AJ's Fails - The start of a legacy

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I'd release the DML/ML which I have found very useless in 20 seasons playing this game. Jst my two cents.

Who, Tom Kellet?
I'm not sure though, my other LM is retiring this season and I'd like someone who can play on the left next season, and the market never has many good LM's, as evidenced by my latest search :/

But I suppose I could hold out this season without a new one, then next season try and use the negotiations which become available and get one through that instead of the transfer market

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A couple of days ago I was showing how we hadn't conceded in the league...but that has now sadly ended

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Business as usual for the Fails so far, we've still only conceded once in 11 league games; and after the bad start to the Champions League, we won the other 4 matches and ended up winning the group; meaning we avoided a very tough next round for a team which we should beat if we're sensible. The final group match was against the team who came second; anything other than a loss allowed us to win the group, and we beat him 3-2 as revenge for him beating us 2-1 earlier in the campaign


Tomorrow in the league we face the team who are currently in second, and they look quite strong! The last time we played the team in second was against Ali FC, who are now third, and we beat them 4-0. Here's hoping for the same result against PSG!


And here's something you don't see every day. In our win today, midfielder Ökten Cetin scored a hatrick of freekicks but still ended up only getting a match rating of 7. Would have thought that 3/3 converted freekicks would have earned a rating of 11/10, but who am I to judge?

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We're mid-way through the season now, and it's fair to say that the league couldn't be going much better. We've never had a start like this before, and long may it continue! Oddly enough, we don't have anyone in the top scorer chart, however we have two people in the top assisters - in 2nd and 4th. But the fascinating thing I think, is that the man leading the top overall chart is Dave Perry - our third choice striker who is the clubs second worst player. Our second choice striker has been injured for the majority of the season which allowed Perry some more game time, but I wouldn't have expected him to be the pest performing player in the league! (Although it is joint with a few others.... )




Also annoyingly, we drew our last game in the Champions League because the other side grabbed an 84th minute equaliser - this ended our run of 14 straight wins, which is just 1 short of a club record! If we win tomorrow then we would have set a new club record - but for The Strongest getting that equaliser -_-

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Well lads, there's no sugar-coating for this one. It's a sad day for the Fails.

After two full seasons of not losing a league match, and 14 straight wins out of 14 matches played so far this season, today we lost. We had an unbeaten stretch in the league of 66 matches, but that has now ended.

Despite having 10 better overall quality on the pitch, with me having 43* in total and him having 33*; and despite having the better stats from the match, we humbly lost 1-0.

(Out of interest, our best possible XI has 53* quality, and the worst possible XI has 34*)




But it's not all bad I suppose. We did rest some of the better players for the Champions League match tonight; we drew 1-1 away in the first leg, and the home leg starts in a few hours. And we're still 6 points clear at the top of the table with a much better goal difference, so there is still no real danger here,

It's just sad that we had to have our first loss. But we will pull through this, get our minds set on tonights game, and take it from there!

Come on boys!

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Think it's fair to say that the league has turned into a fight for second place


Also, is this one hell of a super-sub or what?!

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*Edit: Ignore/remove this post if you can

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Ok, Season 3 ended a few days ago, but I never got round to doing the write-up for it. I did however grab all the pictures I needed, so will be doing it now!

So to start off, the league campaign could be seen as the best so far, but it could be seen as the worst. Although we did have our first and only loss of our league career so far, we not only had the highest point total so far, but we also had our best goal difference, mainly due to the impressive defence conceding only 9 goals! Overall the league was still a pretty one-sided affair, and there was no real competition here.


Surprisingly from this season there was no stand-out player who dominated the top player charts, despite the impressive goal scoring records we had:




There isn't much point spending much time talking about the Cup, since we were knocked out in the first round...

The Champions League was better though, as we made it to the quarter finals, but were sadly eliminated by a better Real Madrid side. Still, a respectable run nonetheless, especially with Real winning the competition, at least we were beaten by the champions:


Here is the first XI from last season, and the whole squad's quality, statistics and market value:



Overall I'd say it was a very good season. Despite the fact that it was fairly easy, we still thumped the league winning all but two matches. The Champions League run was nice, but you can't expect to win the competition on our first proper run at it. Always aiming for improvement here of course, and you never know how it could turn out next season!



And finally, we're bringing in the Player of the Season award!

Going back to season 1 and counting forward, as it wasn't too far away, here are the awards!

Season 1 - Alexandru Dragotel - 6* quality, RM/RW - He was the league's top assister with a massive 20 assists compared to the 11 assists for second place. Despite not being included in the top 5 league players, he was the clear favourite of the season with his balls coming in from the right causing huge problems for opposition defences!

Season 2 - Marcel Gerhardt - 6* quality, ST - He was just phenomenal this season! Top of the league in goals, assists and overall rating, helped by scoring 38 goals in all competitions and becoming the clubs all time highest scorer; there was little choice who this award was going to. The young lad certainly has a bright future!

Season 3 - Stephen Fernandez/Dave Perry - 2* quality, CB/ST - This year there is a joint award to these two players. Both 2* quality and on the fringes of the team; but both stepped up remarkably well. Perry just nudges it over Fernandez if the award has to be separate, as he made it into the top 5 players of the season based on form; but Fernandez playing a total of 21 matches and being part of the side with the best defensive record whilst maintaining an average form of 7 grants him his share of the prize.

Sadly these two players will need to be sold at the start of the new season with them both being only 1* quality, we'll be looking to bring in some new talent. But they've certainly proved themselves and have shown that "Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine." - If you get the reference, well done you

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Season 4

Ok, there's quite a big update coming here, bare with me.....

Transfers

Sold

So as we said we would at the end of last season, Fernandez and Perry have both left us. Oddly enough, they both played 36 matches, were both English and were only 1 year apart in terms of age. They both have done the Fails proud, and are in no way leaving on bad terms. They will be missed as loyal companions.




Bought
To replace these two players we then bought three new ones, at some cost! The total came to £8.72 million, having used 24 tokens! That's more than enough for one season, hopefully! And it definitely strengthens the team as a whole.





Other
With El Quabbanni retiring last season it also allowed one spare position in the club, which was quickly filled with a youth player, Michael Marples. The young lad was free to sign and is actually fairly good compared to the expectations we had of him. Only in the reserve team mind you, but still better than nothing.



Season progress

it's fair to say that the level of competition has improved since the last few years. Based on average squad quality alone, I am no longer a leg ahead of the other teams, and in fact I'm around the middle of the pack. Despite this however, results have showed no sign of slowing up, as we have currently won 5/5 league matches, and 10/11 matches overall. It must be noted however, that 8/10 of these wins have been by just a 1 goal margin, so it is tougher. Also we have only played 1 of the other 4 sides at the top; so the hardest matches generally haven't happened yet.

The one defeat was in the cup, but we still progressed through a tense 4-3 away win, putting us through on away goals.





Also, a lot of these wins are through lucky things that happen in the games, or as I like to call them, "Super-subs". We had an occurance of this last season, when Niciforovic came on in the 80th minute and scored a hatrick. However we were already winning the match comfortably, so it didn't actually mean anything. This time, the Super Sub came on and turned it around!

While Sturgis may only be on the fringes of being on the bench, let alone the first team, he still has his good moments. Here you can see he is subbed on in the second half as we're 1-0 down. He scores a brace to allow us to win the match, with the winning goal coming in the 88th minute!



But perhaps the more impressive fact - they were the only two shots on target we had in the entire match! Hats off to him I must say.



Also, you may think that he would be an unlikely hero of the team, being 31 years old and only 2* quality now. But we mustn't forget, with age comes experience. He was once the clubs leading scorer alongside Gerhardt, and he currently boasts the highest goals per game ratio of the club, netting 0.84 goals every game; very narrowly edging out Gerhardt who has a 0.83 ratio!



So that's us for now. 3 new signings which all look promising, all competitions are going well so far, and we're still on course to do the treble! Though we can't be too hopeful, there's a long road ahead...

... And you can never be sure what might happen along the way - like getting a dislocated ankle while stretching at normal intensity with virtually 100% fitness