danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 March 2022 We have another vital month and must make sure we keep the pressure on PSV this month. We started the month brilliantly with a big win against Ajax in Dutch Cup semi final meaning we were in my first Dutch Cup final since joining Feyenoord. Unfortunately though, this was as high as the month got. We drew against Heerenveen and AZ while losing the Rotterdam derby against Sparta 4-1 which was really disappointing. We can all but kiss goodbye to a 6th title in a row after a really poor 2022 so far. With 5 games to go we have 15 points left to play for and can just hope that PSV drop some points and let us back in. I don't hold out much hope though and can just hope that we play as well as we did in the semi final against Ajax in the final, where incidentally we'll face VVV. Crysencio Summerville has been named player of the month. He scored in the derby against Sparta and but frankly has been the best of a bad bunch this month. March also means youth candidate time. We have a few decent prospects this year and are looking forward to seeing how they progress over the coming years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 April 2022 So with the title slipping away by the game, we had to ensure we finished in second place to ensure we still have a chance of qualifying for the Champions League next season. And we did have a better month this time around. We started off with a draw against Vitesse and then won back to back games against PEC Zwolle and Roda which was pleasing. We ended the month with a draw against ADO Den Haag which all but confirmed our second place finish. As long as we don't lose our final game of the season we'll finish second. Not the season we wanted or expected but we have to challenge next season and not draw as many matches. PSV have of course been confirmed as champions now. Marcus Rashford is our player of the month after a cracking few matches. Another 4 goals for him has taken his tally to 19 for the season in all competitions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 May 2022 Just the 2 matches this month, the first of which was the Dutch Cup Final against VVV-Venlo. And as you can see, we were victorious after winning 3-2 in the final in our own stadium De Kuip. A goal after just 19 seconds from Marcus Rashford, his 20th of the season, gave us confidence early and we managed to find ourselves 3-0 up after just 16 minutes. We survived a late VVV push and held on to win the Dutch Cup ensuring we wouldn't end the season trophy-less. We then ended the season with a 1-1 draw away to Utrecht, Rashford scoring our goal again. This confirmed our second place finish. This season has been a tale of far too many draws, especially in the second half of the season and has resulted in us losing our crown of 5 consecutive years which was a real shame. I'm really hoping we can qualify for the group stages of the Champions League because we'll enter the competition in the 3rd qualifying round now which means we'll play at least 4 matches before we can even think about the groups. Rashford again wins player of the month. He's been outstanding towards the end of the season and ended the campaign with 21 goals in total, mostly from out wide but when Nketiah got injured he became the main man up top and shone in that position. My aims for the next season are to of course ensure qualification for the Champions League group stages and to also regain our title here in Holland as well as retaining the cup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 Post-Season Update With a largely unsuccessful season now behind us, we look ahead to the new campaign with renewed confidence and vigour that we can regain the title ahead of PSV and any other challenger. First of all, we have lots of improvements happening within the club which will really help us as we look to progress. The first team, youth and data analysis facilities will all be upgraded for a combined cost of approximately £9m. This will create a real feel good atmosphere around the club with new facilities to use when training. I was also informed that Rashford had now broken the record for the amount of goals in a season for Feyenoord with 21, I really hope he can continue his brilliant end of season form into the new campaign. More improvements were soon approved by the board too. Junior coaching and youth recruitment budgets have also both been increased. Hopefully we can start to bear the fruit of these investments over the coming years. I signed a contract extension with the club too, then celebrated it with gaining my Continental Pro License. There was some bad news though as we confirmed that club vice captain Tonny Vilhena would be leaving the club. The kind of money that Monaco were offering was too good for a club of our stature to turn down and the deal could rise to £32m in the long run which will really help the club. Soon after this news, I received an interesting interview offer from Sporting Lisbon. The Portuguese champions had lost their manager Frank De Boer to RBL in Germany and were looking for a new one and decided to offer me a chance to prove my worth. I used this initially as an opportunity to see what else I could get out of my own board, but increasingly became interested in the role that Sporting were offering and soon made me an offer, along with the vast majority of my staff, to join the club. I was torn as I had technically won everything there was to win in Holland and felt as though this would be a great chance to progress in the Champions League a little further too, but couldn't help but feel as though I'd failed in my second season. I soon made my decision and..... …. decided to take the leap and join the Portuguese giants. I feel as though I have had a largely successful second stint in Holland with Feyenoord despite losing our grip on the domestic title at the end of my tenure, but I did win 2 Super Cups, the Eredivisie title in my first season and the Dutch Cup in my second whilst getting awful luck in both Champions League group stages. The club got a handsome fee for mine and my staffs' services as well as me leaving the club in a better state financially that I arrived too. Should they qualify for the Champions League groups again too they'll receive even more money, so I feel as though I have left them in a better position throughout than when I arrived. Moving on, this is my new home... The Estadio Jose Alvalade was redeveloped before the European Champions in 2004 and now has a capacity of 50,095. The club has a rich history of doing well at home but not too well in Europe over the years. 21 league titles and lots of domestic cup wins are brilliant of course but I am here to really make a dent in the knockout phases of the Champions League. So to finish, I will review the squad, transfer business and season expectations in my next post when I get to grips with my new job and what I expect from the coming season in my new home in Lisbon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 Pre-Season 2022 So after another move personally, I decided to see who I could look at bringing in to help this title-winning side that I have inherited again become more powerful in Portugal. Here is my squad ahead of the new season and all of the transfer business conducted. The deals done before I arrived were both outgoing which brought in over £40m which gave me a hefty budget to work with. I shamelessly raided my old club and signed Marcus Rashford, Erik Palmer-Brown and Joao Gamboa for a combined total of £34.25m. Feyenoord did have a great summer in terms of money coming into the club with the sale of Vilhena, I just hope they can recover after losing so many vital players. Moving on, we signed a few youngsters too in Erkan Saka from Trabzonspor, Sean Baxter from Aston Villa and Bruno Nova from Braga, a very exciting talent. Toni Lato also came in from Bayern to provide competition at left back and Hugo Silva was a free transfer brought in by my HOYD. Finally, Roman Burki was available for a very cut price and I had to pounce as the number 2 goalie was about to leave the club. Leaving the club were mostly players who were out of contract, too old or didn't have a place in the squad. The biggest outgoing was Edon Zhegrova who joined Marseille in a deal which could rise to over £12m. Before the season began, we had the Supertaca to contest. And we won it. We played against Benfica inside their own stadium and beat them after a penalty shoot out, all 3 of our newbies who followed me from Feyenoord all scoring decisive spot kicks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 August 2022 So after the successful start to the season by winning the Supertaca against Benfica, we began the league campaign. And we have a 100% competitive record so far. 4 league wins in a row at the start of this season have been extremely pleasing. We've already had 2 players who have hit hat-ricks in Cenk Tosun and Marcus Rashford in this great run and can be very pleased with our start this season. All of this means we go into September at the top of the league with the only 100% record left in the league. I'm very happy with this start. Marcus Rashford was named the divisional player of the month and I won the manager of the month award, the first time I've ever been awarded that accolade. My personal player of the month is also Rashford. He's been outstanding coming in from the left in his first 4 matches for us and has already scored 6 goals which is a fantastic start. I'm ecstatic that we managed to sign him again and hope he can keep up this outstanding form. August meant the end of the transfer window and these are the final few pieces of transfer news that we have. 3 more new faces arrived at the club, all on loan. 2 of those came from Man City in Jetro Willems as a replacement for Goncalo Castro who went to Juventus for big money. The other was Roman Zobnin who will slot into our midfield perfectly as a Mezzala. The final incomer was Lucas Alario from Lerverkusen who replaces Bakambu who joined Inter for decent money for a striker of his age. Alario is a couple of years younger and is on the transfer list so who knows, if he impresses here we may well be looking to bring him in at the end of the season, although we would need Leverkusen to significantly decrease his asking price if we were to look seriously at him. Either way, he'll have to be special to get into the side ahead of Rashford or Tosun at the moment. Finally, our Champions League group has been drawn. It's stark contrast for me personally as my side will be 1st seeds going into the tournament for the first time in my career so will be hoping for a more favourable draw than I've had in the past. I finally think that this time we have a genuine chance of making the knockout stages. Chelsea will be very difficult but I feel as though we should be beating the likes of Olympiakos and Spartak Moscow, despite the long flights to both of those. I'm happy with the draw and feel as though we should finish minimum 2nd in this group. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 19, 2018 Author Share Posted June 19, 2018 September 2022 After a hugely successful start to the season, could we continue this form as we begin our Champions League campaign too? We most certainly could. 3 more matches resulted in 3 more wins and another 9 points, ensuring our 100% record continued going into the 3rd month of the season. We are now 4 points clear with a game in hand over our closest challengers in 2nd place. After not winning a manager of the month award in my career before joining Sporting, I now have 2 in the space of 2 months. As I mentioned before, the Champions League gets underway and we have 2 matches this month to get our teeth into. And it would seem our imperious domestic form has been transferred into Europe too with 2 brilliant wins coming against Olympiakos in our opener at home by 3 goals to 1 and then our trip to Moscow to face Spartak ended in a 2-0 win, Rashford getting both. We are in 2nd at the moment with a vital double header against Chelsea coming up. If we could possibly sneak a win against them, or even a couple of draws, I'd be very happy as they're clearly going to be our biggest challengers if the first 2 matches are anything to go by. Cenk Tosun is my player of the month. He's been outstanding and scored his second hat-rick of the season already against Estoril in the league. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 21, 2018 Author Share Posted June 21, 2018 October 2022 With our glorious start to the season both domestically and in Europe putting us in a very strong position, we need to maintain this form as we try to extend our lead at the top of the league and in our Champions League group. Here's how we got on at home this month. We did extend our winning run with a win against Belenenses and then beat Varzim in the cup. We then lost back to back league matches against Rio Ave and Academica which put an end to our brilliant winning run. Our lead at the top of the table has been reduced to just 1 point now with Braga right behind us. We need to start picking up points again very quickly. In Europe, things didn't go much better... Despite me predicting it would potentially be our toughest game, we didn't hit the heights that I know we can and were thrashed 5-2. A Christensen OG and an Alario goal gave us 2 but Alvaro Morata played an absolute blinder scoring all 5 of their goals and really put us to the sword. We remain in 2nd place halfway through the group stage and remain confident that we can progress out of the group into the knockout phases. Lucas Alario is our player of the month after scoring 2 goals and starting to play his way into the side more often after the goals for Tosun are drying up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 21, 2018 Author Share Posted June 21, 2018 November 2022 After a stuttering October, we had to respond and get some points on the board again to help extend the gap at the top of the table ahead of Braga. And we did have a good month winning all 3 of our matches in Portugal. We managed a very late win over Leiria after a 96th minute Omer Mascarell penalty gave us the 3 points. A win in the Taca de Portugal against Trofense followed and we ended the month with a home win against Arouca. We remain at the top of the league but still just 1 point ahead of Braga. The match against them will be crucial I feel. After a poor loss to Chelsea, we enter the final half of the group stages with hope in our hearts that we can get a result against Chelsea to claw back the lead the opened up over us last time out. We were so close to grabbing a point against Chelsea but for 2 late Andrea Belotti goals grabbing the 3 points for them late on which meant they'd done the double over us and would almost definitely win the group now. We did claw back from 1-0 down against Olympiakos though to win 2-1 and ensured we would be playing Champions League football again in the new year. 2nd place in the group is confirmed now so we'll be in for a more difficult draw in the 2nd round. Lucas Alario wins player of the month again after his scintillating display against Trofense scoring a hat-rick. He's already the third different player to score a hat-rick this season behind Tosun and Rashford. Speaking of Tosun… He will be out until the new year after picking up a damaged achilles tendon in the match against Leiria. Moving onto better news... Roman Zobnin won the goal of the month award and I won my 3rd manager of the month award of the season already. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidthekid Posted June 21, 2018 Share Posted June 21, 2018 just caught up. Quick turn of events..bit it looks to be working well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcconnell1 Posted June 22, 2018 Author Share Posted June 22, 2018 8 hours ago, kidthekid said: just caught up. Quick turn of events..bit it looks to be working well. Cheers, couldn't pass up on the opportunity and see it as a job upgrade to be honest Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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