FM10 - From the Bottom Up - Page 28

Radii · 10-16-2011, 11:15 PM

September 17th, 2014

European Champions Cup Group C

Ipswich @ Juventus

Juventus are even money favorites against us today, and I am surprised it isn't more.. They have finished in the top 4 in Italy 9 of the last 10 years, though they haven't won Serie A during the course of this dynasty. Only Inter, Roma and twice Genoa have won the league.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
DM: Smith
M: Crespo/Adagsmar/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan

We'll try our 4-1-4-1 that I like so much today, with Adagsmar at MC and Smith at DMC, Bryan up front.

Juventus run a flat 3-5-2, ST Wim Groen is valued at $35.5M and looks amazing, Anticipation 19/Off the ball 19/First Touch 19/Finishing 19 is a ridiculous combination. He came to Juventus from Real Madrid 6 years ago, last year scored 21 goals in 34 matches. Their "other" striker Nikao has 12 goals in 22 matches last year, not nearly as talented but still.. damn good.

Defensive mindset today.

9': They use a couple blocked passes and fancy passing of their own to get an early clear cut chance for one of their mids, but Bogdaovs makes a great save. We clear the corner.

17': We have a corner, taken to the near post, they head it across the face of the goal, Aldrovandi gets his head to it, and its considered a clear cut chance for us... but he hits the left post and it goes out.

25': Adagsmar a yellow.

41': We've watched them send a couple long shots long.

44': Gordon misses a free kick wide left, close though.

HALF: We've allowed 7 shots but just one on target, the clear cut chance that we saved. We shoot 7 times, all off target. Each of us have taken 5 shots from long range. Possession is an issue, 60/40 in their favor, we could stand to hang on to the ball a bit more, but otherwise I can't much complain, we are not making it easy for them.

55': We earn a corner, then a second, they clear that one out, we try to push it back in to attack but no luck, they clear.

59': yellow for midfielder Neokleous.

63': yellow for midfielder Stabile.

67': guh. Adagsmar and Stabile go for a loose ball... both of them have yellows, Adagsmar commits a foul going after it and he's given a second yellow, and he's out. Smith moves up to MC, 4-4-1.

74': they have a free kick that hits the right post, whew.

81': Random counterattack for us, Gordon down the right, a cross, Bryan heads it low to the far post... its a great header but they save it. There's a rebound but we don't have anyone to follow up, they clear it away to safety.

83': We earn a corner, keeper comes out and catches the cross.

85': A pass into the area for midfiler Popa for them, a very rare shot not from long range, but its well wide.

That's it! The announcers state "a bore draw but that's not at all how I feel about the point we earned today.

Juventus 0 : 0 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.4)
Notables: Jackson (7.2), Mattle (7.1), Aldrovandi (7.1), Gordon (7.1)

Everyone else was 6.8 or 6.9.

Celtic beat AJ Auxerre 2:0 to take the early lead in the group. We'll host Celtic on October 2nd.

-- We receive $574,000 for getting a draw in the group stage.

-- Adagsmar will miss our next continental match.

Radii · 10-17-2011, 12:15 AM

-- Clifford resumes full training.

-- I can't remember if we originally had a week off here, but a couple matches got rescheduled once Euro Cup Groups came out, and we have a week off between Juventus and the League Cup.

Training Upgrade Complete

We now have "Top training facilities" to go along with "Good Youth Faciilities"

September 25th, 2014

League Cup 3rd Round

Ipswich @ Nottingham Forest

We're slim 6:4 favorites on the road here today. We currently sit in 10th in the league, they're 14th. We're 9-3-9 with an even mix of Championship and EPL play between us. After two straight years where the road team won every match 1:0, we won twice, handily, last season (combined score 6-1).

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Hutchinson
F: Darcy/Bryan

Shkosana starts at DC again, Hutchinson gives Gordon a rest, and Darcy and Bryan are up front. Also we get Capitani a start today.

Nottingham Forest are lead by Ivan Popov, this is his 9th year with Nottingham, he's 32 now but still found 18 league goals last season and has 5 already this year.

We'll counterattack.

24': They have a throwin in our end, but Mills steals it away, he fires a ball ahead ot Bryan, a long run down the right... we've got 4 men in the area, Bryan crosses in, Craig Smith has it but can't finish. Saved and corner is cleared.

28': yellow for midfielder Davies for them.

37': Tons of attacking moves for us but nothing yet, a few corners going nowhere.

48': Crespo a yellow.

HALF: We are clearly better in the first half but its scoreless. We control 60% of the possession, shoot 6 times, but only put 2 on target. They have just 1 shot and we didn't see it in a highlight.

52': Standard mindset.

76': Hutchinson ahead from midfield for Bryan, he's down the right side and passes to Mills, a shot from 18 yards out... off the crossbar, damn!

77': Jackson to MR, Heywood in for a tired Hutchinson.

90': A strong counterattack for us, Bryan receives a long ball, rushes forward, passes across the penalty area to Darcy who is wide open, clear cut chance (#3 for us incidentally)... and he misses the target.

There's no second leg here, so we're going to two 15 minute extra time periods.

FULL TIME: Some really strong play from Bryan in setting up others for what should have been a few goals today. Hughes comes in for a tired (and yellow carded) Crespo. Constantino in for Darcy.

I don't want penalties. Attack.

91': They get their first clear cut chance, building up straight down the middle after kickoff, they get Popov behind our defense and he shoots... and hits the crossbar. Whew!

99': We're counter attacking, their defense is fairly set but we're a long ways out. Jackson with a great ball ahead for Bryan, he's got a half step on his man, gets into the penalty area... not a clear cut chance(not sure why) but seems like a great opportunity, but the keeper saves his shot.

102': Throwin in their end, taken to Jackson, a cross to the far post, Jack Hughes wins a header and its on target... but the keeper dives and pushes it away.

104': Jackson a yellow.

Extra time Half Time: We used our subs at the end of full time so lets rock.

108': buildup down the left, a ball from smith to Constantino, he pulls a defender out wide with him, passes back to Mills, mills into a small hole in the defense for Bryan, Bryan attacks and finally we score!!! 1-0

111': A corner for us, taken to Skhosana, he turns by his man and shoots, the keeper dives and makes a great save.

113': We counter as they try to push to tie it up. Hughes with a ball ahead for constantinio, he's got a step on his man and he's off... into the left side of the penalty area.. and drills our 5th clear cut chance right at the keeper.

We hold off and that's it!

Nottingham Forest 0 : 1 e Ipswich

We were much much better than them, but struggle to get the 1:0 win. We move on though!

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.0)
Goal: Bryan
Assist: Mills (8.0)
Notables: Jackson (7.8), Kirkland (7.4), Aldrovandi (7.7), Skhosana (7.1), Smith (7.1)

Jackson was great at DR and MR today, Bryan was spectacular, the goal at the end was nice but he had 5 key passes and set up so many chances after getting out ahead of everyone.

Radii · 10-17-2011, 01:53 AM

League Cup Fourth Round

We get a home match for the next round of the League Cup (16 teams left, 6 CH or below), but certainly not an ideal opponent. We host Man City next.

-- Matches vs Everton and Sheffield Utd are both rearranged due to the next round of the league cup. Lots of matches getting moved around already.

September 28th, 2014

Ipswich (2-1-1, 10th) @ Huddersfield(2-1-1, 11th)

Most teams are up to 5-6 matches by now. We've got a goal differential edge on Huddersfield early is all. They are slim 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8 to win. We have a huge history with Huddersfield, 10-7-8 lifetime. We won at their place and tied at home last year.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Hughes/Mattle/Welsh/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Connolly/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Two main points here.

1) I didn't mean to start such a weak team today, 3 days rest and Celtic in 4 days.
2) This is what constitutes a weak team these days at Ipswich. I'd rather be starting Crespo, Skhosana, Aldrovandi, Crespo, Mills and Smith. But man the guys we have in there really aren't bad.

They run a 3-5-2 and don't start their star ST Ibai Platas. They have 4 league goals in 4 matches, he has all of them.

We'll look to counter today.

2': We get forward to attack, Constantino down the right, a really nice cross to the far post, Adagsmar wins the header... clear cut chance, but saved.

11': Clifford plays a through ball into the area.. a little deep maybe, Constantino runs onto it and its a clear cut chance but he's on top of the keeper and the keeper blocks it. Rebound to Khan, clear cut chance #3... also blocked.

27': The subbed out a defender very very early and just had a man hurt, they're down to 1 sub.

45': They attack and there's a long run down the left, a cross comes in, Welsh goes up with ST Prosenik for the header... misses horribly, and their make is able to head it by Bogdanovs and in. Welsh takes the blame. 0-1

HALF: We have 61% of the possession here but haven't been able to do enough with it. Each team shoots 5 times and puts 2 on target, but we have THREE early clear cut chances and no goals. We have to do better. Smith is in for Clifford at the half.

46': they earn an early corner, taken to the near man, defender Zimmerman, we miss a tackle on him, he blasts a shot, off one of our men on the line and in... 0-2

48': we'll attack.

54': Hughes has it out left, up ahead to Adagsmar, into the area for Khan... he's turning to shoot when they crash into him, its a foul and a clear penalty! Gordon takes it and scores easily. 1-2 We're back in it.

68': Yellow for midfielder Altunel.

76': Clear cut chance #5 here but I didn't like how it happened, Smith ahead to Constantino and he's really got a solid look I feel, but instead he passes it into our young kid Connolly cutting in from the left and he shoots into the left side netting. Constantino could have done better on his own.

82': Chrzanowski in for Connolly.

88': After buildup down the right Heywood into he area for Constantino, its a great chance for him... but the keeper dives and saves it. The corner is headed around before falling to the feet of Khan 18 yards out, he shoots, off a defender and out. They clear the corner.

Huddersfield 2 : 1 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.2)
goal: Gordon
Assist: Khan (6.9)
Notables: Heywood (7.2), Adagsmar (7.1)

Welsh a 6.4, the worst rating on the team.

The biggest issue is that we generated 5 clear cut chances today and only came up with one goal, that's a huge failing on offense.

-- Jean resumes full training. Fully healthy for the first time all year.

Radii · 10-17-2011, 02:29 AM

Teams are mixed between 5 and 7 matches played at this point. Teams off to noticeably hot starts are Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Blackburn and Huddersfield. Aston Villa once again struggles a ton early, they're in 19th right now, tottenham is 16th and we are 13th.

October Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 19th, 23rd, and 29th. International break between the 8th and 19th for World Cup Qualifying. Only 3 league matches are scheduled for October. We play in the Champions League on the 2nd and 23rd, League Cup 29th.

-- Neil Gordon has 4 goals in 3 matches in September (2 on penalties I believe) and he's the EPL player of the month!

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Bogdanovs is the highlight, the 3:0 super cup loss the low point.

-- We lost $7.2M last month. Only $1.3M in gate receipts to go with our TV Revenue. "Non-Soccer Costs" are $3.7M last month. travel to Italy for the entire team? Salaries $6M, and we spent $15 Million last month. Man, I've never lost $7 million in a month where we didn't buy any players!!! That's a bit freaky. We've now lost $12 Million on the year but we've spent $30.5M on new players and have a cash balance of $21 Million. We're alright.

October 2nd, 2014

European Champions Cup Group C

Celtic (1-0-0) @ Ipswich (0-1-0)

We are massive favorites over the top Scottish team at Portman Road today, we're 4:5 to win, they are 3:1. Dunno how reliable that is but a win here would be so so big for us.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Jean is Match Fit but not ready for 90 minutes. He may come in off the bench. Bryan/Constantino up front.

17 y/o Celtic ST Yuri Di Giuseppe came over from Parma apparently in a loan to buy deal last year (its not actually clear that I see). He's amazingly good for a 17 year old and valued at $20.5M. He's got 6 goals in 8 matches across multiple competitions so far. 21 y/o Barry Brand has 7 goals in 5 matches, he's valued at $5.75M and good, but not as good as Di Giuseppe.

Standard mindset today.

8': Throwin in their end, after a few passes a cross comes in from Kirkland, they win the header and its a corner. Corner headed away. Great cross from Kirkland, if Constantino wins the header the goal is wide open, the keeper came way out of position.

12': Throwin in their end again, Kirkland a cross into the 6 yard box, Bryan goes up with their keeper... neither win the ball and it falls into the net. But Kirkland is deemed to have fouled the keeper, damn! That would have been a crazy awesome goal.

16': Skhosana a yellow.

18': Another corner for us, Gordon with a cross that they head behind. They clear this corner too but we push it back in... Bryan heads it over the bar in the end.

28': Yellow for their ST Di Giuseppe.

39': Mills wins the ball in the midfield from one of their mids... a ball ahead to Constantino, he shoots from the edge of the area and he puts it wide to the left... he had a good chance there.

HALF: Scoreless though we've looked a lot better. 5 shots from us, 2 on target and none from long range. They only shoot twice. We're not doing well enough on crosses and maybe need to try to go up the middle, they're doing way better than us in the air.

50': midfielder Halliday with a yellow for them.

51': Our first clear cut chance, they clear away a corner but we push back up right away, Mills with a great through ball to Constantino but he takes it too far in and shoots it off the keeper.

55': Mills with a cross through the area... Bryan wins a header and scores... but... he fouled his man to go up and get the header. That's two goals disallowed due to fouls on Chris Bryan.

60': We attack.

71': A ball ahead from Mills to Bryan.. their keeper comes miles out as Bryan cuts left and it works, he has no angle at all to shoot. Very very dangerous play there.

72': Jean in for Smith.

84': A long run down the left for Bryan after we win a ball in our end, a cross... Gordon heads it... inches over.

85': Khan in for Constantino, Chrzanowski in for Gordon.

-- 4 minutes of injury time.

94': Corner for us, they clear it out and Kirkland with a very poor shot, saved.

94': Their keeper sends it long, but we win the header. It takes a couple passes for us to control it and we're at like 93:55, i'm worried time will be called before we can even try to attack. After two passes Jean puts a ball forward for Chris Bryan, he breaks on the ball and gets into he area... the clock reads 94:01 as he shoots, and finally we break through, no fouls, no offsides, the winning goal in the last moment!! 1-0

Ipswich 1 : 0 Celtic

We got the win but the recommended team talk is "good result but we didn't play well enough" - Sounds fair to me.

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.3)
Goal: Bryan (6.9)
Assist: Jean (6.9)
Notables: Heywood (7.3), Aldrovandi (7.1), Skhosana (7.1)

-- Champions League wins are valuable! We receive $1.148M for the win.

-- Juventus beat AJ Auxerre 3:0.

Juventus 1-1-0 - 4 pts
Ipswich 1-1-0 - 4 pts
Celtic 1-0-1 - 3 pts
AJ Auxerre 0-0-2 - 0 pts

Juventus +3, Ipsiwch +1 goal differntial.

We travel to AJ Auxerre in 3 weeks. Juventus travel to Celtic on the same day.

Radii · 10-17-2011, 02:48 AM

October 5th, 2014

Man Utd (4-3-0, 3rd) @ Ipswich (2-1-2, 13th)

Man Utd are one of two teams to not have a loss yet (Arsenal is the other). They are 5:4 favorites over us today. This is our first meeting since we beat them 2:1 in the Euro Cup Final. We're on an amazing run against them too, we are 5-3-0 in our last 8 meetings including two league cup matches and that Euro Cup Final. 6-4-6 lifetime so we've overcome quite a mountain to even this series up. Lets take the lead today!

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Bryan

Man Utd run a 4-1-2-2-1 with a DMC, 1 striker and two AM's. Stuart Wray is their man up front. Valued at $27.5M he scored 14 times last year and 16 the year before in league play. He's got 2 goals this year between all levels of play.

Counter attacking today.

8': After lots of passes between Gordon/Jackson/Mills, Mills finds Darcy at the 18 yard mark, he steps forward, shoots... their keeper makes an amazing save, he was really close to the top corner there.

16': Jackson a yellow.

24': We allow a corner but clear it nicely.

HALF: And that's the half. Yawn. We shoot 5 times but only 1 on target and I only saw the one shot. they have 2 shots, both long range and only 1 on target as well. We'll push up to a standard mindset for the second half.

62': Clifford in for Mills.

69': defender Jabeur a yellow for them. Constantino is in for Bryan.

75': We've seen them miss the target 3 times this half, no offensive highlights. Time to attack.

82': After a few passes in the middle but no way to find a shot its passed wide to Jackson, a cross into the area, Darcy wins the header, but its high.

88': Corner from Gordon, Mattle with a volley... high.

92': Another attack for us, into the area for Adagsmar, back up higher to Jean, a strong shot, but wide left.

93': One last corner for us (presumably, just 3 minutes of added time). They head it out and time is called.

Ipswich 0 : 0 Man Utd

I may have been too conservative at home in the first half.

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.7)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.1), Jackson (7.2), Mattle (7.2)

6.7-6.8 for all others.

That makes us 2-2-2 and we sit 11th but still have 2 matches left than some of the teams above us

Radii · 10-17-2011, 04:18 AM

We've got 20 players called up for international duty between U19s, U21s, and the senior teams.

October 8th, 2014

Ipswich (2-2-2, 11th) @ Arsenal(5-2-0, 2nd)

Arsenal are big 4:7 favorites today, we're only 4:1 to find a win here. We've got some rest after this. Not exactly the same results vs Arsenal that we have against Man Utd, 2-2-11 lifetime with no wins in the last 5 tries. Two of those matches were FA Cup Semifinals. Last year they totally ran over us 3:1 in Wembley.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Heywood
DMC: Clifford
M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Constantino

Here's a match to get a draw if we can and maybe if we get lucky steal a goal. 4-1-4-1 with Constantino up front. We'll defend.

30': A backpass to their keeper and he hits it ahead to a defender who wasn't ready for it... it bounds away in the area, Constantino tries to pounce, shoots, but saved. Not a clear cut chance, it was out wide right at a crazy angle. Only shot on target for either team so far tho.

36': Yellow for AM Dalle Valle

HALF: They control possession 56/44 but only have 4 shots and all off target, 3 from long range. We shoot 3 times, just the one on target. We're keeping fairly close to them in every area and are actually drawing more fouls. Lets keep it up!

46': We kick off and pass it around the midfield a good while, eventually Clifford plays it ahead to Constantino 25 yards away. Two defenders attack him and he skips by their efforts to win the ball... sprints into the area, its a clear cut chance... but saved. Damn!

53': Kirkland a yellow.

76': We just skipped ahead nearly 25 minute. Yellow for midfielder Wilson for them. Free kick well wide, Gordon crosses into the area, its headed around 2 or 3 times, their GK Karius rushes out for it.. but Constantino beats him to the ball and heads it into the net!!!!! 1-0

79': Jackson in for Gordon, Jean in for Mills.

83': Crespo is hurt, he can stay in, we'll check postmatch.

87': Oh don't let up now guys. They get it ahead to ST Nooij, he turns by a defender and has a clear cut chance, but Bogdanovs makes a great save.

89': A rocket of a free kick comes in from 25 yards for them, bends into the side netting, close.

92': Another shot from Nooij 18 yards out, saved.

Arsenal 0 : 1 Ipswich

A massive win for us at Emirates Stadium today! It was looking like a 0-0 draw and I would have been thrilled with that, but we really came through big.

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.2)
Goal: Constantino
Assist: Aldrovandi (7.2)
Notables: Kirkland (7.6), Heywood (7.1), Smith (7.2)

Kirkland is having a spectacular start to the season

Injury Update

Crespo is out for 2-3 weeks with a groin strain suffered today.

-- We get into the top 10, hopefully for good, with the win today. 8th.

Radii · 10-17-2011, 04:52 AM

-- International Break, but a huge portion of our squad will be playing.

-- Two of our first year youth buys, ST Fank Battersby and DC John Ashworth, in addition to GK Rob Lines, are playing for the English U19 squad. Battersby scored in the match today, Lines is the captain, Ashworth off the bench.

-- Mattle, Welsh, Aldrovandi, Clifford, Chrzanowski and Bogdanovs all play in world cup qualifiers and are credited with solid performances.

-- DC Skhosana scores again for South Africa in a 4:0 win over Lesotho in African world Cup Qualifying

-- Ireland beats Malta 3:1, no surprise there, but ST Eoin Darcy scores all 3 goals, earning a 9.5 rating and a hat trick! He now has 6 goals in 8 matches for the Irish Senior Team in his career.

-- In a second round of Qualifiers, Holland crushes Latvia 4:0 and Bogdanovs let those in. Mattle, Clifford and Welsh all played well for their sides, while Eoin Darcy once again scored for Ireland in a 1:1 draw with Switzerland. Its very early in qualifying, Ireland is in a weaker group, Italy will win it but 2nd should be between Ireland and Switzerland and maybe Georgia (N. Ireland and Malta presumably round out the bottom). Would love to see Darcy keep this up for his country!

Injury Update

-- Chris Bryan is hurt in training and out 2 weeks. This comes on the 17th so towards the end of the international break and he'll miss a few matches.

October 19th, 2014

Ipswich (3-2-2, 8th) @ Birmingham(2-2-4, 12th)

We're just 6:4 favorites here, on the road but against a Birmingham team that fell to the Championship last year and just promoted back up. We're 7-2-4 lifetime against them, haven't lost in our last 4 meetings, winning the last 3 1:0.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson
F: Constantino/Khan

Crespo/Bryan injured. Gordon has the day off.

8': Gordon a corner, Adagsmar is tripped going for it, and its a penalty! Jean takes the PK... and its saved, damn!!!!!

13': A throwin in their end, a quick pass ahead, a pass from Adagsmar to Jean, Jean shoots 20 yards away and it takes a brilliant diving stop to keep Jean from scoring there.

22': Another throwin in their end, but this time Mills settles for a very poor shot.

28': Constantino receives a pass 25 yards out, runs to the left, slowly works his way into the area, beating two defenders along the way, pulls up and shoots, but saved.

28': Heywood is hurt.

30': Lets attack, even more pressure seems good now.

44': yellow for defender Cruz

We watch them put two shots on target the rest of the half and head into the locker room.

HALF: We shoot 7 times, putting 5 on target. Jean missing a penalty is pretty embarrassing. They shoot 3 times, 2 on target, but 2 from long range. We have a huge 62/38 possession edge, are passing way better than them. They're tackling well and that's helping limit our shots I think. Still we need to keep this pressure on and get a goal.

48': Aldrovandi a yellow.

52': Kirkland is hurt.

57': Some beautiful passing for us, Mills ahead to Constantino, he's near midfield, plays a long ball left for Khan, Khan is 25 yards out, he pulls a defender to him but isn't going to attack, he passes back for Mills, Mills with a first touch volley ahead for Adagsmar who fills the hole in the defense, he strikes it in with his first touch, a pretty flowing move. 1-0

63': Jackson in for Heywood, Hughes for Kirkland and Bartlett in for Aldrovandi. Bartlett has been struggling to stay match fit, I keep meaning to get him a start and he's always lost match fitness. So its time to get him some minutes here.

74': Skhosana a yellow.

We get out of this one without them really threatening to tie. Constantino had a couple chances to put us up by 2 but they were pretty speculative shots.

Birmingham 0 : 1 Ipswich

Their keeper ends up man of the match.

Goal: Adagsmar (7.5)
Assist: Mills (7.6)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.2), Heywood (7.0), Kirkland (7.2), Hutchinson (7.3)

-- Bogdanovs is up to 404 minutes in a row without conceding a goal.

Injury Update

Heywood is out for 3 weeks with a pulled hamstring. Kirkland is not injured. No offense to Heywood, but if only one guy gets hurt between the two, I'd rather it be him.

We move up into 6th but will go another stretch without playing any league matches with the Champions League and League Cup coming up next.

Radii · 10-17-2011, 05:19 AM

October 23rd, 2014

European Champions Cup Group C

Ipswich (1-1-0) @ AJ Auxerre (0-0-2)

If we could win here and Juventus beat Celtic we'd move into a really strong position at the midpoint of the group stage. This should be a close one, we are 6:4 favorites here, Auxerre are 13:8 dogs. AJ Auxerre are in huge trouble in France this year, currently sitting in 18th in a 20 team league, with 1 win in 9 matches, a relegation candidate.

I rarely note referees but the one today has given out 21 yellows in 3 champions league matches....

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Constantino/Darcy

Not a lot of changes today, Jackson, Gordon and Darcy in where Heywood/Hutchinson/Khan were last match.

Their top ST (Argentinian) Guido Moyano has 4 goals in 9 matches so far. Their other man up front is Norwegian Stefan Olsen who has 1 goal in 3 matches. They have a lot of guys injured.

Standard mindset on the road today.

10': Jean has made two great steals in midfield to trigger breaks for us so far. One ended on a bad pass, the other Adagsmar missed a very makeable shot.

14': Neil Gordon is hurt. He'll stay in and we'll worry about this postmatch.

21': Throwin in their end, Adagsmar goes all the way to the end line and curls a cross around his man, Darcy is there, wins the header, and scores!!! 1-0

38': They try to counter after we have a shot blocked, Aldrovandi makes a brilliant one on one tackle to keep them from getting a shot.

41': Adagsmar wins a ball in our end, runs down the left, passes ahead to Constantino, he continues down the left, turns, passes to Jean, he shoots from 18 yards, not a lot of pace but struck with perfect precision, into the lower left corner of the net by the diving keeper! 2-0

HALF: This is all Ipswich, hopefully we keep it that way. We shoot 10 times to their 1. Total domination. Chrzanowski in for Gordon, no need now to risk further injury.

46': Throwin in their end, thrown into the area, they clear but Kirkland sends it back ahead. Mills picks it up, shoots through the crowd 20 yards away and its into the net!! 3-0

50': Kirkland a yellow.

58': Constantino with a shot off the left post, it bounds free and we recover, earning a corner as a cross is blocked. Skhosana shoots off the corner but its well high.

64': A through ball earns them their 3rd shot and 1st clear cut chance, but Bogdanovs gets down to save it.

66': Smith in for Mills, Bartlett in for Skhosana.

That's it, we run this one out easily!

AJ Auxerre 0 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Adagsmar (8.6)
Goals: Darcy (8.4), Jean (8.0), Mills (7.9)
Assists: Adagsmar, Kirkland (8.3), Constantino (6.8)
Notables: Jackson (7.5), Aldrovandi (7.6)

Dominant performance.

Juventus wins 2:0 at Celtic. Standings halfway through the group stage:

Juventus 2-1-0 - +5 - 7 pts
Ipswich 2-1-0 - +4 - 7 pts
Celtic 1-0-2 - -1 - 3 pts
AJ Auxerre 0-0-3 - -8 - 0 pts

-- We receive $1.148M for the win.

-- Neil Gordon will miss 5-6 days, he'll miss our league cup match and that should be it.

law90026 · 10-17-2011, 07:12 AM

Is it just me or is Constantino not quite the man this year?

RPI-Fan · 10-17-2011, 08:30 AM

Radii: mighn't the non soccer expense have been for the training facility upgrade?

Radii · 10-17-2011, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by law90026

Is it just me or is Constantino not quite the man this year?

I actually started my next game writeup before I realized how damn late it was and went to bed...

---- Bryan 5 goals, Gordon 4 goals, Constantino 3 goals, Darcy, Mills, Adagsmar 2 goals. We're getting lots of different guys on the board. Is this a changing of the guard up front? Maybe the Euro Cup final last year will stand out as the match where it all changed for us. Constantino got hurt and Chris Bryan led us with 2 goals. Will this be the first year that we don't feel like Constantino has to be on the pitch against top opponents for us to win? Early on he's only got 1 league goal in 7 matches and a 7.10 league rating (and like 6.9 overall). Chris Bryan is the one with the 7.5+ average rating.

Also Constantino has never had the highest penalty taking rating but I always had him taking them anyway and he's been reliable, but every offseason my coaches recommend that someone else take them. This year I finally took the coaching staff advice and set Gordon and Jean as my top penalty takers. I've had 3 penalty opportunities this season, I forget if Constantino was on the field for them or not.

-- He's always been streaky so if he has a couple matches in a row with goals he might go on a hot streak and I might keep him in games whenever possible, but at this moment, I'm happy with almost any striker combination, and our defense is *good* now so we don't have to score 80 goals to stay in the top 7.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

Radii: mighn't the non soccer expense have been for the training facility upgrade?

Could be, though I didn't think at the time to hover over that area to get the description:

"Amount of non-soccer staff salaries paid out by the club"

So maybe that's the salaries of our directors? There are 2 more on staff after the takeover last year.

kingfc22 · 10-17-2011, 09:50 PM

Nice run of late after a slow start to the season.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 05:05 AM

October 29rd, 2014

League Cup 4th Round

Man City @ Ipswich

October 29th, 2024, my... 48th birthday. Eek.

We are 5:4 favorites at home today. Lifetime we are 3-5-9 against Man City but have gotten some key results from time to time, most recently a 1:0 victory in the 5th round of the FA Cup last year to get us back into the semifinals. Right now Man City is 7th and we are 8th in the EPL. All signs point to a fairly even contest.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson
F: Constantino/Darcy

Hutchinson in for Gordon, Mattle in for Skhosana. They run a 4-1-3-2 with a DMC and 3 MC's. Standard mindset today.

12': Jackson a yellow.

15': Jean a yellow.

17': their midfielder Carlos a yellow.

31': their MC Centurion a yellow, then a defender Madariaga a yellow, then a defender Santinelli a yellow...

HALF: We had Darcy pass the ball to Mills who had a decent look with a first touch shot but high. They shot from 30 yards out Bogdanovs saved it. Otherwise just yellow cards. We have 6 shots, 2 on target. They have 3 shots, all from long range, 2 on target.

47': Their star scroer Mihci gets a clear cut chance from 18 yards away (not really sure why clear cut chance tbh) but Bogdanovs saves it.

62': Another clear cut chance for Mihci after a lot of passing he receives it about 6 yards out a bit wide left, Bogdanovs with another solid stop.

67': They've taken this over, all Man City, they just had a shot from 20 yards that Bogdanovs saved followed by TWO rebound shots off the right post... whew.

69': Smith in for Mills, Chrzanowski in for Hutchinson.

74': Jean shoots from 20 yards and has it saved.. our first offensive highlight of the second half.

86': Mattle a yellow.

92': Aldrovandi a yellow.

FULL TIME: The second half was highlight after highlight of man city attacking. Finally in the last 10 minutes we tried to get something going but no luck at all and we are scoreless after 90 minutes. Khan comes in for a tired Darcy to finish this off.

100': A couple throwins in their end, here we end up with a nice cross to the far post by Jackson, Chrzanowski gets his head to it but right at the keeper.

EXTRA TIME HALFTIME: Nothing to change now, keep pushing.

116': they counterattack after winning a ball in our end, a pass goes ahead to Mihci 20 yards out and he's just left all alone... awful defending, he is in the area and scores easily. 0-1

Ipswich 0 : 1 e Man City

It takes extra time but we are just totally unable to break through here and MAn City get the goal they need in the end.

Notables: Bogdanovs (7.5), Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.5), Mattle (7.0), Adagsmar (7.7)

We had some solid play today but just no goals to be had, we exit the league cup early for the second year in a row.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 05:35 AM

-- Clive Jackson picked up his 5th yellow card in our last match and will miss our next match.

-- Chris Bryan resumes full training

November Update

-- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 9th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, and 27th. 5th and 27th are Champions League matches.

-- New MC Brett Connolly is singled out for training well. Heading (8), Composure (10), Positioning (10) and Work Rate (16) all have gone up recently.

-- I am manager of the month in the EPL! We only played 3 matches in league play, tying Man Utd 0:0 and beating Arsenal and Birmingham 1:0.

-- The board is pleased with my leadership. The signing of Bogdanovs is the highlight.

-- We lost $1.42M last month, much better than the nearly $6M we lost the month before. We host two Champions League matches in November that will bring in some good cash.

November 2nd, 2014

Ipswich(4-2-2, 8th) @ Tottenham (2-2-5, 17th)

Tottenham are struggling a lot this year but still small 6:4 favorites over us at their place. They still have more talented players according to my scouts (they have advantages in almost every category but speed). We beat them last year for the first time ever, 1-3-8 lifetime... we lost at thier place 2:1 though. We host AJ Auxerre in a critical Champions League match in 3 days.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Mattle/Aldrovandi/Skhosana
DM: Clifford
M: Adagsmar/Smith/Mills/Gordon
F: Khan/Darcy

So Heywood hurt and Jackson suspended leaves us in a bind. One that has me switching my formation to a modified 3-5-2, 3 DC's, a DMC, 4 midfielders and two men up front. No DL/DR today.

We'll counter attack today.

3': They counter after winning a ball as we're attacking, a long run down the right, a cross to the far post and we just aren't covering them properly.. MC Smart heads it home, Gordon tries to get there but he's late. 0-1

21': A great free kick for them from 30 yards out, Bogdanovs makes a diving save, that was really close.

35': Twice now I've seen mills shoot from 20+ out and miss the target by a mile. He's really not a good long range shooter, he needs to sotp that. I give the "work ball into box" order.

HALF: This is a great day to be test driving a new formation we put together on the fly. On the road against a team we traditiionally struggle against. They shoot 9 times to our 3, all ours are long range and nothing remotely close to on target. Bartlett comes in for Mattle who is doing really poorly. I'll change to a standard mindset to try to get a goal here.

47': Adagsmar a yellow.

54': Connolly in for Mills who isn't hurt but got hit and his fitness went pretty low.

57': Cross, goal, we look like shit. Just a rocket of a pass through the area and our team didn't react, their man broke on the ball and scored a super easy goal. 0-2

60': We'll attack.

76': Adagsmar wins a ball out wide left, he passes it up ahead to Darcy.. Darcy is 25 yards out and hte keeper just sprints off his line... I guess expecting Darcy to attack him? Instead, as the keeper reaches the 18 yard line, Darcy lobs it over his head and it falls into the net. Very smart play by Darcy!! 1-2

We continue to try to attack but they've got it locked down after giving up that first goal. They don't let us threaten again.

Tottenham 2 : 1 Ipswich

Goal: Darcy (8.3)
Assist: Adagsmar (6.9)
Notable: Bogdanovs (7.5)

We didn't do well today but I can't fault them, horrible time for a new formation.

NoSkillz · 10-18-2011, 08:04 AM

I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent almost all of my work day yesterday reading this entire dynasty.

What an awesome read!

Radii · 10-18-2011, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSkillz

I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent almost all of my work day yesterday reading this entire dynasty.

What an awesome read!

Work sucks anyway.

Glad you are enjoying it!

Radii · 10-18-2011, 04:37 PM

November 5th, 2014

European Champions Cup Group C

AJ Auxerre (0-0-3) @ Ipswich (2-1-0)

We ran into a similar circumstance in the Euro Cup last year. If we win, and if Juventus win, we clinch advancement through the group stage with 2 matches left. Last year in this situation we choked horribly and had to pull it out in our last match.

We're huge 4:5 favorites and understandably so.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Skhosana/Jackson
M: Crespo/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Bartlett starts for a tired Aldrovandi, Jackson is back from his suspension so no random trial formations today. Darcy/Constantino up front. Standard mindset at home.

1': They kick off but Mills makes a steal on our defensive side of midfield. A pass ahead to Constantino, he runs by his man and is off, into the right side of the penalty area... but instead of shooting he lays it off for Mills charging up the middle. Mills has a clear cut chance, but sends it right at the keeper, saved.

3': Buildup on offense, after one attempt to get it into the area is headed away, Kirkland recovers and we set back up, passes to Jean, Jean ahead to Constantino, he beats his man easily, clear cut chance for him this time, and he scores!! 1-0

20': Jean to Constantino, he turns right and blows by his man, another clear cut chance here... but saved.

24': Free kick out wide to the right, Gordon sends it almost through the area, Jean picks it up, dribbles back out himself, turns and shoots from 18 yards away... and blows it by the keeper, great goal!!! 2-0

30': Gordon makes a tackle in our own end, wins the ball for himself and sprints down the right side, into the offensive half, all the way to the end line, he crosses into the area, he may not get an assist here, one of their defenders I think tried to head it to safety but it was a really weak header, Darcy is there and heads it into the net! 3-0

34': Constantino to Mills for our 5th clear cut chance... his second, and he misses this one too, saved by the keeper.

38': holy crap their keeper may have just earned man of the match despite giving up 3 goals... Constantino with a long run down the right on a counter attack, he gets deep to the end line, plays a nice low pass to Jean, Jean shoots from 10 yards out... keeper stops it, rebound to Darcy... keeper stops it, rebound to Jean... keeper stops it, and they clear.

HALF: We look to lock up an easy win the rest of the way. We've only allowed one shot today. Connolly in for Mills, Chrzanowski in for Gordon. Commentary only.

91': Connolly passes to Constantino and he does all the work himself, splitting two defenders, getting into the area and scoring. 4-0

Ipswich 4 : 0 AJ Auxerre

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.2)
Goals: Constantino 2, Jean (8.7), Darcy (8.4)
Assists: Jean, Gordon (7.7), Connolly (6.8), 1 unassisted
Notables: Jackson (7.9), Kirkland (7.8), Skhosana (7.2), Bartlett (7.2)

Crespo with an inexplicable 6.3 out left when the rest of the team plays awesome.

-- We receive $1.148M for our win in the Champions Cup.

-- Juventus beats Celtic 3:1 in the other group C match. With that we have a 7 point lead over 3rd place Celtic with only 2 matches to go.

Ipswich have qualified for the First Knockout Round from Group C in the Champions Cup

right now we are actually 1st in our group. We have 8 goals and have allowed 0. Juventus has 8 goals and have allowed 1. We're ahead on goal differential.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 05:12 PM

-- My assistant manager is asked in the postgame press conference about Eoin Darcy's desire for an improved contract. My assistant says he won't be getting a new contract any time soon. I take a look and Darcy has a "slight concern" wanting a new deal. He's making $4300/wk for 3 more seasons. He's only 20, but he has played in 10 matches for me and scored 4 goals, so I'm ok with giving him a new deal. He asks for $50,000/wk. Wow kid, you're really going for it, huh? I offer him $45,000/wk. It'd be for this season and 3 more after this, I just refuse to pay him more than Matthew Khan.

November 9th, 2014

Newcastle (8-1-2, 1st) @ Ipswich(4-2-3, 8th)

Newcastle are slim 6:4 favorites in this one, we're 13:8 to get a win. This is a key early matchup with Newcastle in 1st place right now. I'm a little annoyed that Newcastle is doing so well, since I took some joy in the fact that I sold MC Gordon Donnelly to Newcastle when they were doing worse than we were and wanted him to regret his decision to leave. We're 7-0-10 lifetime against them. We lost to them 1:0 twice last year, but had won 3 straight prior to that.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Darcy/Constantino

Donnelly isn't in the lineup for them today.

We keep most of our lineup the same today since everyone is coming off a great performance vs AJ Auxerre. Adagsmar in for Crespo and Aldrovandi in for Skhosana.

Standard mindset today.

16': Free kick out wide for us, Gordon sends it into the area... I don't get it... Aldrovandi wins a header, the keeper dives for it... the ball goes into the net, but its considered an own goal by the keeper. Well, we're up 1-0! But the match view didn't match the scoring on that one. 1-0

34': We'll counter attack.

HALF: No highlights the last 20 minutes or so. We have 6 shots but none on target, 4 from long range. Newcastle shoots 7 times, but takes 5 from long range. 3 on target. If we can keep them taking long shots hopefully we're in good shape here. I may drop back to a 4-1-4-1 but for now just counterattacking in my normal formation.

61': We have a corner, they clear it out but we recover, passed to Gordon back out left, into the area for Adagsmar... he goes down in the area... penalty!!! Gordon takes it and scores. 2-0

65': Smith in for Darcy, 4-1-4-1, Chrzanowski in for Gordon.

92': Mills heads out a corner kick... and goes down hurt. Ugh, we'll check on him shortly.

Ipswich 2 : 0 Newcastle

Its a weird game here, with an own goal and a penalty for us, but our defense was outstanding, they took 11 shots today but 8 from long range, not a serious threat at all.

Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.3)
Goal: Gordon
Assists: Gordon, Adagsmar (7.0)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.0), Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.6), Aldrovandi (7.0), Barltett (7.1), Mills (7.0)

Big win for us over the #1 team!

Injury Update

Steven Mills turned his knee awkwardly landing after a header and he's going to miss 2 weeks.

-- Man Utd moves into first with our help today. We bump up to 7th.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 08:43 PM

-- Darcy takes his $45,000/wk deal. That's a really big jump in salary but he is worth it.

-- Heywood resumes full training

November 13th, 2014

Everton(4-3-3, 9th) @ Ipswich(5-2-3, 7th)

We're an even 4-5-4 lifetime against Everton. The home team won each match last year, before that we'd tied 3 times in a row. Today though we're even money favorites to their 11:5.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Skhosana/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Darcy/Bryan

Smith starts for Mills at MC, Darcy/Bryan up front.

Everton are a bit weak today with ST Andy Mils up from, a 31 y/o who isn't all that great. Their star ST Brian Kelly rests today. They run a 4-1-4-1 today and we're just going to attack from the outset b/c we have a pretty poor history scoring against that.

5': Gordon has a free kick out left, Bryan wins the header but its high.

8': Kirkland is hurt, he can stay in and we'll check on him later.

12': Throwin in their end, Gordon passes to Jackson, he flicks it ahead to Bryan who has a clear cut chance and i'm actually shocked he wasn't called offsides... he runs too deep with it though and the keeper cuts off his angle, shot is saved easily.

27': buildup down the right for us, Smith has it 30 yards out, a through ball goes into the area and Crespo runs onto it at the penalty spot, again very close to offsides... Crespo finishes well, beating the keeper to the left side of the net! 1-0

31': We have a corner, taken short to Bartlett, he's fouled... penalty given!! Neil Gordon takes it and scores. 2-0

35': they have a free kick 20 yards out, their first shot of the match, its taken really well and Bogdanovs makes a great diving save to stop it.

38': We fight over a ball in their end, they win it and try to clear but Bartlett with a forceful header from midfield sends it back ahead. Darcy recovers it, they try to tackle it away and succeed but Bryan is there, he picks it up and charges, into the area.. clear cut chance #4 for us today, but the keeper rushes out and Bryan can't find an opening.

44': Jean and Gordon pick up yellows in short order.

HALF: We look really good, we've had a ton of success attacking their 4-1-4-1 which I'm extremely happy about. 10 shots, 7 on target, 4 clear cut chances. They shoot 3 times, just the free kick on target. Heywood comes in for Kirkland at the half. We'll back off and counter attack this half.

49': Bartlett a yellow.

65': Chrzanowski in for Gordon, Connolly in for Jean.

66': A long run on a counter attack from Bryan, Connolly hit him near midfield, he gets into the left side of the area.. its clear cut chance #6 for us, and he can't finish, keeper saves it.

We finish this off easily, Bryan misses another clear cut chance but really a 2:0 easy win over a top 10 team feels pretty good!

Ipswich 2 : 0 Everton

Their keeper is man of the match. We put 13 shots on target and had 7 or 8 clear cut chances, so its totally deserved.

Goals: Crespo (7.8), Gordon (7.3)
Assists: Bartlett (8.2), Smith (8.4)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.5), Jackson (7.3)

Bryan and Darcy actually put up 6.2 and 5.6 ratings, getting so many shots and not able to come through at all. 10 shots between them, 6 on target, no goals.

We hop up to 5th with the win.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 09:20 PM

-- A match that was scheduled for the 17th against Southampton is re-arranged due to international callups. They're almost all friendlies though and I just globally set my guys to not play more than 45 minutes (In international friendlies you can limit your guys' playing time). That'll help get them rested up.

New Youth Signing

16 y/o ML Eneko Etxabe - $1.1M to Atheltic in Spain

My Spanish youth scout rates Etxabe as a League 2 quality guy right now, and a guy who could be as good as Crespo in the future. We'll look at him a bit closer when he actually arrives on January 1st. As a 16 y/o he has 16 ratings > 10 already, determination 13, Crossing 14, Dribbling and First Touch 10, so he looks like he has really solid potential.

Head Coach Offer

Juventus have fired their manager after a rough start in Serie A, they're 11th 1/3 of the way through the season. That's pretty rough, 18 years of top 10 finishes (16 of those making Europe) should buy some leeway I'd assume. Juvetnus has a transfer budget of $63 Million, not actually a ton more than we have. But the difference in stature really becomes apparent when we look at their $2.9 Million/week payroll allowance. We are at $1.4M right now after giving up some of our transfer budget, we started the year at $1.2M. I of course reject the offer, but man, $2.9M/wk. We're a long ways from that!

November 23rd, 2014

Nottingham Forest(2-4-6, 18th) @ Ipswich(6-2-3, 6th)

3 home matches in a row. Today we are crazy big 4:7 favorites against Nottingham Forest. We're 10-3-9 lifetime against them and have won the last 3 times we played.

GK: Capitani
D: Hughes/Welsh/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Crespo/Jean/Connolly/Chrzanowski
F: Khan/Constantino

We start a large number of backups today, Hughes for Kirkland, Welsh at DC, Connolly and Chrzanowski in the midfield. Capitani a rare start in goal.

10': We dominate early play but no shots until now, Connelly with a ball ahead to Chrzanowski, he's 25 yards out, cuts right, rushes by two defenders and into the area, he shoots to the far post and its by the keeper and just inside the left post, goal! His first league goal for Ipswich! 1-0

30': Another great pass from Connolly to Chrzanowski cutting in from the right but its saved this time.

36': A nice through ball for them and some poor defense by Heywood gives them their first clear cut chance, but a shot is basically right at Capitani and he saves it.

46': Free kick near midfield for us, taken ahead to Jean, immediately forward to Khan, he cuts by his man 20 yards out, into the area and he shoots and scores!! That's Matthew Khan's first goal of the year for us. 2-0

HALF: We control 62% of the possession, we're passing well, tackling well, heading pretty well and appear to be fully in control here.

50': Some nifty passing here, Connolly lofts a ball into the left side of the area for Khan, he wins his header and passes it back to Jean, Jean with a ball to the penalty spot, Crespo is there and has a clear cut chance and scores very easily. Nice work there! 3-0

64': Darcy in for Constantino, Smith in for Jean.

69': Chrzanowski with a nice cross into the 6 yard box, Darcy is there and wins his header... but its high. Easy attempt, he should have scored.

74': Crespo is hurt and forced out of the match. I bring Clive Jackson in at DR, Heywood shifts to DL, Hughes to ML.

80': We finally give one up here, a through ball to MR Aqbarov, Capitani is a bit indecisive and comes out late, easy goal for them. That was their second shot of the half. 3-1

That'll do it!

Ipswich 3 : 1 Nottinghham Forest

We manhandled them today. Highlights were fun to watch, like against a lower league team. We chased down every loose ball, made every tackle, we were sitting 25 yards from their goal just passing it around as we pleased and they couldn't stop us... and we had 5 guys who are purely backups in today.

Man of the Match: Dariusz Chrzanowski (8.5)
Goals: Chrzanowski, Crespo (8.1), Khan (7.4)
Assists: Jean 2 (8.0), Connolly (7.5)
Notables: Heywood (7.2), Hughes (7.4), Bartlett (7.2)

Injury Update

Juan Pablo Crespo has a couple broken ribs "following a late tackle from John Davies" ... ouch! He's out 4 weeks.

Steven Mills resumes full training, so there's that at least.

-- Our 3rd straight league win has bumped us up to 4th place.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 10:12 PM

November 27th, 2014

European Champions Cup Group C

Juventus (3-1-0) @ Ipswich (3-1-0)

We are 6:4 favorites today. Both teams have clinched advancement out of the group but we could win the group if we could find a win (or even a draw) today. We got a 0:0 draw out of the match at their place back in the opener for the Champions League.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Darcy/Bryan

Darcy/Bryan up front today. Juventus are running a 4-2-2-2... that's two DMC's, ML, MR, and two forwards. Never seen that before.

4': What a start!! Bogdanovs a free kick deep in our end, played long, Bryan wins the header about 23ish yards out, knocking it down for Darcy, Darcy plays it into the area for Neil Gordon who was cutting inside form the right, Gordon a clear cut chance and he drills it near post and in!!! 1-0

7': Almost another! Bryan hit Adagsmar cutting in from the left, clear cut chance #2, but he puts it wide.

13': We're attacking hard, and here Smith hits Bryan for an easy goal but Bryan is very clearly offsides, nothing to get excited about.

20': Yellow for midfielder Neokelous for them.

30': WOWOW!! Chris Bryan with an incredible move!!!!! Smith passes to Bryan, he's 30 yards out, he turns by one man, a second comes to close down and he just takes off, a 3rd comes in and Bryan pushes it forward and skips over the tackle, he's into the area and buries a shot far post by the keeper!!! Ridiculous effort!! 2-0

37': They finally attack here on us and score but just like Chris Bryan's first strike, very obviously offside.

HALF: Dominant first half! We have 60% of the possession, 7 shots to their 1 and are just totally outplaying them. Clifford in for Darcy, Chrzanowski in for Gordon and we'll go with a 4-1-4-1 and counter attack to try to hold this lead.

53': Oh that's no good. Chris Bryan is hurt. He can stay in but I'd hate to see him injured after the day he's having here.

71': Connolly in for Jean. I should probably sit the injured Bryan but Bryan won't play our next match, Jean might and I want him rested more.

76': Bryan isn't that hurt! A pass ahead from Smith to Bryan, he's in the right side of the area, dribbles towards the center, pulls the ball back as his man goes for a tackle, shoots and beats the keeper!! Another ridiculous individual effort for Chris Bryan! 3-0

85': They get a long ball ahead to their star, ST Wim Groen, he's at a very tough angle near the right sideline, but sends it low and by Bogdanovs. 3-1

Ipswich 3 : 1 Juventus

Juventus has already clinched advancement, I gave it a stronger effort than they did perhaps for the money and to try to win the group (dunno if that is worth anything at all or not), plus they just fired their coach and are in a bit of disarray, that kind of thing is huge too we know.

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.0)
Goals: Bryan 2, Gordon (7.6)
Assists: Smith (9.0), Darcy (6.9)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.0), Heywood (7.1), Kirkland (7.1), Bartlett (7.3)

-- We receive $1.148M for the win.

-- Chris Bryan will only miss 5-6 days only with a "bruised head" following a collision.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 10:18 PM

Here is Chris Bryan's first of two goals vs Juventus. A really really nice move that just seems absolutely amazing against a team of this caliber. As always full screen recommended.

Radii · 10-18-2011, 10:50 PM

December Update

-- We play on the 1st, 7th, 10th, 14th, 17th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, and 31st. This is when it will start to get really hairy, some of these are rescheduled matches. The 10th is our last Champions League group match vs Celtic. After that we have a 4 match run of Man City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, and Arsenal. 3 of those 4 are at home and we're going to be WAY ahead on home matches by the end of December so we can expect a really awful run of road matches sometime in the second half of the year.

-- Our youngster ML David Ros is the League 2 player of the month for Brighton. He has 10 assists in 11 matches for them.

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. The Bogdanovs signing is still the highlight. The fans are concerned about Darcy That's kinda insane... he has played 15 matches, 4 goals/4 assists/7.15 rating. His last 5 matches haven't been good though.

-- We made a profit of $678k last month. That's with two home champions league matches, 3 home league matches and $7.6M in gate receipts, way way more than we are used to seeing. We have lost $13.7M this year, but again we've spent $30M on new players. We have a cash balance of $20.5M. I have no idea how much we get for making it past the Champions League Group Stage. Hopefully its a nice big number.

December 1st, 2014

Chelsea(8-1-5, 5th) @ Ipswich (7-2-3, 6th)

Chelsea are 5:4 favorites at Portman Road today. Its our 4th straight home match in league play (and 6th overall with two home Champions League matches), but going into this stretch we had played 3 at home and 4 on the road, so its all good. We're 5-4-7 against Chelsea lifetime. Between the League Cup Semis 2 years ago and the FA Cup last year we've played them 7 times in 2 seasons. We're 3-2-2 in those 7 matches, 2-1-1 at home.

We have two less matches played than everyone else in the top 7. If we won both our games in hand we'd be in 2nd.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Bartlett/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Darcy/Bryan

Young Chelsea Striker David Thomas (only 22) has 13 goals in 14 league matches this year and is an early favorite for player of the year in England. We've got almost a week off after this. We sub in Aldrovandi for Skhosana and Constantino for the injured Bryan, otherwise no changes.

12': Buildup down the middle, Darcy has it 20 yards out, a pass to the penalty spot and their defense doesn't catch Constantino cutting in towards goal, he blasts it with his first touch and that's not something anyone can sotp!! 1-0

16': A crazy shot from 35 yards by ST Al-Inezi... that hits the right post, scary. It was a pass ahead but our defense was closing down really fast so he just shot it.

40': We've seen some off target shots by both teams but that's it lately. They have taken some scary long shots but Bogdanovs is always there.

HALF: Bogdanovs has the highest rating of anyone so far, they have 8 shots, 6 are from long range but 6 are on target. We've got 7 shots, 2 on target, but that's been enough for the lead. Possession is 50/50, they're beating us in the air but otherwise things are quite even. No changes for the second half initially.

62': Not to be outdone by Chris Bryan, Smith passes a ball ahead to Constantino, he pushes it ahead, skips by his man, blasts a shot to the far post from the right side of the area and its a goal!!! Not as flashy as Bryan's goal against Juventus but the last move looks exactly the same. 2-0

68': Neil Gordon is hurt, ugh.

69': They have a throwin in our end, a ball to ST Thomas, he's 20 yards out, jukes by Bartlett easily and scores with a strong strike. 2-1

70': Clifford in for Darcy, 4-1-4-1, Chrzanowski in for Gordon, and Connolly in for Smith.

78': Clifford is hurt.

We put it away after that, its all at home, but we are on a serious roll!

Ipswich 2 : 1 Chelsea

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.0)
Goals: Constantino 2
Assists: Darcy (6.9), Smith (6.9)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.2), Heywood (7.0), Kirkland (7.1)

Injury Update

-- Gordon is only out 4-5 days, whew.

-- Clifford is out for 3 weeks.

-- We move up to 4th today and drop Chelsea to 6th.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 12:12 AM

FA Cup 3rd Round Draw

We get a home match vs minnow Kendal or League 2 Mansfield. That'll be fun for our backups and maybe some youth players.

December 7th, 2014

Ipswich (8-2-3, 4th) @ QPR (5-4-6, 12th)

What the heck is this? A road match? not fair! We're still 4:5 favorites on the road at QPR, they're 3:1 to get a win. We haven't played them since the 21/22 season, we're 6-5-4 lifetime against them, we lost the last time we played but yeah long time ago.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Smith/Mills/Chrzanowski
F: Constantino/Darcy

Mattle gets a start at DC. Bartlett has been on fire so I've been keeping him in every match and rotating the other spot a bit to keep guys fresh. Smith/Mills at MC, Chrzanowski starts for Gordon who is coming back from his short injury still.

16': Free kick for us out right, and we earn a corner as we cross it in... they head it away though.

24': This match is really even so far, each team with some fairly decent attacking moves, though 3 of their 4 shots come from long range.

27': Oh this could be really bad, with Crespo out for weeks still, Adagsmar is hurt and forced to leave the match immediately. Hughes is in.

HALF: And that's how we go into the locker room at the half. I make sure the team knows I'm not happy with them. Possession was even through the first 25 minutes but we've built up a 58/42 possession edge now. We shoot 7 times, 3 on target. They shoot 5 times, 2 on target. We're going to attack harder this half and see if we can break through.

49': Yellow for Kirkland.

60': throwin in their end, its thrown long, into the area, Darcy wins the header... and they have a defender that has to clear it off the line, damn!!

63': A foul by them just outside the left side of the penalty box... short pass to Mattle on the free kick, his shot is saved.

65': Aldrovandi in for Bartlett who is having his first off day in awhile. Gordon in for Chrzanowski.

82': Highlight opens with Constantino in the area, as is most of both teams... he can't get anything going, passes back out left to Kirkland, he puts a cross about 10 yards out dead center, Mills wins the header there and its on target and in the net!! 1-0

91': Jackson a yellow.

92': After minimal buildup there's a ball from the right side into the area for midfielder Frain... our guys seem to feel it was just offsides, our defenders are caught completely off guard and Bogdanovs can't save us here, their man puts it in and its going to be a draw. 1-1

QPR 1 : 1 Ipswich

Its probably the proper result, the match was really even, but its disappointing after taking the lead.

Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.5)
Goals: Mills (7.3)
Assists: Kirkland

Bartlett struggled today before he was subbed out with a 5.6 rating. Everyone else is in the 6.6-6.8 range.

Injury Update

-- Adagsmar is out for 3-4 weeks. Crespo is still out 2-3 weeks. Hughes will start at ML and Chrzanowski will back him up with Hutchinson taking over as primary backup to Neil Gordon.

We remain in 4th today. We're still a few matches away from the midway point, here's how things look right now:

1. Man Utd - 35 pts - 16 played
2. Arsenal - 30 pts - 16 plyd
3. Newcalste - 28 pts - 15 plyd
4. Ipswich - 27 pts - 14 plyd
5. Man City - 26 pts - 16 plyd
6. Liverpool - 26 pts - 15 plyd
7. Chelsea - 25 pts - 15 plyd
8. Aston Villa - 23 pts - 15 plyd
9. Huddersfield - 22 pts - 14 plyd
10. Blackburn - 22 pts - 16 plyd

Alf · 10-19-2011, 05:03 AM

Winning your CL group is big big big. You will be paired with a team that has finished 2nd of its group (so likely less chance to get paired with top teams like Real MAdrid or Barcelona).

You also get to receive the second leg of the home-away pairing.

You also get more UEFA points increasing your chances to have better seeding whenever you enter your next European Cup or CL competition.

You might also make more money (unsure there).

Barkeep49 · 10-19-2011, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radii

-- We made a profit of $678k last month. That's with two home champions league matches, 3 home league matches and $7.6M in gate receipts, way way more than we are used to seeing. We have lost $13.7M this year, but again we've spent $30M on new players. We have a cash balance of $20.5M. I have no idea how much we get for making it past the Champions League Group Stage. Hopefully its a nice big number.

You do get some money, I believe, win or lose for being in the knockout round (more for a win, obviously). More importantly, I believe, you get a bigger chunk of the Champions League TV money which is a substantial sum of money.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the TV money, generally in the 20 million dollar range, is paid out at the end of the season.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 06:39 PM

December 10th, 2014

European Champions Cup Group C

Ipswich (4-1-0) @ Celtic(2-0-3)

If we get a draw here we will win our group. Because we beat Juventus soundly we have a 5 goal differential advantage (and are up on them by 3 points). So we could lose and possibly still win our group, but don't want to have to take that chance. We are slim 6:4 favorites going to Celtic today. We beat them 1:0 at our place back in October.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Skhosana/Heywood
DM: Smith
M: Hughes/Jean/Connolly/Gordon
F: Bryan

We don't want to throw a ton of backups out there today as we do want to win the group but we're about to start a pretty hellish run of matches. Oh well, 4-1-4-1, Mills sits, Bryan up front, Hughes starting at ML.

Counterattacking today.

27': They're building up to attack, but our young midfielder Connolly makes a tackle out near midfield, winning a ball for us, immediately sending it long to Chris Bryan, Bryan runs onto it well ahead of the defense, attacks the keeper, all the way into the 6 yard box and he scores! 1-0

39': their star ST Di Giuseppe gets by our defense and into the area for a clear cut chance, but Bogdanovs makes the key save. Skhosana's rating takes a big hit here, I think its considered his fault giving up that great look.

46': They have a corner, taken to the far post and DC Andre Hall wins it and puts it in. Bogdanovs reacted really poorly to it and was way out of position for that shot. 1-1

HALF: So we get to the half fairly cleanly, the half goes by really quickly, only 4 shots allowed and 2 taken, kinda standard when we run this formation, but they had the one set piece to tie it up. A tie would work just fine for us here.

55': Gordon with a long run down the right, a cross to the far post, Hughes wins a header... and its just inches over the bar, damn.

65': Jean is hurt and forced to come off. Bartlett comes in and plays DMC, Smith to MC. Khan is coming in for Bryan at this point as well.

84': We have a couple strong attacks here though in the end Hughes hits the post with a shot and Smith settles for a long range shot that is saved. Its nice that the recent highlights show us attacking though, since we'd love a tie.

90': Khan is tackled in the area trying for a header... penalty given!! Gordon to take the penalty and he clinches our group stage victory as he buries it! 2-1

95': 4 minutes of added time but we're at 94:50 here as they have a through ball from 30 yards out into the area, Skhosana takes the blame for letting it through and they get an easy finish and gain a tie. 2-2

Celtic 2 : 2 Ipswich

Skhosana had a poor first half and giving up the second goal on a mistake of his destroys him, he finishes with a 4.7 rating.

One of their goal scorers is man of the match.

Goals: Bryan (6.9), Gordon (6.8)
Assists: Connolly (6.8), Khan (6.8)
Notable: Kirkland (7.0)

6.6-6.8's elsewhere.

It turns out we could have lost by a couple goals and been fine, but I wasn't watching the score in the other match, insisting that we could get a draw or better out of our match. Juventus beats AJ Auxerre 3:2.

Group C Final Standings

Ipswich - 4-2-0 - 13 for - 3 ag - 14 pts
Juventus - 4-1-1 - 12 for - 6 ag - 13 pts
Celtic - 2-1-3 - 6 for - 8 ag - 7 pts
AJ Auxerre - 0-0-6 - 2 for - 16 ag - 0 pts

-- We receive $574,000 for the draw today.

-- Jean will only miss 5-6 days with the injury he suffered today. Whew.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alf

Winning your CL group is big big big. You will be paired with a team that has finished 2nd of its group (so likely less chance to get paired with top teams like Real MAdrid or Barcelona).

You also get to receive the second leg of the home-away pairing.

You also get more UEFA points increasing your chances to have better seeding whenever you enter your next European Cup or CL competition

Good stuff all! We got really lucky catching Juventus in such a down year, after they were runners up in the Champions League last year, glad to see there will be some nice payoffs for us going all out and winning the group.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

You do get some money, I believe, win or lose for being in the knockout round (more for a win, obviously). More importantly, I believe, you get a bigger chunk of the Champions League TV money which is a substantial sum of money.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the TV money, generally in the 20 million dollar range, is paid out at the end of the season.

Also good. I remember the TV revenue for the Euro Cup last year was $6M or so, so yeah seeing a much bigger number there will be nice. I can see where it adds a ton of pressure though to a team like Chelsea who out of nowhere didn't finish in the top 7 last year and presumably is really counting on all the extra revenue from the Champions League.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 07:54 PM

-- The Champions League First Knockout Round Draw will take place on the 20th so we'll know pretty soon who we're playing. For now, all group play is done.

Group winners: At. Madrid, FC Bayern, Ipswich, Man Utd, Barcelona, Inter, Arsenal, Man City <-- Go England!

Group Runners Up: Hoffenheim, Roma, Juventus, Real Madrid, Genoa, AIK (sweden), Benfica, OM

Dortmund finished 3rd behind Arsenal/AIK, Sevilla behind Arsenal/Benfica, Ajax behind Bayern/Roma, and Porto behind At. Madrid/Hoffenheim. Those seem like the biggest name teams to me to miss out on the knockout stages.

December 14th, 2014

Man City (7-5-4, 7th) @ Ipswich (8-3-3, 6th)

As of right now we have 7 home matches, 7 road matches. 3 of our next 4 are at home and all 4 are against top 10 teams. We're huge even money favorites today vs Man City. They beat us 1:0 at our place about 6 weeks ago though in the league cup. We're 3-5-10 lifetime against them. We beat them in the FA Cup last season but the last time we actually got a win against them in EPL play was October 2021.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Heywood
M: Hughes/Mills/Connolly/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Our midfield is hurting with Clifford, Adagsmar, Jean, and Crespo hurt. Jean will be back soon but we're playing lots of matches in short order here so its going to hurt us. today we start Connolly, who has played pretty damn well but I haven't intended to rely on him this much.

Standard mindset at home today.

6': Khan is hurt... great start, he can stay in an we'll check postmatch.

10': We get the first shot today, Gordon with a cross and Hughes heads it just over. This was after a pass to Constantino where he was immediately tackled.

30': 5 total shots between both teams, all off target.

46': Throwin on the left side for us, taken to Kirkland, a pass to Connolly, he has an attempt at a through ball blocked and it seems to get their defense out of step, the ball ricochets to Mills, he puts it between their two DC's for Constantino, Constantino drills a shot in and that is an easy goal. The blocked pass seemed to send everyone off in another direction just for a half step and a lucky bounce right to the foot of Steven Mills and we took advantage! 1-0

HALF: We end up with 6 shots, 2 on target. They shoot only twice, both off target. We have a slight edge in possession 54/46, we're passing better than them and look pretty good right now. We'll drop back into a counterattacking mode here to start the second half, expecting them to come at us pretty hard.

57': They have a free kick from 30 yards out, and its on target and Bogdanovs has to push it aside. We clear the corner though.

63': A great counterattack for us, we win a ball in their end and send it ahead quickly, Mills out to Constantino, he's rushing up the right side, passes to Khan who has a step on his man 20 yards out, he gets into the penalty area, drills a shot by the keeper and we're up 2! 2-0

68': Darcy in for the injured Khan, Chrzanowski in for Gordon, Welsh in for Aldrovandi.

We finish this off easily!

Ipswich 2 : 0 Man City

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.5)
Goals: Constantino, Khan (7.0)
Assists: Constantino, Mills (7.9)
Notables: Bogdanovs (7.3), Heywood (7.3), Kirkland (7.7), Mattle (7.1)

-- A couple milestones. Steven Mills plays his 150th match for Ipswich. Matthew Khan plays his 300th career league match.

-- We're 5th again after the match today. But we still have 2 fewer played than everyone in the top 7, and 3 less than Chelsea who are in 4th.

-- No long term issues for Khan after getting hurt early today.

SirFozzie · 10-19-2011, 08:04 PM

Here's to hoping you pull AIK, Marseille, Benfica or Genoa. Those are some SCARY other 2nd place teams.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 08:48 PM

December 17th, 2014

Ipswich (9-3-3, 5th) @ Aston Villa(7-2-7, 10th)

Back on the road today against an Aston Villa side that has missed out on Europe the last 2 years in a row. They are 6:4 favorites today. This is another team we have done pretty poorly against in our history, we're 2-5-7 lifetime against them, each team won at home last year. We've only won once in our last 8 meetings though. Time to turn that around hopefully!

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Skhosana/Jackson
M: Hughes/Mills/Smith/Gordon
F: Darcy/Bryan

Aston Villa are led by Gyorgy Takacs, a Hungarian Striker, a super super with pretty good skills, he has 7 goals to lead them. Aston Villa run a 4-4-2 diamond formation (wide with MR/ML).

We'll counterattack on the road.

6': We build up on offense, lots of passes through the middle and right side of the midfield, Smith receives it 30 yards out, makes a run, draws a defender and passes into the area, Neil Gordon cuts in from the right, slips behind his defender and has a clear cut chance, he easily beats the keeepr! 1-0

8': They've got a midfielder off the field injured right now... we push hard, Darcy to Mills, Mills into the area for Bryan, he gets a half step on his man and has a clear cut chance and gives us a big early lead! 2-0

30': They have a throwin in our end, taken short, then a pass to a midfielder 20 yards out, he shoots... it looks like its going wide, but the ball deflects off Mills and into the net. Its an own goal for Mills and a disastrous way to let them back into the match. 2-1

39': We counter after clearing a cross.. a quick pass up to Bryan, ahead to Darcy, he's a solid 35 yards out, he only has a step on his man and he isn't the fastest player on the field. He holds his man off til getting to about 20 yards from goal and he pulls up and shoots from there, its saved by the keeper though. If he was a little faster he'd be able to do more there.

48': At the tail end of added time in the first half Darcy goes down and he's hurt. He has to leave immediately and Constantino it is in.

HALF: Aston Villa has 61% of the possession, but we've got 4 shots, all on target, 3 of them clear cut chances. They shoot 6 times, just 1 on target and the goal was an own goal. Hopefully we can keep playing well here and maybe control possession slightly better in the second half. That own goal has made this much much shakier for us, I really want a win here dammit!

48': We have a corner but they head it away easily. We recover at midfield and a ball is played up to Constantino, he wins a header and heads it into the penalty area... they have a defender there who should clear without any issue, we've got no one within 5 yards. Bryan comes in to pressure and their defender... whiffs? chokes? something! Bryan comes away with the ball and scores from point blank range after a massive mistake on their part. 3-1

50': Ugh, we just can't put this away. AMC Coutinho takes a pass 18 yards out, Bartlett misses a tackle, he gets into the area and scores on a clear cut chance. Bartlett takes the blame for it and its still just a one goal game. 3-2

61': Mattle in for Bryan, Bryan picked up a small knock and his fitness is down. Bartlett to DMC, Mattle DC, 4-1-4-1 formation for us.

64': They have a free kick from 25 yards out, taken by midfielder Gueye... and struck beautifully around the wall and into the left side of the net. crap. 3-3

79': A couple attacks for each team in the last 15 minutes, here they have a free kick 35 yards out and a shot comes in that Bogdanovs saves but turns it behind for a corner. They win a header on the corner but its high.

82': They attack and there's a cross in from the left side, Bogdanovs tries to go out and catch the cross, doesn't get it, and they head it into the empty net. 3-4

82': We move Bartlett up to MC, Hughes and gordon to AML/AMR and we turn this into a 4-3-2-1 to try to get that goal back.

We can't get anything done and have a rather epic loss here after going up 2-0 in the early minutes.

Aston Villa 4 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.8)
Goals: Bryan 2, Gordon (7.4)
Assists: Smith (8.5), Mills (7.7), constantino (6.8)

Hughes 5.8, Skhosana 5.6, Kirkland 6.0... a really rough loss here.

Injury Update

ST Eoin Darcy "broke down today" and has a non descript hip injury. Paying extra to send him to a specialist (which obvoiusly I do without giving it a second thought) is my best option and means he's only out for 2 months... oof.

We remain in 5th after losing today. A tie woud put us in 4th, a win 3rd. Alas.

bbgunn · 10-19-2011, 08:58 PM

Ah, the way it should be... Ipswich kicking a** and taking names... with the exception of Aston Villa.

I wonder what happened to Agbonlahor in your save game.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 09:42 PM

-- We have a full 6 days off, hooray.

European Champions Cup First Knockout Round Draw

So the teams don't appear to be separated in the draw as group winners/runners up, lets see what happens with the matchups:

Real Madrid vs Inter
Roma vs Ipswich
OM vs FC Bayern
Juventus vs Man City
Genoa vs At. Madrid
Hoffenheim vs Barcelona
AIK vs Arsenal
Benfica vs Man Utd

so it didn't list them separately but the draw holds true pairing group winners and runners up. And we got one of the toughest possible against Serie A powerhouse Roma. We know them well, having played 4 times last season, twice in Euro Cup Group Play and then in the Euro Cup Quarterfinals. They killed us in group play, 4:0 at their place, 1:0 at ours, but we got serious revenge in the quarterfinals, getting a 2:1 win at home and a 1:1 road draw to advance past them.

Roma won Serie A last year... Juventus was 10 points behind them in 2nd and Genoa was 25... yes 25 points behind in 3rd place. Jesus. This year Inter is in 1st place, 1 point ahead of Internazionale at the midpoint of the season.

We've got a long break before that, though. Knockout play doesn't begin until February 19th.

Injury Update

-- Clifford resumes full training.

-- DC Bartlett is going to miss 2 weeks with a foot injury suffered in training today. We have tons of DC depth so we're ok there, but Bartlett has played really well for us this year.

December 23rd, 2014

Liverpool(10-3-5, 3rd) @ Ipswich (9-3-4, 5th)

Liverpool are only 3 points ahead of us despite the fact we have 2 less matches played than them. We are 5:4 favorites at home against Liverpool today. We're 4-4-5 lifetime against them. We are 2-2-0 the last two years, two wins at home, two draws on the road.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson
M: Hughes/Jean/Mills/Gordon
F: Constantino/Bryan

We're nice and rested today. Standard mindset today.

2': Throwin in their end, we throw it into the penalty area and they head it away but we recover. Jean to Bryan, Bryan shoots from 18 yards out, the keeper dives and stops it but there's a rebound, Hughes gets to the rebound and puts it into the goal before the keeper recovers! 1-0

28': They take a corner kick, out to the far post, Bogdanovs dives out for the ball but can't get to it, their DC Schreuder wins his header and puts it into the empty net. 1-1

44': Throwin for us in their end, thrown to Jean, after a couple passes its back to Jean 25 yards out, he attacks, pulls up and pushes the ball into the area as the defense collapses on him, Bryan gets to the ball and scores easily!! 2-1

HALF: We get to the half pretty quickly despite 3 goals. We have 57% of the possession, 5 shots, all on target, but we don't see all of them in highlights. They have 5 shots, 2 on target with the one goal. We're passing, tackling and winning headers all at a much better rate than them. I think we're better off here than we were against Aston Villa mainly due to being at home. But its a similar half where we give up a set piece goal but otherwise dominate.

62': A throwin on their end, passed bak to Gordon, he gets it to Mills who shoots from 20 yards out, he shoots from there and hits the crossbar, the keeper wasn't getting to that, damn!

75': We counter attack after winning a ball in midfield, Mills ahead to Constantino, he passes into the left side of the area for Hughes, Hughes shoots, its saved but right back to Hughes, he dribbles left as the keeper is slow to recover and puts it in for a second goal!! 3-1

82': Free kick for us, taken to Hughes, he crosses into the area but they head it out, we track it down, back out left to Hughes, a low pass into the area for Constantino and he drills a shot by the keeper! 4-1

85': Connolly, Khan, Chrzanowski in for Jean, Constantino and Gordon.

Ipswich 4 : 1 Liverpool

A great win here!

Man of the Match: Jack Hughes (9.4)
Goals: Hughes 2, Bryan (8.9), Constantino (7.8)
Assists: Hughes, Bryan, Jean (7.6)
Notables: Kirkland (7.4), Mattle (7.3), Gordon (7.1)

Great to see Jack Hughes come up huge today!

-- This win jumps us up over Liverpool, we're now 3rd, Liverpool 4th.

-- Some teams have now played 19 matches to hit the halfway point of the season. We're still at 17. 19 played unless otherwise mentioned

1. Man Utd - 41 pts - 18 plyd
2. Arsenal - 37 pts
3. Ipswich - 33 pts - 17 plyd
4. Liverpool - 33 pts
5. Man City - 32 pts
6. Chelsea - 30 pts
7. Newcastle - 30 pts
8. Everton - 27 pts - 18 plyd
9. Aston Villa - 26 pts - 17 plyd
10. Huddersfield - 26 pts - 17 plyd

We are in great shape here, a big home match against Arsenal comes up next.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbgunn

Ah, the way it should be... Ipswich kicking a** and taking names... with the exception of Aston Villa.

-- Revenge will be had at home later in the year, guaranteed!

Quote:

I wonder what happened to Agbonlahor in your save game.

He's 38 years old now in game and still playing. He stayed with Aston Villa until age 35 in the 2021/22 season.

He had 3 spectacular years from 2012-2015, scoring 28 goals, 25 goals and 22 goals in 3 consecutive seasons. After that he never scored more than 15 again though he had a few more solid seasons

He didn't play at all for Aston Villa in the 21/22 season and was let go. He signed for Rotherham in the Championship the next year and as a 36 year old scored 13 goals in 29 matches for them. The next season they fell to League 1 and he scored 9 goals in 24 matches.

This year so far he has 2 goals in 4 matches and has to be just about done.

Career: 510 matches, 228 goals, 27 assists, 26 man of the match awards, 7.09 average rating.

He was part of a League Cup title in 2010 and part of the England World Cup Runner up squad in 2018.

He was inducted into the England all time best 11 in 2018. Wayne Rooney is the all time England Striker with 47 goals in 62 matches. Agbonlahor has 34 goals in 63 league matches.

With 256 goals for Aston Villa in 438 matches he's on the Aston Villa all time best eleven and isn't going to be replaced for a long long time.

Radii · 10-19-2011, 10:35 PM

-- Crespo resumes full training.

December 26th, 2014

Arsenal (11-4-4, 2nd) @ Ipsiwch (10-3-4, 3rd)

We're 3-2-11 lifetime against Arsenal, we beat them the last time we played at their place 1:0. Today they are slim 6:4 favorites at Portman Road. We are 4 points behind them but have two fewer matches played.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson
M: Hughes/Smith/Jean/Gordon
F: Khan/Bryan

We play Sunderland in just 2 days and are going to be gassed, but i'm going all out to try to win here, how can I not give it my best vs Arsenal?

2': We have a throwin in their end but after a few passes we lose possession. They get a long ball up ahead to their ST Nooij, he's got a clear cut chance but Bogdanovs rushes out and positions perfectly for it and makes the stop.

8': Arsenal attack again and our defense fails badly. ST Nooij gets by Mattle nearly 30 yards out and the defense breaks down trying to recover after that, everyone gets stuck out of position, one pass ahead to AM Gamliel leads to their second clear cut chance and they finish this one. 0-1

25': They earn a corner, first one is headed out and there's a scary shot from 25 yards away, Bogdanovs makes a diving save and they get a second corner. we head that one out too, Hughes commits a foul though and they get a free kick from 22ish yards away... which hits the wall and is saved.

34': Kirkland is injured.

43': Yellow for Hughes.

HALF: We see lots of highlights in the first 25 minutes then none at all. We manage 9 shots but I only see a couple in highlights and only 1 is on target. They have 6 shots, 3 on target and 2 clear cut chances. We'll try to attack to open the second half.

63': Constantino for Khan, Mills in for Smith. Fresh legs + neither were having great games.

69': They win a ball in our end and counter attack, a long ball up ahead to Bugra Yildirim, he has a step on Kirkland 40 yards out and maintains that advantage all the way into the area to generate a clear cut chance that he finishes well. 0-2

74': Totally falling apart now, MC Ramsey heads a ball in off a cross. 0-3

They aren't letting us come back after that.

Ipswich 0 : 3 Arsenal

Ouch. Jackson 6.0, Bryan 5.7, Bogdanovs 6.2, most others in the 6.5-6.8 range. Now that we've become a more serious threat Arsenal seems able to basically put us down whenever they need to. We fall to 4th with the loss here.

-- Kirkland will miss 5-6 days. Unfortunately that'll have him out for 2 matches and possibly not fully recovered for a 3rd.

bbgunn · 10-19-2011, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radii

With 256 goals for Aston Villa in 438 matches he's on the Aston Villa all time best eleven and isn't going to be replaced for a long long time.

That's a pretty good career. Thanks for that, Radii!

Izulde · 10-20-2011, 01:03 AM

If I'm not a crackhead (which is entirely possible), don't y'all already have some kinna history with Roma?

chesapeake · 10-20-2011, 10:10 AM

You always seem to have a tough time with Arsenal. Is that the price you pay for having Chelsea's number?

Radii · 10-20-2011, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

If I'm not a crackhead (which is entirely possible), don't y'all already have some kinna history with Roma?

Yeah, we played them 4 times last year, in the group stage in the Euro Cup where they owned us badly, and then in the quarterfinals where we beat them by 1 at home and got a draw on the road.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesapeake

You always seem to have a tough time with Arsenal. Is that the price you pay for having Chelsea's number?

Perhaps in part! Arsenal I believe is just better as well. Chelsea dominated much of the last 2010s but Arsenal has won the EPL 3 of the last 4 years and finished 2nd the other year. Their two dominant strikers, Hans Nooij and Bugra Yildirim are just insanely good and probably better than anything Chelsea has. Both make over $200k/wk and Yildirim is valued at $38 Million and Nooij at $53 Million. Even when we do manage to play them close an individual effort from one of those two guys is likely to make the difference.

Radii · 10-20-2011, 06:12 PM

December 28th, 2014

Ipswich (10-3-5, 4th) @ Sunderland(3-8-9, 17th)

Just 2 days after losing to Arsenal we travel to struggling Sunderland. They are favorites today, 6:4 vs our 13:8 to win. We've beaten them 4 times in a row including a big 4:1 win back in August.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Heywood/Aldrovandi/Skhosana/Jackson
M: Hughes/Smith/Mills/Chrzanowski
F: Khan/Constantino

Some fatigue issues today, Hughes could use a rest but its not happening, Gordon is sitting today, Heywood in for the injured Kirkland.

Sunderland starts ML Lee Burton, he played for us for 2 years before being sold to Reading, and after 2 years with reading ended up with Sunderland. He's mostly a backup but he'll start today. ST Edson has 7 goals to lead them and today they're starting a 35 y/o Theo Walcott who hasn't scored this year.

-- Fairly heavy snow today...

25': They have a throwin in our end, a pass into the area, Clive Jackson goes for a tackle... and commits a foul, penalty given. their defender Aiello takes it and scores. 0-1

29': Corner kick for them, taken to the near man, Walcott... he turns by Craig Smith, shoots from 10 yards out and beats our keeper, ugh! 0-2

37': We're attacking, Heywood with a long pass ahead to Constantino 25 yards away, he turns by his man and has nothing but open space ahead of him, into the area and he scores easily to get one goal back for us! 1-2

38': They try to attack after kickoff but we win it easily, Skhosana sends a long ball down the right side, Constantino gets ahead of his man, into the right side of the area, a ball into the 6 yard box, Khan runs onto it and puts it in!! 2-2

43': Smith with a through ball to Constantino, our 3rd clear cut chance here, but he doesn't control it well and basically runs into the keeper before shooting. They clear safely.

HALF: We end up with 9 shots, 4 of them on target with 3 clear cut chances. They shoot 7 times with 3 on target. We have a 54/46 possession edge, we're passing, tackling and heading better than them, hopefully we'll come out and take control of this one in the second half after taking the momentum back with those two goals.

48': We pass right down the middle, Smith ahead to Constantino, he gets by his man again, dodges a slide tackle in the area and has our 4th clear cut chance, but the keeper saves... there's a rebound that falls right to Khan, Khan puts it into the net before the keeper can recover and we go ahead! 3-2

67': We kill time with no highlights after taking the lead. But here Jack Hughes goes down injured and he must leave the match immediately. Chrzanowski moves to ML and Hutchinson comes in and moves to MR. Connolly also comes in for Mills.

85': we win a ball in defense, Connolly with a ball ahead for Constantino and its a huge counterattacking chance... their defender Coats tackles Constantino before he can get into the area and that's a red card! Free kick goes wide though.

91': Corner for them, taken short to ST Pique... he shoots right away, the ball either hits the right post or our defender on the line at the right post... and bounces in... ugggggggggggggh. 3-3

they salvage the draw at the end, that sucks!

Sunderland 3 : 3 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.8)
Goals: Khan 2, Constantino (8.7)
Assists: Constantino 2, Heywood (6.9)

Jackson ends with a 5.4, Bogdanovs a 6.1, everyone else on the team 6.8-6.9.

Newcastle jumps into 4th over us, we fall to 5th.

Injury Update

-- Jack Hughes turned his ankle badly against Sunderland and he's going to miss 4 weeks. Crespo is getting back into match shape and Adagsmar will get back to full training in a few days, we may be in a bind in 3 days when we play Watford though.

Radii · 10-20-2011, 06:25 PM

Most everyone has played 20 or 21 matches now but we just hit the midway point of the season with 19. I posted a standings update just a match or two ago and will keep up with that as we go, but we havent really looked at the stats at all this year:

Goals

1. David Thomas - Chelsea - 15
2. Colin Meade - Arsenal - 10
2. Emmanuel Amoako - Tottenham - 10
2. Romelu Lukaku - Man City - 10
5. Andy Bailey - Liverpool - 9
5. Casper Pique - Sunderland - 9
.............
10. Neil Gordon - Ipswich - 7
16. Constantino - 6
26. Chris Bryan - 5
32. Matthew Khan - 4

Assists

1. Sergio Canales - Chelsea - 8
2. Ludovic Bastian - Sunderland - 7
3. Peter Wynter - Man Utd - 6
3. David McKinlay - Nottingham Forest - 6
3. Tal Gamliel - Arsenal - 6
3. Coutinho - Aston Villa - 6
3. David Thomas - Chelsea - 6
....
8. Constantino - 5

Chris Bryan, Jean, Eoin Darcy, Steven Mills, and Craig Smith all have 3 assists.

Average Rating

1. David Thomas - Chelsea - 7.73
2. Sultan Al-Inezi - Chelsea - 7.66
3. Emmanuel Amoako - Tottenham - 7.51
4. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 7.42
5. Danny Wilson - Arsenal - 7.41
.....
7. Constantino - Ipswich - 7.37
22. Stuart Kirkland - Ipswich - 7.16
33. Neil Gordon - 7.11
36. Steven Mills - 7.08
54. Jack Hughes - 7.05
70. Craig Smith - 6.99
70. Jean - 6.99
77. Eoin Darcy - 6.97

We're playing so many more matches in Europe that our overall stats are skewed a bit here.

Constantino and Bryan have 10 total goals, Gordon 9.

Jean and Constantino have 6 assists, Craig Smith 5.

Chris Bryan has a 7.54 average rating with a couple incredible Champions League scores, while Constantino is at 7.29 total.

Radii · 10-20-2011, 07:14 PM

December 31st, 2014

Watford (4-9-7, 15th) @ Ipswich (10-4-5, 5th)

Watford is only 3 points ahead of 18th and 5 points ahead of dead last, there's a pretty tight relegation battle going on this year. Today we're big 4:5 favorites at Portman Road. We played Watford in our season opener and lost to them 1:0.

GK: Capitani
D: Heywood/Mattle/Skhosana/Jackson
M: Chrzanowski/Jean/Connolly/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Capitani gets another game in goal today. Crespo isn't ready, Adagsmar isn't back, but Gordon is in so hopefully we've got enough strength in our midfield to be ok. We do have some guys with morale dropped down to okay and Jackson is even poor... we could use a little win streak here to get that back up.

14': Mattle is hurt.

29': Corner for us, its headed out but we push it back in, the ball is loose about 18 yards out, lots of confusion, Skhosana comes in and blasts it and its amazingly placed for a defender here, into the left side of the net and the keeper had no chance! 1-0

HALF: And we fly to the half after that. We only allow 2 shots, both in the first 10 minutes. We take 9 shots but 5 are from long range and I don't see a lot of them. We'll instruct the guys to work the ball into the penalty area better.

62': Connolly with a nice ball into the left side of the area, Chrzanowski gets to it but his shot is right at the keeper.

74': Welsh in for Mattle, Clifford in for Connolly.

82': Welsh picks up a yellow.

91': Come on guys finish a game dammit. We win a ball in the penalty area, Jean is slowly dribbling it out... passes it to the center of the field and there is no one from our team anywhere close to the damn ball. They pick it up 25 yards away from goal, one quick pass to a striker in the area, a clear cut chance, and a finish... WOW we are just incapable of putting anyone away right now. Unbelievlable mistake by Jean. 1-1

Ipswich 1 : 1 Watford

Man of the Match: Abdul Skhosana (8.0)
Goals: Skhosana (unassisted)
Notables: Gordon (7.0), Jackson (7.2), Constantino (7.2)

Jean was at 7.2 or 7.3 or so I think and his mistake knocks him back to 6.5.

-- Jean picked up a yellow today, that's 5 for him and he'll miss our next match.

Radii · 10-20-2011, 08:08 PM

January Update

-- We played 8 league matches in December and managed to stay in 5th, we could have done better. But just because we're winless in our last 3 matches doesn't mean its all bad. We beat Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool this month and won our Champions League Group. We play a league 2 side to open January and then get a week off, hopefully we come back rested and much stronger.

-- We play on the 4th, 11th, 15th, 18th, and 28th. Also on the 25th assuming we win our FA Cup match. Actually a really light month, that will be refreshing hopefully.

-- The board is very pleased with my leadership. The increase in stature of the club is the highlight. Clive Jackson having a rough stretch is the negative.

-- We lost $3.37M last month.

New Youth Signing

Our Spanish scouting connections pay off once again we hope:

16 y/o ML Eneko Etxabe - $1.1M to Athletic in La Liga - scouted as a 3* prospect and "potential to be as good as Crespo", at this point and with our current stature $1M seems a fair price to pay for that potential.

Physical: 12 pace/14 accel/14 jumping/12 agi
Mental: 13 determination/12 teamwork/12 work rate/13 anticipation
Technical: Crossing 15/Dribbling 11/Finishing 11/First Touch 11/Technique 13/Passing 10

Seems really strong for a 16 year old. Most of my coaches agree with my scout and give him 3* potential now that he's here. But three coaches do rate him as a 3 1/2* "quality prospect" which is really strong. We get Crespo tutoring him immediately as well.

-- The Transfer window is open and I'll look at expiring contracts and unhappy players and see if there is anything to be done.

January 4th, 2015

FA Cup 3rd Round

Mansfield @ Ipswich

Mansfield are a League 2 side, we are 1:10 favorites today. Shouldn't need to know any more than that.

GK: Capitani
D: Ormerod/Mattle/Welsh/Jackson
M: Crespo/Smith/Connolly/Chrzanowski
F: Khan/Constantino

We start who we can today basically, since we have a week off we're ok with a few starters here, but we give younger guys action, and a couple guys who are just back from injury.

7': Connolly with a pass ahead to Constantino and we're off to a great start, he beats his man and scores easily! 1-0

14': Connolly with a long ball to Constantino, goal #2! 2-0

Commentary only.

38': Smith is out near midfield, passes to Khan who is way wide left, he cuts inside, beats two defenders on his way into the area and scores. 3-0

44': Smith to Constantino for the hat trick and 4th goal. 4-0

45': Clive Jackson is hurt.

HALF: Clifford in for Constantino, Adagsmar in for Crespo.

65': Connolly with his 3rd assist, passing to Chrzanowski for our 5th goal. 5-0

87': Welsh to Smith, and Smith scores from 25 yards away. 6-0

Ipswich 6 : 0 Mansfield

Man of the Match: Constantino (9.5)
Goals: Constantino 3, Smith (9.4), Chrzanowski (9.2), Khan (8.5)
Assists: Connolly 3 (9.3), Smith 2, Welsh (8.5)
Notables: Capitani (8.7), Jackson (8.3), Ormerod (8.3), Mattle (8.0)

-- We receive $110,000 for winning this round.

Radii · 10-20-2011, 08:45 PM

-- Racing Club in La Liga offer our 3rd string GK Michael Rogers a contract. I'd been trying to sell him but I'm just going to let him go here.

FA Cup 4th Round Draw

Another home match. We get the winner of Luton in League 1 and Alfreton in the BS Premier. I think we're ok!

January 11th, 2015

Ipswich (10-5-5, 6th) @ Blackburn (5-10-7, 13th)

We're 1 point out of 4th and still have 1 or 2 matches played than most teams above us. We're 5-4-4 lifetime against Blackburn, we tied 1:1 at our place back in September after a 2nd minute goal. We're 5:4 favorites today at their place, they're 7:4 to win.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson
M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Kirkland is back, Bartlett full training again, we've got a strong lineup today. We counter attack to start today.

20': They have a corner, taken far post and DC Moran wins the header and scores, Aldrovandi takes the blame for that goal missing his header.

28': We have it in their end, passing back and forth deep in the left corner, Khan passes into the area for Jean, he shoots out wide left, near post and the keeper wasn't ready for it, he beats the keeper and ties it back up! 1-1

33': They build up on offense, a ball from one of their ST's into the right side of the area for MR Adelaar, Kirkland takes the blame for missing an interception... and its another goal for them. 1-2

39': There's a fight for a loose ball in midfield and Khan is brought down hard.. he's hurt, he can stay in for now at least.

42': Gordon with a shot from 20 yards out, the keeper saves it and we earn a corner. They head the corner away but we push it back in... Constantino gets a solid shot in the area but can't finish it.

HALF: Our defense is letting up badly here. Jackson 6.0, Kirkland 6.1, Aldrovandi 5.6, Mattle 6.0... that's our defensive line. They shoot 11 times in the half, putting 4 on target. We only get 5 shots, we get 3 on target. I decide to bring Bartlett in for Aldrovandi at the half. We open up into a standard mindset to start the second half.

54': Jackson with a yellow. They take the free kick into the area, we head it out, their midfielder Kalotheou goes in very hard on Constantino going for the ball, Constantino is down, injured, and its a red card for their midfielder. We've got a man advantage the rest of the way. Constantino will be fine but he's a bit slowed.

54': We're going to attack with the man advantage.

61': Smith wins a ball in midfield and we counter attack immediately. Smith passes to Constantino, he draws the only defender they have back and in the way... Constantino passes to Khan, Khan into the area and he scores! 2-2

70': Bryan in for Khan, Crespo in for Adagsmar.

Unfortunately they are able to kill the last 20 minutes a man down and we end up with our 3rd straight league draw.

Blackburn 2 : 2 Ipswich

Man of the Match: Constantino (8.0)
Goals: Khan (7.4), Jean (7.6)
Assists: Constantino, Khan
Notables: Gordon (7.2)

Jackson 5.7, Aldrovandi 5.6 today, it seems like we've having some consistent defensive lapses lately.

Radii · 10-21-2011, 05:34 PM

January 15th, 2015

Sheffield Utd (6-5-10, 16th) @ Ipswich (10-6-5, 6th)

We're 5:4 favorites at home against another struggling team today, looking to break a streak of 3 straight draws in league play and get back in the win column. We have a really long, really bad history against Sheffield Utd, 4-4-13 lifetime. The last 3 years we've gone 1-2-3 against them.

GK: Bogdanovs
D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Crespo/Jean/Smith/Gordon
F: Khan/Constantino

Our lineup today is mostly the same as our last match and is based on morale/recent form nearly entirely. Heywood in for a poor morale Jackson. Mattle is our best form Dc, we really don't have a second best doing all that great so we go with our most reliable over the last couple years in Aldrovandi. Jean/Smith/Khan/Constantino are all pretty hot.

Sheffield Utd have ST Luca Vanelli and Harry Kane up front, both extremely talented but a bit off this year so far. Vanelli has 8 goals but only 3 in 15 league appearances. Kane has only 4 in 20 league matches (tho 9 in the Euro Cup).

Standard mindset today with a deep defensive line as my coaches recommend against this team.

12': After a fight for the ball in midfield they come away with it, a pass ahead to ST Kane and he shoots from 25 yards out pretty well wide right... and drills it into the left side of the net by Bogdanovs... a great individual strike but I would normally expect that to be saved anyway... 0-1

35': They seem to be in control so far with 8 shots and 4 on target to just 4 for us and very few highlights on the offensive end.

HALF: We saw a couple free kicks on our end but otherwise just saw the ball being lost a lot. A really really poor half. They end the half with 10 shots, 4 on target. 6 from range but that's where they scored their goal from. We just have 5 shots, 1 on target, 3 of our 5 from long range. They have a slight possession edge and are doing basically everything a little better than we are today. We'll try to open things up and attack in the second half and try to put some more pressure on them, Constantino and Heywood had particularly bad halves and I'll be quick to substitute them if i need.

58': Crespo is injured.

62': Bryan i for Constantino, Jackson in for Heywood, neither showed any signs of playing any better in the second half.

64': They attack and get MC Snijders the ball 20 yards out, he makes a run into the area and our defense again looks godawful, but Bogdanovs takes the blame here for leaving his line and allowing the goal. 0-2

76': We finally get a clear cut chance as Crespo makes a strong run into the area and passes to the center of the area for Chris Bryan, but his first touch is right at the keeper.

Ipswich 0 : 2 Sheffield Utd

I'm basically disgusted with my entire team at this point. Some guys played ok but Bogdanovs probably normally doesn't allow in either goal, Constantino gave us a 5.6 today, Heywood 5.3, Gordon 5.9, Jackson 6.3 after coming in, just an awful, awful match by everyone.

That was a make up game of sorts, we now sit just with 1 fewer match played than most everyone else int he league, and we're still in 6th.

MIJB#19 · 10-21-2011, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radii

I was thinking that exact thing, its wild. No wonder MIJB is so good at putting together all the NFL Playoff Scenarios going into the last two weeks of the season.

Thank you sir.

Actually, I've noticed that quite often I can understand UEFA's own rules better than they do. It has been more than once that I e-mailed about incorrect content on their website about teams that did or did not clinch, after which they changed that content and never even replied to me. (In that regard, a big kudos to Yahoo!). It is definately true that various UEFA competitions dragged me into scenario writing.

Radii · 10-21-2011, 07:00 PM

January 18th, 2015

Bristol City (5-5-13, 19th) @ Ipswich (10-6-7, 6th)

Bristol City are settling in to a relegation spot, still room for them to get out but they are the lowest scoring team in the league. We're huge favorites today, 4:7 to get a win and we desperately need to end this league streak at this point. We beat them 3:2 at their house back in September.

GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Heywood
M: Adagsmar/Connolly/Mills/Gordon
F: Bryan/Constantino

Capitani starts in goal today, Bartlett in for Mattle, 3 midfield changes mostly for fatigue, and Bryan/Constantino up front. We will attack today.

Its raining hard today FWIW.

1': We drive right down the pitch to start, Gordon plays a cross in, Bryan wins the header, but its just wide left.

13': We try to counter attack after winning a ball in our end, Connolly with a tackle, ahead to Bryan, ahead to Constantino and he's tackled from behind, its a solid 35 yards out but there's no one between him and the goal... and their defender Nagy gets a red as I was hoping to see! We're up a man for nearly 80 minutes.

15': We earn a free kick, Gordon shoots, off the wall and back for a corner, they clear that too but we recover, but we can't do anything with it.

24': We have 10 shots to 0 for them, but 7 from long range, I tell the team to take their time and work it into the penalty area first...

32': We have a corner, they head it away but we recover, Gordon with a pass into the area for Chris Bryan... lots of defenders are nearby but he has space ot shoot, its a clear cut chance from 17ish yards out, but he sends it wide.

34': Mills ahead to Constantino, he's 20 yards out, turns by his defender, into the area and calmly shoots near post and scores. Our 14th shot! 1-0

45': We earn a corner, they clear it, we push back ahead and earn a second corner, this one is headed out wide for a throwin. We get a cross out of that but Bryan heads it at the keeper and saved.

HALF: We have a man advantage and it shows. 66% of the possession, 16 shots, 5 on target, 3 clear cut chances. We should probably lead by more than one and with the way we've played lately I'm worried about a letdown. We'll try to press for a second goal and wear them out.

48': We slowly advance, getting many men forward, a pass goes out wide to Heywood, a cross into the 6 yard box, Bryan wins a header and the keeper seems out of position here... but he heads it over.

66': They take their first shot.

69': Bartlett a yellow.

79': Jean in for Mills, Chrzanowski in for Gordon, fresh legs in the midfield.

And that's it. They only shoot once all match. We shoot 23 times, just one goal but we get a key 3 points after struggling for a seemingly long stretch here.

Ipswich 1 : 0 Bristol City

Man of the Match: Carlos Aldrovandi (8.3)
Goal: Cosntantino (7.5)
Assist: Mills (7.4)
Notables: Heywood (7.4), Kirkland (7.4), Bartlett (7.5)

-- We only drew 29,000 fans at home today, ouch!

With the help of an Arsenal win over Liverpool we bump up to 5th today. We've got a full week off here too.

Radii · 10-21-2011, 07:41 PM

Man Utd have made an offer of $46,000,000 for Abdul Skhosana.

Accept.

That seems worth its own post.

I paid $23 Million for him and maybe given a year to settle in he and Aldrovandi would have been an unstoppable center back pairing, but this year he hasn't been noticeably better than Bartlett or Mattle and we never sold Welsh so we still have depth and also holy shit $46 Million.

Tellistto · 10-21-2011, 07:43 PM

Amen.

That is all.

Tell

Izulde · 10-21-2011, 08:05 PM

That'll help your cash flow.

10-17-2011, 01:53 AM	#1353
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	League Cup Fourth Round We get a home match for the next round of the League Cup (16 teams left, 6 CH or below), but certainly not an ideal opponent. We host Man City next. -- Matches vs Everton and Sheffield Utd are both rearranged due to the next round of the league cup. Lots of matches getting moved around already. September 28th, 2014 Ipswich (2-1-1, 10th) @ Huddersfield(2-1-1, 11th) Most teams are up to 5-6 matches by now. We've got a goal differential edge on Huddersfield early is all. They are slim 6:4 favorites today, we're 13:8 to win. We have a huge history with Huddersfield, 10-7-8 lifetime. We won at their place and tied at home last year. GK: Bogdanovs D: Hughes/Mattle/Welsh/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Clifford/Connolly/Gordon F: Khan/Constantino Two main points here. 1) I didn't mean to start such a weak team today, 3 days rest and Celtic in 4 days. 2) This is what constitutes a weak team these days at Ipswich. I'd rather be starting Crespo, Skhosana, Aldrovandi, Crespo, Mills and Smith. But man the guys we have in there really aren't bad. They run a 3-5-2 and don't start their star ST Ibai Platas. They have 4 league goals in 4 matches, he has all of them. We'll look to counter today. 2': We get forward to attack, Constantino down the right, a really nice cross to the far post, Adagsmar wins the header... clear cut chance, but saved. 11': Clifford plays a through ball into the area.. a little deep maybe, Constantino runs onto it and its a clear cut chance but he's on top of the keeper and the keeper blocks it. Rebound to Khan, clear cut chance #3... also blocked. 27': The subbed out a defender very very early and just had a man hurt, they're down to 1 sub. 45': They attack and there's a long run down the left, a cross comes in, Welsh goes up with ST Prosenik for the header... misses horribly, and their make is able to head it by Bogdanovs and in. Welsh takes the blame. 0-1 HALF: We have 61% of the possession here but haven't been able to do enough with it. Each team shoots 5 times and puts 2 on target, but we have THREE early clear cut chances and no goals. We have to do better. Smith is in for Clifford at the half. 46': they earn an early corner, taken to the near man, defender Zimmerman, we miss a tackle on him, he blasts a shot, off one of our men on the line and in... 0-2 48': we'll attack. 54': Hughes has it out left, up ahead to Adagsmar, into the area for Khan... he's turning to shoot when they crash into him, its a foul and a clear penalty! Gordon takes it and scores easily. 1-2 We're back in it. 68': Yellow for midfielder Altunel. 76': Clear cut chance #5 here but I didn't like how it happened, Smith ahead to Constantino and he's really got a solid look I feel, but instead he passes it into our young kid Connolly cutting in from the left and he shoots into the left side netting. Constantino could have done better on his own. 82': Chrzanowski in for Connolly. 88': After buildup down the right Heywood into he area for Constantino, its a great chance for him... but the keeper dives and saves it. The corner is headed around before falling to the feet of Khan 18 yards out, he shoots, off a defender and out. They clear the corner. Huddersfield 2 : 1 Ipswich Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.2) goal: Gordon Assist: Khan (6.9) Notables: Heywood (7.2), Adagsmar (7.1) Welsh a 6.4, the worst rating on the team. The biggest issue is that we generated 5 clear cut chances today and only came up with one goal, that's a huge failing on offense. -- Jean resumes full training. Fully healthy for the first time all year. Last edited by Radii : 10-17-2011 at 02:09 AM.

10-17-2011, 05:19 AM	#1358
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	October 23rd, 2014 European Champions Cup Group C Ipswich (1-1-0) @ AJ Auxerre (0-0-2) If we could win here and Juventus beat Celtic we'd move into a really strong position at the midpoint of the group stage. This should be a close one, we are 6:4 favorites here, Auxerre are 13:8 dogs. AJ Auxerre are in huge trouble in France this year, currently sitting in 18th in a 20 team league, with 1 win in 9 matches, a relegation candidate. I rarely note referees but the one today has given out 21 yellows in 3 champions league matches.... GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Gordon F: Constantino/Darcy Not a lot of changes today, Jackson, Gordon and Darcy in where Heywood/Hutchinson/Khan were last match. Their top ST (Argentinian) Guido Moyano has 4 goals in 9 matches so far. Their other man up front is Norwegian Stefan Olsen who has 1 goal in 3 matches. They have a lot of guys injured. Standard mindset on the road today. 10': Jean has made two great steals in midfield to trigger breaks for us so far. One ended on a bad pass, the other Adagsmar missed a very makeable shot. 14': Neil Gordon is hurt. He'll stay in and we'll worry about this postmatch. 21': Throwin in their end, Adagsmar goes all the way to the end line and curls a cross around his man, Darcy is there, wins the header, and scores!!! 1-0 38': They try to counter after we have a shot blocked, Aldrovandi makes a brilliant one on one tackle to keep them from getting a shot. 41': Adagsmar wins a ball in our end, runs down the left, passes ahead to Constantino, he continues down the left, turns, passes to Jean, he shoots from 18 yards, not a lot of pace but struck with perfect precision, into the lower left corner of the net by the diving keeper! 2-0 HALF: This is all Ipswich, hopefully we keep it that way. We shoot 10 times to their 1. Total domination. Chrzanowski in for Gordon, no need now to risk further injury. 46': Throwin in their end, thrown into the area, they clear but Kirkland sends it back ahead. Mills picks it up, shoots through the crowd 20 yards away and its into the net!! 3-0 50': Kirkland a yellow. 58': Constantino with a shot off the left post, it bounds free and we recover, earning a corner as a cross is blocked. Skhosana shoots off the corner but its well high. 64': A through ball earns them their 3rd shot and 1st clear cut chance, but Bogdanovs gets down to save it. 66': Smith in for Mills, Bartlett in for Skhosana. That's it, we run this one out easily! AJ Auxerre 0 : 3 Ipswich Man of the Match: Adagsmar (8.6) Goals: Darcy (8.4), Jean (8.0), Mills (7.9) Assists: Adagsmar, Kirkland (8.3), Constantino (6.8) Notables: Jackson (7.5), Aldrovandi (7.6) Dominant performance. Juventus wins 2:0 at Celtic. Standings halfway through the group stage: Juventus 2-1-0 - +5 - 7 pts Ipswich 2-1-0 - +4 - 7 pts Celtic 1-0-2 - -1 - 3 pts AJ Auxerre 0-0-3 - -8 - 0 pts -- We receive $1.148M for the win. -- Neil Gordon will miss 5-6 days, he'll miss our league cup match and that should be it. Last edited by Radii : 10-17-2011 at 05:24 AM.

10-17-2011, 08:30 AM	#1360
RPI-Fan Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Troy, NY	Radii: mighn't the non soccer expense have been for the training facility upgrade? __________________ Quis custodiets ipsos custodes?

10-17-2011, 09:50 PM	#1362
kingfc22 Head Coach Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Morgan Hill, CA	Nice run of late after a slow start to the season. __________________ Fan of SF Giants, 49ers, Sharks, Arsenal

10-18-2011, 08:04 AM	#1365
NoSkillz College Benchwarmer Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: St. Catharines, Canada	I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent almost all of my work day yesterday reading this entire dynasty. What an awesome read! __________________ MY CURRENT FM19 DYNASTY - FM19: "Ludere causa Ludendi - To Play for the Sake of Playing" - Queen's Park FC (Scottish League Two) MY OLD FM11 DYNASTY - FM11: From Semi-Pro Minnows to the EPL - Dover Athletic FC My Personal Blog - Now on the Tee - Golf, Sports, Poker, Life 2006 GOLDEN SCRIBE AWARD WINNER FOR BEST 'OTHER SPORT' DYNASTY - EHM2005: Sharpening Swords in Buffalo Last edited by NoSkillz : 10-18-2011 at 08:04 AM.

10-16-2011, 11:15 PM	#1351
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	September 17th, 2014 European Champions Cup Group C Ipswich @ Juventus Juventus are even money favorites against us today, and I am surprised it isn't more.. They have finished in the top 4 in Italy 9 of the last 10 years, though they haven't won Serie A during the course of this dynasty. Only Inter, Roma and twice Genoa have won the league. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson DM: Smith M: Crespo/Adagsmar/Mills/Gordon F: Bryan We'll try our 4-1-4-1 that I like so much today, with Adagsmar at MC and Smith at DMC, Bryan up front. Juventus run a flat 3-5-2, ST Wim Groen is valued at $35.5M and looks amazing, Anticipation 19/Off the ball 19/First Touch 19/Finishing 19 is a ridiculous combination. He came to Juventus from Real Madrid 6 years ago, last year scored 21 goals in 34 matches. Their "other" striker Nikao has 12 goals in 22 matches last year, not nearly as talented but still.. damn good. Defensive mindset today. 9': They use a couple blocked passes and fancy passing of their own to get an early clear cut chance for one of their mids, but Bogdaovs makes a great save. We clear the corner. 17': We have a corner, taken to the near post, they head it across the face of the goal, Aldrovandi gets his head to it, and its considered a clear cut chance for us... but he hits the left post and it goes out. 25': Adagsmar a yellow. 41': We've watched them send a couple long shots long. 44': Gordon misses a free kick wide left, close though. HALF: We've allowed 7 shots but just one on target, the clear cut chance that we saved. We shoot 7 times, all off target. Each of us have taken 5 shots from long range. Possession is an issue, 60/40 in their favor, we could stand to hang on to the ball a bit more, but otherwise I can't much complain, we are not making it easy for them. 55': We earn a corner, then a second, they clear that one out, we try to push it back in to attack but no luck, they clear. 59': yellow for midfielder Neokleous. 63': yellow for midfielder Stabile. 67': guh. Adagsmar and Stabile go for a loose ball... both of them have yellows, Adagsmar commits a foul going after it and he's given a second yellow, and he's out. Smith moves up to MC, 4-4-1. 74': they have a free kick that hits the right post, whew. 81': Random counterattack for us, Gordon down the right, a cross, Bryan heads it low to the far post... its a great header but they save it. There's a rebound but we don't have anyone to follow up, they clear it away to safety. 83': We earn a corner, keeper comes out and catches the cross. 85': A pass into the area for midfiler Popa for them, a very rare shot not from long range, but its well wide. That's it! The announcers state "a bore draw but that's not at all how I feel about the point we earned today. Juventus 0 : 0 Ipswich Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.4) Notables: Jackson (7.2), Mattle (7.1), Aldrovandi (7.1), Gordon (7.1) Everyone else was 6.8 or 6.9. Celtic beat AJ Auxerre 2:0 to take the early lead in the group. We'll host Celtic on October 2nd. -- We receive $574,000 for getting a draw in the group stage. -- Adagsmar will miss our next continental match.

10-17-2011, 12:15 AM	#1352
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Clifford resumes full training. -- I can't remember if we originally had a week off here, but a couple matches got rescheduled once Euro Cup Groups came out, and we have a week off between Juventus and the League Cup. Training Upgrade Complete We now have "Top training facilities" to go along with "Good Youth Faciilities" September 25th, 2014 League Cup 3rd Round Ipswich @ Nottingham Forest We're slim 6:4 favorites on the road here today. We currently sit in 10th in the league, they're 14th. We're 9-3-9 with an even mix of Championship and EPL play between us. After two straight years where the road team won every match 1:0, we won twice, handily, last season (combined score 6-1). GK: Capitani D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Hutchinson F: Darcy/Bryan Shkosana starts at DC again, Hutchinson gives Gordon a rest, and Darcy and Bryan are up front. Also we get Capitani a start today. Nottingham Forest are lead by Ivan Popov, this is his 9th year with Nottingham, he's 32 now but still found 18 league goals last season and has 5 already this year. We'll counterattack. 24': They have a throwin in our end, but Mills steals it away, he fires a ball ahead ot Bryan, a long run down the right... we've got 4 men in the area, Bryan crosses in, Craig Smith has it but can't finish. Saved and corner is cleared. 28': yellow for midfielder Davies for them. 37': Tons of attacking moves for us but nothing yet, a few corners going nowhere. 48': Crespo a yellow. HALF: We are clearly better in the first half but its scoreless. We control 60% of the possession, shoot 6 times, but only put 2 on target. They have just 1 shot and we didn't see it in a highlight. 52': Standard mindset. 76': Hutchinson ahead from midfield for Bryan, he's down the right side and passes to Mills, a shot from 18 yards out... off the crossbar, damn! 77': Jackson to MR, Heywood in for a tired Hutchinson. 90': A strong counterattack for us, Bryan receives a long ball, rushes forward, passes across the penalty area to Darcy who is wide open, clear cut chance (#3 for us incidentally)... and he misses the target. There's no second leg here, so we're going to two 15 minute extra time periods. FULL TIME: Some really strong play from Bryan in setting up others for what should have been a few goals today. Hughes comes in for a tired (and yellow carded) Crespo. Constantino in for Darcy. I don't want penalties. Attack. 91': They get their first clear cut chance, building up straight down the middle after kickoff, they get Popov behind our defense and he shoots... and hits the crossbar. Whew! 99': We're counter attacking, their defense is fairly set but we're a long ways out. Jackson with a great ball ahead for Bryan, he's got a half step on his man, gets into the penalty area... not a clear cut chance(not sure why) but seems like a great opportunity, but the keeper saves his shot. 102': Throwin in their end, taken to Jackson, a cross to the far post, Jack Hughes wins a header and its on target... but the keeper dives and pushes it away. 104': Jackson a yellow. Extra time Half Time: We used our subs at the end of full time so lets rock. 108': buildup down the left, a ball from smith to Constantino, he pulls a defender out wide with him, passes back to Mills, mills into a small hole in the defense for Bryan, Bryan attacks and finally we score!!! 1-0 111': A corner for us, taken to Skhosana, he turns by his man and shoots, the keeper dives and makes a great save. 113': We counter as they try to push to tie it up. Hughes with a ball ahead for constantinio, he's got a step on his man and he's off... into the left side of the penalty area.. and drills our 5th clear cut chance right at the keeper. We hold off and that's it! Nottingham Forest 0 : 1 e Ipswich We were much much better than them, but struggle to get the 1:0 win. We move on though! Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.0) Goal: Bryan Assist: Mills (8.0) Notables: Jackson (7.8), Kirkland (7.4), Aldrovandi (7.7), Skhosana (7.1), Smith (7.1) Jackson was great at DR and MR today, Bryan was spectacular, the goal at the end was nice but he had 5 key passes and set up so many chances after getting out ahead of everyone.

10-17-2011, 02:29 AM	#1354
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Teams are mixed between 5 and 7 matches played at this point. Teams off to noticeably hot starts are Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Blackburn and Huddersfield. Aston Villa once again struggles a ton early, they're in 19th right now, tottenham is 16th and we are 13th. October Update -- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 19th, 23rd, and 29th. International break between the 8th and 19th for World Cup Qualifying. Only 3 league matches are scheduled for October. We play in the Champions League on the 2nd and 23rd, League Cup 29th. -- Neil Gordon has 4 goals in 3 matches in September (2 on penalties I believe) and he's the EPL player of the month! -- The board is pleased with my leadership. Signing Bogdanovs is the highlight, the 3:0 super cup loss the low point. -- We lost $7.2M last month. Only $1.3M in gate receipts to go with our TV Revenue. "Non-Soccer Costs" are $3.7M last month. travel to Italy for the entire team? Salaries $6M, and we spent $15 Million last month. Man, I've never lost $7 million in a month where we didn't buy any players!!! That's a bit freaky. We've now lost $12 Million on the year but we've spent $30.5M on new players and have a cash balance of $21 Million. We're alright. October 2nd, 2014 European Champions Cup Group C Celtic (1-0-0) @ Ipswich (0-1-0) We are massive favorites over the top Scottish team at Portman Road today, we're 4:5 to win, they are 3:1. Dunno how reliable that is but a win here would be so so big for us. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Gordon F: Bryan/Constantino Jean is Match Fit but not ready for 90 minutes. He may come in off the bench. Bryan/Constantino up front. 17 y/o Celtic ST Yuri Di Giuseppe came over from Parma apparently in a loan to buy deal last year (its not actually clear that I see). He's amazingly good for a 17 year old and valued at $20.5M. He's got 6 goals in 8 matches across multiple competitions so far. 21 y/o Barry Brand has 7 goals in 5 matches, he's valued at $5.75M and good, but not as good as Di Giuseppe. Standard mindset today. 8': Throwin in their end, after a few passes a cross comes in from Kirkland, they win the header and its a corner. Corner headed away. Great cross from Kirkland, if Constantino wins the header the goal is wide open, the keeper came way out of position. 12': Throwin in their end again, Kirkland a cross into the 6 yard box, Bryan goes up with their keeper... neither win the ball and it falls into the net. But Kirkland is deemed to have fouled the keeper, damn! That would have been a crazy awesome goal. 16': Skhosana a yellow. 18': Another corner for us, Gordon with a cross that they head behind. They clear this corner too but we push it back in... Bryan heads it over the bar in the end. 28': Yellow for their ST Di Giuseppe. 39': Mills wins the ball in the midfield from one of their mids... a ball ahead to Constantino, he shoots from the edge of the area and he puts it wide to the left... he had a good chance there. HALF: Scoreless though we've looked a lot better. 5 shots from us, 2 on target and none from long range. They only shoot twice. We're not doing well enough on crosses and maybe need to try to go up the middle, they're doing way better than us in the air. 50': midfielder Halliday with a yellow for them. 51': Our first clear cut chance, they clear away a corner but we push back up right away, Mills with a great through ball to Constantino but he takes it too far in and shoots it off the keeper. 55': Mills with a cross through the area... Bryan wins a header and scores... but... he fouled his man to go up and get the header. That's two goals disallowed due to fouls on Chris Bryan. 60': We attack. 71': A ball ahead from Mills to Bryan.. their keeper comes miles out as Bryan cuts left and it works, he has no angle at all to shoot. Very very dangerous play there. 72': Jean in for Smith. 84': A long run down the left for Bryan after we win a ball in our end, a cross... Gordon heads it... inches over. 85': Khan in for Constantino, Chrzanowski in for Gordon. -- 4 minutes of injury time. 94': Corner for us, they clear it out and Kirkland with a very poor shot, saved. 94': Their keeper sends it long, but we win the header. It takes a couple passes for us to control it and we're at like 93:55, i'm worried time will be called before we can even try to attack. After two passes Jean puts a ball forward for Chris Bryan, he breaks on the ball and gets into he area... the clock reads 94:01 as he shoots, and finally we break through, no fouls, no offsides, the winning goal in the last moment!! 1-0 Ipswich 1 : 0 Celtic We got the win but the recommended team talk is "good result but we didn't play well enough" - Sounds fair to me. Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.3) Goal: Bryan (6.9) Assist: Jean (6.9) Notables: Heywood (7.3), Aldrovandi (7.1), Skhosana (7.1) -- Champions League wins are valuable! We receive $1.148M for the win. -- Juventus beat AJ Auxerre 3:0. Juventus 1-1-0 - 4 pts Ipswich 1-1-0 - 4 pts Celtic 1-0-1 - 3 pts AJ Auxerre 0-0-2 - 0 pts Juventus +3, Ipsiwch +1 goal differntial. We travel to AJ Auxerre in 3 weeks. Juventus travel to Celtic on the same day.

10-17-2011, 02:48 AM	#1355
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	October 5th, 2014 Man Utd (4-3-0, 3rd) @ Ipswich (2-1-2, 13th) Man Utd are one of two teams to not have a loss yet (Arsenal is the other). They are 5:4 favorites over us today. This is our first meeting since we beat them 2:1 in the Euro Cup Final. We're on an amazing run against them too, we are 5-3-0 in our last 8 meetings including two league cup matches and that Euro Cup Final. 6-4-6 lifetime so we've overcome quite a mountain to even this series up. Lets take the lead today! GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Bryan Man Utd run a 4-1-2-2-1 with a DMC, 1 striker and two AM's. Stuart Wray is their man up front. Valued at $27.5M he scored 14 times last year and 16 the year before in league play. He's got 2 goals this year between all levels of play. Counter attacking today. 8': After lots of passes between Gordon/Jackson/Mills, Mills finds Darcy at the 18 yard mark, he steps forward, shoots... their keeper makes an amazing save, he was really close to the top corner there. 16': Jackson a yellow. 24': We allow a corner but clear it nicely. HALF: And that's the half. Yawn. We shoot 5 times but only 1 on target and I only saw the one shot. they have 2 shots, both long range and only 1 on target as well. We'll push up to a standard mindset for the second half. 62': Clifford in for Mills. 69': defender Jabeur a yellow for them. Constantino is in for Bryan. 75': We've seen them miss the target 3 times this half, no offensive highlights. Time to attack. 82': After a few passes in the middle but no way to find a shot its passed wide to Jackson, a cross into the area, Darcy wins the header, but its high. 88': Corner from Gordon, Mattle with a volley... high. 92': Another attack for us, into the area for Adagsmar, back up higher to Jean, a strong shot, but wide left. 93': One last corner for us (presumably, just 3 minutes of added time). They head it out and time is called. Ipswich 0 : 0 Man Utd I may have been too conservative at home in the first half. Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.7) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.1), Jackson (7.2), Mattle (7.2) 6.7-6.8 for all others. That makes us 2-2-2 and we sit 11th but still have 2 matches left than some of the teams above us

10-17-2011, 04:18 AM	#1356
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	We've got 20 players called up for international duty between U19s, U21s, and the senior teams. October 8th, 2014 Ipswich (2-2-2, 11th) @ Arsenal(5-2-0, 2nd) Arsenal are big 4:7 favorites today, we're only 4:1 to find a win here. We've got some rest after this. Not exactly the same results vs Arsenal that we have against Man Utd, 2-2-11 lifetime with no wins in the last 5 tries. Two of those matches were FA Cup Semifinals. Last year they totally ran over us 3:1 in Wembley. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Heywood DMC: Clifford M: Crespo/Smith/Mills/Gordon F: Constantino Here's a match to get a draw if we can and maybe if we get lucky steal a goal. 4-1-4-1 with Constantino up front. We'll defend. 30': A backpass to their keeper and he hits it ahead to a defender who wasn't ready for it... it bounds away in the area, Constantino tries to pounce, shoots, but saved. Not a clear cut chance, it was out wide right at a crazy angle. Only shot on target for either team so far tho. 36': Yellow for AM Dalle Valle HALF: They control possession 56/44 but only have 4 shots and all off target, 3 from long range. We shoot 3 times, just the one on target. We're keeping fairly close to them in every area and are actually drawing more fouls. Lets keep it up! 46': We kick off and pass it around the midfield a good while, eventually Clifford plays it ahead to Constantino 25 yards away. Two defenders attack him and he skips by their efforts to win the ball... sprints into the area, its a clear cut chance... but saved. Damn! 53': Kirkland a yellow. 76': We just skipped ahead nearly 25 minute. Yellow for midfielder Wilson for them. Free kick well wide, Gordon crosses into the area, its headed around 2 or 3 times, their GK Karius rushes out for it.. but Constantino beats him to the ball and heads it into the net!!!!! 1-0 79': Jackson in for Gordon, Jean in for Mills. 83': Crespo is hurt, he can stay in, we'll check postmatch. 87': Oh don't let up now guys. They get it ahead to ST Nooij, he turns by a defender and has a clear cut chance, but Bogdanovs makes a great save. 89': A rocket of a free kick comes in from 25 yards for them, bends into the side netting, close. 92': Another shot from Nooij 18 yards out, saved. Arsenal 0 : 1 Ipswich A massive win for us at Emirates Stadium today! It was looking like a 0-0 draw and I would have been thrilled with that, but we really came through big. Man of the Match: Constantino (8.2) Goal: Constantino Assist: Aldrovandi (7.2) Notables: Kirkland (7.6), Heywood (7.1), Smith (7.2) Kirkland is having a spectacular start to the season Injury Update Crespo is out for 2-3 weeks with a groin strain suffered today. -- We get into the top 10, hopefully for good, with the win today. 8th.

10-17-2011, 04:52 AM	#1357
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- International Break, but a huge portion of our squad will be playing. -- Two of our first year youth buys, ST Fank Battersby and DC John Ashworth, in addition to GK Rob Lines, are playing for the English U19 squad. Battersby scored in the match today, Lines is the captain, Ashworth off the bench. -- Mattle, Welsh, Aldrovandi, Clifford, Chrzanowski and Bogdanovs all play in world cup qualifiers and are credited with solid performances. -- DC Skhosana scores again for South Africa in a 4:0 win over Lesotho in African world Cup Qualifying -- Ireland beats Malta 3:1, no surprise there, but ST Eoin Darcy scores all 3 goals, earning a 9.5 rating and a hat trick! He now has 6 goals in 8 matches for the Irish Senior Team in his career. -- In a second round of Qualifiers, Holland crushes Latvia 4:0 and Bogdanovs let those in. Mattle, Clifford and Welsh all played well for their sides, while Eoin Darcy once again scored for Ireland in a 1:1 draw with Switzerland. Its very early in qualifying, Ireland is in a weaker group, Italy will win it but 2nd should be between Ireland and Switzerland and maybe Georgia (N. Ireland and Malta presumably round out the bottom). Would love to see Darcy keep this up for his country! Injury Update -- Chris Bryan is hurt in training and out 2 weeks. This comes on the 17th so towards the end of the international break and he'll miss a few matches. October 19th, 2014 Ipswich (3-2-2, 8th) @ Birmingham(2-2-4, 12th) We're just 6:4 favorites here, on the road but against a Birmingham team that fell to the Championship last year and just promoted back up. We're 7-2-4 lifetime against them, haven't lost in our last 4 meetings, winning the last 3 1:0. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Aldrovandi/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson F: Constantino/Khan Crespo/Bryan injured. Gordon has the day off. 8': Gordon a corner, Adagsmar is tripped going for it, and its a penalty! Jean takes the PK... and its saved, damn!!!!! 13': A throwin in their end, a quick pass ahead, a pass from Adagsmar to Jean, Jean shoots 20 yards away and it takes a brilliant diving stop to keep Jean from scoring there. 22': Another throwin in their end, but this time Mills settles for a very poor shot. 28': Constantino receives a pass 25 yards out, runs to the left, slowly works his way into the area, beating two defenders along the way, pulls up and shoots, but saved. 28': Heywood is hurt. 30': Lets attack, even more pressure seems good now. 44': yellow for defender Cruz We watch them put two shots on target the rest of the half and head into the locker room. HALF: We shoot 7 times, putting 5 on target. Jean missing a penalty is pretty embarrassing. They shoot 3 times, 2 on target, but 2 from long range. We have a huge 62/38 possession edge, are passing way better than them. They're tackling well and that's helping limit our shots I think. Still we need to keep this pressure on and get a goal. 48': Aldrovandi a yellow. 52': Kirkland is hurt. 57': Some beautiful passing for us, Mills ahead to Constantino, he's near midfield, plays a long ball left for Khan, Khan is 25 yards out, he pulls a defender to him but isn't going to attack, he passes back for Mills, Mills with a first touch volley ahead for Adagsmar who fills the hole in the defense, he strikes it in with his first touch, a pretty flowing move. 1-0 63': Jackson in for Heywood, Hughes for Kirkland and Bartlett in for Aldrovandi. Bartlett has been struggling to stay match fit, I keep meaning to get him a start and he's always lost match fitness. So its time to get him some minutes here. 74': Skhosana a yellow. We get out of this one without them really threatening to tie. Constantino had a couple chances to put us up by 2 but they were pretty speculative shots. Birmingham 0 : 1 Ipswich Their keeper ends up man of the match. Goal: Adagsmar (7.5) Assist: Mills (7.6) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.2), Heywood (7.0), Kirkland (7.2), Hutchinson (7.3) -- Bogdanovs is up to 404 minutes in a row without conceding a goal. Injury Update Heywood is out for 3 weeks with a pulled hamstring. Kirkland is not injured. No offense to Heywood, but if only one guy gets hurt between the two, I'd rather it be him. We move up into 6th but will go another stretch without playing any league matches with the Champions League and League Cup coming up next.

10-17-2011, 07:12 AM	#1359
law90026 College Benchwarmer Join Date: Jan 2006	Is it just me or is Constantino not quite the man this year?

10-18-2011, 05:05 AM	#1363
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	October 29rd, 2014 League Cup 4th Round Man City @ Ipswich October 29th, 2024, my... 48th birthday. Eek. We are 5:4 favorites at home today. Lifetime we are 3-5-9 against Man City but have gotten some key results from time to time, most recently a 1:0 victory in the 5th round of the FA Cup last year to get us back into the semifinals. Right now Man City is 7th and we are 8th in the EPL. All signs point to a fairly even contest. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Mattle/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Hutchinson F: Constantino/Darcy Hutchinson in for Gordon, Mattle in for Skhosana. They run a 4-1-3-2 with a DMC and 3 MC's. Standard mindset today. 12': Jackson a yellow. 15': Jean a yellow. 17': their midfielder Carlos a yellow. 31': their MC Centurion a yellow, then a defender Madariaga a yellow, then a defender Santinelli a yellow... HALF: We had Darcy pass the ball to Mills who had a decent look with a first touch shot but high. They shot from 30 yards out Bogdanovs saved it. Otherwise just yellow cards. We have 6 shots, 2 on target. They have 3 shots, all from long range, 2 on target. 47': Their star scroer Mihci gets a clear cut chance from 18 yards away (not really sure why clear cut chance tbh) but Bogdanovs saves it. 62': Another clear cut chance for Mihci after a lot of passing he receives it about 6 yards out a bit wide left, Bogdanovs with another solid stop. 67': They've taken this over, all Man City, they just had a shot from 20 yards that Bogdanovs saved followed by TWO rebound shots off the right post... whew. 69': Smith in for Mills, Chrzanowski in for Hutchinson. 74': Jean shoots from 20 yards and has it saved.. our first offensive highlight of the second half. 86': Mattle a yellow. 92': Aldrovandi a yellow. FULL TIME: The second half was highlight after highlight of man city attacking. Finally in the last 10 minutes we tried to get something going but no luck at all and we are scoreless after 90 minutes. Khan comes in for a tired Darcy to finish this off. 100': A couple throwins in their end, here we end up with a nice cross to the far post by Jackson, Chrzanowski gets his head to it but right at the keeper. EXTRA TIME HALFTIME: Nothing to change now, keep pushing. 116': they counterattack after winning a ball in our end, a pass goes ahead to Mihci 20 yards out and he's just left all alone... awful defending, he is in the area and scores easily. 0-1 Ipswich 0 : 1 e Man City It takes extra time but we are just totally unable to break through here and MAn City get the goal they need in the end. Notables: Bogdanovs (7.5), Jackson (7.1), Kirkland (7.5), Mattle (7.0), Adagsmar (7.7) We had some solid play today but just no goals to be had, we exit the league cup early for the second year in a row.

10-18-2011, 05:35 AM	#1364
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Clive Jackson picked up his 5th yellow card in our last match and will miss our next match. -- Chris Bryan resumes full training November Update -- We play on the 2nd, 5th, 9th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, and 27th. 5th and 27th are Champions League matches. -- New MC Brett Connolly is singled out for training well. Heading (8), Composure (10), Positioning (10) and Work Rate (16) all have gone up recently. -- I am manager of the month in the EPL! We only played 3 matches in league play, tying Man Utd 0:0 and beating Arsenal and Birmingham 1:0. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. The signing of Bogdanovs is the highlight. -- We lost $1.42M last month, much better than the nearly $6M we lost the month before. We host two Champions League matches in November that will bring in some good cash. November 2nd, 2014 Ipswich(4-2-2, 8th) @ Tottenham (2-2-5, 17th) Tottenham are struggling a lot this year but still small 6:4 favorites over us at their place. They still have more talented players according to my scouts (they have advantages in almost every category but speed). We beat them last year for the first time ever, 1-3-8 lifetime... we lost at thier place 2:1 though. We host AJ Auxerre in a critical Champions League match in 3 days. GK: Bogdanovs D: Mattle/Aldrovandi/Skhosana DM: Clifford M: Adagsmar/Smith/Mills/Gordon F: Khan/Darcy So Heywood hurt and Jackson suspended leaves us in a bind. One that has me switching my formation to a modified 3-5-2, 3 DC's, a DMC, 4 midfielders and two men up front. No DL/DR today. We'll counter attack today. 3': They counter after winning a ball as we're attacking, a long run down the right, a cross to the far post and we just aren't covering them properly.. MC Smart heads it home, Gordon tries to get there but he's late. 0-1 21': A great free kick for them from 30 yards out, Bogdanovs makes a diving save, that was really close. 35': Twice now I've seen mills shoot from 20+ out and miss the target by a mile. He's really not a good long range shooter, he needs to sotp that. I give the "work ball into box" order. HALF: This is a great day to be test driving a new formation we put together on the fly. On the road against a team we traditiionally struggle against. They shoot 9 times to our 3, all ours are long range and nothing remotely close to on target. Bartlett comes in for Mattle who is doing really poorly. I'll change to a standard mindset to try to get a goal here. 47': Adagsmar a yellow. 54': Connolly in for Mills who isn't hurt but got hit and his fitness went pretty low. 57': Cross, goal, we look like shit. Just a rocket of a pass through the area and our team didn't react, their man broke on the ball and scored a super easy goal. 0-2 60': We'll attack. 76': Adagsmar wins a ball out wide left, he passes it up ahead to Darcy.. Darcy is 25 yards out and hte keeper just sprints off his line... I guess expecting Darcy to attack him? Instead, as the keeper reaches the 18 yard line, Darcy lobs it over his head and it falls into the net. Very smart play by Darcy!! 1-2 We continue to try to attack but they've got it locked down after giving up that first goal. They don't let us threaten again. Tottenham 2 : 1 Ipswich Goal: Darcy (8.3) Assist: Adagsmar (6.9) Notable: Bogdanovs (7.5) We didn't do well today but I can't fault them, horrible time for a new formation.

10-18-2011, 04:37 PM	#1367
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	November 5th, 2014 European Champions Cup Group C AJ Auxerre (0-0-3) @ Ipswich (2-1-0) We ran into a similar circumstance in the Euro Cup last year. If we win, and if Juventus win, we clinch advancement through the group stage with 2 matches left. Last year in this situation we choked horribly and had to pull it out in our last match. We're huge 4:5 favorites and understandably so. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Skhosana/Jackson M: Crespo/Jean/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino Bartlett starts for a tired Aldrovandi, Jackson is back from his suspension so no random trial formations today. Darcy/Constantino up front. Standard mindset at home. 1': They kick off but Mills makes a steal on our defensive side of midfield. A pass ahead to Constantino, he runs by his man and is off, into the right side of the penalty area... but instead of shooting he lays it off for Mills charging up the middle. Mills has a clear cut chance, but sends it right at the keeper, saved. 3': Buildup on offense, after one attempt to get it into the area is headed away, Kirkland recovers and we set back up, passes to Jean, Jean ahead to Constantino, he beats his man easily, clear cut chance for him this time, and he scores!! 1-0 20': Jean to Constantino, he turns right and blows by his man, another clear cut chance here... but saved. 24': Free kick out wide to the right, Gordon sends it almost through the area, Jean picks it up, dribbles back out himself, turns and shoots from 18 yards away... and blows it by the keeper, great goal!!! 2-0 30': Gordon makes a tackle in our own end, wins the ball for himself and sprints down the right side, into the offensive half, all the way to the end line, he crosses into the area, he may not get an assist here, one of their defenders I think tried to head it to safety but it was a really weak header, Darcy is there and heads it into the net! 3-0 34': Constantino to Mills for our 5th clear cut chance... his second, and he misses this one too, saved by the keeper. 38': holy crap their keeper may have just earned man of the match despite giving up 3 goals... Constantino with a long run down the right on a counter attack, he gets deep to the end line, plays a nice low pass to Jean, Jean shoots from 10 yards out... keeper stops it, rebound to Darcy... keeper stops it, rebound to Jean... keeper stops it, and they clear. HALF: We look to lock up an easy win the rest of the way. We've only allowed one shot today. Connolly in for Mills, Chrzanowski in for Gordon. Commentary only. 91': Connolly passes to Constantino and he does all the work himself, splitting two defenders, getting into the area and scoring. 4-0 Ipswich 4 : 0 AJ Auxerre Man of the Match: Constantino (9.2) Goals: Constantino 2, Jean (8.7), Darcy (8.4) Assists: Jean, Gordon (7.7), Connolly (6.8), 1 unassisted Notables: Jackson (7.9), Kirkland (7.8), Skhosana (7.2), Bartlett (7.2) Crespo with an inexplicable 6.3 out left when the rest of the team plays awesome. -- We receive $1.148M for our win in the Champions Cup. -- Juventus beats Celtic 3:1 in the other group C match. With that we have a 7 point lead over 3rd place Celtic with only 2 matches to go. Ipswich have qualified for the First Knockout Round from Group C in the Champions Cup right now we are actually 1st in our group. We have 8 goals and have allowed 0. Juventus has 8 goals and have allowed 1. We're ahead on goal differential.

10-18-2011, 05:12 PM	#1368
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- My assistant manager is asked in the postgame press conference about Eoin Darcy's desire for an improved contract. My assistant says he won't be getting a new contract any time soon. I take a look and Darcy has a "slight concern" wanting a new deal. He's making $4300/wk for 3 more seasons. He's only 20, but he has played in 10 matches for me and scored 4 goals, so I'm ok with giving him a new deal. He asks for $50,000/wk. Wow kid, you're really going for it, huh? I offer him $45,000/wk. It'd be for this season and 3 more after this, I just refuse to pay him more than Matthew Khan. November 9th, 2014 Newcastle (8-1-2, 1st) @ Ipswich(4-2-3, 8th) Newcastle are slim 6:4 favorites in this one, we're 13:8 to get a win. This is a key early matchup with Newcastle in 1st place right now. I'm a little annoyed that Newcastle is doing so well, since I took some joy in the fact that I sold MC Gordon Donnelly to Newcastle when they were doing worse than we were and wanted him to regret his decision to leave. We're 7-0-10 lifetime against them. We lost to them 1:0 twice last year, but had won 3 straight prior to that. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Aldrovandi/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Jean/Mills/Gordon F: Darcy/Constantino Donnelly isn't in the lineup for them today. We keep most of our lineup the same today since everyone is coming off a great performance vs AJ Auxerre. Adagsmar in for Crespo and Aldrovandi in for Skhosana. Standard mindset today. 16': Free kick out wide for us, Gordon sends it into the area... I don't get it... Aldrovandi wins a header, the keeper dives for it... the ball goes into the net, but its considered an own goal by the keeper. Well, we're up 1-0! But the match view didn't match the scoring on that one. 1-0 34': We'll counter attack. HALF: No highlights the last 20 minutes or so. We have 6 shots but none on target, 4 from long range. Newcastle shoots 7 times, but takes 5 from long range. 3 on target. If we can keep them taking long shots hopefully we're in good shape here. I may drop back to a 4-1-4-1 but for now just counterattacking in my normal formation. 61': We have a corner, they clear it out but we recover, passed to Gordon back out left, into the area for Adagsmar... he goes down in the area... penalty!!! Gordon takes it and scores. 2-0 65': Smith in for Darcy, 4-1-4-1, Chrzanowski in for Gordon. 92': Mills heads out a corner kick... and goes down hurt. Ugh, we'll check on him shortly. Ipswich 2 : 0 Newcastle Its a weird game here, with an own goal and a penalty for us, but our defense was outstanding, they took 11 shots today but 8 from long range, not a serious threat at all. Man of the Match: Neil Gordon (8.3) Goal: Gordon Assists: Gordon, Adagsmar (7.0) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.0), Jackson (7.3), Kirkland (7.6), Aldrovandi (7.0), Barltett (7.1), Mills (7.0) Big win for us over the #1 team! Injury Update Steven Mills turned his knee awkwardly landing after a header and he's going to miss 2 weeks. -- Man Utd moves into first with our help today. We bump up to 7th.

10-18-2011, 08:43 PM	#1369
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Darcy takes his $45,000/wk deal. That's a really big jump in salary but he is worth it. -- Heywood resumes full training November 13th, 2014 Everton(4-3-3, 9th) @ Ipswich(5-2-3, 7th) We're an even 4-5-4 lifetime against Everton. The home team won each match last year, before that we'd tied 3 times in a row. Today though we're even money favorites to their 11:5. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Skhosana/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon F: Darcy/Bryan Smith starts for Mills at MC, Darcy/Bryan up front. Everton are a bit weak today with ST Andy Mils up from, a 31 y/o who isn't all that great. Their star ST Brian Kelly rests today. They run a 4-1-4-1 today and we're just going to attack from the outset b/c we have a pretty poor history scoring against that. 5': Gordon has a free kick out left, Bryan wins the header but its high. 8': Kirkland is hurt, he can stay in and we'll check on him later. 12': Throwin in their end, Gordon passes to Jackson, he flicks it ahead to Bryan who has a clear cut chance and i'm actually shocked he wasn't called offsides... he runs too deep with it though and the keeper cuts off his angle, shot is saved easily. 27': buildup down the right for us, Smith has it 30 yards out, a through ball goes into the area and Crespo runs onto it at the penalty spot, again very close to offsides... Crespo finishes well, beating the keeper to the left side of the net! 1-0 31': We have a corner, taken short to Bartlett, he's fouled... penalty given!! Neil Gordon takes it and scores. 2-0 35': they have a free kick 20 yards out, their first shot of the match, its taken really well and Bogdanovs makes a great diving save to stop it. 38': We fight over a ball in their end, they win it and try to clear but Bartlett with a forceful header from midfield sends it back ahead. Darcy recovers it, they try to tackle it away and succeed but Bryan is there, he picks it up and charges, into the area.. clear cut chance #4 for us today, but the keeper rushes out and Bryan can't find an opening. 44': Jean and Gordon pick up yellows in short order. HALF: We look really good, we've had a ton of success attacking their 4-1-4-1 which I'm extremely happy about. 10 shots, 7 on target, 4 clear cut chances. They shoot 3 times, just the free kick on target. Heywood comes in for Kirkland at the half. We'll back off and counter attack this half. 49': Bartlett a yellow. 65': Chrzanowski in for Gordon, Connolly in for Jean. 66': A long run on a counter attack from Bryan, Connolly hit him near midfield, he gets into the left side of the area.. its clear cut chance #6 for us, and he can't finish, keeper saves it. We finish this off easily, Bryan misses another clear cut chance but really a 2:0 easy win over a top 10 team feels pretty good! Ipswich 2 : 0 Everton Their keeper is man of the match. We put 13 shots on target and had 7 or 8 clear cut chances, so its totally deserved. Goals: Crespo (7.8), Gordon (7.3) Assists: Bartlett (8.2), Smith (8.4) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.5), Jackson (7.3) Bryan and Darcy actually put up 6.2 and 5.6 ratings, getting so many shots and not able to come through at all. 10 shots between them, 6 on target, no goals. We hop up to 5th with the win.

10-18-2011, 09:20 PM	#1370
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- A match that was scheduled for the 17th against Southampton is re-arranged due to international callups. They're almost all friendlies though and I just globally set my guys to not play more than 45 minutes (In international friendlies you can limit your guys' playing time). That'll help get them rested up. New Youth Signing 16 y/o ML Eneko Etxabe - $1.1M to Atheltic in Spain My Spanish youth scout rates Etxabe as a League 2 quality guy right now, and a guy who could be as good as Crespo in the future. We'll look at him a bit closer when he actually arrives on January 1st. As a 16 y/o he has 16 ratings > 10 already, determination 13, Crossing 14, Dribbling and First Touch 10, so he looks like he has really solid potential. Head Coach Offer Juventus have fired their manager after a rough start in Serie A, they're 11th 1/3 of the way through the season. That's pretty rough, 18 years of top 10 finishes (16 of those making Europe) should buy some leeway I'd assume. Juvetnus has a transfer budget of $63 Million, not actually a ton more than we have. But the difference in stature really becomes apparent when we look at their $2.9 Million/week payroll allowance. We are at $1.4M right now after giving up some of our transfer budget, we started the year at $1.2M. I of course reject the offer, but man, $2.9M/wk. We're a long ways from that! November 23rd, 2014 Nottingham Forest(2-4-6, 18th) @ Ipswich(6-2-3, 6th) 3 home matches in a row. Today we are crazy big 4:7 favorites against Nottingham Forest. We're 10-3-9 lifetime against them and have won the last 3 times we played. GK: Capitani D: Hughes/Welsh/Bartlett/Heywood M: Crespo/Jean/Connolly/Chrzanowski F: Khan/Constantino We start a large number of backups today, Hughes for Kirkland, Welsh at DC, Connolly and Chrzanowski in the midfield. Capitani a rare start in goal. 10': We dominate early play but no shots until now, Connelly with a ball ahead to Chrzanowski, he's 25 yards out, cuts right, rushes by two defenders and into the area, he shoots to the far post and its by the keeper and just inside the left post, goal! His first league goal for Ipswich! 1-0 30': Another great pass from Connolly to Chrzanowski cutting in from the right but its saved this time. 36': A nice through ball for them and some poor defense by Heywood gives them their first clear cut chance, but a shot is basically right at Capitani and he saves it. 46': Free kick near midfield for us, taken ahead to Jean, immediately forward to Khan, he cuts by his man 20 yards out, into the area and he shoots and scores!! That's Matthew Khan's first goal of the year for us. 2-0 HALF: We control 62% of the possession, we're passing well, tackling well, heading pretty well and appear to be fully in control here. 50': Some nifty passing here, Connolly lofts a ball into the left side of the area for Khan, he wins his header and passes it back to Jean, Jean with a ball to the penalty spot, Crespo is there and has a clear cut chance and scores very easily. Nice work there! 3-0 64': Darcy in for Constantino, Smith in for Jean. 69': Chrzanowski with a nice cross into the 6 yard box, Darcy is there and wins his header... but its high. Easy attempt, he should have scored. 74': Crespo is hurt and forced out of the match. I bring Clive Jackson in at DR, Heywood shifts to DL, Hughes to ML. 80': We finally give one up here, a through ball to MR Aqbarov, Capitani is a bit indecisive and comes out late, easy goal for them. That was their second shot of the half. 3-1 That'll do it! Ipswich 3 : 1 Nottinghham Forest We manhandled them today. Highlights were fun to watch, like against a lower league team. We chased down every loose ball, made every tackle, we were sitting 25 yards from their goal just passing it around as we pleased and they couldn't stop us... and we had 5 guys who are purely backups in today. Man of the Match: Dariusz Chrzanowski (8.5) Goals: Chrzanowski, Crespo (8.1), Khan (7.4) Assists: Jean 2 (8.0), Connolly (7.5) Notables: Heywood (7.2), Hughes (7.4), Bartlett (7.2) Injury Update Juan Pablo Crespo has a couple broken ribs "following a late tackle from John Davies" ... ouch! He's out 4 weeks. Steven Mills resumes full training, so there's that at least. -- Our 3rd straight league win has bumped us up to 4th place.

10-18-2011, 10:12 PM	#1371
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	November 27th, 2014 European Champions Cup Group C Juventus (3-1-0) @ Ipswich (3-1-0) We are 6:4 favorites today. Both teams have clinched advancement out of the group but we could win the group if we could find a win (or even a draw) today. We got a 0:0 draw out of the match at their place back in the opener for the Champions League. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Skhosana/Bartlett/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon F: Darcy/Bryan Darcy/Bryan up front today. Juventus are running a 4-2-2-2... that's two DMC's, ML, MR, and two forwards. Never seen that before. 4': What a start!! Bogdanovs a free kick deep in our end, played long, Bryan wins the header about 23ish yards out, knocking it down for Darcy, Darcy plays it into the area for Neil Gordon who was cutting inside form the right, Gordon a clear cut chance and he drills it near post and in!!! 1-0 7': Almost another! Bryan hit Adagsmar cutting in from the left, clear cut chance #2, but he puts it wide. 13': We're attacking hard, and here Smith hits Bryan for an easy goal but Bryan is very clearly offsides, nothing to get excited about. 20': Yellow for midfielder Neokelous for them. 30': WOWOW!! Chris Bryan with an incredible move!!!!! Smith passes to Bryan, he's 30 yards out, he turns by one man, a second comes to close down and he just takes off, a 3rd comes in and Bryan pushes it forward and skips over the tackle, he's into the area and buries a shot far post by the keeper!!! Ridiculous effort!! 2-0 37': They finally attack here on us and score but just like Chris Bryan's first strike, very obviously offside. HALF: Dominant first half! We have 60% of the possession, 7 shots to their 1 and are just totally outplaying them. Clifford in for Darcy, Chrzanowski in for Gordon and we'll go with a 4-1-4-1 and counter attack to try to hold this lead. 53': Oh that's no good. Chris Bryan is hurt. He can stay in but I'd hate to see him injured after the day he's having here. 71': Connolly in for Jean. I should probably sit the injured Bryan but Bryan won't play our next match, Jean might and I want him rested more. 76': Bryan isn't that hurt! A pass ahead from Smith to Bryan, he's in the right side of the area, dribbles towards the center, pulls the ball back as his man goes for a tackle, shoots and beats the keeper!! Another ridiculous individual effort for Chris Bryan! 3-0 85': They get a long ball ahead to their star, ST Wim Groen, he's at a very tough angle near the right sideline, but sends it low and by Bogdanovs. 3-1 Ipswich 3 : 1 Juventus Juventus has already clinched advancement, I gave it a stronger effort than they did perhaps for the money and to try to win the group (dunno if that is worth anything at all or not), plus they just fired their coach and are in a bit of disarray, that kind of thing is huge too we know. Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (9.0) Goals: Bryan 2, Gordon (7.6) Assists: Smith (9.0), Darcy (6.9) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.0), Heywood (7.1), Kirkland (7.1), Bartlett (7.3) -- We receive $1.148M for the win. -- Chris Bryan will only miss 5-6 days only with a "bruised head" following a collision.

10-18-2011, 10:18 PM	#1372
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Here is Chris Bryan's first of two goals vs Juventus. A really really nice move that just seems absolutely amazing against a team of this caliber. As always full screen recommended.

10-18-2011, 10:50 PM	#1373
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December Update -- We play on the 1st, 7th, 10th, 14th, 17th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, and 31st. This is when it will start to get really hairy, some of these are rescheduled matches. The 10th is our last Champions League group match vs Celtic. After that we have a 4 match run of Man City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, and Arsenal. 3 of those 4 are at home and we're going to be WAY ahead on home matches by the end of December so we can expect a really awful run of road matches sometime in the second half of the year. -- Our youngster ML David Ros is the League 2 player of the month for Brighton. He has 10 assists in 11 matches for them. -- The board is very pleased with my leadership. The Bogdanovs signing is still the highlight. The fans are concerned about Darcy That's kinda insane... he has played 15 matches, 4 goals/4 assists/7.15 rating. His last 5 matches haven't been good though. -- We made a profit of $678k last month. That's with two home champions league matches, 3 home league matches and $7.6M in gate receipts, way way more than we are used to seeing. We have lost $13.7M this year, but again we've spent $30M on new players. We have a cash balance of $20.5M. I have no idea how much we get for making it past the Champions League Group Stage. Hopefully its a nice big number. December 1st, 2014 Chelsea(8-1-5, 5th) @ Ipswich (7-2-3, 6th) Chelsea are 5:4 favorites at Portman Road today. Its our 4th straight home match in league play (and 6th overall with two home Champions League matches), but going into this stretch we had played 3 at home and 4 on the road, so its all good. We're 5-4-7 against Chelsea lifetime. Between the League Cup Semis 2 years ago and the FA Cup last year we've played them 7 times in 2 seasons. We're 3-2-2 in those 7 matches, 2-1-1 at home. We have two less matches played than everyone else in the top 7. If we won both our games in hand we'd be in 2nd. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Bartlett/Heywood M: Adagsmar/Jean/Smith/Gordon F: Darcy/Bryan Young Chelsea Striker David Thomas (only 22) has 13 goals in 14 league matches this year and is an early favorite for player of the year in England. We've got almost a week off after this. We sub in Aldrovandi for Skhosana and Constantino for the injured Bryan, otherwise no changes. 12': Buildup down the middle, Darcy has it 20 yards out, a pass to the penalty spot and their defense doesn't catch Constantino cutting in towards goal, he blasts it with his first touch and that's not something anyone can sotp!! 1-0 16': A crazy shot from 35 yards by ST Al-Inezi... that hits the right post, scary. It was a pass ahead but our defense was closing down really fast so he just shot it. 40': We've seen some off target shots by both teams but that's it lately. They have taken some scary long shots but Bogdanovs is always there. HALF: Bogdanovs has the highest rating of anyone so far, they have 8 shots, 6 are from long range but 6 are on target. We've got 7 shots, 2 on target, but that's been enough for the lead. Possession is 50/50, they're beating us in the air but otherwise things are quite even. No changes for the second half initially. 62': Not to be outdone by Chris Bryan, Smith passes a ball ahead to Constantino, he pushes it ahead, skips by his man, blasts a shot to the far post from the right side of the area and its a goal!!! Not as flashy as Bryan's goal against Juventus but the last move looks exactly the same. 2-0 68': Neil Gordon is hurt, ugh. 69': They have a throwin in our end, a ball to ST Thomas, he's 20 yards out, jukes by Bartlett easily and scores with a strong strike. 2-1 70': Clifford in for Darcy, 4-1-4-1, Chrzanowski in for Gordon, and Connolly in for Smith. 78': Clifford is hurt. We put it away after that, its all at home, but we are on a serious roll! Ipswich 2 : 1 Chelsea Man of the Match: Constantino (9.0) Goals: Constantino 2 Assists: Darcy (6.9), Smith (6.9) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.2), Heywood (7.0), Kirkland (7.1) Injury Update -- Gordon is only out 4-5 days, whew. -- Clifford is out for 3 weeks. -- We move up to 4th today and drop Chelsea to 6th.

10-19-2011, 12:12 AM	#1374
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	FA Cup 3rd Round Draw We get a home match vs minnow Kendal or League 2 Mansfield. That'll be fun for our backups and maybe some youth players. December 7th, 2014 Ipswich (8-2-3, 4th) @ QPR (5-4-6, 12th) What the heck is this? A road match? not fair! We're still 4:5 favorites on the road at QPR, they're 3:1 to get a win. We haven't played them since the 21/22 season, we're 6-5-4 lifetime against them, we lost the last time we played but yeah long time ago. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Mattle/Bartlett/Jackson M: Adagsmar/Smith/Mills/Chrzanowski F: Constantino/Darcy Mattle gets a start at DC. Bartlett has been on fire so I've been keeping him in every match and rotating the other spot a bit to keep guys fresh. Smith/Mills at MC, Chrzanowski starts for Gordon who is coming back from his short injury still. 16': Free kick for us out right, and we earn a corner as we cross it in... they head it away though. 24': This match is really even so far, each team with some fairly decent attacking moves, though 3 of their 4 shots come from long range. 27': Oh this could be really bad, with Crespo out for weeks still, Adagsmar is hurt and forced to leave the match immediately. Hughes is in. HALF: And that's how we go into the locker room at the half. I make sure the team knows I'm not happy with them. Possession was even through the first 25 minutes but we've built up a 58/42 possession edge now. We shoot 7 times, 3 on target. They shoot 5 times, 2 on target. We're going to attack harder this half and see if we can break through. 49': Yellow for Kirkland. 60': throwin in their end, its thrown long, into the area, Darcy wins the header... and they have a defender that has to clear it off the line, damn!! 63': A foul by them just outside the left side of the penalty box... short pass to Mattle on the free kick, his shot is saved. 65': Aldrovandi in for Bartlett who is having his first off day in awhile. Gordon in for Chrzanowski. 82': Highlight opens with Constantino in the area, as is most of both teams... he can't get anything going, passes back out left to Kirkland, he puts a cross about 10 yards out dead center, Mills wins the header there and its on target and in the net!! 1-0 91': Jackson a yellow. 92': After minimal buildup there's a ball from the right side into the area for midfielder Frain... our guys seem to feel it was just offsides, our defenders are caught completely off guard and Bogdanovs can't save us here, their man puts it in and its going to be a draw. 1-1 QPR 1 : 1 Ipswich Its probably the proper result, the match was really even, but its disappointing after taking the lead. Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.5) Goals: Mills (7.3) Assists: Kirkland Bartlett struggled today before he was subbed out with a 5.6 rating. Everyone else is in the 6.6-6.8 range. Injury Update -- Adagsmar is out for 3-4 weeks. Crespo is still out 2-3 weeks. Hughes will start at ML and Chrzanowski will back him up with Hutchinson taking over as primary backup to Neil Gordon. We remain in 4th today. We're still a few matches away from the midway point, here's how things look right now: 1. Man Utd - 35 pts - 16 played 2. Arsenal - 30 pts - 16 plyd 3. Newcalste - 28 pts - 15 plyd 4. Ipswich - 27 pts - 14 plyd 5. Man City - 26 pts - 16 plyd 6. Liverpool - 26 pts - 15 plyd 7. Chelsea - 25 pts - 15 plyd 8. Aston Villa - 23 pts - 15 plyd 9. Huddersfield - 22 pts - 14 plyd 10. Blackburn - 22 pts - 16 plyd

10-19-2011, 05:03 AM	#1375
Alf Pro Starter Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Rennes, France	Winning your CL group is big big big. You will be paired with a team that has finished 2nd of its group (so likely less chance to get paired with top teams like Real MAdrid or Barcelona). You also get to receive the second leg of the home-away pairing. You also get more UEFA points increasing your chances to have better seeding whenever you enter your next European Cup or CL competition. You might also make more money (unsure there). __________________ FOFL - GML - IHOF - FranceStats

10-19-2011, 06:39 PM	#1377
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December 10th, 2014 European Champions Cup Group C Ipswich (4-1-0) @ Celtic(2-0-3) If we get a draw here we will win our group. Because we beat Juventus soundly we have a 5 goal differential advantage (and are up on them by 3 points). So we could lose and possibly still win our group, but don't want to have to take that chance. We are slim 6:4 favorites going to Celtic today. We beat them 1:0 at our place back in October. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Skhosana/Heywood DM: Smith M: Hughes/Jean/Connolly/Gordon F: Bryan We don't want to throw a ton of backups out there today as we do want to win the group but we're about to start a pretty hellish run of matches. Oh well, 4-1-4-1, Mills sits, Bryan up front, Hughes starting at ML. Counterattacking today. 27': They're building up to attack, but our young midfielder Connolly makes a tackle out near midfield, winning a ball for us, immediately sending it long to Chris Bryan, Bryan runs onto it well ahead of the defense, attacks the keeper, all the way into the 6 yard box and he scores! 1-0 39': their star ST Di Giuseppe gets by our defense and into the area for a clear cut chance, but Bogdanovs makes the key save. Skhosana's rating takes a big hit here, I think its considered his fault giving up that great look. 46': They have a corner, taken to the far post and DC Andre Hall wins it and puts it in. Bogdanovs reacted really poorly to it and was way out of position for that shot. 1-1 HALF: So we get to the half fairly cleanly, the half goes by really quickly, only 4 shots allowed and 2 taken, kinda standard when we run this formation, but they had the one set piece to tie it up. A tie would work just fine for us here. 55': Gordon with a long run down the right, a cross to the far post, Hughes wins a header... and its just inches over the bar, damn. 65': Jean is hurt and forced to come off. Bartlett comes in and plays DMC, Smith to MC. Khan is coming in for Bryan at this point as well. 84': We have a couple strong attacks here though in the end Hughes hits the post with a shot and Smith settles for a long range shot that is saved. Its nice that the recent highlights show us attacking though, since we'd love a tie. 90': Khan is tackled in the area trying for a header... penalty given!! Gordon to take the penalty and he clinches our group stage victory as he buries it! 2-1 95': 4 minutes of added time but we're at 94:50 here as they have a through ball from 30 yards out into the area, Skhosana takes the blame for letting it through and they get an easy finish and gain a tie. 2-2 Celtic 2 : 2 Ipswich Skhosana had a poor first half and giving up the second goal on a mistake of his destroys him, he finishes with a 4.7 rating. One of their goal scorers is man of the match. Goals: Bryan (6.9), Gordon (6.8) Assists: Connolly (6.8), Khan (6.8) Notable: Kirkland (7.0) 6.6-6.8's elsewhere. It turns out we could have lost by a couple goals and been fine, but I wasn't watching the score in the other match, insisting that we could get a draw or better out of our match. Juventus beats AJ Auxerre 3:2. Group C Final Standings Ipswich - 4-2-0 - 13 for - 3 ag - 14 pts Juventus - 4-1-1 - 12 for - 6 ag - 13 pts Celtic - 2-1-3 - 6 for - 8 ag - 7 pts AJ Auxerre - 0-0-6 - 2 for - 16 ag - 0 pts -- We receive $574,000 for the draw today. -- Jean will only miss 5-6 days with the injury he suffered today. Whew.

10-19-2011, 07:54 PM	#1379
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- The Champions League First Knockout Round Draw will take place on the 20th so we'll know pretty soon who we're playing. For now, all group play is done. Group winners: At. Madrid, FC Bayern, Ipswich, Man Utd, Barcelona, Inter, Arsenal, Man City <-- Go England! Group Runners Up: Hoffenheim, Roma, Juventus, Real Madrid, Genoa, AIK (sweden), Benfica, OM Dortmund finished 3rd behind Arsenal/AIK, Sevilla behind Arsenal/Benfica, Ajax behind Bayern/Roma, and Porto behind At. Madrid/Hoffenheim. Those seem like the biggest name teams to me to miss out on the knockout stages. December 14th, 2014 Man City (7-5-4, 7th) @ Ipswich (8-3-3, 6th) As of right now we have 7 home matches, 7 road matches. 3 of our next 4 are at home and all 4 are against top 10 teams. We're huge even money favorites today vs Man City. They beat us 1:0 at our place about 6 weeks ago though in the league cup. We're 3-5-10 lifetime against them. We beat them in the FA Cup last season but the last time we actually got a win against them in EPL play was October 2021. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Heywood M: Hughes/Mills/Connolly/Gordon F: Khan/Constantino Our midfield is hurting with Clifford, Adagsmar, Jean, and Crespo hurt. Jean will be back soon but we're playing lots of matches in short order here so its going to hurt us. today we start Connolly, who has played pretty damn well but I haven't intended to rely on him this much. Standard mindset at home today. 6': Khan is hurt... great start, he can stay in an we'll check postmatch. 10': We get the first shot today, Gordon with a cross and Hughes heads it just over. This was after a pass to Constantino where he was immediately tackled. 30': 5 total shots between both teams, all off target. 46': Throwin on the left side for us, taken to Kirkland, a pass to Connolly, he has an attempt at a through ball blocked and it seems to get their defense out of step, the ball ricochets to Mills, he puts it between their two DC's for Constantino, Constantino drills a shot in and that is an easy goal. The blocked pass seemed to send everyone off in another direction just for a half step and a lucky bounce right to the foot of Steven Mills and we took advantage! 1-0 HALF: We end up with 6 shots, 2 on target. They shoot only twice, both off target. We have a slight edge in possession 54/46, we're passing better than them and look pretty good right now. We'll drop back into a counterattacking mode here to start the second half, expecting them to come at us pretty hard. 57': They have a free kick from 30 yards out, and its on target and Bogdanovs has to push it aside. We clear the corner though. 63': A great counterattack for us, we win a ball in their end and send it ahead quickly, Mills out to Constantino, he's rushing up the right side, passes to Khan who has a step on his man 20 yards out, he gets into the penalty area, drills a shot by the keeper and we're up 2! 2-0 68': Darcy in for the injured Khan, Chrzanowski in for Gordon, Welsh in for Aldrovandi. We finish this off easily! Ipswich 2 : 0 Man City Man of the Match: Constantino (8.5) Goals: Constantino, Khan (7.0) Assists: Constantino, Mills (7.9) Notables: Bogdanovs (7.3), Heywood (7.3), Kirkland (7.7), Mattle (7.1) -- A couple milestones. Steven Mills plays his 150th match for Ipswich. Matthew Khan plays his 300th career league match. -- We're 5th again after the match today. But we still have 2 fewer played than everyone in the top 7, and 3 less than Chelsea who are in 4th. -- No long term issues for Khan after getting hurt early today.

10-19-2011, 08:04 PM	#1380
SirFozzie Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: The State of Insanity	Here's to hoping you pull AIK, Marseille, Benfica or Genoa. Those are some SCARY other 2nd place teams. __________________ Check out Foz's New Video Game Site, An 8-bit Mind in an 8GB world! http://an8bitmind.com

10-19-2011, 08:48 PM	#1381
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December 17th, 2014 Ipswich (9-3-3, 5th) @ Aston Villa(7-2-7, 10th) Back on the road today against an Aston Villa side that has missed out on Europe the last 2 years in a row. They are 6:4 favorites today. This is another team we have done pretty poorly against in our history, we're 2-5-7 lifetime against them, each team won at home last year. We've only won once in our last 8 meetings though. Time to turn that around hopefully! GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Bartlett/Skhosana/Jackson M: Hughes/Mills/Smith/Gordon F: Darcy/Bryan Aston Villa are led by Gyorgy Takacs, a Hungarian Striker, a super super with pretty good skills, he has 7 goals to lead them. Aston Villa run a 4-4-2 diamond formation (wide with MR/ML). We'll counterattack on the road. 6': We build up on offense, lots of passes through the middle and right side of the midfield, Smith receives it 30 yards out, makes a run, draws a defender and passes into the area, Neil Gordon cuts in from the right, slips behind his defender and has a clear cut chance, he easily beats the keeepr! 1-0 8': They've got a midfielder off the field injured right now... we push hard, Darcy to Mills, Mills into the area for Bryan, he gets a half step on his man and has a clear cut chance and gives us a big early lead! 2-0 30': They have a throwin in our end, taken short, then a pass to a midfielder 20 yards out, he shoots... it looks like its going wide, but the ball deflects off Mills and into the net. Its an own goal for Mills and a disastrous way to let them back into the match. 2-1 39': We counter after clearing a cross.. a quick pass up to Bryan, ahead to Darcy, he's a solid 35 yards out, he only has a step on his man and he isn't the fastest player on the field. He holds his man off til getting to about 20 yards from goal and he pulls up and shoots from there, its saved by the keeper though. If he was a little faster he'd be able to do more there. 48': At the tail end of added time in the first half Darcy goes down and he's hurt. He has to leave immediately and Constantino it is in. HALF: Aston Villa has 61% of the possession, but we've got 4 shots, all on target, 3 of them clear cut chances. They shoot 6 times, just 1 on target and the goal was an own goal. Hopefully we can keep playing well here and maybe control possession slightly better in the second half. That own goal has made this much much shakier for us, I really want a win here dammit! 48': We have a corner but they head it away easily. We recover at midfield and a ball is played up to Constantino, he wins a header and heads it into the penalty area... they have a defender there who should clear without any issue, we've got no one within 5 yards. Bryan comes in to pressure and their defender... whiffs? chokes? something! Bryan comes away with the ball and scores from point blank range after a massive mistake on their part. 3-1 50': Ugh, we just can't put this away. AMC Coutinho takes a pass 18 yards out, Bartlett misses a tackle, he gets into the area and scores on a clear cut chance. Bartlett takes the blame for it and its still just a one goal game. 3-2 61': Mattle in for Bryan, Bryan picked up a small knock and his fitness is down. Bartlett to DMC, Mattle DC, 4-1-4-1 formation for us. 64': They have a free kick from 25 yards out, taken by midfielder Gueye... and struck beautifully around the wall and into the left side of the net. crap. 3-3 79': A couple attacks for each team in the last 15 minutes, here they have a free kick 35 yards out and a shot comes in that Bogdanovs saves but turns it behind for a corner. They win a header on the corner but its high. 82': They attack and there's a cross in from the left side, Bogdanovs tries to go out and catch the cross, doesn't get it, and they head it into the empty net. 3-4 82': We move Bartlett up to MC, Hughes and gordon to AML/AMR and we turn this into a 4-3-2-1 to try to get that goal back. We can't get anything done and have a rather epic loss here after going up 2-0 in the early minutes. Aston Villa 4 : 3 Ipswich Man of the Match: Chris Bryan (8.8) Goals: Bryan 2, Gordon (7.4) Assists: Smith (8.5), Mills (7.7), constantino (6.8) Hughes 5.8, Skhosana 5.6, Kirkland 6.0... a really rough loss here. Injury Update ST Eoin Darcy "broke down today" and has a non descript hip injury. Paying extra to send him to a specialist (which obvoiusly I do without giving it a second thought) is my best option and means he's only out for 2 months... oof. We remain in 5th after losing today. A tie woud put us in 4th, a win 3rd. Alas.

10-19-2011, 08:58 PM	#1382
bbgunn College Benchwarmer Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Osaka, Japan via Honolulu, Hawaii via Birmingham, Alabama	Ah, the way it should be... Ipswich kicking a** and taking names... with the exception of Aston Villa. I wonder what happened to Agbonlahor in your save game. __________________ U of Hawaii \| U of Alabama \| Montreal Impact \| Montreal Canadiens \| West Ham \| West Indies cricket \| Portland Trail Blazers Last edited by bbgunn : 10-19-2011 at 08:59 PM.

10-19-2011, 09:42 PM	#1383
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- We have a full 6 days off, hooray. European Champions Cup First Knockout Round Draw So the teams don't appear to be separated in the draw as group winners/runners up, lets see what happens with the matchups: Real Madrid vs Inter Roma vs Ipswich OM vs FC Bayern Juventus vs Man City Genoa vs At. Madrid Hoffenheim vs Barcelona AIK vs Arsenal Benfica vs Man Utd so it didn't list them separately but the draw holds true pairing group winners and runners up. And we got one of the toughest possible against Serie A powerhouse Roma. We know them well, having played 4 times last season, twice in Euro Cup Group Play and then in the Euro Cup Quarterfinals. They killed us in group play, 4:0 at their place, 1:0 at ours, but we got serious revenge in the quarterfinals, getting a 2:1 win at home and a 1:1 road draw to advance past them. Roma won Serie A last year... Juventus was 10 points behind them in 2nd and Genoa was 25... yes 25 points behind in 3rd place. Jesus. This year Inter is in 1st place, 1 point ahead of Internazionale at the midpoint of the season. We've got a long break before that, though. Knockout play doesn't begin until February 19th. Injury Update -- Clifford resumes full training. -- DC Bartlett is going to miss 2 weeks with a foot injury suffered in training today. We have tons of DC depth so we're ok there, but Bartlett has played really well for us this year. December 23rd, 2014 Liverpool(10-3-5, 3rd) @ Ipswich (9-3-4, 5th) Liverpool are only 3 points ahead of us despite the fact we have 2 less matches played than them. We are 5:4 favorites at home against Liverpool today. We're 4-4-5 lifetime against them. We are 2-2-0 the last two years, two wins at home, two draws on the road. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson M: Hughes/Jean/Mills/Gordon F: Constantino/Bryan We're nice and rested today. Standard mindset today. 2': Throwin in their end, we throw it into the penalty area and they head it away but we recover. Jean to Bryan, Bryan shoots from 18 yards out, the keeper dives and stops it but there's a rebound, Hughes gets to the rebound and puts it into the goal before the keeper recovers! 1-0 28': They take a corner kick, out to the far post, Bogdanovs dives out for the ball but can't get to it, their DC Schreuder wins his header and puts it into the empty net. 1-1 44': Throwin for us in their end, thrown to Jean, after a couple passes its back to Jean 25 yards out, he attacks, pulls up and pushes the ball into the area as the defense collapses on him, Bryan gets to the ball and scores easily!! 2-1 HALF: We get to the half pretty quickly despite 3 goals. We have 57% of the possession, 5 shots, all on target, but we don't see all of them in highlights. They have 5 shots, 2 on target with the one goal. We're passing, tackling and winning headers all at a much better rate than them. I think we're better off here than we were against Aston Villa mainly due to being at home. But its a similar half where we give up a set piece goal but otherwise dominate. 62': A throwin on their end, passed bak to Gordon, he gets it to Mills who shoots from 20 yards out, he shoots from there and hits the crossbar, the keeper wasn't getting to that, damn! 75': We counter attack after winning a ball in midfield, Mills ahead to Constantino, he passes into the left side of the area for Hughes, Hughes shoots, its saved but right back to Hughes, he dribbles left as the keeper is slow to recover and puts it in for a second goal!! 3-1 82': Free kick for us, taken to Hughes, he crosses into the area but they head it out, we track it down, back out left to Hughes, a low pass into the area for Constantino and he drills a shot by the keeper! 4-1 85': Connolly, Khan, Chrzanowski in for Jean, Constantino and Gordon. Ipswich 4 : 1 Liverpool A great win here! Man of the Match: Jack Hughes (9.4) Goals: Hughes 2, Bryan (8.9), Constantino (7.8) Assists: Hughes, Bryan, Jean (7.6) Notables: Kirkland (7.4), Mattle (7.3), Gordon (7.1) Great to see Jack Hughes come up huge today! -- This win jumps us up over Liverpool, we're now 3rd, Liverpool 4th. -- Some teams have now played 19 matches to hit the halfway point of the season. We're still at 17. 19 played unless otherwise mentioned 1. Man Utd - 41 pts - 18 plyd 2. Arsenal - 37 pts 3. Ipswich - 33 pts - 17 plyd 4. Liverpool - 33 pts 5. Man City - 32 pts 6. Chelsea - 30 pts 7. Newcastle - 30 pts 8. Everton - 27 pts - 18 plyd 9. Aston Villa - 26 pts - 17 plyd 10. Huddersfield - 26 pts - 17 plyd We are in great shape here, a big home match against Arsenal comes up next.

10-19-2011, 10:35 PM	#1385
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	-- Crespo resumes full training. December 26th, 2014 Arsenal (11-4-4, 2nd) @ Ipsiwch (10-3-4, 3rd) We're 3-2-11 lifetime against Arsenal, we beat them the last time we played at their place 1:0. Today they are slim 6:4 favorites at Portman Road. We are 4 points behind them but have two fewer matches played. GK: Bogdanovs D: Kirkland/Aldrovandi/Mattle/Jackson M: Hughes/Smith/Jean/Gordon F: Khan/Bryan We play Sunderland in just 2 days and are going to be gassed, but i'm going all out to try to win here, how can I not give it my best vs Arsenal? 2': We have a throwin in their end but after a few passes we lose possession. They get a long ball up ahead to their ST Nooij, he's got a clear cut chance but Bogdanovs rushes out and positions perfectly for it and makes the stop. 8': Arsenal attack again and our defense fails badly. ST Nooij gets by Mattle nearly 30 yards out and the defense breaks down trying to recover after that, everyone gets stuck out of position, one pass ahead to AM Gamliel leads to their second clear cut chance and they finish this one. 0-1 25': They earn a corner, first one is headed out and there's a scary shot from 25 yards away, Bogdanovs makes a diving save and they get a second corner. we head that one out too, Hughes commits a foul though and they get a free kick from 22ish yards away... which hits the wall and is saved. 34': Kirkland is injured. 43': Yellow for Hughes. HALF: We see lots of highlights in the first 25 minutes then none at all. We manage 9 shots but I only see a couple in highlights and only 1 is on target. They have 6 shots, 3 on target and 2 clear cut chances. We'll try to attack to open the second half. 63': Constantino for Khan, Mills in for Smith. Fresh legs + neither were having great games. 69': They win a ball in our end and counter attack, a long ball up ahead to Bugra Yildirim, he has a step on Kirkland 40 yards out and maintains that advantage all the way into the area to generate a clear cut chance that he finishes well. 0-2 74': Totally falling apart now, MC Ramsey heads a ball in off a cross. 0-3 They aren't letting us come back after that. Ipswich 0 : 3 Arsenal Ouch. Jackson 6.0, Bryan 5.7, Bogdanovs 6.2, most others in the 6.5-6.8 range. Now that we've become a more serious threat Arsenal seems able to basically put us down whenever they need to. We fall to 4th with the loss here. -- Kirkland will miss 5-6 days. Unfortunately that'll have him out for 2 matches and possibly not fully recovered for a 3rd.

10-20-2011, 01:03 AM	#1387
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	If I'm not a crackhead (which is entirely possible), don't y'all already have some kinna history with Roma? __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

10-20-2011, 10:10 AM	#1388
chesapeake College Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Arlington, VA	You always seem to have a tough time with Arsenal. Is that the price you pay for having Chelsea's number?

10-20-2011, 06:12 PM	#1390
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December 28th, 2014 Ipswich (10-3-5, 4th) @ Sunderland(3-8-9, 17th) Just 2 days after losing to Arsenal we travel to struggling Sunderland. They are favorites today, 6:4 vs our 13:8 to win. We've beaten them 4 times in a row including a big 4:1 win back in August. GK: Bogdanovs D: Heywood/Aldrovandi/Skhosana/Jackson M: Hughes/Smith/Mills/Chrzanowski F: Khan/Constantino Some fatigue issues today, Hughes could use a rest but its not happening, Gordon is sitting today, Heywood in for the injured Kirkland. Sunderland starts ML Lee Burton, he played for us for 2 years before being sold to Reading, and after 2 years with reading ended up with Sunderland. He's mostly a backup but he'll start today. ST Edson has 7 goals to lead them and today they're starting a 35 y/o Theo Walcott who hasn't scored this year. -- Fairly heavy snow today... 25': They have a throwin in our end, a pass into the area, Clive Jackson goes for a tackle... and commits a foul, penalty given. their defender Aiello takes it and scores. 0-1 29': Corner kick for them, taken to the near man, Walcott... he turns by Craig Smith, shoots from 10 yards out and beats our keeper, ugh! 0-2 37': We're attacking, Heywood with a long pass ahead to Constantino 25 yards away, he turns by his man and has nothing but open space ahead of him, into the area and he scores easily to get one goal back for us! 1-2 38': They try to attack after kickoff but we win it easily, Skhosana sends a long ball down the right side, Constantino gets ahead of his man, into the right side of the area, a ball into the 6 yard box, Khan runs onto it and puts it in!! 2-2 43': Smith with a through ball to Constantino, our 3rd clear cut chance here, but he doesn't control it well and basically runs into the keeper before shooting. They clear safely. HALF: We end up with 9 shots, 4 of them on target with 3 clear cut chances. They shoot 7 times with 3 on target. We have a 54/46 possession edge, we're passing, tackling and heading better than them, hopefully we'll come out and take control of this one in the second half after taking the momentum back with those two goals. 48': We pass right down the middle, Smith ahead to Constantino, he gets by his man again, dodges a slide tackle in the area and has our 4th clear cut chance, but the keeper saves... there's a rebound that falls right to Khan, Khan puts it into the net before the keeper can recover and we go ahead! 3-2 67': We kill time with no highlights after taking the lead. But here Jack Hughes goes down injured and he must leave the match immediately. Chrzanowski moves to ML and Hutchinson comes in and moves to MR. Connolly also comes in for Mills. 85': we win a ball in defense, Connolly with a ball ahead for Constantino and its a huge counterattacking chance... their defender Coats tackles Constantino before he can get into the area and that's a red card! Free kick goes wide though. 91': Corner for them, taken short to ST Pique... he shoots right away, the ball either hits the right post or our defender on the line at the right post... and bounces in... ugggggggggggggh. 3-3 they salvage the draw at the end, that sucks! Sunderland 3 : 3 Ipswich Man of the Match: Matthew Khan (8.8) Goals: Khan 2, Constantino (8.7) Assists: Constantino 2, Heywood (6.9) Jackson ends with a 5.4, Bogdanovs a 6.1, everyone else on the team 6.8-6.9. Newcastle jumps into 4th over us, we fall to 5th. Injury Update -- Jack Hughes turned his ankle badly against Sunderland and he's going to miss 4 weeks. Crespo is getting back into match shape and Adagsmar will get back to full training in a few days, we may be in a bind in 3 days when we play Watford though.

10-20-2011, 06:25 PM	#1391
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	Most everyone has played 20 or 21 matches now but we just hit the midway point of the season with 19. I posted a standings update just a match or two ago and will keep up with that as we go, but we havent really looked at the stats at all this year: Goals 1. David Thomas - Chelsea - 15 2. Colin Meade - Arsenal - 10 2. Emmanuel Amoako - Tottenham - 10 2. Romelu Lukaku - Man City - 10 5. Andy Bailey - Liverpool - 9 5. Casper Pique - Sunderland - 9 ............. 10. Neil Gordon - Ipswich - 7 16. Constantino - 6 26. Chris Bryan - 5 32. Matthew Khan - 4 Assists 1. Sergio Canales - Chelsea - 8 2. Ludovic Bastian - Sunderland - 7 3. Peter Wynter - Man Utd - 6 3. David McKinlay - Nottingham Forest - 6 3. Tal Gamliel - Arsenal - 6 3. Coutinho - Aston Villa - 6 3. David Thomas - Chelsea - 6 .... 8. Constantino - 5 Chris Bryan, Jean, Eoin Darcy, Steven Mills, and Craig Smith all have 3 assists. Average Rating 1. David Thomas - Chelsea - 7.73 2. Sultan Al-Inezi - Chelsea - 7.66 3. Emmanuel Amoako - Tottenham - 7.51 4. Bugra Yildirim - Arsenal - 7.42 5. Danny Wilson - Arsenal - 7.41 ..... 7. Constantino - Ipswich - 7.37 22. Stuart Kirkland - Ipswich - 7.16 33. Neil Gordon - 7.11 36. Steven Mills - 7.08 54. Jack Hughes - 7.05 70. Craig Smith - 6.99 70. Jean - 6.99 77. Eoin Darcy - 6.97 We're playing so many more matches in Europe that our overall stats are skewed a bit here. Constantino and Bryan have 10 total goals, Gordon 9. Jean and Constantino have 6 assists, Craig Smith 5. Chris Bryan has a 7.54 average rating with a couple incredible Champions League scores, while Constantino is at 7.29 total.

10-20-2011, 07:14 PM	#1392
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	December 31st, 2014 Watford (4-9-7, 15th) @ Ipswich (10-4-5, 5th) Watford is only 3 points ahead of 18th and 5 points ahead of dead last, there's a pretty tight relegation battle going on this year. Today we're big 4:5 favorites at Portman Road. We played Watford in our season opener and lost to them 1:0. GK: Capitani D: Heywood/Mattle/Skhosana/Jackson M: Chrzanowski/Jean/Connolly/Gordon F: Bryan/Constantino Capitani gets another game in goal today. Crespo isn't ready, Adagsmar isn't back, but Gordon is in so hopefully we've got enough strength in our midfield to be ok. We do have some guys with morale dropped down to okay and Jackson is even poor... we could use a little win streak here to get that back up. 14': Mattle is hurt. 29': Corner for us, its headed out but we push it back in, the ball is loose about 18 yards out, lots of confusion, Skhosana comes in and blasts it and its amazingly placed for a defender here, into the left side of the net and the keeper had no chance! 1-0 HALF: And we fly to the half after that. We only allow 2 shots, both in the first 10 minutes. We take 9 shots but 5 are from long range and I don't see a lot of them. We'll instruct the guys to work the ball into the penalty area better. 62': Connolly with a nice ball into the left side of the area, Chrzanowski gets to it but his shot is right at the keeper. 74': Welsh in for Mattle, Clifford in for Connolly. 82': Welsh picks up a yellow. 91': Come on guys finish a game dammit. We win a ball in the penalty area, Jean is slowly dribbling it out... passes it to the center of the field and there is no one from our team anywhere close to the damn ball. They pick it up 25 yards away from goal, one quick pass to a striker in the area, a clear cut chance, and a finish... WOW we are just incapable of putting anyone away right now. Unbelievlable mistake by Jean. 1-1 Ipswich 1 : 1 Watford Man of the Match: Abdul Skhosana (8.0) Goals: Skhosana (unassisted) Notables: Gordon (7.0), Jackson (7.2), Constantino (7.2) Jean was at 7.2 or 7.3 or so I think and his mistake knocks him back to 6.5. -- Jean picked up a yellow today, that's 5 for him and he'll miss our next match.