AJ's Fails - The start of a legacy

[Fail G]

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