Frank is back with the 2nd part of his St Etienne story. His first task is to get them out of Ligue 2 and then build towards being a superpower, with a squad of all French players. So, can he do it? Part 1 is here

Welcome back to my French challenge with ASSE, with only signing French players.

Last time I left you, we were sitting pretty at the top of Ligue 2 heading into March. Well I can tell you, we ended up running away with the title, scoring over 100 league goals in the process.

Didier Thimotée carried on his great form finishing 1 goal of the top scorer, but as you can see from his stats, he wasn’t one for fair play, getting his 2nd red of the season on the final day, meaning that he will miss the 1st 3 games of Ligue 1…

Although Philippe Chirstanval was a coup for Ligue 2, the signing of the season has to be free transfer, Remi Luc (just a shame about his injury record)

We win Ligue 2 by 16 points, with a much higher goal difference, after an expected relegation battle and still don’t win the Ligue 2 Manager of the Year!

Now that we have made it to the promised land of Ligue 1, we need to sign some re-inforcements.

2 fantastic midfield signings means we have a strong chance of survival and maybe even a push for top half in our 1st season.

The fixture generator is kind to us as we start the season at home to fellow promoted side, Nancy. With Thimotée suspended for the 1st 3 games of the season, we look for another hero and the man is Christophe Lagrange, who’s dad just happened to be a huge ZZ Top fan…

Lagrange doesn’t dissapoint, bagging a brace in his Ligue 1 debut.

Match day 3 gives us our 1st big challenge as we travel to Marseille, Lagrange getting in on the action again…

Unfortunately, there is bad news for Philippe Christanval…

Lagrange start his Ligue 1 career well with 4 goals in 7 games, until…

Didier Thimotée comes back into the side full time and it takes him 7 games to bag his 1st goal of the season…

10 games into the season and we sit comfortably in mid table, 13 points off the top, but 9 points from the drop zone.

Join me next time to see if we can achieve our target of finishing in the top half of Ligue 1 in our 1st season.

You can follow Frank on Twitter @FrankHirst84

Please welcome our second debutant blogger for the week as Frank Hirst joins our ranks. Frank has set up just across the channel in France managing Ligue 2 side St Etienne. Frank will explain why but it gave me the opportunity to utilise an immature blog title, for which I can only apologise. Over to Frank…

Hi and welcome to my 1st CM9798 blog. This game was such a massive piece of my teenage years and probably (along with many of you), the reason why I failed my GCSE’s.

The challenge I set myself for my 1st blog was to go as a French side, only signing French players, which I ran a poll for on Twitter. Although Auxerre ran out as winners, there were a few comments saying that was too easy, so I went with a side that I do like in real life and were sitting in Ligue 2 with a paltry 1.5m.

I’m going to start a new game on CM9798 for @cm9798‘s blog where I only sign French players. I don’t want to start as Monaco or PSG, so the options are Auxerre, Strasbourg, Bordeaux (in Ligue 1) or Lille (in Ligue 2) @CM_9798 @cm0102legends

— Frank Hirst (@FrankHirst84) 12 July 2018

There are no star players at ASSE, although Didier Thimotée has a lot of potential to tear up Ligue 2.

I decided to go with a 2-3-2-1-2 (wingbacks), a slight amendment on a formation that I used all those years ago, pushing the central CB into DM.

1 thing I really notice is the lack of CM’s in the squad, well we have Papé Sarr, but in our all French side, I can’t play this lad unfortunately with him being Senegalese, so to the free market we go…

We manage to sign Stéphane Basson, Cyril Aubert, Guillaume Rey, Rémi Luc & Wilfried Nancy on free transfers.

We start the season with a poor 0-0 away to Laval, but our 1st home game of the season is altogether a different story…

We continue to smash it up in the league, especially at home having a home GD of 22-2 after the 1st 5 home games of the season.

5 games into the season and I check out the transfer market and I need to spend my 1.5m very wisely, this is where I find Philippe Christanval available for 625k, bargain!

Things are looking very good for St Etienne so far, but 10 games into the season, star striker, Didier Thimotée hands in a transfer request. 10 games and 13 goals for ASSE and the lad wants to leave, good thing for us is that he doesn’t have a dreaded “big club release clause”!

St Etienne finished 17th the season before (and 17th again in this season in real life), so to be sitting top of the league and undefeated after 10 games is a great achievement.

Things carry on going well for ASSE, going undefeated in until the turn of the year, but we face our 1st defeat of the season in early January.

3 defeats before the end of February made us a little shakey, but we’re still well on course for promotion and hopefully for the title.

Join me next time for the 2nd half of the season. Can Saint Etienne pull off a miracle and win Ligue 2, with only French players after being expected to be in a dog fight at the other end of the table? See you next Tuesday

You can follow Frank on Twitter @FrankHirst84