Season 71 - Week 4

[talisman]

Palace Casuals report, Wednesday...

Another day with two matches the proscribed minimum three hours apart! First was a Champions League Group match against the Group leaders, and the full-strength side had no answers to the much superior team and they went down 0-5. Third in the Group table, they will presumably progress no further - assuming 1st beats 2nd, and Casuals beat 4th, they will have the same points but the head-to-head record with 2nd is not good (one win each, but they've scored more away goals).

Attacking midfielder Artem Garaev suffered yet another injury, so the Management cast an eye over the Transfer Market, and saw a few likely candidates - 10.30AM BST and there were 5* players aplenty, and little or no bidding activity. 3T and $200M later, these players appeared in the squad:

1T/$98.9M:



2T/$102M (probably didn't need to spend the second token as the only other entrant, I bid over in the initial round and he didn't bid in the 1st Round, so I put in a last-second bid just in case he sniped me):



As a result, the injured Garaev (age 25, 5*/149Q, 21 appearances-4 MoM-10 goals-5 assists) and midfielder Emrah Topalan (age 25, 3*/139Q, 100-0-10-4) departed the club for $103M and $100M, respectively.

The tanking squad was put in for the following League match, and they performed well but eventually lost 1-2, Liam Cashman heading in an Omar Hansen free-kick in the 87th minute. Central defender David Zhelev made his 100th appearance for Casuals in this match.