Guten morgen! It’s the eighth and final season for Nick in Leipzig, and his RB team have started their title defence, cup run and champions league debut well. Will it continue this week? Over to Nick…

Here’s our Graham with a quick reminder of the table… at present we’re fourth but level on points with Dortmund and Hamburg, so not terrible, and we’re in good company.

We’ve already lost Lieftink and Leonidas to long injury lay-offs, and now Carrete joins the list as well, but Big Dunc returns to soften the blow a little.

We begin at our old chums and league leaders, Bochum. We absorb lots of early pressure and end a goalless first half on top. But it becomes apparent that it’s going to be one of those days, and we’re hit with a late sucker punch. F**k!

It’s a similar story against Dortmund, where we dominate but can’t find a way past that c*nt Christophe Revault. A draw against these lot isn’t the worst result in the world though, so I’m not too upset with a point.

Kurth (Effenberg) is the latest injury victim. Just as well I signed Brian Laudrup’s regen…

In our first European action this week, it’s one-way traffic in the first half against mostly-grey Ararat, but it takes twenty shots at goal for us to finally take the lead. But the floodgates open in the second half, and it’s easy in the end.

We dominate Duisburg in the cup, but at 1-0 we’re open to an equaliser which eventually comes, and Suker Jr blows a chance to win it from the spot. He atones for his miss but again we throw our lead away and lose on penalties.

We dust ourselves off against Düsseldorf, although it takes going 1-0 down, them having a man sent off, two missed penalties and a total of 28 shots at goal to finally get the win. That was way harder than it should have been.

We’ve been struggling to hold onto leads lately, but a man of the match performance from our keeper (Köpke Jr) and the return of skipper Lieftink see us keep our first clean sheet in four games in a slender win away at Freiburg.

In Europe we deservedly lead Man Utd at half time after wasting numerous chances. We continue dominating in the second half but Richard Wright keeps us at bay until Leonidas comes on to mark his return from injury with a winner which puts us top of the group.

Bayern get their customary win. We’re so bad that I make three subs at half time, but it comes back to bite me when Duncan gets injured and we have to play almost half an hour with ten men. Kaba f*cking Diawara.

We follow up the Bayern loss with a miserable afternoon at Karlsruhe, who’ll no doubt be over the moon to come away with a point after not managing a single shot on target all game. Thankfully Santi spares our blushes though.

After losing the ice man to injury, Matthäus Jr to a red, and going behind three times, I’ve literally no idea how we end up beating BMG 4-3 after being outplayed for the whole match, but I’ll take it after a couple of winless games.

Back to Europe, and I’ve seen some things in the 25 years that I’ve been playing this game, but never a grey keeper having the game of his life. After twenty shots at goal we just can’t score and our qualification for the knockout stage is now hanging in the balance.

We un-emphatically take our frustration from the Celtic game out on Leverkusen. It’s nothing special in terms of performance, but I’ll take the three points and clean sheet after the way things have been going for us lately.

After a brace in that last match, Suker II gets injured in training but luckily the Ice Man returns from his lay-off.

It’s been a week of firsts, and as if a super performance from a grey keeper wasn’t enough, the Iceman decides to score our second equaliser just after coming off injured in an unconvincing away win at Werder Bremen. This game never fails to amaze me.

No sooner had be returned, he’s gone again…

We sign off this week in style by walloping Cologne, which is great seeing that the squad is becoming more depleted by the day. I’ve one fit striker in my squad of 32, which is actually a squad of 18 if you exclude injuries and loans.

So despite what seemed like a bit of a wobble, we’re actually second in the table, and only two points behind leaders Bayern with a game in hand going into the winter break, so things are nowhere near as bad as I thought.

So that’s it for another week. Join me next week as we prepare to face Ararat in what has now become a crucial Champions League game. See you then, mein freunde. Tschüss!