and 80% of their headers to 54% and 31% for us. they control everything right now. We have had occasional success saying "screw it, attack" and catching teams complacent at this point, and we'll try to do that, but my confidence with Khan/Kerhsaw as my striker combo today is nil.

59': Hutchinson in for Gordon, Gordon got a bit of an injury earlier, no concerns there but no point in risking him right now.

79': They have a throwin, a quick pass to Dalla Valle (like Colin Meade this is another name we recognize but not from Arsenal, just like the real world so much of the talent rises up to Man U/Arsenal/Chelsea/Man City eventually in England). He shoots from 20 yards out and scores. 0-3

We'll look to our rematch at home later in the year.

Arsenal 3 : 0 Ipswich

Capitani 5.7, Jackson 5.5, Bejaoui 5.8, Kershaw 5.4.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 12:40 PM

-- I think we were scheduled to play Man City in August. The match is rescheduled for the 4th time, this time due to international callups. That gives us a solid 2 weeks off for Constantino, Bryan and Darcy all to get back into playing shape hopefully.

-- England's U21 team crushed the Faroe Islands 5:0. Anthony Heywood put up an 8.2 there, Chris Bryan scored a goal and got a half in before being subbed and Michael Rogers was the starting GK, getting the shutout. Mainly I'm really pleased to see Chris Bryan get a goal and 45 minutes of play time to help with his fitness.

-- Switzerland beats Scotland 1:0 in the Euro Championship playoff first leg. Donnelly and Welsh play in that one, Welsh 7.0, Donnelly 6.6, both played all 90 minutes.

-- Michele Capitani starts in goal for England!!! Its just a friendly, England crushes Australia 5:1. Capitani plays 75 minutes and has a 7.3 rating. Stuart Kirkland plays 67 minutes and has a 7.4 rating. "Newly capped England goalkeeper Michele Capitani has revealed how proud he is to make his first appearance for his country." Woohoo!

-- World Cup Qualifying has begun in South America, and our midfielder Jean played 20 minutes as a sub in a 4:0 Brazil win over Ecuador.

-- Scotland ties Switzerland 1:1 in the second leg of the Euro Championship Qualifying playoffs, Scotland loses 2:1 aggregate and is out. But the exciting thing is that James Welsh scored for Scotland, his first international goal.

November 25th, 2023

Chelsea(5-4-3, 7th) @ Ipswich(7-1-3, 3rd)

We started so strongly that we can lose 2 in a row and still be in 3rd here. Chelsea are 4:5 favorites to win at Portman Road today but we hope to turn things around against them today. We've done well against Chelsea, 3-4-6 lifetime. In 4 matches last year (league cup 2 leg semifinal) we went 1-2-1, and we beat them in those semifinals.

GK: Capitani
D: Hughes/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Clifford/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Khan's morale is poor again, so I go ahead and start Darcy/Constantino today. Cliford/Mills since Donnelly played twice for Scotland in the last week. Chelsea is running a 4-2-3-1, I think that's new for them. Balotelli AML, Canales AMC, 21 y/o ST David Thomas up front. He hasn't scored yet this year, he got 9 goals last year.

Counter attack today to start.

9': We have a corner, Gordon sends it towards the far post, Aldrovandi wins the header... and its a powerful strike, perfectly placed in the upper right corner, goal!!! 1-0

11': Jackson a yellow in our offensive end.

20': Hughes loses the ball in a bad spot in midfield, but we recover and win it back as they try to counter. Awful play from Hughes though.

35': Free kick near midfield, we build up on offense but Constantino loses possession before he can shoot. They counter and end up with a cross and header that is dangerous but off target.

HALF: Outside of our one great corner, its been even and pretty boring. We have 5 shots, 3 are on target but 4 from long range. They shoot 6 times, all off target, and 4 from long range. I tell our guys to try harder to get the ball in the box before shooting. Otherwise no changes for now.

48': Defender Kalashnikov a yellow for them.

58': Free kick in our end, Capitani sends it long, they win a header and try to atack quickly, Balotelli gets by Bartlett and has a great look just inside the area, but Capitani saves it.. rebound falls to David Thomas.. he shoots but right at Capitani, saved again! Rebound to Balotelli... another shot... right at Capitani and he holds it. WHEW. Only the second shot there was a clear cut chance and the shots were not that well placed, but two of them had some serious pace on them and for Capitani just to stay on his feet through all those and keep reacting was brilliant.

58': Darcy a yellow.

66': Gordon a free kick pretty far out and to the right, just inside midfield. He plays a low, hard cross towards the area, Darcy gets his head to it, but its just high. That had a ton of power on it and if it was on target the keeper wouldn't have had any time to react I don't think.

67': Donnelly in for Darcy, Clifford DMC, Donnelly MC, 4-1-4-1 the rest of the way.

We kill 20 minutes off the clock, waste a lot more time with 2 corners and a free kick in their end, they get one last chance on offense but Thomas is offside as a cross comes in (we headed it away anyway). And that's it!

Ipswich 1 : 0 Chelsea

We continue to have Chelsea's number, and get a big win here after 3 straight losses (2 league/1 euro cup).

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.4)
Goal: Aldrovandi (8.3)
Assist: Gordon
Notables: Jackson (7.3), Hughes (7.1), Bartlett (7.0)

6.7-6.9 ratings for the midfield and offense, but the defense was strong here. Good win!

Another sellout today. Our average attendance is higher than our capacity last season. We're at 36,444 fans per match this season!

We're at the 1/3 mark of the season, lets check the standings, no one is running away with the league so far.

Arsenal have 13 matches played, some others at 12 (including us) or 11. 13 unless otherwise noted.

1. Arsenal - 26 pts
2. Ipswich - 25 pts (1 less played)
3. Sheffield Utd - 23 pts
4. Everton - 23 pts (1 less played)
5. Blackburn - 22 pts
6. Man City - 21 pts (2 less played)
7. Man Utd - 21 pts (1 less played)
8. Tottenaham - 20 pts
9. Chelsea - 19 pts
10. Nottingham Forest - 19 pts
11. Southampton - 18 pts (1 less played)
12. Aston Villa - 18 pts (1 less played)
13. Liverpool - 16 pts (1 less played)
14. Newcastle - 14 pts (1 less played)
15. Sunderland - 13 pts
16. Huddersfield - 13 pts
17. Birstol City - 10 pts (1 less played)
-----------------------------------------
18. West Brom - 9 pts
19. Cardiff - 8 pts
20. Exeter - 7 pts

Still just 1 point out of first and a game in hand on Arsenal, looking great! Everton and Blackburn are the big early surprises and we'll see if either one of them can challenge for a top 7 spot long term. When a Man U, tottenham, or Chelsea are hanging around the bottom half of the top 10 early on they usually rise up strongly at some point.

Alf · 10-10-2011, 01:10 PM

You definitely have Chelsea's number. No news on the new ownership and your status at the head of Ipswich ?

Edit : I missed out that the takeover failed

Radii · 10-10-2011, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alf

Edit : I missed out that the takeover failed

Nothing new since then, it seems like something will eventually happen but that it'll drag out for awhile.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 01:50 PM

-- Aldrovandi is named to the EPL team of the week.

December Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 21st, 26th, and 30th. 7th is our critical matchup with AEK in the Euro Cup. 21st is our rematch with Roma which we pray will be completely meaningless as both teams will have advanced already. If not we're in trouble. The league schedule isn't horrible, except for the fact that 5 of our 6 matches are on the road. That's pretty damn horrible.

-- The board is delighted with my leadership. Our EPL play is the highlight and our league cup loss is the lowlight.

-- We lost $1.83M last month with gate receipts way down. We get a Euro Cup home match this month so things will be a little better.

December 2nd, 2023

Ipswich(8-1-3, 2nd) @ Blackburn (7-1-5, 7th)

We're 4-2-4 lifetime against blackburn, but the last 3 seasons we've taken things over a bit going 4-1-1 against them. 1-1-1 on the road and undefeated at home. Blackburn have not had a start like this though.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

Chris Bryan gets into the lineup for the first time since August today, paired with Khan who can score as well (though he hasn't yet this season in league play). Craig Smith gets a start, and I start Adagsmar today since he's still suspended for the Euro Cup, so there's no reason at all to consider playing Crespo.

Standard mindset, slightly high line/narrow play based on coaches recommendations.

Its raining pretty hard today.

12': Mattle with a yellow.

22': Goal kick for us, that starts the offense going, after a couple tackles and back and forth play the ball goes to Khan, he shows great control getting into the area, cutting right and finding a shot out of nowhere. Its saved by the keeper but the rebound falls to Chris Bryan who blasts it into the net! 1-0

34': Yellow for midfielder Davi.

38': they earn a corner, its taken to the near post and they win a header and have a really great look, Capitani dives as the ball heads far post... and he is able to push it away. He laid out completely for that one and we're lucky to clear it b/c there would be no getting up to stop another shot if they got to it first. Whew!

HALF: Each team shoots 7 times, they put 3 on target, we put 2 on target. Each team had 1 clear cut chance, we just converted ours. We're not passing particularly well, just 66% to their 78%. We are tackling well and winning more than our share of balls in the air though. We'll drop to a counter attacking strategy for the second half to try to limit their chances since we're on the road.

46': So much for limiting chances. We kick off but they charge and win the ball right away in our end. A few passes later and there's a shot from midfielder McCarthy from 25 yards out and its a great strike, bending into the right side of the net, no chance to stop it.

49': Donnelly a yellow.

51': They get their second clear cut chance here with a through ball into the right side of the area, Kirkland is beaten. Shot goes near post, but Capitani does a great job to get to it and turn it aside.

62': Yellow for Smith.

69': Yellow for Gordon. Back to a standard mindset.

73': Mills in for Smith, Hutchinson in for Gordon, both are tired.

76': Constantino in for an Exhausted Bryan.

81': Corner for us, taken to the far post and Gordon and Aldrovandi have something special going here, Aldrovandi blasts a header into the net!! We have always really sucked at corner kicks but Aldrovandi has scored a number of goals off them for us this year. 2-1

92': Long ball forward for them as they try to get the late tying goal. Its bouncing towards the area, Capitani has come out for it, but its slowed in the rain and doesn't get into the penalty area very quickly. They have a striker charging forward. Capitani ends up leaving the penalty area and tries a diving header to push it over to one of our defenders. Their striker's pressure pays off, he is first to the very very poor header and puts the ball into the net to tie it up. A horrible error for Capitani to close out the match. 2-2

Blackburn 2 : 2 Ipswich

One of their goalscorers is man of the match. It would have been Capitani if not for that last goal, he was up around an 8.3 or so.

Goals: Aldrovandi (8.1), Bryan (6.9)
Assists: Khan (6.6), Gordon (6.8)
Notables: Capitani (7.5)

Otmar Mattle with a 5.6, that came at the very end too.

In the end its still a draw on the road against a top 7 team but that one feels pretty bad, we had it completely wrapped up and had a huge mistake give it away in the final minute of added time.

BYU 14 · 10-10-2011, 02:34 PM

I hope the takeover falls flat as it seems you are on the verge of greatness with this side and it would suck to be relieved of your job at this point.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 02:35 PM

-- Aldrovandi is named to the EPL Team of the Week.

FA Cup 3rd Round Draw

We are going to be on the road but against Championship side Fulham. Similar to our League Cup start vs Hull but with money to be had each round and a generally more prestigious tournament we'll take this one more seriously from the outset.

-- The FA Cup causes our first match against Man City to be moved back *again*. Its now been pushed back to January 24th. Our rematch with them is March 2nd. Lets see if both squads can have enough success to start bumping them both!

December 7th, 2023

Euro Cup Group L

AEK(0-1-3, 4th) @ Ipswich (2-0-2, 2nd)

We need to win here today, badly. If we don't we either have to beat Roma or pray for a tie between the other two in the last match. I'd really rather just win here. If we win and Roma wins, we'd clinch advancement.

We're 4:5 favorites today and should feel pretty good, we beat AEK 2:0 at their house earlier in the season.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mils/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Khan/Constantino up front, same midfield I've used for most of our Euro Cup matches I believe, and Bartlett/Aldrovandi has been my DC's of choice for the cup when possible.

They are running a 4-1-4-1 with their star ST Michal Hruby up front. He's got 8 goals in 10 league matches for them. He was hurt the first time we played.

Standard mindset for us today.

13': Mills is hurt. He can stay in and will for now.

16': Defender Mijalovic with a yellow for them.

31': Change to a control strategy to try to find some openings in their defensive formation.

31': Defender Mijalovic with his second yellow, he's sent off and we have a man advantage the rest of the way!!

33': Free kick 20 yards out, Gordon strikes it into the wall and it goes behind. Corner is cleared.

42': Some nifty passing, Gordon plays it across the pitch to Kirkland, he centers it quickly for Mills and we seem to catch their defense slightly off guard. Mills finds a little opening and gets it to Constantino, one step, clear cut chance and he buries a shot near post!! 1-0

HALF: We control 62% of the possession and end up with 8 shots, just 2 on target and I don't see many of them in highlights. They shoot twice, both off target. Hopefully with the man advantage we just keep pressing and get a second goal here. Roma leads NEC at the half, if these results stay the same we advance.

60': Corner for us, taken short to Bartlett, he tries to turn by his defender, he gets a shot but its not a good one, way off target.

64': Donnelly hits Constantino for an easy goal, but he's a mile offsides. The commentary begins to note that this would be his 200th Ipswich goal, so we'll look forward to that when it happens for real.

73': Clifford in for Khan and he moves back to DMC. Jean in for the injured Mills.

We end up controlling most of the possession after the substitution and formation change and easily put this away.

Ipswich 1 : 0 AEK

Man of the Match: Steven Mills (7.9)
Goal: Constantino (7.4)
Assist: Mills
Notables: Heywood (7.2), Kirkland (7.3), Bartlett (7.1), Crespo (7.2)

Gordon with a 6.5 rating today, he struggled a bit when no one else did, but it doesn't matter, huge win!

-- We receive $201,000 for the win.

-- Roma beats NEC 2:0.

Ipswich Qualify for First Knockout Round

The Roma win helps us to mathematically clinch advancement out of the group stage of the Euro Cup!!

-- Wow, I hadn't really checked expectations or anything, the board expects us to make the Second Knockout Round. It seems like there are some really strong teams we could potentially draw in the first round, but ok!

The Group Standings right now:

Roma - 5-0-0 - 15 pts
Ipswich - 3-0-2 - 9 pts
NEC - 1-1-3 - 4 pts
AEK - 0-1-4 - 1 pt

With just 1 match to go we're through. I think my goal against Roma should be to score a goal. They have 17 goals and haven't allowed a single one in 5 matches.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 05:13 PM

-- These Euro Matches always help with the cash, we brought $2.1 Million in from that match against AEK. I wonder if we can break more gate receipts records in the knockout rounds.

December 10th, 2023

Sheffield Utd(7-5-2, 2nd) @ Ipswich(8-2-3, 3rd)

Its our only home league match this month and its a big one. We have one less match played than Arsenal and Sheffield Utd, we're tied in points with Sheffield and 3 behind Arsenal. The top 10 is still quite crowded as well, we're only 5 points ahead of 12th place. We are slim 5:4 favorites today, they're 7:4 to get a win at Portman Road.

We're on TV again today, this time in the afternoon.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mils/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Sheffield Utd's Luca Vanelli has been a leading scorer in the EPL for awhile now, scoring between 12-21 league goals each of the last 6 years. This year he's off to a torrid start with 9 goals in 13 matches.

We make a few changes today, Adagsmar and Jean are in, Darcy is up front instead of Khan. Standard mindset today at home.

3': Each team with an early long range shot that is pretty close to the target but wide.

14': Vanelli with a yellow for them.

26': Free kick from 28ish yards out for them, de Konig takes it, bends it around the wall, Capitani dives for it, gets a hand to it but can't push it away, its through and into the upper left corner of the net. Beautiful shot there. 0-1

30': Aldrovandi wins a ball deep in our end and sends it long to Constantino, he plays a give and go with Darcy and ends up in the right side of the area with a shot... its saved though and the corner goes nowhere.

40': "work ball into box" - Each team has 7 shots and each team has 6 from long range.

45': They have a corner, taken to the near post, headed but just to the other side of the area, their star Vanelli is there and drills it into the net... 0-2

HALF: We have 7 shots to their 8, but 6 of ours are long range and only 2 on target at all. We're just playing extremely poorly here. We'll open up and attack this half and see if it helps. Jackson in for Heywood who was the worst of our poor players that half.

48': Throwin for us in their end, a pass to Jean, to Mills, Mills puts it into the area and Adagsmar makes a great run to get to it, its a clear cut chance... but saved and turned back for a corner, which we can't score on.

53': More passing around the midfield for us, a ball to Darcy in between two of hteir defenders, eh's got a clear cut chance... but saved again.

55': Mills ahead to Constantino after another buildup for us, our 3rd clear cut chance of the last 10 minutes... and he is wide open at the penalty spot but shoots right at the keeper. Saved.

64': Jean a yellow.

75': Bejaoui in for Jean.

After that flurry of chances early in the half Sheffield Utd settles in on defense and we just cannot get anything going.

Ipswich 0 : 2 Sheffield Utd

Their keeper is man of the match for stopping 3 clear cut chances.

Heywood 5.6, Jean 5.6 today, no one was good. Jean is really struggling for us, maybe we should stick to the free players :P

We remain in 3rd with 26 points. Incredibly, Liverpool in 14th place have 20 points right now. Arsenal pull slightly ahead for the first time here following a 5:0 win over West Brom.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 05:35 PM

December 13th, 2023

Ipswich(8-2-4, 4th) @ Southampton (6-4-5, 10th)

Southampton are even money favorites today against us. We're 11:5 to win. We're 4-3-4 lifetime against these guys. We're 3-0-1 against them in the last two seasons.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Smith/Mils/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

I really want Darcy/Constantino to work (and thus Khan/Bryan as my other striker pairing) in most situations so I force that again today. Craig Smith starts for Mills, Mattle starts for Bartlett and otherwise we make no changes today. We play again in 3 more days against Exeter and will likely make tons of changes there.

Standard mindset on the road today.

11': Buildup down the middle for Ipswich, Darcy has it out right, passes to Smith, Smith puts it into the area, Darcy runs onto it perfectly, blasts it with his first touch and beats the keeper! Perfect start. 1-0

17': They have a run down the left, cross into the 6 yard box and a header redirecting the ball towards goal, Capitani makes a quick save though and we clear the corner.

20': Darcy with a long shot, high and a poor decision I think, we could have done more there and Darcy ended our attack early with a poor shot.

31': Mattle is hurt, he can stay in for now.

41': Free kick about 20 yards out near the right corner of the penalty area. He shoots from there, bending around the right side of the wall and into the net, a great free kick from Gordon!! 2-0

HALF: Southampton shoots 7 times, 4 on target. We only manage 3 shots all half but make two of them count big time. Neither team has a single clear cut chance. I bring Bejaoui in for Mills and Bartlett in for Mattle at the half. We change to a counterattacking mindset.

60': They are attacking hard, most of their team is forward, the highlight opens as they try to reset their offense, but Bejaoui makes a great steal and sends the ball long to Constantino, he makes a run down the right side, lobs a ball into the 6 yard box, their keeper gets his hands to it but just punches it away and not very far... Adagsmar follows up and drills a shot into the net! 3-0

62': We head a cross out and counter attack, a ball is played to Darcy, Darcy with a long pass ahead to Constantino, he's got one man to beat, and he does beautifully, cutting right as he enters the area and leaving his man in his dust. He pulls up at the penalty spot and drills a shot by the keeper! 4-0

72': Their star ST Cavalleri makes us look really bad, we pass it all the way back to our defense, Bartlett has it at their penalty area to reset our offense, we've had possession here it appears, everyone else is forward... Cavalleri attacks, takes the ball away from Barltett and takes a step into the area and shoots and scores. 4-1

91': Ugh, Neil Gordon is hurt in the final minute of the match.

92': Bejaoui gives the ball away in midfield and they get a second goal back, a pass ahead to backup ST Juarez, he's behind Aldrovandi and gets a clear cut chance and finishes. 4-2

Southampton 2 : 4 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.9)
Goals: Constantino, Darcy (8.8), Gordon (8.3), Adagsmar (7.7)
Assists: Darcy 2, Constantino, Smith (7.6)
Notables: Capitani (7.7)

Bartlett and Bejaoui come in at the half and each of them give away one of the two late goals. That results in a 5.6 and 5.4 for them.

Neither Mattle or Gordon have a long term injury after the match today.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 05:58 PM

December 16th, 2023

Ipswich(9-2-4, 3rd) @ Exeter(1-4-10, 20th)

We're big 4:5 road favorites against Exeter. They fought well to get to 14th last year in their first year in the EPL but aren't able to do much of anything this year.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Welsh/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Jean/Hutchinson
F: Khan/Bryan

Some changes today after 2 matches on 3 days rest. Mattle/Welsh at DC, Jackson at DR, Clifford/Jean/Hutchinson in the midfield are new today. And Khan/Bryan up front.

Exeter are running a 3-4-3 today. Standard mindset today.

13': They put 3 early shots on target but Capitani makes solid saves.

36': Couple highlights for us but 3 shots off target so far.

49': Jackson with a yellow.

HALF: They shoot 7 times, putting 3 shots on target. We have 3 shots, all off target. We have 54% of the possession but just can't get anything to connect. We'll try to push and attack more in the second half.

53': Clifford gets a shot after a throwin, its our first on target of the match but saved easily.

62': Clifford to Bryan, he turns by a defender and gets a clear cut chance... but saved.

74': Hughes in for Adagsmar, Smith in for Jean

77': Throwin in their end, taken by Mattle, throwin into the area for Hutchinson, he gets a couple steps closer, shoots near post... the keeper dives, gets a hand to it but can't save it, its by and into the right side of the net! 1-0

88': Bryan a yellow.

91': Clifford a yellow.

We hang on for a close win on the road.

Exeter 0 : 1 Ipswich

Its not a great performance but we get the win we need.

Man of the Match: Daryl Hutchinson (7.9)
Goal: Hutchinson
Assist: Mattle (7.8)
Notables: Jackson (7.2), Kirkland (7.1)

Everyone else is 6.8-6.9. Khan was nearly nonexistent today. Again Jean struggles.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 07:14 PM

-- I offer Mark O'Brien to other clubs at $1.3M and get lots of offers.

-- I go ahead and offer Gordon Donnelly away at more reasonable rates. I'm sad to do this but another news item comes over about how he hopes to leave. He's valued at $6.75M. Last time he got upset I offered him out at $20M. I drop the request to $13.5M and get an offer from Newcastle and accept it. I don't want him to go but he's permanently unhappy at this point.

-- Gordon Donnelly agrees to a deal with Newcastle and we will give him a proper sendoff of January 1st. This is easily the most sad I've been to see someone go, but a year and a half of seeing the UNHAPPY tag next to his name is enough. I do find it amusing that he wants a new challenge at a better club and leaves the up and coming Ipswich for the barely avoiding relegation Newcastle. We'll make $13.5M on this deal and will have some money to spend in January if we choose to do so.

-- Mark O'Brien quickly agrees to a deal with Exeter. I'll make $1.3M with that.

December 21st, 2023

Euro Cup Group L

Ipswich (3-0-2, 2nd) @ Roma (5-0-0, 1st)

Roma are even money favorites today. They killed us 4:0 at our place back in October and no matter what happens here they win the group and we finish 2nd.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Welsh/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mills/Hutchinson
F: Khan/Constantino

Khan/Constantino come out for Roma. Clifford/Mills in the midfield. We'll try to counter attack.

36': We has seen tons of long shots and nothing exciting at all, here Hutchinson passes to Constantino, he makes a turn by his man, gets into the area and has a clear cut chance... but puts his shot wide.

38': I guess that woke them up. Their star ST Wright is 25 yards out, beats Mills and before a defender picks him up he shoots from long range and sends a rocket of a shot into the right side of the net. 0-1

HALF: Roma shoots 10 times to our 8. They shoot 7 times from long range but their strikers are world class and that's a serious threat much of the time anyway. Still, its been a fairly even match and we really should have a goal here from Constantino. We'd love to catch them in the second half just because.

50': Welsh with a yellow.

56': Mills with a pass into the right side of the area for Constantino, he's got our second clear cut chance and once again badly misses the mark. I don't think he's ever really been nervous before, but these shots look that way.

70': Wright burns Welsh to get into the area, their first clear cut chance, and Capitani with a brilliant stop.

73': Darcy in for Khan, Smith and Bejaoui in for Mills and Cliford, fresh legs everywhere to attack the final 20 minutes.

Ah well, nothing doing.

Roma 1 : 0 Ipswich

Capitani is great, we faced a LOT of shots (22), and about half were on target. Capitani stopped a clear cut chance from one of the best strikers in the world and only allowed 1 goal. Kirkland gives us a 7.0 today. Most of the team is 6.7-6.9, Clifford and Constantino 6.5's.

While I really wanted to get a goal against theses guys, nothing changed today. We still advance to the knockout rounds.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 07:27 PM

Euro Cup 1st Knockout Round Draw

32 teams to be drawn, so it appears to be the 24 1st/2nd place group finishers in the Euro Cup and the 8 teams that finished in 3rd in their groups in the Champions League. So if you finish 4th in your champions league group you're out. I could be missing a detail there but that's what its looking like.

Ipswich will be playing Real Murcia out of Spain's La Liga. They are currently 6th in the spanish league, they finished 4th 3 of the last 4 years. They made the Champions League but lost the final playoff before the group stage. We are actually a bit better off than them financially, we're valued at $130 Million to their $85 Million. Their top player makes $76,000/wk, Mills and Aldrovandi make more than that for us.

Oh this is good. 34 y/o Freddy Adu is Murcia's captain. Racing in La Liga bought him from Aris in 2011 for $3.6M. Murcia bought him from Racing in 2015 for $5.5M. So Adu has spent this entire dynasty in Spain's top league. He's been amazing for Murcia, his worst season scoring 5 goals and making 6 assists and putting up a 7.26 rating. He's had an average rating above 7.5 4 times for them, once scoring 11 goals and 3 times having more than 10 assists. 5 goals/5 assists in 18 matches this year.

There were better teams we could have drawn but there were worse teams as well (Lazio and Porto, Dortmund, Monaco, Feyenoord, Stuttgart all seem more dangerous). The knockout rounds don't begin until late February so we will spend a lot of time in league play and some time in the FA Cup between now and then. This is definitely a team we can beat.

Radii · 10-10-2011, 10:47 PM

-- hahahha this is great. The second leg of Murcia/Ipswich takes place on February 29th (leap year!). This causes our March 3rd match against Man City to be re-arranged.

One step closer to closing out the season with back to back Ipswich vs Man City matches!

Euro Cup 2nd Knockout Round Draw

For whatever reason the second round is drawn as well. If we can beat Murcia, we will play either Catania in Serie A or Borussia Dortmund in the German First Division. Catania is normally a mid table finisher in Italy and doesn't have a lot of continental experience. Dortmund has finished in the top 5 in Germany 6 of the last 7 years, winning the German League once. Catania is valued at $74M, Dortmund at $324 Million. Their wages and player values don't seem too much different from ours for whatever that's worth.

Five Way Tie

-- Its Christmas day, 2023. Current standings:

1. Arsenal - 16 games played - +21 goal differential - 32 pts
2. Man City - 16 played - +16 - 32 pts
3. Sheffield Utd - 18 played - +12 - 32 pts
4. Ipswich - 16 played - +7 - 32 pts
5. Everton - 18 played - +6 - 32 pts

Liverpool is in 11th place with 26 points, 6 out of first. Some teams have two fewer matches played, its still not even the midway point of the season, but still, this is pretty crazy.

December 26th, 2023

Ipswich (10-2-4, 4th) @ West Brom(2-3-13, 20th)

We are massive 1:2 favorites today to win. West Brom are 9:2 at their place.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Crespo/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

Totally different midfield today and Khan/Bryan up front. Standard mindset on the road.

18': We allowed one shot on target that was easily saved. We've controlled everything otherwise but have 4 shots, just 1 on target.

29': Bartlett picks up an injury and is forced to leave the match immediately.. Welsh in for Bartlett.

41': Some horrible defending by our DC's leaves a giant hole open in front of the goal, a pass to midfielder Wik leads to a clear cut chance and they score easily. 0-1

41': Time to attack.

43': A quick pass ahead to Bryan, a pass ahead to Khan and he's totally lost his man, into the area, clear cut chance and a finish! Instant reply to tie it back up. 1-1

HALF: Each team ends up with 7 shots after we dominated the early game (but couldn't get an early goal). We have a 57/43 possession edge . We're winning all stat categories, we just need to finish.

65': They have a nice through ball and clear cut chance here with their ST Javier getting a step on Welsh. Capitani makes a good save to keep it level.

68': Hughes in for Crespo

83': Foul by Aldrovandi about 20 yards out. They can't do anything on the free kick.

83': Constantino in for Bryan.

88': Goal kick for Capitani, he takes it deep into the West Brom penalty area, their keeper makes a late decision to rush out, Constantino gets a step on his man, heads the ball before the keeper gets there and its by their keeper and into the net! 2-1

We hang on after that.

West Brom 1 : 2 Ipswich

Constantino comes in, goals happen. Sheesh.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (7.8)
Goals: Khan (6.9), Constantino (7.3)
Assists: Capitani (7.5), Bryan
Notables: Aldrovandi (7.0)

Everyone else is 6.8-6.9.

Injury Update

DC Neil Bartlett is out 3-4 weeks with a break in his arm after a bad fall against West Brom.

Arsenal ties, Man City and Sheffield Utd didn't play today. For this moment, Ipswich #1, Everton #2. Who would have ever guessed that even for a moment!

Radii · 10-10-2011, 11:57 PM

Transfer Out

-- DC Mark O'Brien leaves for Exeter. We make $1.3M on this transfer. We paid Wolves $9 Million for him 2 1/2 years ago. He played 51 league matches with an average rating right at 6.50. Many of my scouts still tell me he's the #1 defender on the roster, but he just never worked out for Ipswich. Best of luck at Exeter.

MC Gordon Donnelly is sold to Newcastle for $13.5 Million. We owed Arsenal $1.8 Million of that, so we keep $11.7M in the deal. Donnelly turned 29 in early August, he's still got a few years left and I'm extremely sad that they won't be with Ipswich.

Donnelly came up with Aberdeen in 2010/11 and was bought almost immediately for $575,000 by Arsenal. He played 11 matches for Aberdeen, 3 matches for Arsenal, and 22 matches for Scunthorpe while out on loan.

In the 2014/15 season, long before I took over, Ipswich purchased Donnelly for $4.5 Million. His first season was his worst, a 6.57 rating in 29 matches and just 3 assists. After that year he dominated the central midfield, a couple ratings in the 6.7's, 5 seasons above 7.0 . Our last year in the Championship Donnelly had 17 assists in 31 matches and a 7.58 rating.

In the 2020/21 season when we surprised everyone to finish 6th in the EPL Donnelly had 10 assists and a 7.16 rating. Last year when we finished 5th he had 12 assists in 26 matches and an incredible 7.44 rating.

Donnelly is the team's best all time Central Midfielder. 342 Ipswich matches, 38 goals, 81 assists and a 7.04 rating. No one else in the starting Ipswich All Time Best Eleven has that more matches played (that's only covering the duration of the dynasty of course, not the legends of Ipswich going back to the 60s).

In August 2019 Donnelly was named Ipswich's captain. He remained captain until January 2023, when the armband was removed because he had requested a transfer and made it very public that he wanted out.

The $13.5M transfer out is a new Ipswich Record. The old record was $10 Million.

Our team absolutely gets worse with Donnelly leaving. The upside is more playing time for Craig Smith and Jean (young star and guy with communication issues that hopefully just needs more time). Don't misunderstand though, if Donnelly didn't want to go I wanted him to retire here. He'll be missed.

Radii · 10-11-2011, 12:44 AM

-- The lols continue. Man City plays Reading in the League Cup Semifinals, that interferes with Man City/Ipswich. Our first game is moved back, only a few days though this time, to January 27th.

-- Matches in between Christmas and New Years knock us back out of first for now.

January Update

-- We play on the 1st, 6th, 10th, 13th, 17th, 20th, 27th, and 30th. The 27th is Man City. If we win our FA Cup Match that'll get pushed back even more

-- Eoin Darcy is singled out for training well last month. His Strength (17), Positioning (10), First touch (16), Heading (13), Creativity (12), Finishing (14), Long Shots (10) have all gone up in the last two months. A few more ratings went up in the first couple months of the season. He's improving nicely this year.

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. Our EPL performance is the highlight, the signing of Bejaoui is the lowlight.

-- We lost $1.5M last month.

January 1st, 2024

Sunderland(6-8-6, 15th) @ Ipswich (11-2-4, 4th)

We are only 6:4 favorites at home today, They're essentially even 13:8 despite struggling to much more. We've actually already played them once this season, winning 2:1 at their place. We're 3-0-6 lifetime against them but 3-0-1 in the last four.

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

Mattle in for Bartlett at DC. Smith/Mills and Bryan/Constantino today, we're pretty strong here I think at least!

Standard mindset today.

7': We're pushed forward non stop. Here they try a long ball to counter attack but we win it, a pass to Mattle at midfield, a ball ahead to Constantino and their team is just unbelievably out of position. Constantino has a trivial run into the area and clear cut chance with no defender anywhere nearby. Easy goal. 1-0

26': We have a corner, taken to the far post, Aldrovandi with the header... and it hits the crossbar and bounces nearly straight down, but stays in play and their keeper grabs it. DAmn!

27': They counter... a long ball ahead to ST Walcott, he gets into the area ahead of our defense and shoots, Capitani dives and makes a save, but there's a rebound and their other ST Edson puts it in. 1-1

36': We buildu p on offense, lots of passes waiting for an opening. There isn't really one but Mills makes it anyway, a pass into tiny space between their two DC's, Bryan breaks on it perfectly before the defenders have any idea what's happening, Bryan with a clear cut chance and our second goal! 2-1

38': They attack right away, a pass into the area and their right midfielder Sa beats Kirkland into the area, he shoots, its their 4th clear cut chance (I missed writing up one).. Capitani dives and stops it... but lets it roll free and the ball rolls into the net. That's counted as an own goal for Capitani. 2-2

38': Screw this, we'll outscore them. Attack.

43': More buildup on offense, Mills plays a ball into he area from 35 yards out. It rolls all the way to the 6 yard box and the keeper doesn't rush out to pick it up... Constantino stays with it and puts it in with his first touch! 3-2

HALF: We somehow make it through the final 2 minutes without giving up the tying goal. We have 11 shots, 8 of them on target with 3 clear cut chances. They shoot 7 times but only get 3 on target. We lead in all categories, 55/45 possession edge, 73% tackling, 70% heading, 70% passing, even 28% crossing. Hopefully we blow them out of the stadium in the second half.

52': Mattle with a yellow.

58': They pass it ahead up to ST Edson... Aldrovandi goes to make the tackle and Edson jukes around him, into the area and scores extremely easily. Aldrovandi's mistake entirely. 3-3

64': Quick attack for us down the middle, Bryan to Constantino, he draws both DC's, Gordon scoots into the area, Constantino passes to Gordon, he gets behind his man and the DC's aren't there to cover, clear cut chance #4 for us, goal #4 for us. 4-3

83': Gordon with a corner, taken to the near post, they try to clear but Mattle is there and takes it away, or blocks the clearance attempt, unsure exactly. But he recovers the ball and puts it in!! 5-3

84': Jean in for Constantino, he's back to DMC. Hutchinson in for Gordon.

Can't say I'm thrilled with our defense but 5 goals is fun!

Ipswich 5 : 3 Sunderland

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.2)
Goals: Constantino 2, Bryan (7.9), Gordon (7.7), Mattle (7.6)
Assists: Mills 2 (9.0), Constantino, Mattle, 1 unassisted
Notables: Capitani (7.1), Kirkland (7.0), Crespo (7.0)

Radii · 10-11-2011, 01:30 AM

-- Our payroll drops to $989,592/wk with our transfers out. Our transfer budget rises to $11.6M.

-- I turn down a $17 Million bid by Juventus for Carlos Aldrovandi. He's not happy with me.

Injury Update

-- Constantino has a damaged foot picked up in training. He's going to be out for 2 weeks.

January 6th, 2024

FA Cup Third Round

Ipswich(3rd, EPL) @ Fulham(6th, CH)

We're 4:5 favorites here today.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Welsh/Mattle/Heywood
M: Hughes/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson
F: Darcy/Khan

Welsh starts for the "angry" Aldrovandi. Hughes/Jean/Hutchinson in today. Darcy/Khan up front. We attack on the road.

21': They clear a ball out of our end but we head it back forward immediately. Mills with a through ball into the area for Khan, Khan with a first touch strike to the far post and its a goal! 1-0

22': Jean is hurt.

26': Welsh a yellow.

47': They have a corner, taken to the near post, they go up for the header, as does welsh... and Welsh commits a foul, its a penalty. They take it and score. 1-1

HALF: We only manage 2 shots despite 57% of the possession. They only shoot 4 times, 3 on target. Neither team passes well at all and that slows the game down a lot. We tackle well and both teams are winning 55%'ish of their headers.

52': All the highlights are theirs so far this half, they're shooting like crazy on us.

70': Bryan for Khan, Clifford for Jean.

75': Hutchinson gets deep down the right, a cross into the area... Bryan wins a header... off the crossbar, ugh!

89': Darcy receives a pass 25 yards out, beats his man and shrugs off a tackle, into the area for a clear cut chance... and its blasted at the keeper and saved.

And we can't get it done. 5 shots on the match, 3 of them are clear cut chances, but we can't win.

Fulham 1 : 1 Ipswich

One of their defenders is man of the match.

Goal: Khan (6.8)
Assist: Mills (6.9)
Notable: Kirkland (7.1)

Jean 5.8. Sigh.

No Injuries though.

Alf · 10-11-2011, 03:01 AM

Replay means more cahnces of Man City/Ipswich to be rescheduled again !

Radii · 10-11-2011, 02:26 PM

-- Man City/Ipswich is rearranged from January 27th to February 17th after Man City advanced to the next round of the FA Cup. YES!

Transfer Out

Southampton send an Enquiry about MC Mourad Bejoui. Bejoui was signed on a free transfer during a flurry of activity in July. He was valued at $3.3M and I bump that up and ask Southampton for $4.5M. They are interested and buy him for that amount. Bejauoi played 4 league matches with a 6.2 rating.

-- I worry that selling off Donnelly and Bejaoui put us at a little risk if we run into huge injuries, but so far this year I've felt like I have too many matches where my midfield is useless because I'm trying to rotate too many players in. We leave ourselves with Mills, Clifford, Smith and Jean with a couple other guys capable to fill the role if need be.

-- A match against Man Utd is rescheduled for March since we now have a replay with Fulham.

New Signing

16 y/o MC Jose Antonio Ramirez - $8,000/wk - $3.5M to Real Betis - Valued at $2.5M Ramirez is only 16 and has 3 1/2 * potential according to my guy scouting the spanish youth league. I've felt better about signing guys out of the 2nd Spanish League, this one is a lot more expensive so there's a bigger risk here.

Physical: Pace 12/Accel 16/Balance 17/Agility 14
Mental: Determination 13/Decisions 12/Creativity 12/Anticipation 13, most ratings 9-11
Technical: Technique 13/Passing 11/Dribbling 12/Marking 10/Tackling 10/First Touch 10

Doesn't even turn 17 until June. My scouts and coaches immediately fall in love with this kid, everyone rates him as a 3 1/2 to 4 * potential. Hopefully the large fee in terms of youth pickups we paid her pays off.

FA Cup 4th Round Draw

The winner of Ipswich/Fulham will host Chelsea.

January 10th, 2024

Liverpool(10-3-7, 7th) @ Ipswich(12-2-4, 3rd)

We're finally playing our 19th match today and getting to the midpoint of the season. Some teams are already at 21 played. We're 6:4 favorites, they're 13:8 dogs. We're 3-3-5 lifetime against Liverpool. We're 2-2-2 against them the last 3 seasons, its been quite even.

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

Changes on short rest again, with more short rest coming. Clifford/Smith and Khan/Bryan I like an awful lot. Standard mindset.

17': Crespo wins a ball out left and starts our offense going, a pass to Clifford, up to Khan, Khan to Bryan, Bryan does a brilliant job splitting both their DC's, one misses a tackle while the other tries to run wit Bryan but fails. Bryan into the area and he scores! 1-0

28': Mattle can't stick with ST Bailey, he beats Mattle and gets into the area but Capitani does a great job stopping the clear cut chance.

HALF: We fly to the half after that. Liverpool have 7 shots, 3 on target. We have 5 shots, just 1 on target. Liverpool has a 54/46 possession edge but they are mostly settling for long shots. We're going to drop to a counter attacking mindset.

48': Khan receives a pass 35 yards out, beats his man and is able to get into the left side of the area and get a clear cut chance.. but not struck well right at the keeper.

49': midfielder Carter with a yellow.

66': Yellow for defender Young.

71': Throwin deep in their end, taken to Kirkland, a cross into the area, and Bryan heads it just over.

77': Hutchinson in for Gordon, Hughes in for Crespo.

81': Smith comes down with an injury.

91': Jean in for Smith, Smith could finish but he's really slowed, lets not have him get used for a goal at the end.

Ipswich 1 : 0 Liverpool

One solid goal and we hang on for a good win.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (7.5)
Goal: Bryan
Assist: Khan (6.4)
Notables: Heywood (7.0), Kirkland (7.2), Aldrovandi (7.2), Mattle (7.0), Smith (7.1)

Radii · 10-11-2011, 02:39 PM

2023/24 English Premier Division Mid-Season Update

Standings

1. Ipswich - 41 pts - 19 matches
2. Arsenal - 39 pts - 19 plyd
3. Everton - 39 pts - 21 plyd
4. Man City - 36 pts - 18 plyd
5. Sheffield Utd - 35 pts - 21 plyd
6. Man Utd - 34 pts - 19 plyd
7. Liverpool - 33 pts - 21 plyd
8. Chelsea - 30 pts - 21 plyd
9. Blackburn - 30 pts - 21 plyd
10. Aston Villa - 30 pts - 21 plyd
11. Newcastle - 30 pts - 21 plyd
12. Nottingham Forest - 28 pts - 21 plyd
13. Tottenham - 27 pts - 19 plyd
14. Southampton - 27 pts - 21 plyd
15. Huddersfield - 27 pts - 21 plyd
16. Sunderland - 26 pts - 21 plyd
17. Bristol City - 14 pts - 21 plyd
-------------------------------
18. Exeter - 13 pts - 21 plyd
19. West Brom - 12 pts - 21 plyd
20. Cardiff - 11 pts - 20 plyd

We jumped over Arsenal and Everton with that last win and we are in first place at the halfway point of the season!

As always, I expect Chelsea, Man U, Man City, maybe Aston Villa to all make strong second half runs, but holy crap we are in first place!!!!

Goals

1. Matteo Cavalleri - Southampton - 13 goals
2. Hans Nooij - Arsenal - 12 goals
3. Adam Hooper - Bristol City - 11 goals
4. Luca Vanelli - Sheffield Utd - 11 goals
5. Constantino - Ipswich - 10 goals

Cavalleri and Hooper are both totally new names at the top to me. I've learned the names of most of the strikers and many midfielders, but those are brand new that I would not have recognized before this season.

We do at times seem to struggle to score reliably without Constantino, but we've got guys scoring some at least. Gordon 4 goals, Bryan 3, Darcy 3, Hutchinson 3. I'd love to see Bryan and/or Darcy get a little more comfortable and do more in the second half. Bryan was hurt for 3 months, he's only played 6 league matches, so he's doing great, hopefully he ends up with 10 goals.

Assists

1. Tal Gamliel - Arsenal - 8 assists
2. Rui Sa - Sunderland - 8 assists
3. Constantino - Ipswich - 7 assists
4. Joaquim Stammen - Arsenal - 6 assists
5. Han Nooij - Arsenal - 6 assists

Matthew Khan has 4 assists, Adagsmar and Mills have 3 each. I feel like I've spent so much time rotating guys in midfield that its hard to develop good teamwork. When I've got the right guys Mills puts those perfect balls into the area for Constantino, but when we get Darcy in and Jean in and Smith is still really new here, we still get some goals but there's a noticeable difference where we're not just completely exploiting holes in their defense like we might with a perfect lineup.

Average Rating

1. Hans Nooij - Arsenal - 7.91
2. Constantino - Ipswich - 7.69
3. Luca Vanelli - Sheffield Utd - 7.45
4. Alex McBride - Exeter - 7.38
5. Seyni Thiam - Arsenal - 7.38
....
36. Steven Mills - Ipswich - 7.13
39. Neil Gordon - Ipswich - 7.11
48. Stuart Kirkland - Ipswich - 7.09
57. Adagsmar - Ipswich - 7.06
67. Eoin Darcy - Ipswich - 7.02
69. Carlos Aldrovandi - Ipswich - 7.02
89. Craig Smith - Ipswich - 6.96

Lots of guys in the top 100!

10-07-2011, 04:53 PM	#1201
SirFozzie Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: The State of Insanity	Wow, better resign Darcy quick, Radii, if I'm reading the dates right he has less then one year left on his contract, and several growing years to go. __________________ Check out Foz's New Video Game Site, An 8-bit Mind in an 8GB world! http://an8bitmind.com

10-07-2011, 05:41 PM	#1203
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	It took a long time but we've made what's becoming our "yearly big signing". New Signing 23 y/o MC Jean - $23M paid to Dinamo Kiev - $51,000/wk for 4 years. Jean is Brazilian, Dinamo Kiev paid $16M to buy him away from the Brazilian top league 2 years ago. Jean crushed it in the Ukraine with 7.4+ ratings for them. He also has two years of experience in the group stages of the Champions League. Jean has been part of the Brazil U23 gold medal in the Olympics, he was captain of the Brazil U20 team for a time and he has 5 caps for the Brazilian senior team. Physical: Pace 17/Accel 15/Agi 18/Sta 18/Balance 17. Can't jump at all, 5'10" Mental: Determination 14/Decisions 16/Creativity 15/Anticipation 15/Work Rate 17, Off the Ball is poor (6), no flair, everything else 10+. Technical: Passing 16/First Touch 15/Technique 14/Marking 11/Tackling 10 Most of my coaches view Steven Mills as my best MC and all of my coaches view Jean to be as good as Mills. Some list him as a 3* (good) player, half of my coaches/scouts view him as 3 1/2* or 4* (4* = important first teamer). Jean wasn't who I was looking at when I asked about language, but it applies, he knows Brazilian and Ukranian. He only spent two years with Dinamo Kiev so I'm taking the fact that he's fluent in Ukranian (ie not "basic" knowledge of the language) to be a very good sign. With this move I am nearly done, I have $4M transfer budget left and a payroll of $1,039,697/wk. While this is the only big purchase I have also brought in 3 players for free who are all making decent salaries. Add Craig Smith and Darcy to the mix and we have a full slate of players to work with this year. Depth Chart GK: Capitani/Mason/Rogers/Lines DL: Kirkland/Hughes/Heywood (Adagsmar can function here, two youth players can be a warm body) DC: Aldrovandi/Mattle/Bartlett/Welsh/O'Brien/McKerr + youth DR: Heywood/Jackson/McKerr + youth ML: Adagsmar/Crespo/Hughes/Ros (Ros is my prospect I bought from Spain last year, not likely to play a lot) MC: Mills/Jean/Donnelly/Clifford/Smith/Bejaoui + MR/ML that can fill + youth MR: Gordon/Hutchinson/Jackson + 1 youth guy ST: Constantino/Khan/Bryan/Darcy/Kershaw We have 6 central midfielders that I really don't know how to slot in a depth chart. Mills/Jean seem to have the most love from the scouts, Donnelly has always produced but he's still unhappy. Smith maybe should be higher but i don't want to overload him too young and Bejaoui may or may not work out and may or may not be someone i want to keep long term. I'd best not lose early in the Euro Cup this year, that's all I have to say about that, b/c we have a nice sized rotation here and if it shrinks due to early exits again its really going to suck. Last edited by Radii : 10-07-2011 at 05:42 PM.

10-08-2011, 08:16 PM	#1217
JonInMiddleGA Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Behind Enemy Lines in Athens, GA	edit: wrong thread __________________ "I lit another cigarette. Unless I specifically inform you to the contrary, I am always lighting another cigarette." - from a novel by Martin Amis Last edited by JonInMiddleGA : 10-08-2011 at 08:22 PM.

10-08-2011, 11:45 PM	#1223
SirFozzie Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: The State of Insanity	Unless you're already close to being fired in FM10, you'll keep your job. If they fired you while you were undefeated, the new owner's time at the helm would be short, till they threw him out of office. Literally __________________ Check out Foz's New Video Game Site, An 8-bit Mind in an 8GB world! http://an8bitmind.com

10-10-2011, 01:10 PM	#1234
Alf Pro Starter Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Rennes, France	You definitely have Chelsea's number. No news on the new ownership and your status at the head of Ipswich ? Edit : I missed out that the takeover failed __________________ FOFL - GML - IHOF - FranceStats Last edited by Alf : 10-10-2011 at 01:11 PM.

10-07-2011, 07:41 PM	#1204
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Contract Update Now that things have settled in the transfer market we go and take care of our own guys. We appear to have 13 players expiring this year. DC Mark O'Brien - wants $63k/wk to extend a year. I'll re-consider in December based on how he is doing and how my other DC's are doing. I am not impressed with O'Brien, but not quite confident enough to sell him outright. MC Conor Clifford - We'll extend him year at his current rate, $30,500/wk. He's been solid, though not spectacular. $30k/wk is solidly affordable and we're happy to keep him on. DR Michael McKerr - this is his last year. He's 33 and playing less and less. GK Michele Capitani - he only makes $26,500 right now. He only asks for $46,500/wk and a $350,000 signing bonus. Absolutely dude I was expecting to see $70k/wk or more! ST Constantino - currently makes $47,500/wk, asking for $54,000/wk and a $775k signing bonus. He only asks for a 1 year extension, I try to offer him 3 more years instead, that would keep him here until he's 31. MC Steven Mills - currently makes $110,000/wk and may not quite be worthy of being my highest paid player, but that doesn't mean he isn't a really good player worth keeping on as long as possible. He wants 3 additional years at the same rate and I offer it. DR Anthony Heywood - makes $30,500/wk, wants $32,000/wk for 2 additional years. I try to make it 3 additional years for a bit bigger signing bonus. ST Rob Kershaw - Makes $450/wk, wants $9500/wk. He hopefully gets a chance to prove himself this year, but if he can't, he is still valued at $5M and I want the chance to make some money with him, $9500/wk is nothing. ST Chris Bryan - makes $9250/wk, wants 3 years at $30,000/wk. I try to offer him 5 years at $35000/wk, we'll see what he says too. ST Eoin Darcy - makes $2000/wk, wants $3500/wk for 3 years, I try to bump that to 4 years too. Friendly #1 We play Brighton, feeder club mandatory game. Constantino scores twice in the first half, Khan once. Khan is hurt. We sub players around at the half. In the second half we don't score and Heywood is hurt. Jackson had two assists, constantino one. Brighton 0 : 3 Ipswich -- Khan is fine, Heywood is out 5-6 days. -- Our stadium expansion is officially complete, we now have a 40,000 seat stadium. Friendly #2 We played Barcelona last year and they offered us a friendly this year as well. They score in the 4th minute off a corner kick. In the 12th minute Craig Smith puts a beautiful through ball into the area, Khan is first to it and beats their keeper. They get a goal on a give and go before the half ends and we trail 2:1. Gordon to Khan actually ties it up for us early in the second half but we throw young GK Michael Rogers to the wolves once we make our subs and he gives up 3 goals in the final 30 minutes. Ipswich 2 : 5 Barcelona Board Update Ipswich Chairman Simon Clegg could step down sooner rather than later, allowing another member of the board to take his place. That means nothing now but could have some sort of impact if a major change is made. -- We have 7 matches chosen to be aired on live TV in the first half of the season. Its the ones you'd expect mostly, Man U, Aston Villa, Man City, Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Sheffield Utd. Friendly #3 We travel to Shrewsbury, no longer a walkover as we propped them up into the Championship with our loaners now they've gotten pretty decent! At least that's my excuse for not scoring in the first half :P In fact we dont score until Craig Smith finds Chris Bryan for a goal 80 minutes in. That's the only goal today. Shrewsbury 0 : 1 Ipswich hahahah. Fuck You Injury Gods. You did this with Aldrovandi last year too I think? Injury Update In the same practice, Steven Mills hurts his knee and is out 2 weeks, and our new splash signing Jean has a torn groin muscle and is out 5-6 weeks. That'll put Jean out til early/mid September That also takes us to the beginning of August, just a couple more Friendlies before the regular season starts!

10-07-2011, 08:38 PM	#1205
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	August Update -- We play friendlies on the 5th and 12th. We'll see if things get moved once the Euro Cup Draw takes place in a week or so, but right now we are scheduled for league matches on the 19th, 22nd and 26th. The Euro Cup Fourth Qualifying Round would be played on the 24th and 31st. -- The only training report this month is on 17 y/o keeper Rob Lines. 12 different ratings have gone up recently. Command of Area (15), Communication (13), Kicking (14), One on Ones (11), Reflexes (12) among them. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. They are sad to see Bendtner go but happy with our increase in stature. -- We lost $19.98M last month. We brought in $17.45M selling season tickets. But we spent $23M buying Jean, $4.7M in signing bonuses for all our new contracts and $5M in salaries plus some other general costs -- Adagsmar resumes full training. He got hurt for 3 months before going on vacation at the end of last season. He'll play in our last two friendlies and will surely need a little more time after that to be ready for the season. Friendly #4 We travel to Florence to play Fiorentina from Serie A. We end up in a scoreless draw. All of our guys are match fit now exept Adagsmar I believe. Fiorentina 0 : 0 Ipswich Captains -- I keep Stuart Kirkland as my captain and Conor Clifford as my vice-captain. New Youth Signing 16 y/o DC Pablo Olvera - $825,000 to Hercules in Spain's Liga Adelante (2nd tier league ala our Championship). 3 1/2 - 4 * potential. "potential to play at a similar level to Aldrovandi" Olvera is pretty damn polished at age 16. Physical: Pace 14/Accel 13/Sta 15/Str 14 Mental: Determination 13/Concentration 16/Bravery 17/Anticipation 15. Positioning 11. Technical: Heading 16/Marking 15/Tackling 12/Technique 10/Passing 14 Seems really strong already. He doesn't jump well at all so I dunno how that would jive with his strong heading ability. Injury Update Right, all our MC's and DC's falling over dead is the way to tell me that I was right to carry so many. Just why does it have to be all the ones at the very top of my depth charts?? DC Carlos Aldrovandi has strained knee ligaments suffered in training and he is out 6-7 weeks. That may put him out til October. .. a couple days later GK Chris Mason sprains an ankle and is out 4 weeks. EURO Cup Fourth Round Qualifying Draw We're one of the very last 'seeded' teams which appears to be based purely on European Coefficients (rankings basically) and not what round teams entered. It looks like us and Reading, who made it here through 3 rounds, are the last two seeded teams, whew. Basically the top half teams play the bottom half. So since we're in the top half we can't get a strong team like Livorno like we did last time we were here. -- Ipswich will be playing FC Sheriff Tiraspol from Molodva. They have a striker valued at $2.7M, no other players valued at more than $500k. They're referred to as Sheriff, and check out the logo: Love it. Rescheduled Matches Matches bookending our Euro Cup first leg on both sides are rescheduled for September, that's matches vs Sunderland and tottenham. That leaves us playing Man U on the 19th, Sheriff on the 24th and again on the 29th. That works out really well for us. Friendly #5 We host Rangers in our last friendly. Kirkland to Khan for a 21st minute goal. Gordon with a free kick from 25 yards out. 27th minute Khan is forced out of the match with an injury. Donnelly to Gordon for a 3rd goal before the half. We give up a goal in the final seconds of the first half. The backups give up a goal very late Ipswich 3 : 2 Rangers Injury Update Matthew Khan has a broken wrist and will miss the first 5-6 weeks of the season. So that's nice, in the final two weeks of preseason, 4 guys I had penciled in as opening day starters (Khan, Jean, Mills, and Aldrovandi) get hurt, all of them but Mills for a month+. -- We reject offers for Jack Hughes, Anthony Heywood, and freaking Chelsea sends us an inquiry about Steven Mills. I tell them to screw off. -- Shrewsbury ask if we'll loan them young ML David Ros. He is only 17 1/2 and I am unsure if he'd benefit more from playing in the Championship or learning at our club. Right now he's in the middle of being tutored by Adagsmar. I decide to wait until that's completed and then will offer Ros back to Shrewsbury. With that, we hobble our injured asses into opening day, welcoming Man Utd to Portman Road. We've blown through the offseason pretty damn fast. Getting so many hits on my transfer targets this year was a refreshing surprise and made my life a lot easier.

10-07-2011, 09:12 PM	#1206
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- After finishing 1 point behind Man Utd for the final spot in the Champions League at the end of last season, we host Man Utd on opening day this year. With stadium expansion we'll set attendance records again this year, and a full sellout of 40,000 is expected for opening day. -- Mills resumes full training and looks to be set for the opener. August 19th, 2023 Man Utd @ Ipswich Man Utd had a new manager take over towards the tail end of last season, I missed that completely. Claude Peul ran Olympique Lyonnais for the full duration of this dynasty, leading them to a status as one of the top 10 clubs in Europe for awhile, and now he takes over Man Utd. Man U are 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8 to get a win, quite even! We are 3-4-6 lifetime against Man Utd, but have not lost to them the last 5 times we met. 4 of those were last year, we tied on the road in league play and tied on the road in the FA Cup. We won at home in league play and in the FA Cup Replay. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Heywood M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Bryan/Constantino Bartlett in defense ends up being the only new player starting today, and only because I don't trust Mark O'Brien more than an unknown to replace Aldrovandi. Man Utd change their look, 4-1-2-2-1 with a DMC and two AM's out wide. They'd run a 4-2-3-1 for a good long time before this. 22': van Schindel, new midfielder for them, yellow card. 30': Heywood a cross, Constantino a header, over the bar. That's the first shot I've seen in a highlight today. 39': They get a dangerous shot from ST Wray after a counter attack, but Bartlett runs him out wide a little and Capitani makes a nice stop. 48': Gordon with a foul just outside the left edge of the penalty box. Too tight an angle to shoot from I think, we head a cross out and its halftime. HALF: We shoot 7 times, they shoot 6 times, both teams put 2 on target. 4 of ours were from long range and midway through the half I gave the "work ball into box" instruction to try to find better. Possession is even, both teams are passing well, we are tackling really well (84%), and they're winning more headers. 46': We kick off, Mills and Donnelly pass to each other a couple times, Donnelly ahead to Bryan, their DC comes waaaay out to defend Bryan, Constantino fills the opening, Bryan passes it ahead, Constantino is open in the penalty area and drills a shot into the net! 1-0 48': Donnelly turns it over in midfield as a highlight opens. AM Lalkovic gets a strong run into the area, their first clear cut chance... but its just wide. 52': Donnelly picks up his yellow card for the match. 60': Smith in for Mills, Darcy in for Bryan, subbing a couple guys that are tiring a bit faster that I want available for the Euro Cup. 65': Smith to Gordon, Gordon has our second clear cut chance behind the defense in the area... but his shot is saved. corner goes nowhere. 66': They win a header on our corner kick and still have it in their end, but Heywood attacks their man about 25 yards out (instead of getting back... HUGE RISK), he wins the ball, passes quickly to Constantino and everyone is caught off guard, that's a clear cut chance and a goal!! 2-0 73': new MR Hutchinson in for Gordon. We defend the rest of the way. We kill off the rest of the match with ease! Ipswich 2 : 0 Man Utd A fantastic start to the season! their keeper saved a couple clear cut chances and put up a 9.1 rating, earning man of the match. Goals: Constantino 2 (9.0) Assists: Heywood (7.1), Bryan (7.3) Notables: Kirkland (7.8), Bartlett (7.7), Donnelly (7.3) Everyone played well today, Kirkland and Bartlett though, dominating in defense. Bartlett is a 24 y/o DC that I picked up for free from Rangers. He's the one I debated for awhile whether I would play him in midfield or back in defense. Darcy a 6.8 rating in his first ever senior club match off the bench. -- We did indeed sell out the stadium today, 40,000 fans for a new record. -- West Brom offer me $12.2M + 20% of the profit from his next sale for Jack Hughes. That starts to get tempting considering he's a backup/rotation guy, but if we sold him we'd have to use that money to immediately replace him so I'm not sure there's a lot of value in that. I sit on the offer, I may counter with $20M or something like that since the interest seems pretty high right now. But its already Aug 22nd at that point and I'd really need to replace him immediately.

10-07-2011, 09:33 PM	#1207
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Long time Man Utd defender Rio Ferdinand has been a coach for me since 2018. He finally found a job he wanted more though, and leaves to join Arsenal as a coach. It turns out not to impact us much as my new assistant coach is a 4* Ball Control trainer, which is how I was using Rio Ferdinand as well. August 24th, 2023 Euro Cup Fourth Qualifying Round, Leg One Ipswich @ Sheriff We're 4:6 favorites on the road out in Moldova today, they're 7:2 to get a win. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mills/Gordon F: Bryan/Constantino Just a couple changes today, Adagsmar and Clifford start over Crespo/Donnelly and Jackson in for Heywood. 7': We build up on offense, Mills ahead to Bryan, he beats his man badly and beats the keeper! 1-0 15': We have a corner, after a few headers in the area Adagsmar wins one that puts the ball at Bryan's feet. He passes to Clifford who shoots from close range but right at the keeper, Constantino pounces on the rebound and walks it into the net! 2-0 18': Clifford with a ball into the right side of the area for Constantino who charges behind the defense and scores easily. 3-0 25': I bring Darcy on for Constantino. 26': Darcy passes to Bryan who scores easily. 4-0 33': I go ahead and issue all the orders I can to tell the team to press a little less, control possession and not risk injury. HALF: We go into the locker room up 4:0 and coasting. Hutchinson in for Gordon and Bejaoui in for Mills. Hopefully using all my subs won't hurt. Commentary only the rest of the way and we breeze to the end without anyone getting hurt, perfect. Sheriff 0 : 4 Ipswich Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.8) Goals: Bryan 2, Constantino 2 (8.5) Assists: Clifford 2 (8.6), Darcy (7.0), Mills (7.3) Notables: Jackson (7.5), Kirkland (7.8), Bartlett (7.4), Mattle (7.1), Adagsmar (7.1) We go into the second leg with a 4 goal lead, all but assured to get to the Euro Cup Group Stage this year, woohoo!

10-07-2011, 11:45 PM	#1208
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Injury Update Chris Bryan is injured in a collision with Stuart Kirkland in training... he's got a broken ankle and is out 2-3 months. Well then. August 29th, 2023 Euro Cup Fourth Qualifying Round Second Leg Sheriff (0) @ (4) Ipswich We're 2:5 favorites to win this second leg at home. They're 13:2 to win at all and need to win by 4 to have a chance to advance. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Bartlett/Jackson M: Crespo/Donnelly/Smith/Hutchinson F: Kershaw/Darcy Lots of rest, young guys, new guys in today. Kershaw/Darcy up front, lets see if they can score here. Smith with a MC start, Gordon gets a rest at MR. 14': We have a free kick in their half, taken short to Smith, ahead to Hutchinson, he finds Darcy as he breaks behind the defense, a perfect pass and a finish for Darcy, his first goal! 1-0 18': Darcy to Kershaw for a goal but blatantly offside. 27': Crespo with a free kick 30 yards out wide right, he shoots from there instead of playing a cross, and their keeper has to dive to stop it, impressive free kick! 32': Smith 35 yards out, he plays a low ball into the area, Darcy splits their two DC's and gets to the ball first, shoots and its by the keeper and a goal! 2-0 HALF: Heywood in for Kirkland and Bejaoui in for Donnelly. 79': Smith runs around the right corner of the penalty area after a free kick, passes to Bejaoui 20 yards out straight out in front, he blasts a shot and its a goal! 3-0 82': Oof, Craig Smith is hurt and forced to come out. Adagmsar is in for him. Ipswich (7) 3 : 0 (0) Sheriff Slightly different than our previous Euro Cup experience, we have 6 more matches in Europe to play at least as we advance to the Group Stage! Man of the Match: Juan Pablo Crespo (8.9) Goals: Darcy (8.8), Bejaoui (7.2) Assists: Smith 2 (8.7), Hutchinson (7.3) Notables: Jackson (7.6), Kirkland (7.1), Bartlett (7.1), O'Brien (7.3) Our other young striker Rob Kershaw puts up a 6.8 today, he got caught offside a few times, once calling back a goal. -- We receive $244,000 for competing in this round of the Euro Cup and $130,000 for winning this round. Injury Update Craig Smith has a twisted knee and will miss about 2 weeks.

10-08-2011, 12:29 AM	#1209
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Injury Report Here's how we look as of September 1st: ST Matthew Khan: 2-3 weeks ST Chris Bryan: 2-3 months MC Craig Smith: 9-12 days MC Jean: 3-7 days DC Aldrovandi: 2-3 weeks GK Mason: 4-10 days Excited to get Jean soon, debating whether to play Darcy and/or Kershaw a lot next to Constantino or run 1 striker formations some until Khan is back. September Update -- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 16th, 21st, maybe 23rd, 27th, 30th. We'll have a match against Sunderland on the 20th rescheduled for a Euro Cup Group Stage match on the 21st. League Cup 27th -- The board is pleased with my leadership. "the positive atmosphere amongst the players" is the highlight, no negative, and the board asks for my patience while they figure out who is taking over. -- We lost $633K last month. -- Some offers are made for our players during August but no one freaks out when I reject offers. Gordon Donnelly remains unhappy and hopes to leave the club in the near future, everyone else is in great shape and happy to be here. League Cup 3rd Round Draw We're going on the road for the League Cup but we get a good draw, we'll be playing Hull in the Championship. September 2nd, 2023 Ipswich @ Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest is 6:4 to win today, we're 13:8 to win. They've started poorly, 0-0-3 in league play. We're 7-3-9 lifetime against them. The road team has won the last four matches 1:0. Maybe we can continue that streak today and then break it at home later this year. They barely avoided relegation last year, finishing 17th. They have no top 10 EPL finishes during this dynasty. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino 1': yellow for midfielder Avarmescu. 5': A few passes down the left and Kirkland all of a sudden plays a ball into the area from 40 yards away. Darcy is there, heads it.. and the keeper saves it and turns it over for a corner. We earn a second corner. That one is taken to the far post by gordon, Bartlett is there, wins his header, over the keeper rushing out and into the net! 1-0 9': We head a cross out of the area and try to turn it around on offense, Darcy loses the ball in their end though after he receives a pass, they get a clear cut chance out of our turnover but they put the shot wide. 19': Constantino runs down the center after receiving a pass 30 yards out. He passes ahead to Darcy, Darcy shoots from 20 yards out, its blocked, flies to the right, Neil Gordon is there and blasts a shot into the net! 2-0 26': Beautiful precision by Constantino, Clifford with a long pass from the midfield circle, Constantino with a shot from 25 yards out as the keeper is trying to come out, assuming Constantino will charge, his shot doesn't have a lot of pace on it, but its perfectly struck, no way the keeper can get to it and it rolls inches inside the right post, goal! 3-0 HALF: We rush to the half after that. We have 9 shots, 5 on target, they have 6 shots, 2 on target. Kershaw comes in for Constantino, Hughes in for Kirkland. 71': they score quickly here, a cross from the right side to the far post, MC Curtis wins the header for them over Mattle and he heads it in. 3-1 81': Hutchinson in for Gordon. We coast to the end. Nottingham Forest 1 : 3 Ipswich Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.3) Goals: Gordon, Bartlett (8.0), Constantino (7.9) Assists: Gordon, Constantino, Clifford (7.1) Notables: Capitani (7.3), Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.3), Mattle (7.1), Mills (7.2), Darcy (7.1) Kershaw has a 6.0 rating, losing a few headers and having a clear cut chance saved. Next up, the only team in the EPL that we've never beaten, Tottenham.

10-08-2011, 01:10 AM	#1210
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- We have 14 players called up to international duty (Euro Championship Qualifying). 11 of them are senior squad members, called up for matches on the 9th and 13th. We're scheduled to play on the 5th and 16th, and it doesn't look like either are getting postponed. -- Neil Bartlett is named to the EPL team of the week. I really wish Aldrovandi didn't get injured, but its great that one of my new signings has been able to shine given the opportunity. -- Wonder when the Euro Cup Groups are drawn, I'm excited to see my opposition! I keep checking every day, like checking the mailbox for my tax return or something. September 2nd, 2023 Tottenham @ Ipswich Tottenham are slim 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8. That's been the case for all of our league matches so far. We've never beaten these guys, 0-3-7 lifetime. Last year we played to two scoreless draws. In fact, going back to the 20/21 season, we haven't scored a single goal against Tottenham in our last 5 matches, losing 2:0, 1:0 and 2:0 before these two 0:0 draws. Sheesh. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Heywood M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino Some changes with Crespo and Donnelly in for Adagsmar/Clifford. Heywood starts at DR. 9': They have a man rush down the right, play a low cross drilled into the 6 yard box, a strong header, reflex save by Capitani and it goes wide, whew. 18': Defender Singh with a yellow for them. 22': We clear it out of their end, Crespo with a run down the left, a cross to the 6 yard box... someone heads it, gordon/darcy/constantino are all right there, and its just like their first shot... keeper makes a reflex save. 25': Free kick from 35 yards out for us, Neil Gordon takes it. He's aiming for the left post with his shot, the keeper clearly hedges that way, but his shot is not aimed well, its off the right side of the wall, kinda looks like it hit a guy in the head... and it just bounces straight... slowly... and rolls into the right side of the net as the keeper fails to recover after lunging the other way!!! 1-0 Our first goal against Tottenham in almost 500 minutes of in game action over 3 years, and that's how it happens, crazy. HALF: We fly to the half pretty fast after that, watching a header off a corner go off target for us and that's it. We have 4 shots, 2 on target this half. They have 2 shots, both on target, and that's been it. 53/47 possession edge for us, 70% passing, 52% tackling (which is godawful) and 60% heading for us. They are tackling really well, in the highlights I saw they were trying lots of crosses into the area and Bartlett was winning headers everywhere... checks stats... he's only won 6 out of 12 headers but 3 key ones. We drop back from standard mindset to counterattacking at the half. 50': yellow for defender Brangman tackling Darcy out near midfield. 52': Darcy receives a pass 30 yards out, dodges a tackle, skips by a second defender and gets forward, shooting from 20 yards out... keeper just saves hiss shot and tips it wide. 58': Donnelly is in the game today, therefore he receives a yellow card. 77': Through ball into the area for them, ST Molnar is by Bartlett, but Bartlett recovers fast and makes a tackle as molnar gets to the ball. Bartlett is impressing the hell out of me, seriously. 78': Hutchinson in for Gordon, Clifford in for Mills. 84': We've got it on offense, passing around the left side, Crespo to Donnelly, he lays it off for Clifford. Clifford pulls up from 25 yards out and shoots... and surprises everyone, its into the upper left corner, no chance to stop it, great goal for Clifford!! 2-0 86': We needed that second goal. Molnar with a ball to Mangan, their two star strikers, Mangan has a step on Mattle and shoots from 10 yards out and scores. 2-1 87': Contain, dammit. I want to beat these guys, hang on to that lead, play safe, stall, whatever you have to do. And we do just that, actually getting forward a bit in added time but just stalling mostly. Ipswich 2 : 1 Tottenham Our first win against Tottenham ever! Man of the Match: Gordon Donnelly (7.6) Goals: Gordon (7.5), Clifford (7.3) Assists: Donnelly, one unassisted. Notables: Heywood (7.1), Kirkland (7.2), Mills (7.0), Darcy (7.3) Our DC's had 6.8s today, Constantino 6.5. Arsenal and ????Southampton???? are off to 4-0-0 starts for 1st and 2nd. We're the only 3-0-0 team and we're in 3rd early on. Southampton have beaten Liverpool, Aston Villa and Man City. WTF. They beat Barcelona 2:0 in a friendly. They didn't spend a ton, looks like they have a couple younger players (22-24 y/o) who have really come into their own and are off to awesome starts.

10-08-2011, 01:36 AM	#1211
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Euro Cup Update Finally, the Fourth Qualifying Round is done and Groups are drawn for the Euro Cup! There's 12 groups, all the way to Group L alphabetically, and thus 48 teams. Top two from each group advance to knockout rounds (and are joined by teams that failed to advance past the Champions League Group Stages too). Lets meet our Group L Opposition: NEC Nijmegen - Holland - Playing in their 3rd Euro Cup in this dynasty (they've never made the Champions League), this is the first time NEC has made the Group Stage, twice falling much earlier. They're a club valued at $65 Million. Their best finish in the dutch top league Eredivisie is 6th and they've hovered between 8th-11th most of the time. Only 18 teams in that league so that's barely top half most years. Their highest valued players are their 3 full season loaners, from Bordeaux, Chelsea and MAn Utd. AEK Athens - Greece - The only name that stands out in Greece to me is Olympiakos from my time glancing at European results all the years I wasn't involved, but AEK is consistently right behind them. And in this dynasty... always right behind them. They won the Greek Superleague in 2011 and every season since have finished 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. They actually qualified for the Champions League this year and lost in a preliminary playoff to drop into the Euro Cup at this stage. The club is valued at $58M and their player values are way way less than ours in general, that could just be the respect that anyone in the EPL gets though. AEK Athens has played in the Euro Cup each of the last 11 seasons. Four times they've lost in the First Knockout Round, 5 times they've made the group stage and lost, twice they didn't make it that far. AS Roma - Italy - Roma have won Serie A 4 times during this dynasty and have not finished worse than 5th. They're one of the top teams in the world. Three times they've made the quarterfinals of the Champions League. They've won the Euro Cup once and made the semifinals twice. Valued at $389 Million, they're in another world compared to the other 3 teams in the group. Their star striker is a 21 year old kid named Rory Wright who came up with Man Utd. Roma spent $29 Million on him when he was 18. He was in the running for World Footballer of the year last season. They have 8 players valued over $10 Million and have 4 players who make more per week than I'm allowed to offer anyone by my board. So there it is, we'll play each of those teams twice and the top two will advance to the knockout round. It should be a formality for Roma to advance but there's no reason at all we can't compete with the other two. -- We receive $1,435,000 just for being placed in the group stage. Every win in this phase is worth $201k and every draw $100k in prize money -- We have 7 matches rescheduled due to conflicts with the Euro Cup, all 6 of our matches conflict with a match and then Man City has a conflict. -- We travel to AEK Athens on Sept. 21st to open Group Play.

10-08-2011, 05:06 PM	#1212
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Injury Updates -- Jean resumes full training and is immediately called up for a Brazil/Portugal friendly. Perhaps they will run him back into shape a little bit. -- Chris Mason resumes full training. -- Craig Smith resumes full training. -- Jack Hughes hurts himself in training and will miss 3 weeks. -- James Welsh suffers a groin strain in a Euro Championship match against Montenegro. He'll miss 3 weeks. -- Gordon Donnelly scores in a 1:1 Scotland draw against Wales in the Euro Championship Qualifiers. Conor Clifford scores for Ireland in a 3:0 win over Montenegro. -- Not a lot of surprises about 75% of the way through Euro Championship Qualification. Austria is winning their group (Mattle's team!) and that's probably the biggest surprise, no super powerhouses there but Croatia and Czech Republic would both be expected to finish above Austria. Scotland is only one point ahead of Ireland for second in their group (2nd place makes a playoff to get in), we have multiple players on both teams so seeing either one advance would be cool. -- Anthony Heywood has been playing well for the England U21's and Michael Rogers has seen some time in goal for The English U21's as well. September 16th, 2023 Bristol City(1-0-3, 15th) @ Ipswich(3-0-0, 3rd) We're big 4:5 favorites today against a Bristol City team that just promoted up from the Championship. Bristol is more of a Championship level team, they've spent two seasons in the EPL in the past 15 years and both times went right back down. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/O'Brien/Jackson DM: Clifford MC: Donnelly/Mills AM: Adagsmar/Hutchinson F: Conststantino We've got new guys injured, guys coming off injuries, and guys coming out of Euro Championship play, and oh yeah Euro Cup match in 5 days. So we've got a strange lineup today as a result. Constantino alone up front, Adagsmar/Hutchinson AM's, Gordon can play but I don't want him going 90 today. I'm hoping we're strong enough today to win and will be able to field a strong lineup for AEK. Standard mindset today. 6': Throwin in their end, a pass into the area for Mills, he shoots and the keeper makes a good save. 7': Mills is hurt... ugh. Can stay in. 11': Passing around the left side, Jean ahead to Constantino, back to Mills and Mills puts it into the area, Hutchinson receives it with a step on the defense, shoots near post and scores! 1-0 31': yellow for their midfielder Coquelin. 46': Jean ahead for Constantino, he passes back, Jean with a beautiful pass between two defenders to Hutchinson, he blasts a shot, but the keeper saves and it goes out behind. We can't do anything on the corner. HALF: A few highlights for Bristol City today but the best they can do is send long shots wide. We're playing well. Bejaoui is going to come in for the injured Mills. We shoot 6 times, 3 on target. They have 3 shots, all off target. We dominate possession, 60/40 and seem to be solidly in control, but another goal would be nice. 54': They earn a corner, Bejaoui heads it away and Adagsmar picks it up and we're off on a counter, he runs down the left, Constantino down the center... a cross earns us a corner, but we can't do anything with it. 65': Throwin in their end for us, taken to Hutchison, immediate cross to Adagsmar, a header... just saved, good effort. 73': Darcy in for Constantino. 79': We build up on offense, Bejaoui a beautiful ball to Adagsmar in the area, he's got a clear cut chance but shoots it right at the keeper, we really should have scored there. 89': We win a ball in their end and look to counter, Bejaoui plays a beautiful long ball ahead for Adagsmar down the left side, he makes a run towards the area, passes to Darcy, they try to intercept but fail and Darcy puts it in, we seal the win! 2-0 Ipswich 2 : 0 Bristol City Man of the Match: Daryl Hutchinson (8.4) Goals: Hutchinson, Darcy (7.2) Assists: Mills (7.3), Adagsmar (6.9) Notables: Jackson (7.5), Kirkland (7.4) Everyone else 6.8-6.9. I would have been thrilled for Hutchinson to just play average enough so that I didn't need to bring Gordon in at the half, to see him get the goal and man of the match is awesome! And of course seeing our young kid Darcy get a goal is exciting. -- So we've played 4 league matches and two Euro Cup matches (the qualifying round). Results: 2:0, 4:0, 3:0, 3:1, 2:1, 2:0 in our favor. Four of those matches we were heavy favorites and Man U and Tottenham were at home, so the schedule has broken heavily in our favor early, but these results have been spectacular. -- next 4 matches for us are on the 21st, 24th, 27th, and 30th of September. AEK, Sunderland, Hull (league cup), Huddersfield. We'll likely play some U18's against Hull and if we lose early in the league cup, so be it.

10-08-2011, 05:11 PM	#1213
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Wait wat? News item: Consortium targets Ipswich takeover Ipswich Town will name Simon Grayson as their new head coach if the consortium's bid to take control led by businessman Paco Gomez proves successful. -- The Ipswich Board have placed an embargo upon transfers as a result of the rumors regarding a possible takeover. Holy shit if I get fired in a takeover... well, we just keep pushing an see what happens.

10-08-2011, 06:08 PM	#1214
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Aldrovandi resumes full training. Slowly but surely we are getting more healthy, but right now we have a lot of guys lacking match fitness and not much more w/ all these guys that have recently resumed training. -- Khan resumes full training as well the day before our next match, whee! September 21st, 2023 Euro Cup Group L Ipswich(2nd, EPL) @ AEK Athens(3rd, Greek Superleague) Our coaches feel that we are stronger here by a lot, better dribbling, speed, touch and strength. Our biggest weakness is always in the air, and the only disadvantage pointed out by our coaching staff is height. AEK are super slim 6:4 favorites at their place today, we're 13:8 to win and its 2:1 for a draw. I attend this press conference and most of the questions are about the fact that we really should beat AEK and that we're the better team. I guess we'll see! -- Their leading goalscorer, ST Michal Hruby with 4 goals in 7 matches is hurt. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Mattle/Jackson M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Conststantino We're fit and ready here, Khan/Aldrovandi/Jean just aren't ready yet. Hopefully they'll all play in our next Euro Cup match in early October. Never thought a guy like Eoin Darcy would be starting our first ever Euro Cup Group match, he's been good though! They run a 4-1-4-1. We'll go with a standard mindset at the start, I was going to counterattack but that 4-1-4-1 is so defensive. Expanded highlights. 3': Gordon with a free kick out wide right, cross into the area but Darcy heads it over. 17': They have a free kick very near the penalty area, we head it out but they try to keep pushing. Neil Gordon makes a great steal out to the right, passes ahead to Constantino, back to Gordon and Constantino takes off. Gordon passes it ahead, Constantino with a long run down the right, Darcy down the middle but Constantino instead into the area, a shot from a tight angle out right, by the keeper, off the left post and it bounces in!!! 1-0 31': Crespo with a cross but they head it behind, corner kick. gordon takes it, they head it out. We have 6 shots to their 2. 45': Throwin in their end, after a couple passes we earn a corner off a blocked cross. Gordon with the corner, but headed out easily. We recover... and earn another corner. They clear this one too and its halftime. HALF: Our entire team is at 6.8 or 6.9 at the half, even our goal scorer Constantino. Possession is even but our defense is playing great. We've allowed 3 shots, 2 from range and all off target. We're winning 77% of our tackles and even 58% of our headers, really good for us! We've shot 8 times, 3 on target, 6 from range, that's not good, but understandable against this defense. I drop to a counterattack strategy for the second half. 53': They have a corner, win a header in the 6 yard box.. but its way off target wide. 54': Yellow for midfielder Terron. 55': After another AEK foul Gordon with a free kick 25 yards out, a bit wide left. He plays a lob into the area instead of a shot, they head it behind for a corner. They head the corner away. 59': They try to attack down the middle but in a 45 second span Bartlett wins 3 headers and draws a foul to keep them from doing anything at all. I'm so happy with his play so far! 64': We get caught out of position in a quick highlight, they have a give and go and get a shot from 15 yards out, a clear cut chance, its not a bad shot, near the left side of the goal, but Capitani dives and saves it and we clear! 78': Clifford in for Darcy and we'll use our own 4-1-4-1. 91': Donnelly with a steal in midfield as they try to get forward, their defense is still set though, we pass around a couple times, Mills then wiht a quick pass to the penalty spot from 30 yards out, Constantino breaks on the ball, the keeper rushes out, Constantino controls it right as the keeper tries to dive on it. Constantino sidesteps the keeper and passes it into the now empty net!!! 2-0 Strong win for ipswich in our first Group match! AEK Athens 0 : 2 Ipswich Man of the Match: Constantino (8.8) Goals: Constantino 2 Assists: Gordon (7.2), Mills (7.6) Notables: Capitani (7.2), Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.6), Bartlett (7.5) 6.8/6.9 for Crespo/Donnelly/Darcy. -- Roma beats Dutch side NEC 4:0 at home in the other match in our group today. -- We receive $201,000 for the win today. -- October 5th is our next match, we'll host Roma to see who takes the early lead in the group.

10-08-2011, 08:02 PM	#1215
Taz13 n00b Join Date: Aug 2008	Since I have never gotten far enough in with a season, I am shocked to see the possiblity of being fired during a takeover. I guess that just adds some realism to the game. Hopefully your success will keep you in your post.

10-08-2011, 08:03 PM	#1216
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	September 24th, 2023 Ipswich (4-0-0, 2nd) @ Sunderland(1-3-0, 9th) Sunderland are 6:4 favorites today at their house, we're 13:8, basically even. Sunderland demoted down to the Championship two years ago but won the league in dominating fashion to rise back up. They haven't lost yet but their schedule has been even more favorable than hours. We're 2-0-6 lifetime against them, 2-0-2 the previous two years before they demoted down. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Mattle/Heywood M: Crespo/Jean/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Conststantino Sunderland ST Casper Pique is off to one of the weirdest starts imaginable. He's got 4 goals in 4 matches despite not starting a single match. Super Sub indeed. He starts today. Most of our starters from the last match go again today. Jean in today, O'Brien gives Bartlett a rest. Most of these guys will be resting against Hull in our next match so I'm ok with them going again here on short rest. 3': ST Edson receives a pass 25 yards out, cuts right and runs by both our DCs in embarrassing fashion. He has a clear cut chance but doesn't hit it well, Capitani saves it. 5': Throwin in their end, 3 quick passes, Constantino has it 20 yards out, sprints by his man and has a clear cut chance for us, tries to go far post but the keeper dives out for it and makes a good stop. 18': They're playing better than us so far, controlling a small possession edge and generating more shots. 19': They get into the area, midfielder Sa has it, Mattle tries to tackle it away, but brings him down, its a foul, and a penalty... midfielder Emery takes it and buries it. 0-1 28': Gordon has it out wide, the penalty area is crowded, a cross in, Darcy wins a header but not to send it towards the goal, its to Constantino who is free... he heads it down, by the keeper... and off the left post and out. Damn!! 29': Crespo a yellow. 32': Their man Edson gets by O'Brien and has their 3rd clear cut chance... Capitani rushes out and its a really weak shot, Capitani actually saves it and holds on to it. 40': We earn a corner, Gordon sends it in, O'Brien wins a header... but its just high. 43': Free kick out left, practically a corner at that angle, and just like most corners, they head it out safely. HALF: We aren't playing well at all today. I try to push the team to shake it off and perform better in the second half. Mattle's rating dropped to 5.8 after the penalty and continued to fall, 5.3 by the end of the half. I tell him I'm pissed off at him and bring McKerr in for the second half. They shoot 8 times this half, putting 6 on target. We shoot 3 times, just 1 on target. They are tackling really well, 86%, we're not (65%, actually not awful but meh). 49': lets see if we can attack and pressure them. 58': Constantino is making lots of really strong runs, but there's no one on the other end of his passes, Darcy gets tackled as soon as he touches it, just struggling to even get a shot. 61': Another strong run by Constantino, looks like he's heading for a goal here but tackled just outside the area. Yellow for their defender, shoulda been a red I think. Gordon's free kick is saved. 68': smith in for Jean, Kershaw in for Darcy. 87': They have a free kick in the midfield, we head out their ball forward, a quick pass to Constantino, Craig Smith breaks forward and Constantino passes ahead, Smith runs onto the ball, gets into the area and drills a shot by the keeper and in! 1-1 90': I leave the order to attack on, we clearly seem to have the edge now. They have a throwin in their end, Smith intercepts the throw and passes to Constantino, he makes a run down the right, passes inside to Mills, Mills shoots from 18 yards out, the keeper dives, the ball hits the keeper but he can't push it away, it's still in the net!!! 2-1 That's it, great ending for us! Sunderland 1 : 2 Ipswich Man of the Match: Constantino (8.9) Goals: Mills (7.6), Smith (7.4) Assists: Constantino 2 Notables: Kirkland (7.3), O'Brien (7.4), Gordon (7.0) Mattle left at the half with a 5.3, Heywood a 6.3 on the day. Once we began to attack we saw Constantino running around causing confusion in their defense, we couldn't get him a goal but his speed was such a disruption and got us both our goals. Youngster Craig Smith once again makes a huge impact too, scoring once and making the interception that started the attack on the winning goal. -- GK Capitani tells the press after the match that my halftime talk to the team turned them around. I check my assistant report on pep talks, Mills and Constantino both "seemed motivated" after the half. Constantino loves me and responds well to almost anything I say. -- Sheffield Utd are 4-2-0, they're the only other team without a loss, but we don't even have a draw yet at 5-0-0 and move up into first.

10-08-2011, 08:22 PM	#1218
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- O'Brien and Constantino are named to the EPL team of the week. We've had players picked every week, but I haven't always been listing them, whoops. September 27th, 2023 League Cup Third Round Ipswich @ Hull Hull are 8th in the Championship right now. We're 4:5 favorites on the road today, they're 3:1 to win. Hm, I was going to play guys like Khan/Aldrovandi to get them warmed up some more here but I'd had them set to play with the reserves til match fit and they just played yesterday, so in the end I just play a bunch of backups and don't' do anything really huge with my lineup outside of goalkeeper. GK: Rogers D: Heywood/Mattle/O'Brien/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Bejaoui/Smith/Hutchinson F: Darcy/Kershaw Michael Rogers gets his first ever senior team start today. Darcy/Kershaw up front. I end up running Heywood DL, Jackson DR to get Kirkland a rest. Just commentary today. 5': They earn a corner, crossed to the near post, defender Watt heads it and its in... Rogers positioning was laughable. He'd come out as if it was being crossed far post. 25': Mattle a yellow. HALF: Rogers still has a 6.9 rating and that's actually the best on the team after a couple nice saves throughout the half. O'Brien 5.6, Kershaw 5.7, Darcy 5.9. We have 6 shots but 5 are off target. We actually have 63% of the possession, we just can't do anything on offense. We'll attack int he second half and give these guys more time, i'm not bringing Constantino in today. 69': Heywood is injured here. 86': Smith a yellow. 93': As we get desperate they counter attack, a cross in from the left, header from ST Bates and a goal to end it for us. Hull 2 : 0 Ipswich Lots of backups, young strikers, and overconfidence after no losses all year all add up for a poor result here. I don't much care, unhappy that some players were so poor, but I'm not that upset to not be dealing with the League Cup and wasn't going to sub in starters in the middle of this stretch of games. We shot 11 times today and never put a single one on target. O'Brien 5.3, Hutchinson 5.9, Adagsmar 5.7. Craig Smith earned a 7.3 rating, once again standing out.

10-08-2011, 09:16 PM	#1221
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	September 30th, 2023 Huddersfield (1-2-3, 17th) @ Ipswich(5-0-0, 1st) Huddersfield's schedule is basically the exact opposite of ours. Man City, Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea... that was their first four matches in league play and they lost 3 of them. Then they get a Champions League Group with Ajax and Inter. We're 4:7 favorites today and hope to keep them down. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson DM: Clifford MC: Donnelly/Jean AM: Adagsmar/Gordon F: Constantino I started Darcy/Kershaw last match with the intent of saving Constantino for Huddersfield and running this formation. 39': Constantino out left, crosses into the area but they head it away, Clive Jackson has it out right and shoots, he doesn't get a lot of pace on his shots and its going in slow motion... over the arms of the keeper... and off the crossbar, hah close! HALF: Yeah that was really really boring. We have 6 shots but 5 from long range and only 1 on target. 2 off the woodwork. Huddersfield shoot 4 times, 3 long range, all off target. We'll try to attack next half, we need to do better than this. 56': After a few passes Jean pulls up from 25 yards and shoots, incredible pace on his shot, but it hits the right post and bounces free, close! 79': Gordon misses a shot then 25 minutes go by. Here Jean sends a ball into the area and Gordon scores... but he's offsides and its not that close. They have like 9 guys in the box when we build up. 86': We earn a free kick 25 yards out, Gordon strikes it off the wall and its behind for a corner. 90': Adagsmar a cross into the area, headed behind for a corner. They clear the corner but we recover, Constantino ends up with a little space 18 yards out for a shot, but saved. And Huddersfield proves to be a team that all of a sudden we just can't get by. My first two years up in the EPL we did real well against them, but last year and this one so far we just struggle with them. Ipswich 0 : 0 Huddersfield Kirkland is man of the match with a 7.7 rating. Jackson 7.6, Mattle 7.0.

10-08-2011, 11:45 PM	#1224
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Welsh and Hughes both resume full training. -- Chris Bryan is still out 4-6 weeks. Outside of that we now have no injured players, but still have big name guys dealing with match fitness,etc. October Update -- We play on the 5th (Euro Cup), 8th, 11th, 23rd and 26th (euro cup). We had a match postponed into November due to Man City still being in the league cup. There's a break for Euro Championship Qualifying on the 18th. -- Anthony Heywood is singled out for training well. I only see free kick taking going up and that's at 4, at least in the recent gains. He's being tutored by Kirkland and a lot of his ratings have gone up in the last 6 months. -- Eoin Darcy is 2nd in Young Player of the Month voting. He's got 1 league goal and 2 goals in continental play so far this year. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Neil Bartlett has been the highlight, and our league cup loss is the lowlight. Odds that my free pickup of Bartlett ends up being more important than my $23 Million payout for Jean are improving and depressing! But Jean is still working his way into things. -- We made $161k profit last month. -- The board ask for my continued patience regarding rumors about the clubs future. Can I ask to not be shitcanned after doubling the value of the squad since I took over please? October 5th Roma(2nd, Serie A) @ Ipswich(3rd, EPL) We are actually favored slightly at home today, 6:4 to their 13:8, but they're clearly the superior side. We'll hope to use home field advantage to get something out of it. We've proven we can on our best days hang with any team in the world. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Heywood M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino Aldrovandi and Jean are both match fit now but I'm not ready to go away from Donnelly/Mills or for Aldrovandi's first match to be this one. They are set as backups. Rory Wright is their stud, 8 of his ratings are 18-20. He's got 11 goals in 9 matches between league and continental play so far. He's got 5 goals in 2 Euro Championship Qualifier matches for England too. Standard mindset today. 12': We earned a couple really early corners but no shots yet. They have 4 shots and seem to be in firm control after the first 2-3 minutes. 28': They have 8 shots to our 0 now. I change to a counterattacking mindset. 33': We earn another corner, but they head it away, still no shots. 35': We have a goal kick, Capitani takes it really long, almost to their penalty box, Constantino gets behind their last man, but his first touch could be better, he leaves just enough time for a defender to come clear it away. 36': Mattle with a tackle but before he can clear, their star Wright takes it away from him, he's 20 yards out, moves into the area and beats Capitani, no chance in hell to stop that. 0-1 44': Crespo passes to Constantino 20 yards out, he turns by his man, and he's got a clear cut chance.. but right at their keeper. Its our first shot. HALF: They shoot 12 times this half, 3 on target. We have 2 shots, both on target. They have a 56/44 possession edge. They're completing passes at an 80% rate and I think that's probably our biggest problem, we aren't stopping them from holding on to the ball forever until they decide to shoot. Constantino has a poor half but I won't sub him of course. Crespo hasn't been the best either and I bring Adagsmar in for him. 46': They move straight down the pitch, a pass ahead to Wright, he's got space 20 yards out and its honestly like anyone else being wide open 10 yards out. He blasts a shot into the right side of the net and we don't have a chance in hell of stopping it. 0-2 We'll attack and see if we can get anything going. 50': Aldrovandi in for Mattle. 62': Adagsmar just got a straight red card and I can't even begin to explain why. I wasn't even sure it'd be a yellow. But yeah, lets just get the hell out of this. Jean comes in for Gordon so we can play a 4-3-2. 75': They have a corner, taken to near the penalty spot, their "other" ST Ceccaroni wins a header over Mills and scores. 0-3 86': Wright with a hat trick on a penalty. Didn't see how it happened b/c i am in commentary mode now, don't care to go look, get this over! 0-4 Ipswich 0 : 4 Roma Bartlett ends up with a 5.0, he was fine at the half so i assume he allowed at least 2 of those goals. Mattle 5.6, Heywood 5.4, most others 6.0-6.3. -- I still don't get it but in the news note about Adagsmar's red card my assistant tells me that Adagsmar's foul was "vicious" and he ref's decision was justified. I've never seen "vicious" used to describe anyone's actions in my entire career before. I go straight to a 1 week salary fine, that bothers me. Adagsmar accepts his fine. He'll miss our next Euro Cup Match. -- NEC and AEK play to a 0:0 draw. -- Roma take control of the group with 6 points. We have 3 points. AEK and NEC each have 1 point. We host Netharlands side NEC next, they seem to be the worst team in the group and we expect to be heavy home favorites there. Roma destroying AEK and us beating NEC would put us in an extremely strong position to advance. -- We set a record for gate receipts today at $2.4 Million. No revenue sharing here, I check our finances page and we keep all of that.

10-09-2011, 12:15 AM	#1226
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	October 8th, 2023 Ipswich(5-1-0, 3rd) @ Everton(2-0-3, 15th) We're 3-5-3 lifetime against Everton. We haven't lost to them in a really long time though. Going back to February 2021 we are 2-4-0 against them. We've tied our last 3 meetings. Today we're even money favorites at their place. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/O'Brien/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Crespo/Jean/Smith/Gordon F: Khan/Darcy Short rest and we play again in a couple more days. Aldrovandi in, Jean in, Craig Smith in, Khan really isn't 100% ready but I'm itching to bring him on, Consatntino is available though. 2': Smith ahead to Khan, a through ball to Darcy, he's behind the defense for a clear cut chance.. but saved and we get a corner. Then a second corner, they clear that one, we recover but a long shot is wide. 16': They counterattack with a long run down the right, a cross into the area and a header from ST Mills who beat Jackson for the ball... but his header is well over. A great play to generate a good shot but poor finish. 29': Aldrovandi a yellow. 37': Smith with a yellow. 38': We clear out a corner but they recover, a through ball into the area for ST Mills, he's behind the defense and has a clear cut chance from about 8 yards away and he scores. 0-1 41': Steady buildup down the left side for Everton, a cross into the area and their star ST Brian Kelly wins the header and drills it into the net. 0-2 HALF: Possession is even but we can't do jack shit with ours, we've got 2 shots, 1 on target but they are 100% in control after our early clear cut chance. They have 11 shots, 4 on target. Bartlett comes in for O'Brien who gave me a classic O'Brien 5.7 first half, and Constantino is in for Khan who shouldn't have been out there anyway probably. 50': highlight opens with us already right at their penalty area, Darcy has it, avoids one tackle, is in the penalty area, shoots, but its saved. It wasn't a clear cut chance and he did a good job getting that shot, would have loved a better finish. 55': We'll attack. 59': Smith ahead to Darcy, he avoids a tackle and has a free run into the area, its our second clear cut chance, this from 15 yards, but its saved, right at the keeper really. There's a rebound and Crespo is there, he could finish this with a good strike... but blasts it over. There was a big opening as the keeper has come out to stop Darcy. 70': they have a free kick from 30 yards out and midfielder Szatan takes a beautiful shot that bends around the wall to the far side of the goal (he was out a bit wide right and shot to the left). We're falling apart here. 0-3 78': Clifford in for Smith. 89': Darcy finally finishes one. Constantino avoids a tackle and draws a defender, leaving Darcy a lot of room, Constantino with a good pass and Darcy in the area for a strong finish. 1-3 Everton 3 : 1 Ipswich While we're on a bit of a tough run here, this is our first loss in league play, we'll have to remember that. Goal: Darcy (7.0) Assist: Constantino (6.9) O'Brien 5.3, Gordon 5.8, Jackson 6.1. We get a chance to turn this around against Cardiff in a few days.

10-09-2011, 12:43 AM	#1227
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- I'm selling Mark O'Brien in January. This is the last straw. He just gives me too many games like that last one where he is under 6.0 at the half. Sometimes he recovers, sometimes not, sometimes I get fed up and just pull him. He's done for Ipswich. -- The takeover of Ipswich has fallen through as the group trying to take over has failed to prove they have the funds required. The chairman talks to me personally and thanks me for my patience but warns me that I shouldn't rule out the chance that these guys invest in the club in the future. Our transfer embargo for now at least is lifted. October 11th, 2023 Ipswich(5-1-1, 3rd) @ Cardiff(1-0-6, 20th) We're 4:7 favorites over newly promoted Cardiff today. This is Cardiff's first trip up to England's top division since the early 1960s. They've been in the Championship since 2003. We hope to avoid overconfidence going into this one. GK: Capitani D: Heywood/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Jean/Hutchinson F: Kershaw/Constantino A number of guys have morale falling to "okay" after our recent run. Its been spread across 3 competitions (league cup/euro cup/EPL) but we are 0-1-3 in our last 4 matches. I mostly start players for morale today. Kershaw gets a start b/c Khan can't go and I've been overusing Darcy. 18': We counter after winning a ball in their end, a little slowly at first but Adagsmar makes a great long pass forward from midfield, Constantino gets behind the defense to receive it and blasts a powerful shot from 18 yards out past the keeper! 1-0 25': Just awful awful play in defense, tackle after tackle missed, overcommitting to go for aggressive tackles, two missed tackles in a row leaves their ST Johnson wide open in the area, clear cut chance and he finishes... 1-1 34': We'll attack. 35': Jackson sends a long ball down the right after a clearance from them, Consatntino is there and makes a run towards the right corner, he tries to play a cross for Kershaw, they have a man there, but he mishits the ball and it falls dead in the area a few feet away. Kershaw runs onto it and puts it in the net! Happy to see him get a goal here. 2-1 HALF: We have the lead but it feels like we just aren't playing our best. Only 5 shots, 2 on target for the 2 goals. They have more possession and they are winning 78% of their headers to just 38% for us. They have 2 shots only, but both were pretty scary and it seems like our defense is capable of lapses today. I bring Craig Smith in for a quickly tiring Jean. 47': There's another set of defensive lapses. We have it first but a poor cross gives them the ball... they get it to ST Phillips about 35 yards out, he begins a run towards the area and Aldrovandi badly misses a tackle, he continues his run... Bartlett badly misses a tackle... he's into the area and has a clear cut chance that he finishes. The defense was there. They just fucked up, miserably. 2-2 62': O'Brien in for Aldrovandi, oops, forgot to move another defender into my list of subs. 70': Capitani with a free kick from about 25 yards away from our goal. He plays it basically to the penalty spot.. their keeper comes out but stays back, not challenging for the ball. Constantino wins a header for it over a defender who was there as well, and its in! 3-2 77': They earn a corner, taken to the far post... and headed in. Jesus. 3-3 80': They have a throwin, thrown into the penalty area, they win it and take a shot, saved by Capitani but there's a rebound and one of their men is first to it... this is their FIFTH clear cut chance of the match, but Capitani bails us out with a great diving save. 82': There's a run down the right, a cross, they head it back out, Hutchinson is first to it, crosses it right back in... it hits a defender in the 6 yard box, deflects off him and into the goal, we're going to beat the worst team in the league on a damn own goal. 4-3 82': Donnelly in for Kershaw, 4-1-4-1, do not give up another goal. We finally close it out after that. Cardiff 3 : 4 Ipswich Man of the Match: Constantino (8.8) Goals: Constantino 2, Kershaw (6.9) Assists: Capitani (7.5), Constantino, Hutchinson (6.9), Adagsmar (7.7) Aldrovandi 6.3, Gordon 6.2 today. We get a win and hopefully that's all that matters here, but I'm not really happy at how it happened.

10-09-2011, 09:05 PM	#1228
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Kirkland and Gordon are called up for a Oct 18th England Match. -- Adagsmar has been suspended for two additional European matches (3 total) for his vicious red card against Roma. So we basically have to make sure Crespo is ready to go for all our Euro Cup matches from now on. -- Capitani and Constantino are named to the EPL Team of the Week -- Ireland can't qualify for the Euro Championship and our youngster Eoin Darcy gets into the last "meaningless" qualification match. He gets a goal, his first international goal! -- The group stage is complete for Euro Championsihp Qualifying. Group winners are in: Italy, Serbia, Holland, Turkey, France, Germany, England, Austria, Spain, Portugal. Norway are the hosts. That's 11 spots out of 16. The final 5 will be decided by playoffs between the second place teams from the qualifying groups: Bosnia & Herzogovnia vs Poland Romania vs Israel Slovakia vs Hungary Scotland vs Switzerland Greece vs Croatia Donnelly has been playing a lot for Scotland. Mattle starts every match for Austria, Aldrovandi and Kirkland both get called up and occasionally used by Italy/England. October 23rd, 2023 Aston Villa(4-0-4, 12th) @ Ipswich(6-1-1, 2nd) Aston Villa are 6:4 favorites today, we're slim 13:8 dogs. Not quite Tottenham levels historically(we'd never beaten Tottenham until this year) but close, we're 1-5-6 lifetime against Aston Villa, 0-3-3 the last 3 seasons. We're in prime time on TV today for this match. We play NEC in the Euro Cup in 3 days. We should be heavy favorites there but I'm not going to take a lot of chances there. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson F: Khan/Constantino Aston Villa have a 24 y/o ST Danny Clark leading them early on with 3 goals in league play... his first 3 goals ever in the EPL despite being on Villa his entire career. We hold out some starters for our next match, Crespo, Donnelly, Gordon, Heywood, Bartlett are sitting today, the guys in their place are damn solid too though (except Hutchinson is a pretty big dropoff for Gordon). Khan/Constantino start up front, Khan is now match fit and we need to get him going. His morale is poor so we'll worry about that some. Standard mindset with a slightly high defensive line. 11': Adagsmar up the left side, slowly, he dodges a slide tackle and keeps going, passes ahead to Khan who is way wide, Khan to Constantino at the penalty spot, his man makes a tackle but the ball just squirts away a few feet and Constantino recovers and gets to it immediately, shoots, its barely in the right side of the net! 1-0 16': A steal for Mills, pass ahead to Jean, he makes a run coming in from the left, shoots from 15 yards out, but right at the keeper. Tough angle, could have waited for Khan or Constantino. 21': Mattle with a yellow. 26': Adagsmar a cross, Constantino a header... keeper has to dive to get it and turns it behind for a corner. They clear the corner, but we control and stay pushed up. Eventually though they intercept a through ball attempt and clear. 37': Throwin in their end on the right side, thrown to Constantino who is a ways out, he plays it forward to Hutchinson at the edge of the area, backwards to Khan, right back ahead for Hutchinson and he's free in the area now! He makes a move on the keeper, holding the ball forever given how crowded the penalty area is, then sticks it in the net!! 2-0 HALF: We've done a great job here, totally different than the team that struggled in our last what, 5 matches in a row? We just need to keep it up for the second half. We've taken 6 shots, 4 on target. They have 5 shots, none on target, I am not sure I saw a single one in a highlight. Darcy in for Constantino, Smith in for Mills at the half. 56': Highlight opens with Khan out left 30 yards from goal, he runs down the left, dodges a tackle, near the end line, moves towards the penalty are, dodges another tackle... tries a shot from very close range but at a very very tough angle, saved. 72': midfielder Sandro a yellow. 83': Aldrovandi a yellow. We kill off the second half superbly well, only seeing a few highlights at all, and only watching them shoot twice. Ipswich 2 : 0 Aston Villa Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.3) Goals: Constantino (7.4), Hutchinson (7.7) Assists: Khan 2 Notables: Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.4), Mattle (7.2), Adagsmar (7.3) Darcy with a 5.9 in the second half. -- This win comes along with a Chelsea 1:0 win over Arsenal, and 9 matches into the season we take over 1st place by 1 point. We're 7-1-1, Arsenal 7-0-2

10-10-2011, 12:47 AM	#1229
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	October 26rd, 2023 Euro Cup Group L NEC Nijmegen (7th, Eredivisie) @ Ipswich (1st, EPL) Eredivisie is the top dutch league, dominated by Feyenoord and Ajax. NEC isn't one of their top sides and we go into this one 4:6 favorites, NEC are 7:2. With a win here we'd be 2-0-1 at the midpoint of group play and would be in really strong shape. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mills/Gordon F: Khan/Constantino They have a 21 y/o Brazilian ST Lailton who is scoring like crazy for them in league play and continental play so far, he's our main concern. I start what I believe to be my strongest possible lineup right now. Donnelly/Mills still feels like my most reliable midfield, I need to see more from Jean (and he does have that language barrier). He's available as a sub though. One good match with the senior team fixes Khan's morale and I'm happy to get him in here right away. Standard mindset. 7': We have it deep in their end already, Mills a short pass to Gordon, a short pass to Donnelly, he's 20ish yards out, runs into the area, by one man, gets a clear cut chance and puts it by the keeper!! 1-0 10': Gordon a free kick from ~28 yards out, its a rocket, by the wall, but off the right post, so close! 18': We allow a corner, but head it away cleanly. 26': Yellow for Aldrovandi. One of their mids has a yellow too. Donnelly usually picks his up in the first 15 minutes of the second half, so be on the lookout for that. 36': We earn a corner, taken to the near post, they head it across the area but not strong enough to get it to safety... Aldrovandi is there on the other side of the 6 yard box, gets his head to it and drives it home!! 2-0 HALF: We are playing a fine match today and as long as we don't let up will take a commanding hold on 2nd in the group. we have 5 shots, 2 on target for the 2 goals. They haven't taken a shot yet. 53': Free kick 25 yards out, Gordon hits it into the wall, we recover and end up earning a corner. Gordon with the corner, but they head that out. We recover and keep pressing, they clear. 56': We get a second corner, taken again to the near post, Bartlett heads it... its off the defender on the line, bounces through to the other side of the 6 yard box, Aldrovandi is there and drills it into the net!!! 3-0 63': LOLZ. My timing was a little off, I said first 15 minutes of the second half. Its 18 minutes in when Donnelly gets a yellow card. 70': Jean in for Donnelly, Hughes in for Kirkland, Darcy in for Khan. We got this! 72': Right, 2 minutes after making my subs, an injury. Darcy goes down on a corner kick and must immediately leave the match. 4-4-1 the rest of the way. We end it easily even a man down, almost scoring a couple times more and only allowing 1 shot all match. Ipswich 3 : 0 NEC Man of the Match: Carlos Aldrovandi (9.1) Goals: Aldrovandi 2, Donnelly (7.9) Assists: Gordon 2 (8.1) Notables: Heywood (7.4), Kirkland (7.2), Bartlett (7.8), Crespo (7.1) Great win! -- We receive $201,000 for the victory. Injury Update ST Eoin Darcy is out 3 weeks with a pulled hamstring he suffered today. -- Roma crushed AEK 4-0 as expected. That AEK/NEC draw a couple weeks ago was the best thing that could have happened to us, here's the table halfway through group play: Roma - 3-0-0 - 12 for - 0 against - +12 - 9 pts Ipswich - 2-0-1 - 5 for - 4 against - +1 - 6 pts AEK - 0-1-2 - 0 for - 6 against - -6 - 1 point NEC - 0-1-2 - 0 for - 7 against - -7 - 1 point We play @ NEC, @ Roma, vs AEK. We still have to execute but we are heavy heavy favorites to advance out of the group along with Roma now. @NEC on November 9th. If we win that and Roma beats AEK, we will mathematically clinch advancement. Man Utd (who lost early in the Champions League) and Man City are both winning their groups easily.

10-10-2011, 01:26 AM	#1230
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	November Update -- We play on the 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 25th. The 9th is our Euro Cup match against NEC. The rest of it is a month of hell. Newcastle, Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea. AYUP. -- Two of our U18's are mentioned as training well. One is our super promising 17 y/o GK Rob Lines. his Strength (9), Pace (8), Agility (9) go up, this is in addition to basically every goalkeeping rating of his going up 1 during early training in July/August. "decent potential" DR Felix Gabriel is also noted for tactical improvements, though all I see is a strength increase. -- I'm 3rd in Manager of the Month Voting for October. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing MR Daryl Hutchinson is the highlight (he's had a couple very strong matches). Our league cup defeat is the lowlight. -- We made a profit of $369k last month. that's with two inflated gate receipts from the Euro Cup. Even though we're not raking in the prize money from Group Play just the few home games we get are making a noteworthy difference. -- Conor Clifford is injured on November 4th, a damaged heel coming down from a header, but he'll be back in a week. -- Arsenal played two matches in the week+ we had off here, tying Blackburn and losing to Sheffield Utd. We've now got 2 less matches than them and a few other teams. We're in 3rd as a result, but with the same number of points as both Sheffield Utd and Arsenal, just a slightly worse goal differential. If we can navigate our difficult schedule well this month we could be in amazing shape. November 6th, 2023 Newcastle(2-2-6, 18th) @ Ipswich(7-1-1, 3rd) Newcastle have seriously fallen all of a sudden. We're 1:2 favorites today, they are 9:2 to win, huge odds there. We're 7-0-8 lifetime against Newcastle and we did win all 3 meetings last year (including league cup quarters). We've 5-0-2 in our 3 seasons since we promoted back up against them. We are once again on TV in Prime Time. And once again we play in the Euro Cup in 3 days. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Welsh/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Hutchinson F: Kershaw/Constantino With us going again in 3 days I change out the whole midfield, Jean and Smith at MC with the obvious backups out wide. Welsh gets his first start of the year at DC and Kershaw gives Khan the day off. Standard mindset with a slightly high D Line. 7': First highlight all we see is a pass to ST Joel, he turns and shoots from 25 yards out, Capitani dives, gets a hand to the ball but can't push it away, its through and into the back of the net. Ugh. 0-1 13': Wow. From bad to Worse. Constantino is hurt and must be taken out of the match immediately. Khan is in. 25': Smith with a nice pass forward to Adagsmar but a shot from 18 yards out is well off the mark. 31': Welsh a yellow. HALF: We see a couple corners and thats it before the half. We've got 5 shots but just 2 on target and 3 from long range. They've only been allowed 3 shots, and one was just a great long range strike. We'll try to attack this half, no subs yet. 60': Hutchinson does a great job to steal a ball right as they start to try to turn from deefnse to attack, a pass ahead to Kershaw, a quick ball into the area for Khan, he's got a good look, but saved... rebound falls back to Khan, but his shot is wide. uh yeah that's it. We don't get another highlight until the 93rd minute when they earn a corner and its all over. Ipswich 0 : 1 Newcastle Adagsmar 7.1, Smith 7.2, no one is below 6.5 (that's Jean who is not showing me $23M in value so far!). Just a rough day and with DArcy and Bryan already out, Constantino going down really really limits us. The injury gods continue to be firmly on our side when it comes to Constantino. He's out for 4-5 days.

10-10-2011, 01:49 AM	#1231
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Roma plays the day before we do. They beat AEK 3:0. Roma have officially clinched a spot in the knockout rounds. If we win our match we will do the same. November 9th, 2023 Euro Cup Group L Ipswich(2-0-1, 2nd) @ NEC(0-1-2, 3rd) Those standings are in the group. Its a lot different than at home, we're only 5:4 favorites here today. And we've got Constantino out. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson DM: Jean MC: Donnelly/Mills AM: Hughes/Gordon F: Khan I'm not starting Kershaw today. I will start Jean at DMC though, and Hughes gets his first start of the year since he can play AML and Crespo can't. Donnelly/Mills as the old standard in the middle. Standard mindset on the road. 17': We earn a clear cut chance as a number of passes lead to Jackson making a deep run down the right side, crossing to the far end of the 6 yard box, and getting Hughes a header... but he can't put it on target. 24': Donnelly wins a ball in their end but a poor clear gives it right back, one pass later, there's a through ball and a shot by ST Soltani, and its by Capitani and in. Crap. 0-1 We only see one more highlight all half and its of them attacking, Aldrovandi has to make a strong tackle to finally win it away as they spend forever looking for an opening in the defense. HALF: We end up with 7 shots but I only see a couple of them early on. 4 are from long range and only 3 are on target. They shoot twice with the clear cut chance and goal in the mix. I egg the team on and am going to attack this half. 48': Yellow for Donnelly. 66': Jean with a run up the middle and a shot from 20 yards out, just high. Time's ticking... 71': Smith in for Mills, Mattle in for Bartlett. 73': They blast a shot from 20 yards out, Capitani has to make a diving save, but we win the corner easily. 75': Hutchinson in for a tiring Neil Gordon too. 86': Khan doesn't seem to know how to play up front by himself, a couple times I've seen him receive a pass in a semi-dangerous spot and turn away and look for a pass instead of try to make amove. Here he runs wide, passes to Jean who shoots from range but has it saved. And that's it. We've still got a home match with AEK left but damn it would have been nice to get the pressure off early. NEC 1 : 0 Ipswich Their keeper is man of the match though to be honest we didn't get nearly the pressure on him we should have. Capitani put up an 8.0, Kirkland 7.1, Aldrovandi 7.0 and Hughes a 7.2 today. We just couldn't get a damn goal. Khan only shot once and I blame him as much as anyone. I won't put him in a spot like that ever again, I'd run the 4-4-2 and start Kershaw with him if I had to do it over again. That leaves us with 6 points in 4 matches and NEC with 4 points in 4 matches. We assume that if we beat AEK, Roma will take care of NEC for us, but we can't really be 100% confident that roma will give a shit anymore now that they've qualified. We play AEK on December 7th. By then (assuming no other injuries) Constantino, Bryan and Darcy will all be healthy again.

10-10-2011, 11:32 AM	#1232
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Chris Bryan resumes full training. He's missed the last 3 months though and we can't expect him to be available for league play for at least a couple weeks. He'll join up with the reserves and get back into practice. November 12th, 2023 Ipswich(7-1-2, 3rd) @ Arsenal(7-1-3, 2nd) They've still got one match played on us, but we're shorthanded with Constantino still hurt and Arsenal are 4:6 favorites at their place. We're 2-1-9 lifetime against arsenal. Last year we beat them at home for our first ever win and then lost twice, at their house in league play and in the FA Cup Semis in Wembley. This is our fourth match in a row on TV, and once again we're on in prime time. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Welsh/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Crespo/Bejaoui/Mills/Gordon F: Khan/Kershaw Their two scoring stars remain the same, Hans Nooij leads them with 6 league goals and Bugra Yildirim has 4. Bejaoui gets a start today, I've used him less b/c he's been playing more internationally than anyone else (for Tunisia in the African Cup of Nations qualifiers). Constantino will be ready to go against Man City in a few days but not available today. We'll defend today. 2': We kick off but give the ball away, they counter attack hard, Nooij is 25 yards out, puts a through ball into the area and new signing Colin Meade is there for his first ever Arsenal goal. 0-1 14': They attack again, a pass to Nooij 20 yards out, Aldrovandi tries to intercept it but fails, allowing Nooij to get a solid look and he buries the shot from there. 0-2 38': We get a bit of a counter attack ourselves, Khan ends up pushing it ahead to Kershaw who finds himself with a clear cut chance in the right side of the area... but the keeper saves it. HALF: We just don't' have it here. They have 9 shots, 5 on target, we have 3 shots, one on target. possession is about even but they are winning 82% of hteir tackles and 80% of their headers to 54% and 31% for us. they control everything right now. We have had occasional success saying "screw it, attack" and catching teams complacent at this point, and we'll try to do that, but my confidence with Khan/Kerhsaw as my striker combo today is nil. 59': Hutchinson in for Gordon, Gordon got a bit of an injury earlier, no concerns there but no point in risking him right now. 79': They have a throwin, a quick pass to Dalla Valle (like Colin Meade this is another name we recognize but not from Arsenal, just like the real world so much of the talent rises up to Man U/Arsenal/Chelsea/Man City eventually in England). He shoots from 20 yards out and scores. 0-3 We'll look to our rematch at home later in the year. Arsenal 3 : 0 Ipswich Capitani 5.7, Jackson 5.5, Bejaoui 5.8, Kershaw 5.4.

10-10-2011, 12:40 PM	#1233
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- I think we were scheduled to play Man City in August. The match is rescheduled for the 4th time, this time due to international callups. That gives us a solid 2 weeks off for Constantino, Bryan and Darcy all to get back into playing shape hopefully. -- England's U21 team crushed the Faroe Islands 5:0. Anthony Heywood put up an 8.2 there, Chris Bryan scored a goal and got a half in before being subbed and Michael Rogers was the starting GK, getting the shutout. Mainly I'm really pleased to see Chris Bryan get a goal and 45 minutes of play time to help with his fitness. -- Switzerland beats Scotland 1:0 in the Euro Championship playoff first leg. Donnelly and Welsh play in that one, Welsh 7.0, Donnelly 6.6, both played all 90 minutes. -- Michele Capitani starts in goal for England!!! Its just a friendly, England crushes Australia 5:1. Capitani plays 75 minutes and has a 7.3 rating. Stuart Kirkland plays 67 minutes and has a 7.4 rating. "Newly capped England goalkeeper Michele Capitani has revealed how proud he is to make his first appearance for his country." Woohoo! -- World Cup Qualifying has begun in South America, and our midfielder Jean played 20 minutes as a sub in a 4:0 Brazil win over Ecuador. -- Scotland ties Switzerland 1:1 in the second leg of the Euro Championship Qualifying playoffs, Scotland loses 2:1 aggregate and is out. But the exciting thing is that James Welsh scored for Scotland, his first international goal. November 25th, 2023 Chelsea(5-4-3, 7th) @ Ipswich(7-1-3, 3rd) We started so strongly that we can lose 2 in a row and still be in 3rd here. Chelsea are 4:5 favorites to win at Portman Road today but we hope to turn things around against them today. We've done well against Chelsea, 3-4-6 lifetime. In 4 matches last year (league cup 2 leg semifinal) we went 1-2-1, and we beat them in those semifinals. GK: Capitani D: Hughes/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Crespo/Clifford/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino Khan's morale is poor again, so I go ahead and start Darcy/Constantino today. Cliford/Mills since Donnelly played twice for Scotland in the last week. Chelsea is running a 4-2-3-1, I think that's new for them. Balotelli AML, Canales AMC, 21 y/o ST David Thomas up front. He hasn't scored yet this year, he got 9 goals last year. Counter attack today to start. 9': We have a corner, Gordon sends it towards the far post, Aldrovandi wins the header... and its a powerful strike, perfectly placed in the upper right corner, goal!!! 1-0 11': Jackson a yellow in our offensive end. 20': Hughes loses the ball in a bad spot in midfield, but we recover and win it back as they try to counter. Awful play from Hughes though. 35': Free kick near midfield, we build up on offense but Constantino loses possession before he can shoot. They counter and end up with a cross and header that is dangerous but off target. HALF: Outside of our one great corner, its been even and pretty boring. We have 5 shots, 3 are on target but 4 from long range. They shoot 6 times, all off target, and 4 from long range. I tell our guys to try harder to get the ball in the box before shooting. Otherwise no changes for now. 48': Defender Kalashnikov a yellow for them. 58': Free kick in our end, Capitani sends it long, they win a header and try to atack quickly, Balotelli gets by Bartlett and has a great look just inside the area, but Capitani saves it.. rebound falls to David Thomas.. he shoots but right at Capitani, saved again! Rebound to Balotelli... another shot... right at Capitani and he holds it. WHEW. Only the second shot there was a clear cut chance and the shots were not that well placed, but two of them had some serious pace on them and for Capitani just to stay on his feet through all those and keep reacting was brilliant. 58': Darcy a yellow. 66': Gordon a free kick pretty far out and to the right, just inside midfield. He plays a low, hard cross towards the area, Darcy gets his head to it, but its just high. That had a ton of power on it and if it was on target the keeper wouldn't have had any time to react I don't think. 67': Donnelly in for Darcy, Clifford DMC, Donnelly MC, 4-1-4-1 the rest of the way. We kill 20 minutes off the clock, waste a lot more time with 2 corners and a free kick in their end, they get one last chance on offense but Thomas is offside as a cross comes in (we headed it away anyway). And that's it! Ipswich 1 : 0 Chelsea We continue to have Chelsea's number, and get a big win here after 3 straight losses (2 league/1 euro cup). Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.4) Goal: Aldrovandi (8.3) Assist: Gordon Notables: Jackson (7.3), Hughes (7.1), Bartlett (7.0) 6.7-6.9 ratings for the midfield and offense, but the defense was strong here. Good win! Another sellout today. Our average attendance is higher than our capacity last season. We're at 36,444 fans per match this season! We're at the 1/3 mark of the season, lets check the standings, no one is running away with the league so far. Arsenal have 13 matches played, some others at 12 (including us) or 11. 13 unless otherwise noted. 1. Arsenal - 26 pts 2. Ipswich - 25 pts (1 less played) 3. Sheffield Utd - 23 pts 4. Everton - 23 pts (1 less played) 5. Blackburn - 22 pts 6. Man City - 21 pts (2 less played) 7. Man Utd - 21 pts (1 less played) 8. Tottenaham - 20 pts 9. Chelsea - 19 pts 10. Nottingham Forest - 19 pts 11. Southampton - 18 pts (1 less played) 12. Aston Villa - 18 pts (1 less played) 13. Liverpool - 16 pts (1 less played) 14. Newcastle - 14 pts (1 less played) 15. Sunderland - 13 pts 16. Huddersfield - 13 pts 17. Birstol City - 10 pts (1 less played) ----------------------------------------- 18. West Brom - 9 pts 19. Cardiff - 8 pts 20. Exeter - 7 pts Still just 1 point out of first and a game in hand on Arsenal, looking great! Everton and Blackburn are the big early surprises and we'll see if either one of them can challenge for a top 7 spot long term. When a Man U, tottenham, or Chelsea are hanging around the bottom half of the top 10 early on they usually rise up strongly at some point.

10-10-2011, 01:50 PM	#1236
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Aldrovandi is named to the EPL team of the week. December Update -- We play on the 2nd, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 21st, 26th, and 30th. 7th is our critical matchup with AEK in the Euro Cup. 21st is our rematch with Roma which we pray will be completely meaningless as both teams will have advanced already. If not we're in trouble. The league schedule isn't horrible, except for the fact that 5 of our 6 matches are on the road. That's pretty damn horrible. -- The board is delighted with my leadership. Our EPL play is the highlight and our league cup loss is the lowlight. -- We lost $1.83M last month with gate receipts way down. We get a Euro Cup home match this month so things will be a little better. December 2nd, 2023 Ipswich(8-1-3, 2nd) @ Blackburn (7-1-5, 7th) We're 4-2-4 lifetime against blackburn, but the last 3 seasons we've taken things over a bit going 4-1-1 against them. 1-1-1 on the road and undefeated at home. Blackburn have not had a start like this though. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Donnelly/Smith/Gordon F: Khan/Bryan Chris Bryan gets into the lineup for the first time since August today, paired with Khan who can score as well (though he hasn't yet this season in league play). Craig Smith gets a start, and I start Adagsmar today since he's still suspended for the Euro Cup, so there's no reason at all to consider playing Crespo. Standard mindset, slightly high line/narrow play based on coaches recommendations. Its raining pretty hard today. 12': Mattle with a yellow. 22': Goal kick for us, that starts the offense going, after a couple tackles and back and forth play the ball goes to Khan, he shows great control getting into the area, cutting right and finding a shot out of nowhere. Its saved by the keeper but the rebound falls to Chris Bryan who blasts it into the net! 1-0 34': Yellow for midfielder Davi. 38': they earn a corner, its taken to the near post and they win a header and have a really great look, Capitani dives as the ball heads far post... and he is able to push it away. He laid out completely for that one and we're lucky to clear it b/c there would be no getting up to stop another shot if they got to it first. Whew! HALF: Each team shoots 7 times, they put 3 on target, we put 2 on target. Each team had 1 clear cut chance, we just converted ours. We're not passing particularly well, just 66% to their 78%. We are tackling well and winning more than our share of balls in the air though. We'll drop to a counter attacking strategy for the second half to try to limit their chances since we're on the road. 46': So much for limiting chances. We kick off but they charge and win the ball right away in our end. A few passes later and there's a shot from midfielder McCarthy from 25 yards out and its a great strike, bending into the right side of the net, no chance to stop it. 49': Donnelly a yellow. 51': They get their second clear cut chance here with a through ball into the right side of the area, Kirkland is beaten. Shot goes near post, but Capitani does a great job to get to it and turn it aside. 62': Yellow for Smith. 69': Yellow for Gordon. Back to a standard mindset. 73': Mills in for Smith, Hutchinson in for Gordon, both are tired. 76': Constantino in for an Exhausted Bryan. 81': Corner for us, taken to the far post and Gordon and Aldrovandi have something special going here, Aldrovandi blasts a header into the net!! We have always really sucked at corner kicks but Aldrovandi has scored a number of goals off them for us this year. 2-1 92': Long ball forward for them as they try to get the late tying goal. Its bouncing towards the area, Capitani has come out for it, but its slowed in the rain and doesn't get into the penalty area very quickly. They have a striker charging forward. Capitani ends up leaving the penalty area and tries a diving header to push it over to one of our defenders. Their striker's pressure pays off, he is first to the very very poor header and puts the ball into the net to tie it up. A horrible error for Capitani to close out the match. 2-2 Blackburn 2 : 2 Ipswich One of their goalscorers is man of the match. It would have been Capitani if not for that last goal, he was up around an 8.3 or so. Goals: Aldrovandi (8.1), Bryan (6.9) Assists: Khan (6.6), Gordon (6.8) Notables: Capitani (7.5) Otmar Mattle with a 5.6, that came at the very end too. In the end its still a draw on the road against a top 7 team but that one feels pretty bad, we had it completely wrapped up and had a huge mistake give it away in the final minute of added time.

10-10-2011, 02:34 PM	#1237
BYU 14 Coordinator Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: The scorched Desert	I hope the takeover falls flat as it seems you are on the verge of greatness with this side and it would suck to be relieved of your job at this point.

10-10-2011, 02:35 PM	#1238
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Aldrovandi is named to the EPL Team of the Week. FA Cup 3rd Round Draw We are going to be on the road but against Championship side Fulham. Similar to our League Cup start vs Hull but with money to be had each round and a generally more prestigious tournament we'll take this one more seriously from the outset. -- The FA Cup causes our first match against Man City to be moved back again. Its now been pushed back to January 24th. Our rematch with them is March 2nd. Lets see if both squads can have enough success to start bumping them both! December 7th, 2023 Euro Cup Group L AEK(0-1-3, 4th) @ Ipswich (2-0-2, 2nd) We need to win here today, badly. If we don't we either have to beat Roma or pray for a tie between the other two in the last match. I'd really rather just win here. If we win and Roma wins, we'd clinch advancement. We're 4:5 favorites today and should feel pretty good, we beat AEK 2:0 at their house earlier in the season. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Crespo/Donnelly/Mils/Gordon F: Khan/Constantino Khan/Constantino up front, same midfield I've used for most of our Euro Cup matches I believe, and Bartlett/Aldrovandi has been my DC's of choice for the cup when possible. They are running a 4-1-4-1 with their star ST Michal Hruby up front. He's got 8 goals in 10 league matches for them. He was hurt the first time we played. Standard mindset for us today. 13': Mills is hurt. He can stay in and will for now. 16': Defender Mijalovic with a yellow for them. 31': Change to a control strategy to try to find some openings in their defensive formation. 31': Defender Mijalovic with his second yellow, he's sent off and we have a man advantage the rest of the way!! 33': Free kick 20 yards out, Gordon strikes it into the wall and it goes behind. Corner is cleared. 42': Some nifty passing, Gordon plays it across the pitch to Kirkland, he centers it quickly for Mills and we seem to catch their defense slightly off guard. Mills finds a little opening and gets it to Constantino, one step, clear cut chance and he buries a shot near post!! 1-0 HALF: We control 62% of the possession and end up with 8 shots, just 2 on target and I don't see many of them in highlights. They shoot twice, both off target. Hopefully with the man advantage we just keep pressing and get a second goal here. Roma leads NEC at the half, if these results stay the same we advance. 60': Corner for us, taken short to Bartlett, he tries to turn by his defender, he gets a shot but its not a good one, way off target. 64': Donnelly hits Constantino for an easy goal, but he's a mile offsides. The commentary begins to note that this would be his 200th Ipswich goal, so we'll look forward to that when it happens for real. 73': Clifford in for Khan and he moves back to DMC. Jean in for the injured Mills. We end up controlling most of the possession after the substitution and formation change and easily put this away. Ipswich 1 : 0 AEK Man of the Match: Steven Mills (7.9) Goal: Constantino (7.4) Assist: Mills Notables: Heywood (7.2), Kirkland (7.3), Bartlett (7.1), Crespo (7.2) Gordon with a 6.5 rating today, he struggled a bit when no one else did, but it doesn't matter, huge win! -- We receive $201,000 for the win. -- Roma beats NEC 2:0. Ipswich Qualify for First Knockout Round The Roma win helps us to mathematically clinch advancement out of the group stage of the Euro Cup!! -- Wow, I hadn't really checked expectations or anything, the board expects us to make the Second Knockout Round. It seems like there are some really strong teams we could potentially draw in the first round, but ok! The Group Standings right now: Roma - 5-0-0 - 15 pts Ipswich - 3-0-2 - 9 pts NEC - 1-1-3 - 4 pts AEK - 0-1-4 - 1 pt With just 1 match to go we're through. I think my goal against Roma should be to score a goal. They have 17 goals and haven't allowed a single one in 5 matches.

10-10-2011, 05:13 PM	#1239
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- These Euro Matches always help with the cash, we brought $2.1 Million in from that match against AEK. I wonder if we can break more gate receipts records in the knockout rounds. December 10th, 2023 Sheffield Utd(7-5-2, 2nd) @ Ipswich(8-2-3, 3rd) Its our only home league match this month and its a big one. We have one less match played than Arsenal and Sheffield Utd, we're tied in points with Sheffield and 3 behind Arsenal. The top 10 is still quite crowded as well, we're only 5 points ahead of 12th place. We are slim 5:4 favorites today, they're 7:4 to get a win at Portman Road. We're on TV again today, this time in the afternoon. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mils/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino Sheffield Utd's Luca Vanelli has been a leading scorer in the EPL for awhile now, scoring between 12-21 league goals each of the last 6 years. This year he's off to a torrid start with 9 goals in 13 matches. We make a few changes today, Adagsmar and Jean are in, Darcy is up front instead of Khan. Standard mindset today at home. 3': Each team with an early long range shot that is pretty close to the target but wide. 14': Vanelli with a yellow for them. 26': Free kick from 28ish yards out for them, de Konig takes it, bends it around the wall, Capitani dives for it, gets a hand to it but can't push it away, its through and into the upper left corner of the net. Beautiful shot there. 0-1 30': Aldrovandi wins a ball deep in our end and sends it long to Constantino, he plays a give and go with Darcy and ends up in the right side of the area with a shot... its saved though and the corner goes nowhere. 40': "work ball into box" - Each team has 7 shots and each team has 6 from long range. 45': They have a corner, taken to the near post, headed but just to the other side of the area, their star Vanelli is there and drills it into the net... 0-2 HALF: We have 7 shots to their 8, but 6 of ours are long range and only 2 on target at all. We're just playing extremely poorly here. We'll open up and attack this half and see if it helps. Jackson in for Heywood who was the worst of our poor players that half. 48': Throwin for us in their end, a pass to Jean, to Mills, Mills puts it into the area and Adagsmar makes a great run to get to it, its a clear cut chance... but saved and turned back for a corner, which we can't score on. 53': More passing around the midfield for us, a ball to Darcy in between two of hteir defenders, eh's got a clear cut chance... but saved again. 55': Mills ahead to Constantino after another buildup for us, our 3rd clear cut chance of the last 10 minutes... and he is wide open at the penalty spot but shoots right at the keeper. Saved. 64': Jean a yellow. 75': Bejaoui in for Jean. After that flurry of chances early in the half Sheffield Utd settles in on defense and we just cannot get anything going. Ipswich 0 : 2 Sheffield Utd Their keeper is man of the match for stopping 3 clear cut chances. Heywood 5.6, Jean 5.6 today, no one was good. Jean is really struggling for us, maybe we should stick to the free players :P We remain in 3rd with 26 points. Incredibly, Liverpool in 14th place have 20 points right now. Arsenal pull slightly ahead for the first time here following a 5:0 win over West Brom.

10-10-2011, 05:35 PM	#1240
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December 13th, 2023 Ipswich(8-2-4, 4th) @ Southampton (6-4-5, 10th) Southampton are even money favorites today against us. We're 11:5 to win. We're 4-3-4 lifetime against these guys. We're 3-0-1 against them in the last two seasons. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Smith/Mils/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino I really want Darcy/Constantino to work (and thus Khan/Bryan as my other striker pairing) in most situations so I force that again today. Craig Smith starts for Mills, Mattle starts for Bartlett and otherwise we make no changes today. We play again in 3 more days against Exeter and will likely make tons of changes there. Standard mindset on the road today. 11': Buildup down the middle for Ipswich, Darcy has it out right, passes to Smith, Smith puts it into the area, Darcy runs onto it perfectly, blasts it with his first touch and beats the keeper! Perfect start. 1-0 17': They have a run down the left, cross into the 6 yard box and a header redirecting the ball towards goal, Capitani makes a quick save though and we clear the corner. 20': Darcy with a long shot, high and a poor decision I think, we could have done more there and Darcy ended our attack early with a poor shot. 31': Mattle is hurt, he can stay in for now. 41': Free kick about 20 yards out near the right corner of the penalty area. He shoots from there, bending around the right side of the wall and into the net, a great free kick from Gordon!! 2-0 HALF: Southampton shoots 7 times, 4 on target. We only manage 3 shots all half but make two of them count big time. Neither team has a single clear cut chance. I bring Bejaoui in for Mills and Bartlett in for Mattle at the half. We change to a counterattacking mindset. 60': They are attacking hard, most of their team is forward, the highlight opens as they try to reset their offense, but Bejaoui makes a great steal and sends the ball long to Constantino, he makes a run down the right side, lobs a ball into the 6 yard box, their keeper gets his hands to it but just punches it away and not very far... Adagsmar follows up and drills a shot into the net! 3-0 62': We head a cross out and counter attack, a ball is played to Darcy, Darcy with a long pass ahead to Constantino, he's got one man to beat, and he does beautifully, cutting right as he enters the area and leaving his man in his dust. He pulls up at the penalty spot and drills a shot by the keeper! 4-0 72': Their star ST Cavalleri makes us look really bad, we pass it all the way back to our defense, Bartlett has it at their penalty area to reset our offense, we've had possession here it appears, everyone else is forward... Cavalleri attacks, takes the ball away from Barltett and takes a step into the area and shoots and scores. 4-1 91': Ugh, Neil Gordon is hurt in the final minute of the match. 92': Bejaoui gives the ball away in midfield and they get a second goal back, a pass ahead to backup ST Juarez, he's behind Aldrovandi and gets a clear cut chance and finishes. 4-2 Southampton 2 : 4 Ipswich Man of the Match: Constantino (8.9) Goals: Constantino, Darcy (8.8), Gordon (8.3), Adagsmar (7.7) Assists: Darcy 2, Constantino, Smith (7.6) Notables: Capitani (7.7) Bartlett and Bejaoui come in at the half and each of them give away one of the two late goals. That results in a 5.6 and 5.4 for them. Neither Mattle or Gordon have a long term injury after the match today.

10-10-2011, 05:58 PM	#1241
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December 16th, 2023 Ipswich(9-2-4, 3rd) @ Exeter(1-4-10, 20th) We're big 4:5 road favorites against Exeter. They fought well to get to 14th last year in their first year in the EPL but aren't able to do much of anything this year. GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Mattle/Welsh/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Jean/Hutchinson F: Khan/Bryan Some changes today after 2 matches on 3 days rest. Mattle/Welsh at DC, Jackson at DR, Clifford/Jean/Hutchinson in the midfield are new today. And Khan/Bryan up front. Exeter are running a 3-4-3 today. Standard mindset today. 13': They put 3 early shots on target but Capitani makes solid saves. 36': Couple highlights for us but 3 shots off target so far. 49': Jackson with a yellow. HALF: They shoot 7 times, putting 3 shots on target. We have 3 shots, all off target. We have 54% of the possession but just can't get anything to connect. We'll try to push and attack more in the second half. 53': Clifford gets a shot after a throwin, its our first on target of the match but saved easily. 62': Clifford to Bryan, he turns by a defender and gets a clear cut chance... but saved. 74': Hughes in for Adagsmar, Smith in for Jean 77': Throwin in their end, taken by Mattle, throwin into the area for Hutchinson, he gets a couple steps closer, shoots near post... the keeper dives, gets a hand to it but can't save it, its by and into the right side of the net! 1-0 88': Bryan a yellow. 91': Clifford a yellow. We hang on for a close win on the road. Exeter 0 : 1 Ipswich Its not a great performance but we get the win we need. Man of the Match: Daryl Hutchinson (7.9) Goal: Hutchinson Assist: Mattle (7.8) Notables: Jackson (7.2), Kirkland (7.1) Everyone else is 6.8-6.9. Khan was nearly nonexistent today. Again Jean struggles.