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Leicester 32/33 - October Well this has been a really poor month. A draw away to Newcastle isn't a bad result at all, especially given the fact they are regularly qualifying for Europe now and of course it was nice to beat Brighton 4-0, but it's the last two results that annoy me the most. Crystal Palace are languishing around the relegation zone so it really should have been 3 points, but we had to settle for one. Then we played bottom of the league Wolves at home, theoretically the easiest game of the season, and again we drew this time thanks to a last minute equaliser for the player's first goal of the season. Absolutely infuriating and to be brutally honest based on the chances I was seeing in the match engine, we probably deserved to lose. A failure to win games this month has meant we've slipped down the league now, occupying that final European spot after 10 games and it seems Newcastle and Burnley are following us. We're going to have to be much better next month but we've got some tricky games against Aston Villa, Man City and then West Ham which could be another potential banana skin for us.

Leicester 32/33 - September We had four games to play in September, three in the league and one in the Carabao Cup. We started the month with a good 3-0 win against West Brom before going into a double header against Man Utd starting with the league game where I really felt we were unlucky, I always feel when we play United that it's clear when watching the games they have a better squad than us but we often manage their attackers quite well and limit them to few chances, but their attackers are so good they tend to score in the chances that I get to see in the highlights package. We had a few attacking highlights ourselves but just couldn't put the ball in the back of the net. In the cup game against them though we made 9 changes to the team and did manage to put the ball in the back of the net thanks to a goal from Imanol Gil but this time we couldn't stop them going in at the other end as we conceded four goals which is never acceptable. It's frustrating as I'd say two of the goals were my goalkeeper's fault, and at 2-1 anything can happen. The board wanted us to reach the fourth round so we have failed that objective but I don't think they can be too annoyed given it was Man United we had to play in the third round. Six games in and we occupy fifth position, but more interestingly the top 4 is currently made up of Man City, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Burnley! I told you this isn't the Burnley that you're used to! Sean Dyche lasted until 2030 before being sacked and is now manager of Roma!

There was points where I could have activated his release clause this summer, but he's just not really good enough for the Premier League. I'm sure he'd come in and do a solid job, but he only has 3 star potential so there's much higher potential players that I'm better spending my money on. He had a decent season last year once I left and has also started this season very well.

Leicester 32/33 - August The first month of competitive football is now done and it's been largely successful. We started off the Premier League season with a 2-0 away win against Everton, it was good to keep a clean sheet on the first day especially away from home. We did then lose the home opener against Burnley and although Burnley aren't Burnley as we know (they've won the Conference League in this universe!), we still shouldn't be losing to them especially in the first home game of the season. We certainly bounced back in the next game though against Walsall of League One in the EFL Cup as we beat them 4-1 with a hatrick from new signing Eduardo Gabriel before rounding off the month with a 2-0 win away at Carrow Road. After 3 games we sit 5th in the league table which is nice but it's early doors so things will most definitely change over the next few months. It's interesting to see Newcastle and all their money up in second with a 100% record so far, they're yet to win the Premier League in this save.

Leicester 32/33 - Summer Transfers Outs Plenty of loans and some big transfers in there, while Caglar Soyunchu decided to hang up the boots. Ins 5 players come in this summer and pretty much all of them are cheap signings with a lot of potential; we've got an ageing squad so the plan was definitely to bring in some young talents and I think we've done very well in doing that, if you look at Gabriel, Cuevas and Thalhammer we brought them all for very cheap and their values have all jumped up massively which is definitely a good sign. We've got 25 million left to spend in January and hopefully a few more sellable assets so there's definitely potential to make a few more deals. Season Preview The media predict us to finish 12th, the board would be happy with that but to be honest I'm looking for a little bit higher. Tactic We're sticking with the same gegenpress tactic that we ended last season with for now, I'll see how it goes but we can always change it up if needed. Final Thoughts I'm pretty happy with the squad now and there's still money to bring players in which is exciting. I'm delighted with the new players we've brought into the club, they have a lot of potential and if we ever have to sell them we're on for a massive profit but more importantly I think they've added a lot of quality to the squad. Bring on the new season!

Leicester 31/32 - End of season review Not very much money at all, we're going to have to sell to buy. We already had 5 million in the transfer budget left over so they've effectively given me a transfer budget of 5 million pounds, although they have increased the wage budget ever so slightly.

Leicester 31/32 - May After a really positive April we've come back down to earth in May as we have been terrible. Yet again we conceded a late goal to lose the game against Brighton, it seems to be every time I take the DM off and add an attacking midfielder to win the game we concede a couple of minutes later. In the final home game of the season we could only muster up a draw against Bournemouth, yes they finished ahead of us in the league but we really should have been able to pick up a win here. Finally we finished off the season with a bottle job, we were 1-0 up against Spurs after scoring an excellent team goal but yet again just collapsed as we end up on the receiving end of a 2-1 defeat. That means that we finish the season in 13th place, which I think might be where they were when I first took over. The board are happy but really we could have and should have finished a bit higher than we did, it was mathematically possible we could have finished 9th on the final day. I'm hoping for a big transfer budget this summer as we need a bit of a rebuild to take this club to the next level, but I'm not hopeful given the amount of debt that is slowly accumulating.

Leicester 31/32 - April What a month!! Definitely the best set of results so far at Leicester, it's fair to say the gegenpress is working well! In the first game against Man Utd we were absolutely battered, so far in the Premier League they definitely have the best team I've come up against, it's just full of world class players and there's no shame in losing there, although 4-1 was maybe a bit harsh. But we took all our anger out on Everton unfortunately for them beating them 4-1 in an outstanding performance, they had no idea what had hit them! Sheffield United were then beaten as expected in a very professional performance before we ended off with the best result of my time in England so far as we beat 12 time champions Manchester City 1-0 in front of a packed out King Power Stadium! It was an outstanding goal as well from Esposito who chipped the goalkeeper! As a Man Utd fan this is even sweeter, but as a professional manager I should probably keep that secret! That run of wins has sent us all the way up to 11th and level on points with West Ham in 10th, we're so close to being officially a top half side! In other news, our win against Sheffield United confirmed their relegation to the Championship. We've got 3 games left to play, so the next update will see us end our first season in the Premier League (even though we joined halfway through), hopefully we can continue our good form and end up in the top 10 places!

Leicester 31/32 - Major Milestone I've just got the news that this next match against Everton will be my 500th in football management, that's quite a big achievement I think! 10 years ago it all began in the North of wales when I got my first job after from Prestatyn, and here I are a decade later managing in the Premier League having won 3 league titles and a number of cups as well, most notably the European Conference League at Aberdeen! What a journey it's been so far and here's to many more decades in the game!

Leicester 31/32 - March The game against Burnley was meant to be our easiest game on paper, but it actually turned out to be our hardest as we lost 1-0. It turned out to be the last game I used the 433 control possession from Aberdeen in as well, in the Chelsea game we played a tiki-taka and basically nullified their whole team, it was a very boring game and we really had to grind out a point. However despite picking up a point against one of the best teams in the country I wasn't satisfied as I knew we could play better, so for the Newcastle game I switched to a 433 gegenpress and I think it's the best I've seen us play since the start of my Leicester rein, all of a sudden we were creating chances left right and centre, scoring 4 goals on route to a massive 3 points in the league. My thinking behind going to a gegenpress for the end of the season is that all we have to play for now is the league so we're only playing 1 match a week, I know gegenpress is very taxing on the players but we'll be getting plenty rest in between games so we should be fine. I know it's only a short term fix, but we've got to take points in whatever way we can get them at this point. We have 7 games left to play and currently sit 14th, I'm not quite sure what counts as mid table which is what the board want but I can tell it's definitely going to be tight. We've got a difficult month coming up now as we play both Manchester clubs, Everton and then Sheffield United - the latter of which is an absolutely massive game and is going to have to be a win.

Leicester 31/32 - Youth Intake Well this is absolutely awful. The intake was bad so I wasn't expecting much, but this might be one of the worst intakes I've ever seen. I don't think I've had a good intake in my career since the third season at Hamilton. I think the only player I will be taking from here is the top guy, potentially some of the 3 star potential players as well. Top talent

Leicester 31/32 - February A bit of a mixed month really, we should have done better. We started with a 3-2 defeat to Crystal Palace and we conceded in the 94th minute, dropping points in the last minute has been a massive problem for us and I'm not really sure what to do about it. We did manage to grind out a win against Wolves but it proved to be the only win we could manage this month as against Aston Villa we were 2-0 down until they went down to 9 men and we could only rescue a point. In the final game against Liverpool we were actually 1-0 up thanks to a stunning goal from the midfield, but as usual we just couldn't hold onto a draw as we conceded in the 86th minute this time to leave the game empty handed. Of course we didn't expect to get anything against Liverpool but when you take the lead it always hurts to end the game on the losing side. A lack of wins means we're starting to slip down the table, it's very tight but we're down to 14th position now. We really need to start picking up a few more wins next month but that could be difficult as we have games against Chelsea, Newcastle and Burnley.

Leicester 31/32 - January We were actually quite quiet in the transfer window, despite ending up with £20m in the transfer budget. I'm really hoping the board don't keep some of that to themselves in the summer, because I'm going to need a decent sized budget to replace all the players who are either leaving on a free or I plan to sell. We did however, make two signings on loan: I'm very excited with Earl, he looks a very good player and I'm hoping if he does well for us this second half of the season we'll be able to get him for a reasonable price in the summer. Dalton comes in just as another option on the right wing as I've not been impressed with how my other right wingers have done so far. We rejected some very big offers for Carlos in the window and actually tied him down to a massive new contract, he's not done anything special so far but he does look like a really good player attribute wise. Results We started off life at Leicester in the best possible way, beating Ipswich Town 4-0 away from home. We then however went on a run of 3 losses in a row which wasn't good, especially as we were so close to beating West Ham and we really could have done with winning that game, and losing to Championship Brentford in the FA Cup was pretty embarrassing. Thankfully though we did win our last 2 games of the month in must win games against Southampton and Fulham, both of which were clean sheets as well which was nice. We've played 24 games in the league and currently sit 13th, I think we're safe from relegation at this point but ideally I'd like to finish the season a couple places higher as the board want mid-table and I've already upset the board by getting knocked out of the FA Cup so early. A massive shoutout has to go to Esposito, before I joined he'd only scored a couple of goals this season but ever since I've been in charge he's scored in every single game we've played, including a superb hatrick against Ipswich on my debut. He looks very good attribute wise and long may his good form continue! Watch him not score for the whole of February now that I've praised him...

He’s the first player I scouted, but unfortunately I can’t afford him at the moment!

Leicester 31/32 - Arrival Nothing special coming through the youth intake it seems.

Aberdeen 31/32 - Job offer Pretty much a week after offering me the interview, Leicester have come in and offered me a massive contract worth £1.6m a year - at Aberdeen I'm on £182,000 a year so it's almost a 10x increase on wage. I think that's all I need to look at really to make my mind up, no chance in real life am I turning that amount of money down! I know some of you may think I should stay at Aberdeen but really there's no chance of winning the league anytime soon, Celtic are just way too dominant and this is an opportunity to manage in the Premier League which as we all know is quite often regarded the best league in the world. It feels like I've been at Aberdeen much longer than I have, it's only been a year and a half but because last season was so long it feels like I've done at least a couple of years here. I think it's best to leave on a high rather than risk being sacked which at points this season has been a possibility, and my contract is up at the end of the season so this is the perfect time to move to a new club if it's going to happen anytime soon I think. Last season was incredibly special and one I'll remember for a long time, but I can't see us winning the Europa League this season and although we're giving up European football for now, there's definitely the potential to work towards getting Leicester back into Europe within a couple of seasons. It could be a risk, it could be a mistake but looking at the money involved I think it's a risk worth taking for that amount of money. There's not a lot of money to work with at the club as we join just before January, but I'm hoping in the summer we're given a decently big budget to make some additions. Who knows, maybe Sylvester Walker and Lewis Reid would fancy a move down south as well? My attributes at the time of leaving. And finally, here's my stats from my time at Aberdeen. Pretty good if you ask me!

Aberdeen 31/32 - December Mostly wins in December, it's safe to say we've recovered from our terrible start to the season. We started with a 3-3 draw against Kilmarnock that was very frustrating considering we were 3-1 up, but the thing you've probably all noticed by now is the Celtic result. We lost 6-0, my most embarrassing result of my career so far. Celtic are just too good this year, it seems it's going to be impossible to catch them in the next few years as they've only lost 1 game all season. The fact we were so close to piping them to the title last year and now they're beating us 6-0 says it all really. We did recover to end the month though as we beat Dundee United 1-0 away from home then beat Arbroath 3-0 at home in what was our best performance of the month by far. But was it my last game in charge of Aberdeen? Only time will tell. We're now 3rd in the league after 20 games but if Rangers win their game in hand they will overtake us. Hearts are also having a decent season, sitting 2nd and 4 points ahead of us and they are the only team to have beaten Celtic this season, although it still feels like there's a massive gap in quality even between Celtic in first and Hearts in 2nd. As expected in the Europa League we did finish second, Monaco beat us 1-0 in the final game to win the group and as you saw earlier we'll be playing Shaktar Donetsk in the next round.

Aberdeen 31/32 - Job interview Well this is very unexpected, but Leicester City have offered me an interview after Antonio Rudiger has just been sacked... It's came out of nowhere to be honest, I've got 6 months left on my contract and we're not exactly doing amazing this season so I am a bit surprised they've given me it. I will be attending as it's another interesting job although potentially a difficult one as well considering they currently sit 16th in the Premier League.

Aberdeen 31/32 - Europa League draw The first knockout round draw is in for the Europa League and we've been drawn against Ukrainian side Shaktar Donetsk. It definitely won't be easy especially away from home with their passionate fanbase but it's also not the worst tie we could have got so we have to go into the games knowing we do have a chance if we play to the best of our abilities.

Aberdeen 31/32 - Youth Intake preview The youth intake is here and it looks pretty promising, although I'm not really paying any attention to it because based on what I've seen from others, youth intake previews seem pretty pointless as they never seem to be as good as they look at first. And after last season's intake, I can't expect much either. It's nice to see we've got a good goalkeeper coming through considering both of mine at the moment are in their mid 30's although it is frustrating that two of our 'A' rated players are full backs or wing backs, basically the same position so the wing back will have to train to play either on the wing, midfield or left back/right back depending on what side he plays. We'll see how good this actually is in March because we could do with some high potential youngsters, the two best ones are now old enough to be in the first team - Michael Trouten has already played a big part this season and has contributed with goals and assists while Jock Milton has also had a few appearances and even got a goal in the league.

Aberdeen 31/32 - November Overall it's been a pretty positive month. We won another two games in the Conference League and won 2/3 of the league games, the only defeat fell away at Tynecastle where we really didn't deserve to win at all, it was a very rare for now poor performance that I hope isn't a sign to come. It was even more frustrating given the fact the win for them meant they leapfrog us in the league table. Beating Rangers was a good result and winning against Dundee was also important as they were bottom of the league, those are the games where we have to make sure we don't slip up in. In the league Celtic are running away with it this year while we are in third, two points behind Hearts after 14 games. In the Europa League we've already qualified with a game to spare and although we still play Monaco so there's a chance we could win the group, it's looking pretty unlikely given the goal difference Monaco have so we may well just send the backup brigade out and focus on the league.

Thanks a lot, glad you’re enjoying it!

Aberdeen 31/32 - October So much better! After a really poor start to the season we've gone the whole of October unbeaten and remembered how to score goals as well, we put 4 past our opposition on 3 different occasions. Arbroath is always a team I struggle with and many teams in real life are the same, we were 2-0 down until the 70th minute when we made 3 changes and went on to score 2 quick goals to turn things around. We also picked up a couple more wins in the Europa League against Qarabağ and Univer. In the league we're right back where we belong in the European places, we've shot all the way up to 3rd after our recent run of good form. Europa League is also looking good, it's clear there's a gulf in quality between us and Monaco and the other two as we're 5 points ahead of third already and we're only at the half way stage. It's looking like our next game against Monaco is going to be the group decider as to who will come first and who will come second.

Aberdeen 31/32 - September I'm not going to lie, I'm starting to get a little worried... Honestly, I've no idea where this form has come from but we've been shocking all month. At least Walker started scoring again, getting 3 against St. Johnstone, and that game we actually almost bottled it again. But we've failed another board objective in not making it to the Premier Sports Cup semi final so I'm only on a C+ at the moment, maybe it's time to start saving a little bit more of my wage each month for a while just in case. We've got a massive month up next where we need to be picking up wins, so far this season we've taken maximum points on just three occasions which absolutely isn't good enough. It's not even like the team changed that much, it's the same core of players with a couple extra additions to maintain squad depth but maybe we needed a few marquee signings to keep up with the rest of the league? After 7 games in the league we sit right in the middle in 6th, we've got to start improving soon as there's already a gap forming above us in the European places. Arbroath have been on a crazy winning run stretching back to last season and they're currently up to 3rd! In the Europa League we currently sit bottom but we have got one of our Monaco games out the way on match day 1. We'll play both our other opponents in October. Here's hoping for a marked improvement next time out!

Aberdeen 31/32 - August We made two signings on transfer deadline day, a young striker for the future and a left winger to add as another option out there. I doubt we'll see much of the striker this season, to be honest he was signed to try and match the club vision of signing under 23 players but he's actually turned out to look half decent, so maybe if things are going wrong and Walker picks up another injury he'll come into the team. Results We actually started really poorly in the league, losing to Rangers on match day 1 then only managing a draw against Hearts in the next game. We did end the month with back to back wins and back to back clean sheets which was nice, but we had to grind them out as without Sylvester Walker in the team goals have been quite hard to come by. As you can see we did get knocked out the Champions League a round before the board wanted so they're not too pleased, but I don't think any complaints can be had given it was Porto we were playing. We also scraped past St. Mirren in the Premier Sports Cup which is nice given we're actually the holders of this cup after beating Celtic last season. If we'd had Lewis Reid and Sylvester Walker for this month maybe things would have gone better, but despite going out of the Champions League we did drop straight into the Europa League group stage and have got a pretty decent draw in that. We've been placed in group B along side Monaco (France), Qarabağ (Azerbaijan) and Univer (Romania). The team I'm most concerned about is obviously Monaco, hopefully the other two teams we do well against especially at home.