Welcome back! My Aberdeen revolution is off to a slow start, though there have been positive signs. However, my plans to overhaul the squad with CM legends has been slow to come to fruition thanks to nobody wanting to buy my players. A minor setback. Here’s the state of play in Aberdeen as we re-join the action

Not much room for manouevre, with a full squad and I’m running out of youths to release without feeling the unhappy tut from the boardroom. I’d pretty much sell anyone. Even Dean.

I’m sure he’ll have a lovely time at Man City. Meanwhile, Sean Devine is his replacement

The one in, one out policy continues as finally my haggling over Stephen Glass pays off

Oh my how it pays off. That’s more than double his value and now, Zoidberg has the upperhand. In comes Father Mulryne

Just call me Mike Ashley, signing a replacement for a fraction of the original sale. Lovely stuff. On the pitch, my new look squad is tested by the visit of Rangers

Sean you absolute lad. Well except for missing the penalty, that would have been nice. Still, shots fired at the supposed favourites. The good times continue to roll as, incredibly, somebody offers money for Eoin Jess

What a wide array of clubs. Fair to say Jess divides opinion. With a squad space to fill, I decide to shore up the defence with good old Rob Page

I tell you what mind, Dunfermline are absolutely awful. My new look side score 6 to make up for the woeful 1-1 draw on the opening day

That’s 10 games in the bag and we’re on the coat tails of the Old Firm, though quite what Dundee Utd are doing at the top I’m not too sure. They’re unbeaten!

That is until they turn up at Pittodrie

Devine is worth every penny. It’s not long after this that the Dundee Utd manager leaves to go to Leeds, presumably seeing that it’s all downhill from here, as the mighty Aberdeen continue the charge. Celtic are torn a new one

Whilst Gazza is torn a new leg. He’ll miss World Cup 98 for entirely different reasons this time.

Celtic are the first to blink, sacking old Wim Jansen

He’s replaced by Mark McGhee, who did at least play for Celtic in the 80s. Got to love that continuity

Motherwell pose no danger to us, they are merely a feast for Devine to gorge himself on. Young Tomlinson has also started to become useful playing in one of the two attacking midfield positions. What are we creating here?

Sadly, young Martin Lauchlan won’t play much further part for the foreseeable future. It does raise serious questions about what we get up to in training that we’ve managed to shatter a 16 year old’s pelvis. It’s probably best not think about it.

As we start to gather some traction, there’s always some little turd who thinks they can do better

To be fair, Darren Young has done quite well since signing with the WWE. We await Liverpool’s bid with interest.

The trip to Ibrox should be a good indicator of where we’re at, but we actually get slapped around a bit, which is appropriate for Boxing Day. In all honesty, we were lucky to get nil.

Still, as 1997 becomes 1998, things could be a lot worse. At the half way stage we’re 2nd, though Rangers are threatening to run away with it. The defences of St Johnstone and Dunfermline are sources of great amusement to me.

We’ve had a huge turnover of players, as handily indicated by the below graphic:

As you can see I went back to raiding Partick Thistle. We’re sorted for life based on Partick Thistle youth players.

How did we manage to get £5.5m for Stephen Glass? Actually the day after Villa signed Glass, John Gregory got sacked. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault Stephen (ps. it was.)

It looks very familiar back home, Man Utd and Arsenal leading the way. Boo.

Meanwhile, my decision to load the Belgian league remains a questionable one

With all that in mind, it’s only January 98. I’ve knocked myself out of sync by doing a first update that ended in August rather than October. Nevermind, next time I’ll do the remainder of season one in some sort of bumper update. Can Aberdeen keep the pace? Or will Darren Young complain so much it upsets everyone? See you next week…

My new book The World According to Championship Manager 01/02 is out now! Get your copy from Amazon today