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Bolton - March 2025 Two players in, one defensive mid in Burger and one attacker in Richards. Did it help? Not really? It looked like it might at the end of January into early February, but our last two matches have been disasters. That leaves us 8 points from safety with 10 matches to go. I just don't see it, but we'll fight to the end.

Bolton - January 2025 It looks like those two wins were a huge blip. We got another one against Leeds, but only 4 points total over the past couple months. We're in a LOT of trouble. We need some huge upgrades in January to turn this around.

Bolton - November 2024 I've been doing some tactics tweaking after the really poor start to the season? Has it paid off? see for yourself. I'd say it has! We've momentarily brought ourselves out of the relegation zone, even! Hopefully we can keep up the spark of the new tactic and do just enough to stay up. A second season would let us really improve the quality of the team due to the reputation bump we'd get by sticking around. I still don't have that much hope for staying up, but I have some now.

Bolton - September 2024 Shockingly, we're not nearly as good as anyone else in the Premier League. Could this be why? Maybe! Our friendlies were good! And we can actually score a goal a game in the Premier League, but we have a really poor defense. Hopefully a couple further additions will help with that. We splurged a little bit for Emmanuel Dennis, but his pace alone makes him our best winger Hopefully Medina will help shore up the back a little bit, because we really need it. We'll see how things go moving forward. I'm not hopeful of staying up, but I'd like to make a fight of it.

Bolton - Premier League Transfers Summer Window Honestly, I've been panicking quite a bit. When players are going to Championship Clubs over me because "they'll play with a stronger squad", I legitimately don't know how I'm going to get a single point in the Premier League. But we'll try. These are the ins I've had to even attempt to do anything in the Prem. I don't want to go too crazy, so I'm hoping to grab some players who will stick with me after our inevitable relegation.

I use an Instant Result skin when I'm not tactic tinkering, which speeds things up a bunch. I also have multiple work from home days a week where I can make progress while my automated tests are running.

Oh, let's go (sort of, it'll still be weird on the finances, assuming it goes through)

Bolton - EFL Championship Final We go into it against Hull Neither of us come into this in the best of form, as you can see above. We've held our own in our first two meetings against them, so I'm feeling all right about the final. Obviously this is MUCH higher stakes though. Going into the final, I tell the team there's no pressure on them, because we were barely expected to survive relegation, who expected this? A good response from them, so I'm hopeful we'll at least not make fools of ourselves. Welp. I guess we have a lot of work to do if we don't want to set the bad kind of records next season, but I'm ok with that. This was a very even game without much in it. All 3 goals were direct free kick goals, if you want some indication of how tight it was and how it could have gone either way. Time to try to scrape out anyone who is Premier League quality and willing to come to us. Particularly with the expected loss of our senior affiliate link with Liverpool now that we're in the same division, I really have no idea how we're going to get points next season. But I guess the money and reputation is more important for now.

Bolton - Championship Semi-Final Leg 2 Would Bournemouth be up to it? Yeah. I was feeling really good after our first goal, but their immediate response got me slightly nervous again. Then they got 3 goals in 8 miunutes! I was really worried at that point. But we were able to hold on until extra time, where we got the goal to take us to Wembley, one game away from the Premier League???

EFL Championship Semi-Final, Leg 1 An outstanding first leg. Couldn't have gone better. The third goal in stoppage time puts us well in control. And we deserved it too. Dominance. Felt like we were almost back to our early season form with this one.

Bolton - End of Regular Season Rough run-in, between the Biereth injury and the lack of squad depth. Did we do enough? by the slimmest of margins, yes. Regardless of how the playoffs end, it's been a huge success of a first season in the Championship. I just need to add a bit of depth to get across the line next season(assuming we don't pull something off in the playoffs!)

Bolton - March 2024 A rough couple months. The Preston loss looks really bad, and it was, but we were also playing with 9 men and it was 1-1 before both red cards. The Millwall loss is really disappointing as well. But we're still doing pretty well! Still in a playoff spot with 11 matches to go. However, Mika Biereth is out for the rest of the season with a broken ankle As our top scorer, this is a big blow. Hopefully we can replace his goals(although this is just about his level, he's not quite dominating the way he did in League One). I think our squad depth and financial issues are just starting to squeeze us here at the end of the season. I would have brought a couple more players in, but we don't have the wage budget for them. We're over wage budget right now as the second cheapest payroll in the Championship, so we're clearly overperforming.

Always sucks, he looks like a great player! But hopefully you'll be able to replace him.

Bolton - January 2024 The grind of December took its toll on us, with two draws and two losses. None of these teams are slouches, so I'm not worried, but we're definitely tired. How does that leave us in the League? Stumbling a little bit, but it's so tight at the top. We're 3 points off top spot and 4 points from being out of the playoffs. The Championship is like that though! Hopefully we'll get back into form shortly here

Bolton - November 2023 A lot of draws, but only one loss in the League, even with matchups with some of the expected top Championship sides. I'm glad we were able to get a couple big wins to finish October. All these draws have dropped us out of top spot, but, we're still way up near the top of the table, way stronger than expected.

Bolton - September 2023 First off, I really have to chuckle at this: Obviously, teams are coming in from the Premier League and are going to have different payrolls than a newly promoted squad, but I'm so far down there. (Derby, who came up with us, are spending almost 3 times as much per week as we are!) Here's our results: Literally could not have gone better. I'm in dreamland right now. I'm sure it'll crash at some point, but wow! That puts us on top of the League(obviously). A long way to go, and I'm sure it won't last, but I feel confident about establishing ourselves in mid-table. A couple additional transfers in after my last post. A loaned in winger, and a backup central defender. I feel all right with our depth at this point, I think? Our financials should be sustainable at this point though, which is priority 1. I want to be sustainable in the Championship and slowly increase our quality and reputation. We missed out on a bunch of our targets because of our finances, so hopefully a bit more time in this level will help with that.

Great entertainment for the fans to open the season though!

Transfer Update While the window hasn't closed, we have brought in a few players 5 ins, including two loans from parent club Liverpool. Conor Bradley is supposedly a DR, but I think he's secretly a right winger in disguise. Not sure he's good enough for me defensively, but he's a backup anyway. If they want him to get more game time, they can recall him. Musialowski, however, looks pretty good? I don't know what this suspension is all about, but I think he'll do a job in our front line. I'd like to bring in a couple more players, I think. It feels like a thin squad, particularly after a few inevitable injuries. A little bit of depth is going to be important for this slog of a league. You can see that it's not quite as deep a squad as I'm probably looking for. maybe 2-3 more players?

Bolton - End of Season 2022/23 We had a stranglehold at the top before the run-in, could we hold onto it? A couple draws in there, but three decisive wins. And in the end, a very decisive title win. Best defense and best attack in the League, GD of 65, and 106 points. Only two losses all season, a well-deserved title win and promotion. Important note - Gillingham got a win! Just one! And they fought for it hard! But they got one! Mika Biereth continues to carry the team. League One Golden Boot, top average rating, most player of the match awards, just outstanding. Coleman was an outstanding signing, a huge improvement in goal. However, I'm definitely going to need to increase the overall quality of the squad going into the Championship. A couple too many loan players, but with the link with Liverpool, hopefully we'll take advantage of that with enough quality to keep us up next season.

Blyth - Just before the final run-in Well, first off: A trophy! Fairly convincingly in the end, too. Stevenage had a heck of a run, being a mid-table League 2 team, but we controlled the whole match. But how'd the League go? Yes, that is 5 straight wins, including two over our promotion rivals in Derby and Oxford. How has that gotten the promotion fight to shape up for the end of the season? We've got a stranglehold on top here. 11 points up on Oxford, and they only have 4 matches to go, as well as 5 points up on Derby with a match in hand. I think we'll be getting across the line, but I want the title.

I'm not used to doing business in the lower leagues with players others have experience with! Basically all my Blyth experience was regens by the time I got up to this level I probably don't need Williams to be a starter if I'm promoted, to be entirely honest? We'll see how it plays out. I just need him to be good enough to keep me up until I can replace him.

Another small set of updates. First: Thanks Grace, but I have larger goals than just the playoff. --- Now, once January hit, I realized I was quite unhappy with my goalkeeper, Joel Dixon. So once I started receiving offers for him in January, I figured I could probably find an upgrade. And find an upgrade I did. Still not sure how fellow L1 side Rochdale let him go, but I was able to acquire their goalkeeper Joel Coleman for 140k, rising to 160k I'd call him an upgrade. Maybe a bit of a stretch financially, but if we get promoted, I think it will have been worth it. One other transfer in this January, due to a lot of interest in my wingers. Coming in from Championship side Hull for 35k, rising to 38k, Randell Williams: A strong start to his Bolton career, with 2 goals and 2 assists in his first 7 appearances for me, including a debut goal.

Bolton - March 2023 Well, our second loss in the League, as well as a couple more draws. Pretty happy with the form still, so we're safely in the promotion spots, right? Actually no. Derby and Oxford both only have three losses, and Derby have won a couple that we've drawn. Oxford are hot on our heels somehow. I'll be VERY frustrated if we fall into third with how well it feels like we're playing. Also, special shout-out to Gillingham at the bottom. They are DREADFUL. It's very funny to follow them. Can they get a single win?

oops!

Bolton - December 2022 Some stumbles, including the first League defeat of the season, but two more very strong months. Derby have also had some very strong months, so it's real tight in the top two spots. However, we're both way ahead of third place, so if we keep this up, we'll be promoted, whether it's as Champions or runners-up.