Bonjour champers! You join us on the other side of the winter break, and ready to attack the second half of season eight. We’re in the hunt as usual, but we all know what can happen between now and the end of the season, so we won’t go into all that. Lets go…

The coffers are well and truly empty, so there are no incomings, but a couple of fledglings leave on loan…

And the ageing ACG joins Kaiku at Pacos de Ferreira. He was a great servant for us…

Velvet ball bag time, and out of all the teams in France, it had to be them, didn’t it?…

In the other cup, it’s all going great until Calle decides to f*ck it all up by getting sent off…

I’m so p*ssed off that I drop him against Marseille, and with a little help from a red card, we do the double over them for the first time…

In contrast, we’re in trouble against rock-bottom Le Mans, but Calle comes off the bench to redeem himself with a brace before Vicente Herrero completes the comeback, and the win takes us second after Le Havre hold PSG…

The Basque Boys want the Basque Boys…

PSG haven’t won in three games, and Denilson is injured, but Calle is suspended. A win would put some daylight between us, but I should’ve known they’d rediscover their form against us.

Bordeaux are next in the cup, and after going 2-0 down, we’re back in it for all of six minutes. I honestly don’t know how we’re ever going to close the gap on these lot and PSG…

We’re back on track with the nerviest of 1-0 wins away at Gueugnon…

But then we f*ck up at home to Nantes, as Dida is back and up to his old tricks. To make matters worse, Bordeaux and PSG both draw…

Poor old Babs, I swear that lad must be cursed…

It’s back to back losses at Lens after we have an equaliser disallowed on 70 minutes…

But we manage to well and truly get revenge on Le Havre for that cup defeat, which is nice..

Torres Mestre is the latest Basque Baby to be borrowed…

Our recent inconsistency shows no signs of stopping away at 12th-placed Chateauroux…

Another disallowed goal prevents us from doubling our 1-0 lead at Montpellier, and sure enough it comes back to bite us later on…

We throw another lead away against Monaco, and even manage to make the massive fraud that is Hernan Crespo look good…

You know you’re struggling when the 16th-placed team rip right through you with wave after wave of attacks. I’ve literally no idea what’s happened to us lately…

If ever there was a bad time to face Bordeaux, this is definitely it. We were third for nine weeks, but this terrible run has seen us slip back down to our favourite fourth spot…

Badiola scores for the fourth game running, but yet again we can’t hold onto the lead, and have to settle for a point. Luckily our blushes are spared as Le Havre and Lille both draw…

The winless streak looks like being extended to seven games at home to Guingamp, when up pops Nando with a last-minute winner to keep us within a point of Lille, who we face next…

We quickly find ourselves 2-0 down to the team above us, but we battle back to go level before losing a man, and then Calle puts us in front and we manage to dig in and see out a much-needed win. Boy did we need that!…

We suffer another red card as we’re held by lowly Caen, but once again other results are kind, and keep us third with a game to play…

We play Bastia last. They’re a point behind us, and Lille are a point behind them. We can’t finish level on points with Bastia, and our goal difference is four better than Lille’s, so a draw will probably be enough, unless Lille beat Monaco 5-0, which you’d think was highly unlikely, but this is Championship Manager…

Thankfully the boys have decided that they’ve had enough of finishing fourth, and choose to turn up for our most important game of the season, and we’re out of sight in half an hour…

So, we end up third, which is an improvement on the previous four seasons, and can be seen as progress, but let’s not kid ourselves, it was more down to the luck of other results being kind to us than us actually playing well.

We were once again well-placed to challenge for the title at the halfway mark, but then went on to only win seven matches in the second half of the season, something we desperately need to try and fix if we’re ever going to win this f*cking league…

Apparently finishing a place higher is only worth an extra £5k. Why do we even bother?…

Txutxi’s contract was up, but I manage to get a couple of grand for him as he heads home to see out his career. Another stalwart gone…

Time for the usual stat attack. Badiola was the star performer and king of assists in his more advanced role, while Calle was top scorer (as you’d expect from a loan striker) with a mighty 37 goals! He was also the league’s top scorer by a country mile, outscoring his nearest challenger by 13 goals!

The main man also scoops the football writers’ player of the year award at the end of season shindig. Well done, my Basque Boy…

So, that wraps up our eighth season together. It’s progress, but boy is it frustrating. Just when I think we’re getting closer, Bordeaux and PSG bring us firmly back down to earth every time. If we can only figure out how to beat them, then we might just be able to win the league, but that’s easier said than done. Join me next week for season nine. Au Revoir!