Making Football Great Again

[JerseyShoreDave]

Annan Athletic - 2027-2028 Season - Ladbrokes Premiership - Season Results

Premiership at League Split we were first and after we were still first.  We scored 99 goals in the premiership and had the highest goal differential at 51 and won the league by 18 points.

We won the Scottish Cup

In the Euro Cup we got beaten by Dortmund in the quarter Finals 6-3.  BMG beat Chelsea in the final 3-2 in extra time

We win the double, our average attendance is 100% full.  

I'm a legend now at the club

I'm Writer's Manager of the Year & Player's Manager of the Year

We did well in the League. We lost once each to Celtic and Rangers which isn't all that surprising.

In the Euro Cup in the 1st Knockout Round we barely won.  After an Awesome 5-5 slugfest in Portugal we beat Sporting Lisbon 2-1 at home to advance.

In the 2nd Knockout Round, we took on Olympiakos, at home we came back from behind to tie the match 2-2 before getting a 4-4 win in a slugfest winning thanks to away goals.

However the  dream ended with Dortmund.  In Germany we lost 4-3 after a late penalty kick got us... and hat home we just couldn't put anything together and lost 2-0.

Our new wage budget is 180k per week and the transfer budget is 7.6million

Commercial Summary - Not sure how Sponsorships went down...

Annan Stadium is going to be a13,870 seat Stadium with a grass surface with under soil heating that will cost without any loans for just over 10 million pounds.  We have a long term stadium sponsorship deal that will cost 5.16 million. 

We now own the Euro Cup goal record with 50 goals.  The record was set with Stoke City previously at 48.

Our superstar Jake Vincent was concerned at the strength of the team but by the beginning of February he saw how good it was and dropped his concerns.

The Squad is the best we've had.  3 Players we named to the team of the year.  Lee Clarkson, Philip Persson, and Jake Vincent.

Ray O'Connor - Our 22 year old Irish keeper is backup for the Irish National team, he hasn't played yet but once he does I suppose someone will pick him up, or at least try.  In 63 matches he conceded 89 goals and had 13 clean sheets for an average rating of 6.91.  I forsee him being top keeper for quite awhile.  I get the opportunity to sign some fantastic keepers but they're normally in their 30s with only a season or two of viability.

Dean Gallagher - Our 27 year old Northern Irish fullback hasn't played for his country lately but has done quite well with us.  In 53 matches he had 2 assists with 2 player of the match honors with 2 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.05.  He may or may not be a starter, it depends on the clubs priorities.

Giorgos Orfanidis - Our 26 year old Greek international is new to the club.   In 25 matches he scored 3 times with 1 assist for an average rating of 7.17.  He's one of the few sweepers available so he's mostly staying back as one can imagine.  He's pretty expensive but I think he's worth it.

Lee Clarkson - Our 25 year old Scottish central defender has been getting a look at by the Scottish national team but so far not called up.  For us he's done great.  In 63 matches he had 1 goal with 5 assists, 3 player of man honors with 3 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.17.  I think he's going to be around next season especially since he's a Scotsman.

Greg Docherty - Our 31 year old midfielder is slowly loosing his edge but is still playing well and most importantly injury free.  In 62 matches he scored 6 goals with 11 assists, 3 player of the match honors with 5 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.16.  Depending on club priorities he could be relegated to backup.

Mogens Poulsen - Our 29 year old Danish midfielder is doing great.  Unfortunately he's kinda injury prone at this point.  In 40 matches he scored 13 goals with 5 assists, 6 player of the match honors with 2 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.45.  He's an awesome player that just sometimes gets injured too much.  He's probably going to be a backup guy which is a shame.

Vellmir Anic - Our 25 year old Croatian striker overall is probably the weakest of our 4 strikers, but still does great.  In 36 appearances he scored 23 goals with 8 assists, converting 2 penalty kicks with 3 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.34.  I'm surprised the Croatian national team hasn't played him and surprised no other club has shown interest in him.  Overall I see him playing on the fringe for years to come as long as we can keep him happy.

Ryan Henderson - Our 25 year old Scottish striker had a great season.  When the Scottish team didn't take him to the European Championship, Rangers' interest in him vanished.  He's a great striker who should be on the team.  In 42 matches he scored 30 goals with 18 assists, who converted 1 penalty kick with 10 player of the match honors had an average rating of 7.45.  I'm surprised he got so good cause at first he was totally awful for his first few matches to the point I took him out for Anic to play.  He's going to be a mainstay for the club for awhile.

Philip Persson - Our 23 year old Finnish International Striker scored his first 2 goals for Finland this season and in the 3 matches where he represented Finland he had an average rating of 7.23.  Unfortunately he ended the season with a torn hamstring which may or may not keep him out of the European Championships.  For us he had a great season in 56 matches he scored 33 goals with 16 assists, converting 3 penalty kicks, earning 7 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.23.  He was named the Scottish Football Writers Young Player of the year.  Another rather expensive player who Cagliari in Serie A has some interest in.  Its hard to say if they'll bid on him or not.  Overall I'm quite happy with him and will keep him at all costs at this point... well not much more than what we're paying now.

Jake Vincent - Our 24 year old English Striker is the best player we ever had.  He's wanted by a bunch of English Championship squads but thankfully he wants to stay with us but we'll basically get a 300% salary increase for a five year contract.  Considering in 5 years he'll be 29 I think it was a good move.  If this season is a foreshadowing of the future, he'll be an amazing player.  Can't believe we bought him for 650k.  In 63 matches he scored 42 goals with 40 assists, getting 10 player of the match honors with 1 yellow card for an average rating of 7.51.  

Vincent claimed the following honors:

The Scottish Players' Player of the year.

The Scottish Football Writers' Player of the year

New average rating record of 7.51 for Annan

New Premiership assist record of 20 for the Premiership

The Scottish Premiership Top Goalscorer award with 28 in 38 appearances.

His 40 goals total for the season is a new club record.

We had a great season and we have some places that need to be strengthen on the team along with developing a credible second string.  We're going to be in the Champions Cup which means we'll be at our best, we need to do well to get the league higher ranked to get more players to the club to of course eventually win the Champions League with the Club.  Since they're naming the Stadium, Annan Stadium it'll be awhile before they name the next one after me so I better get used to it.  A modern 13k seat stadium is nice but we deserve more.  Hopefully we fill it up quickly.  Looking forward to see if I can bring in any other star players.  However with a few contracts needing renewing as well as Jake Vincent's 25k contract my hands will be somewhat tied as to who we can bring in this time around.  Since our team is good and happy at this point it won't matter much as long as we generally win.  The next season will be interesting.

[pheelf]

What an extraordinary career so far...you're performing miracles there in Annan

I'm astounded that they didn't name the new stadium after you....I mean...what do you have to do?...I guess taking a 4th division team all the way to the top of the Scottish game and reaching the Quarter Final of the Europa League isn't enough these days...

[JerseyShoreDave]

2 hours ago, pheelf said:

What an extraordinary career so far...you're performing miracles there in Annan

I'm astounded that they didn't name the new stadium after you....I mean...what do you have to do?...I guess taking a 4th division team all the way to the top of the Scottish game and reaching the Quarter Final of the Europa League isn't enough these days...

Thank you, now granted I wasn't a Legend when the new stadium was announced... I became a legend when I won the Premiership but it just  means I have to wait for the next stadium I'm assuming. A 13,000+ seat stadium isn't enough to ensure Annan being in the Premiership forever and at least the new club owners have injected 9 million into the club and made it so we're debt free with the new stadium.  The stadium has a lame sponsorship though.  15 years for just 344k/ season.  The plan is my name on the stadium, and win everything I can in 1 season before leaving.  We got the time.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Annan Athletic - 2028-2029 Season - Ladbrokes Premiership - Pre-season

In the European Championships Spain beat Italy 2-0

Scottish Premiership moved up 4 places to 17th

Annan moved up 182 spots to 82nd spot in the European Rankings more than ANY other club!

We gain a Champions Cup spot!

Reputation wise we're now the third top club in Scotland!

Season Expectations...

Qualify for Europe in the Premiership - I think this is doable

Reach Semis in the Scottish Cup - Since we take it seriously sure

Reach Playoff in Champions Cup - Depends who we play

Scotland calls and offers me to be the Scottish Manager - Initially I accepted but the interface between club/Scottish national team isn't the best and so I reloaded and ended up saying no to the job.  If things were done better with the user interface and what not it just seemed like it's better to avoid the situation in this version so that's exactly what I'm doing.

Our Jake Vincent is odds on expected to be the top Premiership keeper this season.  So far he is.  He is also the odds on favorite to be the top player in the Premiership

High Bonuses for all

We're ranked 3rd favorites to win the Scottish Premiership title

Rangers are rebuilding their team while Celtic sold off some of their top players... Ross County is just looking to Survive the Premiership

Preseason Schedule

Friendlies we did well knocking off the Austrians Kaphenberger SV by a good scored, losing to Nordsjaelland wasn't expected but in preseason no biggie, Linfield as good for us too.

Champions Cup Qualifier 2

We played Icelandic Champions FH.  At home they scored first but we scored 3 making it a 3-1 solid win.  However in Iceland they turned it ON... we lost 4-2 and only made it to the next round thanks to away goals...

Champions Cup Qualifier 3

We played Kazakhstan's Champions Kairat.  We won easily 4-1 at home, went over there and won 2-1 in their country.  Solid Performance.

Champions Cup Playoff

We played Irish Champions Cork City.  We beat them 4-1 at home but lost 2-1 in Ireland we advanced to make the next round.

Betfred Cup - We beat newly promoted Partick Thistle 2-0, we play Hearts in the next round

Premiership we won all our matches except the 3-3 tie to Celtic.

Transfers In:

Mark Llewellyn - 25 year old Welsh international midfielder, going to be backup not sure how much time he'll get

Lewis Vaughan - 33 year old Scottish backup Striker, going to be tough for him to get playing time

Jack Hamilton - 34 year old Scottish backup keeper, doubtful he'll play much

Brandon Ball - 30 year old right defender backup 

Eoghan O'Connell - 33 year old Irish International defender who played for Celtic for 16 years. Our new central defender.

Simon Orlowski -  26 year old Austrian midfielder looks to be a starter. cheap at 300k.

Transfers Out:

Joe Walsh retired

Kian Flanagan - midfielder who just isn't good enough anymore

Jordan Steward - Fullback who can't hang with the current crew.

Siemen Voet - The dutch defender got a nice bid out of the blue so we sold since he was on the fringe.

Leon Kern - Our former striker went back to the Greek League to end his career.

Stefanos Thymiandis - Our greek defender was no longer a usable option but Sydney bought him in.

Gavin Dair - Scottish midfielder wasn't good enough for the Premiership so he too went to Australia

Robbie Mckenzie - another scottish midfielder not good enough for us getting to go down under to australia

Marijo Ivankovic - the slovakian midfielder was only a fringe player and Burgos was happy to take him.

80-1 Odds of Winning the Champions Cup title!

Competitions

Premiership we're second to Falkirk whom surprisingly is unbeaten in 4 matches.

Betfred Cup - Hearts come in the quarter finals

Scottish Cup - Too soon to know

Champions League Group D

We play the second best Spanish Club Real Madrid

We play the second best French Club AS Monaco

We play the Russian Champions Zenit St. Petersburg

Finances - We have 18 million in the bank!

We didn't get the players we wanted due to their salary demands.  So at this point we need to be patient and get lower end players.  We're keeping what works for now.  We consolidated and sold off most of the fringe players and brought in better players.  We'll see how the season plays out.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Great work winning the title.

[JerseyShoreDave]

2 hours ago, Nobby_McDonald said:

Great work winning the title.

Thank you kindly!

[JerseyShoreDave]

Annan Athletic - 2028-2029 Season - Ladbrokes Premiership - Winter Transfer Window

I now hold a Continental Pro License!

Betfred Cup Review - We had the match of the Cup, but once again we didn't make it a priority and it showed

We're expected at least to qualify for the euro cup

Mid season results

Other than losing to hearts we also lost to Rangers 2-1 in the Premiership.

In Champions Cup we beat every team once and tied every team once.  We play SLB from Portugal who is a team who won the Cup once in between PSGs dominance of the title.  

In the Scottish Cup we barely beat AIrdrie to make it to the next round against Hibernian.

In the Premiership we're in first by 7 points over Celtic.  Champions Cup First Knockout Round vs. SLB which I don't feel good about.  Scottish Cup is Hibernian, and in the Betfred Cup we lost to eventual Champions Hearts.

We brought in Alvaro Tejero on a free transfer, another defender just to boost us up.

Carpi wanted Poulsen in exchange for paying his salary and paying us 6.5k/month so we said sure.

Finances we have 14 million in the bank and have plenty left in the transfer budget and wage budget to bring someone new if we need too.

League and Scottish Cup I feel good about, Champions Cup SLB are the Portugal Champions and they're quite tough.   The team is performing great and I see no need to shake the apple cart much.