The Start of Season 4
A small amount of changes.
Keith Branagan has retired so we need a new first choice keeper. That position has been filled with David James, the one time Liverpool keeper has been at Division Two Cardiff for the past 12 months. He’ll either be a steal or a hapless horror show.
Isiah Rankin joined on a perm deal for £925k, after 21 goals in 25 games I think we can all agree he wont score in the next 40. Also joining are veteran Slaven Bilic – replaces Stephane Henchoz whose work permit has expired, and Schoolboy Jermaine Dobson. Dobson is a striker, and we are all quite excited.
It’s amazing how quickly the games come around. Rankin scores on his 2nd debut and it’s all looking rosy until Port Vale get a late leveller.
The St. John’s Ambulance people are the busiest when Reading were in town for the League Cup 1r 1l. Barely had we finished celebrating, had they equalised but Osorio separated the sides.
Hello!! We’ve been threatening this sort of result the whole time but never actually took any of the huge amount of chances we created. Until today.
Safe passage in the League Cup. A few rested players and we saw it through despite finishing with 10.
I asked the boys why they allowed the Reading scorer to drift in at the back post – apparently they couldn’t see him behind New Zealand international Chris Wood and former England goalkeeper Chris Woods. They couldn’t see the Trees through the Woods…
For 40 minutes it was a question of how many we would score. Total domination. Then it wasn’t. This is more like our old self.
Right lads… Important we start the 2nd half well… nothing silly… stay on your feet and jockey. No diving in.
9 men, we only need 9 men…
Just call me the King.
The curse is well known. Sunderland are top of the table.
Undoing all our good work. Robbie Elliott the latest to see Red.
It’s been a few days of real life since I quit the game after the Palace result. The mood was low. I feel refreshed and ready for some more disheartening CM9798…
You will never hear me complain about David James. He was immense at Wigan, we should have lost. But we have Isiah.
Slightly more convincing. If Rankin ever gets injured, we are f.. in trouble. I’m sure now I’ve written it, he’ll break a leg.
So nearly… Barnsley top of the table. We scored early. Le Tiss finally getting off the mark, and then hung on until the last seconds.
The League Cup 2nd Round is our Everest. Burnley a peak too far. Still 90 minutes left to play but it’s done.
Bury are 22nd. We, of course make them look like prime Brazil. They have a lad called Santa, we leave the presents…
It’s probably not much fun being a Bolton fan. I have no idea which team is going to turn up so neither will they. 2nd place Ipswich come and we destroy them. We only scored 2 but created enough chances for 6 or 7.
Readers of the first few episodes will hopefully recall our struggles against Bart Griemink of Birmingham City. He’s still there. We still struggle.
A rotated side in the 2nd leg at Turf Moor. We sacrificed Slaven Bilic for Jermaine Dobson in the 78th minute to “go for it”. So they scored. Nic got one late one but we couldn’t force an unlikely Extra Time.
We don’t wait long till we are back at Turf Moor. My decision to start Nic again was justified within the first 5 minutes, whenever we looked like streaking away, Burnley pulled us back. But thankfully they ran out of time.
Rankin shows that he is a human being before correcting his mistake moments later.
Things could get awkward when Slaven Bilic takes out Paul Fewings – how Mrs Bilic and Mrs Fewings feel about it are not on record, but thankfully Alan Thompson finds the net a couple of times and we end this post with a win.
15 games into the 4th season and have we actually cracked something? Just outside the play-offs.
Join me next week where we will win some, lose some and somehow bounce between 13th and 7th without ever getting into the top 6.
Or maybe it will be different this time.