Bonjour to you! We had a lovely time this week realising that Wednesday was the date CM9798 officially ends. Thankfully, that is just in game but in real life things are still going strong. The BeefCo trio of Palace, Nice and Go Ahead Eagles are progressing at various rates, some better than others. Go Ahead Eagles have sneakily become a decent Dutch top tier side, Nice are absolutely stinking up France and Crystal Palace are the Champions of England. You heard that right. Look, we’ve got a Champions League group and everything.

The next chapter of that is coming up…right now. Love you OSW.

Anyway, We really had to beat Feyenoord to have our destiny in our own hands and we beat their brains out. Every time I think Vialli has had it he makes a vital contribution. Bakayoko awaits his chance to replace him.

We should be fine with a trip to Norway to come.

Speaking of Bakayoko, obviously him being sold by Nice was a gamble and I’ll have to try a few different things to pep up the attack. It will mostly involve playing Zamorano more but I’m happy to give young Anelka a go.

Meanwhile in Holland, Clint Marcelle’s work permit has expired in Barnsley and his release is great news for me to add some depth.

Feyenoord recall Glaucio, which is annoying because they probably won’t play him. To be fair, he did very little.

The Nice recovery is very much underway. Zamorano leads the line well and moving Bjorn to centre back seems to have organised us. Lorient are brushed aside.

We’re going through in the Pints Cup too, Natigol is really becoming the player he was for Mulhouse.

See? I didn’t even know this was going to happen. We still can’t defend but it doesn’t matter as long as we’re scoring.

We stick the V’s up Sochaux. Lovely lads.

This is far more edgy than I expected but we don’t add to the 20 goals our Norwegian opponents had conceded in five games. A draw was always going to be enough, thankfully.

More so when Feyenoord and PSG play out a 0-0 draw.

Good grief that is a stacked last 8. Milan over two legs will be a challenge.

This is annoying. Nijuis played 8 times for us and we make £180k.

Kav leaves to West Ham of all places. He’s not that good.

It’s fair to say Man Utd are pretty mad that they didn’t win the league last season. They have been almost faultless this season and they claim our scalp on Boxing Day, despite their former youth John Curtis scoring a goal and a perfect 10 rating. 14 points adrift of them now.

So long, le Sulk. What a wasted journey.

Now, here man. I plucked you from non-league obscurity and this is how you repay me? It’s a flat no.

I’ve spent £80k on this guy for Palace. He’s older than I thought and I hope to loan him to either of the others at some point.

We might not win the league but we are at least in the League Cup semi finals. A totally pointless activity in this save but I suppose it all helps keep our reputation up.

A very winnable two legged semi-final to look forward to.

Nice return from their winter break with a nice win over Bastia. Let’s check in with the standings before we go into that final post-winter break sprint…

After that terrible start I’m delighted to have Nice up in 9th. Second top scorers in the league, just ignore the goals against column. With a strong second half of the season, we could trouble those European positions.

The squad is getting somewhere. It has gaping holes and I wish the defence was better but Mayor Wimbee has helped a fair bit and as mentioned, Bjorn’s new position in the centre of defence has had an effect.

It has to be said though, nobody is performing all that well. 7.25 as a top average rating is pretty poor.

Palace are probably not going to win the league again (maybe ever) but getting back into the Champions League is vital. I mean I suppose it’s not whilst the other two are lagging behind but it builds a lot of money if nothing else. No reason why we can’t take second, with a good run. We could also of course win the Champions League…

The squad is ok. Nobody is that keen to join us but we do have a young squad, I’d like a right wing back (Edworthy is just back from a long injury and Lombardo is very broken) and the newest problem is Splinter being out for 8 months.

The Eagles sit 8th, 3 points off 3rd. It would have been better but our last few games before the winter break were played without Natigol, Mainwaring or Tammer so that depleted us considerably.

The squad is just about fine. It’s a total collection of misfits still but it seems to work when they’re all fit.

Natigol has been the key man whilst Tammer has 108 in 106 for us all time, but is now in the last 5 months of his contract and won’t sign a new one.

Next week we have basically half a season to get through but it’s all set up quite nicely to see how far we can take these teams. With players really not being keen to join the BeefCo project we’re having to work harder than normal to find the right players and I feel I’m getting a lot out of not very much in some cases. Let’s see where we end up next week. Thanks for reading, bye for now.