Bonjour! and welcome back to Bayonne. Last week we won promotion at the first attempt, but can we strengthen the squad over the summer to make it capable of surviving first season relegation from Ligue 1?

First business is cup draws, and it’s non-league Gueugnon in the Coupe de France…

And because we’re now a top flight team, we can play in the League Cup…

Promotion has made a big difference to the interested foreign based list, and I have £3m at my disposal, but I need to be sensible with it.

First up, a new keeper. Fontan did ok, but he’s not number one material, and Iru is useless, so in comes this guy for £300k from Leganes…

I had this man at Bilbao. He didn’t play much back then, but he’ll get a lot more minutes this time. He costs £450k from Toulouse…

Speaking of Bilbao, they take another £750k off my hands for this man, who’ll be Bakero’s successor when he eventually retires…

Calle heading out on loan is the only departure before the start of the season…

Sadly, No big names retired over the summer, so there’ll be no regens coming in this year.

Here’s how we’re looking ahead of our first season in the big time. We have more depth in terms of numbers if not quality, so will be prepared when we inevitably get injuries…

Here’s how we line up. Unanua and Galdames start, and Garitano is on the bench. Lethal Luke and Double D continue up front, and hopefully they can raise their game against better defences. Let’s go…

First up, Guingamp. We hold our own up until the hour, when they proceed to score at will as we’re welcomed to Ligue 1 with a trouncing…

But we quickly put that result behind us with a convincing home win over Bastia. Maybe we’ll be ok after all…

Or maybe not… We do ok against Bordeaux, but can’t last the distance, and take our foot off the gas as Papin completes his hat trick…

After 25 shots at the Toulouse goal, I feel we deserve more than a draw, but it could prove a useful point come the end of the season…

Exposito becomes my first sale, as he heads for Portugal for a whopping £62k! He was only ever backup for Bakero, and wasn’t much cop.

It’s already become apparent that our defence is going to be a problem, but apparently the Rennes back line is worse than ours…

Flaco’s finest moment was probably the Rock Me Amadeus gag, so he’ll be no great loss…

His replacement is Txutxi, another one I had at Bilbao, for £475k from Badajoz…

The new boy goes straight into the side at the expense of axed Axier, and puts in a 9/10 as we keep our first clean sheet of the season to get some long-awaited revenge on Nice…

We have no problems dealing with Amiens in the League Cup, and will face Le Havre next…

Thrice we lead Cannes, and thrice we throw it away. Eight different scorers is quite a feat…

We’re so wide open at the back, that even at 4-1 up at home to Metz, I’m still nervous, but despite more late goals, we manage to hold on for a first win against big-ish opposition…

Landreau has left Nantes for PSG, and Alkorta gives us a dream start at La Boudoir, but then Txutxi decides to get himself sent off, and it only goes one way from there…

We’re predictably made light work of by PSG, as the aforementioned Landreau watches on from the bench as Revault keeps a clean sheet to condemn us to back-to-back defeats…

After two league defeats on the bounce, the cup game with Ligue 2 Le Havre provides some respite, even though it takes us almost an hour to find a way through…

Let’s face it, it’ll be PSG…

Despite that brief taste of victory in the cup, Marseille easily make it a hat trick of league defeats for us, with some future Watford and Birmingham heroes inflicting the damage…

Lovely stuff…

A Gurria brace on his return from injury stops the Rott against league leaders, Strasbourg to earn us our first point in three games…

Another red card de-rails us again after such a great start at Auxerre. We hold on until half time, but then Sevva strikes twice to sink us…

Hearing that the board are delighted with my performance after one point in five games is something of an unexpected bonus…

It’s been ages since we played a team below us, and we’re quickly 2-0 down to Montpellier. But to our credit, we battle back for a point. It’s not ideal, but I’ll take what I can get at the minute..

I raid the bargain bin once again for this guy from Salamanca for £170k. He can’t be any worse than what we’ve already got…

Edu goes straight into the side for the visit of 8th-placed Lens, who see right through us, and hold us to another draw. I’ll take it…

The game I was least looking forward to goes about as well as expected…

In the first of a cup double-header, Edu gets his first goal as we make hard work of non-league Gueugnon. Sochaux are up next…

In the other cup, we’re never really in it against PSG, and even an early red card for the visitors can’t inspire us to even score a goal…

Capping this week’s action off and taking us up to the halfway point of the season is a pasting at home to Guingamp. Fan-f*cking-tastic…

An eventful first half of the season leaves us 12th, five points behind the team above us, and three above the drop zone.

It’s not panic stations just yet, but with all the big boys to play at the end of the season, we really need to start the second half strongly.

Thanks for joining me as always, and do come back again next week to see how it all unfolds. Something tells me we’re going to have our work cut out to stay up. Au Revoir!