Welcome back to Cologne where I am attempting to create a decent side to compete in Germany by only signing a limited number of players from countries that border Germany, simple huh?
A reminder of our blistering start to the season left us a point of the pace setters with a third of the games done.
I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the Scottish Highlands — maybe it’s the endless hills, the sense of isolation, or perhaps it’s just the sheer madness of running a football club hundreds of miles from anywhere. Those long journeys to away games, the hardy handful of fans who make the trip, and the eternal optimism of men in woolly hats watching a team that’s probably just drawn 0–0 again… there’s something beautifully tragic about it.
In Championship Manager 97/98, the most northerly of these brave souls to grace the Scottish Football League were Ross County — proud representatives of Dingwall, a town that could generously be described as “remote”.
At this point in history, Ross County were the new kids on the block, having only joined the Scottish Football League in 1994, joining the newly expanded Third Division. The club’s chairman was Roy MacGregor, the local businessman whose ambition would eventually propel County all the way to the Scottish Premiership. In 1997/98, the man in the dugout was Neale Cooper, the former Aberdeen midfielder and one of Alex Ferguson’s trusted lieutenants from the glory days at Pittodrie.
Hello! or perhaps that should be Bonjour. I hope you enjoyed the Portuguese adventure with Wolves, but I’m back for a new challenge now. Where am I heading? Well, this is a twist on an old favourite, which you don’t want to miss, or you might find PC Danny Butterman coming up to you and saying…
Welcome back everyone. We’re taking a break from the action of the blog league to take a look at what tactics are being employed by each of the teams and have a closer look at some of the key performers in each team.
AIK – Matt
Matt has probably pulled a decent side from the hat, but not a lot of depth on the face of what we have seen so far.
Tactically Matt has chosen a 2-3-3-2 formation which is focused on splitting the pitch into two basic core elements of defence and attack. It should allow you to overload the front with AM’s or FW’s but the match engine will still recognise a healthy bucket of defensive bodies.
As ever, it’s a Direct style to get up the pitch quickly and efficiently but you need the personal up top to be able to manage that style. Matt has conceded 4 goals per game, so perhaps having nothing in the middle is a problem?
Hello and greetings from Germany. After my Leeds adventure I’ve now turned my attention to my Blog Squad Secret Santa shirt, where the excellent Mr Ross Bell sent me a FC Koln away shirt.
I mean, isn’t that amazing. Reminds me of Cameroon for some reason, but anyway, FC Koln – or simply Cologne as they are known in the game, didn’t have the best of seasons in 1997/98. 20 years after they won the Bundesliga, they were relegated in 17th place.
Looking at their squad, it’s not hard to see why.
Continue readingHello everybody, it’s Dave here just borrowing Dean’s post. Today marks 28 years since the release of CM9798, no doubt a day you all have circled on the calendar. We have of course celebrated this game every year for at least the last 10, who knows how many more I’ve lost track of when we started this. What I do know though is that I have a great set of writers here who started out as fellow nerds I know on the internet to being good friends who I’m lucky to have stumbled across one day. Deano has prepared a great one off post which I wanted to use as our birthday post rather than me rehashing some sort of quiz type, which may yet happen next week but we’ll see. There’s also posts lined up from Matt & Andrew, so you’ll have some full weeks ahead w/c November 3rd. Anyway, enough from me, here’s Dean and “Harry Houdini” which I’ll let him explain.
Good Day to you. I haven’t done a blog for a while, it’s just finding the time these days. But today it’s pissing down so thought I’d dip my toe back in with a short challenge.
“Harry Houdini” Simple premise; Let the game run, take over and try and save the club who’s bottom at Christmas.
Welcome to the final episode of this series, the Turf Roar boys are still fighting on three fronts, we lead the Premier League by seven points and are still in both the FA Cup and Champions League.
Our first match of the episode sees us travel to London to face Crystal Palace. They have his royal highness Edwin Turkington in goal. Despite peppering Turkington’s goal for 90 minutes he is in fine form, refusing to concede. Then in the 69th minute, Aboubacar Camara scores. A positive start to the final instalment.
Bom Dia! and welcome to the final episode with Nick and his Portuguese Wolves, who are struggling in the league, but can still win the League Cup and Champions League for a second time. Will they end this story in style? For the last time, here’s Nick…
You wouldn’t believe we started the season brilliantly and were 2nd after 12 games, but things have gone horribly wrong since. Let’s see if we can finish in a respectable position…
During the first third of my final season with the Clarets we had made a positive start on all fronts. We were top of the league with 28 points from a possible 36 and joint top of Champions League Group E, with seven points from a possible nine.
The first match of episode two is a Clarets Clash, in the League Cup 3rd round. I’ve decided to try and compete on all fronts this year, so we field a full-strength side. Micky Landreau gets himself sent off, and we capitalise, moving comfortably through to round four. It seems a long time ago since the darker days of season three and four, when it felt like we had a player sent off nearly every game.
Hallo, hej, hello! Welcome back. Last time out Zak and his Malmo side had managed to break into the top 2 positions. Which has been quite the shock given Malmo were probably not one of the pre-draw favourites. But they have proved reliable and consistent so far.
First up, thankfully, it’s the league.
