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Post by coffers on Mar 20, 2006 8:25:08 GMT
Go for the bigger job even if it is Argentina.
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Post by coffers on Mar 20, 2006 10:05:03 GMT
Man City had to lose sometime, but did it really have to be to close rivals Blackburn? To say we were awful was an understatement, no matter what I did we capitulated, Our goalie had a nightmare and rated 4 by half time, he was hauled off and the substitute was only marginally better. By the time the final whistle blew we were thankful that we had only let in 3 goals with no reply.
The LAC was next and Loco Moscow visited, we took an early lead from Vassell on 2 and held it up to the break, but the bad news was we had a central midfielder sent off on 45 for a second yellow card. To keep the midfield balance I switched to playing one up front and 6 minutes into the second half we doubled out lead. Moscow then went down to 10 men on 70 which evened up the numbers. Mido added a 3rd in injury time to ensure we stayed top of our group.
Back to the league and Preston came calling, a goals on 28 and 60 settled the game 2-0 in our favour, but it was a hard contested affair, with Preston creating more chances than us. Byron Robinson will have been somewhat unhappy to return to Deepdale with absolutely sweet FA for his efforts.
We then had a really long break of about 3 weeks for various international competitions and friendlies etc. Two games were postponed as a result of call ups. But I did get to manage Egypt and wished I hadn't, a 2-0 away defeat at Slovenia and a 3-0 away defeat at Brazil did nothing to convince me that I'm capable of actually managing on the international scene. Our next game will be in the LAC an away trip to Udinese.
Injuries to first team players are definitely on the decline but there seems to be an increase of injured youth players.
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Post by coffers on Mar 20, 2006 14:36:31 GMT
The away trip to Udinese proved to be a tough game in more ways than one. Three minutes from the break we had a centre half sent off, so despite playing defensively through the half, we sent on Richard Dunne for Vassell to shore up the weakened defence. On the stroke of half time our left winger broke, cut in and stunned the Italians by opening the scoring. We weathered a second half storm and then scored a second from the penalty spot on 59, the Udinese centre back should have seen red but only got yellow. While Udinese were still wondering what had happened we hit a 3rd on 63. That was it, Udinese woke up and pinned us back in our own half, but couldn't break through until the 80th minute when we gave away a penalty and lost another player to a red card. Udinese scored from the spot, we pulled everyone behind the ball apart from one forward and played a heroic last 10 minutes to keep the forinners out. The more than welcome 3-1 win ensured that we qualified for the knock out stages of the Champions Cup, not only that but no matter what the result is in the last group game we will finish top of the group. 2nd placed Arsenal visited us next and got the shock of their lives, we were 2-0 up from 2 Vassell goals, by the 23rd minute. Then Ashley Cole was sent off on 25. Arsenal were surely dead and buried? No, they upped their game from that moment on and pulled a goal back on 38, we were chopping and changing all sorts to try to get a grip of the game. Finally a change told and on 68 we eased the pressure by getting a third, they then threw on Defoe and Zogbia and went all out to try to get back in the game. Big mistake a break on 80 and Vassell had his hat-trick. We won 4-1 and Arsenal were left wondering how they had lost. Next up a trip to League 1 Chesterfield for the League Cup 4th Round. I played a rather weak team giving the chance to fringe players to shine. It nearly backfired. Chesterfield went for the jugular from kick-off and had a one goal lead on 20. Mido equalised on 22 and Chesterfield replied again on 24. We stemmed their attacking flow up to the break, when I delivered a short sharp shock to the lazy bostords calling themselves footballers. The second period was an improvement and Mido managed to equalise on 59. He then went on to bag 2 more on 75 and 76 to seal a 4-2 win, which overall we deserved, but at least now I know who the lazy twonks are. We now seem to have another weekend off, but other teams seem to have games so our next match is at home against Villareal in the Champions League. We are getting a bit of a backlog building up now, it could come back to haunt us later in the season. The Premier League Table as of 25/11/2009:
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Post by Moo on Mar 20, 2006 16:09:45 GMT
Jump! Jump!
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Post by coffers on Mar 20, 2006 16:12:30 GMT
Is that your way of asking for a Newcastle update?
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Post by Moo on Mar 20, 2006 16:17:51 GMT
It wasn't, it was in response to Dr Thread-hijacker in the corner there. But if you're offering... Still some nice work going on here, Coffers, you seem to have somethig going right here, despite losing against Blackburn. KUTGW! :thumb:
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Post by coffers on Mar 20, 2006 17:34:59 GMT
Oh yeah, I'd forgot about that. As for Newcastle; They lead the Championship by 2 points from Cardiff and then 2 points further back are Southampton and West Ham. From the 22 games played Newcastle have 46 points having won 14, drawn 4 and lost 4. Manchester City's final LAC Group Game against Villareal was a surprise as we showboated to a 5-0 victory. We were 2-0 up at half time and expected a spirited comeback from the Spanish, it didn't materialise, instead Vassell added our third and substitute Mido cam on for the last 20 minutes and bagged 2 to give him 10 goals for the season. The next league game was a Manchester Derby game, we were at home and were hoping to stamp our authority on the garbage from across the city. An entertaining first half remained goalless at the break but it wasn't for the want of effort on our part. Two minutes into the second period and Vassell opened the scoring tapping in a rebound after Croft had hit the post from 25 yards. Two minutes later the scores were level, United scored with their only on target shot of the game. Bugger. Despite all our effort and flair we couldn't find another goal, we were reduced to 10 men with 8 minutes to play due to injury and all our subs had been used, but we still continued to create chances, but just couldn't make use of them. So my first ever Manchester derby game ended in a 1-1 draw, which is what the TV pundit predicted.
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Post by coffers on Mar 21, 2006 9:23:16 GMT
The Manchester Derby was quickly followed by an away trip to Chelsea whose manager tried to out mind game us. It didn't work in a tough game a goal in each half from Vassell and Mido was enough to give us a deserved 2-0 win, even if the media did think Chelsea were unfortunate to lose. A home tie against Hull in the Quarter finals of the League Cup was next and I fielded a team made up almost entirely of fringe players. Hull played well and held out until injury time when we grabbed a late winner to go forward and meet Middlesbrough in the Semi-Final. Crystal Palace were next on the agenda, at home, we expected an easyish game but didn't get one. It was televised and the pundits reckoned on a City win and two first half goals from Vassell sandwiched a Palace equaliser to give us a 2-1 win overall. It was time for some catch-up games the first of 3 away games on the trot at Fat Sam's Bolton. He seems to have forgotten our bandying of words last season and after this seasons bandy he thinks we could be friends, the idiot. Anyhow, we took an early first half lead and held it to the 50th minute. Then we imploded and let in two stupid goals. Bolton won 2-1 overall we were bad so were they but we were worse. A visit to bottom of the League Wigan was upon us, surely we could do better? Well we did just about, we won 1-0 from a 19th minute goal, but the game was grim and I mean really grim. Still it meant that we kept daylight between us and the chasing pack so I shouldn't grumble. We do seem to be piling up injuries again, 7 first teamers on the sick bed, but only one from a training injury. Middlesbrough away next in a dress rehearsal for the league cup semi-final. Just For MOO:
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Post by coffers on Mar 21, 2006 17:28:11 GMT
The dress rehearsal of the League Cup Semi Final was next a visit to Middlesbrough. In a bid to bottle up Yakubu I sent out a defensive team. It sort of worked but on 17 minutes a Boro free kick hit three of our players on it's way into the net to give us a dreadful start. Thankfully Vassell equalised on 34 and a poor game petered out into 1-1 draw. But we had bottled up Yakubu in the last game of 2009. To start 2010 we had a home game against QPR in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, fielding a weakened team, we controlled the game from the start and ran out easy 4-1 winners. The League Cup Semi Final 1st leg was upon us and last years finalists Middlesbrough were the visitors. I've had a lot of trouble with the Boro since moving into the Premier League, mainly from their big front-man Yakubu, so the plan was to play much the same way as I did in the league last week. This time we had trouble containing Yakubu, he scored after 6 minutes. A half time rollocking got the troops moving in the second period and we equalised on 49, unfortunately our defence collapsed 2 minutes later and we let in a second. Thankfully substitute Mido equalised for us on 79 and we held out for a 2-2 draw. I wasn't happy it was a bad result as far as I was concerned and we now needed to win at the Riverside. Our next league game was a trip to Everton another team that I seem to have problems with, again I sent out a team in the formation used against Middlesbrough in the last game, again the game ended in a draw, but this time it was 2-2, Everton luckily scoring the final equaliser in the 89th minute. When you are struggling to get a win it's always nice when a shoite team visits you on your home turf, that shoite team was Sunderland, two Vassell goals helped us on our way to an easy 3-0 victory against the relegation threatened Mackems. I just love it when they go down faster than the Titanic. Next please I shouted and Tottenham put their hands up, Robbie Keane usually gives me a bit of trouble, but not this time. He was rather subdued on our patch and we romped to a 4-1 win which set everyone in a good mood for the tricky League Cup SF second leg. The big day arrived and I was full of trepidation. The formation was the defensive set up that had given us some edgy draws in the previous games, but this time I set a midfielder to man mark one of their play-makers in a bid to cut off Yakubu's supply line. As the teams lined up I was overjoyed to see the Yak wasn't in their line-up so set our mentality to attacking. I also man marked their best striker. The game kicked off and we had a couple of hairy early minutes but as it settled down Vassell took the game by the scruff of the neck and had us 2-0 up by half time. He added a third in the 72nd minute and Boro crashed out of the League Cup 3-0 on the night and 5-2 on aggregate. Liverpool won the other Semi Final to set up a North West Final. Newcastle still lead the Championship with 62 points from 30 games. They have a 2 point advantage on Southampton, 4 points on Portsmouth and 6 points on Reading.
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Post by Sonic on Mar 22, 2006 2:18:21 GMT
Your doing well, except for the stumble at the right time, that didn't affect you overly. What's with all the send offs? You've had a few now. When your teams on, it tends to score lots of goals. Are you selling out your stadium? And your still on track for all 4 this season, good work there :thumb:
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Post by coffers on Mar 22, 2006 8:32:14 GMT
We do seem to get a fair few opposing players sent off, I'm not sure if we have a diver in the team, or if it's down to the number of potential one-on-ones we get on the opposition goal, forcing defenders to panic tackle from behind.
Our home games are near enough sold out for League games. Cups are a different story.
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Post by Moo on Mar 22, 2006 9:15:22 GMT
Excellent stuff, Coffers, a cracking mid-season here, still top, although it is tight and looking good for pots. Huzzah! Have many of the "stars" of Newcastle left since they were relegated, or are they still about the same? I suppose more would leave in the January window, just to screw with them for next season. I'm sorry for asking about them all the time, it's just that I very rarely have the English league open when not playing as Newcastle and I am interested in what happens there. For instance, in my FM06 Newcastle save, Liverpool had to look for a new manager in summer 2008 when Rafa got the England job. His replacement? Steve Bruce. It's things like that that make me laugh.
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Post by coffers on Mar 22, 2006 9:23:18 GMT
The Middlesbrough cup game was quickly followed by a home tie in the 4th Round of the FA Cup against Bolton, once again they gave us a hard time and we could only draw the game 0-0, meaning we have to travel to the Reebok for an unwanted replay. Our Argentinian play-maker who I bought in the summer is and has been out of action for a few games now and we are missing him badly. He provides a spark in the midfield that none of my other players seem capable of doing. A recent Brazilian left winger who I signed from Sao Paulo may do a job in the future but he hasn't quite settled in yet.
The cup match bore draw was repeated in the next game an away league game against Birmingham. It was truely awful and both sides were lucky to score nothing. :humb:
West Brom travelled to the City of manchester Stadium next and brought Duke Ellington, another player who seems to enjoy good times against my teams. Their play-maker left winger was targeted for man marking and the Duke saw nothing of the ball worth writing home about. We efectively strolled to a 2-1 win, all the goals came in the second half, Lee Croft got both ours in the 70th and 77th minutes, West Brom replied with a lucky breakaway on 82.
Our next game will be the FA Cup replay against Bolton, I'm not expecting great things in that one.
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Post by coffers on Mar 22, 2006 9:29:48 GMT
Excellent stuff, Coffers, a cracking mid-season here, still top, although it is tight and looking good for pots. Huzzah! Have many of the "stars" of Newcastle left since they were relegated, or are they still about the same? I suppose more would leave in the January window, just to screw with them for next season. I'm sorry for asking about them all the time, it's just that I very rarely have the English league open when not playing as Newcastle and I am interested in what happens there. For instance, in my FM06 Newcastle save, Liverpool had to look for a new manager in summer 2008 when Rafa got the England job. His replacement? Steve Bruce. It's things like that that make me laugh. Owen went back to Liverpool in the January transfer window. As far as I can remember that's about all that moved. They've still got Parker, Given, Ramage, Emri, Ameobi (reserve) and Luque who is out on loan to Rangers. After 32 games Newcastle have 64 points and have slipped to second, Southampton now have 66 points. Portsmouth have 64 points in 3rd and Derby in 4th have 57 points.
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Post by coffers on Mar 22, 2006 10:06:03 GMT
The 4th round FA Cup replay at Bolton was a farce, they pissed on us from a great height. Nolan ran the show and scored 2 of their 3 goals. The least said the better, apart from the team was kept in after the game to write out 500 lines each; 'I must not play shoite against our deadly rivals especially if they are managed by Fat Sam'. :humb: and bollocks we lost 3-0.
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Post by Moo on Mar 22, 2006 10:16:11 GMT
You can't escape the quality of Fat Sam, you should know that by now, Coffers. It seems rather tight in the Championship there, but with that line up, they should be better than second place.
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Post by coffers on Mar 22, 2006 10:38:49 GMT
I should have added that I played one International friendly for Egypt, an away game at Italy and we came out with a creditable 1-0 defeat. Italy ran the first half but we totally bossed the second and were unlucky not to score a couple of goals.
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Post by coffers on Mar 22, 2006 13:32:17 GMT
With our recent up and down form we weren't looking forward to a trip to Anfield, which is a dress rehearsal fro the forthcoming League Cup Final in a couple of weeks. I tried to lightened the mood by claiming that the loser of this game would effectively put themselves out of contention for the title. Lining up in a 4-1-4-1 formation I thought we started the game well but on 14 minutes we stupidly gave away a penalty and Liverpool gratefully bagged it to put themselves a goal up. The formation didn't seem to be doing us any favours while we were chasing the game so I instructed both winger to get as far forward as they could when we had the ball. That caught Liverpool on the hop, they hadn't expected that and on 36 Vassell connected with a low Lee Croft cross and put us back in the game. In the second period Liverpool upped their game and gave us a few scary moments but we fought our way back again and on 65 Riise's handball in the area gave Croft the chance to put us ahead from the spot, which he did with ease. With Liverpool chasing the game our right back somehow found himself in the clear in injury time and he put the game beyond doubt. We had all but camped in the Liverpool area in the second half and fully deserved our 3-1 win, which opens the gap on Arsenal back to 4 points and we have 8 points on Liverpool. All three of the top three clubs have now played 24 games.
After the game Rafa is informed by me that I intend to replace Liverpool as the dominant force in English football, I'm sure that won't go down too well with the Spanish one.
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Post by Moo on Mar 22, 2006 14:26:38 GMT
I'm sure it won't, ye cheeky mare.
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Post by Sonic on Mar 22, 2006 23:58:15 GMT
Nice work, and also on the taunting. Except for the Fat Sam moment, which I'll say I missed. Thankfully I did :humb:
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Post by coffers on Mar 23, 2006 17:25:24 GMT
I got a couple of games in last night but none in today due to being over gazebo-ed.
Our next opponents were Fulham, at home in the League, they were 4th from bottom when they arrived and they were in the same position when they left, goals from Mido in the first half, Vassell and Croft in the second ensured that we walked away with a 3-0 win and 3 easy points.
I didn't expect the next game to be that easy though as we traveled to Benfica for the 1st leg of our Champions Cup game. Surprisingly things started brightly though, a penalty on 3 and another on 12 both converted by Croft, gave us a nice quick 2-0 lead, our lone Greek striker added a 3rd on 19 before Benfica woke up and pulled one back on 34. I'd have been grateful for a 3-1 lead at the break, but no, our lone Greek striker added two more goals on 40 and 42 to grab his hat-trick and ensure that we had five goals at the break. Benfica nicked another goal on the stroke of half-time. 5-2; it was a sensational lead to take into the second period, which exploded into life when we scored another goal on 46. That was that, things got closed down a bit after that and it ended in a 6-2 away victory to us. The pundits we're surprised having predicted a Benfica win, but fully admitted that we fully deserved the result by the end of the game.
The League Cup final is next and I won't get that done until tonight (hopefully).
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Post by Sonic on Mar 24, 2006 0:19:20 GMT
That's a poor result againt Benfica. How could you let in two goals! Shame on you.
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Post by coffers on Mar 24, 2006 9:26:32 GMT
Ok, so what's to tell today; I had a bit of a marathon session yesterday starting with the League Cup Final at Wembley against Liverpool. Liverpool started with their usual 4-3-1-2 line up and to try to combat it I started with a 4-1-3-2 line up. Liverpool started strongly but we stung them with a counter attack on 16 and recorded the first goal of the game. It took the scousers some time to recover but Gerrard hammered an equaliser on 33. From that moment on we were on the back foot fro the entire game, but kept the thieves at bay, whilst failing miserably to create any decent chance's of our own. 90 minutes came and went so did extra time. With a 1-1 draw the game went to penalties and Liverpool were sick as parrots to have let us get away with even that, they became even sicker as the shoot-out progressed. Both sides missed the first two spot kicks, then both sides scored the third. Liverpool then missed the 4th but we scored to make it 2-1 with 4 penalties played. Sissoko missed Liverpool's fifth and handed the Cup to us on a plate. When I say all the penalties were missed, every single one was saved by the respective goalies. So City were now the proud holders of the League Cup for the first time in over 30 years. Now back to the real contest the league, an away trip to Villa beckoned and goals by Vassell on 4 and 46 put us on the road to what we thought would be an easy victory, but Baros wiped the grins off our faces with goals on 66 and 88. Had we bottled it? It looked to be that way but with a minute left on the clock we won a penalty and Lee Croft converted to undo all Villa's hard work. Ha! Liverpool suffered a Cup Final hangover and lost 4-0 to Middlesbroough at home. Double Ha! Fat Sam came to our stadium with the TV cameras in tow, for the next game. I expected it to be tough, both sides lined up with 4-1-4-1 formations, it was tough but we ground out a 2-0 lead by the 66th minute, both goals coming in the second half. Bolton pulled a goal back on the break with 2 minutes to spare but couldn't find enough in the tank to equalise. Of course the usual taunts took pride of place in the pre-match build up and Sam doesn't like me anymore. The Twunt! It's time to finally put Benfica to the sword, unfortunately we didn't play quite as well as last time. We scored as early as the second minute, but Benfica equalised on the stroke of half time. Vassell put us in front again on 63 but once again Benfica pegged us back on 71. That spelled the end of the game as far as goals and excitement went, it ended 2-2, but we progressed to the Quarter Final stage to meet bloody Liverpool again. An away trip to Norwich should have presented us with no problems, at first it didn't we went 2-0 up by the half hour mark, but Norwich pegged us back to 2-1 on the stroke of half time. We seem to be getting into a habit of giving away late goals. Dean Ashton equalised for Norwich on 76 and we played out another disappointing 2-2- draw. I'm getting concerned at how we are letting teams back into games that should have been killed off. With the way we had been playing lately I was a bit worried about our next game an away trip to Charlton, they play a strange formation and I went back to 4-1-4-1 to try to combat it. Well we kept them away from our goal anyway. Our star Argentinian midfielder was back for his first match since January and our midfield looked a lot better for it. The first half ended 0-0, but we were on top. We upped the game in the second period and goals on 62 and 64 were enough to give us a deserved 2-0 win. Finally the last game of the night a home game against Blackburn which we controlled from start to finish. Two first half Vassell goals gave us all three points in a game that we never looked like losing. It's Preston away next, they have just sacked Byron Robinson for being shoite after I said he was the man to get them relegated, they also sit in 17th position only 2 points ahead of Sunderland in 18th and 3 ahead of Crystal Palace in 19th. Wigan are the new Sunderland, bottom with 14 points after 30 games. In the Championship 39 games have been played and Newcastle are back on top with 81 points. They lead Southampton by 3 points and Portsmouth by 5. West Ham are in 4th with 71 points. The Current Premiership Table:
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Post by Moo on Mar 24, 2006 9:35:36 GMT
What's this? Portuguese slaughter? Tin pots? Strolling in the league? Dear me, Coffers! How many times do I have to tell you to stop being so damned good at this game? Stop KUTGW! :checkit:
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Post by coffers on Mar 24, 2006 10:12:08 GMT
I should have added that the current caretaker manager of Preston is the Assistant Manager that I released from his contract at Man City (by mutual agreement) back in January. It's now March. He's got Preston playing a tight defensive 5-3-2 formation, and it looked as if it was going to work against us in our next league game, we were struggling to get anything meaningful on target fro the entire game, then 33 seconds into injury time the ball broke for Vassell, his shot was straight at the goalie who parried it right, Mido followed up and plonked the ball in from an acute angle to give us a 1-0 win at the death. Better still Arsenal could only draw at home against Tottenham, so if they win their games in hand they will still be 6 points behind us. Having said that we stall have to play both Liverpool and Arsenal in the league before the end of the season.
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