warlock

Sinners & Saints May 2028 - the end of the road After clinching the title and the unexpected victory over Real Madrid in the home leg of the Champions League, the players - perhaps not surprisingly - suffered a severe drop-off in form and performance. Of our three remaining Premier League games, we failed to win any. We lost at home 1-2 to Liverpool, 2-3 to United at Old Trafford, and finally stopped the rot with a goalless draw away at Newcastle. We led 2-0 at halftime against United and the capitulation was a worry in what was a dress rehearsal for the FA Cup final. Before that, we had the return leg of the Champions League semi-final to play in Madrid: It was "rabbits in headlights" stuff from us as the home side bossed the game from start to finish. Still, over two legs it was an achievement to go out 3-4 on aggregate and, as I told the media, there was no shame in the defeat. So we headed to Wembley for the FA Cup final, the last match in a 65-game season, wondering how I could lift the players for one last effort. We did enjoy a full week's rest before the game and I gave the entire squad two days free of training, held a team meeting in which I tried to find a middle ground between adding to the pressure and telling them they were on a hiding to nothing, and decided to return to our positive, front-foot style of football. We are back-to-back champions of England, one of the four best teams in Europe this season and - dammit! - we were going to play like it. The first half was a cagey affair and I'd decided that I'd give Edozie, who was doing little but give the ball away, would get 10 minutes before I hauled him off. Right on deadline, we worked the ball into the United area and it fell to Edozie on the edge of the D. He ran all the way around the back of the defence before hooking a shot just inside the near post to give us the lead. Just four minutes later, we worked the ball down the left wing where Edozie took control, drove into the area and, with a cheeky rabona, put it on a plate for Abraham to tap in. Player of the match in four minutes. It's been a great journey, lit up by some of the outstanding young talents we uncovered along the way. But now I think it's time to take care of some unfinished business in Malaga - I hope you'll join me there

Severe pain in the shins, caused by repetitive shocks to the bone and covering tissue, usually brought on by physical exercise. Apparently . Cured by a period of several weeks' rest, it says here.

Well, this is the worst possible news: Arguably our best player, and he'll miss the rest of the season

Here's how the gameday played out, allowing us to clinch the title: City dropped points to Arsenal; United lost at home; we took care of Spurs; and Forest held Liverpool to a draw. There's quite the battle going on for the Champions League and other European spots, but ultimately we were just a bit more consistent than our rivals. Table now looks like this: With the title secured we'll be focussed on Real Madrid in the Champions League and Man United in the FA Cup final. I have no expectations against the former, but have a belief we can beat United.

I understood that reference Cheers buddy!

Sinners & Saints April 2028 - Part 2 Premier League I said last time that I'd like to sew up the title as early as possible as our final four league fixtures were against four of the toughest opponents. We did our best: We saw off Everton with little difficulty, and had to dig deep against Fulham who were fighting for survival in the bottom three. The critical game came against City at the Etihad: City had endured an up-and-down season but came into this one unbeaten in 7 games and still in with a chance of claiming the title. I knew we were up against it so I did something I've never done before - went all-in on the counter-attack and started with a 'cautious' mentality. It worked better than I could have hoped as we denied them the ball for long periods and, while they peppered our goal with shots, most were off-target. We took the lead as DM Patrick Berg pounced on a loose ball outside the City area and drilled it in off the post, and we held on until the interval. But we switched off at the start of the second half and allowed City an equaliser, and had a late scare when Haaland bundled the ball over our goal line in a scramble but were relieved to see it ruled out for offside. A point gained, or two points dropped? Our task became no easier as we travelled away again, this time to Tottenham. The cautious approach had served us well in Manchester so I repeated it here: And it worked even better as we grabbed a second-half lead and - this time - held on to take the victory. And then we got the news: It's a kind of magic

Sinners & Saints April 2028 - Part 1 Champions League We continued our European adventure with a trip to Naples. And if you'd offered me a draw I'd have snatched your hand off. For a very brief while, it looked as though we might do better than draw as AMC Valentin Carboni fired home in the 40th minute. Unfortunately, we couldn't hold on to the lead until the break as Napoli found an equaliser right on the stroke of halftime. Things took a turn for the worse just four minutes after the restart, and then with less than 10 minutes to go, the home side extended their lead further. A 3-1 deficit was looking like a mountain to climb in the return leg. But we fought back and Nino, on as a sub for the ineffective Abraham, scored to give us hope. At St Mary's our prospects took an immediate nosedive as Napoli extended their lead inside 20 minutes, but 7 minutes later Abraham turned provider and set up Nyheim to pull one back. and midway through the second half we levelled the tie when Veloso slipped a through-ball to Gonzalez cutting in from the right wing and he drilled a shot into the far corner. Unfortunately, it took Napoli less than 5 minutes to find the net again and restore their lead. As the clock ticked past the 75 minute mark, I switched to an attacking mentality and it paid almost immediate dividends as inside the last 10 minutes of normal time, the excellent Carboni converted a cross and we were headed to extra time. I decided to stick with the attacking mentality and we produced another of our late blitzes: One of those glorious European nights with excellent football and edge-of-the-seat drama. Our reward is a semi-final tie against Real Madrid! FA Cup We enjoyed just three days' rest after that epic before we headed to Wembley to face Championship side Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-final. After the high drama of Europe, this was simply a ruthlessly efficient performance: We denied them the ball, and scoring opportunities, while we created the better chances and Roony put away the best of them to seal a 1-0 win. We'll face Manchester United in the final.

Well played It's the drama that makes the game . Isn't it?

I'm only guessing, but it looks as though you simply dropped down from Champions League qualifying, to the Europa League league phase

Sinners & Saints March 2028 Our game load in March seemed like a holiday compared to the 7, 8 and 9-game months we played all through the winter. But thanks to an international break, the five games were crammed into a three-week spell. I flagged the Chelsea game as a tough one, given their position as the in-form team of the Premier League, and so it proved. It was a very close contest: They outplayed us at our counter-attacking game and took their chances, while we were unable to convert a lion's share of the possession into good scoring opportunities. But we were back to winning ways for the rest of the month. Arsenal took the odd decision of firing manager Luis Enrique - after just 100 days in charge - just ahead of the return leg of the Champions League tie, leaving the Gunners in the hands of u21s manager, Man City icon Shaun Goater. We capitalised, adding to our 2-0 away win with a 3-1 victory as St Mary's. They did take the opportunity to injure Tammy Abraham (denying him the chance of a hat-trick), ruling him out for the remainder of the month with sprained ankle ligaments. In the FA Cup quarter-final we faced League One Huddersfield, who left me wondering how they'd managed to make it so far. We were 3-0 up in the opening 15 minutes, and led 5-0 at halftime. A towering header from CB Michal Helik from a corner was pretty much their only contribution to the game. Then it was Arsenal, again!, before we finished the month with a trip to Nottingham. It was a similar game to our Carabao Cup final against Everton - an even contest for much of the game as the lead changed hands four times. And then, in the final 15 minutes, we blew them away with three late goals. I wonder if the low intensity of our tactical approach is what gives us the ability to surge past tiring opponents late in games, something we've done often this season. In April it's back to the grind, with 8 games on the schedule, including our Champions League quarter-final where we'll face Italian giants Napoli. I'd also like to get the Premier League title sewn up sooner rather than later, as our last four domestic games couldn't be tougher: Spurs, Liverpool, Man Utd and Newcastle. Not forgetting the FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace at Wembley. Onwards and, hopefully, upwards

Well, we lost Abraham with an ankle injury - only two weeks (hopefully) but he'll miss some big games. But we've been very lucky with injuries, so I can't really complain about that either

Hmm... not what I had in mind .

Going along nicely, bar that really irritating loss to Lincoln - hate scoring 3 and still coming out on the losing end. One good FA Cup tie away to a big club could make a world of difference to the finances. Fingers crossed

Sinners & Saints February 2028 For the shortest month of the year, February certainly packed in a few games. And since this is a Leap Year, the fixture computer took the opportunity to squeeze in another on the last day of the month. Despite the hectic schedule we managed to maintain our good form. While we're scoring for fun we're also giving up quite a few, to the extent that the board is regularly "concerned" by the number of goals we're conceding. As am I, but given the nature of our current run I'm holding off any further tactical twiddling. Against Spurs in the Carabao Cup semi-final we held a 4-1 advantage from the first leg and the lads did a professional job in sealing the deal. But just in case we were growing complacent, lowly Leeds delivered a slap that brought us down to earth: We were dominant but careless in front of goal, and it took a late goal from CM Sforza to save us the embarrassment of defeat to a side who have been in the relegation zone all season. There were more signs of complacency against West Ham as we led 4-0 at halftime and then allowed them to score twice after the break. Happily, as the Hammers pushed hard to level the match, we hit them twice on the break late on. In the Carabao Cup final against Everton we needed another late flurry of goals to put a gloss on the result: We got off to a poor start, allowing the Toffees to take the lead after 16 minutes before we first equalised before the break and then scored again immediately after. But we were far from comfortable for much of the second half until Everton suddenly collapsed, allowing us to run riot in the last 10 minutes. More Saintly silverware: We progressed to the 6th round of the FA Cup with another 5-1 result against Championship side Derby, saw off a resurgent Brighton side in the league, and then faced Arsenal for the first of three matches in as many weeks, beginning with the two legs of the R16 tie in the Champions League before we face them again in the Premier League. Our gameplan for the Gunners was to keep it tight at the Emirates and then, hopefully, see them off at St Marys. In the event, we did rather better: We were happy to allow them the ball in safe areas while we constantly hit them on the counter. Only a stellar performance from Ramsdale in the Arsenal goal kept the scores level until the turning point in the 73rd minute. Having made all their substitutes, Arsenal went down to 10 men when Raheem Sterling was carried off with a cruciate ligament injury that might spell the end of the career of the 33-year-old as he'll be out for at least 6 months. As gaps began to appear in the Arsenal defence, Abraham got on the end of a Gonzalez cross and we had the lead. Gonzalez was instrumental in the second goal as he drilled a low ball across the Arsenal area and Upamecano turned it into his own net. In the Premier League we continued to stretch our lead as the clubs below us were unable to put together a run of victories - Liverpool lost to Newcastle and dropped points at Leicester; City lost to both West Ham and Norwich; Spurs and United also dropped points this month: Abraham is our top scorer with 29 goals from 39 appearances in all competitions. Backup striker Fer Nino is also scoring at a respectable rate - 14 from 15 starts - but he's very streaky. For example, having bagged a hat-trick on the last day of January, he failed to find the net this month. Our leading source of assists Sforza with 13, with other notable contributions coming from AMR Franco Gonzalez (10 goals, 12 assists) and AML Sam Edozie (14 goals, 9 assists), but all of our AMs are in double-figures for goal contributions. We open March with a tough game against Chelsea - the form team in the league - before the return leg against Arsenal and the FA Cup quarter-final against Huddersfield, before finishing the month with league games away at Arsenal and Forest.

Happy to oblige . Update incoming!

Tough loss against Bodo/Glimt, but a good bounceback win to follow. As Sir Alex used to say, never lose two in a row

Thanks buddy! It did take a while to figure out what was (probably) happening, even though it's quite the forum meme at this point. There's so much happening in the game that it's hard to keep track of everything.

Everything's coming up roses at the moment. Although it needs to... looks like Valerenga are going to be snapping at your heels every step of the way.

Looking forward to it

Ah, that's a shame. Hope you find another good one

It is. It wasn't set up to prioritise possession but we often enjoy 60-65% in games while still carrying a good threat going forward. Most of the changes over the season have been to give us better options in attack, especially against parked buses.

Sinners & Saints January 2028 Tactical interlude We haven't talked tactics for a while and there has been a shift in approach since last season. Nothing major, but a number of small changes. We began the season by dropping the wide AMs back to wide central midfield, both to make us more defensively solid and to provide a base for a consistent counter attack in a 4411 shape with two flat lines of four. That shape generally worked well but against better teams we were exposed in defence, so I then dropped the two CMs to a double-pivot in defensive midfield. That in turn made us more resolute in defence but often lacking a bit of attacking strength. So I pushed the wide midfielders back up to the AM line in a 42dm31 shape. All of these systems used a balanced mentality, and a counter-attacking approach that made sense given our pre-season prediction of a finish just above the halfway position. By the beginning of December, when we were leading the league, I had a sense that our opponents were paying us more respect and were less likely to push forward against us. This often nullified our strategy of sitting slightly deep, luring them out, and hitting balls in behind their midfield. I considered a number of changes, some more radical than others, and then decided that we were actually one of the better teams in the league, were defending champions, and we should start to play like it. That resulted in this system, which we're still using: From the beginning of the season to now, the key changes are a switch to 'positive' mentality for most games; the move of the DMR to CMR (largely because Veloso is an excellent player but can't play DM while Sforza is equally adept at both); and the use of both wide AMs in a support duty, which encourages them to drop back and defend in the 4411 shape. Much of the credit for all of these tactical systems must go to @crusadertsar and his excellent thread here: It's worth noting, I think, the low level of intensity in this tactic. I still have to give everyone 2 days off from training after every game - I have no idea how anyone can use a full-on gegenpress system and not suffer the consequences. And here's how the squad shapes up in this system:

Sinners & Saints January 2028 Transfer window The window turned out to be a bit of a non-event. A couple of youngsters - including the not-so-young Shea Charles - left on loan and we made no incoming signings whatsoever. I was open to signing a replacement for Charles but decided that we didn't need to I was equally willing to entertain moves for improved backups at either AMR or AML or to bring in a third-choice striker. The problem was meeting registration requirements as it was almost certain that any new signing would mean someone missing out on European football. There was also the fact that anyone who could have improved us was likely to break my self-imposed wage structure. Our wage bill has risen rapidly in recent seasons and is now at around £2m per week. That still only puts us mid-table for player wages in the Premier League but we're also at a point where we're breaking even year-on-year and I'd have to see sustained European success before I'd be happy to go much higher. We did have to fend off a couple of offers. The rumoured Saudi interest never materialised but we had two significant offers from Man Utd. The first was for LCB Lorenzo Pirola, for an initial £31m rising to a potential £49m. Happily, the player wasn't interested in the move and we could safely reject the offer. The second was slightly trickier as United came in again, this time for RB Filippo Missori, technically our backup but with first-choice Elias Jelert still out with injury I was extremely reluctant to see him leave. So I rejected the bid and we then did the "what's a fair offer" dance. We settled on £37m (a good upgrade on United's £30m offer) and no further bid was received. And so to the football: It was another brute of a month but also another excellent set of results and performances. The only game we failed to win was our final qualifying game in the Champions League. Just ahead of kickoff my AssMan mentioned that we only needed a point to go straight to the Round of 16 and I think the players took it to heart - we took a very early lead and the team was happy to see out a draw. The only other questionable performance came against newly-promoted Blackburn. We took the lead in the 38th minute but gave up an equaliser five minutes later. And we couldn't find a winner until the final 10 minutes So we're still fighting on multiple fronts. Beating Spurs 4-1 away in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final was a major bonus and our opening game of February will be the second leg. That 3-goal advantage should be enough to see us through. Also in February we have the next round of the FA Cup where we should have an easy-ish tie against either Derby or Reading, both of the Championship. In the league we're still occupying the summit as the clubs beneath us continue to trade places: We have an 8pt cushion over City and Liverpool with a game in hand. If we do clinch another title the inconsistency of our rivals will have played a big part in our success.

I hate February and it looks like you got dealt a particularly nasty one. Good job to turn that form round in April and May, so not a bad season overall. Better luck next time round

A brilliant season - well done, mate Oh yeah! Enjoy