Good morning! Or Good whatever time you happen to be reading this. We’re midway through Season 2 of this multi club mayhem, managing Crystal Palace (The Eagles), Nice (Les Aiglons/The Eaglets) and Go Ahead Eagles (no nickname required). Our Eagle Army are having a fight on to make themselves a mainstay of the top flight in France and Holland whilst Palace are leading the way as potential contenders for European qualification? Or maybe more…

Here’s lovely Bjorn so you don’t have to look at that AI Eagle image I created.

Time for Alan Partridge and his Nice Valence again. It’s a cup clash this time and Robert Dunn plunders a hat-trick. He’s such a random player Dunn. It’s all or nothing.

Misery in the cup though across the water as Palace concede three in 9 minutes to lose the FA Cup replay at the first hurdle.

Dunn’s at it again! A double this time sees off a talented Auxerre side.

Things are definitely moving in the right direction for Nice as two days later we’ve won another one. Solano’s injury will be a problem but that man Dunn has scored 6 goals in 5 days, which will make anybody feel better.

Deadline day in Holland and despite our propensity to leak goals the loan market can offer me two attacking players. Everybody knows Eidur Gudjohnsen (to be fair his Dad would be more useful) and Glaucio, a winger. In theory, they are an upgrade on what we have.

The winter break ends and one of the deadline day loanees nets a vital equaliser. What a result it is, as we withstand 29 shots on goal to leave the Amsterdam Arena with a point.

The Nice bubble has burst. Duncan’s early red card and Valencia breaking an arm (two months out!) are two bits of bad news and conceding four is the icing on a miserable cake in Bastia. To be fair, Bastia sounds like somewhere you’d go to have a bad time.

Go Ahead will not be Going Ahead any further in the Pints Cup, giving up a lead at home to Groningen.

And another harrowing defeat follows 4 days later. We’re in dreamland after 4 minutes but it’s a nightmare by the end. Yes, that is player-manager Ruud Gullit.

The reality is that there is a proper chance of our Dutch pals being relegated. We played well here away at giants PSV but to concede an own goal in injury time is a hallmark of relegation certainties.

Happier times for the Nice boys with a win over table toppers Marseille. There are signs of a team with this lot, but let’s see if we can become a bit more consistent.

A first win in three for Palace, in emphatic fashion, gets the European push back on track. Definitely the golden children at the minute, our London branch.

This is a ridiculous bit of news. Wenger, who took Arsenal to second place last season, is now in the relegation zone and decides it’s time for a change. To FC Metz.

Good grief man we lead three times here and get pegged back on all occasions…then Hyypia fires in the ultimate sucker punch. Kevin Keegan slumped over the advertising hoardings. Relegation is on the agenda.

Heerenveen must be awful. I mean they still score twice but that’s not enough to stop the mighty Eagles winning. Light at the end of the tunnel. It turns out a formation tweak made a difference.

It really has made a difference! A second win, we might stay up afterall.

Yes, Utrecht are bottom of the table. But we are 6 points clear with 8 to play. Top scorers from the teams visible…but an appalling defensive record remains our most likely undoing.

The squad is absolutely atrocious. It’s top heavy, it’s lacking in defensive quality, there are square pegs in round holes.

I think this is one of Nikolai’s. I used it with The Retirement Academy in the Dutch league, albeit with far superior players, and now here we are.

Meanwhile in France, 10 games to go and we’d have to do extremely well to get into the top 6 and into Europe. 7 points behind Nantes, it’s not impossible but it’s going to take a level of consistency we have never shown. The defence of the top sides is literally twice as good as ours.

The squad is still lacking in certain areas but we have no money whatsoever. Twiss & Tomlinson are still agitating for moves but no club large enough has bid yet to trigger the BCRC. Some smaller clubs have dabbled but I can say no to them.

Over in Blighty, Crystal Palace are having the time of their lives. We’ve barely visited them this update, mostly because we’re out of both cups and that has meant we’ve missed a few weekends, but we’re ONE POINT off the top. Man Utd have conceded six goals all season. Once every 4 games on average. But they barely score, it is the dullest season ticket in town. Arsenal are on the verge of relegation.

Ironically they have scored only three less than Man Utd…but conceded 36 more. Bobby Robson took the job when Wenger fled, so we’ll see if he can inspire a turnaround. Hopefully, if they are relegated, we can snap up some of their players.

I posted on Twitter/X last week that this squad was the perfect mix of “His Mam still buys his trousers” and “Gazetta Football Italia Sunday afternoons” which I stand by. I don’t really know how we are second, there’s only two players averaging about 7.5 (Wright and Ledezma) but it’s a great story of a team that is performing better than the sum of its parts. Long may it continue.

BeefCo seem happy enough with positive board reports for all three clubs. That sets us up nicely for next week, where hopefully we’ll have at least one European qualification and no relegations, allowing us a nice run at the transfer market. We’re going places, I think – won’t you join us?

See you next week.