Welcome back to season 8 of the CM9798 Retirement Home. Despite having more options available to us than ever before, the first update of season 8 was a disaster. One league win in 13 is not good form for anybody and although we are within one win of escape the drop zone, the reality is our win ratio would suggest there won’t be many of them to come…

A home defeat to WBA where Stimac gets an early red really sums up the mood around the home.

We do manage to take the lead at Charlton before Les Battersby denies us a vital win. Boo and hiss.

Our goalkeeping situation is abhorrent. The old lads can barely see let alone catch so I’m sort of relieved to find Singapore’s number 1 is now 35. £6k later and he’s mine.

He makes little difference as we slip to defeat against QPR.

Darren Anderton sees red after some early taunting about him not being fit enough for a place in the Retirement Home. Despite playing 73 minutes with 10 men, Tottenham still beat us 1-0 and I once again question the point in any of this.

A limp defeat at 15th placed Bolton leaves us well and truly rock bottom.

Clearly, this cannot continue. 1 win in 17 league games has us cut dangerously adrift of safety and in all honesty, it’s not much fun. All of my goalkeepers are old and knackered and let in the majority of shots they face, whilst Singapore’s number 1 might help, you can’t escape the fact the whole team is knackered. I’m invoking a rule change to try and keep the save alive.

What happens when you’re in the Retirement Home and and you need help? They send the carers in. Now, I don’t want to flog this metaphor to death as it’s quite morbid but here we are. I’m going to allow myself three under 35s in the squad in the hope it rejuvenates us. The overall aim is still to sign over 35s but I’ve got £900k to spend and thanks to a tribunal, I’ve spent £600k of it on Luke Weaver.

Joey Cockerill is a centre half  on a free transfer. I’d also like a forward player but we’ll get to that.

In the meantime, neither can play in our narrow defeat to Premier League West Ham. Decent performance really but we’re out.

Here’s the third carer. Alex Fellenger looks the part but will he score the goals to keep us up?

It’s a new look team where Quinn is only around 75% condition – make your own jokes.

Forest play 85 minutes with 10 men and still nearly beat us, only the Micker’s appearance off the bench snatches us a point. There isn’t a quick fix here.

This loss at Kidderminster is flattering. They plundered 26 shots against us – quite possibly more than we’ve had all season.

The unlikely figure of Kevin Drinkell gets us our first win since…the last episode. He’s 44, which is as impressive as it is ridiculous.

We head to Bristol full of optimism and leave thoroughly deflated. 3-0 down after 38 minutes, some things never change.

The good news just keeps on coming.

A home defeat to Stockport does little to lighten the mood.

Fellenger! Finally the carer helps out. It’s a very welcome hat-trick as we just about hold on to see off Port Vale.

The young man is at it again at Tranmere, equalising just after the half hour. We cant hold on for a point though and the indignity of conceding to Gary Flitcroft is only slightly helped when we injure him.

Bjorn Johansen needs only a minute to give us the lead against Bradford. Sadly it is wiped out a minute later and we’re 3-1 down before half time. We end up losing 4-3, Patrice Loko is 34 and in February I’ll be watching him like a hawk.

Boxing Day disaster anyone? We lose Malpas to an injury and Cockerill to a red card for deliberate handball. Chris Perry is then only yellow carded for the same offence, Fellenger misses the pen, Wimbledon go up the other end and wouldn’t you know it? Chris Perry makes it 2-0. Laptop, meet window.

Our FA Cup 3rd round exit doesn’t bother me, Roy Keane playing for Man City does.

Reading are the only team we beat in the previous episode so it’s no surprise they sit in 23rd, one place ahead of us. It’s a huge relegation battle between two terrible teams. Stimac heads us in front and we take an 80 minute battering only for Mick Quinn to skip through and make it 2-0 if you can imagine Mick Quinn skipping. A great result.

We can build on this, right? We’re behind after just two minutes at home but Johansen earns us a point. Hmm.

9 points from safety, 17 games to go. I think we might be getting reacquainted with Division 2.

I hope you’ll forgive me for changing the rules, but there was no way this team was going to stay up or even come close to staying up. They still probably won’t but we’ve now got half a chance. The club is now back in debt though so this has come at a price if you’ll pardon the pun – at least we have three saleable assets to potentially clear that in the event of a relegation. See you next week?