Crikey, part 11 already. We’ve had three seasons in France and after an initial slow start, FC Mulhouse Sud-Alsace are now playing European football. Or at least we will be if we can make it through the preliminary round against…Cwmbran Town. What a treat that will be.

A bigger worry is…who will be left in the squad by then?

You see, my best player Nicolas Olivero is out of contract. He’s been moaning about wanting to sign for a bigger club for most of his time in France but he’s shown that famous Uruguayan professionalism to play his part in our rise up the system. He is young so we’ll receive some sort of nominal fee for him. I keep offering him everything I can but that isn’t much.

Why isn’t it much? Well, our idiot board have spent pretty much the entire bank balance on 5000 new seats for the stadium of disease.

You have to laugh. The good news keeps coming, too.

Monaco away man. Of all the teams we could have drawn…

The bids for Olivero arrive but before he signs on the dotted line, we have to play Cwmbran Town. We are absolutely devastating. I think this might be my biggest ever competitive win.

We depart the pitch and Olivero keeps walking, never to be seen again. That £450k will go a long way to be honest.

The best I can sign is this moron. I’ve seen this type of player hundreds of times over the years and they’re always crap but who knows, maybe he will overcome the fact that he has bricks for boots. There is no other explanation for creativity and flair to be that low.

Marauding centre back anybody?

Nobody good wants to sign. David Ginola refuses talks and Emmanuel Amunike comes up on the “interested foreign based” search but also declines. Great times.

Nathan Blake is promoted to starter and plays his part in seeing off the Welsh blind school. Getting 20 on aggregate was the target, to be fair.

Those cards at UEFA have sent us to Ukraine next. The fun never stops. We win 2-0 despite Adolfsson hip tossing one of their lads.

First game of the season then and…2-0 down. Smicer and Wiltord. Pennyfather is on the field because Vareille is carrying an injury and despite being 37, he reduces the arrears before we force an own goal. 2-2! Smicer breaks our hearts. We need some good news.

This is not it. Nathan man, get a grip. Declined.

We’re behind at home to Le Havre, who seem to be a bit of a bogey team for us. We’re trailing and having another one of those days but supersub Brian Deane comes off the bench to equalise before setting up Natigol for the second. Young Trez adds the gloss and it’s a win. We’re somehow holding it together.

Auxerre get the full works. A good old fashioned thrashing started by a Gautier free kick. We’ve found our mojo!

The Ukranains keep us honest but are never really in with a shout of knocking us out. It’s another four goals for us. Oliverwho?

Joseph Desire-Job tries his best to derail us but he hadn’t bargained on Nathan Blake. I mean really, who has? Anyway despite trailing twice we storm back to win 4-2.

We have real trouble containing Monaco, as you might expect. We take an early lead but Legwinski and that dick Ikpeba kill us. There’s no shame in it but the board think it’s a reprehensible act.

Air miles are everything to a club with little money so I’m delighted to say we’re off to Moldova next. Zimbru Chisinau put up a good scrap but the triangle of doom (Pennyfather, Blake, Deane) ultimately mean we take the first set 6-2. See you at our place.

Oh, Natigol. Not you too.

We ease past Guingamp with the front two scoring, but bad news is just around the corner.

Vareille has a big club release clause and Atletico Madrid are only too happy to activate it. £3m is good money for us but when nobody is too keen to join it’s largely pointless.

Jurgen Klinsmann is interested but wants £40k a week. He’s 36 and we can offer him £7k. He politely declines. A 1-0 loss at PSG is not the worst thing to happen to us this week.

We just about muster the strength to beat Zimbru at home. Where next? Israel? Lithuania?

Oh crikey, give me any of those far flung places over this. Boned.

It’s time for that dreaded Monaco cup match but to the major surprise of…me, we win 1-0 despite Bound being sent off just after half time.

As usual though we shoot ourselves in the foot with a lame 0-0 draw with Bastia. Our need for striking recruits is all too apparent.

5th after 8 games is reasonable. We can work with that, we need a striker though.

This guy is interested. He’s playing for first division Bradford, which seems ludicrous for a man without any single figure stats.

He has a big club release clause after dropping down from the Premier League from Sheff Wed. The Owls paid £4.3m for him from Lille but he was garbage for them, scoring 11 goals in three seasons (75 games). He has 9 in 21 for Bradford at a lower level. It’ll take our entire transfer budget to get him if the tribunal fee doesn’t screw us. I think he’s worth the gamble.

The bid is in. See you next week!