theBlackPrince

Thank you for checking in. It was going to be too easy if I didn't swerve the story and try something different with the youth focus! Last 2 seasons have been some of the toughest I have had in years which is refreshing!

Back to back Some of them wages for League One are eye-watering! Looks like you should be able to cope at this level and be pushing on up the table once more!

Season 8 - 4th Season in the Championship A 4th season in the Championship and we hope for a season not fighting at the bottom. I don't think we can challenge for the top spots, but I think we can finish comfortably in the middle of the pack and look to continue to develop our younger players over the next few seasons. We still have the smallest ground in the Championship so making money will always be a worry and the big boys are coming in to unsettle our top players, so it will be playing unhappy players most weeks. Most are on long term deals so I am not too worried at this point!

End of Season 7 Break

Season 7 - End of Season Summary We survived, which was the only aim of the season! We never managed to leave the bottom half of the table, 1 week in 16th place and the rest of the time around 20th. But when the final game was done, we were not Lincoln, QPR or Stoke who are heading down to League One. Strangely our away form was better than the home form, but we did play half the season in Lincoln at the LNER stadium so not quite at home. It was probably the away form that actually kept us in the League compared to those around us. I am starting to feel like we have the players improving where this may be the last season of struggle in the Championship, but we will see if that is true or not. We would have been lost without the goals and assists from Nicholas Adamu LC24, who has proved a great signing from Lincoln City. The move to pay Matija Sarkic a high wage for a club of our size has paid off the keeper is in his prime and is helping develop the keepers of the future. We may now start to see players stepping up from the Under 21's and Under 18's as some of our players are at their potential and hopefully we are good enough next year to avoid that relegation battle.

Under 18 Premier Development League Success - Back to Back Winners The first team struggled may not last for many more seasons as the under 18 team has won the Under 18 Professional Development League for the second year running, defeating Millwall Under 18's in the final. 15 from 20 victories saw Boston United U18 take the North title before defeating Watford in the Semi-Final. What a performance from the youngsters who have performed above all expectations to win this again. With the youth teams starting to take shape, we will add a focus for them once we start the new season!

2030 Youth Intake

January to March 2030 Looking back, I feel like we made it hard for teams to come to The Jakemans Community Stadium since we moved back in at the end of January as it now sits at 11,481 capacity, and I'm pleased to say we managed to fill that in the last 4 home games. The games against Lincoln City and Soke at the end of March were key battles, losing to Lincoln was not an option when we sat in 21st place. That huge win pushed us above Swansea and West Brom. We had a chance at the end of March to beat Stoke to really put some space between us and the bottom 3 but they would gain the win to keep the pressure on, but we had a 5 point gap. 7 games to go, 5 points from safety but we face the teams in our last games. Sheffield United (Home) - 12th Bristol City (Home) - 14th Preston (Away) - 10th Watford (Away) - 18th West Brom (Home) - 20th Nottingham Forest (Away) - 1st Reading (Home) - 5th Lets just say we need to be safe and not needing a result on the last 2 games of the season as both look to be games we will not be able to get anything from. I can see us getting a maximum of 4-5 points here, lets hope that is enough!!

Fantastic season to get the League won with games in hand. Now to see what the team is made of in the Prem next season!

October to December 2029 Update This has been a real slog, ever win is a fight an the struggle to score goals is real. I genuinely feel that we could go down this season, especially seems our best two defenders are out of contract at the end of the season and wont sign a new deal. Just 2 points ahead of the bottom 3 and even with Sheffield United gaining a 12 point deduction for going into administration, we are going to need to go on a good run at some point. At least it looks like we finally have some Youth Academy players who are defenders in this intake as we are short across all 3 teams.

Tough end of the season losing to Lincoln of all teams And then to Win 10-0 in what should have won the title only for City to win 6-0, you could not make that up, WOW!!

August and September 2029 Update

Fantastic season so far and love the presentation, very clean and fresh!!

Season 7 - Championship 3rd Season We managed to survive last season with our youth only + Lincolnshire born/youth system we implemented at the start of season 6. After 5 season of winning at will, the challenge became real with struggling with form and getting results. I have a feeling, with the lack of players we can buy, that this season will probably be a struggle once more! We managed one loan signing of Yannick Nganza 26c, who had made a £12,500,000 move to Leeds and Ayden Hopewell B24d moved back the other way in a £5,750,000 deal from Leeds to us. We were due 50% of his next sell on, so we got half of that money back for a total spend of around £2,875,000. He does not seem to have developed as much as Leeds wanted when they parted with £10,250,000 only a few years ago. We are predicted to finish bottom once more so once again, we are going to have to work hard to get results and avoid the drop. Hopefully we start to see some real development of the players with the gametime this year which will help us over the next few years to be able to challenge for Premier League Football maybe for our 10th season. We will also spend our second season in Lincoln at the LNER stadium as the board granted 2 more upgrades to The Jakemans Community Stadium, due to be completed by end of January 2030 and raise our capacity to 11,481. I think the stadium can go to 15,000ish before we need a new stadium so this might be needed in the next few seasons. Planned Youth and Training facilities upgrades are also happening to keep us moving forward!

End of Season Break

End of Season 6 Review - Championship - 16th Position We survived!! I thought for a while we would really struggle to stay up, but Sheffield Wednesday got a 12 point deduction for going into administration and Cardiff and Millwall just struggled all season long. The team started to come together and we were able to play the youth players pretty consistently in the final 5 matches, with the last 2 securing 2 victories! We have plenty to work on for next year and hopefully we can look to move into the top half. There are not too many players for us to go after so most of the squad will be the same with a few players we may need to bring up from the youth teams.

Fidalgo unhappy, Miller the replacement? Alvaro Fidalgo is one of our better players and has a top DNA score. However, he is unhappy for the second time this season on playing time despite us rotating players with the demands with Europe. Lennon Miller grades as one of the highest DNA prospects on the midfielders we have looked at and has a release clause of £7,500,000. We are confident of getting a much higher fee for Fidalgo, who is the more technically gifted player but Miller already has the edge mentally and physically. Do we take a chance on the untested 18 year old, who wouldn't be needed to play and perform from day one with a good number of players in the MC position?

We have decided on the clubs DNA, looking at what was important to Clough and his squads when he took Forest to European Glory. "You get the ball, you pass it to a Red shirt" Well disciplined team. Demanded hard work and effort from everyone. Ball on the floor, passing to another man in a red shirt. Passing, Anticipation, Bravery, Composure, Decisions, Determination, Teamwork, Work Rate, Natural Fitness, Stamina I think these especially would be what made the team, with Work Rate, Determination and Bravery probably in the top 3. Forest didn't always have the best players, but Clough got the best out of them. He didn't need the whole team to be technically gifted, often saying that the centre backs were "just there to head it and kick it and keep the ball away from his goal". A simple game played with the best intentions. So how does the current set up and players brough in look? Unsurprisingly, fan favourites like Ryan Yates score highly and a key reason he is staying in the first team, retrained on the right as he just is the heartbeat of the team. Pleased to say the new signings all score highly on the DNA, especially with Lewis Ferguson and the 18 year old Archie Gray. Some of the players under the 125 mark are key performers, such as Anthony Elanga and Taiwo Awoniyi, but they may struggle to continue in the team if we keep increasing the DNA requirements. On looking at this, players such as Callum Hudson-Odoi, Nduka Junior and Henrik Skogvold may not fit in the clubs long term DNA vision, In the Under 21's David Watson looks like he has all the qualities to move to the first team shortly. A £4,800,000 buy from Kilmarnock, he has that "it" factor that we need to monitor and look at how he develops. 16 year old Jack Richardson scores highly and is another to see how his development goes. I will also be looking to plug the data in from scouted players to help make decisions on players to sign and see if this DNA is right for us.

A much better period, especially in December when we picked up 4 wins, all against teams that are close to us in the table. We have started to put a little distance between us and the bottom 3 by 7 points, but that can soon be eroded down with a run of playing the top sides. Nicholas Adamu LC24 is the star of the show as he has 14 goals to his name, which is almost half of the teams 31 goals this season. We will struggle to bring many players in to help in the transfer window as there are only 3 players who can improve the first team currently.

I really need some defenders.... Looks like another year to wait to get them or try and see if there are any potential ones out there at other Lincolnshire academies.

With the large amount of changes to the team and removing most of the better players, we were favourites for the drop and probably is a fair assessment of the youth academy/Lincolnshire player team. We have to hope we can stay up this year and keep using the facilities to improve our players. I guess if we went down, I should be safe from the sack and could properly rebuild and come back stronger. We shall see how the year goes! Well, we are not bottom! We have lost the most games out of all the team, 6 from 9 League games but we have won the other 3 to sit outside the bottom 3! Conceded the most goals but we have a bright spark in Nicholas Adamu LC24 who has 6 goals to start the season strong. Struggling to get any formation to work at this point so it keeps changing every few games until we can try and get something that will maximise the points against the lower league teams. Let's keep picking up points and strive to stay outside the bottom 3!

No, I don't think would get the same players another time around, not without looking for them. I guess with different PA it would be different even with the same players as some will be better or worse. Appreciate you checking in once more!!