AJ's Fails - The start of a legacy

Edit: I think my OP deleted itself? Not too sure. If it appears twice somehow, then I'll delete one of them

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Season 1

Hi! And welcome to the fan club of AJ's Fails! Here we can look at all the progress made by the club since the new manager came in, and talk about club transfers & tactics.

Recently the club finished its first full season under the new manager, and it couldn't have gone much better! Undefeated in the league; along with the leagues top scorer, top assister & 2 players among the best 5 players of the season!

In the managers first season, he was only there for 6 games, so didn't really have much time to do anything. He achieved 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses and we came 9th in the league. But it was just an introductory period as he looked at the squad and sorted everything out, ready for the first proper season!

In the summer transfer window we made lots of new signings to really strengthen the squad, but we did actually have quite a substantial debt at some point! It was a nervous time for everyone attached to the club, but luckily we pulled through, and scraped our financial situation together. From then on, it's been smooth sailing.

The season started off well, with an opening cup win of 11-2 on aggregate! However league progress started slowly, with our opening 2 games both being draws. This soon picked up however, with our third league match being a phenomenal 10-1 away win! Despite this however, after 10 league games we had 5 draws and 5 wins. While the clear positive was that we were currently undefeated, which only one other team could also boast, we knew we were better than this. After a few tactical changes by the manager however, the club rallied together and won every single league match after that! Not too bad if I do say so myself!

The cup wasn't quite as good though, but we can't win everything. After our opening two rounds in the cup saw us scoring 20 goals and conceding just 3; the third round was tougher. We lost the away leg 1-0 to a side that was marginally better than us, but in the home leg we grouped together for a fantastic 1-0 home win! Although it doesn't sound like a big margin, it was huge to us! We took the game to penalties, and in front of our home crowd, all 5 of our penalty takers kept their nerve and slotted home beautifully; to take us into the Round of 16!

This was where the cup run ended however, since the opponent this time was massively superior. In the home leg we played defensively, but sadly finished the game with a 1-0 loss. The away leg was just what we expected it to be, with a 4-1 loss; however we can proudly say that we did our all, and were simply beaten by a better team. There is no shame in saying that. This cup exit also allowed us to focus on the league, which we did brilliantly.


Next season we will begin in a new league with stronger opposition, so we'll have to focus even harder on the league, we can aim to have a longer cup run, and there is of course the famed Champions League! Realistically you can't expect to win all three of these things; even winning 1 would be a fantastic achievement! After only recently being promoted we will just see what our new surroundings are like, and see how we are able to adjust with the increased competition.

There are no direct plans for future transfers, although there are a few long-term plans to get an extra CB, CDM, LM and ST. However nothing will be rushed; after this fantastic season we won't want to change the team too much, any signings will just be to help adapt to the new conditions.


Here are some pictures highlighting various things from the season:
(Sorry for the poor quality, will aim to fix this in future)

This season's overview:
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The club's history under the new manager:
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The league table:
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League top scorer:
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League top assister:
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League's top 5 players:
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The infamous 10-1 away win:
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The current squad:
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Season 2

Yesterday we made our first signing of the season! He's only a youngster who we got as a free transfer, since we're not trying to add him into the first team just yet; but he has the makings of being a future first team players for our club, since he's got high growth and already has added a 4th star!

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Second signing of the season, and my god! What a bargain!! Only used 3 tokens on this guy; and he's the now best player on my team along with being only 19 years old. Think I've bagged a worldie here :rolleyes:

Saying that this transfer is "Incredible" is an understatement I think!
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Now this is what I call a transfer!! A little bit pricey; but spending just 1 token on this guy isn't half bad :D Especially since we've been searching for these two positions specifically for about a week without placing any bids, and then we find this gem with 2 minutes left without any offers :cool:

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Also, we're a third of the way through the season, and our progress so far is this:
League - 2 points behind 1st place with a game in hand
CL - Same points & goal difference as the team in 1st; but we have the easiest 6th match. Any 2 of the top 3 could still qualify though
Cup - eliminated in the first round :(

We also have our teams first rival; but more of that to come later

We're now 3/4 of the way through the current season, so I think it's time for another update on a few things :D

Starting with the negatives, we're now sadly out of the Champions League :( We lost the home leg 4-2, and although we did win the away leg 2-1, it wasn't enough to progress. This will however let us focus all of our energy on the league, where our form has dipped a little :/

Having said that, these past 4 games have been great, as we've scored 25 goals and conceded just 1; but before that we went through a stage where we drew 3/4 games, two of which we really should have won! We are technically top of the table at the moment, but we're level on points with the team in second & he has a game in hand. But we can still proudly say that in our entire career, we are unbeaten in the league, a feat which has almost stretched over 2 seasons!


About a week ago we made our final transfer of the season, bringing in this guy on a free transfer, and he's not half bad! Sadly due to him being rather injury-prone, he's only played 3 matches, but he's doing quite well:
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(I've no idea why that image shows that he has the one-on-one stopper trait - he doesn't have it, he's a RM!
He was very useful when we were competing in both the league and Champions League as a rotation player, and with our squad size now being 14, it meant that we almost never had to play someone who was tired & risk more injuries :D
However now that we are only looking at the league, I can't see him getting much game time in the near future unless our other RM gets injured or too tired.


Also, news about the clubs rival! I did mention this briefly in the last update, but here's the full story:

The team name is GBFC (It's not, but that's an abbreviation). At the beginning of the season we were put into the same league and Champions League group, and we were friends on the game (I've got no idea who this fella is in real life). My team is better than his on average quality by about 4 points - right now my average quality is 23.3, his is 19.2

He invites me to a friendly on the first day of the season, and I win 2-1. A few days later he invites me to another one and I win 1-0.
I should note, that I was never present for these friendlies and never knew they were happening, so I didn't adjust my team before hand or anything.

But here's where it starts to get interesting. In the Champions League after 2 games had been played, I'd lost & drew, he'd drew & won. We hadn't played each other yet. But we were set to play a CL game against each other on Saturday the 14th and Monday the 16th; along with our first league match being on Tuesday the 17th. So that's 3 important games within 4 days - since he's one of the better players in the league and currently in 3rd.

So before the first of these important matches, on the Friday he invites me to another friendly. I won 1-0 again. Later again on Friday, there's another friendly. I won in extra time, with the winning goal coming in the 113rd minute! Saturday then rolls around for our first CL group match, and he's at home. I beat him 3-0. Obviously he wasn't happy about this; scheduling 4 friendlies and slowly getting better in each of them, to then be humbled in the one that counts. On Sunday he scheduled another friendly, but this time he won! 2-0! Maybe he has truly worked out a tactic to beat me now? You'd think right?

Monday morning and the CL is hosted at my ground, where I won 2-1. Even after beating me in a friendly, it still counted for nothing when it matters. So later on Monday he schedules another friendly, where he wins 4-0! This guy is really going for it, and that's an impressive scoreline to say the least! The following day was the last match that we played, and it was a league game at my place. If I won this as well, then all his work would have been for nothing - all those friendlies trying to work out how best to beat me all for nothing. Well, it wasn't completely for nothing, since it finished 1-1. He at least got a draw. But even so, I can see that he's now mad because he started supporting the opposition team to whoever I played for a few days, before he got bored of doing it.

I haven't played him since, nor has he been a spectator at any of my games, either for or against me. But this Monday is our second league match at his place. There haven't been any friendlies since, and my team has changed a fair bit since we previously played, so I'm not sure the same tactics will work, but we'll see.

Here's a re-cap of our matches over that insane period though:

Sunday the 8th: Friendly; GBFC 1-2 AJ's Fails
Wednesday the 11th: Friendly; GBFC 0-1 AJ's Fails
Friday the 13th: Friendly; GBFC 0-1 AJ's Fails
Friday the 13th: Friendly; GBFC 2-3 AJ's Fails - won in extra time
Saturday the 14th: Champions League; GBFC 0-3 AJ's Fails
Sunday the 15th: Friendly; GBFC 2-0 AJ's Fails
Monday the 16th: Champions League; AJ's Fails 2-1 GBFC
Monday the 16th: Friendly; GBFC 4-0 AJ's Fails
Tuesday the 17th: League match; AJ's Fails 1-1 GBFC

Friendlies: 6
GBFC - 2, Draw - 1, AJ's Fails - 3 (I'm counting the extra time one as a draw, after 90 minutes it was 2-2)
Champions League: 2
GBFC - 0, Draw - 0, AJ's Fails - 2
League: 1
GBFC - 0, Draw - 1, AJ's Fails - 0

9 games in 10 days; and at one point 7 games in 5 days, all so he can get 1/9 points against me; after which he starts supporting whoever I play against. Our match on Monday should be interesting!

Season 2 has ended, and annoyingly I never got round to getting all the various pictures from the season, since the second season started too quickly :( But as it was only a couple of days ago, I can remember most of it.

Firstly, the league. Above I mentioned how we were going into the match against our rival, after all his effort to try and beat me. When the game rolled around, I wasn't available to be there, but he was, further decreasing my chances of getting anything...yet I still won 2-0! I'll be honest, I did not expect that result at all, but wasn't complaining! In our 4 official games during the season therefore, I took 10 points off him, he took 1 off me.

But more importantly, this meant I was now level on points with the team in first, and we were playing each other on the penultimate day of the season! Luckily there were no slip ups from me before this match, and as we went into it he had a better goal difference by around 2 goals (don't fully remember). The game earlier in the season when I was at home was 1-1, so he had the slight advantage now, being at his place. I tried to attend the match, but I couldn't be there. He wasn't there either though, which was lucky, and the game finished the same as the first time, 1-1.

So the league title was now going down to goal difference, assuming we would both win our final match. I was at home to the team who were second bottom in the league, he was away to a mid-table side. I attended my match, knowing that I simply needed as many goals as possible...and boy did we deliver! We set a new club record win by smashing him 13-0! 5 goals coming from Niciforovic as well as 4 assists from Oliveira Costa ensured that we were in top position to grab the league! I never saw the result of his game, but I can assume that he won by less than 10 goals, meaning I won the league on goal difference! (He might have drawn/lost, I don't know, new season started too early for me to check..)

But we were league champions! For a second year running! Without yet losing a match in the league!! That is now 52 games unbeaten in the league, and it's fair to say that everyone at the club is happy with this record.


The Champions League I already described earlier; we went out in the quarter finals after a poor first leg at home which we couldn't recover from :/

And the Cup doesn't bare talking about...despite winning the first leg away 2-1 or something, we lost abysmally in the return leg at home and were dumped out in the first round.


Anyway, to sum up this season's work, lets look at the few pictures that are available!

First of all,you can see here that we did win the league last season:
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Also, if you compare the all-time stats from now and the end of last season, you can see our overall record from last season:
Played: 38
Won: 29
Drew: 6
Lost: 3
Goals for: 146
Goals against: 28

Along with this, we extended our winning streak by 1 game, our unbeaten streak by 9 games, and had a new highest scoring game of 13-0: the final day of the season.

Also, Gerhardt was the league's top scorer, top assister and top overall player, with an average overall in the league of 8.33. Oliveira Costa came second in the assist chart as well (though there were still two matches played that I never saw the outcome of, but I doubt it would have affected this).

This is last years team - sort of. Will explain below:
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Firstly, we had 3 players retire last season, two of which were in the starting XI. (Proof of retirement below.) Neumann was a 5* CB, Gonzalez was a 5* CM and Kang was a 4* CM; so Neumann would have been at RCB, where Van Dijk is now, and Gonzalez would have been CM, where Fernandez is now. The game just randomly put them there to fill the empty slots I guess.

Anyway; you have to imagine that everyone has an extra star quality to what it is currently showing; so we had 3 6* players, 7 5* players and 8 4* players. Not too bad, eh?

But although this line up is technically the first XI, we very rarely played like this, for a number of reasons. First, it requires all 4 attacking players to be fit and playing; with none of them being rested for the next match or being involved in squad rotation. Secondly, it is very attacking, and with only 1 CM, it often didn't feel feasible against stronger teams. Also, with the high quality available on the bench, we normally just adjusted our formation to counter the opposition; so we have played in a 3-4-2-1, 3-5-1-1, 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1 etc....
Basically we have used most of the available formations..

But yea; that's the team! I think our first target for this year will be to get a new CB to replace Neumann, and a new CM to replace Gonzalez. Other than that, I'm happy with the team and our progress!

The three unread emails there show that we had 3 players who retired last season:
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(Unsure of how to prove how good they all were, the fact that they were 2 5* players and a 4*; but you'll have to take my word for it :P

Season 3

First signing of the new season!

Not too sure what this theory about a mass panic at the beginning to buy players is - got this guy on a free transfer with no opposition bids :cool:

Currently he's my best CM available, though I am looking into getting a 5* quality one soon... For now though, here is the latest addition to the team! :D
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(And again, he doesn't have the shot stopper ability...no idea why that keeps showing up on my free transfers)

Edit:
Bought this guy just minutes after the previous one; again no competition. This fella is younger and has the free kick ability, yet they've got the same market value. I guess the other one will just grow quicker...who knows? But for now, he can slot nicely into the team.

If nothing comes of these two when/if we get a proper quality player, they can at least sell for some easy profit :D
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This is the signing we were talking about lads, a bit pricey, but we're not short on cash, so this guy will hopefully do wonders for us! And for only 2 tokens, it's a great move for the club, especially since he's now the new best player we have!
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Also we now have our maximum squad size available, but are still looking to invest in a CB. Sadly I have to say that Van Dijk will have to be sold to accommodate this, after 28 games for the club with 12 goals, it's time to say goodbye
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Ok, we're about a quarter of the way through this season, time for a bit of an update!

Firstly, the league is looking quite nice so far, especially with 0 goals conceded! Although we have already played 3 of the bottom 4 teams
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The Champions League has been harder, it's been a win loss and draw for us at the half way stage of the group; we're sitting on second purely on goals scored, and hopefully we can push for qualification, and might still win the group yet, you never know, the team above is only 1 point better off... :D

The Cup was...as usual...bad. In the Preliminary round we drew the first game & narrowly won the second at home, and in qualifying we did just sneak a 2-1 win in the first leg, but annoyingly went out on penalties after a 2-1 defeat away. He had the better team though, it's deserved.

We've also been doing a few transfers, and I think the summer window is probably closed now. Firstly, Van Dijk and Hugo Whetnall were sold as we made way for our new CB, and new best player of the team... I'm not even going to try and pronounce his name:
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But also, our youth squad has thrown two new players our way, and we're still thinking over what we should do with them. At the moment I'm thinking that Sam will be signed then sold, and Tom will be released if we can find a similar but better player before the transfer window closes, and if not we'll sign him. Help with the youth would be appreciated though because they're the first young players I've had
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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qambu Yaasi

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

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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 :/
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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
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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!
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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?

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.... :p)
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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*)

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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!

Think it's fair to say that the league has turned into a fight for second place :p
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Also, is this one hell of a super-sub or what?! :cool:
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*Edit: Ignore/remove this post if you can

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! :D

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.
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Surprisingly from this season there was no stand-out player who dominated the top player charts, despite the impressive goal scoring records we had:
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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:
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Here is the first XI from last season, and the whole squad's quality, statistics and market value:
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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!
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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 :p

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.

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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 :p

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