Hey, remember last Sunday when we won a league game? That was good. Welcome back to the Retirement Home, where Season 13 is just getting out of second gear. One sunny day doesn’t make a summer but that might be as good as it gets. To paraphrase Elton John, we’re still standing. Mind you, he also said “oh no no no, I’m a rocket man” when the word he was surely looking for was astronaut so we’ll take it with a pinch of salt.
Back down to earth with a good old thrashing at West Ham. I imagine it’ll be our home form that keeps us up, if anything.
Then again…
Despite an own goal from Gill Goodacre we get thrashed by Middlesbrough. That optimism is fading.
This might help. Fredrik Bild a bear has incredible stats with only pace in single figures. I want him to play in central midfield and spread the ball about. I’m confident he can do it.
His debut sees us hold 2nd placed Leeds to a 0-0 draw. Every point matters.
Didn’t see this one coming. Wolves of course were promoted with us but they were comfortably ahead of us in the Division 1 table. Here though Ole scores twice and C-Lo give us the 3 points. An away Premier League win, what is life?
Of course what you want is to come out of the traps quickly in a home game but this is quite something. Fernando Couto gets two yellow cards in the opening minute, one for not shaving his side burns and the other for giving away the penalty. That proves to be the only goal of the game in a narrow but annoying loss.
Off to Anfield and a hopeful first half display sees us admirably level at the break. One of my special half time team talks sees us concede within 2 minutes before something incredible happens. Solskjaer scores against his old club before Bolivia’s finest Jamie Moreno scores the winner 2 minutes from time. Our finest ever result.
Shock defeat indeed.
Danny Coyne is sacked by Tranmere. He’s over 35 and the goalkeeping department is quite thin, so he’s in.
As is Alessio Tacchinardi, relegated with Chelsea but probably still capable. He’s versatile, if nothing else.
A 0-0 draw with Derby is a point gained. We weren’t good but we’re resilient. Bild has helped considerably.
Boxing Day delight! Leicester are down there with us and Solskjaer has won it! As a famous man once said.
We get a brief respite from the survival battle for an FA Cup tie away at Division 2 Birmingham. They lead but we come storming back to lead 3-1. When Billy Gunn makes it 3-3 there’s still 41 minutes to go and thankfully that’s more than enough time for Solskajer to win it all over again.
Off we go to Maine Road and this time it’s Karanka who gets sent off in the opening minute. Not to be deterred, Ole keeps up his scoring streak to give us the lead against the odds. Man City do find an equaliser but there’s no winner to be found and I’m happy with a point.
Unfortunately Sunderland are one of the forces of English football and they are not our battle. We lose 3-0 and frankly we are lucky to get away with just three.
The FA Cup has given us an away clash with first division Port Vale which is a golden chance to equal our best ever performance in the cup. Obviously we go behind but Claudy from the block earns a replay.
Write this down as the peak of the Retirement Home’s powers. Fernando Couto heads in a corner early on and somehow, we hold Newcastle at arm’s length. Goodness me.
FA Cup? Lovely. Moreno and Solsky put us into the fifth round where we’ll travel to 1st Division Barnsley. It could be…our best ever cup run.
Don’t be fooled by the points that we’ve got, he’s still he’s still Claudy from the block. A narrow win over Hull lifts us to 25 points and frankly one of the most successful months of our pathetic old lives sees us…
Still 18th. But look at the pack. We’re only 2 points behind 14th. We’re fighting like beavers.
14 games plus however much more of an FA Cup run we can muster. This could be a great season, or we could be relegated again and I’m not sure I have it in me to climb the mountain again. There’s a lot to sort out next week. See you there!