Dougie Wilson: An Autobiography (Mini-Series type of thing, kinda)

[Offspring8]

Dougie Wilson.

A couple of years ago that name meant nothing to the world of football. Now, that name is known to be responsible for turning a football club into so much more than just that. Dougie Wilson is the man that has taken his club to heights that many can only dream of.

He has guided his club past the likes of Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid and turned them into the ultimate football club, capable of producing its own youngsters to sustain the team as well as seeing them move into the most modern football stadium the world has seen thus far.

In these series of books he will reveal everything – including Wilson's insight on what caused the now fierce rivalry with Juventus and what really happened on the most explosive night in the history of football to date; on which he infamously had a colossal bust up, with one of his most important players, following a Champions League Final match which had fatal repercussions for said player.

Chelsea FC is the most secretive club in the world. It is also the biggest club in world football, and that is thanks to Dougie Wilson. This is his story on how he turned Chelsea from a very good team into a legendary football club.

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Chapter 1: Core Values

I have a vision for how a club should be run – and it's a bloody strict vision, let me tell you that. My players have to be determined, ruthless, loyal and - above all else - they have to love and respect the emblem that sits proudly over their hearts.

It sounds cheesey doesn't it? Honestly though, I damn well mean what I say. The club has to be the be all and end all.

But this goes beyond the players. The staff have to be the same. So do the youngsters in the academy. Even the guys and girls in the PR department have to have those values. That's what I demanded from Roman Abramovich when I turned up here and that's what I've based everything around.

So that's where I started. I discarded those that I already knew did not have those values in their character.

A lot was made in the media about how I dealt with Fernando Torres on my first day in the job. I have seen many different versions of the story floating around and many of them have elements of truth in them. This is how it really happened.

I hadn't even been manager of the club for an hour when I called Fernando and asked him to come to my office. When he arrived, I wasted no time in offering him a seat because I didn't want to drag things out. I'd already decided that I didn't want him at my club and, no matter what he said, that was that.

So I told him that when I looked at him, I saw a striker that was full of self pity, and that is not what I want at my club. I needed somebody that was loud, nasty and arrogant – somebody that was a scrapper. Not somebody that reminded me of a wet flannel.

Obviously he threw a bit of a tantrum, but that was that as far as I was concerned. His way of getting back at the club was to demand that Chelsea pay him £100,000 per week until the end of his contract following his £4.5M transfer to Porto. I think he was expecting us to reject that demand, but instead I insisted that we accept it as a statement to him about how badly I wanted him gone.

Nothing says stay away from my club quite like paying somebody £100,000 a week to keep their sorry arse away. If, after being sold for such a measly amount and being paid such a high amount to stay away, he still didn't get the message of how lowly I rated him, he really is a grape short of a fruit bowl.

I also helped Florent Malouda out of the door, though he was a genuinely nice bloke. He'd actually been trying to get out for a year already when I turned up but the club were holding him to his contract. Personally I have no space at my club for people that don't want to be there. As far as I'm concerned, those people don't exist at my club.

This first player that I brought in was Luke Shaw. He'd been a Chelsea fan from a young age so I knew he'd have no trouble being loyal to the club or respecting the emblem. He also had plenty of ability, so the only thing in question was his determination. Ultimately, that is why he never succeeded at the club; he didn't have enough drive to meet our demands.

Follwing Luke, I brought in Marouane Fellaini for £22M. We all know how this story ends, but in that first season for us he was immense. He dominated the midfield like I've seen nobody else do since Michael Essien was in his prime. He was strong and full of fight and he epitomised what I was after – at least, he did when he first joined us.

After those two signings, I wanted the rest of our money put towards our youth system. The only way for me to truly bring through the type of players that I need is to get them at a young age and mould them to how I need them to be. That is what my success has been based around – of course, I was buying those types of players for the first few years, but what we were really concentrating on was growing these types of players in our academy.

That's how you get the thoroughbred players that I am basing everything around. These kids would die for their club if they had to, and that's what I need.

'The great thing with young players is that if you confront them with a barbed wire fence, they’ll run straight through it. An older player will walk two hundred yards to find a gate' – Sir Alex Ferguson

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[mistahc]

Great start, and love the style and quote.

[tenthreeleader]

A Chelsea man quoting SAF. Clearly his own man

I see a bit of the late Jim Thomson in Mr. Wilson. That's a good thing. Good luck with this, Offy.

[Offspring8]

Thanks guys, Sir Alex does home some memorable quotes but that one is probably my favourite any reminder of Jim Thomson is definitely a good thing, can't go wrong with that at all.

Chapter 2: He's A Nice Kid... That Just Won't Do

Another of the demands that I made when I came to Chelsea was that I'd be given time. Not just one or two seasons, but a real amount of time to flush out the old attitude and breed my own. Anybody who thought that could be achieved in just a couple of seasons is severely deluded.

I was happy with John Terry and Frank Lampard as the captain and vice-captain of my team. They epitomised what I was after from my players and I would eventually get them heavily involved in the tutoring of some of our brightest prospects at the club, so that they could take on the same characteristics as Terry and Lampard and eventually pass that on down to the next generation of footballers after them – it's an ongoing thing.

This is how I see the club living from now on; they will produce these types of characters year after year who will break into the first team and carry on winning with Chelsea FC, never wanting to leave. Frank is still heavily involved in that process today, but as a coach now. He still passes those same traits on through and instils the same values in the youngsters year after year and I love him for it.

As for John; I tried getting him to join my backroom staff following his retirement after the 2016/17 season. He was extremely grateful for the offer but he was passionate about getting started in management straight away, so decided to take the Blackburn job in the Championship. I do not begrudge him that in any way and I hope things go well for him and Blackburn and we meet in the Premier League again soon.

Looking beyond John and Frank though, I saw no youngsters with the potential to be the natural future leaders of the club. So I decided to make one.

Romelu Lukaku is well known to be a Chelsea fan. It is said that he cried when he joined the club and I knew he cared about Chelsea and was proud to be a Chelsea player – both important things to me. He also has this incredible drive to improve and I haven't even mentioned his physical stature yet!

Despite all of this though, I did have a few issues with big Rom. He was a quiet, humble kid – never one to blow his own trumpet. A lot of people saw that as a good sign of his nature, but I didn't like it because it showed in the way he played football at the time. In my eyes, you could be the most caring, sincere character in the world and that's all well and good but if that translated into the way you play as a striker on the pitch, well... that just isn't going to cut it for me.

The best example for me was and still is Didier Drogba. The guy single handedly stopped a civil war in his own country as well as building a state-of-the-art hospital over there to go with the multitude of schools erected by him – a wonderful guy. However, when he got on the pitch, he was an animal. He'd rather die than see somebody beat him, and that's what I needed.

So I set about changing Romelu to be a bit nastier. In training, I would pick him up for the slightest mistake – even if the guy next to him made the same mistake or even a worse one, I would nail Romelu. When I gave everybody a lap around the training field as a punishment, I'd make Romelu do an extra lap for whatever reason I could find – his laces weren't tied properly, his boots were dirty, whatever I could find. If I couldn't find anything, I'd just blame it on a lack of effort from him, though that was never truly the case.

It was a hard way of learning for him and I know he hated me because of it, but it had to be done to help him grow. A story not known by the press is that, eventually, Romelu came to me in tears and asked to leave the club. His reasons were that, though he loved the club, he could see that he wasn't my type of player and he didn't want to waste his own nor my time, so he'd rather leave the club and everybody move on.

I simply rejected his request. When he asked me why, I told him that he was under contract and that was that. What I was saying in a hidden way was that I wanted him at the club and I could see his great potential as a possible future captain, but obviously he was in no state of mind to read between the lines at that point in time.

And that was how I broke him. He was hysterical – he threw his chair out of my office, punched a hole in the wall and left in tears. All the while I sat there grinning. I'd done it. I'd awoken the animal inside him.

Now all that was left to do was tame it, train it and then unleash it on the footballing world. I was a happy man.

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[Offspring8]

Chapter 3: Strange Beginnings

We had a poor pre-season tour of China that year, winning just 2 of our 5 friendlies. I've always been of the opinion though that pre-season matches are merely slight upgrades on the mock matches that we play in training and so, contrary to what the press would have you believe, I don't mind bad results pre-season as long as that form doesn't carry over.

It's a little superstition of mine that players have a bank of mistakes per season. Some more than others, but everybody will make a mistake at some point. I'd much rather they used up all of those mistakes in pre-season matches and have nothing left in that bank come the real matches. I appreciate it's a weird way of thinking, but it's just one of my... things. Every manager has them.

Unfortunately, we then lost the Community Shield match to Man City by one goal to nil and I wasn't okay with that. Some say it's a glorified friendly, I see it as the first chance to send a message out to your rivals: We're here - and we mean business. Regardless of what trophy is on the line and what that trophy represents, when it is a match against one of your title rivals, it's always important to get that psychological edge over them from the beginning.

Still, I didn't lose it with the players. They were still adapting to the way I ran the club – I was going to say ' adapting to my way of playing', but it's more a way of being as opposed to just playing. I used that match as a measuring stick for them. City were the reigning champions and they'd just beaten us – that's the level we'd need to rise past and maintain if we were to be the best around.

With that in mind, my staff and I set about our work and we started the season fairly well. As well as that, I began the rebuilding process of Romelu Lukaku. He was praised when he showed aggression, passion and dogged determination and berated whenever he gave anything less than 100%. That's what I needed my future captain to be, and I'd damn well drag him there if I had to.

I rebuilt his confidence bit by bit by showing him that I had faith in him and making him my main striker. Slowly, whether he noticed it or not, he was becoming what I and Chelsea needed him to be.

During the summer, I brought in some new faces to help me. Gary Neville was one of them and he has been magnificent for the club to this very day. When I explained my vision to him on what I wanted Chelsea to become, he loved the idea and wanted in straight away. Having people like that among your staff is what you need – people that are as passionate about your plan as you are yourself.

We lost the European Super Cup match against Atletico Madrid at the end of August thanks to Falcao. That boy really taught our defence a thing or two on that night and it was a lesson they wouldn't forget. The match following that was a 0-0 draw at home to Arsenal and then in late September we lost 1-2 to United at Old Trafford.

Other than those games, we'd won every match and we were smashing the smaller teams – back to back wins against QPR and Reading saw us score 12 goals and let none in, however we had still not won a game against a big team yet.

At the beginning of December we crashed out of the Capital One Cup to Birmingham after losing 3-1 and that set me off. Our next match was at home against Man City and I called out the big players; John Terry, Frank Lampard, Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Petr Cech, all of them were challenged by me to step things up and boy did they do it.

We beat Man City 2-1 with an extra time goal from John Terry and that was like the flame to a firework. Our next match was against Liverpool and we steamrollered them with a 7-0 victory in which Hazard and Lukaku were on fire.

Following that, we waltzed through the World Championships and won the first title of our era. Throughout December, we played 9 matches, scored 26 and conceded 2.

That was brought to a shuddering halt on the 1st of January though as we were knocked out of the FA Cup 3rd round thanks to a 0-3 loss to Wigan. A few days later, we lost 1-3 to Fulham in the league and things weren't looking good. It was January and we were out of both domestic cups, we'd lost the Community Cup and the European Super Cup matches and we'd won just one of our big games so far.

Despite being clear at the top of the league by 7 points and through to the knockout rounds of the Champions League, some in the press were asking questions about whether Roman would pull the trigger on me.

By now though, we were just getting started. The seeds had been planted and the first few cogs in our footballing machine were finally beginning to turn. As we approached the business end of the season, signs of the birth of the new Chelsea were beginning to show, though it was just the tip of the iceberg.

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[Offspring8]

Chapter 4: Learning To Walk

After the early January loss to Fulham, we really stepped things up a gear. The players were beginning to understand where I wanted to go and they were happy to follow. We went on an unbeaten streak until the end of March, winning 11 out of 13 games while drawing the other two.

This run included an away win over Arsenal, a home win over Manchester United and an 8-4 win over Zenit in the Champions Cup round of 16 to put us through to the quarter finals against United. We'd finally started to collect points from the big games and we were 10 points clear at the top of the table by the end of March.

Unfortunately, we then ran into tough times which started with a 0-1 home loss against Aston Villa. Looking back, I think the lads got nervous. At the time, a lot of that team hadn't won the Premier League with Chelsea and some, like Eden, Romelu and Oscar, hadn't won a big trophy at all yet. It's at times like that when you realise that experienced players are a vital component of any successful team, and I'm not afraid to admit that I learnt a thing or two during that run-in.

We battled bravely against United in the first leg of the Champions Cup quarter final at Old Trafford, but we lost 2-3 thanks to a late winner from Rooney for the home side. From that point onwards though, the older players and John Terry in particular stepped up and guided us through our toughest moment of the season.

Following that demoralising loss to United, we scrapped to a 1-1 draw over Tottenham at White Hart Lane which I commended the players for. City had now gained 4 points on us in less than a week and with 6 games left to go – 1 of which was away at Man City – we were now only 6 points clear of them.

The return leg against United in the Champions Cup was a real signal of intent by us as we thumped them 4-0 at home, our old guard leading the way with a Frank Lampard hat-trick. We would now go through to the semi finals where we'd come up against Barcelona; if we were going to win the Champions Cup and defend our title, we'd be doing it the hard way. But then again, that's always been the Chelsea way when it comes to the Champions Cup.

Back in the league, we came up against City. Win and we'd probably knock the wind out of their sail and nudge ourselves over the finish line in first place. Lose and it was anyone's guess.

We were given the lead by an ever-growing Lukaku, but our nerves got the better of us and we lost 2-1. Mancini had beaten me yet again.

3 points ahead, 4 games to go.

Back to the Champions Cup. Once again the first leg was away from home, which I always think is an advantage. Our gameplan was to strike on the counter and hope for the best and we got absolutely battered that night at the Nou Camp. The final stats read Barcelona: 32 shots, 19 on target, Chelsea: 3 shots, 1 on target.

Final score: 1-1. To this day, I have no idea how we got away with it on that night. Some people say that we are Barca's bogey team. I think we just have a psychological edge over them, and we always have done. If you ask Barcelona which team they want to avoid the most, it's always been Chelsea since the Mourinho days. I don't know what it is exactly, but we just have their number and I bloody love it.

We scraped a narrow win at Sunderland to keep City 3 points away from us before the return leg against Barcelona. Once again it was a narrow match but a goal from John Terry saw us through to the final at Wembley.

I have to say, when I saw who we'd be facing I simply laughed. Manchester City and Roberto Mancini. Football works in mysterious ways.

In the league, we continued to duke it out. We failed to win either of our next two games but City also slipped up slightly and failed to close the gap completely.

2 points ahead, 1 game to go.

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[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Very good start here Offspring, really enjoying the narrative behind it! Keep it up!

[RicardoW]

Love this story set up, great pace and good touch in the player interaction!

[Offspring8]

Thank you very much guys, it's always good to know that people are enjoying what's going up

Chapter 5: Learning To Run

That final game was the ultimate test of steel. We were playing away against Stoke and if there's one team you don't want to play a title decider against away from home, it's Stoke City. In the 85th minute of our game, which was still at 0-0, City scored their first against Everton, sending them level with us on points but ahead of us on goal difference.

2 minutes later, they scored again to seal their victory. For them, it was now simply a case of hoping Stoke could hold out against us for the last few minutes. We flew forward one last time, Oscar releasing Mata down the right wing with a looping pass. Mata reached the ball and checked back onto his magical left foot before chipping the ball across the 6 yard box.

As Romelu spanked that ball home from close range, I simply stood there with my hands in my pockets and nodded.

The staff and players erupted into fits of joy, and I just stood there. We'd needed this. For my plan to come off, these players needed this league title. Young guys like Oscar, Hazard and Romelu needed a title under their belt before they could step to the next level, and this would ensure that that happened. That first league title was probably the most important title I've won to date, for the fact that it set us on the path to be winners.

Everybody connected with the club was delighted – and rightly so. It had been a really tough title to win, but we'd done it and the experience would help the players grow massively. For me though, that was just the beginning. Yeah we'd won one title, but legendary teams don't just win one title and settle. We had to go for more.

As we took to the field for that Champions Cup final, I knew the players were spent. It had been such a long, tough season and I knew that becoming the first team to successfully defend their Champions Cup was a big ask. Still, that's what legendary teams do; they turn up when everything looks lost.

Those players battled for the club on that night and I was as proud as I'd ever been. Despite losing 0-2, my players ran themselves into the ground for their club and for each other and there was nothing I could do following the game but console them.

I remember getting them all together in the changing room after the match and telling them to pull themselves together. We were the Premier League Champions and Champions Cup finalists. I told them that that experience would only strengthen their desire to win next season, and that's what you need as a player. If it had all come to us in one season, it might have actually spoiled the whole plan. This gave us a fire deep down.

At the end of that season, I was happy. John Terry had been our stand out performer in that season and was rightly voted the fans Player of the Year. He admitted to me that the plan I'd come in with suited him down to the ground and he flourished under it, which was one of the major reasons that things have gone so well for me years down the line. He set an example and the youngsters were following him.

Eden Hazard was voted Players Young Player of the Year and I knew he would also flourish under this plan. At the end of that season, I told him that if he stuck with me, I'd help him rise to the level of Messi and Ronaldo, and I'm a man of my word. You all know how that's turned out.

Come the end of the season, Chelsea's Team of the Year was:

GK: Petr Cech – 56 apps, 0 goals, 7.02 Avg rating

DR: Cesar Azpilicueta – 46 apps, 2 goals, 7.33 Avg rating

DC: John Terry – 45 apps, 14 goals, 7.65 Avg rating

DC: David Luiz – 38 apps, 1 goal, 7.37 Avg rating

DL: Ashley Cole – 41 apps, 2 goals, 7.20 Avg rating

MC: Marouane Fellaini – 39 apps, 7 goals, 7.52 Avg rating

MC: Ramires – 41 apps, 5 goals, 7.19 Avg rating

AMR: Oscar – 48 apps, 6 goals, 7.09 Avg rating

AMC: Juan Mata – 32 apps, 6 goals, 7.23 Avg rating

AML: Eden Hazard – 43 apps, 15 goals, 7.40 Avg rating

ST: Demba Ba – 34 apps, 18 goals, 7.39 Avg rating

S1: Ross Turnbull – 4 apps, 0 goals, 7.10 Avg rating

S2: Branislav Ivanovic – 40 apps, 1 goal, 7.15 Avg rating

S3: Frank Lampard – 36 apps, 5 goals, 7.18 Avg rating

S4: Marko Marin – 30 apps, 6 goals, 7.12 Avg rating

S5: Romelu Lukaku – 26 apps, 18 goals, 7.42 Avg rating

S6: Gary Cahill – 25 apps, 3 goals, 7.23 Avg rating

S7: Daniel Sturridge – 41 apps, 4 goals, 6.93

So, having won the Premier League and finished as runners up in the Champions Cup, what was my follow up idea? Why, I'd go and spend £54M on one player of course!

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[Offspring8]

Chapter 6: Stick 'em And Move

So we'd won the Premier League and reached the final of the Champions Cup in my first season – that's enough to rest on for a while, right?

Wrong. I took no holiday that summer – I let the players have some time off, but I stayed at the club to prepare for the 2013/14 season. After having a season at the club and getting to know the players a bit more, I had an even better idea of who would fit into my plans going forward and who would not.

Marko Marin was first out of the door to Aston Villa for £13M. He was a decent enough player, but he just didn't have the attitude I was looking for; he wasn't ready to give his heart and soul to the club, and that wasn't acceptable.

Michael Essien and Daniel Sturridge soon followed Marko out of the door to Valencia and Man United respectively for a combined fee of £20M. Believe it or not I had more of an issue letting Michael go to Valencia than I did letting Daniel go to United. At his peak, Michael Essien was perfect for the club I'm making, however his injuries have turned him into a different animal entirely and he just wasn't good enough for the squad, as heart-breaking as that was to admit.

With Danny Sturridge, people kicked off about 'selling to a rival' and all that rubbish. As far as I'm concerned if a rival needs someone that I'm trying to get rid of, that tells me that we're headed in the right direction. With time, I'd be proven right as Daniel wasted his unmistakable talent first at United and then at Tottenham. His career is probably the biggest waste I've seen in football so far.

My only marquee signing that summer was the £54M purchase of Neymar. At the time he played as a striker but I saw his future as a right winger, which is where he plays today. His addition gave me a choice between any three of Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Oscar, De Bruyne and obviously Neymar himself as my AM R/L/C band to play behind Lukaku and in front of Ramires/Lampard and Fellaini. Tell me that list didn't arouse you slightly?

That summer was when we laid the groundwork for the future. Roman Abramovich, Michael Emenalo and myself all worked closely with our scouting team to identify some names that we thought would fit the profile of the club that we were trying to make and we unearthed a few rough diamonds that are household names nowadays.

All of the signings not named Neymar were 17 and under. Aitor Roca was the first in, the Spanish full back costing £1M in total. He can now be found at Swansea where he is regarded as one of the best right-backs in the Premier League. In my opinion, he could easily cut it at Champions Cup level and I'd be surprised if we don't see him there soon.

Kai Bastian Lorant also joined us for £4.5M from Shalke. Even as a 16 year old, he had this incredible determination about him and I knew he would fit into what I was trying to build perfectly. As the years passed he became John Terry's understudy and that enabled him to grow into a fine central defender that now embodies everything about the club.

There were some other names that you'll recognise as well that came in that summer; Tobias Hermann, Luca Fornasiero, Ludovic Calvez and more. All in all our team done a fantastic job of securing a whole host of youngsters from all over the world that would grow into exactly what we needed.

For me though, the youngster that got me the most excited was Laurence Hart. A Chelsea fan since he was young, as soon as Birmingham accepted our £4.5M offer his mind was made up. We had Frank Lampard tutor Laurence from the day he arrived at the club and they still work closely together to this day.

The kid is just exceptional. He has a solid all-round game and he excels when in that double pivot position in midfield. The fact that he had 30 England caps by the time he turned 21 just goes to show how good he really is – I can't tell you how rare it is for somebody to play in his position and get that many caps for a top country at such a young age. He is a model professional – absolute class.

That summer was also when the talk of a new stadium started to gather some pace. Although I loved Stamford Bridge, it was the one thing holding us back from entering a completely new tier of clubs so I pushed hard for a new ground. The board agreed and began upping their search for a suitable site to develop.

While the rest of the world stood still, we were on the move. Our rise to the top was gathering pace and god help anybody that stood in our way.

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[Offspring8]

Chapter 7: Winning At Home

That summer, having guided the club back to the summit of the Premier League and to the second consecutive final of the Champions Cup, I was rewarded with a new four-year contract. That was a huge moment for me – that was when I knew that the club were with me in my vision for sure.

I sat down with Roman and the directors and made it clear to them that domestic domination was the next order and they were on board from the start.

When Chelsea won the Champions Cup against Bayern in their own back yard in 2012, it was a very, very special moment for all connected to the club. It was unique – alas, that is also its downfall. It was a one-off. A freak streak. Chelsea were champions of Europe, but they weren't the undisputed champions. They'd defied the odds, but they hadn't dominated and destroyed.

It was wonderful. But for Roman, that wasn't enough.

I remember explaining my vision to the directors for that upcoming season. I wanted to secure back-to-back Premier League titles and I wanted to sweep the domestic cups. I wanted the English treble and, armed with my new £54M Neymar purchase, I was ready to go hell for leather and wipe out all domestic competitions.

It was then that they sprung the new stadium on me; a 58,500 seater based just a stones throw from Stamford Bridge and equipped with the best facilities that money could buy. They'd decided to call it Zola Park, and they wouldn't be hearing any complaints from me after honouring the best player in the clubs history with that.

Away from all of that excitement, I knew things were nearing an end with some of the most decorated players at the club. Ashley Cole had been talking about retirement for a while and I knew that Frank Lampard, despite what he was saying in the press about wanting to play on for as long as possible, also had one eye on life after playing.

They still had a big job to do though – particularly Ash. Ryan Bertrand had been with the club for years and was always seen as the heir to Ash's throne, and this season would be his breakthrough season.

We started the year off by winning the Community Shield against a familiar foe in Manchester City. As I've already mentioned, I take the Community Shield more seriously than most. It is your first chance to get on top of your rivals – in simple terms, it's a chance to win a football match! Why would you be okay with losing? I've never understood that mentality.

So we won 2-1. To give you an idea of the kind of run those wins can set you on, over the course of the next 23 games, we won 18 games (including at Arsenal, home and away to PSG, Tottenham, Zenit and then also a memorable 4-1 demolition of Liverpool at Anfield), drew 4 and lost just one at Old Trafford to United under a 2-3 scoreline. A win is a win is a win, as they say, and the Community Shield is no different.

In the January of the 2013/14 season though, we were brought thundering back down to earth. 3 consecutive losses (2 of which were to Arsenal) had us reeling and behind in the Capital One Cup Semi Final on aggregate. A 2-1 loss at the Emirates meant we were coming back to the bridge in poor form and a goal behind and my aim of sweeping the domestic competitions was in trouble.

We followed that up with a 1-1 draw to Premier League Huddersfield in the FA Cup 4th Round and all of a sudden we looked a very shaky team. Having lost to Arsenal in the Capital One Cup Semi Final 1st leg 2-1 and then followed that up with a 3-1 loss to Arsenal in the league, rounded off with a 1-1 draw to Huddersfield in the FA Cup, our upcoming fixture list did not look very welcoming at all:

Arsenal (Capital One Cup 2nd Leg) H

Newcastle (PL) A

Man Utd (PL) H

Huddersfield (FA Cup 4th Rnd replay) H

Everton (PL) A

Tottenham (PL) A

Man City (PL) A

Leverkusen (CL) A

With Fellaini out at the time until March, I feared the worst for our domestic domination aims.

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[tenthreeleader]

Glad you're pulling this out of the fire. Will look forward to more!