The 2016/17 season is underway, which means we’re celebrating season 20 of what started as a walk down memory lane but has since turned into a stroll up Future Boulevard. As far as metaphors go, that’s one of my worst. Before this awful intro turns you off the idea, let’s get on with the update.

May as well get the traditional curtain raiser out of the way. League champions Villa take the honours against Hateley’s Man City.

Nobody cares. Barcelona have had it with being average, in bigger news

Yes the man who I wasn’t sure who he was has proved underwhelming. Fancy that.

Well, he’s a headline writers dream but I’m not sure who he is either. Anyway, it’s going well

I mean, he’s better than Elche, but there’s some huge clubs in that bottom 7. Unsworth has a job on to keep Real Madrid up

Another club sick of being midtable is Man Utd, who finally peddle Gordon Milne

Milne had been there for 10 years and although he won the Champions League in 2012, never managed to win the Premier League. With his final 4 seasons yielding final positions of 13th, 9th, 13th and 10th, it never looked on the cards. Who do you bring in?

Le Tissier! He had 13 years at Arsenal and enjoyed a Premier League title in 2014 but also suffered a relegation in 2004. Fair play I suppose. There’s a vacancy at Arsenal now…

Kieron is making his way through the managerial world pretty quickly, this is his 3rd job in 3 seasons. Darlington are going well too, so this is all a bit odd. Who’s in at Darlo?

Right. This looks odd, but he’s just guided Real Sociedad to 3rd in La Liga so he’s a manager on the up, having previously managed Man City to back to back 8th places in 2012 and 2013. Well, whatever. I think I loaned him at Darlington about 19 years ago, maybe it made a big impression.

Interestingly I wasn’t offered any of these jobs, whereas I have been in previous years. My stock has fallen considerably, so really now is the time to re-build that. I’ve decided seeing as we can’t defend, we’ll just throw caution to the wind

It seems to have the desired effect if game 1 is anything to go by

No wonder Le Tissier left Arsenal shortly after this. Thankfully this wasn’t a false dawn and our form has been steady, the average ratings aren’t awful either

Joni (Weah) and Antonio Carlos (Ronaldo) have finally formed a good partnership, though Joni has had a couple of injuries. Nogueira (Zidane) is rubbish out on the left but the results have been good. Mariasson is the famous Icelandic DM/FC on his 3rd iteration

Speaking of 3rd iterations, Gazza is back again

So even though we can’t defend, it gives me great pleasure to bring you a screenshot of the table where we aren’t in the bottom half!

It’s a black & white fest at the top of the table, dare we dream of Europe? It’s such a tight table I think that would be foolish at this stage. Looks like great value at Chelsea though, so many goals. By contrast, we have the best attack and one of the worst defences. Phil Mulryne is king for now though.

Le Tissier has work to do at Man Utd, whilst Brian Little is having a rare off season.

So have I finally cracked it? Or will my Kevin Keegan tactics go the same way as old KK’s did in 1996? Join me next time to find out

For more CM9798 check out my book on Amazon or Brits Abroad over on the Higher Tempo Press