Well hello there! We only won the bloody Cup Winners Cup! That’s the good news. We are however 30 points off Feyenoord, who have already managed what we wanted to achieve by overhauling Ajax and they even went down to the 2nd tier first just to rub our noses in it.
Still, it’s a new season and the Micker didn’t retire. You’re still thinking about the bad news aren’t you?
Somebody who did retire was Ruud Gullit. His regen looks spectacular and his name is equally fun.
Edwin Zoetebier is just an old man. But I always need one old goalkeeper.
Meanwhile Preston have decided to bid for David Knight. That’s Paul Heald’s regen, I don’t care.
We are of course allowed to defend our Cup Winners Cup. Whether we do or not is up for debate.
The Amstel Cup draw is reasonable. I mean it always should be but there’s no first division teams in with us at least.
Ah hell we’ve also got the European Super Cup. That can’t end well.
I’ve taken a punt on two young regens. Corey Samways is an angry, injury prone man but man can he shoot.
Darren Wilkie is basically the same but less angry and less injury prone. And 5 years older.
As ever we kick off with the Amstel Cup game and it’s away to Ajax reserves. We struggle to a 4-2 win.
Big news as Sir Kenny takes over as the National team manager. Watch out Amsterdam.
The season starts against Heerenveen and as usual Bakboord scores. Niwankpa is actually really good advice.
Back to the Pints and De Graafschap are brushed aside. Once their goalkeeper got sent off it was easy pickings.
The goal fest arrives away at HSC from the future. Sounds like a gag I’ve made before. Anyway, 5 old lads net and we win 8-0. Tidy.
The Cup Winners Cup draw looks reasonable. We’re off to the Ukraine where hopefully it will be Ukraining goals. For us. Yes.
Ajax reserves are the next to fall at the might of the old lads, who clearly love pints. Uncle Bulgaria is the latest to the party.
De Graafschap are the toughest opponent in our group but the Micker ensures we don’t lose and maintain some dignity.
Rombouts has done a decent job of staking a claim to start up front and he adds two more here to take us to 5 wins out of 6.
Let’s see what atrocities await us in the knockouts.
Back to league action and our usually handy record as PSV is down the drain early on as we’re 2-0 down. A second half rally is ruined when Michael Laudrup misses a penalty to turn a potential one point into none.
Good grief this season is a disaster. We fall to defeat in front of our record crowd with a pathetic display.
Obviously not helped by a virus spreading through the squad. You took my goalies. It’s…too close to home.
With old Edwin in goal we scrape a draw with MVV. Going to get sacked at this rate.
What we don’t need is a trip to Ajax. Even despite the multiple illness absentees, with Ruudy junior off injured, Pounder opens the scoring. Larrazabal gets sent off and eventually our resistance is broken. A draw is respectable. Lol jk Juan of all people wins it late on. Stop the pain.
Ah, Go Ahead Eagles. An old rivalry resumes.
But not before we draw 0-0 with Volendam. Half capacity, you’ll see.
Pounder out for three months, sounds about right.
All we have to do is win in the Ukraine to try and rescue this travesty. We go behind but Andy Bellamy heads in from a corner. We’re going out until 4 minutes from time, Rombouts pops up with the winner. AWAY GOALS.
Hajduk Split next. That’ll do.
Off we go to Willem II. Even despite Bellamy’s red card, Rombouts and captain electricity have us 2-0 up. Watt undoes that hard work by slicing a cross into his own goal but we hold on for a precious, precious win.
So we’re 12th. 11 points behind Ajax already. That’s going to be some gap to bridge but maybe we’ll just try and get into the top 5 again first and worry about them later. Here’s the table:
28 games to go plus cup games. See you next week for about 16 of them. Bye for now.