Welcome back! You re-join us as we look to improve on Celta’s real life performance with the same squad. A reminder we are still in the Copa del Rey and sit 5^th in La Liga.

A man of the match performance from Bilbao’s Valencia in goal sees us lose the goal-fest against mid-table strugglers. A poor outcome we just didn’t see coming.

A setback of sorts. Not having Mostovoi due to the World Cup playoffs is not good. ONE DOWN!!! We make our way into the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey…just.

It’s Betis or Zaragoza in the next round. Neither an easy task. Whilst comfortably on-top against an excellent Espanyol, our captain proceeds to undertake some FAFO and get himself sent-off. It ends in tears for us all.

Mad Maz ruins it and picks up a 4-game suspension. We’re 11^th, but the league is so tight, winning our game in hand would have us 5^th. Our game in hand arrives, and we proceed to make a meal of it. Against 19^th place.

We are up against it now to claw our way back up to 6^th. Mad Maz’s replacement Daniel Dutuel picks up his 21^st disciplinary point and a 3-game ban. So we’ll have no cover for that position…

Derby day arrives. I am not excited. We try a change in formation:

Just when you think its turning around, our keeper does the unthinkable at that stage of the game and boom its gone. Not only that we’ll have to now field a grey keeper.

Cadete just can’t score at the minute and the support act are shocking. We can’t even hang on to beat Sporting Donkey’s (who are somehow 5^th without Dave).

And then somehow our attack comes to life, but having a grey keeper lets us down. Points dropped. Notice no Cadete on the scoresheet.

We are now 4 points adrift of Valencia in 6^th place. A much-needed return to winning ways is celebrated, but there is always another edge to it with Belenguer likely out for a bit (and Caires) and we are already short of midfielders.

Rather annoying.

It’s Copa del Rey time! We put the Betis goal under pressure, and Prats gets man of the match. No away goals achieved however.

You know when you feel like you could just throw the laptop through the window? Yeah that.

I’ll take the win, but when your £7m player gets injured too…sickener.

Oh. My. Days. Mostovoi steps in for Karpin and we’re into the Copa del Rey semi-finals!

We’ll face Real, Barca or Ateltico. Easy. Real it is. We follow it up with a wasteful draw with Salamanca. We are 8^th, 3 points adrift of 6^th. We make hard work of rock-bottom Valladolid, late goals adding a bit of gloss.

Two on the bounce! Come on!

We claw our way back to 6^th place, however, you can see just how tight the table is at this stage of the season with 16 games to go.

Given the back up players all want to leave for regular football and the decent players all want to leave to play for one of the 5 clubs above us in the table, it’s a wonder we are where we are.

Bringing in Revivo and slotting Karpin to a wing-back has really helped us have more of an edge it would seem. We’ve got Copa del Rey semi-finals to contend with and the season’s run-in as to whether we can better the real life Celta performance. Atletico and Bilbao are both in reach so 5^th or 4^th could be possible if we put a run together, but any higher is out of the question. As for the Copa del Rey, we’ll need a miracle!

See you next time!