Hello and Happy New Year to you all. I hope you’ve had a decent break and are ready to follow more trials and tribulations with my African Leeds team. We’re about to embark on Season 5, so far we’ve won the FA Cup and reached a few semi-finals, notably the Champions League last season, but the common theme over the past 12 parts has been inconsistent form. We can score shed loads, but we can also concede them.

I gave myself a target of 5 seasons to win the league and makes some inroads into Europe, so will Season 5 fulfil those ambitions?

This is the squad that will try and achieve that aim, I’m not holding out much hope though, but maybe the Quicker and co can bring some glory

We’ll have to do a third of the season without our Brucie G regen. Decent goalkeepers have been an issue all through this save.

Kilana gets the nod in goal for our first game against Derby, in which he earns us a pointby saving Deon Burton’s late late penalty

This leaves us in mid-table, while at the top, Plymouth are the surprise early pace setters, thrashing Sunderland away

Sunderland visit us next and we almost emulate Argyle, Victor and Freddie sharing two goals each

Another medium term injury, Naybet isn’t as vital as Grob Jnr but he’s a bit of a loss.

I’ve brought this chap in to cover for Bruce Jnr but will stick with Kilana for the time being

Freddie has made a great start to this season and earns us a tight win over Huddersfield

We mustn’t forget terrace hero The Quicker though, who weighs in with another two goals against our bogey team, Coventry

Our third place finish last season means we’re in the Uefa Cup this season and will start off against OFK Belgrade.

Our marauding winger called Barnes sees to Newcastle at SJP and we’re suddenly managing to keep clean sheets

Well, I obviously spoke too soon! This was a ding-dong of a game which reminded me of my PSV game in the recent CM Cup. I thought we had nicked a win after Abdellaoui’s second but alas, it was not to be…

Back to a boring 1-0 win against Man City and another hard fought three points. Kilana is excelling himself in goal, maybe that Arber injury was a blessing in disguise.

So, to European action while we’re 4-0 up at half time, we take the foot off the gas in the second half and allow OFK to nick 3 goals – away from home, which is never wise really.

Whilst this chap was a beast on the earliest incarnations of Championship Manager, it’s never really clicked for him at Elland Road, but maybe things can happen for him at Portman Road.

We’re a bit lethargic after our midweek european game, but hold Everton to a goalless draw

We’re back at it against Wimbledon, with all our business done in the second 45 minutes.

Abdellaoui scores again to see off OFK in Belgrade. Quiet efficiency seems to be our thing at the moment.

Our reward is a second round trip to Scandinavia

No European hangover against Blackburn, with a score line we used to be more familair with

Plymouth are next up and Wanless looks to have rescued a point until Bakayoko Ono pops up with the winner. This guy is now worth £15.75m but no way am I selling.

He even puts in a man of the match shift when Bodo come to town. I recognise Pablo Thiam as a player who begins at FC Koln, but that’s a blog for the future. Otherwise we are half way into the next round.

Those pesky Portu-geezers are up next and we turn on the style in the second half. Abdellaoui is forming a formidable partnership with Malian/French Freddie and 52,686 people are the beneficaries.

As we are in europe, we start the League Cup in the 3rd round of course, away to Hull and Freddie and his Dreamers settle things in a competition we’ve rarely had much favour in.

Freddie’s turn for a hat trick. I have to keep telling the chairman he really is from Mali. If the French national team call him up, I’m done for.

The game against villa was matchday 13 in the premier league and in what may be a first for this blog, we sit atop the league tree with a 4 point cushion over Liverpool. The goals for column is looking healthy and the goals against respectable.

Could this be our year, when it all finally clicks into place? Can we win some silverware without the regens of N’Doram and Weah?

We can if this guy keeps up his goalscoring antics….

And is supported by our vast array of other goal getters of course

Arber is back from injury, but Kilana has staked his claim on the N0.1 jersey and who am I to argue?

Hypolite Kilana was a Cameroonian goalkeeper who played for Maritimo in Portugal in 1997/98 but am struggling to dig up any other information about his career. An enigma for sure but doing the business for Leeds so far. Even the database is unsure and has his nationality as Republic of Congo….?

Please join me next week to see if we can keep this promising run going!