Happy hump day! Doing the heavy lifting today is Dan with aprt 3 of his mission to take Stuttgart Kickers to the very top. How are they getting on after the winter break?

We face Dortmund the first game back, and they’re unable to exact revenge. In fact, they must hate us, as we win the game with the last kick, catching them cold after the three-month break.

Dunn is off. A tidy £1m+ profit on a player who was hardly pulling up trees.

In the derby, a sending off with the scores level at 2-2 kills us.

This defeat summed up the second half of our season. Our form took a real nosedive in and my theory is that we sold too many players and were unable to replace them, but I’m content. I knew none of the players sold were good enough for the long term, so it’s better they go now whilst the offers are on the table.

Eleventh-place is a respectable enough finish. Munich 1860 retain the title, and Stuttgart leapfrog us into ninth.

We’ve now achieved two of the five targets:

1 – Win promotion to the Bundesliga.

2 – Establish ourselves as a solid Bundesliga outfit.

Three to go, but it’ll only get harder from here on in.

3 – Win the Bundesliga.

4 – Win the European Cup.

5 – Win the Intercontinental Cup

This man proved to be a great signing…

And although his goals dried up, there is no doubting the player of the year…

This decision by the board is welcomed, although it bites a huge chunk out of my already restricted transfer budget.

We managed to recruit a couple of players of real quality ahead of the 1999/2000 season.

Sabri Lamouchi, unhappy in Munich, made the move to Stuttgart for a bargain £1.1m.

Gudjohnsen retired, and his regen was promptly snapped up for peanuts.

Can we build on our solid debut season in the Bundesliga, and climb towards the European places, or will we slip towards the trap door to the second tier?