Villains of Birmingham

[madog308]

thank you salkster for the advice and the kind words. mad

However there was along way to go and this would in no way be the table at the end of the year. Also with the January transfer window coming up the papers were full of transfer gossip, although the window was usually quiet, the papers made out that loads of clubs were looking for loads of players. Obviously with the first of January come two new players to the club. Breno for 5million from Sao Paulo and Georginio Wijnaldum from Feyenoord for 756K. I decided to call a press conference in the morning to welcome the two players to the club.

The first question came from the BBC correspondent

‘Both new players don’t speak English as their first language, do you think this will be a problem’

‘I will admit that communication is vital, but for Georginio we have his friend Zeefuik who can help him learn English. Zeefuik has in fact learned English very quickly and I hope that Georginio will be able to pick it up just as quick. As for Breno we have brought his father over and he will interpret until he can speak English’

‘You have already bought two players, are you going to buy any more?’ this from the Sun reporter

‘let me put it this way, if I see a bargain then I will investigate that, but our team will function very well without anymore new transfers’

‘Can both of your new players expect to play first team football?’ this horrible question from the wench that called herself Lacy Jordinson

‘well the team is playing very well so I can not say that they will get a start straight away but if they show my that they want it in training then they might get a start’

‘Your team are playing very well at the moment; do you think you can keep the form going in the New Year?’ This from the Birmingham post

'Well we have won two on the trot after Christmas so all signs look promising’ i said with a smile

‘With Curtis Davis joining you in the summer do you have any money for transfers this window?’ asked someone at the back

I was taken aback; I turned to my left where my assistant manager John was sitting and I whispered

‘What?’

‘o yes, Martin O’Neill a week before he left bought him from West Brom’ said John looking calm

‘What!?! how could you not tell me’ I said with thunder in my eyes.

I turned back to my microphone

‘I am afraid that I can’t comment on the state of our transfer kitty however I hear great things about him and i look forward to meeting him. And I’m afraid to say that’s the end of the press conference, thanks for coming’

I said my goodbyes and told both new players that I was very happy and that they could join training straight away. Then I turned on my assistant manager.

‘Did you not think to tell me?’ I said

‘I’m sorry Alex, I forgot’ he said, still seeming not to sense my anger

‘You forgot, how much have ‘we’ paid for him’ I said my voice shaking

‘Um 10million’ he said

I nearly had a heart attack, how could I not know that a player that we had paid 10million for would be joining us. I walked off, and went in search of something to smash.

I stalked to my office, on the way in Zoe caught my mood and walked in after me.

‘You alright’ she asked

‘Wonderful, could you find John Robertson’s contract and bring it in please’ I said still barley holding in my anger

She paused for a second before realising I was serious and going in search for it.

I paced around my office I was too angry to sit down. Zoe came in and I snatched the contract of her.

‘Thank you’ I said not looking at her

‘What’s wrong Alex’ she said in a cross voice

‘Please not now’ I said looking at her.

She marched out and I turned my attention to the contract, flicked straight to the termination page, found the relevant section and signed the box to confirm that John Robertson would be terminated as assistant manager.

(just a little aside. Have been writing all day and with it being the Janruary trasnfer window i have made some brilliant steals and had some very important matches. Cannot wait to post them )

[madog308]

I was furious but there was no time to let it simmer because we had to be on the coach to London in 15 minutes because we were playing Tottenham away from home. I had hoped that the press conference would go smoothly and then we could have a relaxed ride to London before the game. That idea was out of the window.

This was a big game for us because we had not played that well away from home and Tottenham were capable of making us slip up, so we had to be concentrated and hope to sneak a win.

I named an unchanged line up and replaced Cahill with Breno, hopefully I could bring him on in the last 20 minutes or so, the more game time I could give him the better it would be.

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- M. Laursen

DC- Z. Knight

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- G. Barry

MC- M. Petrov

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

ST- M. Zarate

ST- L. Moore

Subs:

T. Sorensen

H. Kewell

G. Agbonlahor

S. Maloney

Breno

Both teams put of strong teams and I knew that this game would be won or lost in the midfield. I made sure to convey this to the team.

‘Ok lads this is going to be a tough game, I’m not going to lie to you. Tottenham will be expecting a win, they have a strong midfield and this is where we have to beat them. If we can control the midfield we can win the game so I want you all to close down in midfield and look for the counter, lets carry our form into this match, lets go’ I finished and patted everyone on the back.

The crowd was remarkably small at the game, at least three thousand fans had turned up as flip seats; however this was not my problem. My problem was Martin Jol, I went over to shake his hand then I sat down.

We usually started games very quickly but right from the kick off but I could see that my assumption about the game being midfield battle was correct. The first twenty minutes was very boring with each team testing each other out and trying to find an opening. In the 23rd minute Reo-Coker played a one two with Petrov, he then released Zarate, he went past one defender and took a snap shot, however it sailed wide. It was an opportunity that we should have perhaps got something out of.

In the 34th minute Malbranque took on Guilherme and beat him, he then raced to the by-line and floated a cross over, it was met by the head of Keane and it was heading straight for the top left corner of the net. Only a miracle save by Lloris saved us from going a goal behind. It went out for a corner but they couldn’t capitalise and the danger passed.

The match then went back to the midfield battle both sides had chances but all their chances were stopped by the brilliant Lloris and all our chances were wasted by Zarate and Moore who were both having a off day.

The half came to a close and both teams marched off the field, the supporters to the food vans and commentators to the toilets.

I had sacked John earlier but obviously it hasn’t been processed and he was still there. I didn’t want to tell him during the match so I decided to ignore him and concentrate on my team.

‘Ok guys you’re playing well, your doing exactly what I’ve asked and I’m asking you again to carry on with it. We have to break Tottenham as soon as they realise that they wont win the midfield they’ll change there formula and then we will have the advantage. Keep playing the way you are and we will win’ we then walked back for the second half.

The game kicked off and it started exactly how the first half finished, both sides not really doing anything.

In the 50th minute Barry ran past is marking and sent in a early cross right across the front of the goal, Moore who was sprinting up the middle just missed it, by about 2 inches, it could and should have been a goal.

Just after the hour mark I decided to change things because my attacking force just wasn’t working. I brought Agbonlahor and Carew on for Moore and Zarate. It had an almost instant effect.

In the 75th minute we won a free kick 10 yards from the D on the edge of the penalty area. Carew stood over it; it took several steps back then charged forward and hit the ball with his right foot. It flew over the wall however it hit a defender and deflected into the left hand side of the net. Robinson had been diving to the left to cover the free kick. It was an unlucky free goal to concede and an ugly goal to score but I didn’t care and neither did my team as my whole team mobbed Carew.

0-1

My new subs were really taking their chance and were creating havoc, the combination of Carew and Agbonlahor was something I had overlooked. Carew being the holding forward and target man, could release Agbonlahor, the poacher, it was a deadly mix.

In the 79th minute Reo-Coker had the ball in midfield, it was giving loads of time, he looked up and sent a quick ball to Young on the right wing. With his first touch Young hit it past Lee-Young-Pyo, he then tried to run round the other side of the Tottenham defender. However Pyo was having none of it and reached the ball first and sent a back pass to Robinson. The ball was moving quickly and but not at a speed that would make it difficult, however from where I was sitting I just saw Robinson kick air and the ball roll into the back of the net. It went down as a own goal.

0-2

Another slice of luck had given us a two goal cushion. Right after that goal I brought Breno on for Laursen who was on a yellow card. Tottenham were crushed by lady luck and we ran out winners. It was an ugly game but we won and that is what counts.

Tottenham 0-2 Aston Villa

Carew (73) Lee-Young-Pyo (79 OG)

Attendance 36243

MOM H. Lloris

We took the bus home and I immediately went to bed, I was stressed and collapsed into bed.

[madog308]

The next day I had lots to deal with I had three days to sort contracts, sort new players and prepare for out next match which was against Accrington Stanley in the FA cup.

It was Wednesday morning and I asked Zoe to get Mellberg and Moore into my office. I hadn’t had time to apologise to her and I was clearly not her favourite person because I had to get my own cup of coffee. (because she was to busy)

Mellberg came in first,

‘Alright Olaf sit down’ I said shaking his hand

‘As I’m sure your aware your contract is coming to and end in 6 months and I would like to offer you a new contract, extending your old contract for two more years’

‘That would be great gov, thank you, I wont let you down’ he said jumping up

‘I know you wont Olaf, goodbye’

Luke Moore came in 5 minutes later and I had the same conversation. However because Luke was only 21 I offered him a four year contract and a two thousand pound pay rise. Needless to say he took it and almost bounced out of my office.

I had just sat down and had been looking through my scout reports when the phone rang.

‘Mr Diaz Giuseppe Iachini is on the phone for you, the manager of Lazio’

I was upset that she called Mr Diaz but I said

‘ok put him through please’ I waited for a couple of seconds then an heavily Italian accented voice came through the phone.

‘hello Mr Diaz I have phoned to make an offer for a player of yours.'

‘Ok which one’ I said puzzled because I had heard of no rumours that a bid was going to be made for one of my players

‘I would like to offer you 5 million pounds for your defender Gary Cahill’

I almost chocked over my response because this was almost too good to be true. With Cutis Davies joining us at the end of the season I would have two many defenders. With Breno having just joined us it would be easier to sell one defender now than in the summer. However I would try and get all the money I could.

‘As I’m sure you know he is a very talented youngster’ this was actually true ‘and 5million pounds is less than a quarter of what he could be worth in 5 years’

‘Very well I will up it to 7.5million but no more’

‘I will accept, I will have a talk with the lad and get my secretary to sort out the paper work. Thank you’ I said and I put the phone down. What a good bit of luck. I thought to my self.

I had expected John to come barging in some time during the day but he didn’t and when it got to 3pm I phoned Zoe and asked her to put an advert out for an assistant manger position. I now had to concentrate on our next match. We were expected to win but anything can happen in the FA cup. We were away to Accrington which is the way with the FA cup the big teams go to the smaller team’s pitches. This meant that we had a 2 hour drive to get to Accrington. Obviously Accrington was in Coca league two and the stadium was a capacity five thousand standing stadium. With the opposition being so weak I decided to give some fringe players a starting place. However I didn’t want to change the whole team because I liked the way we were playing and I didn’t want to interrupt the flow so the team looked like this:

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Z. Knight

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- H. Kewell

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

FC- G. Agbonlahor

FC- L. Moore

Subs:

G. Zeefuik

M. Laursen

S. Maloney

G. Wijnaldum

M. Zarate

I know I only brought in three changes to my team but I hoped Breno and Agbonlahor could show me what they can do when they start a match. I hoped to bring Zeefuik and Wijnaldum on when the match was won, just so they could get a run out with the big boys.

It was one of my easier team talks,

‘ok lads we should win this one, so just go out there have fun and lets progress to the next round’ I had no doubt that we would win.

With our reputation of starting quickly I might have expected us to score at least twice in the first 5 minutes. However that didn’t happen although we had lots of chances. It was clear from the off that we would win; they could hardly get the ball of us. On the 5 minute mark Agbonlahor was through behind the defence however he shot wide, we should have been one up.

I was just starting to wonder why we hadn’t scored when Moore came deep, was giving time to turn and passed a through ball to Young who was off his wing, he hit the ball on penalty spot into the bottom left corner. That was more like it I thought

0-1

The Accrington defence closed up again and they even pushed us back a little. But in the 34th minute we hit them on the counter attack. Moore had run onto the right wing and passed an infield ball from the half way line. Agbonlahor picked up the ball and ran past his maker Webb. He was behind the defence with 35 yards to go to the goal. He ran towards the goal however Webb managed to get back and pushed Agbonlahor wide. However the goalkeeper Arthur had already ran out and now he was desperately scrambling to get back into goal. However Young had seen him out of the goal and calmly slotted the ball through Webb’s legs and into the empty net

0-2

10 minutes later we had scored again. Reo-Coker passed to Young who, again, was running infield, he in turn passed his defender and then passed the ball to Agbonlahor who had run wide. Agbonlahor let the ball overtake him then he hit it first time low past Arthur, he had beaten him at the near post.

0-3

The half time whistle blew and the two teams walked off, one happy, one despondent.

‘well done lads, lets not let our game drop, lets see how many we can score’ I said simply and left them to the physio’s.

However this time the team didn’t listen to me, they played out the whole second half, without bothering to go in search of another goal. Even when I brought Zeefuik on for Agbonlahor and Wijnaldum for Young nothing happened. Then in extra time we got a penalty from a desperate lunge. Moore calmly stepped up and slotted it home.

Accrington Stanley 0-4 Aston Villa

Young (21) Agbonlahor (34, 44) Moore (94)

Attendance 5060

MOM G. Agbonlahor

[madog308]

We were through to the next round however I had a more important thing or should I say person on my mind. It was of course the beautiful wonderful 19 year old Italian stallion that was De Silvestri. No he was not my new rent boy!.

He was the new acquisition I had brought to the club. Having had such friendly terms with Lazio I decided to make a bid of one of their players, the young right back De Silvestri. I eventually agreed to pay 1 million up front and 2 million over 24 months. I defiantly think I got him cheep because we had done a deal the week before. I also turned my attention to one more possible transfer that had come up on my radar. He was a midfielder by the name of Giles Barnes from Derby. It wasn’t necessary that I bought these players but I thought I may as well buy them earlier than later.

I told my assistant to call them and offer 3 million up front, the last of my transfer kitty unless the Lazio transfer went through. With the transfer’s done for the time being I had to concentrate on our next game when we would face Manchester Utd at home in the semi final of the League Cup.

We had two full days of training and again I thought about working with the 4-5-1 formation. With two days before the match we got the news that we would be facing Everton in the 4th Round of the FA cup. Would have preferred to get a lower placed team but I was still confident.

Training had gone well and felt more confident than I did, however I made no illusions that this would be a hard match, but I hoped the home advantage would be the difference. I went back to my tried and tested team:

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- M. Laursen

DC- Z. Knight

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- G. Barry

MC- M. Petrov

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

ST- M. Zarate

ST- L. Moore

Subs:

T. Sorensen

H. Kewell

G. Agbonlahor

S. Maloney

Breno

I knew it would be difficult and the team talk would have to be brilliant

‘right lads there’s a packed stadium out there and they don’t want to be disappointed. The key of this game is the midfield I want you to tackle Fletcher and Carrick hard make them uncomfortable, I also want you to mark them tightly and force them to play on their weaker foot. You might be saying what about Rooney and Ronaldo; well if you stop their supply then they won’t be a threat. We’re going to play out normal game I still want you to attack the worst thing you can do against man u is give them respect look for openings and look to hit them on the counter. Come on lads lets give them hell’ I finished and gave everyone at extra hard pat on the back.

I went to shake Alex Fergusons hand and said

‘we wont be so easy to beat this time’

He just laughed and turned to sit back down.

We were known for starting quickly and this was a game that confirmed that status. Zarate had advanced towards to the goal and the man u defence backed off. However as he got closer they started to close up on him, he did a couple of step over’s and hit a hopeful shot at goal, luckily the defence panicked and threw themselves in front of the ball. Van Der Sar sight was blocked and he only saw the ball when it was heading for the bottom left corner, he moved too late and we were one up.

1-0

‘COME ON’ I shouted as I ran out into my area

‘get back, they will look to score, stay concentrated’ I screamed

They kicked off and they were out for blood and less than ten minutes after we took the lead Pique sent a long ball from defence up field. Cristiano Ronaldo killed it on his chest and turned past Laursen, he immediately hit a fierce shot high at goal. It was shot with such power that it was in the back of the net before Lloris had left the ground.

1-1

The match was turning out to be a great one for the neutrals. However for the managers it was terrifying and stress inducing.

And my stress got worse a couple of minutes later. My team went looking for another goal. However they managed to get the ball back and Rooney was released up the right wing. He was forced wide my Guilherme and Knight he ran from half way to the by line. He then floated a cross over and Nanni managed to reach it with his head. They had caught us on the counter. It looked like they would take control now.

1-2

Just before the half hour mark, O’Shea dallied on the ball and Barry was able to pick his pocket, he hit a ball for Moore to chase. Moore was behind the defence and Van Der Sar started to run out. Moore got to the ball first and he hit the ball from the edge of the area low past Van Der Sar who had not covered the angle on his near post. We had equalised.

2-2

Again I raced out to my technical area and pumped my fist.

‘Well done that is exactly what I want, ****ing brilliant’ I said as Moore ran past to celebrate with our fans.

The next 15 minutes of the half were panic with Lloris really earning his money and keeping us in the game. Both teams walked in at half time. The fans were getting a real show for the money they had paid.

‘Well played lads this half has really shown what this game is going to be. We CAN score against them, you’ve proven in, however you give one sniff and they can score to. Keep making their midfield uncomfortable and keep playing the ball around, use the wings. Lets make the fans cheer we can win this one’

The second half started calmer than the first half finished with each side not wanting to give the advantage to the other. Then just on the hour mark the deadlock was broken. Ronaldo passed to Rooney, he then passed to Fletcher who took three touches to get himself to the edge of the box. However three defenders were in front of him, however he hit the ball, he stroked it with his left foot right across the ball so it was curling in towards the goal. It curved and curved and finally just managed to creep into the right postage stamp, it was simple stunning. It was also crushing because we would have to score two if we wanted to win.

2-3

I brought Carew on for Moore to give us some more strength up front. It had an immediate impact because Carew won a free kick 5yards from the D of the Penalty spot. Young stepped up to hit the free kick. It got it up over the wall however Rio Ferdinand got his head to the ball in an attempt to head it away from goal. All he managed to do was send it into the opposite corner of the goal. It was classed as an own goal, but I didn’t care we were back on level terms.

3-3

Things again got hectic with tackles flying in, cards flying out and the tension built up to breaking point. In the 74th minute Zarate had the ball and was trying to make his way towards the goal. he got to the edge of the area before he was confronted with a red wall. He was forced sideways along the penalty box line. He went past the D looking for an opening.

‘Give him some options’ I screamed from the technical area

Jesus if only the rest of my team made some runs that would pull of the defenders. Zarate still had the ball but was going nowhere; you could see him look up in desperation. Then, you could see the change; he decided to go for goal, he hit the ball with the inside of his foot and it soared and soared, curled and curled, dipped and dipped into the postage stamp. It was a carbon copy of Fletchers goal but at the other end of the field.

‘YES YESYEYEEEYEYEYEYYES’ I shouted

‘YOU BEAUTY, WHAT A GOAL, WHAT A BEATUIFUL GOAL’

I turned around and the whole of the bench and my staff were up on their feet hugging each other. I turned around and I saw Zarate sprinting towards me, he almost rugby tackled me with his hug, but I didn’t care and cave him a bear hug back and we were mobbed by the rest of the team and all the subs.

After furious whistle blowing by the ref we were ready to kick off again. I brought all my players back turned the team into a bus and parked it in front of the goal. We managed to hold out for the win. When the whistle blew we all celebrated as if we had already won the Cup. I went over to shake Alex Fergusons hand.

‘You were correct laddie’ he said, He didn’t seem that displeased, odd.

Aston Villa 4-3 Manchester Utd

Zarate (4, 74) Moore (29) C. Ronaldo (13) Nanni (17) Fletcher (59)

Attendance 42574

MOM H. Lloris

[madog308]

I was thrilled that we had managed to win as was the rest of my team and I bounced back to my office after the game. It was only when I had calmed down that I realised why Sir Alex might not have been so disappointed. It was a two leg semi final. That means we would have to go to old Trafford and win there If we wanted to win. The had scored 3 away goals, that meant that we would have to play extremely well if we wanted to win. If we had conceded three at home, how many would we concede away? It was a sobering thought but I had very little time to think about it, because it was the Christmas schedule and our next match was in three days. That would make it three games in one week. My boys would be very tired for the Portsmouth game and to make it worse we would be away from home again.

This was the return trip to Portsmouth and I wanted a win, we had just lost out to them when they came to Villa park and if we could get one over them it would be a sweet victory.

I named an unchanged line up, which in hindsight I perhaps shouldn’t have done.

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- M. Laursen

DC- Z. Knight

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- G. Barry

MC- M. Petrov

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

ST- M. Zarate

ST- L. Moore

Subs:

T. Sorensen

H. Kewell

G. Agbonlahor

S. Maloney

Breno

The high from the Manchester had game and made the training sessions before this game go very well and the general atmosphere in the group was very good so I was feeling good about this game.

‘Ok lads we’ve been playing really well recently but remember we just lost out to this team. So this time round let’s not give them the opportunity, lets keep a tight ship and look to hit them on the counter.’

Harry Redknapp was a talented manager and he managed to turn Portsmouth from a Championship mid team to a team that could punch way above its weight in the premier league and at home they were very good, we would have to play very well to get a win.

The ref blew his whistle and we kicked off.

We immediately pressed and we eventually won a corner in the 17th minute. Young stepped up and whipped in a in swinging corner. The penalty area, as with all corners, was chaos with players trying to get to the ball first. Reo-Coker jumped highest and managed to guide the ball into the back on the net. We had scored firsts. Good.

However as my players ran off to celebrate the ref blew his whistle and he ruled out the goal for pushing in the box.

‘What sort of decision is that? He clearly has his fist stuck up his ass’ I shouted from the sidelines

However the ref just ignored me. However he took his revenge in the 28th minute when he judged Petrov to have elbowed a Portsmouth player in the face, after challenging for a goal kick that they let bounce. So now I was down to 10 men. This was not the plan.

The disadvantage soon started to shown and Portsmouth started ruling the game, and we couldn’t get out of own half. Ten minutes after the sending off Davis sent a lob up from the defence; Utaka headed it on and run after it. He beat Guilherme to the ball, but Laursen came across to make sure he couldn’t get a shot on goal. Utaka looked up and played a square ball to Taylor who smashed the ball at goal, it hit the underside of the cross bar and in. Lloris could do nothing about it. So now we were a man down and a goal down. I couldn’t wait for the half to finish

1-0

We managed to keep the difference down to one, how we did I don’t know but we did, we trooped in and I had to pull a great half time talk out of the bag.

‘ok lads, unfortunate about the sending off but there’s no point letting it rest in our minds, forget about it and move on’ I noticed Petrov had already showered and got into his suit. ‘It was unlucky Petrov, many a ref would just have blown for the free kick’ I directed at him. ‘Ok were going to play more defensive now, only look for the counter attack. Press them in our half only, and try not to let them in behind our defence’ I brought Moore off, although he had played the better game, and put on Kewell and put him to ML and shuffled Barry to MC. So we would no be playing with a 4-4-1. ‘Lets not gift them another match’ I finished and we trooped back out.

The second was a little bit more even but Portsmouth looked the team to make something happen. We could defend them well enough but Zarate was having major problems up front on his own, but there was nothing I could do about that. I just had to hope we would get a lucky break. As time ticked by I got more and more anxious and I started fidgeting. But there was nothing I could do, my team were trying, they really would but the extra was making it easy work for Portsmouth.

Then in the 79th minute we got a lucky break we got a free kick just outside the penalty spot. If there was ever a time to score this would be it. Young and Zarate stepped up, however it was Young that hit it with his right boot. It was a proper Beckham free kick, he got it up and down over the wall, and right into the postage stamp on the left hand side of the goal. It was a brilliant free kick. And it had brought us back on level terms. We had stolen a point out of the game.

1-1

I immediately took the opportunity to make a change; I brought Maloney on for Reo-Coker who was already on a yellow. And I went defensive again. We managed to hold out for the draw. Portsmouth could have and should have won.

Portsmouth 1-1 Aston Villa

Taylor (38) Young (79)

Attendance 20591

MOM H. Lloris

Hugo Lloris got another MOM award and he was really playing his part for the team and I was very pleased and it crossed my mind to extent his contract even though I had just signed him in the summer.

[madog308]

We now had a week before our next match and I gave the lads two days off as it had been a hard week. With the extra time I now could concentrate on potential new signings and getting into Zoe’s good books. On Monday I had two calls the first was from the Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce.

‘good morning Alex I hope you are well’ he said

‘very well thank you what can I do for you?’

‘Right to the point very good. I would like to make an offer for your midfielder Craig Gardner’

‘Ah, that might be a problem as he is a good prospect’

‘I will offer you 5 million pounds straight up’ he said quickly

‘That’s a generous offer however I would have to decline’ i said easily

‘I thought you would say that I will offer you 6 million up front, 600K over 12months, 15% sell on fee’ he said smugly. He had obviously realised that I would decline his first offer and had this one lined up.

‘Very well that sounds very good I will talk to the lad and send his contract right round if he feels confident’

‘Thank you very much’ he said and put the phone down.

I would have to buy a replacement but I was confident I could buy a better player for a lower, or the same, price. Furthermore the replacement could wait till summer.

I was writing a note to Zoe telling her to get Gardner’s an appointment with me and that I was going out for lunch when the phone rang again.

This time it was another premier league boss.

‘Hello Mr Diaz its Sven-Goran Eriksson here, I would like to buy one of your players'

‘Hello, right which one?’ I asked, this was a big time manager, one not to mess with

‘I would like to offer you 2 million pounds for your left back Wilfred Bouma’

I almost jumped out of my seat, I thought I would have to release Wilfred; he had not played for me since I bought Guilherme.

‘That’s sounds a very generous offer and I would like to accept, I will call his agent directly’

‘Thank you very much, it’s nice doing business with you’ he said and put the phone down.

I didn’t think I could press him to pay any more; frankly I was thrilled that anyone would want to buy him.

The next day was an important day because I was interviewing potential candidates to fill the assistant manager position. Nine people had applied and they each had a 45minute slot to show me they were right for this club. After a tiring day I consulted Randy Lerner, he had sat in on the interviews, and we both came to the same decision, and I then called up the lucky candidate, he was another Italian by the name of Cluadio Gaudino he had some great ideas of how to progress the club and I was very hopeful that we could create a good partnership.

I managed to get Zoe back on my side my taking her out, and the frost between us started to thaw. However I couldn’t follow it up with another date because we had another match upon us. Zoe had told me that several primer league teams were interested in buying Young. I told her to decline every offer no matter how much they were offering. This way I could concentrate on the match instead of arguing with various managers.

[madog308]

We were at home to Fulham in the premier league. Fulham had not being playing well and they were hovering just outside the relegation zone so I felt confident that we could pull out another much needed win.

Obviously with Petrov being banned for his red card in the previous match, I had to put Gardner on for him. This was a strange move because I had accepted an offer for Gardner and Newcastle had offered him a contract and I was pretty sure that this would be his last match for Aston Villa.

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- M. Laursen

DC- Z. Knight

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- G. Barry

MC- Craig Gardner

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

ST- M. Zarate

ST- L. Moore

Subs:

T. Sorensen

H. Kewell

G. Agbonlahor

S. Maloney

Breno

With the draw in the last game I wanted to make sure that this match would be ‘back to normal’ and make sure our home form wouldn’t dip.

‘Alright lads, we’ve been training well, and we’ve been scoring lots of goals. Now we just need to make sure we don’t let in too many goals. Keep it tight, keep it concentrated and stay calm and we should win this on’

I took Craig aside just before we walked out

‘Alright lad, I know you’re going to Newcastle and you’ll love it. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a place for you in my team. But give the fans something to remember you by. Let’s play an awesome game today’ I patted him on the back and we walked out to a almost full stadium.

We started off and we immediately pushed forward. I had barley sat down when the ball was cleared from their box. Mellberg collected and passed to Young who had moved off Bocangera. He passed it first time to Moore, who was in the box, Moore took one touch and hit a fierce shot past Niemi. I had barley sat down after shaking Lawrie Sanchez’s hand. However I wasn’t complaining.

1-0

It calmed down and Fulham, having been rocked, started to play more confidently and they won a corner. The corner came in, but was headed out by Reo-Coker. Davis collected and ran towards the box; he was forced wide so his angle for a shot was closed down. He instead pulled it back to Healy who hit it first time. Because of he amount of bodies in the box Lloris didn’t have a clear view and couldn’t stop it hitting the back of the net. Our good work was undone.

1-1

The game calmed down as both sides didn’t want to give the advantage away. And it looked like the match would be drawn at half time. However Young had other ideas. He hit a early cross from his wing, however no-one was in the box and the ball was rolling out for a goal kick. However Moore sprinted to keep it in. He was given time to turn, he ran back into the penalty box. He was forced to run parallel to the goal, his team mates were screaming for him to pass the ball but he wasn’t listening. He went past the penalty spot and hit a curling shot on the run. He curled past the fingers on Niemi. The thing with being selfish is that if you score no one cares. I was glad that had the advantage going into half time.

2-1

That goal had changed my team talk that I had thought off giving and I was thinking of a new one when Reo-Coker hit a 35 yard pass to Moore who was on the edge of the box. He killed the ball with his left foot, and then passed it with is right to Zarate who had moved behind the defence. He was onside and he took a shot. The diving Stefanovic managed to deflect it past the keeper. Another deflected goal. But it was a goal. We had scored two in five minutes. The crowd was going wild.

3-1

The players were happy when they walked, apart from one. Gardner had, probably because he knew he would not be returning to Aston villa, played very badly and I was thinking of substituting him. However I had to do the team talk first.

‘Well played lads. Nice finish to the end of the half. Let’s keep up the pressure and see if we can score one more and really put the match beyond Fulham. Defence just be wary of the long ball over the top because their attackers are fast. Part from that keep doing what you doing because I’m very pleased’

They took on some fluids and some energy bars and then we walked back. The crowd was exited they expected more of the same in the second half.

However they were disappointed. Our team seemed happy with the two goal lead and were just waiting for Fulham to try and score. This was not what I wanted and I tried to get my team to keep closing them down. Fulham piled on the pressure and we were just about holding up. However ever just before the hour mark there was a scramble in the box and two players went down. The ref blew his whistle and Fulham were awarded the penalty. Reo-Coker was giving a ticking off. Everyone watched as Healy put the ball down and backed up. He sprinted forward and smashed the ball past Lloris who had only just stared moving. Fulham were within one goal. The last half hour would be nerve racking.

3-2

On the 70th minute mark I brought on Kewell for Gardner and Maloney for Young. I was upset that Gardner would not finish the game but he was playing very poorly and I needed someone I could rely on to protect our one goal lead.

With the second goal Fulham had the bit between their teeth and there were looking for the equaliser. In the 89th minute Fulham got a free kick right on the edge of the penalty area. The whole crowd was on their feet, the tension was palpable. It was whipped in. Lloris saved but could only beat it away, there was a major scramble before the ball was thumped up field.

We managed to hold out for the extra time.

Aston Villa 3-2 Fulham

Moore (1, 41) Zarate (45) Healy (25, 59 pen)

Attendance 39146

MOM L. Moore.

[madog308]

It was another nervy match and it was another match which we almost lost. I was coming to the conclusion that Petrov had become an integral part of out team and without him our form was starting to waver. So it came as bad news when a message came though from the FA saying that he would further be banned for two more matches. This now gave me another headache. Our next two matches were against Man U in the League cup leg two and Everton in the FA cup 4th round. Gardner was leaving that I meant I had no out and out midfielder. By selling Gardner I had sold my back up, so if one of my midfield duo got injured for a long period of time we would not have a functioning midfield. I would have to buy, or loan someone in. I immediately asked Zoe to send in a 2.5million pound offer for Giles Barnes, and get me a list of players that clubs wanted to get rid of. I took a good long look at the list and I eventually made a loan bid on two players. One was Liverpool’s Yossi Benayoun and the other was Tottenham’s Hossam Ghaly. For both players I made a end of season loan, paying full wages. I only needed one, but because there was only two weeks left of the window I wanted to keep my options open.

Our next match was against Manchester Utd, and to be honest I didn’t think we had a chance in hell. All they needed to do was score one or have a one goal advantage. To be honest it wouldn’t have mattered if we had won two nil I still think Man U would have beaten us. However I would try to get my players to eek out a win. I wouldn’t let them think that we couldn’t win the game.

So I tried to make training as normal as possible, as if we were training to play any other team, we did a little bit of experimenting with the 4-5-1 formation, but that was becoming normal.

The days rolled around and match day was upon us. Because Gardner had in fact left two days before I had to move Barry to MC, as position he hadn’t ever played under me, and move Kewell to ML. so my team looked like this:

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Z. Knight

DC- Laursen

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- H. Kewell

MC- G. Barry

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

FC- M. Zarate

FC- L. Young

Subs:

Breno

Maloney

Sorensen

Agbonlahor

Carew

I needed to get some more midfielders and quick.

So we pulled into Old Trafford got out of the coach and I told me players to get changed and just do a small warm-up around the pitch.

I was deep in concentration, trying to think how to outwit this man u team, right up to pre-match team talk

‘Right lads this is going to be a hard game. You already know that and don’t need to be told, but remember we have beaten this team. We only need to get one goal and protect it and were laughing. We are marching into the lions den. Let’s give our fans something to cheer about. Take control of the midfield last time, go out there and play the football we know and love’ I patted everyone on the back and we walked out to a packed Old Trafford

Manchester Utd were packed with danger men, basically everyone up from defence was incredibly dangerous and even their defence had been know to score in important situations.

I had told my players to not play so attacking. We managed to get away with it at home but I was not so confident that we could do the same away from home. I hoped we would be able to catch them on the counter.

By Manchester Utd’s standards they started slowly. I.E. they got a corner in the 15th minute. The big men of defence came forward Rio and Vidic put themselves in the 5 yard box. Reo-Coker and Petrov came back to mark to them. Rooney stepped up to take the corner, he whipped in the corner, and everyone ran forward towards the goal. Vidic rose highest and headed the ball back across goal and past Lloris finger tips.

1-0

It too them 15 minutes to break out defence, I could tell this would be a difficult match.

My team was generally very upbeat and confident especially with the results we had achieved this half season and I would have expected them to fight back or at least try. But the only people that seemed to be looking for that equalising goal was my strikers, and they couldn’t do it on their own.

Manchester United were piling on the pressure and we were finding it hard to get out of out own half, we would pump it clear and then be immediately under pressure.

I had told my players to put Rooney and Ronaldo onto their weaker foot, although both have good left feet. However 15minute after the first goal went in Rooney had the ball outside the penalty area. I was screaming to my players to close him down as he obviously had no team mate to pass to. When they finally got the message and started to run towards him, he had already moved the ball onto his right foot and hit a powerful curving shot. Lloris saw it late due to the amount of players inside the box, and he couldn’t prevent it from hitting the back of the net. We were two down with an hour still to play. I couldn’t wait for the half to finish.

2-0

The second goal seemed to stir my team into life as now they went on the offensive however Manchester had the best defence in the league and we would need some luck if we wanted to score. Both Moore and Zarate had long shots from outside the area, however Van Der Sar was equal to them all.

The ref blew his whistle and we walked back into the changing room. I would now have to give a team talk; I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

‘Ok guys so they’ve scored twice, however we played better after that second goal, and we were putting them on the back foot. Don’t let them control us again. Instead of looking for the punt up field, look for the pass to the wide men and look to break. Keep the pass’s short, short and sharp; don’t go looking for the one killer pass because more than likely is that it will get cut off. Let’s try and keep possession’

I wasn’t sure if anything I said had gone in, but we needed a miracle if we to win this game and advance to the next round.

The game kicked off, and it was evident that Manchester were happy enough with their two goal lead. They were still closing us down and making us work very hard for every pass. However they weren’t looking for a goal so aggressively like they had in the first half. The match had turned into a stalemate. We had the ball however Manchester defence was too good and my players were scared to do anything extravagant for fear of losing the ball.

Again we were restricted to the long shots, however this time Petrov and Young got into the act. We were getting closer; we hit the bar and was forcing more extravagant saves from Van Der Sar. Just after the hour mark, Young had managed to get behind Evra, and sent the cross over. Van Der Sar rushed out to collect. He then released a monster throw to Ronaldo who turned with the ball and charged up field. Rooney and Nanni were running up the middle. Manchester were three on two. Ronaldo ran right up the by-line and then sent a cross over. Rooney, still sprinting forward, threw himself at the ball and managed to guide it high past Lloris. Our first semi opportunity and they had scored against on the break.

3-0

I brought Carew and Maloney on, more to rest Zarate and Young than to create something.

Manchester were happy with their lead and we were totally deflated. They ran out the match in relative ease. We were knocked out of the league cup.

Manchester Utd 3-0 Aston Villa

Vidic (15) Rooney (29, 64)

Attendance 76185

MOM W. Rooney

[madog308]

It was a loss and one that hurt considering that the league cup was the one piece of silverware that we could conceivable win. The coach ride home was quiet. However there was no time to mope because our next match was in four days and it was just as important. It was against Everton in the FA cup 4th round. I had given my player the morning off, however in the afternoon training session we did some fun and games. Usually we would watch the match and take points out of it. However this time we had a little competition. Me and my assistant Gaudino had rigged up a large piece of cardboard with three holes in it. They were randomly spaced and only big enough for a football. The players had to hit each hole if they wanted to win the prize, if there was more than one player that did all three we do a sudden death. The prize was their chose of activity. Again Gaudino and I had thought long and hard and we had come up with, paintballing, go carting and sky diving. We got all the first team players and coach’s to have a go, by the end of the first round all the player were laughing and having fun again. We had whittled the group down to three players: Young, Carew and Kewell. The each stepped up and tried to get the ball through the holes again. After five shots each we were left with Young and Carew, it took another two shots before Young missed and Carew had won the competition. Although Carew was not one of the regular starting eleven he was popular in the group and everyone was pleased for him. He of course chose paintballing and I promised him that when we had a break in the schedule we would go. In the mean time though I handed out everyone water guns and it was soon chaos with all the players instantly turned into 5 year old boys again.

It was a successful training session and even I had almost forgotten about the Man Utd match. We were now focused on our next match. The next days training went really well and I was happy and confident getting into the coach.

I named an unchanged team:

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Z. Knight

DC- Breno

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- H. Kewell

MC- G. Barry

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

FC- M. Zarate

FC- L. Moore

Subs:

Laursen

Maloney

Sorensen

Agbonlahor

Carew

Apart from bringing in Breno for Laursen, who was slighted fatigued.

Everton was a team that we had not faced yet this season in any competition. However I had watched several of their matches and I was confident that we could win. They had a good attacking force, however their defence had something lacking. And I believed that our quick strikers would be able to get behind their slow defence, especially behind their DL and DR.

My team talk was pretty simple this time. ‘Ok lads we’ve had a good training session, lets give the fans something to cheer about and lets see if we cant go all the way in this competition’

I knew that they would want to give the fans something to cheer about after the Manchester Utd match.

We started well, not as fast as some matches but I could tell from the off that this would be out match to lose. 15 minute in Lloris hit a long goal kick up field, Zarate jumped higher than Lescott and headed the ball onto Moore who was running behind the defence, and He easily rounded Howard and slotted the ball into the net. My belief that we would get behind their defence was correct.

0-1

Everton immediately closed up again; they were kicking themselves for giving away that easy goal. Everton were hurting and they took out their frustration on our players. And just after the half hour mark and hard tackle went in on Barry and he stayed down for a long time. Immediately Nanni ran onto the pitch, he managed to get Barry to walk to the side of the pitch. The match kicked off again, however I was concentrated on one of my star players.

‘You alright lad’ I said

‘Ye I’m alright I can run It off ‘ he said through gritted teeth.

We sent him back on and I then turned to the Physio.

‘What do you think?’

‘We will have to take him off at half time’ said Nanni.

Very well I thought it was not what I wanted but I could work around it.

Everton had found their second wind and they were now on the offensive.

They were pressing very hard and I hoped that we would go into the half time break with a lead.

Just before the half time whistle Everton had a throw on the right wing. Neville ran forward to take the throw. He passed it to McFadden who was given time to turn. He saw the run of Cahill and passed the ball behind my defence. Cahill hit the ball first time past the outrushing Lloris. They were back on level terms and right before the half time break as well. It wasn’t good.

1-1

I was frustrated however I couldn’t be angry because we had played well. The ref ended the half and I went into the changing rooms first and waited for my players to join me.

‘Ok lads, we’ve been playing well, It was a cheep goal to concede and they will feel that the match his swinging back to them. Keep concentrated, close down the danger men, and look to break them with good passing. We can win this one, we should win this one. Play like you can and we will be fine’

I was correct when I said Everton would think they could win in. They came out with all guns blazing and we were under the cosh right from the kick off. However slowly we managed to push them back and the match was swinging back in our favour.

Against the run of play we won a free kick near the left corner flag. Young lobbed the ball into the box. Baines headed the ball away, however the ball fell right at the feet of Knight, and he shot threw the bodies and managed to find the net. It was his first goal for the season and his first goal for Aston Villa.

1-2

I now decided to bring it back and looked after the one goal lead. Although Everton was only one goal behind it seemed they had no desire to go for the equaliser. I brought Agbonlahor on the Moore towards the end of the match. We knew we had one it when Lescott was given a second yellow and sent off for another rash tackle

We were through to the next round. I was pleased; it was a good bounce back from the defeat to Man U.

Everton 1-2 Aston Villa

Cahill (43) Moore (15) Knight (50)

Attendance 40389

MOM H. Lloris.

[madog308]

The crazy January schedule meant that our next match was in three days against Wigan, and we were away again, three games on the trot. In the next three days I was glued to the phone, I was desperately trying to get a back MC. I put in a bid for Hossam Ghaly and I had a bid accepted for Giles Barnes, however the youngster did not return my calls before the game, and I had to accept that I would have to push through both deals on the last day of the transfer window. With one eye on the transfer, I now had to turn my attention to the game. Wigan was a team that was performing as expected; they were fourteenth in the league and we were expected to win.

We had the much welcomed return of M. Petrov and he was slotted right back into the team, with Barry going to ML. Breno held onto his place and he had played well. So my team looked like this:

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Z. Knight

DC- Breno

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- G. Barry

MC- M. Petrov

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

ST- L. Moore

ST- M. Zarate

Subs:

Sorensen

Kewell

Maloney

Agbonlahor

Carew

I could see that the confidence was back in the team, it had taken a slight dip after the Man U game, but had been built back up by good training sessions and our win against Everton.

When it game to my team talk I could see a lot of happy faces, Breno in particular was thrilled that he had managed to hold down his place for another match.

‘Listen up lads. This should be a good game, play like you can, the training has been really excellent and let’s carry the training into this match. Have fun and give the fans something to cheer about’ i finnished and i patted each player on the back

This was another game when we started quickly. We won a free kick next the right corner flag. Young stepped up, he took a couple of steps back and then, instead of lifting it up into the box, he pulled it back to Zarate who had pealed off his marker. He drilled the ball through the bodies and into the bottom of the net. It was a good shot especially as the pass from Young was not slow.

0-1

The ground was silent apart from our fans going crazy in the top of the stadium.

Wigan, like Everton in the last game closed up and they brought everyone back behind the ball every time we had it. We were still creating chances, they were mostly long shots. Wigan had a good defence but because they were committing to defending they had no attacking options. Thus my defence were parked on the halfway line. To the Wigan fans it must have been horrible because their team was going nowhere. We were in total control.

I wanted a second goal, just to make it safe. Just before half time we won a free kick on the edge of the area. Zarate stepped up, and curled the ball in of the post. We had scored again. We had scored with the last kick of the first half. Zarate had got his second and we looked good value for our lead.

0-2

The lads ran in and my team talk was very simple.

‘Well played lads, in the second half just keep concentrated and run out the win, start enjoying yourself’

It was a very confident team talk, but It was true. Wigan offered no resistance. We controlled the whole second half. I put Agbonlahor on for Moore, so he could get more game time. I was pleased with my team. The only team that we couldn’t beat seemed Manchester United. But if we kept up the pressure by winning our premier league games hopefully Man U would slip up somewhere. We were on the same points as them, but they had one game in hand.

I wished I had put some of my youngster in the subs, because they could have done with a run around.

As I thought we ran out for the win, easily enough. The Wigan fans were disgruntled and booed their team off the pitch.

Wigan 0-2 Aston Villa

Zarate (2, 46)

Attendance 21882

MOM M. Zarate

[madog308]

As soon as I got back I got on the phone to try and push though these deals. By the end of the transfer window we had added two new players to out roster.

Team Name In_________Out

Manchester Utd None_____ None

Aston Villa Giles Barnes-5mill, Hossam Ghaly-750K, L. De Silvestri 2mill, G. Wijnaldum 725K, Breno 5mill____ Parish Elliot 8K, Y. Bellon 675K, C. Gardner 5mill, W. Bouma 2mill

Liverpool None_____ A Arbeloa 6.25mill

Portsmouth None_____ None

Newcastle D. Gibson 275K, N. Onuoha 6mill, C. Gardner 5mill________ None

Arsenal None______G. Clichy 15mill, E. Eboue 11mill, M. Almunia 1.2mill

Chelsea Joaquin 48.5mill______ None

Bolton W. Bouma 2million_____None

Manchester City P. Muller 750K, C. Gibbs 1.5mill______N. Onuoha 6mill

Tottenham J. Briand 5.75mill______A. Taarabt 5.5mill, H. Ghaly 750K

Wigan Non________None

Derby None______G. Barnes 5million

Blackburn M. Ciprian 13.2mill, M. Dembele 8.75mill_______C. Samba 8.5mill, S. Warnock 3.9mill

Birmingham H. Larsson free, W. Palacios 1.5mill__________ None

Sunderland Andy Carroll loan______None

West Ham None_______None

Reading P. Mate 1.1mill_______ None

Everton None_____ J. Yobo 11.25mill

Middlesbrough None______None

Fulham None______None

The big blockbuster signing was Chelsea buying Joaquin for 48.5million and the legend Henrik Larsson joining Birmingham. That certainly would have taken a big chunk out of their transfer budget, but then again their owner was made of money. I think we had done well with our transfers. We had not bought until we had the money. We had paid for Breno in the summer. The 5million from C. Gardner had gone straight to Derby for Giles Barnes and the money we got from W. Bouma’s transfer bought De Silvestri and the money from the Bellon transfer had gone someway to pay for Wijnaldum and Hossam Ghaly. Overall we had made a loss but only of 720K which I didn’t think was that bad. Overall 102million pounds had been spent in the January transfer window.

sorry still having trouble with the tables

[madog308]

The transfer window was well and firmly shut, and to be honest I was quiet glad. I enjoying looking for bargains but I was glad that the stress of trying to get players to join us. I decided to call a press conference for the players I had just brought in.

‘Five players in and four out. Did you expect to be so busy in the window’ asked the BBC sports correspondent

‘I admit that I didn’t foresee that we would bring so many players to the club, however the transfers of Breno and Wijnaldum were sorted before the window. However I am just as pleased with my three players that I bought in the window. Giles Barnes is a great prospect and I can’t wait for him to get used to Aston Villa. I believe he has a great future before him. That’s the same story with De Silvestri, he was a player I couldn’t possibly look over. With Hossam Ghaly it was a different story. He is a great player with lots of experience and he is a player that can slot straight into the team. With the selling of Craig Gardner I had to buy some one to fill the hole he left’

‘You’ve brought in a lot of young players in your time as Aston Vila manager; er the average age is 20. What can you say about that’ asked the sky sports reporter.

‘The age of a player is not a big factor in my decision to make a bid for the player. However I will say that I am looking to build a team for the future. I hope we can build for the future, and build a team that can challenge for the premier league’

‘Your currently second in the league behind Manchester United on goal difference, do you think you can keep up the good form’ this from our local paper reporter.

‘All we can do is keep playing the way we enjoy, keep the pressure up on Man U and hopefully they will slip up and we can take advantage’ I said with a slight smile on my face

‘Of your new players who do you think will play first team football first’ this from a man at the back of the room

‘Well that’s a difficult question because so much of the decision process is made on their progress in the training sessions. Furthermore the first team is playing very well and it will be very hard to break through. However Breno has already had a debut for the team and if all our new teammates train as well as that they may well get a starting place’ It was perhaps unwise of me to single out Breno, but his training sessions had been very good of late.

‘How is the relationship between you and your secretary Zoe going’ asked a female voice

‘Could I ask the person who asked that question to stand up’ I said, the smile gone from my face, it was no surprise that Lacy Jordinson stood up, with a smirk on her face. ‘I was under the impression that this press conference was for football journalists, people who know what their talking about when they talk about the off side rule. So my personal life is none of your business’ I said with a voice of steel.

Yet again she had ruined another press conference, and for all the rest off the questions I just went through the motions without giving real answers. I soon called an end to the questioning.

Our next match was a week away. I gave my players one day of training. It had been a hard Januarys schedule but I was keen to get the new players gelling with the team. In the mean time I had another meeting with the Board members.

They were delighted that Aston Villa was so high up the table. To be honest I expected them to be kissing my feet. However they were disappointed that we lost to Man U in the league cup. Even though they had only asked me to get to the quarter finals. The game against Man U was the Semi’s. However their tone turned pleasant when we turned to the FA Cup. For some unknown reason they had only expected us to get to the 5th Round, obviously we would do better than that. They were satisfied with the clubs finances as I was still under the wage budget and there was still a high club balance. They were generally pleased with my new signings; however they were displeased with the signing of Hossam Ghaly, without him even playing a game for the club yet. This time they told me to pass on congratulations to Luke Moore. I took the opportunity to ask them to find another feeder club. The main reason I did this was: Merchandise was a big producer of income for most clubs, and the bigger the fan base the more Merchandise, so it made sense to make links with clubs not in England.

With the board meeting over I could concentrate on our next game, and it was a perfect game to see what the new signings were made of because it was against Plymouth in the 5th Round of the FA Cup.

I took the opportunity to start some of my new signings and put the rest on the bench. So the team looking like this.

Gk- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Z. Knight

DR- L. De Silvestri

ML- Barry

MC- H. Ghaly

MC- M. Petrov

MR- A. Young

ST- J. Carew

ST- L. Moore

Subs:

Zeefuik

Wijnaldum

Zarate

Kewell

Laursen

Plymouth was 20th in the Coca-Cola league so I had no worries that we would lose this match, even though I had put several youngsters on the first team sheet; there was enough regulars to make the game safe. It defiantly was not my first team but it was second team either, it was a mix of both.

Although Plymouth were a week team, they would come out fighting, and the FA cup was notorious for smaller clubs knocking out the bigger teams. So I stressed this point to the players.

‘Ok lads, go out and enjoy this game, make sure we progress, don’t be fooled by their lowly place in the league, they will come out wanted to make an upset. This would be a huge scalp for them, so stay concentrated, score a couple then relax. Show me what you made off, go out there and have fun’ I directed the last bit to the new players, the message got threw through various translators.

Obviously with a weakened team I didn’t expect us to score early. And we didn’t. The Plymouth players, roared on by their two thousand staunch fans in the home side of the ground, came out of the traps racing, and we were getting no where. On the other hand they were not threatening us. It took almost half an hour for the deadlock to be broken. De Silvestri had raced forward on the overlap, the ball was passed to him, but it was behind him, and he had to stop his run. He got closed down; he turned his back to goal, looking for a way out. Eventually he passed back to Ghaly; he in turn took two touches then passed to Moore, who was running parallel to goal, he hit a first time shot high past the outrushing keeper. Was this the sign of things to come, was their defence finally broken.

0-1

The answer was, no. If anything it made the Plymouth players more determined and we had no more opportunities to score in the first half. So at half time my players walked in more than a little apprehensive.

‘Good lads, good. We’re controlling the game; let’s score another to put it beyond any doubt. Be carful for the odd counter attack’ it was simple, but I believed it was what they wanted to hear.

I replaced Carew, who was looking fatigued with Zeefuik, the more match time I could give these young lads the better.

The second half started as the first had finished. The Plymouth players playing out of their skins to keep us at bay.

We only started to over power them after the 70 minute mark. We had a goal called offside, then one ruled out for a foul. However it was clear which team was going to win. However it looked like it would be just a one nil win, which I was not happy with but could accept.

However it was not to be. In the 90th minute Petrov found Barry on the edge of the area, he ran wide into the area, he then centred the ball to Moore, he took one touch and then hit low past Keeper.

The full time whistle blew and we progressed to the next round.

Plymouth 0-2 Aston Villa

Moore (26, 90)

Attendance 16617

MOM L. Moore

[madog308]

We now had another week before our next match and I hoped to make more progress with the new players. I also wanted to make more progress with Zoe, she had forgiven me for when I snapped at her, but I still felt bad. I could turn my attention back to the premier league, now that we had got through another round of the FA cup, I hoped for another easy team in the next round.

The new players were settling in well I was I was generally pleased with me transfers, however saying that there is always a honeymoon period after each new transfer and the real test of the new players would be if they stayed in the summer.

I went along to the FA Cup draw and unfortunately we weren’t given an easy team instead we were given one of the hardest teams left in the competition, Man City. I would have to think hard about our game plan if we wanted to win. With all the transfers, the FA Cup I had quite forgotten that we were pushing to stay in a high position in the premier league and a win against our next opponents would go along way to confirming our status near the top of the table.

We were away, again, to Everton who we had played and beaten in the FA cup not long ago. I went back to m tried and testing team, putting the youngster back into the reserve squad.

GK- H. Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- M. Laursen

DR- O. Mellberg

ML- G. Barry

MC- M. Petrov

MC- N. Reo-Coker

MR- A. Young

ST- M. Zarate

ST- L. Moore

Subs:

Cahill

Carew

Kewell

Maloney

Sorensen

Everton would be looking for revenge for their knockout in the FA Cup and I knew that they would come out all guns blazing. However with my normal team I was confident that we would get the right result.

‘We have played well so far in the premier league and we have beaten this team not three weeks ago. However they will want revenge, and they will throw everything they’ve got at the team. But we are better. We are the better team and just think how good it will feel if we beat them again’ I was confident and I think it showed through my team talk.

We got the kick off, and we immediately pressed forward, however we didn’t go to fast we kept it under control and we rewarded with a free kick on the left side 10 yards from the corner of the penalty area. Young stepped over the ball, he took a couple of steps back then he whipped in a free kick. No one got to the ball until Moore rose highest at the far corner, he headed it down at the floor and the goalkeeper was no where near it. We were one up, it looked good for the rest of the match.

1-0

With the goal my team kept up the pressure and it almost paid off in the 13th minute when Zarate managed to get behind the defence, he hit a cheeky lob over the keeper from outside the penalty area over the left back managed to get back and clear it off the line.

Everton closed ranks after that second scare and instead of being pushed back they started to take control of the game. Waiting for us to make the mistake instead of looking to steal the ball straight away. From being in complete control we were now beginning to be on the back foot. I hoped we would manage to get to half time with our lead.

As the clock started to tick towards half time we started to press again, looking for another goal just before half time. A good move had ended in the keepers hands, he threw a quick ball to Johnson who was standing on the left wing. He turned and sprinted towards our goal. Mellberg was trying to track him, however Johnson managed to get to the by-line and flick a cross in. The ball fell to Yakubu on the far post, however Breno was aware to the danger and he tackled Yakubu. Breno was on the floor and swung his leg at the ball in an effort to try and clear it. The ball fell to the feet of Cahill. He took one touch then hit a 25yard blaster past the fingers of Lloris. Everton had equalised, and just before half term as well.

1-1

The half time whistle blew soon after and both teams walked back to the changing rooms. The crowd were pretty pleased; the match was turning out to be a great fight.

‘Right lads that was an alright display, we know we can beat their defence with our pace so look for the through ball or even the ball over the top. On the defence side, I want you to close down Cahill and make him uncomfortable on the ball. Move the ball to the wings and look for the early cross. We can win this game’

We walked back out to the chatter of the pitch.

We kicked off and I was pleased to see that my team had taken on board what I had told them. In the 50th minute there was a mistake in communication between the Everton defence and keeper. Zarate pounced and got in behind the defence, however at the last moment he choked and hit the ball straight at Howard instead of into the goal. It was a chance that we should have taken.

On the hour mark I brought Cahill on for Laursen just to make sure my defence was still strong. Immediately after the substitution a cross field ball from Barry found Moore. He ran wide onto Young’s wing. He ran wide to the by-line and crossed the ball. Zarate was at the near post, but he was ahead of the ball but he pulled off a bit of magic. He jumped and did a bicycle kick, he got his foot on the ball and managed to get the ball past Howard. It was a wonder goal and it had given us the lead.

2-1

I brought Carew on for Moore in the 76th minute, just to get his match fitness up.

We managed to run out for the win. I was thrilled and I had something special to show the team after the match.

Aston Villa 2-1 Everton

Moore (6) Zarate (61) Cahill (40)

Attendance 40405

MOM M. Zarate

‘Right guys gather around and listen up’

The all looked at each other, because I usually did a small post match talk and I almost never asked them for complete silence unless we had lost. My assistant handed me a laptop. The website that was on the screen was the BBC sports page. As a rule I had told my player not to worry about the results as a whole, just go from game to game. And as a result none of us had looked at the league table recently.

‘I want you all to look at the laptop’ I said handing the laptop to Lloris

He took a few seconds to look at it, then he leapt up shouting.

Kewell who was sitting beside him snatched the computer off of him, a few seconds later he handed to computer to Carew, and proceeded to give Lloris a bear hug. It was a beautiful thing to watch, as each player looked the screen they jumped up and shouted with glee. The reason they were all jumping and hugging each other was that we were top of the league table.

We had 55 points having played 25 games. Manchester Utd were on 52 points having played 23 games. It was the first time we had topped the table and it was a beautiful thing.

[madog308]

When I walked back into my office after seeing the players home I had a note on my table. It was the board’s verdict on my request for a feeder club. I looked through all the information they had given before I made my decision. In the end I went with a Corsican team GFCO Ajaccio. It wasn’t the best feeder club in the world but it was the best that the board had offered me. As the month of February was coming to an end we had one more match to look forward to. It was against Newcastle who had slumped in recent times and they were in 5th place in the league. The pundits were billing this game as a make or break for each team. Both teams had been performing above expectations and it was the general opinion that a loss for either team would see a slump in form and a slide down the table. I was worried about the match because Newcastle had the potential to be very dangerous. They had pushed us all the way the last time we had met them and we had only just won with a late goal. Owen had got over his injury and had being playing exceptionally and he had scored 18 goals this season. On the other hand we had beaten them away so I hoped that it would be easier at home. I was happy with my team and I was particularly pleased with my young defender Breno who had kept Zak Knight and Gary Cahill out of the first team, my only worry with him was that I didn’t know how he would perform in the bigger matches.

[madog308]

As many story writers know, it’s easy to start a story; it’s much more difficult to keep that story going. Like many other story writers I found that my creative juices had run out after several posts and I stopped writing, however instead of starting another story I am going to try and restart this one.

I apologise for the fact that I lost my notes on the next two games so we will have to pick it up after the west ham game. The two games that we will miss out were a 2-2 draw with Newcastle and a 2-1 loss to west ham.

[madog308]

It was tough to lose to Newcastle, considering we had already beaten them away, but it was a lesson learned and hopefully we would not make the same mistake to any other teams. However I could mope around, I had to prepare for our next game against Manchester City in the 6th round of the FA Cup. Man City had been playing as expected in the league and were currently 8th, however I knew that they would be an extremely hard team to beat. I played around with the idea of a 4-5-1 formation. We did a little bit of training with the formation, however with 3 days to go I wasn’t happy and I decided to play the normal 4-4-2. On the 9th of March we took the relatively short coach journey up the M6 to the City ground.

My line up was as follows:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL-Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

MR- A. Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Moore

Subs:

Kewell

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Cahill

Carew

Man City lined up in a 4-1-3-2, and the match kicked off at 2:00pm. As per usual with our play style we put the opposition team under pressure straight away. It was good to see that my team were not intimidated by the bigger club. However the Man City defence were up to the task and we were mostly restricted to long shots. Slowly but surely they started to push us back up the field. I was on the very limit of my technical area shouting at the players to keep hold of the ball. In their eagerness they were being very sloppy with the ball, and sooner or later we would get punished. By the half hour mark Man City had pushed us out of their area and the game was turning into a midfield battle, it was a battle that Man City were winning. There tight midfield were starting to create chances. A high ball from the defence was met by the head of Bianchi, who headed to back to Elano, who first time passed it back to Bianchi. After sending two defenders the wrong way with a faked pass to Johnson. Bianchi was now in the penalty area. He hit a fierce shot, which Lloris managed to get a hand to, however he could only parry and Johnson reacted quickest and slid the ball past Lloris who was still on the floor.

It was a well worked goal. The ease that they split my defence apart was worrying, However if we could get a goal back the flow of the game would be with us.

1-0

My players, shocked into concentration, began to play well. They created a clear cut chance that our top goal scored fluffed. I was disappointed but that was nothing compared to the look on Zarate’s face, he knew he should have done better.

The half came to a close with the score 1-0 to Man City

‘Come on guys, were are you heads at. We are not holding on to the ball for more than 4 passes. Look for the easy pass instead of the killer pass. Man City are a good defensive team. Lets take the tempo right down, however if we are under pressure don’t be afraid to break away and look for the quick counter attack. I want you to close down Elano at every opportunity, don’t give him two seconds of the ball, make the second half a misery for him. Stay calm and an opportunity will present itself. I know you guys can pull this one back’

The second half kicked off and both teams started slowly, both testing the other team out. However whereas I told my team to slow down, it seems Eriksson had told his team to speed up. Less than 10 minutes after the second half began Man City scored again. Again it was created in midfield. Sun Jihai passed to Johnson, who with his first touch passed it to Vassell on the edge of the area. Laursen slid in, however the ball again fell to Elano, who took one touch to set him self up then blasted in past Lloris.

2-0

The game was effectively over from that point. Man City closed up, and despite pressure from my guys we were restricted to long shots, we just couldn’t break down the Man City back four. The holding defence midfield was making the difference in the game.

In the 70th minute Man City made certain of the win. They won a free kick on the edge of our area and Petrov (Martin) stepped and managed to curl it enough just to evade the outstretched fingers of Lloris.

3-0

The rest of the game was a formality, my team were broken.

Man City 3-0 Aston Villa

Johnson (32), Elano (48), Petrov (70)

Attendance-44977

MOM- Johnson.

We had been dumped out the FA cup in emphatic style; it was also the first time we had lost two games in a row. It was a streak that I wanted to end with our next game, against Derby.

[madog308]

We only had three days to prepare for the game against derby.

It two days before the Derby game and I was looking over my scout’s report of Derby. What I was reading didn’t look good, they liked to play a fast counter attacking football game, much like us.

The phone rang of my desk, just as I was getting myself a cup of coffee. I decided to wait for the answer machine to pick it up. However it kept ringing, just as I put my cup down, the answering machine kicked in.

‘Alex, Alex are you there I need you to pick’ a sobbing female voice said

I snatched the phone up, because it sounded a little bit like Zoe

‘Hello, Zoe? What is the matter?’

‘O Alex thank god, I really need you to come over….now’ she sounded really upset

‘Ok ok, I am on my way, stay where you are’.

I sprinted down to the car park and jumped in my car. It was tipping it down but I didn’t have time to grab a coat. I zoomed round the streets of Birmingham; I just hoped there were now police cars about. I got to Zoe’s flat in 5 minutes flat. I parked across double yellow lines and raced up the stairs to her front door. The door opened as soon as I started to knock. It was as if she had been waiting behind the door the whole time. However I didn’t have time to think as she hurled herself on me. She was sobbing hard into my shoulder. I pushed into the room and closed the door behind us. I took her by the shoulders.

‘What’s wrong Zoe, what’s wrong?’

‘my…..rents…….c….sh’ she was still crying uncontrollably

I shook her

‘What is wrong, you’re not hurt are you?’

‘n.n.n.no. My….P..Parents…..c.c.c.cccar……crash’

I felt relief and then guilt sweep over me. I was relived that it wasn’t her that was hurt, but I felt helpless confronted with her sorrow.

‘When, when did you find out’ I said

’10 minutes ago, my brother called me’

‘And your parents?’

‘Mum….died at the scene, dads in hospital’ she had stopped crying.

‘Where?’ I asked

‘Southampton she sobbed’

‘Right you stay here’ and I plonked her down on the sofa. I then proceeded to find a bag and pack some of her clothes and toiletries.

‘Come on’ I said as I helped her up.

I half carried, half dragged her down the stairs and into my car. As we exited the building, several closely packed flashes half blinded me. When my eyes finally focused I saw Lacy Jordinson and her camera friend taking pictures as quick as they could.

‘Why don’t you just F**K off’ I shouted as I bundled Zoe into the passenger seat. I then ran round to start the car. All the while the flashes kept coming.

I floored the accelerator and nearly knocked over Lacy’s camera friend but I genuinely couldn’t care less. We were at my apartment in 10 minutes. I sprinted up stairs, picked up a sleeping bag and some clothes, sprinted down stairs and back into the car. I then floored the accelerator again heading for the motorway. Once on the motorway, Zoe had fallen asleep, I put my phone on the phone stand, plugged in my headphones and called my assistant manager, Claudio Caudino.

‘Claudio, its Laurie’ I said quickly

‘Ahh Laurie, where are you, Lacy Jordinson is here asking lots of questions.'

‘Tell that wench to buzz off, I want her thrown out of the building and blocked from entering until I can get a press conference’

‘Right ok, will do. But where are you?’

‘I’m on my way to Southampton, I won’t be able to do the Derby game, I want you to take control’

‘What, why can’t you take control?’ he said, his voice rising

‘Get her out, out, call security’ I heard him shout

‘It’s a family emergency, but I won’t be back for at least three days’

‘Ok, you do what you need to do, ill take care of things here, don’t worry’

‘Thanks Claudio, I knew I could count on you’ and I hung up.

I was pushing 110 miles an hour as we turned onto the M5.

When we entered Southampton, Zoe directed me to her parent’s house. As soon as we pulled up she raced out of the car and ran straight into the house. I picked up the bags and followed her in. It was as awkward as I imagined it to be. All her other family members were sitting in the front room, as I walked through the door I was pushed past by Zoe and a man which I assumed was her brother.

‘We’re going to the hospital she shouted over her shoulder’

‘Great’ I thought. I dumped the bags down and went in to introduce my self.

The next few days were terrible. I had wanted to meet Zoe’s family on better circumstances. I stayed in the background as much as I could. It was only at night that and Zoe and I could really talk. It turned out that her dad was going to survive but it would be a long healing process. I didn’t catch the match but I saw in the next day’s paper that it had been a dull nil-nil draw. I stayed with Zoe one more day, till the 13th of March, before I drove back to prepare for the Arsenal game on the 15th.

As we were away to Arsenal I wouldn’t have to do a press conference, which I was pleased about. I wanted to forget the events of the past 72 hours.

[madog308]

I called a meeting with my assistant manager, Claudio Gaudino, first team coach, Vinc Pincolini, and head scout, John O’Hare.

‘Just want to say thanks for taking charge at the Derby game. That this meeting isn’t about that game, its about this next game. I’m thinking about playing a 4-5-1’

It was a good meeting; we all decided that a 4-5-1 would be the best way to play it. John also suggested that we target Fabregas as he is the main playmaker at arsenal. We eventually agreed that tackling would be crucial to winning the game, we needed to make arsenal uncomfortable and the way to do that was with hard tackling all over the pitch, so that meant lots of pressure on the ball, lots of closing down and most importantly lots of hard, but clean tackling.

Training went well, it was common knowledge at the club that something had gone wrong in my personal life; a manger missing a game was unheard of. It was nice to see my players put in that extra effort to make me happy.

It was a positive atmosphere on the bus ride to the Arsenal ground in central London. Because of the change in formation this allowed some fringe players a seat on the bus.

My team were as follows:

GK-Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

DMC- Barry

MR- A Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

Subs:

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Ghaly

Cahill

Moore

Arsenal had the strongest team they have had in a long time, with the likes of Fabregas, Adebayor, Rosicky and Silva. They were doing well in the table lying 4th going into the game.

‘Right guys, you know this is a strong team and they won’t be easy to break down. So we’re are going to have to work hard, if you work as hard in this game as you have been doing in training then we’ll be ok. Keep the passing accurate, don’t rush anything, chances will happen, keep calm collected and lets sneak a win over this cocky team’. With that I led them out to a packed Emirates.

We started strong, my team seemed to have really fired them up, they were doing everything I wanted them to, they were harassing the opposition and for the first ten minutes it was all one way, ours. We had passed the ball around, eventually it ended up with Moore who ran at the defence. He ran wide into the penalty area, he ran all the way to the by-line and tried to cut it back for Barry who was charging in. However it was behind Barry and Barry could only just swivel and graze the ball in Reo-Coker’s path. However, he had not troubled hitting it low and hard past Lehmann into the bottom right hand corner of the net.

0-1

The goal, far from killing off arsenal, fired them up. The arsenal team went from 5% effort to 100% effort. It was only when arsenal started trying could you see the difference in class between the teams. They were all over us, making triangles to pass the ball round us. The pressure paid off and they equalized. Van Persie broke forward, he passed sideways to Fabregas who saw the run of Adebayor and hit a sweet through ball. Lloris saw the danger and started to rush out, however Adebayor got there just in time and nicked it round Lloris.

1-1

It was breathless stuff, there was action all over the pitch, both sides had more goal chances. Adebayor was in scintillating form and he showed his confidence by trying a shot from 40 yards. Lloris would have managed fine but Breno got in the way of the shot and the ball ballooned up in the air, Van Persie was underneath it and hit it first time on the volley, straight into the top corner of Lloris net. It was a beautiful strike, a real collectors item.

2-1

Arsenal had scored two in a space of 10 minutes, and it looked like they would score more, and it was only the brilliance of Lloris that kept us in the game. As the half came to a close, the arsenal players started to wane and there was less pressure on our goal.

The interval arrived and everyone in the ground took a sigh of relief and started chatting about the beautiful football they had just seen.

The players walked in, breathing heavily.

‘Well done lads, there was some beautiful attacking play in that half, I want more of the same in the next. Remember what I said about closing down. Arsenal cannot keep up this kind of pressure much longer; I mean they looked dead on their feet just then. Keep calm, and wear them down. I reckon their going to come out of the traps flying so keep close and make it difficult for them to get into their passing rhythm. After 20 minutes of close marking lets get at them and see how much juice they have left in their legs’

I was pleased with my boys. Arsenal were a big powerful team with a big powerful manager. If we could draw away to arsenal I would be very happy.

The second half kicked off, and as I predicted Arsenal through everything, plus the kitchen sink, at us. However we weathered the storm and they were restricted to long shots. After 20 minutes I gave the signal and my team started to attack. Almost immediately Young won a free kick right on the edge of the area, he immediately stood over the ball. There was no question in anyone’s mind about what he was going to do with the ball. He took a couple steps back and ran forward and stuck the ball. It was not the best free kick; it hit the wall and changed direction. Lehmann who had been diving the other way did well to get a boot on it, but he could only smash it into the roof of his own net.

It was a messy goal but I didn’t care we had equalized, I was thrilled and I jumped up and down like a girl.

2-2

Nine minutes later I substituted Agbonlahor for Zarate, who was on a yellow and Ghaly for Reo-Coker. It would be interesting to see how Ghaly fitted in with the team. He had been playing well in training but an actual game was different.

I was happy with a draw and I told my team just to hang back, not to overstretch themselves. It seemed that the arsenal players were happy with a draw also. However Wenger was shouting at them to get forward, but it didn’t look like they were listing. I allowed myself to smile when I saw this.

The 90 minutes came and went, and I was just waiting for the final whistle. Then in the final minutes of the game, Young sprinted past Cassani. He ran to the by-line and pulled the ball back. However Cassani was in the way and it bounced off him and landed…right at Agbonlahor’s feet. He looked up, picked his spot and hit a cannon ball of a shot that gave Lehman no chance.

Arsenal 2-Aston Villa 3

Adebayor(16), Van Persie (25), Reo-Coker(10), Lehman (og 62), Agbonlahor (93)

Attendance-60391

MOM- Young

I was on my feet leaping in the air and hugging all my support staff. Its true I was happy with a draw, but to get a win, was just, well the headlines the next day said it all.

‘Diaz guns into space’

‘Gunners crash and burn as Diaz fly’s’

‘Villains steel gunners thunder’

All the headlines were with a picture of me about 2 feet of the floor, leaping in joy.

[madog308]

I enjoyed reading the next days papers, although I was not one to gloat or blow my own horn I did like to read about our triumph. Although what the papers didn’t report was that arsenal could and should have beaten us easily. However, I didn’t have time to wallow in my own genius. It had been a crazy week in terms of football. 1st off, we had beat arsenal at the emirates. 2nd we had been invited into the Euro Vase. 3rd Everton had sacked their manager Steve Coppell. Although Everton had not been performing badly, 14th was not a position, a club the size of Everton, wanted to be in.

It was three days before our next match, which was against Manchester Utd. I heard a knock on my door and our newest signing, which I just managed to squeeze in when the January transfer window shut, walked in.

‘What can I do for you Giles?’ I asked a tall Giles Barnes

‘I want to be moved up to the 1st team’ it was interesting to note that it wasn’t a question it was a statement. I liked that.

‘We don’t usually put 18 year olds in the first team, if you’re good you go into the reserves’ I said, looking at him directly.

‘Breno is 18’ he replied, looking straight back.

‘He is the exception, he is very talented and we need him. Are you as talented, do we need you?’ I asked him quizzically

‘Yes’ he retorted ‘your midfield needs people are willing to take people on, I am one of those people’ he said, still amazingly calm.

‘And you know this how?’ I asked

‘I have been coming to watch every match, I’ve seen every match since I arrived at this club.....in person’ he said.

‘Really, how have you got to the grounds’ I said surprised

‘I’ve paid for it myself’ he said a little embarrassed.

I was impressed!

‘Hold on’ and I picked up my phone to dial my ‘Head of Youth’ John McLaughlin

‘John, its Laurie, I’ve got a question for you…….I’ve got Giles Barnes In my office, he wants a place in my first team, what do you think?.......right……really…….right ok…..yep ok thanks john’, and I put the phone down.

I held up my finger to silence Giles, who was just about to burst with excuses.

I then redialled the phone, this time I was calling Paulo Paixao, ‘Assistant manger, Reserves’.

‘Paulo, hello its john, how are you……good…..excellent…..your English is really improving…..hahaha thank you. I’ve got a question, how has Giles Barnes been performing in the reserves?......Right…..yup……ok……wells that’s interesting…..Ok good, I think I’ve heard all I need to, thank you Paulo, bye bye’ and I put the phone down.

I looked at Giles, he was sweating.

‘Well it just so happens that I can fit you in, you will be on the bench for the next game, you might get a run out but don’t count on it’

‘Oh, thank thank, I promise ill work my socks off, thank you sooo much’ he said nearly shaking my arm off

‘Well your welcome, I want to see you training with the senior team tomorrow.' i said with a small smile

I was well aware of the talent I had in my reserves, however with each game being crucial I couldn’t really afford to risk a game to promote talented youngsters.

The meeting with Giles had left a smile on my face, but now I had to turn my attention to two things that were worrying me. The 1st was that Zoe had not returned to work, nearly a week and a half after her parents crash. I didn’t want to call her about it. In the end I decided to leave it another three days. That would make it two weeks and one day. The second problem I had, was how to get something out of the next game, a home PL game against Manchester Utd, the best team in the PL. They had beaten us twice, and on both occasions they had scored three goals. The one time we did win, in the league cup, we had managed a one nil win, and that was by no means a certainty this time.

I decided to go with the 4-5-1 which had served us so well against arsenal. This allowed me to make a space for Giles on the reserve bench. The team were now used to playing this formation, but this time there would be a lot more pressure on the holding midfielder, which would be Barry.

The next three days training went well. Barnes was fitting in well with the lads, he already seemed to be helping Reo-Coker and Knight play tricks on the other lads.

As it was a home game, I had to do a press conference, to be honest I was not looking forward to it.

[madog308]

apologises for the short post, but i finnished work quite late today

I walked into the press room with my assistant manager, Claudio Gaudino. I sat in the centre chair, took a sip of water and then took the first question.

‘Alex, your team is flying in the league, your in an amazing position, did you think you would be this high up in the table at the beginning of the year?’ asked the BBC sports journalist.

I smiled to myself ‘I must admit I never thought that Aston Villa would be sitting at the top of the table, but the team has played exceptionally well. The whole club, that’s the coaches, players, support staff even the cleaners have a great relationship with each other and this positivity has shown through with some of our results’

‘Do you think you can win against, what many people are calling, the best team in the league?’ asked the Sun correspondent.

‘I admit Man Utd are a good team, but who’s at the top of the table’ I said with a smile. A small ripple of laughter went round the room, I waited for it to stop then I carried on.

‘You’re absolutely correct. Manchester United is easily the best team in the league and getting something out of the game will be hard. However with hard work and determination and some outstanding performances from key players, we can win the game’

‘What players are you looking to, to win the game?’ asked the news of the world reporter.

‘The whole team will have to focus, however if the back bone of the team plays well, then the rest of the team will play well’ anticipating the next question. ‘The players I am talking about in particular are Hugo Lloris, Breno, Gareth Barry, and Mauro Zarate. If each one of these players play out of their skins then the rest of the team will follow and what you get is a near unbeatable football squad.’ I said confidently

‘Can you tell us why you missed the derby game’ asked the BskyB journalist.

I knew the question about that week would come eventually.

‘It was a family emergency’ I said simply.

‘But I understand it wasn’t your own family’ replied the same journalist quickly

‘Yes that is correct, it was a close personal friend that needed me’ I said

‘Would this person be Zoe Craven’ asked another reporter. They were no longer waiting to be picked, they were shouting out questions.

‘That is correct’ I said quickly. i could see them all scribbling away maddly

‘What is your relationship to Zoe’ asked the Daily mail reporter

‘None of your business’ I said sharply.

‘Could we keep the questions about football please’ said Cluadio.

‘Are you seeing her’ asked another person.

‘Right thank you, the press conference is over, you can all leave’ I said angrily as I stood up.

Lots of camera blubs flashed at me as I walked out, but I didn’t care. I had more important things to worry about, such as the game which was in less than two hours.

[madog308]

The next couple of hours went to quick for my likening and before I knew it, it was time to give my pre-match talk. My team was as follows:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

DMC- Barry

MR- Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Reo-Coker

MC- Petrov

ST- Zarate

Subs:

Agbonlahor

Barnes

Maloney

Cahill

Ghaly

‘Right lads gather around. We know what this game holds in store for us. We’ve played this team three times already this year. You all know by how much they beat us last time. Let’s try and give them a taste of their own medicine. Ronaldo and Ferdinand are not starting; it just shows how much they think of us, that they think they don’t have to play their best players. Barry I want you to track Tevez all over the place in our own half. Close them down all the time and I mean all the time lads. Don’t give them half a second. Let’s keep our passing short and accurate. We can win this one lads, WE CAN. Show our loyal fans, which have paid to see you, what we can do, we are not top of the league for nothing!!!!’ I finished with a raised voice.

I patted everyone on the back and gave them all a quick hug.

My team seemed fired up as they ran out, I just hoped that fire would last the entire game.

The whistle blew and we kicked off. We immediately passed it to Young who went on a run up the wing. The Manchester defenders were backing off. Young could not see an easy pass, so he looked up and took a snap shot, which caught Van Der Sar off guard. He had to parry behind for a corner. Our central defenders jogged up to be in the box for the corner. Young stepped up to take the corner. He took three steps back then ran and hit an in swinging corner. The crush in the penalty started to move, but Breno had somehow managed to get rid of his marking. He ran to the front post and managed to get his head on the ball. He glanced the ball into the opposite top corner of the net. We had scored in the second minute. It was Breno’s first goal for the club, and he had played less than 10 games for us.

1-0

‘YEESSSS’ I thought. I didn’t get up out of my chair though. I didn’t want to tempt fate, because Manchester Utd were exactly the sort of team to punish a team that got too cocky.

As I predicted Manchester United started to push us back, however what I said in my press conference seemed to be holding true. Barry and Breno were playing marvellously. The goal seemed to fire Breno up, because he was making some inspiring tackling. Barry was doing exactly what I asked of him and was making Rooney and Tevez’s games much harder than they would have expected.

As the fifteen minute mark came and went we were still ahead and holding Man U back, just.

The game was starting to turn into a neutrals delight, Man U were pressing all the time, eager for revenge, and my team were holding them back, but they were also looking for the quick counter and we to had our chances to get another goal.

Lloris was on fire, he was really showing me what a class goalkeeper he was, it was his finest game to date. In the 25minute another Man U attack failed and we had a GK.

Lloris punted a long goal kick up field. Zarate who was stood half way into Manchester Utd’s half, ran to get underneath it. The ball was falling straight at him, behind him Fletcher was charging ready for the big tackle, however Zarate was too clever. He chested and swivelled at the same time. The result? Zarate was behind Fletcher and running at the defence. However he only took two touches then hit the sweetest shot I have ever seen. It whistled along barely two feet off the floor. It was an audacious effort, taking a shot at Van Der Sar from 25 yards usually ends up with only one outcome. However for whatever reason Van Der Sar was not positioned properly and he didn’t managed to get to the ball, which crept in, skimming the bottom of the left upright. It was a wonder goal, a goal that only a South American player was capable of. Zarate had ups and downs but this, surly, was his finest up.

2-0

The unbelievable had happened; we were two goals up against Manchester United. The finest team in the English league.

I was happy, of course I was, I mean happy is an understatement. But I was also stomach churningly nervous.

Less than five minutes later, the Man U team confirmed my worries. Nani had come in off his wing, he slid a through ball for Scholes to chase, and Laursen pealed off to track him. Scholes managed to reach the ball in the box, and he hit a first time shot from a tight angle. Lloris was in the correct position to save the ball. However Scholes hit it so hard that Lloris could only palm the ball, unfortunately he palmed the ball back into the middle of the penalty area. Tevez reacted quickest and smashed the ball past a diving Lloris.

2-1

Manchester United had tasted blood, and they wanted more, much more. They really turned on the style, each player touched the ball no more than twice. The ball was zipping all over the pitch. However my defence seemed to be holding up, just.

Half time was quickly approaching, and it looked that we might see out the half, still with a lead. Manchester had a goal kick. Van Der Sar hit a high lob. It was coming down on the half way line, Zarate was standing underneath it. Again he managed to hold of the challenge of Fletcher and he was running at the defence. However this time, Reo-Coker was sprinting parallel to him. Zarate slowed his run and then hit a sweet through ball for Reo-Coker to chase. The Manchester Utd defence were trying to turn and run backwards to try and cut the ball, and Reo-Coker off. Van Der Sar started to rush out. It looked like a head on collision was inevitable, however at the last second Reo-Coker through himself at the ball, and managed to nick it past Van Der Sar, and it slid into an empty net.

3-1

This time I did get up and shout for joy. They had done what I asked of them by scoring three goals against the team that had done it to us. Twice!.

The half time whistle blew less than 5 minutes later. My happy, sweaty team trudged in.

‘Excellent lads, really excellent. You really showed them that you guys are no pushovers. However, now comes the hard work. Manchester Utd can come back from this; you and I both know it. I’m happy with the two goal lead. Let’s look to keep that first and foremost. I don’t want you looking for another goal, only look for the counter. Defence you guys now have the most difficult and important job, lets look to cut off the supply, close down on the midfield and the danger players won’t get the ball. Keep playing like you did in the first half and we’ll be fine’ I said not totally believing it.

The teams walked back out and everyone in the filled out stadium were ready for the second half.

[salkster2102]

Really enjoying this story KUTGW

[madog308]

Salkster-- thank you for your kind words

Again i apologise for the short post, but i finnished work at 8 tonight

The ref blew his whistle and the second half began. Straight from the first touch I could tell Manchester Utd were out for revenge. I have no doubt in my mind what kind of team talk they got. The lord was looking rather red in the face. It gave me great satisfaction.

If Man U were going 100% for the win, my team were going 100% to hold on for the draw. They were tackling like hero’s, the only thing I was worried about was the fact that Manchester Utd had all the possession, I don’t think we touched the ball in first 10 minutes after the restart. At some point Manchester Utd were take one of there, many, chances.

Giggs had made a good run up the left wing, pushing Mellberg further and further back. He did a cute cut back and then crossed in with his right foot. The ball was in swinging. Breno and Laursen were concentrating of Tevez who was at the penalty spot, and no one was watching Rooney standing on the far post. The trio of players at the penalty spot all jumped for the ball, however the ball was about 20 centimetres above all of them. However the ball fell perfectly for Rooney, who from 5 yards out made no mistake and headed into an empty net.

‘NOOOOO’ I thought, this was exatly the kind of springboard for Man U to go and win the match from.

However before I could think another word the refs whistle blew. Time seemed to slow, I looked at the ref, who was pointing to the side of the pitch. My gaze panned round and….YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The assistant had his flag raised.

Thank the lord, thank the ref, thank the assistant thank anyone and everyone.

I jumped up out of my seat and ran to the edge of my area.

‘Stay concentrated, look what can happen’ I shouted from the sidelines.

The goal, or disallowed goal, had a dramatic effect on both teams. I had never seen a Manchester Utd team been broken, but it seemed like this setback had finally broken them. It affected my team in a much better way, them immediately started to close the gaps and hold on to possession more. Manchester were no longer having it their own way, however that is not to say that we were in control. Manchester were still the more dominate team, but the chances were only half chances.

Another 20 minutes passed and the Manchester Utd team were not creating half as many chances as they were in the first ten minutes of the second half.

Alex Ferguson started making changes; he brought on Cristiano Ronaldo for Tevez.

I was sitting there thinking how to counter this move when it hit me, the perfect plan. Not a tactical change in the sense of throwing on a defender but a tactical change, a mental attack on the Man U team.

I got up and pointed at Agbonlahor and… Giles Barnes.

‘You two, you’re going on, in five minutes’. As I turned to sit down I saw Barnes burst into a beaming smile.

I put Agbonlahor on for Zarate, who was tired and on a yellow. I put Barnes on for Young who was becoming tired. Both players had played out of their skins and I was extremely happy.

My mental attack seemed to work, and the Man U chances seemed to dry up even more. Don’t mistake me, Lloris was still being called into action but he was not making the wonder saves he had been doing earlier on in the match.

We comfortably saw out the rest of the match. I also bounced over to shake Sir Alex Ferguson's hand. 'Well played laddie' was all he said. I had the distinct impression he was not pleased.

Aston Villa 3-1 Manchester Utd

Breno(2) Zarate (23), Reo-Coker(40), Tevez (28)

Attendance- 42566

MOM- Breno

It was a glorious match and a glorious result. The Man of the Match award could have gone to many players, Zarate, Lloris to mention two but Breno had played very well and it was his first MOM award. It was also a good result for the club, there had been only 18 free seats in the whole stadium.

As my tired happy players walked into the changing room, I hugged everyone single one of them.

‘I am extremely happy lads, really brilliant. There will be no training tomorrow, well done, rest up and lets look to the next match’

[fergalb]

Congrats on beating Manchester United

[madog308]

fergalb- thanks, i was extremly happy

I was extremely pleased as I walked back to my office for a class of wine, however as I got to my door I found Zoe standing there.

‘Hey, are you alright?’ I asked reaching out to hug her

‘Yea, im…no’ she said as she walked into my hug

‘What’s up?’ I said quietly

‘Well I buried my parents’ she said looking up at me.

‘Your dad didn’t survive?’ I asked shocked

‘No, but at least we buried them together’ she said. I got the feeling that she was finally coming to terms with what had happened.

‘Right, your staying with me for a couple of weeks’ I said forcefully

‘ok’ she said quietly.

We walked arm in arm to the car. As we walked into the car park, a number of photographers, journalists and fans were waiting. Still with one arm around Zoe, ignoring the flashes from the cameras, I went over to sign some autographs.

‘You’re the best manager we ever had’ said one young fan.

‘Thanks bud’ I said ruffling his hair. As i turned away i saw him and his friends pour over my autograph as if it was treasure.

‘Can I shake your hand’ asked a burly man

‘You sure can’ I said with a smile on my face. It was the first time that the fans had wanted my autograph rather than my players, and I have to say it made me feel good. I turned away from the scrum of people and led Zoe to my Morgan. We got in and drove home. I was going to make dinner for the both of us, but by the time I was finished Zoe was asleep on the sofa. I slowly picked her up and put her in my bed. I then sat on the sofa eating the dinner I had prepared.

I got several papers delivered to my door every day. I flicked to the back papers to see what they had made of the game. The independent said it was a tactical masterpiece. The guardian ran with a story about my managerial term so far, with a picture of me and Zoe after the game with the headline ‘Diaz wins match and wins girl’

It was strange, I was becoming to accept the fact that me and Zoe were a proper couple and that people all over the world knew. I had a cup of milk then I went out.

I arrived back at about 12 and I arrived to see a sweaty Zoe doing sit-ups in the middle of the living room.

‘What are you doing’ I said starting to laugh

‘My workout’ she said not stopping

‘Since when have you done a workout?’ I said laughing properly now

‘Don’t take the mick, I’ve been doing it for ages, I could wrestle you to the floor in 5 seconds flat’ she said staring at me.

‘Oh…Really, go on then’ I said still giggling.

She got up, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor on my back with Zoe sitting on top of me.

‘Owwww, what the hell’ I said rubbing my head

‘I said I could, don’t underestimate me’ she said, with a small smile.

I reached down and pulled out the door key that I had just got cut.

‘This is for you’ I said pushing the key in front of her face.

She didn’t say anything for five seconds then she burst into tears.

‘Wow, hold up, what did I do wrong’ I said genuinely worried

She didn’t say anything, but she just leaned down and kissed me, her salty tears dripping onto my face.

The next day we were both at work; we had arrived in the same car.

Our next match was against Birmingham at home in two days. I decided to stick with the 4-5-1 that had proved so successful with Man U. The training went well and was particularly pleased with how Giles Barnes had settled in.

The two days training went very well, everyone was still on a high from beating Manchester Utd and I was confident going into the next match.

Birmingham had arrived at Villa park and we were all ready for the derby kickoff. My team were as follows:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

DMC- Barry

MR- Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

Subs:

Barnes

Agbonlahor

Cahill

Maloney

Ghaly

Birmingham were coming into this match at the very bottom of the table with just 23 points.

‘Right lads, this team think that they are the masters of this city, but they are clearly mistaken. We just beat the best team in the league, if we don’t score as many goals against the team which is bottom in the league it…well it wont look good. Go out there have fun, and lets see how many we can hit past them’ I was confident and I think the players saw that.

The whistle blew and the teams kicked off, right from the first touch we were in control. We were passing the ball nicely and were keeping possession well. We pushed Birmingham back until we won the first corner of the game in the 12th minute. Young switched wings to take the corner. He hit a sweet inswinging corner; as per usual it was a crush in the middle of the box. Lots of players jumped to reach the ball, however it was one of ours that rose highest. Petrov’s head rose clean above everyone else’s to head the ball in at the near post just in the gap between upright and crossbar. We had stuck first.

1-0

As with most teams the goal made Birmingham tighten up and our chances started to dry up. However we were still causing problems with the long ball, and Zarate our master of plucking the ball from the sky was the target. Barry punted a ball from out own half. Zarate started to sprint for it, along side him was the Birmingham defender Garry O’Conner, the ball was dropping fast and you couldn’t tell who was going to get their first. It looked like Zarate was just going to pip O’Conner to it, however just as he got their, he tumbled to the floor. From where I was sat I couldn’t tell what had happened but the way the ref was running over and the cries of foul play from my team gave me an idea. I turned my attention to the big screen which was playing live video from the pitch. I saw the ref turn to O’Conner, reach into his back pocket and pull out the red card. The big screen showed O’Conner viscously elbow Zarate in the face just as he was about to chest the ball. Although it seemed like a hard hit Zarate picked himself up and seemed to be fine. I was pleased with the result though, it was a bad hit, and anyone could see that.

Although there were a man down, we couldn’t capitalise and the half ended with us still one in front.

The lads walked in pretty happy, but I wanted more.

‘Right lads well done on getting that first goal, but we need to put this game to bed. They are a man down, score another goal, or two and we’ll have it in the bag. Look to attack more, don’t rely on the counter. Lets look to play attractive passing football, lets pull this team back and forth so they don’t know weather they are coming or going’

I decided to put Barnes on for Young. Move Barry up to midfield and put Petrov in the AMC position.

The second half kicked off and I immediately saw the difference that my switch of the formation made. Petrov was making all kinds of trouble running off Zarate, giving him more options with what to do with the ball.

Five minutes into the second half, Barnes passed to Zarate, who held onto the ball for 5 seconds, then passed a through ball behind the full back for Barnes to chase. Barnes got to the ball just before it rolled across the by-line. He crossed it perfectly for Zarate who had sprinted to get to the penalty spot. Zarate let the ball drop before firing a volley straight into the top corner of the net. O’Conner being sent off had made a huge impact on the game. Because O’Conner should have been marking Zarate, and Rafael just couldn’t mark as well.

2-0

We started to take control of the game, and the team was doing exactly what I asked of them, they were pulling Birmingham apart. Kewell and Barnes, on the wings, were played extremely well, exactly the kind of play that I really enjoyed.

A few minutes later we had scored again. This time it was Kewell that ran to the by-line. He pulled it back for Reo-Coker who was standing on the edge of the box, he faked a shot and passed to Giles Barnes at the same time. Barnes who was free in the box, took one shot to set him self up, then smashed a diagonal ball across goal into the top left corner of the net. It was his first goal club, in only his second appearance.

He started to sprint over to the bench. I walked out into my technical area to meet him. He leapt onto me, shouting with glee. He was soon followed by the rest of the team and I was mobbed by 10 sweaty men. However I was extremely pleased. Eventually they all got off and walked back to their positions on the pitch, finally it was just me and Giles.

‘You can consider yourself officially in the first team,’ I said with a beaming smile

‘Thanks gov, thank you’ he said as he jogged off.

3-0

I sat down with a great big smile on my face, I looked up to see the big screen was filled with my face. I immediately changed to a stern sombre grown up. I was still beaming inside.

A few minutes later I put Agbonlahor on for Reo-Coker who was getting tired, and changed the formation to a 4-4-2.

We were still in control, and the lads were looking for another goal. Four minutes later Barnes again had the ball on the right wing. He used his tricks to get past Rafael, who was having a torrid game, he crossed the ball from deep, a low inswinging cross right in the danger zone between GK and DC. Agbonlahor used his speed to just get a foot on the ball and poke it past Taylor who was rooted to the spot. His indecision whether to come for the ball or not had cost him a goal.

4-0

We ran out the rest of game comfortable winners.

Aston Villa 4-0 Birmingham

Petrov(12), Zarate(50), Barnes(68) Agbonlahor(80)

Attendance- 42548

MOM- Barnes

It was a great win over our fierce city rivals. It was also a great game for Barnes who had scored and picked up his first MOM award in only his second game for us.

[Jibby123]

Big time prefer the stories that are stories with some meat on rather than match reports (personal choice, nothing against the other ).

Coming along nicely though following this one.

[fergalb]

Excellent results throughout so far, keep up the good work

[madog308]

merry chistmas all you lovely people, i hope you got what you wanted.

jibby, fergalb i'm glad you are enjoying the story

We now had an unusual whole week off, in the month of March we had played 6 matches in three weeks, that equals 2 a week. In reality we had played three matches in one week, and my players were tired, so I let them have two days off training so they could get their full match fitness back. However I didn’t take the decision lightly as the next match we would be played would be against Chelsea, at Stamford bridge. We had already played two of the big four in this month, I hoped we would be able to get a win over Chelsea just as we had won against Arsenal and Man U.

Over the next few days training I continued with the 4-5-1 formation that had proved so useful lately, however I was wary of turning my turn into just a counter attacking team with no forward bite.

With a whole week off, I had more time to spend with Zoe, who was still living with me at the moment. In fact she had actually returned to work, it made me smile every time I walked out of my office to see her sitting there. Funnily enough, although I had a week off I had a lot of player’s issues to deal with. Marlon Harewood had walked into my office and asked to put on the transfer list. He was very calm and collected about it, he didn’t shout or anything which was nice. However I was very willing to put him on the list, as we already had four first team strikers and a very promising youngster in Zeefuik.

My assistant also told me that Salifou was thinking the same as Harewood. To be honest I had tried to offload him in the summer, and I was quite happy for him to rot in the reserve team, he did not figure in my first team plans at all. The only way I would play him was if we had a major injury crisis.

I always had my ear to the ground for potential transfer opportunities and recently two had arisen that I took a great interest in. Through a contact in Moscow I had heard that the CSKA Moscow striker Vagner Love had rejected his contract and therefore he would be out of a contract and available on free transfer in the summer, he was defiantly a potential purchase, as he would be ahead of both Moore and Agbonlahor in the pecking order if he did come.

The other players that was significantly more interesting to me was the Inter Milan defender Nelson Rivas who was unsettled as Inter and had rejected his new contract. He would not be free in the summer as he still had 1 year to go on his current contract, but he was within our price range and he would slot straight into our team at DR.

I asked my assistant Claudio Gaudino to keep eyes on both men, and he suggested that we put an add out for another scout, I agreed with him as both our present scouts were pretty useless.

During the week off I also had a less enjoyable job, deciding whether some of the youngsters in the reserve team deserved new contracts. In the end I decided not to renew the contracts of:

Salifou

Collins

O’Halloran

Mc Gurk

Lowry’s

It was not nice telling these players that their time at Aston Villa would be over, but it was life, and I had many of these talks in my playing career.

As was becoming an all to common situation the week flew by and before I knew it, it was time to take the coach down to Chelsea.

I was confident in my team although playing any of the big four away was never easy. I had decided to stick with the formation that had served us so well in the month.

My team lined up in a 4-5-1 formation.

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Cahill

DMC- Barry

MR- Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

Subs:

Agbonlahor

Barnes

Laursen

Maloney

Ghaly

My team were still not 100% fit and that was worrying as Chelsea were a very physical team. They had spent 45 million pounds in the transfer windows this season, and the team walked out opposite us was worth well over 100millions pounds.

Although Chelsea were a powerful team they had been performing under expectations and were seventh in the league.

The whistle blew and we kicked off. Chelsea had put out their very best team, the likes of Drogba, Lampard, Terry, Shevchenko all on the pitch. They had learned the lesson of Man U, it was nice to see they didn’t underestimate us.

‘Ok lads, gather around, this is going to be a hard match. I have no doubt in my mind that they have learned the lessons of our Arsenal and Man U match. They know that we will look for the counter. They are a very physical team and they will tackle hard, I want you to tackle just hard back. There midfield is the danger area I want you all to close down the midfield as quickly as you can, don’t let them get into their passing game. Cut out the supply and we’ll cut of the threat of Drogba. Stay concentrated and work hard, because we will have to work extremely hard if we want something out of this game. I believe in everyone one of you, we can do this’

The first 20 minutes were a drab affair with both teams testing each other, not wanting to make the first mistake, but this meant neither team was taking any chances that would lead to a goal.

However as the half progressed Chelsea started to turn the screw and they started to put us under heavy pressure. I had asked Barry to mark Drogba as tightly as he could. However it just showed how good a player Drogba was if he was losing Barry, almost all the time.

Our tactic of closing down the midfield had not worked as well as I would have liked as Chelsea were passing the ball around beautifully, they switched wings constantly, and they were making life extremely difficult for us. Lloris was starting to be called into action almost every five minutes. It good to have a good keeper but he will eventually let on in, and the more chances he has to save, the higher the chance one of them will go in. My defence was crumbling in the face of the Chelsea attack.

I was fidgety in my chair, there was nothing I could do until half time, I just hoped that we would last until then. As usual Lloris was putting a great show, it was just a shame that my defence could not give him the support he needed.

The first half came to a close and there was no question which team deserved to be in front. Chelsea had played us off the field; the difference in class was shown for everyone to see. I had a difficult job trying to turn the game around, as I could see that my team were tired and frustrated at the lack of chances against Chelsea. In the whole of the first half we had only one chance.

‘Ok lads be quite, and listen up. This is going to be hard. Remember Liverpool lost here 4-1. If we can hold on for a draw it will be a good result. If we can nick a goal at the last, even better. This team has good players, but it does not have team unity, our team, works for each other, we love the club and we are a family, Chelsea can never have this. We are all committed to this club, lets go out their and give the fans something to cheer about, and lets see if we can make this Chelsea team look foolish’

The ref blew his whistle and it looked like my words had some effect because Chelsea were having to fight us to get the ball. We were had more of the ball in the first five minutes in the second have then we had in the whole of the first. We still weren’t creating many chances but we were holding on to the ball which was a bonus. The game was turning into a major midfield battle. Although it was our three against their two, it was still a evenly matched battle.

It was defiantly not a neutrals match, as it was very stop start with lots of yellow cards, both Zarate and Reo-Coker were on yellows, and unfortunately for me this meant that they had reached their yellow card limit, so they would miss the next game.

Chelsea won a corner just after the hour mark. Joaquin lined up to take it. There was a scrum of people in the box as usual. Everyone expected the ball to be swung in, however Joaquin had other ideas, he hit a low ball along the floor. He was looking for Drogba on the near post. Drogba collected and turned in one movement, then as my defenders rushed him he swung back and hit the ball high into the roof of the net. A cannonball of a shot from 5 yards. Chelsea had finally broken the deadlock.

1-0

The goal killed off the rest of the game. Chelsea were happy with a one goal lead, and they fell back and got ten men behind the ball every time we touched it.

My lads went in search of the equaliser but faced with ten defenders it was extremely hard, and Chelsea were happy to let us struggle.

The match was not a good one, for the spectators, for us. It was not how football should be played in my opinion, we had tried to attacked from the off, at no point in the game had my team ‘parked the bus’ in front of the goal, like Chelsea had in the last 20 minutes.

I was not happy, more with myself and Chelsea than the lads.

Chelsea 1-0 Aston Villa

Drogba (66)

Attendance- 41991

MOM- Drogba.

At first I was disappointed with the result but after a few hours I was less so. I would have liked to get a draw out of the match, but the way Chelsea dominated us in the first half, we were lucky not to be beaten by more than one. The lads seemed pretty disappointed on the coach ride home; I just hoped that the result wouldn’t affect them to much.

I got off the bus, said goodnight to the lads and went to get in my car. However as I was walking the short distance to my car, I heard some running feet a flash of light and then Lacy Jordinson was standing right in front of me. The flashing continued as her photographer friend kept snapping away.

‘You team were really shown what for, by Chelsea’ said Lacy, holding a dictaphone in front of my face.

‘Is that a question, because I just heard someone’s opinion’ I said as I pushed past her to get to my car.

‘Do you think your team can come back from this humiliating defeat’ she said as she ran to catch up to me.

‘The only think that is humiliating is the fact that you cant get any other stories apart from stories about me’ I said sharply as I opened the door to my car.

‘I hope you don’t try and run as over again’ she said, with real venom now not even trying to do an interview.

‘Well if your in front of my car when it starts to move, then I cant really guarantee anything’ I said, then I slammed the door and started the engine.

I put my foot down and saw Lacy and her camera man jump sharply back. I only took my foot of the pedal when I was round a couple of corners. I parked the car and walked up the stairs to the flat. As I walked in a beautiful smell attacked me. I put my bag down and flung my keys onto the sofa, I looked up and there was Zoe, walking out of the kitchen, with a beautiful smile on her face.

‘I saw the result so I though I would cook you dinner, I also baked a cake’

‘you are wonderful, do you know that?’ I said with a smile on my face.

‘Yea I know’ she said as she walked over to me and kissed me gently.

We sat down and had a wonderful meal, we shared a bottle of wine, then cuddled on the sofa. I had almost forgotten about the Chelsea result by the time it was time to go to bed.

[madog308]

The next day I oversaw training, I worked the lads hard, as per usual after a loss, but they all seemed to be willing and accepting. We watched over some footage of the game, but it didn’t realty show me anything I didn’t already know, the fact that my defence was weak, compared to the rest of my team.

We now had a week till our Bolton game, but first I had to deal with the board. Because it was our tri-monthly meeting.

I walked in too see them all sitting around the table with Randy Lerner sat at the head.

The meeting didn’t last very long, only about half an hour, they were generally pleased with what I was doing at the club. To be honest I think they should have been more grateful and pleased; I had taken the club to their highest position in many a year. I had also fulfilled their targets of reaching the sixth round of the FA cup and Semi-final of the league cup. The only think they were worried about was the performances of Hossam Ghaly, but as I explained he was only a stop gap and hadn’t really cost that much. The other concern they raised was the fact that I was only 7k under the wage limit they had set.

It seemed to me they had to work hard for stuff they were displeased with.

With six games left to play in the premier league season we were sitting top of the table:

Aston Villa	32	19	9	5	66
Liverpool	32	19	6	7	63
Man U		29	18	6	6	60
Portsmouth	32	17	9	7	60
Arsenal	31	17	6	9	57                  

It was now clear, Aston Villa would finish in the top 7, whether we could hold on to the top spot was less clear. Man U had three games in hand, if we wanted to hold on to the top spot we would have to win every game left. Our next game was against Bolton at home, as a general rule we had been strong in the league at home. Although Bolton was a similarly matched team I felt we could use the home advantage. Bolton had a number of game winners, with the likes of Nicolas Anelka and Kevin Nolan gracing their team. We would have to be on top of our game if we wanted to win, no question it would be a difficult match.

I decided to stop using the 4-4-2, I was slightly worried as it was the first time we had started a match using the 4-4-2 formation since the end of February, I hoped the team had not forgotten the formation. However I had a more pressing problem. Both Zarate and Reo-Coker were suspended, due to picking up a fifth yellow card in the Chelsea. Both players were stalwarts of the team, Reo-Coker in particular had started every premier league game we have played this season. Zarate had only started one less, both would be missed and I hoped the team would function without them.

Therefore my team lined us as follows:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Cahill

DC- Breno

MR- Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Barnes

ST- Agbonlahor

ST- Moore

Subs:

Carew

Maloney

Laursen

Ghaly

Knight

It was Barnes first start for the club, his good form had persuaded me to take the chance and start him.

As predicted Bolton put out their strongest team possible and pundits were predicting a thrilling match.

‘Ok lads, as I’m sure you’re aware we are sitting at the top of the table, its amazing that we have got here and we couldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for your hard work, now I’m just asking to push for a few more weeks, its been a long hard season and it would be a shame to throw it away so close to the finish. That out the way, this is going to be a good game, Bolton are a good attacking team, they have a strong attack spearheaded by Anelka. I want you to close him down and force him onto his weaker foot at every opportunity; I don’t want him to get a sniff of goal. I want you to do the same to Nolan. Make these two players play badly and the team will play badly and we will get a chance to take the game’

The ref blew his whistle as I sat down and we started the match, Sammy Lee had plenty of time to build his team, he had been at the club over three years and he knew his stuff, if I could get a win over him I would be extremely pleased.

The game kicked off at a furious pace, both teams were attacking teams, they liked to attack and they liked to play the ball freely. This meant that the game was a very open and fast game, just the way the premier league was meant to played, and the reason why it was called the best league in the world.

Lloris was called into action straight away making a great diving save to his right to tip a long shot from Nolan just wide of the post. In the opening 20 minutes the game was all Bolton’s way, but Lloris held firm, and this time my defence were helping. Both Breno and Cahill were making inspired tackles, however I would rather it be us attacking. Its true we did get some chances, like the beautiful through ball for Moore to chase, he got it and tried to lob Jaaskelainen, but the Bolton keeper managed to get finger tips on it and tip it onto the bar and out for a corner, a truly wonderful save.

The first half was 45 minutes of breathless action in which both goalkeepers played the lead roles. Both squads could thank their keepers for keeping them in the game.

As the first half came to a close I had some serious thinking to do. We had several chances but then again so did Bolton. I had to close up our defence, but keep our attacking options going forward. The ref blew his whistle and the lads came in sweating profusely.

‘right lads get a water and some energy gel and sit down.’ When they were all sat there ‘Well played lads, good attacking runs, their keeper is playing a blinder to day. You guys keep doing what u do’ I said pointed at our forwards and wingers. ‘Lloris amazing as usual, defence were going to have to work harder, if we push forward for a goal I’ve got to feel confident that you can handle the potential counter attack. You’ve all played brilliantly and with have been, literally, centimetres from taking the lead, but its only going to get harder as you get more tired. This match is going to come down to which team is fitter and which team wants it more!! Which team gives a damn about each other to go that extra yard, to run that extra yard, to make up that extra yard, to tackle, to score and get on the end of a pass. You have to decided, who wants it more, them or us’ I said looking at them. There was a brief pause before..

‘USSSSSSS’ came the bellow from my team.

Right then, get some energy on board and lets go out there and show Bolton were ready for them.

I sent my team out 5 minutes early, some mind games never hurt anyone.

I also made some chances, I brought Barnes off. He had played well and I could see he was disappointed but I needed a more experienced head out there. I put Kewell on for Barnes and moved Barry to MC so Kewell could take up his more natural ML.

The second half started the same as the first had finished, fast and furious. Both teams almost scored in the first 5 minutes. However it was stalemate, just like the first half.

Then Just after the hour mark disaster stuck, not for us but for Bolton. Nolan pulled up after chasing a long ball, he collapsed to the ground and my team was forced to kick the ball out of play. He tried to get up, it was obvious that he wanted to continue to play, it was impressive to see his commitment to his club. However the Physio who had sprinted onto the pitch was signalling for a switch. Bolton sent out Mikel Alonso a player on loan from Real Sociedad, a player of significantly less quality, and I breathed a slight sigh of relief. One of Bolton’s danger men was out of the game, it was not a nice way to go out, but it benefited us, plain and simple.

The change was subtle but there was a definite change, the possession stats started to slowly slide in our favour, as did the shot count. I brought Carew on for Agbonlahor a few minutes after Nolan’s injury.

Bolton were still fighting, and they were fighting hard, but the bite had gone out of their attack. Don’t get me wrong they were still threatening our goal, but it was looking less and less likely like they were going to score.

With time ticking down, neither team had scored and I was getting more and more anxious. There was 8 minutes left of normal time and Bolton had a goal kick. Jaaskelainen decided not to kick the ball out, instead he passed the ball to his DL, Wilfred Bouma, formally of Aston Villa. Bouma ran back to collect it, and he was tracked by Young. Whether he did or didn’t hear the shouts from his colleagues I’ll never know, but Young managed to tackled him, and was in behind the defence and running at the keeper. Young looked up, and decided to play diagonal lobbed ball. Carew had seen Young chasing Bouma and had run up to support. The lobbed ball floated down, and Carew brought it down with the edge of his foot, the ball bounced into the box and Carew smashed it into the roof of the net. The first mistake the Bolton defence had made, and we profited from it. I jumped out of my seat and pumped my first in joy. Carew got mobbed for his efforts.

Bolton went in search for an equaliser but time was not on their side, and we ran out winners, not deserving winners but winners nonetheless.

Aston Villa 1-0 Bolton

Carew(82)

Attendance- 42556

MOM- Lloris.

The MOM award went to Lloris simply because he had not let in a goal, if Jaaskelainen had not made the mistake of passing to Bouma he no doubt would have received the award.

I walked over to Sammy Lee and shook his hand.

‘Unlucky mate, we didn’t deserve to win’ I said solemnly

‘Cheers, good game’ he said kindly, although I could tell he was upset.

I made the unprecedented act of walking out onto the pitch and shaking the hand of every Bolton player, because I genuinely felt they had been robbed. When I got to Bouma, who was sitting on the floor I said

‘Don’t be too hard, everyone makes mistakes some times, you played really well’

He took my hand, hauled himself up and nodded his head, then walked off past me.

I took my time walking back to the dressing room.

‘Well done lads, fantastic win, Bolton really pushed us but I’m glad that you pushed further and harder than they did and you got the desired result’ I said. I noticed a smirk on Barry’s face, then a giggle then suddenly the whole team erupted in fits of laughter, the players, whose first language was not English had to have it explained to them. I turned to my assistant who repeated what I had just said. I laughed and turned round, 'that wasn’t meant to be a sexually innuendo', I said laughing.

‘In-YOUR-endo’ laughed someone.

I just left them to it. I was pleased and I wasn’t going to stop them having a laugh at my expense.

Later than night at home, I was sitting on the sofa with Zoe watching the news, another manager had been sacked, this time it was Roy Keane who had been sacked by Sunderland.

I turned to Zoe, ‘See our jobs depend on a few results’

I felt sorry for Keane, there was absolutely no point in sacking a managed with six games left to go, that would only confirm Sunderland’s relegation worries.

[madog308]

I was pleased with the win, of course I was but I was always worried that people might start thinking anything other than winning the league was a failure. I had to keep pinching myself just over the fact that we were top of the league. When I originally took this job, the board said they wanted to be challenging for the league title by the end of two years, when they first told me I thought they were mad, yet here I was controlling an Aston Villa side that had last won the league in 1910, nearly 100 years ago, their highest placed in recent history was coming runner up in 1993, fifteen years ago.

Its all very well having high goals, but you have got to be realistic, we were extremely lucky to be in the position we were in, when I first took control I had predicted a top ten finish if, IF we played well. We had another week before our next game and it was against a team that had scored three against us. I’m talking about Man City, if we wanted to win the league, we would have to beat them. Our last five games were a mixed bag; we had Man City, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Reading, and finally Blackburn. The top five teams were all in with a shout of winning the league, if we wanted it, we would have to win.

All this pressure was getting to me, although it was Zoe who noticed it more than I did. She said I was getting moody and tetchy. I myself couldn’t see it, but I did catch my self thinking of formations and players, and how crucial it would be to get these kinds of decisions right. It was the 10 of April and I was sitting in my office, trying to decided whether to play a 4-5-1 or a 4-4-2 against Man City, when my assistant manager Claudio Gaudino walked in. I looked up.

‘I thought you were taking training?’ I said

‘It just finished’ he said looking at me, looking worried

‘Jesus time fly’s’ I said looking at the clock which sat next to the coffee machine

‘Look I’ve got some information for you, that I think you will want to hear’

‘Ok, take a seat and tell me’ I said curiously.

‘I don’t really know how to say this, but I think Zarate is not happy’

‘Why, what’s wrong with him, has he had an argument with another player’ I was worried, I didn’t want my start player getting out of form.

‘No, no nothing like that, in fact he’s got a great relationship with all the other players’

‘Well what is it then?’

‘I think he wants a new contract’ he said hesitantly.

‘You know we don’t do contracts mid season, I will review at the end of the season.’ I said a bit tetchily

‘You do realise that we’re only paying him 5k a week, that’s less than quarter of what we are paying Moore’

‘What, really!!!’ I said sharply.

I dialled the phone on my desk

‘Zoe, can you bring Mauro Zarate’s contract in please’

Less than five minutes later she brought in Zarate’s contract, she also brought in the wage summery.

‘I’ve highlighted the budget the board has given you’ she said pointing it out.

‘Thank-you’ I said. We were all work at work, we had both agreed to keep our relationship out of the work place.

‘Claudio go and bring Zarate in please’ I said looking down at the sheets.

We were 8K under budget, however we still had roughly three million in the transfer kitty, so we could potentialy swap some funds over.

Fifteen minutes later Zarate and Claudio walked in. Zarate was looking rather sheepish.

‘don’t worry Mauro, Claudio has told me everything and we will be very happy to offer you a new contract’ I said smiling at him.

He immediately burst into a smile.

‘Thank….ou…MR. Diaz’ he said. (he was still learning English)

‘Do you want to call your agent’ I said offering him the phone.

‘No’ he said simply.

‘Very well. What would you like’ I said.

He was very embarrassed, and he turned to Claudio and whispered in his ear.

‘That is not stupid, but I think you should ask him yourself’ Claudio said to Mauro.

‘I…like…double wage….bonus play and score’ he said.

I thought for a moment, then I wrote down on a piece of paper what I was willing to offer him and slid it across the table.

He looked at it for a few seconds, then he burst into a huge smile.

‘This good’ he said

‘Good, very good,’ I said, and I stood up to shake his hand. ‘You’re a good player and we want to keep you’ I said smiling.

He seemed genuinely happy and this made me smile. I sat back down and dialled the phone again and explained to Zoe that I wanted to make Mauro Zarate up a new contract.

She walked back in fifteen minutes later, both I and Zarate signed it and the problem was over.

Zarate’s new deal was:

17,000ppw

A two year extension to 2012

No bonuses

Release few clause: 13,250,000

Yearly wage rise: 5%.

This would still make him one of the lowest earners in my squad, but it was considerably more than what he had asked for. To be honest I would have been willing to make him the highest earner at the club to keep him. Thinking ahead I knew I would have a battle to keep in, in the summer transfer window.

This did put me over the wage budget, but I transfer 500K from the transfer kitty to cover it.

Claudio stayed in the room after Zarate had left.

‘Another thing, we have got a response from the scout ad we placed’ he said.

‘O good, who’s the best?’ I said

‘A current Arsenal scout, he is very good’ he said.

‘Very well, how much’ I said

‘500k’ he replied

‘Make it happen’ I said.

By the time I returned home, I was quite happy. It had been a good days work. Although the board would not be happy because I had spent more money, I was still within both budgets.

[madog308]

By the time the Man City game arrived I had decided on sticking with the 4-4-2 formation, but have more focus on the wings, as I expected Man City would played their usual 4-1-3-2 formation, allowing us lots of space down the wings.

Thankfully both Zarate and Reo-Coker were available for the game, after their suspension from the Chelsea game. Therefore my team was back up to full strength:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Moore

Subs:

Barnes

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Carew

Knight

I was very eager to get revenge on Man City after they knocked us out of the league cup, however we were at their stadium and that would make it considerably harder. Unusually the opposing team had a younger average age than my team, seven of their outfield players were under the age of 23. Especially their back four, all of them were under the age of 22, they had made some significant changes since out last match and I hoped I could capitalise on the lack of experience.

‘Lads, remember how this team thrashed us? Remember how bad that felt, let’s not get the same result, let’s turn this team on their head. They control the midfield with their holding player, so I want you, at every opportunity, to look to play it along the wings, and cross it from the by-line. I want you to close down Elano and Johnson at every opportunity, tackle them hard, and push them onto their weaker foot. In essence make their game hell, they are the heart of the team, if they play badly the team will play badly, cut the supply off from the midfield to the strikers and we take the strikers out of the game. Lets play a fast counter attacking game, break along the wings and lets surprise them with a couple of goal, shut their crowd up.’

The ref blew his whistle and we were under way. As I’ve said before every game counted for us, we really needed to win every single game and this game would be a good indication of what my team was made of.

It didn’t start well. Man City kicked off, and were passing it around with ease. They were switching positions fluently and this was putting off my defenders. They were slowly advancing on out goal. Then Johnson broke the momentum by running at Petrov, he faked a shot and passed to Vassell who was standing on the edge of the area. All my players were thrown off by the fake shot and were therefore late getting to Vassell, who took his time and picked a spot just where Lloris couldn’t reach, and he slid it along the floor.

1-0

Man City had struck first and my hopes of a one sided match where over. I just hoped my lads would react the right way and fight back then give in and roll over. Man City used the moment of the first goal to their advantage and they were all over us, and Lloris was called into action a couple more times right after the goal. However I could see good things from my team. They tried to break a couple of times down the wings, but wry passes let them down, but it was nice to see that Man City didn’t seem to twig that was our tactic.

Another Man City attacking ended with the ball in Lloris hands; he threw the ball to Barry who was standing on the left wing. Barry took two touches and hit a through ball for Zarate to chase, Zarate managed to beat Dunne to the ball, he stepped over it and hit the ball with his right foot, straight at Enke. However the ball had too much power and Enke could only parry, straight into the path of Moore who followed up with a beautifully driven shot, that Enke just couldn’t get a hand to.

We had equalised beautifully and I hoped that this would be the turning point in the match.

1-1

The goal shut up the big Man City crowd, however it did not kill off the Man City team, and the match was turning into a corker. The ball was zipping all over the pitch and both teams were playing some beautiful football. The half time whistle was approaching and it looked like the teams would go in equal.

However we had the ball and Reo-Coker showed how much we missed him the Chelsea game with a beautiful bit of skill. He lobbed the ball behind the Man City left back Garrido, Young used his speed to pass Garrido and reach the ball first, he cut inside and ran into the box. He was at a very acute angle to take a shot, so instead he centred the ball for Moore, who slotted in from 5 yards. We had taken the lead, and just before half time as well. It was turning into a great match for us.

1-2

The lads walked in tired but happy.

‘Well done guys, well done for getting us ahead you did exactly what I asked for and I’m thrilled. But now comes the hard part, we have to stay ahead and maybe even score another to give us some breathing room. Man City has an excellent attack, and we need to stay concentrated. We are still giving them too much space; I want you to make them work for time on the ball. Keep defending well and look for the counter. Remember we are at their ground and it’s going to be easier for them, we have to work harder but our rewards are greater’

Although we had the lead, everyone knew the second half would be a corker; both sides were clearly very attack minded and it would be a moment of genius or a mistake which decided this game.

The game kicked off and just like the first half, Man city were pressing us back into our own half. However our tactic of breaking on the counter was still an option. A few minutes after the restart, Zarate had got the ball on the half way line; he turned and looked to run at the defence. However Richards had closed up and he tackled Zarate, he then hit a 20yard pass to Bianchi, who turned pass Cahill with ease, he then ran to the edge of the area and hit a curled shot just as Breno lunched in for the slide tackle. It was a good shot, and all the more so for keeping his cool while Breno was charging him down.

It had taken Man City less than five minutes to equalise and we were back to square one.

2-2

The game started to settle and neither side wanted to make mistakes, there was still chances here and there but nowhere near as frequently spaced as the first half.

Just after the hour mark I brought Carew on Moore. A few minutes later Carew rewarded me for putting him on. Carew collected a 30 yard pass form our defence, Again the Man City had pushed up to try and take the ball from us before we could turn. However Carew was too smart for them and did a quarter turn and hit a through ball behind Corluka, it was then a straight foot race between Zarate and Richards. Zarate had the edge as Richards had to turn round, a product of closing up too much. Needless to say Zarate got their first, took two touches to get to the edge of the area. Enke had seen the danger and had rushed out, however Zarate just looked up and then hit a beautiful lob over his head and the ball bounced into the empty net. I jumped up and hugged all of my support staff. We had retaken the lead.

2-3

I was happy with the one goal lead, and I told my players not to attacking unless it was on the counter. Time was ticking down, and I was biting my fingernails, I was so nervous, if we could just hold on. Man City were attacking for all they were worth, however the goal seemed to have invigorated my lads because they were defending like I have never seen before. With a few minutes to go a hard tackle by Richards left Carew on the floor, I brought Agbonlahor on for him; I also put Barnes on for Reo-Coker. Some fresh legs in midfield would help the defensive effort.

We just about hung on, some wonder saves from Lloris were needed but we managed it. We had got a crucial win.

Man City 2-3 Aston Villa

Vassell (6), Bianchi (48), Moore (29, 42), Zarate (69)

Attendance- 47973

MOM- Moore.

The MOM award was a foregone conclusion, Moore had been lucky with his goals and in reality the MOM award could have gone to any number of our players. But I was still happy for the lad. The match had been a neutrals dream, but i felt physically shattered, even though i had sat down for most of the game.

We now had six days before what could be called the biggest game of our season. A PL game against Liverpool, who were second in the league, two points below us. All the back pages of the papers were filled with potential outcomes, and ‘what would happen if’ scenarios.

I tried not to get caught up in the hype, but the growing number of journalists outside the ground were getting harder and harder to ignore.

[madog308]

It was nice to beat the team that had knocked us out of the league cup with such authority. It was also nice to get back to my own flat, and collapse onto my bed. Zoe had gone back to own flat, we didn’t really say that we would live together from now on, it was just while she was getting over her parents death. It was weird coming into my own home, to find it silent, no dinner on the go or laughing from the kitchen. But on the other hand it was nice to have an area of silence. No one to bother me.

Although it was coming to the end of the season, the work load didn’t let up, I had too look at all the remaining games instead of just the next one.

Home to Liverpool- a game that would be crucial if we wanted to win the league. They were three points behind us in the league.

Away to Middlesbrough- a game that we should win, we had beaten them before in the league.

Home to Reading- another game we should win although Reading are performing above expectations in the top half of the table

Away to Blackburn- Unfortunately away from home on the last game of the season, a tough last game, we had only just beaten them last time, hopefully we would perform better.

There were still four teams that could potentially win the league, but Liverpool was our main contenders, they were three points behind and we would play them next. So the title would probably be decided on who would win that game. I had a lot of thinking to do!

We had lost to Liverpool when we travelled to Anfield, I hoped we could learn the lessons and that the home crowd would make the difference, and be the twelfth man.

The time between the matches went far to quickly and before I knew it the Liverpool coach was turning into the parking lot. What seemed like thousands of fans and photographers were packing against the railings trying to get, photographs and autographs. The media were hyping the game up as the most important game this year and to some extent it was. I had refused to do an interview before the match, I didn’t want to get psyched out before the match and mess up my team talk. So I had said I would do a post match press interview. I just hoped that I it would be a good result and that would make it an easy interview.

Liverpool had not come of the best run of results; they had won their last match, but lost the one before that. If any team had single players that could turn a game is was Liverpool both Torres and Gerrard were the biggest names in English football. They were the heart of the team, and the result would depend on, if we could contain these two players, if we could break these two players then we had a chance of winning the game. As a result of the belief I had in my team I named an unchanged line up:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Moore

Subs:

Barnes

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Carew

Knight

When I walked into the dressing room I could see the lads were feeling the tension.

‘Lads, you all know how important this game is so I’m not going to preach about it. Just remember what we have practised in training. Keep concentrated in defence, and look to catch them out on the break. Look to close down the danger men, look to make them uncomfortable, try and throw them off their game. We would not be in this position if it wasn’t for your talent that each single one of you posses. Believe in yourself, the crowd is behind you. Let’s go leave this Liverpool side in the dust’

I truly believed that we could win this game, and if we did it was very likely that we would go on a win the league. However I had never been as nervous as I was that day when I walked out of the tunnel to shake Juande Ramos’s hand.

The ref blew a shrill blast on his whistle and we were underway, Liverpool had taken no chances with us and had put out their strongest side possible. It was clear from the off that this was going to be a midfield battle. Whoever could control the midfield controlled the match. Both sides started slowly, with Liverpool having most of the possession. My boys were playing well; they just weren’t finding that attacking edge they usually loved to play. Just after the twenty minute mark, Finnan played a wonderful 30 yard ball to Gerrard, who was on the right wing. Gerrard had time to turn. I was on my feet in seconds, shouting for my defence to close him down. However my defence did the opposite and backed off, everyone knew what Gerrard was thinking, he took a couple of touches then unleashed his famous long shot, which even a great goalkeeper like Lloris could not save.

0-1

It was a foolish goal to concede and I was angry that my defence had backed off given Gerrard time to shoot, they should have known better. That single mistake could have cost us the title, potentially.

The goal from their enicmatic captain seemed to spur Liverpool on and they started to press a lot more after the goal. Only some brilliant goal keeping from Lloris kept the score at 0-1. We managed to hold out till half time, but I was not happy, this was not how the potential winners of the English PL play football.

The lads walked in tired and frustrated, they just hadn’t been able to get out of their own half.

‘Right shut up and listen up. I know you guys are trying out there, but your trying too hard and your not concentrating on the important things. Keep the passing safe and small. Close down your opponents quickly, don’t give them time, or we will get punished. Try to keep calm, the opportunity will come, the trick is to be ready for it and take it. I believe in you, the thousands of fans out there believe in you, go out and show them you can win this match’

The second half kicked off, and I retook my seat, just hoping to any and every god that my team could rescue this game. My team had listened to me during the half time talk, and I could see that they were implementing some of the things I had asked for. But when you are playing a team like Liverpool you can implement to your hearts content, doesn’t mean they are going to work.

We were holding onto the ball much better in the second half, but Liverpool’s defending was up to the task, and we were restricted to long shots.

Time was ticking away and I was getting more and more nervous, my palms were sweating, and I pacing the touchline, willing my team to find a goal from somewhere, but it wasn’t to be. When the final whistle blew, I put my head in my hands, and I could have cried, because we had given away our advantage. Liverpool were now ahead of us of goal difference. We would have to win every game and hope that they slip up somewhere.

Aston Villa 0-1 Liverpool

Gerrard (27)

Attendance- 47743

MOM- Gerrard.

I know had to do the think I most wanted not to do, I had to talk to the press.

I just hoped they wouldn’t ask any stupid questions.

I walked into the press room, as usual what seemed like millions of bulbs flashed in my face, I sat down, drank a whole class of water, refilled my class then I looked up.

A man with some epic sideburns asked the first question.

‘Chris Horner, BBC. A pretty devastating defeat do you think you still keep your high position in the league?’

‘Thanks for reminding me Chris’ and I gave a thin smile. ‘Yes it was a hard defeat to take, but we are not out of the running for the title yet, and remember we are guarantied a top five finish, something that this club has not had since for many years. I am immensely proud of my boys whether we finish 1st of 5th’

‘Allan Kriner, ITV, what was your evaluation of the game?’

‘Well I think it was a fairly even one. We made a mistake by allowing Gerrard too much space. Liverpool’s defence was very good, and we found it hard to break them down, a think that we normally find easy. But I believe that the game could have gone either way, and that’s shown in the result’

‘Dan Callanan, sky sports. ‘In your first season in charge of a club the size of Aston Villa, you have achieved a lot, what do you say to people who say it’s a fluke season, and that you wont be able to replicate this fairy tail season’

‘To those people, who say it’s a fluke. I ask you try doing a fluke very week, sometimes three times a week. I’ve worked hard to get good players to the club, and I’ve worked hard with the tactics. But it’s the boys that have worked the hardest and it’s the boys that will be most offended by that comment’

I answered a few more questions, but I was tired and really not in the mood to talk to annoying journalists who ask the same questions just with different words.

[madog308]

Now that Liverpool were on equal points as us, we had to make sure we won every game. I had never gone into a game with the mindset that we had to win. Our next game against Middlesbrough was in 1 week’s time, and I wanted to be ready for it.

Over the next week I barley left the clubs grounds, I even thought of bringing in a sleeping bag and putting in my office and sleeping on the sofa. However my hard work was paying off, as the players started to notice that I was always at training before them and I was always still on the pitch after training was over, and they started to respond. It was nice to see them push themselves even more than they had been doing.

Our next game was also away, which would make it doubly difficult, coupled with the fact that Middlesbrough had been playing well of late and were in the top half of the table.

However we had beaten them before and I believed we could do it again. I named an unchanged line up for the 4 hour coach journey up north.

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Moore

Subs:

Barnes

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Carew

Knight

The lads had put the demons of the Liverpool game behind them, and had trained well. I wanted that good vibe to continue into this game.

‘Rights lads, you have all trained very hard this past week, and you deserve a win for all the effort you have put in. Remember what we have worked on, but most importantly remember to have fun, we all love football, and we love to play great football. So go out there and have fun, and let’s create some beautiful attacking game play’

The first half kicked off, and thousands of people were looking forward to watching a football match under a beautiful April sky. My lads seemed to have taken my words to heart, and they were attacking in a beautiful flowing style. Fifteen minutes into the match, we got our first break. Riggot attempted a cross field pass; he was aiming for Nicolita who was on the right wing. However Zarate had tracked back and incepted. With his first touch he brought the ball down and under his control, with his second he hit a ball for Moore to chase. Moore sprinted after it. The Middlesbrough defenders had got back and had just taken up positions inside of the area. Moore looked up, trying to find space. He ran sideways along the edge of the area, and then once he found a sight line he smashed a low ball along the floor into the edge of the inside of the net. It was a calmly taken goal from a beautiful Zarate pass.

0-1

The goal seemed to spur my players on and right after the restart we were pressing hard. We won a corner after another attack. Young ran over to take the kick from the left corner flag. Young hit a straight ball to the far post. Tuncay tried to head it clear, however he only managed to head it straight back to Young, who, on the half volley, punted the ball back into the box. Breno was stood at the back post; he jumped up for it, but was out muscled by Huth. However much like Tuncay he could only managed to head it back towards his own goal. There was a scramble for the ball but everyone got in each others way, and the ball trickled into the net for an own goal.

0-2

The two goals within minutes of each shocked Middlesbrough back into life, I’m sure the shouting from Gareth Southgate helped too. It was nice to see my lads playing the way they were, it was nice to see them enjoying themselves, and the way the match was going they could enjoy themselves for the rest of the 60 minutes.

Although we had ripped apart Middlesbrough during the first twenty minutes, we were finding it much harder after the second goal, whether that was because we had brought our foot of the pedal or they were just playing so much better I don’t know, but we went in t half time still two nil, although we could have been four up.

‘Well done lads, you did exactly what I asked of you, you have been playing wonderfully, and I want to see more of the same in the next half. You never know how much goal difference will be an important factor later in the year. I’m not telling you to push ahead and get as many goals as you can because that will leave us venerable at the back, I’m just telling you to keep concentrated and take the chances when they appear. Keep playing the same as you did in the first half and who knows we could be 4 or 5 up, lets give the fans something to cheer about.’

I sent my team out early to shown that we ready and wanting more, a little mind game never hurt anyone. Middlesbrough eventually game out, just before the second half was due to start. The ref blew his whistle and we were ready. My lads immediately started where they had finished and pressed Middlesbrough right back into their own half. An attacking setup failed to produce anything and Middlesbrough were awarded the goal kick. Schwazer hit a long goal kick up field; Guilherme collected it just in front of his normal standing position. He then found Zarate who was standing just on the half way line. Zarate spun round the incoming Huth and just like that was in behind the defence. He was sprinting towards the goal, but Huth was catching him up, however Zarate shoulder barged him out of the way and slid the ball along the floor and it just crept in at the near post, centimetres away from the outstretched hand of Schwazer. Another goal from a counter, and really it showed the lack of skill the Middlesbrough defence had rather than the skill of our attack.

0-3

As we were cruising to a victory I decided to take some players off to rest them for the next game. I put Ghaly on for Young and put Maloney on for Barry. I hoped that each player might show me something in the half hour of the game left.

I think the embarrassment was finally having an effect on the Middlesbrough team because our chances were drying up, and although we still had most of the possession we weren’t creating nearly as many chances as we were earlier on in the match. About 10 minutes later I used my third and final substitute and brought Agbonlahor on for Moore, to give him a run around.

The clock was ticking down and it looked like we would go away with just the three goals. However although Middlesbrough had looked down and our within the first twenty minutes they still had some bite in them, and just before the end whistle we felt this bite. Aliadiere ran forward, taking on my defence, he managed to get into the box, before releasing a quick snap shot; it deflected off Breno who had dived to get in the way. However the ball spun upwards and landed at the feet of Lee Dong-Gook, who was standing unmarked in the centre of the box. He calmly slid the ball past Lloris who was scrambling to get back into position. The Middlesbrough fans roared in delight, the ones that were still in the stadium.

1-3

This late goal annoyed my players and in the 90 minute their paid back Middlesbrough. Downing attempted a cross field ball; however Petrov intercepted and passed to Zarate who was making a lateral run along the penalty box, he let the ball run in front of him before smashing it with his right boot high into the net. Our three goal lead had been restored.

Middlesbrough 1 - 4 Aton Villa

Lee Dong-Gook (86), Moore (13), Huth (16 OG), Zarate (47, 90)

Attendance- 32392

MOM- Zarate

With two goals and an assist to his name it was only even going to be Zarate who won the MOM award. When I got back to the ground and I had sat down in my chair with a nice cup of coffee, I discovered that we had some good news. Chelsea had lost to Portsmouth and therefore they were out of the running for the title and we were guaranteed a top four spot.

‘Brilliant’ I thought I my self as I slowly dozed off.

[madog308]

We were still it second position with 75 points. However Liverpool was also on 75 points, however they had a two goal advantage on us in goal difference. Our next game was against Reading who going well and were in the top half of the table. If we were to slip up anywhere in the next two games it would be to reading. However I hoped that being at home for the game would make the outcome a forgone conclusion, however football is a fickle mistress and literally anything could happen.

Time seemed to be speeding up in the run in to the end of the season, and with the lads having on day of training and me accidently sleeping in the office, I didn’t feel prepared for the match. I’m sure the players were, but my mind was in several different places and therefore I was finding that I was constantly stressed, I’m sure it couldn’t be good for me.

However after a chat with Claudio we decided on an unchanged line-up.

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Moore

Subs:

Barnes

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Carew

Knight

My brain was quickly becoming mush under all the pressure that was trying to deal with, consequently Claudio offered to take the team talk. I was quite happy for him to do this. As I believed his was really popular with the lads and an excellent assistant manager.

‘Ok men, you guys are good, you are in top two positions, you guys have played amazing since I been here. I never see a team with such heart, you guys are like family, you all work for each other. This other team, they no, they no where close to what we are. Play like you did in last match and we be fine, and remember stay concentrated’

I was pleased; it was different type of team talk and the lads needed variety to keep them motivated. Reading were a team, I felt, that were a lot like us, they had some quality players and just needed a little bit of clever buying by their manager and they could be challenging the top four just like we did. I was wary of them, but I hoped that the home advantage would negate any threat they posed.

Both sides were ready and on the field, we were ready for our penultimate game.

My team were 100% fit because I had given them one day of training after the win over Middlesbrough. The game kicked off and both teams started slowly. Reading needed the win just as badly as we did, and in a previous interview Dave Jones had said that he would be giving no favours against Aston villa just so we could win the title.

The game was progress nicely although neither team had really created any chances. Both teams were being too sloppy with their possession and it was this that was hampering the creation of chances. The match was turning into a midfield battle. Because the passing was so sloppy a lot of tackles were being thrown in the midfield, and therefore there was a lot of free kicks being awarded. The clock ticket on and neither side had produced any type of good football. It was extremely frustrating being on the bench and watching my team underperform like this, considering how confidently we beat Middlesbrough.

The ref finally blew his whistle on a dismal half. This was not the performance of a team challenging for the PL title. I was displeased and I had no bones about telling my players so.

‘Ok lads, that wasn’t great. That just wasn’t good enough. We demolished Middlesbrough, now I know you’ve been trying really hard in training but what you have just shown me out there is not good enough. Liverpool are not going to slip up. You need to perform better, simple as that. Make sure our passing is accurate, get your heads in the game and concentrate’

I finished and I walked out, and went to watch some footage of the first half in a room next to our dressing room.

Both teams walked out fifteen minutes later and we were ready to start the second match. My team talk was the closest thing to giving them the hairdryer treatment since I arrived at the club. Right from our first couple of touches I could see that it had worked. We were playing much better football. Our passing was now crisp and accurate, as apposed to limp and disgusting. Although we had stepped up our game, Reading were still holding firm and our attacks were still being thwarted.

However 10 minutes into the half we got a chance. Petrov who was in the midfield passed to Moore who had come deep to collect. Reo-Coker, saw the run of Moore and was sprinting to get into Moore’s ST position. Mate who was marking Moore had closed in on him, instead of tracking Reo-Coker. Moore saw this mistake and played a cute back heal to Reo-Coker, who picked the ball up, all on his own just outside the penalty box. He looked up and calmly slotted the ball in the net past the out rushing Hahnemann. It was a cool and collected finish from a player that was at the heart of our midfield.

1-0

Our supports erupted in cheers, we had finally broken the deadlock, and everyone knew the crucial importance it held.

A few minutes later I brought Carew on for Moore and put Kewell on for Barry. It was an attempt to get more attacking players on the pitch. I wanted to try and put this game to bed. Reading were annoyed at getting pegged back and started to push forward in search of an equaliser.

In the 80th minute I brought on Ghaly for Reo-Coker, to give me a rest.

It was also at that point that I told my lads to stop looking for the second goal and focus entirely on defence. I was quite happy to take the one nil win.

Reading threw everything at us in the finally minutes even changing formation to 2-4-4. But we held strong and we won the match, which was crucial. I would have liked to win by more, but I would take the win. As a result of my teams poor first performance I told the lads that we would still be training the next day.

Aston Villa 1 – 0 Reading

Reo-Coker (51)

Attendance- 38111

MOM- Reo-Coker

Unlike last week, when I walked into my office after I had seen the boys home, we had bad news, rather than good. Both Liverpool and Manchester Utd had won, and worse still Liverpool had gained another goal advantage on us.

[kev08]

brilliant mate keep it up

[madog308]

Kev08, thanks for the encouragement, its just annoying that Alex has to rely on livepool slipping up

We know had another week before our last game of the season, and the position was this:

To win the league we needed Liverpool to either:

Lose to Man U

Draw and for us to win

Win, but we needed to score at least three more than Liverpool.

There was a hope that Man U could hold Liverpool to a draw, however the match was at Liverpool and the famous support at the Kop end would be doing their damndest to push Liverpool on to a win, which would see them win the league, something the club had not achieve for 15 years. Although we were totally relying on Liverpool to slip up the general atmosphere at the club was one of supreme satisfaction because whatever happened next week we were guaranteed to finish runners up. Man U had drawn their last match and that made it mathematically impossible for them to over take us.

However there was a tinge of disappointment that the last match of this historic season for us would not be played at our home ground. We would have to start whatever celebrations we could in the dressing room and on the coach ride home.

Our next match was against Blackburn, a similar side to us, in the fact that they had quality players, such as Bentley, Santa Cruz and Pederson. But they were currently in the relegation zone and were 99% certain of being relegated. I was keeping my eye closely on these three players, not just for the match, but also because they were potential candidates for transfer when the summer window opened.

I had no thoughts over team selection, I picked the same team that had got us this far:

GK- Lloris

DR- Mellberg

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Moore

Subs:

Barnes

Agbonlahor

Maloney

Carew

Knight

I had got Zoe to text me the results of the Liverpool game during the match. I’m sure all of our travelling fans had their wives and girlfriends doing the same, it was all well and good us winning the match, but we needed Liverpool to slip up. It was going to be a tense affair.

The game kicked off in typical Aston Villa style, lots of attacking play and edge of your seat action. The first twenty minutes past in a whirl with both teams having excellent chances and only the skill of our goalkeeper kept us from going behind.

An Aston Villa attacking ended with a corner. Young, our resident corner kicker stepped up. He hit an in swinging ball to the far post; he was headed down by Breno back across goal. Barry who was stood on the near post reacted quickest and poked the ball into the net, to score his tenth goal of the season. It was the perfect start.

0-1

The game continued at its furious pace, but it wasn’t all our way, Blackburn were making some good attacking runs, and only the brilliance of our goalkeeper was keeping him out. I wanted another goal before half time just to put the game slightly more out of reach of Blackburn. But more importantly I wanted us to stay in front, rather than slip up and concede a goal.

The assistant referee had put up three extra minutes on his board, and I was getting my notes out and starting to mentally prepare my half time talk, when Moore had a moment of brilliance. He took on a defender and dribbled his way onto the right wing, he also managed to convince two defenders to follow him. Reo-Coker saw the space that Moore had managed to provide and ran into it. Moore saw his run and nutmeged one defender to pass the ball to him. Reo-Coker picked the ball on the edge of the box and hit a hard rising ball which gave Friedel no chance. We had scored right on the edge of half time, the perfect time to score.

0-2

I went into the changing rooms just when the whistle blew, and I got out my phone. One text was waiting for me. Its words sank despair into my heat.

L’pool 1. Man u 0. Liverpool all over Man U.

This wasn’t what we wanted, I had hoped that Man U would give Liverpool a game and maybe snatch a draw.

The lads walked in happy, and I decided not to tell them about the Liverpool result.

‘Well done lads, really well done, that exactly what I want to see, and I want to see more of it. Remember lads we need to score as many goals as we can. So look carefully for the opportunities and don’t miss when one comes around. At the other end of the pitch we need to keep a clean sheet. We need to play the best football of our lives tonight. Remember this is the last game of the season, everyone will remember this game, so lets show them how good we can play’

I was pleased with my boys, and I think I was coming to terms with the fact that the PL title was slipping out of our grasp.

The second half started and Blackburn were slow getting out of the traps. We were all over them; my team talk seemed to have really spurred them on. A few minutes after the restart Barry had the ball on the left wing. He looked up and put a long cross into the box, Khizanishvili headed away, but it was a poor clearance and Petrov managed to head the ball down to Moore who was on the edge of the box. Moore took one touch to balance himself and hit a savage shot that ballooned the back of the net.

0-3

This only seemed to waken Blackburn from their slumber as apposed to kill them off. The started to pressure us and the pendulum was swinging back in their favour. A few minutes after our third goal they won a free kick on the left wing, just inside our half. All their defenders pilled into the box. Ooijer took the free kick, a high searching ball into the box. Gamst-Pedersen headed it against the bar, Lloris who had jumped to save the header was in no position to save the rebound which game in the form of a driven shot by Dembele.

1-3

This was exactly what I didn’t want. With goal difference being so crucial we couldn’t afford to concede any more goals. I also noticed in the back of my mind that my phone buzzed, telling me I had received another text. In an attempt to put a more attacking line up I brought Kewell on for Reo-Coker and moved Barry to MC.

A few minutes later, as I had just finished telling Maloney to warm up, I felt my phone buzz again. Maloney replaced Barry in the midfield.

Both teams were going hammer and nail against one another. Both keepers were really earning their wages with top class saves coming from both ends. I felt my phone buzz again, just before the assistant referee held up his board declaring four extra minutes of time to be played. By this time both teams had nearly run themselves into the ground, and the game ended.

Blackburn 1- 3 Aston Villa

Dembele(56), Barry (19), Reo-Coker(45), Moore (49)

Attendance- 34137

MOM- Lloris.

Lloris had made some wonder saves and fully deserved his MOM award, although Barry and Friedel were both potential candidates.

The match ended and I walked on to the pitch to shake every players hand, then I motioned to my players to follow me and we walked over to the away stand to salute our travelling support. Then we walked back into the dressing room and everyone sat down, all the coach’s and support staff were in there as well, so by the time everyone was inside it got quite cramped.

‘Well lads the season is over, and there is no easy way to say this, but….Liverpool beat Manchester Utd by 4 goals, so we have come runners up in the PL.’ Everyone was disappointed and several players looked like they were going to cry. ‘Now lads, you have played excellently during this season, the papers and pundits will look for where it went wrong for us, but I believe that it hasn’t gone wrong. This has been one of the best seasons of my life; we have propelled this club to its highest position for over 20 years. That is something to be proud off. We have got great players, we have got great staff and this club would not function without either one of these groups. I am immensely proud of you and you should be to, remember at the beginning of the season, the papers said because I was a new manager we would be lucky to get into the top half. You have blown those papers out of the water. We all deserve to celebrate and there is champagne on the bus so get changed and ill meet you on the bus.’

By the time the players had got on the bus they were all over the fact that we hadn’t won the league title and we quite happy to celebrate their achievement.

By coming second with had won 19million pounds in prize money which I’m sure the board were happy with although they never said anything. Plus the players got 1.1million given out on a pro-rata basis. So the likes of Lloris were very happy.

I had a press conference to attend to but I just wanted to check how close we had come, so I went onto the BBC website to check.

Liverpool had won the league with 81 points. We had come second with 81 points, the goal difference looked like this:

Team		for		against		difference               Points
Liverpool        71		33		38                          81   
Aston Villa      73		38		35                          81

So we had lost out on the league title by three goals, no premier league title had been so close.

It was annoying to come so close and not achieve but as I had said to the players I was extremely happy. And it was with a big smile on my face that I walked into the press room.(whether it was champange induced or not, i dont know)

‘Carmella Bowley, Birmingham herald. At the beginning of the season did you think that you would come so close to winning the league?’

‘Ha, no I have to admit I really didn’t, I told the board that I thought I could achieve a top half finish, and possibly even a top 7 finish, but never in my wildest dreams did I think we would finish second in the league. It’s a fantastic achievement.’

‘Allan Kriner. Do you think your signings had a impact on how well the overall team did?’

‘When I first took over at Aston Villa, I saw it had a good team. I thought there was room for improvement, the board had given me some money and I went ahead and bought players that I thought would benefit the team. However if you look at the team we were playing with seven Aston villa regulars in the starting eleven. I was carful to integrate the new signings as carefully as possible as to not disrupt the whole team.’

‘Dan Callanan. Do you think you can replicate the performance next season, and with you being in the Champion’s League will you have to bring in new faces?’

‘Well that is a difficult question. There is now doubt that we will have to strengthen the squad if we want to take the Champions League seriously, however if the board says there is no money then I have full confidence that the squad of players we have now will perform just as well next season’

‘Chris Horner. With this being your first season in charge of a top flight club the size of Aston Villa, how have you coped mentally?’

‘Well I’m not going to lie to you Chris, its been hard, I’m sure my stress levels had never been so high, but I can say for certain if it wasn’t for the players taking to me so quickly my job this season would have been much harder’

I was happy to answer a few more questions, but they started to stray away from football, and more onto where I was going on holiday and which new players I was looking to sign, neither of which I wanted to tell the general press.

But the question of getting new players in the transfer window was a big one, now that we had qualified for the Champions league we would need to buy the appropriate players.

[salkster2102]

Congragulations on the second placed finish. That is quite an achievement for Villa in your first season and to lose out by three goals must be gut wrenching. But a great performance nonetheless

[madog308]

salkster, thanks for the kind words. Alex got a lot of scrappy wins but they were still wins. Now comes the hard part, Seeing if Alex can continue the form into next year

However I sat down with my assistant manager Claudio to asses the current players:

GK- Hugo Lloris- A brilliant buy, a brilliant player and a player that I knew would attract a lot of attention in the off season. I would keep him for as long as possible, with him being only 22 he could be the GK for this club for the next 10 years.

Gk- Stuart Taylor- Had not played a single first team match, and at 27 was not going to beat Lloris to the spot anytime soon. If I could sell him and get a younger goalkeeper to use as cover for Lloris I would.

DR- Olaf Mellberg- This was my biggest problem area, Mellberg was not really good enough to hold down a first team place, but I had played him because of the lack of players that could fill in. We had loaned in Hoyte during the season but he would go back to Arsenal in a few weeks. This was defiantly a position I would have to strengthen.

DR, WBR- Lorenzo De Silvestri- The young Italian I had brought in, in January. Had not progressed as I would have liked and was not ready for a first team place, I would try and loan him out next season to get some first team action.

DL, WBL- Guilherme- Another brilliant find, he was now a first team regular in the DL position and would be for as long as I could keep him, but I had already been contacted about him from other PL clubs. The only problem was that if he got injured I would have to use Barry to fill in his position.

DC- Breno- Another player that I was particularly happy with, he had played very well since joining the club in December, there was no question over his place in the squad.

DC- Martin Laursen- I had used him a lot during this season, mainly to help Breno settle in and give him a calm head to rely on, however he wasn’t really good enough to hold down a first team place against the likes of Knight and Cahill. I would look to sell him in the window.

DC- Zak Knight- I had a glut of central defenders in my team and two or more had to go. Zak Knight was a good defender and had trained exceptionally hard without getting many first team starts. I would probably use him to replace Laursen.

DC- Gary Cahill- A good youngster and one for the future, probably just behind Knight and Breno in the pecking order, but I wanted to hold on to him, if could loan him out with a return clause I would, would prefer not to sell him but I know I could get good money if I did.

DC-Curtis Davis- He had not actually arrived at the club, but I had sent scouts to check him out and the verdict was not good. I had tried to cancel his transfer but it was no go. I would have to keep him at least until the January window, I would try and loan him out instead of Cahill, but selling him so soon was out of the question.

MR- Ashley Young- The right winger position was his, I was extremely happy with his performances over the season and I believed that he would get better with age, no questions about him being in next years starting eleven.

AMC/AMR- Giles Barnes- Had not developed as quickly as I would have liked, but was still a talented youngster, would not be challenging Young for his spot. If I could get him out on loan to a big club I would. What he really needed was first team action and I couldn’t guarantee that.

ML- Harry Kewell- Had been a good buy, bought him as a cool head that would deliver chances. He had played well over the season, would not look to directly replace him but if I saw an opportunity to get a younger ML that could do the job just as well I would, was taking up a large proportion of the wage budget.

DL/M LC- Gareth Barry- A truly wonderful player and the heart of the team, he had played very well over the season and I would hold on to him for all my worth. The only problem was where he played best, I had still not figured it out, but he had played well in ML and was useful in DMC. No question over him in the starting eleven.

AM LCR/ST- Shaun Maloney- A player that for whatever reason had not made it into the starting eleven. The first team coaches raved about his ability but I had not seen it yet. The only problem was the fact that he was a striker that had moved into attacking midfield, and I very rarely used an attacking midfield. He would have to prove to me that he deserved a starting place. However maybe he deserved some confidence from me. A question mark of a player.

AM LCR- Georginio Wijnaldum- The youngster had progressed well and would be making the jump from reserves into first team, still at the age of 17. He was perhaps not good enough to get a starting place, but would be on the subs bench as much as possible. What he really needed was first team football. If I bought new midfield players I would look to put him out on loan. However he was such a versatile player that he would be very useful in an emergence.

MC- Nigel Reo-Coker- Had played every game I could get him to play. Was one of only two dedicated central midfielders He perhaps didn’t have the technical skill of other player but he loved the club and this showed in his performances. I would not be looking to strengthen this area, maybe bring in another youngster. A definite in the starting eleven.

A/MC- Stiliyan Petrov- a stalwart at the club since joining in 2006, again like Reo-Coker, not the most gifted of players but he was a level head on the pitch, and used his intelligence rather than his skill to get the ball moving. I liked him and although he probably only had another two or three seasons, I would not be looking to replace him this year.

MC/R- Hossam Ghaly- The board had been very critical of Hossam and he had only made it off the subs bench a couple of times, however he was technical quite strong and being a natural MC he would be kept in the team though only an injury to either Reo-Coker or Petrov would hand him a starting place.

ST- John Carew- A good striker, an imposing presence on the pitch, had just been pipped to the starting point by the youth of Zarate and Moore. Could be relied on to produce the goods when necessary. Would start if Moore and Zarate were not on form. Would defiantly keep him.

ST- Luke Moore- The darling of the fans and club, an Aston Villa boy from the age of 14. The fans loved him and no doubt he had a good season scoring thirteen goals, but I was yet to be convinced of his true technical ability and the challenges of the Champions league might show how good he really was. Keeping him for now, but was looking to strengthen this area.

ST- Mauro Zarate- A wonder buy, a true world class player in the making. Had a wonderful talent and would be hard to keep in the summer, would do everything in my power to keep him happy and at the club. He just needed to get more reliable, his place in the starting eleven was in no doubt.

ST- Gabriel Agbonlahor- A player that I was disappointed in, had dropped down to fourth in line for a ST spot. I had hoped for great things from this youngster but I not felt he just didn’t have the talent, would defiantly not be able to cope in the Champions league, and therefore would be looking to sell him.

ST- Genero Zeefuik- Another youngster that had progressed well, he to would be making the jump up to first team. Was a well rounded player and I would be looking to keep him on the bench and give him as many starts as possible, however was still behind both Moore and Carew in the pecking order.

ST- Marlon Harewood- Had a miserable time at the club, bought by a manger who soon left the club, and disliked by the one who replaced him. He was simply not skilled enough to play in my squad and I had been trying to get rid of him since I arrived.

My team had fared well in the prizes for players in the season summery. Zarate had come third in the top goal scorer. Young had provided the most assists out of every player in the league. Zarate was named best buy of the season, Hugo Lloris had the highest rating at 7.38 and he also won the Young players player of the year award.

The clubs that got relegated from the league were, Sunderland, Blackburn and Birmingham, and the clubs that would be replacing them were West Bromwich Albion, Preston and Sheffield Wednesday.

The league had been a topsy turvy one and many of the big clubs had underperformed and heads had already started to roll. The biggest without question was that of Sir Alex Ferguson, the board had been cruel about dismissing the greatest manager in the world, and the 66 year old giant of the game was now unemployed. Another major face of British football had left as well, Arsenal were displeased with their 5th placed finish and were preparing to sack Arsene Wenger, however he beat them to it and managed to bag the top job at FC Bayern Munich a position that had been released due to its manager, Ottmar Hitzfield taking the Man U job. Somehow Avram Grant had managed to hold onto his role as manager of Chelsea, which was unusual as Abramovich was not used to giving out second chances.

The lads went of summer break 1 week after our last game. I also decided to go on holiday, and I took Zoe with me, we booked a six week holiday in USA. I have never been to the USA, and I was thrilled to go, there were just so many things I wanted to do. I wanted to watch and NFL game, but the thing I was most exited about was going to yellow Stone Park and walking the Appalachian trial.

[madog308]

6 Weeks later. 27th of June 2008.

I had arrived back in Birmingham, I was tired and jetlagged I had said goodbye to the beautiful USA 24 hours ago. All I wanted was to go to sleep in my own bed with my women beside me. We got a taxi from John Lennon Airport, the fare came to something near 100 pounds but I truly couldn’t care. With Zoe half asleep on my arm we walked up the stairs to my flat, we walked in and I found a pile of letters making opening the door somewhat hard.

I decided to look at them in the morning, I helped Zoe into bed then I undressed and fell asleep.

The next morning I got up about midday and padded over to take a look at the letters. Quite a few of them were request for autographs, several bills and a letter from the board. It was a simple letter stating that they were planning to expand the stadium by three thousand seats. After a quick bite to eat I went to the office. I had pre-arranged for my assistant manager Claudio to be there. I wanted to consult him on potential transfer targets.

I arrived at my office around eleven, and I wrote down a list of names that I knew would probably be transfer listed.

Just as I had finished Claudio and our head scout Jose Ferreiriniha walked in.

‘Hi guys sit down, you want a cup of coffee?’ they both agreed and I poured them some from the machine behind me.

‘Ok we need to strengthen our squad no doubt. The sugar and milk are over there. I have written some names down of players which I think could benefit the club.’

‘I have also written down some names’ said Jose, in his heavily accented English.

We swapped pieces of paper looked at them for a minute then went into discussion.

About an hour later we had come up with several transfer targets and we set about getting them in motion.

We were going to enquire how much Blackburn wanted for David Bentley and Mortem Gamest Pederson. We were also going to make a 5million pound offer for both Yoann Gouffran (of state Malherbe de Caen) and Fabricio Coloccini (of Deportivo). We had only just finished when my phone rang.

‘Hello, Alex Diaz here’ I said

‘Hello Alex, I hope I can call you that, its Steve Coppell here I would like to know how much you want for Guilherme?’

‘ahh now that is going to be a problem, as he is not for sale’

‘Ok, well there was no harm in asking’ he replied

‘No there wasn’t’ I replied calmly.

No sooner had I put the phone down when it rang again.

‘Hello, Alex Diaz here’ said into the receiver

‘Hello Mr Diaz its Harry Redknapp here and I would like to make you an offer for Guilherme’

I held back telling him no straight away as I wanted to see how much people thought he was worth.

‘Go on’

‘I would like to offer you 1 million pounds up front and also Laursen in exchange’

‘thank you for your offer but Guilherme is not for sale’ and I put down the phone.

I immediately picked it up again and called Zoe.

‘Hey baby, how you doing?’

‘I am very well Alex, you didn’t wake me when you went out’

‘I’m sorry but you looked so peaceful’

‘Pfft, whatever, what do you want?’

‘Any more managers asking about Guilherme, send them away, I’m not interested’

‘Oky koky’

‘K bye’

It was only my first day back in the office but I had already completed two deals.

Boyle, one of our youngsters was wanted by Gillingham and I was quite happy to accept the 1K offer they gave for him. In reality I would have given him to them for free.

I also signed another young Brazil, by the name of Joao Carlos. He was a young 18 year GK. I paid 1.2million for him to Athletico Paranaense. I also agreed to move his family over to Britain although he would be loan back to Brazil for the first year.

I also had several email enquirers about Zeefuik from many different clubs including Chelsea. However I replied the same to all of them. Not for sale.

It was getting late in the day, and I was just about to go home when an email popped into my account, it was from the board.

Dear Alex,
We have arranged a board meeting tomorrow please be there at 9:00 am sharp.

Thank you.

Then it hit me, I still didn’t know how much money I had been given, I had made two bids totally 10million pounds and I didn’t know how much I would be getting. I decided not to worry about things and just go home, but before I left I decided I would write a note to Zoe and leave it on her desk. Because although I would no doubt be seeing her in a few minutes, we didn’t brink work home.

I wrote a note saying that any offers for Guilherme, Lloris, Zarate or Barry were to be ignored, or to tell the offering party that they were not for sale.

I drove back at a leisurely pace and walked into my flat about 6 o’clock. , Zoe was again doing her mini work out, but I had got used to it and I didn’t laugh as much as I did the first time. In the background the TV was on sky sports, and of course it was filled with transfer gossip. The amount of tosh that media put out there is incredible. I think the journalists must just sit in the office with three bags. One filled with names of players, one filled with numbers and the last one with names of clubs. So they just pick one and once and there is the big transfer story. ‘Rivaldo for….5.5million to…..Blackburn yup that sounds good enough’

I cooked a lovely Lasagne for dinner and Zoe and I sat down to watch a film, it was a new release, the Dark Knight. It was amazing, one of the best movies I have ever seen. However it finished all too soon and I was going to watch the news and then go to bed. The same old stuff was on the news, War in Iraq, war in Afghanistan a story about a cat that went walk about. Then it got onto the sports section, the interesting section. The presenter was talking some rubbish about cricket but it was the rolling bar that grabbed my attention.

‘Aston Villa put in bids for Gouffran and Coloccini…’

I watched the bar go past about three times before I could comprehend what it meant. I was seething with rage, but there was nothing I could do about it now, so I left a message on my own answer phone at the office so I could remember how angry I had been. I could barely sleep all night and that was bad for two reasons, one because It made Zoe not sleep and angry at me, second I would not be in the best of moods to deal with the board.

I tossed and turned trying to figure out how someone could have known about those transfers when I had only just made them. I eventually drifted off to sleep at about 2am.

My alarm went off, and I grudgingly got out of bed, I was basically still asleep as I shaved and had breakfast. I gave Zoe a lift to the ground, I just had enough time to get a cup of coffee before I had to go and see the board.

I walked in dead on 9am.

‘Thank you for joining us said Randy who was standing at the head of the table.’

‘My pleasure sir’ I said smiling and sitting down.

‘Well as you know we are very happy with your performance last season and we are happy that you have provided your worth and our belief in giving you a two year contract straight off was founded’

I didn’t say anything, mainly because I didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or insult.

‘I’m sure you would like to now how much money you will be getting this season’

‘Very much sir’ I said on my best behaviour

‘Well we think we are being generous when we offer you 1million£/pw for wages, and we will give you 30million transfer budget’

‘Holy ****..sorry, thank you very much’ I said. I couldn’t help it. That was a stupid amount of money.

‘Well we want you to buy the very best players available. Now it comes to our expectations. We understand the wonderful work you did last season and the fact that it will be hard to replicate but we would like you to achieve a Euro Cup place through participation in the PL. We would also like you to reach the sixth round of the FA cup and Quarter Final of the League cup. Do you think you can reach these expectations?’

‘I certainly do sir’ I said trying to keep from bursting into a smile.

‘Very well then we will be happy to give you the finances we previously mentioned’

I stood up and walked round to shake each one three member of the board.

I almost skipped into my office, and I immediately called Claudio into my office. He heard the excitement in my voice and was sitting in front of me in less than 5 minutes. I wrote the figures on the piece of paper and slid them across to him. He jumped out of his chair and yelled with delight.

‘Can you believe they gave us 30million pounds, 30 mill’ I said walking round to give me a hug.

‘Alex, your problem with striker I have someone who might interest you’ he said once we had separated.

‘Go on, spill the beans?’

‘Spill beans?’ he said. He was still struggling with English idioms.

‘Haha, never mind who is it’

‘A young Italian, Arturo Lupoli, much like Zarate’

‘You seen him play?’ I asked

‘Yes, the manager of Italian u-21’s, my friend’

‘Right then, ill put a bid in for him’. I trusted Claudio implicitly.

I picked up the phone and buzzed through to Zoe.

‘Hi could you get the manager of Fiorentina on the phone please’

Several minutes later my phone rang.

‘Hello is that Claudio’

‘Ce’

‘Would you like to speak in spannish I said?’ from then on we spoke in spannish.

‘I would like to make a offer for your striker Lupoli’

‘He is not for sale’ came the curt response.

‘How about for 5 million pounds sterling’ I said confidently.

‘How about 10’ he replied, although this was a mistake on his part because now I knew he would sell, it was just figuring out the price

‘How about I give you 6million straight up’ I said.

‘I’m sorry but I will have to stay at 10million’

‘Very well, my last offer is 7.5million’

There was a long pause and I could hear his breathing.

‘Very well, I will contact his agent’ he said

‘Thank you very much, nice doing business with you’ I said and put the phone down.

Over the next few days I looked into several more players that I was interested in I made a few lines of enquiry and I also sent several players details to clubs. The main positions I was interested in was DR, ST and midfield. With the conversation with Lupoli and his agent next week I had time to focus on the other positions.

[madog308]

Over the weekend I decided not to deal with any footballs matters, it was extremely difficult but I managed to do it and I walked into my office on Monday feeling good and a great big grin on my face, lots of sex and good food do that to a man.

When I walked into my office on Monday my computer was blinking telling me that I had 10 emails to read. My phone was also blinking telling me I had several answer phone messages. Jeez I thought.

I took the answer phones messages first, and it seemed like there was something of a bidding war going on for one of my players. Out of five answer machine messages four were managers asking how much I wanted for my defender Gary Cahill.

The fifth and final one was an actual offer for him. The new Everton manager Adrian Boothroyd was clearly not as cool headed as his predecessor David Moyes and he had offered 5million straight away. Gary was a good defender but having a glut of defenders I needed to get rid of one so I decided to ring him back. He had given me his personal office number.

He picked up after the second ring.

‘Hello’ he said quickly

‘Hello its Alex Diaz here, I understand your interested in buying Gary Cahill?’

‘O good excellent, yes I could improve on my previous offer if you wish’

Who was this guy?

‘I’m listing?’ I said half smiling

‘I can offer 7.5million for him’

‘If you thrown in a buy back clause then he is yours’ I said. I felt this was a good plan, because Everton could train him up then I could potentially buy him back more experienced than when he left.

‘Hmm I don’t like it’ he replied

‘Ok, I’m quite happy to keep him’

‘No, I didn’t say that, I would like to accept that offer’

‘Very well I will tell the lad and tell his agent, good day to you’ I said.

‘Well that was good, 7.5million up already’. I said to myself.

My mobile phone buzzed. Claudio had sent me text.

‘Players arriving soon’

Of course, and I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. The players were arriving back from their holidays today.

I quickly got dressed into running gear and walked down to the training pitch. No players were there which was good, my and Claudio started putting cones and poles around the pitch. By the time we got back several players were there.

‘Hi lads, hope you had a good break’

There was one player that was standing a little aside from the rest, I quickly realised it was Curtis Davis and I walked over.

‘Alright lad’ I said sticking out my hand

‘Heya Gov’ he said doing a little head bow and shaking my hand.

‘I know it’s your first day, but just join the lads in training, the sooner your doing what their doing the better’ I sad smiling.

‘Right-o’ he said.

I walked back over to Claudio who was holding a register. Eventually every rocked up and they were all in groups talking, comparing holidays.

I gave a high sharp whistle.

Barry who was standing closest flinched and back away. ‘Jeez Gov, that was a bit much’ he said.

I didn’t respond.

‘Right lads, hope you had a good holiday, but holidays are over and its now time to work, so I want you all in your training gear and standing before me in 10 minutes…..What are you waiting for’ I said.

They all jogged off, most of them were remembering the first training session I took. I hadn’t gone for my usually run in the park that morning so I was fresh and eager for a run. Claudio and I had set up an obstacle course/circuit training around the pitch. Eventually all the lads came back.

‘Right lads follow me’ I said. And sprinted off to the first work station. 45minutes later I was back at the start puffing heavily and sweating. The lads were not as close behind me as I would have liked. As the first ones ran up to me, I calmly and quietly said.

‘Again lads’ with a big smile on my face. I wanted them to be as fit as possible as quickly as possible, there was going to be no slow start to this new season, their training during pre-season would be the hardest they would face during the whole season.

After a very promising training session I had a shower and walked back into my office to see if I could make any more deals.

I had persuaded Lupoli and his agent to fly over to us; their appointment was in two hours so I could get quite a lot done. Both my 5million pound bids for Coloccini and Gouffran had been denied so I decided to give both managers a call.

First I called Frank Dumas of Stade Malherbe. I had brought Zoe into the room just in case I needed a translator.

‘Hello, is the Frank Dumas, my name is Alex Diaz. I’m the manager of Aston Villa’

‘zello’ game the heavily accented voice. I imagined him twirling his moustache and some onions round his neck. This was obviously not what he looked like, but I couldn’t help but giggle.

‘Can I help you?’ he said.

‘Yes I would like to buy your young winger Yoann Gouffran’

‘Yes we got your bid; I believe we sent it back’

‘Yes yes you did, but I would like to make an improved offer’

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

‘I would like to offer you 7.5million pounds for him’

‘I vill have to accept, but only because ze owner wants ze money’

‘I expect the paper work to be on my desk tomorrow morning’ I said. There was no messing around when it came to transfers.

‘Well that was good’ I said to Zoe, ‘another player potentially on his way.’

‘For 7.5million pounds, that’s gamble on a player so young’ she said, raising her eyebrows.

‘I believe in the kid, I’ve scouting him with two scouts. I know what I’m doing. I hope’ I said smiling at her.

I picked up the phone again and dialled a different number, this time it was to Miroslav Djukic the manager of Deportivo. The conversation was much along the same lines however I had to part with more cash than I would have liked. Both Coloccini and Gouffran agents would be contacting me in the next week.

However I soon got message that Lupoli and his agent would be arriving, so I put on my best suit, and joined Claudio waiting for him outside. Very soon a black Mercedes pulled up and the driver got out and walked round to open the passenger side door. A young lad that didn’t look his twenty one years got out followed by a middle aged man with grey hair scrapped back.

I walked forward and addressed Lupoli in Spanish.

‘Hello Arturo my name is Alex Diaz, thank you for coming to see me’ I said smiling at him.

He seemed surprised that I could speak Spanish but hr recovered and responded.

‘Thank you, I’m am looking forward to seeing the club’ he said

We walked him straight to the ground and then onto the training areas. He seemed to be impressed although his manager kept whispering in his ear and pointing things out.

Eventually we had walked round the whole site, and we eventually walked back to my office. It was pleasing to note that Arturo and Claudio seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.

I sat behind the desk, Arturo and his manager in the chairs and Claudio was sat on the sofa at the back.

‘So Lupoli we would love for you to come and joint he club, what do you say?’ I said

For the first time his manager spoke.

‘WE are not sure if this is the right club for us, as you know we have received several offers from high clubs?’

‘Like what? I said directing my attention to him.

He didn’t reply just muttered some inaudible Spanish.

‘Arturo, I am willing to offer you a contract, because we would love you to join the club’ I said turning my attention back to the player.

He smiled and began to say something before his manager interrupted.

‘I will have to have a look at the contract’ he said giving me an ugly smile.

Very well I said and pushed the contract over to him.

‘I’m afraid this will not do he said’ and began to push it back.

‘Please amend it’ I said giving him a pencil.

He smiled again, and began to write on the piece of paper. A few minutes later he handed the piece of paper back to me.

I looked at it for a second then I stood up.

‘Right thank you for your time but goodbye’ I said motioning Claudio to open the door.

Arturo stood up looking shocked; he turned to his manager and said some sharp words could have been daggers the way his manager scurried out of the room.

‘I am sorry; let me look at the first contract.’ He said, giving me a half smile.

I printed out another copy and gave it to him.

‘Can I have a pencil please’ he said. This annoyed me but I gave him the pencil.

He made some chances and gave it back.

It was not as crazy as his manger had written; I made some small changes and handed it back to him. He looked at it smiled and stood up. We shook hands and the deal was done. Arturo Lupoli would be arriving at the club for 7.5million pounds.

[Scalamunger]

THis story is probably my favourite read at the moment, your very consistent with updates and tehy are alwaysa good length i especially love the way you describe your transfer dealings. Hopefully these new signings will be theboost you need for the new season!

[madog308]

Scalamunger, thank you very much. I think that is the nicest comment i have recived so far, it’s also ironic. I will explain this now. My winter holiday has finished and i am now back at university. My course is a 9-5 Monday to Friday, add one hour of travel time to that and that does not give me much free time. So therefore i predict i will not be able to post everyday like i have been doing recently. I will try to keep posting once a week but i cannot guarantee this. However this story will not die it will be merely in.....in hibernation for a while. I hope you all understand and I apologise. Madog

I had put in motion all the transfers I wanted, however now I was in the plesent opportunity to look for players that we didn’t need but I believed could help us progress as a club. I sent my scouts to look at the French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish and Brazilian u-21 sides to see if any players would be willing and capable enough to come and play for us. I went down so see the last of the days training session then I decided to go home. Zoe was still in so I offered her a lift, she accepted.

As I waited for her by the car a reporter came up to me.

‘Do you have any response to the article?’ he said holding his microphone up to my face.

‘What are you talking about’ I said angry that he was invading my personal space.

‘The Lacy Jordinson article, have you not read it?’ he said starting to smile.

‘No’ I said, I could feel myself start to fume.

‘Haha, well mate, have fun it’s a real corker. ‘The Sun’ is even going to publish it tomorrow’ he said and walked off.

Just as he walked away Zoe walked into my field of vision.

‘What did he want’ she said.

I just opened the door and got in. Zoe didn’t like being ignored and the colour started to rise in her checks. If there was one thing I knew about Zoe it was to intervene before she kicked off.

‘I’m sorry but apparently Lacy Jordinson has written something about me, and its going to be published in a paper tomorrow’

She let out a breath of air like a balloon deflating. ‘Why do you care what she says?’ she said looking at me.

‘I don’t, its just’ I couldn’t finish the sentence, I just hated the women. The red brick houses which I saw on my route home usually looked so nice in the summer sun now looked like angry red sores.

I parked the car and almost ran up the stairs, I didn’t want to seem too vain but I wanted to read it.

I logged onto my computer and typed in Lacy Jordinson, Alex Diaz into the search browser.

The first result was the article, I clicked on it.

Alex Diaz Hero or super Villa
A special report by Lacy Jordinson.

Last year Aston Villa took the monumentally crazy step of appointing Alex Diaz as their manager, a man who had never managed a big club before. He had absolutely no track rate of being a successful manager. I have been following Alex at his time at Aston Villa and the going-ons behind the scene show how close to collapse Aston Villa really is. The board seemed to be blind to the fact that Alex Diaz is not a capable manager. The board have been caught under Alex’s spell and have given him a 30million pound transfer kitty this year. This is an amazing figure considering the club is only valued at 41 million pounds. Alex has managed to persuade the club in giving him enough money to potentially bankrupt the club. If we remember last season Alex used all his transfer money last year, and remember he brought in players like Hossam Ghaly, Marlon Harewood also joined the club that year, both players hardly ever used and a waste of money. As Alex himself said ‘30million is a crazy amount of money’. I can reveal that he has already spent 7.5million pounds and has committed a further 18million pounds, so he has spent 26million pounds of his transfer budget. There are also questions over Alex’s commitment to the club; fans remember how he walked out on his club one day before a crucial match against Derby. I reported at the time that Alex ran to the aid of his girlfriend who was in a drugged up stupor. When I tried to ask Alex if he needed any help he tried to run me over in his car. Is this the real side of Alex Diaz that everyone has yet to see? It is true that he only just lost out on the PL title but as he said himself ‘If the players had not taken to me, then our position would not have been possible’. The players at Aston Villa are good enough to hold their own, and Alex Diaz is not needed at the club. This brings me nicely on to my next point. Over Alex’s short reign at the club he has sacked more than five of the staff that helped him settle in, and in their place he was brought foreigners that don’t even speak English. A recent interview I did with the manager of one of Alex’s new signings said the his assistant manager knew very little English and that Alex and his assistant manager regularly spoke in languages other than English. This is a sad state of affairs that a truly British club has been taken over by someone that is obviously embarrassed to be English. Diaz even ignores his own fans, Luke Moore, who is clearly one of the best players at the club, does not get the starts he deserves; instead they go to the Argentina player Zarate. It is amazing that Aston Villa has got into a position that they can play in the champions league but I believe that the flaws of Alex Diaz will be on display for everyone to see, and everyone will see what a mistake the Aston Villa hierarchy have made in hiring him. Another fact that he was kept quite is the selling of the young British star in the making Gary Cahill. This is a clear example of Alex getting rid of good young English players and replacing them with other players, such as Fabricio Coloccini a player that he has recently bid for. As an outsider I can see the mistakes Aston Villa manager Alex Diaz has made, but those within his grasp and made to believe that he is a great manager, I urge everyone at Aston Villa and every Aston Villa fan to take a good long hard look at Alex Diaz and make a decision as to whether this man is fit to lead our great club.

‘What a load of ****’ said Zoe who was stood behind me.

I was not particularly angry, because although the article attacked me, it was badly written and had lots of value judgments, I was worried. The reason I was worried was the fact that Lacy Jordinson knew everyone of my transfer targets, even how much I had paid for them. Someone inside my office was telling her things. I decided to act on it straight away. The only two people that had been in my office to hear the transfers were Claudio and Zoe; both were people I had the utmost trust in, so now the unthinkable had arisen, was one of these people going behind my back.

I turned to Zoe and looked her in the eye.

‘Zoe, tell me truthfully did you tell Lacy these things?’

‘What!!!, how could you ask me that? You know I didn’t’ she said angrily.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just the only people that could have told her these things are you, or Claudio’ I said reaching out to hug her.

‘You know damn well that it was neither of us’ she said pushing me away.

‘Look I’m sorry but it’s the only thing I could think off’ I said walking after her.

She walked into my bedroom and slammed the door.

‘You do know you’ve just locked yourself into MY bedroom’ I said through the door.

The door open and Zoe stood there trying not to smile. ‘You are to cute to be angry at’

‘I know’ I said quietly as I picked her up and kicked the door shut.

[madog308]

Our first friendly game was coming up and it was against Walsall who were in the Coca Cola League one.

Coloccini and Gouffran had agreed to come to the club and I was looking forward to seeing them in action. My team looked like this.

GK- Lloris

DR- Coloccini

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Knight

MR- Young

ML-Barry

MC- Petrov

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Zarate

ST- Lupoli

Subs:

Gouffran

Wijnaldum

Zeefuik

Barnes

Maloney

We ran out comfortable winners at 3-1 with Lupoli scoring twice which was nice. Admittedly I would have liked a clean sheet but I was happy with the win.

It was the 14th of July and today was a big day, because today was the day that my scouts reported back to me, on potential targets. We all sat down in the conference room and each one went through their targets.

The most promising of these were:

French man Blaise Matuidi who, Frank Passi assured me was the next Gareth Barry.

Lulinha a brilliant Brazilian wonderkid who could potentially fill of MC position for the next 10 years.

Henri Saivet another French wonderkid who held great potential.

Ivan Rakitic a Serbian midfielder that was playing football Lampard would be proud off.

Two other players were not necessarily scouted but they held great potential and were realistic transfer targets. Rafael Van Der Vaart had rejected his contract at HSV, Bojan a young Spaniard who had rejected his contract with Barcelona.

I filed a bid of 7.5million pounds for Blaise Matuidi and made similar enquires to the other players.

Our second friendly game was against the Greek team AO Aigaleo

I used the same team as before, and we got the same result. We won 3-0 with Zarate, Carew and Lupoli all getting on the score sheet.

I had spoken to Claudio by now and it wasn’t him that had told Lacy either, and he also understood why I had questioned him, and didn’t get angry which was good.

*****

I had mixed outcome with the players I had bid on. I lost Lulinha to Werder Bremen. Saivet decided he wanted to stay at Bordeaux. My bid for Bojan had been rejected as had my bid for Rakitic. However my bid for Van Der Vaart was accepted and I was expecting a call from his agent soon. As for Blaise Matuidi, I had ended given away more than I wanted (15.5million) but he was now an Aston Villa player. I now had less than 2million pounds left in my transfer budget.

Our next two friendly games against AO Kerkya and AEK Athens both went well. We won 3-0 and 5-1. However the most positive thing out of the games was the fact that Barry had started scoring as had Zeefuik. I had kept my defence the same but switched around my midfield and attack, and all the lads seemed to be blending well.

Van Der Vaart’s manager still had not contacted me, and I had to go into our next to friendly games not knowing anything about the Van Der Vaart situation.

The next two games weren’t as good as the first four, but I wasn’t that concerned.

We drew 0-0 with OFI Crete and we lost 1-2 to Sporting CP, although only because of an injury time penalty.

With nearly all the transfer money spent, I would only have enough money for one more transfer and if that was Van Der Vaart I would need to transfer some funds from the wages account. At the present moment I was spending roughly 450 thousand pounds a week, on wages that meant I still had 500 thousand pounds spare, that roughly translated to 20million pounds. However the lack of contact from Van Der Vaart’s manager was the least of my problems, I still had to find out how Lacy Jordinson had managed to get all that information, and second was I had to get prepared for our first PL match of the season. We had been given 16-1 odds to win the title, which I personaly though was a little insulting, i mean Portsmouth had been given greater odds.

Our first match was against the newly promoted Preston at Home. All my new transfers had settled in well, and I felt the team had enough depth to last the season. I would keep the core of my team the same as last year, there would just be more secondary talent so that when one of my main players go injured the player that filled in for him would be just as good. Although I had strengthened my defence with the purchase of Coloccini I still felt my defence was the weakest area of the team. However I hoped that it was just inexperience, as three of my back four were under the age of 25.

I had slackened off training for the week leading up to the match. It was in these preceding weeks that the media went insane with their predictions. Each different paper predicted a different winner for the whole league. How they could tell who would win without seeing anyone play was a mystery to me, there were rumours of potential transfers, predictions of results and predictions of who would get sacked first, which I felt was very disrespectful to managers. Our league game against Preston was not the talk of town. The Liverpool vs Manchester Utd was the big talking point as both teams had been made favourites to win the league.

Despite all the rumour and speculation I was feeling confident, that is I was feeling confident until I found out that five of my players, three of which were my first team players would be leaving to play with their respective nations in the u-21’s qualifying round for the u-21’s world cup. Breno, Guilherme and Zarate hurt the most as they were key players in the team. Furthermore Wijnaldum and Zeefuik would also be leaving us, therefore although I had made 5 signings my team looked pretty similar to last seasons:

Gk- Lloris

DR- Coloccini

DL- Barry

DC- Knight

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Reo-Coker

MC- Petrov

ST- Carew

ST- Lupoli

Subs:

Maloney

Blaise

Gouffran

Moore

Davies

I was glad that for the first match of the season we were at home, I had received the good news that we had sold all of our season tickets, and that included 1500 new tickets. With all the new signings I had made, I expected a full turnout and I wanted to give them a good match to watch. I pressed this point to the lads, especially the new boys.

‘Alright lads, you’ve trained really hard and I’m really impressed. However the people that you have to impress today are sitting out there on the seats that they have paid for. This Preston side are full of confidence, they just won promotion and they would like nothing more than to get a win over a established premier league side. So stick to the play, keep the defence tight, look to hit them on the counter, keep the passing short and sharp. Let’s get this campaign of to a flying start’ I clapped my hands and patted everyone of the players as they ran past me onto the pitch and the cheering of 38 thousand fans.

The ref blew his whistle and we kicked off. Preston started at a furious rate, sprinting after every ball, making sure we had no more than 5 seconds on the ball. I was a tactic that I used against the bigger teams and it was effective. However whether the Preston squad could keep the pressure up would be the telling factor. It was very well pressing like that but if you couldn’t keep it up then later in the game the opposing team would run you into the ground.

Because of Preston’s pressing the first twenty minutes were a dull affair, we had the ball but couldn’t do anything with it, and when Preston did get the ball they didn’t have the skill to do anything to do it. It was slightly worrying that we couldn’t break the Preston team, we were known as the team that scored early. However we soon found form.

Reo-Coker continued his run of his good performances last season. He ran at the Preston defence, he then passed it wide for Kewell to chase. Kewell took one touch then crossed it early bouncing along the floor. The defence were back peddling and my strikers were closing in. Carew managed to reach the ball and poked the ball towards the net from 5 yards. However the Preston goalkeeper Lonergan palmed the ball away. However he palmed it straight into the path of Petrov who made no mistake from 5 yards. We had scored in messing fashion but a goal was a goal.

1-0

Our supports roared their support; their team seemed to be carrying on from where they left off.

Ian Holloway was screaming at his team, they had played well for twenty minutes and it was foolish to give away a goal so easily. Preston closed up again, and we were back to playing the ball around the midfield without going forward in any confidence. It was a little bit worrying that we weren’t creating as many chances as I would have liked, however it was the first game of the season we had to get used to playing a opposition again.

The ref blew his whistle on a dull half and the lads walked in, some of them were still not match fit and I made one change during the half. Blaise Matuidi would be replacing Reo-Coker who was limping from a hard tackle earlier in the half.

‘Ok lads, well done for getting the goal, but we need more. As you have seen, Preston is a determined side and they would love to pull one back. Holloway has got them fired up and they are playing well. We need to stay concentrated, they haven’t threatened our goal yet, but that is not to say they won’t. Keep looking for the opportunity to score; I would like to win this game by more than 1 goal. You guys are just a bit rusty, so when you feel tired keep going, there are going to be harder teams than this coming up, so put the work in now. I believe in you as does the thousands of fans’

The teams walked out, the fans had come back from the bathrooms and pies stands and were ready and waiting. The ref gave a shrill whistle and we were underway.

Preston came out of the blocks like something possessed. Holloway had obviously said something good, as they were pressing us back into our own half. In the first 5 minutes of the second half, they had taken 5 shots, three on target. However slowly but surely we getting out of own half. After the initial burst which had caught u out, we were ok. Carew was having a storming game, and we won a free kick right on the edge of the area. It was so close that there was some debate amongst the players on the pitch as to whether it should have been a penalty or not. I couldn’t see from where I was sat so I didn’t get involved. Holloway on the other hand, must have had a better view, even though he was only sat 5 meters away from me. He was giving the fourth official a piece of his mind, the only thing I could think of was that he must have great vision to have any opinion of the incident.

As Zarate was not in the squad, there was a slight pause as to who was going to take the free kick. Eventually two players were left standing over the ball. Young was getting ready to hit it with his left foot. Carew was standing opposite him getting ready to hit it with his right. Young took a couple of steps back, then Carew ran forward and hit it on a straight line. There was no curve on the ball; however the dip on the ball was good enough to get it up and over the wall perfectly. The goalkeeper who had been watching Young was wrong footed and couldn’t get to the ball. The ball nestled into the back of the net, and our win was on the way to being confirmed.

2-0

Instead of killing of Preston the second goal only seemed to enrage them, it seemed to give them a second wind, and they were back to closing us down at every opportunity. The result of which was a lot of free kicks were given away, the game lost its flow and all entertainment was seeping out of the game.

I brought on Gouffran with 30minutes to go, more to give him a run out and to improve his fitness as apposed to needing an extra attacking option.

With the clock ticking down Preston threw everything at us, including the kitchen sink. However I was pleased that we were holing them at bay. Last season we had conceded 42 goals in all competitions, which meant that we had conceded an average of one goal per game we played. This was one stat that I wanted to repair this season. Therefore it was pleasing that we managed to keep Preston at Bay and run out winners of the match.

Aston Villa 2-0 Preston

Petrov (25), Carew (52)

Attendance- 38564

MOM- Carew

We had won, although I would have liked to win by more, but I was not going to take the win away from the lads and a win in our first game was good, a good start to the new season. Carew had only started thirteen times last season and he had defiantly put himself on my radar to start more game this season. He had dominated the game, making lots of dangerous runs, and the MOM award couldn’t have gone to anyone else in reality.

[madog308]

The match was a debut match for Coloccini and Lupoli and a Gouffran and Matuidi had made it off the bench. On the other end of the scale it was Ashley Young’s 150th appearance for the club, this was an amazing stat for a player who was still only 23 years old.

When the football season gets going, it really gets going. In the month of august we had four matches in two weeks. It would be a real test for the players fitness and an indicated on how much they had worked in the pre-season.

It was the 18th of August and I was sitting in my office when my phone rang.

‘Hello’ I said into the receiver

‘Er hello is that…Alex Diaz?’ said an English voice.

‘It is, how can I help you?’ I said still not knowing who it was I was speaking to.

‘Hello, it’s Alan Curbishley, and I would like to buy one of your players’ came the calm response.

‘Right, which one?’ I said getting ready to say no.

‘Err yes I would like to offer you 2.6million pounds for Gabriel Agbonlahor’

I had put out an offer to other clubs to buy Agbonlahor for 3 million pounds. With the arrival of Lupoli he had no slipped down to fifth in the pecking order. It was less than I had hoped for but the priority was to get rid of him.

‘Very well I will accept, I will speak to the lad today’

‘Thank you very much’ he said in reply.

I put the phone down then picked it up straight away and I pressed the button which buzzed me through to Zoe.

‘Hi, could you ask Agbonlahor to come and see me please’. I heard the response and put the phone back down.

It was another fifteen or twenty minutes before I heard a knock on my door and Agbonlahor walked in.

‘You wanted to see me gov’ he said unsmiling. He knew that he was transfer listed and was destined to leave the club.

‘Hi, yea cheers, sit down please’ I said pointed at the chair in front of my desk.

I waited for him to sit down before I began.

‘Right lad I have accepted an offer for you from West Ham United’ I said looking him straight in the eye.

Agbonlahor sighed and then spoke. ‘How likely am I to get a game this year? And be frank with me’ he said.

‘Well lad I know you’re a good player but not very likely is the answer. We would need a long term injury to one of the other strikers for you to get any regular games. I’m afraid unless you showed me something spectacular in training you wouldn’t even make the subs bench. I think you should go, your likely to become a first team regular with West Ham, I you need that. I have no doubt that you will become a great player but you need the playing experience and I can’t guarantee that.’ I was genuinely sad because I liked the lad but the fact of the matter was that he just wasn’t skilled enough for my team. He had saved us with some late goals last season but he couldn’t be relied upon.

‘Alright, I’m happy to go, ill speak to my agent’ he said still not smiling.

‘Alright I know you’ll become a great player’ I said standing up and shaking his hand.

When it rains it pours and that is what it felt like today. All my transfers’ dealings seem to happen on the same day. I had seen the previous night that Manchester Utd had put in a bid for Van Der Vaart however at a reported 7.5million it was well below our 10million pound offer.

The phone rang and I picked it up thinking ‘who the hell is it now?’

‘Hello it is Hubb Stevens here manager of HSV’ he said in remarkably good English.

‘Are hello, are you calling about Van Der Vaart?’ I said hopefully.

‘Yes, are you willing to increase your bid?’ he said in a voice that sounded like a voice used to shout at players from the sideline.

‘Depends, I am but not by a lot, in fact I can offer you 11.5million pounds, that will have to be my final offer’

There was a pause before, music to my ears.

‘Very well I accept, would you like to speak to his agent?’ came the unusual reply.

‘What yes sure I would like to speak to him’ I said recovering my composure.

‘Hello, I am Rafael’s agent. I would like to say, that my player has been linked to Man U so a big offer is needed. said a deep silky voice

Man I hated managers.

‘Yes but I understand that the bid from Man u has been rejected. However name your demands’I said.

After I had heard reports from my scouts I was fully prepared to male Van Der Vaart the highest earner at the club, but I still like to save money, especially when it comes to wages.

‘Rafael would like 65 thousand pounds per week plus bonuses of 4k per appearance and 5k per goal.

I balked at the figure, but I was more worried about the bonuses.

‘I will counter offer, 67 thousand pounds per week and no bonuses, and a signing on fee of 1million pounds.

‘I will accept he will be very pleased’ he said, I bet he was smirking all over his smug face.

‘Thank you, I expect him to arrive in the next three days’ I said finally. I really hated agents he had not even told me his name.

Van Der Vaart would be arriving soon, but not soon enough to play in our next game which was in three days, and it was against a team that we had beaten and been beaten by. It was against Manchester City.

[madog308]

The game against Man City was away which wasn’t ideal but I felt that if we could continue our good form against them, we had won both the last two games we had played against them last season, we could come away win a point or more.

The players that were on international duty for the last game were still away so I fielded the same team as I did against Preston.

Gk- Lloris

DR- Coloccini

DL- Barry

DC- Knight

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Reo-Coker

MC- Petrov

ST- Carew

ST- Lupoli

Subs:

Maloney

Blaise

Gouffran

Moore

Davies

Man City had also strengthened their team in the transfer window, not by as much as us but they had still spent a lot of money. Most of that money had been spent of the acquisition of Andy Carroll from Newcastle for 11million pounds. However he did not start and City were still set up in their defensive 4-4-2 with Sun Jihai in the holding position. They had not changed their formation since the last time we had played them and I decided to tell my lads to play the same tactics that had won us the match last time.

‘Ok lads, this is a going to be a tough game but we can win, we know we can win. Man City has not changed their formation so I want you to concentrate on attacking them down the wings. They are going to try and dominate the midfield so get the ball on the wings as soon as possible and try and keep it there; we can’t compete with four men in the centre when we have only two. So I want you Reo and Petrov to hold the midfield, don’t push forward until the wingers have already pushed up, then you can join the attack, Guilherme and Coloccini you are going to have a hard game, physically I want you to support the wingers but be prepared to get back if they win the ball. Johnson and Ireland are the key men, close them down all the time, and make them fearful to have the ball. Let’s go out there and play some great counter attacking football.’ I was confident of a win, I had to be I could not show the boys any doubt.

Both teams walked out and everyone was ready for a great game.

Both teams started quickly with the ball flying around the pitch and both teams were clearly out for a win. Our travelling fans were making some great noise in the away stands and it was clearly working on our players. Young had the ball on the right wing, he ran inside of Garrido wrong footing the left back with a nice fake. He crossed and soon as he was away from Garrido. The ball bounced along the floor in-between defence and goalkeeper. No one could get to the ball and the ball was bouncing toward the opposite wing. Kewell sprinted to keep it in and with his first touch he re-crossed, again along the floor but this time Reo-Coker, who had got into the box by this point, managed to get to the ball first at the near post and poke in from 2 yards. Our fans went crazy in the stands and I could hear the groans from the Man City fans. I could almost hear them thinking ‘here we go again’.

0-1

The goal spurred my team on and we started to press Man City further and further into their own half. In the whole second half, Man City only had one shot on goal and it wasn’t on target. However what they lacked in attacking presence they made up for in a impressive defensive display. Although we were dominating we couldn’t press our advantage we went into the half time break still only one goal ahead. Man City had played well and they set themselves up for a potential comeback in the second half. My lad walked in happy that they were in the lead, away from home, but slightly frustrated that they couldn’t find another goal. I was disappointed at the display my strikers had produced. Neither Carew nor Lupoli had created any real chances, and it was worrying that they were finding it so hard to break down the Man City defence.

‘Well done lads, well played for the goal and great effort looking for the second. However I don’t want you to let up. Eriksson is going to spin this into a great opportunity. They defended well and have not conceded another goal. This leaves us open to a potential comeback. So we are going to need work as hard if not harder in the second half. We need to look for another goal while making sure we don’t conceded. If we do go a goal down I want you to clamp down, the goal will give them hope and the advantage will swing their way. Stay concentrated and lets not let this advantage slip away from us.’

I was confident of my defence; I was also forced into a substation which made my team more defensive. Carew had picked up a knock in the last few minutes of the second half. I decided to put Matuidi on in his place and change the formation into a 4-5-1 with Matuidi going straight into the DMC position. We now could play Man City at their own game and saturate the midfield.

The ref blew his whistle and the second half kicked off. The second half was like water is to desert. Man City was a different beast, Eriksson must have given one hell of a team talk because Man City were playing like a team possessed. They were passing the ball from wing to wing, making triangles and they were playing us of the field. In the first five minutes of the second half they had 3 chances, all of them on target and one of them requiring a good save from Lloris. My players were chasing shadows all over the field, there was very little I could do from the sidelines apart from pace up and down willing my team to hold on. In a break in the play I told my team to forget about attacking unless it was on the counter and totally concentrate on the defensive side. The chances were drying up but Lloris was still required to make some fantastic saves. Again we were relying on the brilliance of Lloris to hold on to a potential three points.

With half an hour to go I brought on Maloney for Young just to boost the opportunity of a counter attack. Matuidi was playing well in his preferred position and the extra midfielder was making a difference. There was no doubt in my mind that if I hadn’t brought in on we would have conceded already. There was still twenty minutes to go and with each passing minute the pressure on Man City grew. With the way they started the second half many of their fans expected that they would have been equal if not ahead at this point. With another ten minutes gone I made another, which was my final, substation. Lupoli had run himself ragged and I was worried of him injuring himself early in the season, so I put Moore on for him. It also benefited Moore who needed more game time to improve his match fitness.

I could not keep still, I was sat in my chair, up on my feet, pacing my technical area then sitting down again. Rinse and repeat. My stomach was churning, if only we could hold on. I was trying not to watch the clock, but my eyes seemed to half a mind of their own and they kept flicking to the clock. Time seemed to slow and the final 10 minutes seemed to drag and it seemed longer than the first 80 minutes. However with each passing minute, the Man City attacks were getting feebler and the Man City fans chants were getting weaker. Slowly but surely our fanatical travelling fans songs were drowning out the thousands of Man City fans.

Manchester City 0 – 1 Aston Villa

Reo-Coker (12)

Attendance- 47997

MOM- Lloris.

We held out for the win, another win over Man City and our second win in the league. Lloris won the MOM award for simple hard work. He had made 14 saves in the second half alone, several of them brilliant. We now had four days till out next match but before that there was a very important event.

[madog308]

******

Van Der Vaart was arriving today, the 21st of August, he was a major player in my vision for a future of Aston Villa, and he had the type of skill and vision to make our team into a truly great club. It was an hour or so before VDV was scheduled to arrive when Randy Lerner walked into my office.

‘Hello Randy, what can I do for you’ I said extremely surprised. Randy usually summoned me, I cant remember the last time he walked into my office.

‘Hi Alex I’ve one question and one rather important message I gotta tell you’ he said in his American drawl.

‘Er Ok, go for the question first’ I said raking my brains as to what it could be.

‘Ok I want to question the transfer of this player Rafael Van Der Vaart’ he said sitting down.

‘What exactly?’ I replied.

‘Well your making him the highest paid player at the club by…23 thousand pounds’ he said looking at a piece of paper.

‘Yup I agree that is a lot of money to pay a player per week, but I truly believe that he could propel this club forward in the right direction. I can guarantee he will be worth it’ I said looking Randy straight in the face.

‘I hope so, and I’m sorry to do this but if he doesn’t prove his worth by the end of the season, I’m afraid we will have to sell him, no matter what’ he said staring right back. I noticed he wasn’t smiling.

I knew there was no point arguing with him, and i decided to bite my tounge

‘Very well that’s your decision. What did you want to tell me’ I said a little huffily.

‘It another bit of bad news I’m afraid. There’s no easy way to put this but the money we gave you to spend in transfers did not have money backing it’ he said almost ashamedly.

‘I don’t quite understand, what do you mean’ i said puzzled

‘The money we gave you did not come from profit we made last year; it was money from the clubs actual wealth. You have spent it all and that means that the club has lost part of its wealth, and is currently in the red. It’s not your fault we did not tell you this situation. But we will go back into the black. But we have to finish well in the league and do well in the champion’s league. The prize money will come as a great boost. We have also predicted that the club will make 400k a month. Which should cover us by the end of the season’

‘Right’ I said flabbergasted ‘what does this mean?’ I said shocked to my core.

‘Well if the club is not in the black by the end of the season then we will have to sell players’

‘Right thank you, um….’ I was saved by my phone ringing. I picked it up, and Randy walked out. It was Zoe telling me that VDV had arrived. I told her to bring him up. I had to compose myself pretty quickly. VDV walked in ten minutes later, I stood up and walked round to shake his hand.

‘Welcome to Aston Villa Rafael we are so glad that you have chosen to join us’ I said while I shook his hand.

‘Thank you, I look forward to playing’ he said in surprisingly good accented English.

‘Sit down’ I said pointing to the chair. ‘As I said before we are extremely glad that you have joined the club. We want you to be the heart of the team however you will still have to prove your place in the first team’

‘Thank you, I assure you, you will have no doubt in picking me in the first team.’ He said with a small smile.

‘Good, training is not on today, because we won yesterday, but you’re welcome to use the training ground if you want, Zoe will show you round’ I said standing up.

He seemed to have a great attitude and I couldn’t wait for him to start playing. I hoped he would become a key cog in our team.

Our next game against Fulham came around quickly, but the three days training that Van Der Vaart had participated in had convinced me to put him the team. It was a hard decision to replace Reo-Coker or Petrov. In the end I went with Petrov, I was looking to replace him next season and he had a bad habited of picking up a yellow card in every game he played in. We were away to Fulham, who had won their first three matches, including a one nil win over Man City. We had beat Fulham both times last season and I was confident of another win.

The players that we were missing due to international commitments were still away so therefore the team I named was exactly the same as last match apart from the inclusion of Van Der Vaart.

Gk- Lloris

DR- Coloccini

DL- Barry

DC-Knight

DC- Laursen

MR- Young

ML- Kewell

MC- Van Der Vaart

MC- Reo-Coker

ST- Lupoli

ST- Carew

Subs:

Maloney

Blaise

Gouffran

Petrov

Moore

A full debut for a player that had only joined the club three days before showed my belief in Van Der Vaart.

The teams walked out and we were ready for our third game of the season, I hoped we could keep our streak going, even if it was only two games long.

Fulham had set up in a 4-5-1 formation, a sign that they were taking us seriously and were worried about our attacking options. However it also showed a lack of confidence especially considering they were playing at home and in theory they had the advantage.

We started quickly as per usual, with Van Der Vaart making some brilliant passes straight away, he had slotted into the team perfectly, with Reo-Coker holding back to allow him to push forward. We were all over Fulham in the first few minutes and we won a free kick half way inside Fulham’s half, in a central position. Barry took a short free kick and passed it to Van Der Vaart. He was immediately closed down by three Fulham players, however he somehow managed to flick the ball in-between one of the defenders legs and he had aimed it at Carew who was standing on the edge of the penalty area. Carew let the ball run past him, and then hit it with his right foot. It was a savage cross goal rising shot. However he had used to much power and the ball cannoned off the right upright of the goal. The ball bounced back into the penalty area, and Lupoli reacted quickest to poke the ball into the unguarded net, with the posts still shaking from Carew’s shot.

1-0

Lawrie Sanchez had not had the best of reigns at Fulham and only just avoided the drop last season, but it was clear that he was dedicated to the club. He immediately called Jimmy Bullard over (he was captain). The only spoke for a couple of seconds but whatever Sanchez said to Bullard, which was relayed to the rest of the team clearly had an affect. Fulham also changed to a 4-4-2, which was a bold move and unpredictably it worked rather well. Our chances dried up, and although we still broke on the counter with a deal of regularity we weren’t converting. Fulham also had some chances although they were still mostly defending.

The half was ticking away, and I would have liked for my team to convert another chance. To go into the half time break two up would be a great position for us and an almost impossible comeback for Fulham. The game was slowing down, with Fulham making lots of tackles and consequently lots of fouls. Just before the end of the first half one of my biggest fears was realised. Laursen had pushed up field on an attack, Fulham managed to steal the ball and their rushed up field to try and counter. Laursen was the last man, and he had to get his tackle inch perfect against an onrushing Kamara. Laursen dived in, I flinched, however he managed to get his tackle right and he got the ball. The ball was picked up by Barry and punted down field. However Laursen was left on the floor. He was getting up very slowly and gingerly moved off the pitch. The ref blew his whistle and the half was over. My physio’s had rushed over to Laursen and were helping him limp to the dressing room, it was clear that he would have to be replaced. This left me with a big problem, because I did not have another defender on my subs bench, I had decided to leave out Davis as I predicted I would be making more midfield subs as some of them were not 100% fit. I had to think quickly, I decided to put Blaise Matuidi on for Laursen and change our formation to a 3-5-2. With Barry and Coloccini coming infield to make three DC’s, Matuidi would go into the DMC position. It was not ideal and we had never played this type of formation before, however I had no other choice, I hoped that I had not made a big mistake not including Davies in the line-up. I know had to make my half time team talk.

‘Well done lads, nice goal, and your first’ I said looking at Lupoli. ‘Right we’ve had to make a big change in our formation but I don’t want it to get to you. Keep playing how you did last half and we’ll be fine. With the holding man in midfield we should be able to keep the ball more, so I want you to try and play the ball up the middle of the park. Kewell and Young, be prepared to help out in defence, because there and big caps behind you now. Let’s look for that second goal to kill off this game’

I was confident in my players working hard to stay in control of this game, I was not confident in the formation and I hoped that the blunder, which was totally my fault, would not cost us the game and three points.

With both sides having three men in central midfield, the game slowly down and became a war of attrition with the side that held the ball for longest having the best chance of scoring. Only problem was that neither team held on to the ball for very long. This was not a game of football for the neutrals; only the die hard fans could stay and be entertained. The game ebbed and flowed with each side having five, or ten or fifteen minutes of looking like scoring before the flow of the game switched sides. It was 10 minutes past the hour mark and we had had good possession for a while, and we were rewarded with a free kick right on the edge of the area, at the top left corner of the penalty area. Our debutant Van Der Vaart and Young stepped up to the ball.

It was interesting and pleasing to note that Van Der Vaart was confident enough to step up in such a crucial situation.

It was indeed Van Der Vaart that took the free kick. He took a long run up and blasted the ball diagonally towards goal. The Keeper towards the right of his net and well placed to stop the shot. However the shot was so fierce that he jumped too late and flapped at air. It was bad keeping error however it was glorious that VDV on his debut had scored for the club. I couldn’t help look up at the directors box, I found Randy and we met eyes. I gave him a look that said, ‘I told you so’ He just smiled back and continued clapping.

2-0

A couple of minutes later I made the last of my substitutions, I brought Moore on for Lupoli, who had cramp. Young was replaced by Gouffran, another effort to give him some game time.

The second goal really killed off Fulham and I could relax in my chair and sit out the rest of the game.

Aston Villa 2-0 Fulham

Lupoli (12), Van Der Vaart (73)

Attendance- 38701

MOM- Van Der Vaart.

I was extremely happy with my team, both new players had scored and VDV had even picked up the MOM award, he was proving his worth already. It was with this positive mindset that I went into the press conference at the end of the match.

[madog308]

I would like to say a huge thankyou to all the readers of this story. A thousand views, i can hardly believe it, thank you to all those who commented it really gives me motivatiion to continue; and thanks to all my silent readers as well. Well enough of me, heres the next post. Mad

I walked in and consciously had to keep from beaming. I sat down took a sip of water and looked up to take the first question.

‘Chris Horner, BBC. A good win for you today, what did you make of the match?’

‘Hi Chris, I was very pleased with the win, we played well throughout the match, and even when we played a 3-5-2 formation. I’m extremely pleased by the fact that both our new signings scored and Van Der Vaart looks a wonderful prospect?’ I said smiling.

‘Clare Teed, ITV sports. You have again spent big in this transfer window, with only a week left do you think you will spend any more money? Do you have any money to spend?’ Said a mousy haired woman on the front row.

‘That’s two questions’ I said smiling, ‘I don’t have any plans to bring anyone else in during the window. As for the finance question, obviously I can’t give you specifics but I was given a transfer budget and I spent it. I do not believe that I have spent recklessly and I believe that all the players I have brought in will show their worth, two of them have shown their worth well today’.

‘Max Betterton, News of the world. You have spent big amounts of money and only a few players, do you think this will put pressure on them to succeed, and that they might become expensive flops?’

I grimaced at the question, as the last thing I wanted was for the new players to get pressure put on them straight away. ‘No not at all, every player regardless of transfer fees should only have their own personal pressure on themselves to succeed, extra media pressure just adds to stress and contributes to a downfall in performance. As to your second question, I totally 100% believe in the new players I have brought in, I do not believe I have paid over the odds for anyone.’ This was not quite true and I believe that I had paid too much for Matuidi; however this did not mean that I didn’t think he was a good player.

‘Carmella Bowley, Birmingham herald, as you yourself have said, you have spent your transfer budget, will you have to sell any players to balance the books?’

‘No not at all, it would make no sense to sell players; I have brought in players to strengthen the squad, not to replace players. If a player wants to leave, we look at each case individually, for some players, such as Agbonlahor we felt that he was time for him to move on; as we couldn’t guarantee the game time he wanted. But it would be madness to sell players; it would just weaken the team’

‘Jamie Rustan, Sky sports, who do you think will win the premier league?’

‘Haha, you’re asking me to see into the future. Football is a fickle game, I think that the premier league has never been stronger and any number of teams could win it. Ask me again in December, because then we will have a better idea of teams strength.’

I answered a few more questions, before I ended the press conference. A few minutes later I slumped into the chair in my office. While I was sitting their a thought played on my mind.

It had been near enough two weeks since Lacy Jordinson had published her article, and although I had made some sort of investigation I was still was no nearer to knowing how she had acquired the information, however I had not heard a peep out of her since that article and I was almost coming to the decision to let it go. However just as I was thinking if I could let it go, my phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Well hello Mr Diaz, I guess you must have been expecting this call’ said the all too familiar female voice.

‘Lacy’ I hissed. ‘What do you want?’

‘Well I just thought I would give you the heads up, as I’m going to publish another article tomorrow, with all the exact details of the transfers that you have done in the last few months. I also know about the trouble at the club, if you know what I mean’ she whispered.

I gritted my teeth and managed to utter. ‘So why are you telling me this?’

‘Well I just thought it polite to offer you a way to stop me from reviling this information.’ She said serenely.

I was flabbergasted I could hardly speak ‘e..um…ab..you are trying to black mail me?’

‘No, no, I am blackmailing you’ she replied laughing to her self.

‘Why should I give you anything, you don’t know anything?’ I retorted.

‘Well, I’m pretty sure the fans and everyone who has shares in the club, not to mention the FA would be shocked to know that Aston Villa is in, as I calculate it 17 millions of debt’ she said sharply, her tone changing from soft to hard as concrete

‘You cannot prove anything?’ I snapped. How could she know everything, literally everything, it was if she had been in the room when Randy talked to me.

‘No your right I cannot, but rumour will spread to fear, fear to panic and panic to and investigation by the FA and guess who’s head it will be on the line, both you and Aston Villa will be going down’

‘You would destroy this club, along with many people’s lives’ I said desperately.

‘That’s quite possible, but Aston Villa is a big club and it will bounce back….Without you, that is’ she replied still cool as a cucumber and changing her tone back to silky soft.

‘What do you want?’ I said, you could hear the dread in my voice.

‘That’s better, now you’re starting to see that you have no choice. Its quite simple really, I want you to resign from the club, stating that you weren’t given a high enough salary after last seasons triumph. Plus I have worked out that you have now been paid just over 1 million pounds, so I’m sure you can spare 500k…In cash.’ Her reply stabbed at my heart.

‘That’s ridicules, how the hell am I going to get 500K in cash’ I said pleading with her.

‘I know it’s hard think to achieve, that’s why I am going to give you one week to do the things I asked. If your still manager on the 1st of September then all hells going to break loose, and I guarantee you wont be manager a week after that.’ She replied, her voice turning harder.

‘But why?’ I said, I was tearing my hair out trying to think how I got into this situation.

‘Why? Hahahahaha’ she laughed. ‘You tried to run me over, you tried to take my life, so I’m taking yours’ she said still chuckling.

I started to reply but she had already hung up.

I sat back into my chair, put my head in my hands. What the f**k was I going to do.

[Scalamunger]

i hope this doesnt mean the end of the career!

[madog308]

Scalamunger- it could be the end of Alex's Aston Villa Career, but it definatly wont be the end of his managerial career. You will just have to wait and see

I had a week to either give in to Lacy, or try and fight her, amongst all that I had to deal with the club, prepare for out next match, and deal with Zoe. Because we had won, the lads would get the next day off, and I really needed that day to get my head together and try and decide what to do. I also had to decide weather to tell Zoe, Randy and Claudio. I decided to go home, have a shower, get a good meal and try to think straight for more than two seconds.

I was home before Zoe, I immediately went to the fridge and got myself a beer. By the time Zoe did come home, I had decided not to tell her, she would only get worked up and that would make me stressed again. I tried to act as normal as possible and within a few hours the comfort and safety of sleep was upon me. Me and Zoe’s relationship was progressing nicely, she was basically living with me now, the flat was just big enough to house both of us, but I got the feeling she would soon bring up the subject of getting a new place.

The morning came too quickly and before I knew it, It was time for me to go to the club. On the drive there my mind was turning over and I almost ran through two red lights, and I had to pinch my self to stop from running through a zebra crossing. I got to the club eventually and I walked straight out to the pitch, to see if the lads had come in yet. I was pleased to see Claudio just about to start training; I walked over and watched them get going.

‘You looks terrible Alex’ said Claudio once he had set the exercise.

‘Do I’ I said, trying to sound normal.

‘Did you sleep well?’ said Claudio stepping closer.

‘Yea, no, I’m fine I’ve just got things on my mind’ I said truthfully.

‘Ok, if you need someone to talk to’ he said looking at me for a second before he turned back to the training.

I stayed for the whole training session, before I went back to my office. The day seemed to pass in a daze, and before I knew it I was home again. I felt like I was stuck in time while the world whizzed past me. Monday ran into Tuesday and Tuesday ran into Wednesday and Thursday, I was struggling to stay concentrated and I was loosing track of time. The only thing that gave me a hint of time moving was my deepening anger.

Claudio was pleased with the training that the lads were putting in; we also had the bonus of the players returning, Breno and Guilherme would be put straight into the team. The only bit of bad news to accompany the insanely bad news of Lacy, was the fact that Zarate had picked up a slight groin strain, and the Physio’s were saying that he would be out for 1 week and 1 week for getting him back to full fitness. This meant that for our next match, which was against Everton, our team was much the same.

GK- Lloris

DL- Guilherme

DC- Breno

DC- Knight

DR- Coloccini

ML- Barry

MC- Van Der Vaart

MC- Reo-Coker

MR- Young

ST- Carew

ST- Lupoli

Subs:

Petrov

Gouffran

Matuidi

Kewell

Moore

Adrian Boothroyd had been put in the unusual position of being an Everton manager that had been given a large transfer budget, and Boothroyd had spent an estimated thirty million, including spending 7.5million on our former player Gary Cahill. We had beat Everton both times we had met them last season and I was confident of another win, but with so many new signings for both teams, anything could happen. Funnily enough match day seemed to clear my mind, and I almost forgot what would happen tomorrow if I didn’t agree to the terms. The lads were all in a good mood during the coach ride and there was a general atmosphere of anticipation.

It was time for me to make my pre-match talk.

‘Ok lads, lets see if we can continue our good form. Concentrate on what we have practised in training, I believe in you, and let’s have a good game’

Pre-match talks were never as critical as half time and I felt that the sooner we got to playing football the better.

The teams were out on the pitch and were we ready to play, the ref blew his whistle and we were under way. Both teams were set up in an attacking 4-4-2 formation so it would be a moment of genius or a mistake which would decide the game.

Both teams started slowly, just sending out feelers. The ball was whizzing around the midfield, without actually going anywhere. However, slowly but surly Everton started to press, their passing was getting smoother and more accurate. The additions of Breno and Guilherme into our back four really helped and although we were defending more than I would like, I was not really worried, yet.

Just past the half hour mark and Everton managed to win a corner. Van Der Meyde ran over to take the corner at the left corner flag. Van Der Meyde hit a high in swinging corner, Lloris came out, but he misjudged the flight of the ball and had to punch the ball away, however it was a good punch. Neville collected the ball on the half way line and passed a 30 yard ball back to Van Der Meyde who had run onside but was still very close to the corner flag. Van Der Meyde re-crossed the ball, this time along the floor. He managed to find Yakubu who was standing unmarked, Yakubu took one touch to steady himself and with his second he slid low past Lloris and the onrushing defenders. It was a weak goal to concede and I was on my feet, shouting at my defenders. How could my back four let a Everton player be unmarked in our own box.

1-0

Everton had got the goal their pressing had deserved. However my lads immediately responded and picked up their game. Everton went into defence mode, it was clear that they wanted to keep the lead into the half. Although we were pressing, Everton’s defence was holding up and it looked like they would get what they wanted, however if we could just sneak a goal back to even things up, we could go into the second with the momentum in out favour.

We were in extra time of the first half, Lloris took a goal kick. Van Der Vaart held off the challenge of Cahill and chested down to Reo-Coker, who held the ball for a second and then passed the ball back to VDV who had turned past Cahill. Van Der Vaart hit a first time pass, ruler straight, down the pitch for Lupoli to chase. Lupoli received the ball in the penalty area, and shot a low ball into the right hand corner. It was a cool finish but it was the pass of Van Der Vaart that had bisected the defence that was the real piece of skill.

1-1

My lads had managed to do what I wanted and get a goal back just before half time, it made me feel a little bit better, however I was still disappointed with the overall level of play. The ref blew his whistle and the first half was over and we were ‘as started’ even though two goals had been scored. The lads walked in, and I was waiting in the changing rooms for them.

‘Right lads, well done for getting that goal back, its made me a little less disappointed, we gave away an awful goal, since when do we not mark strikers in the box?. The first thirty odd minutes were not good at all lads, not good. However we have got the goal back, and let’s continue pushing forward, the momentum is with us, so lets play some attractive attacking football. Get the ball to the midfield pair, and let them pass it out. Ok take on some fluids and get ready.’

If it hadn’t been our goal I would have been considerably more angry and forceful with my team talk. However a bit of magic from VDV had been the saviour.

The second half started, and I was correct in my prediction, we were controlling the game, and although Everton were closing us down at every opportunity we were still having the most of the possession.

Ten minutes later we had a throw in, in our own half. Because it was so close to our own goal it was only half heartedly challenged by Yakubu. Guilherme threw it to Van Der Vaart, who turned and started to run up field. He looked up and hit a seventy yard pass up field. It was a wonder pass for Young to chase; the ball flew in-between the Everton DC and DL. Young used his speed to get behind Wallace and managed to reach the ball just at the by-line and floated a ball towards the back post. The ball dropped perfectly for Lupoli who hit a half volley into the net. The goal put us into the lead, our second and Lupoli’s second.

1-2

The second goal only confirmed our ascendency in the match, we were attacking well, and when we did lose the ball we were tackling well, we were throwing in a lot of tackles without giving away too many free kicks. A couple of minutes later another attacking move by my lads ending in nothing and Neville managed to clear the ball away down field. Guilherme collected the ball on the half way line and passed along the line to Van Der Vaart who had run deep. He passed sideways again to Coloccini. Coloccini had all the time in the world, and he made that time count. He hit a lobbed ball up field aiming for Carew, Carew ran back towards our goal to collect. He was allowed to bring the ball down and turn before he was being closed down. However Carew kept calm and collected and smashed the ball at the goal. However it was deflected and bounced away into the penalty area. Lupoli who had been lurking just outside the penalty area and made a good run and was first to the ball, he made no mistake in smashing the ball into the roof of the net. His hatrick, on only his fourth appearance. I was up on my feet clapping my team, they had turned the game around and Lupoli was proving his 7.5million pound transfer fee.

1-3

Our third goal really killed off Everton and they only had pride to play for. With the game won, I decided to make some changes, I brought Petrov on for Van Der Vaart, and Gouffran on for Young. The changes slightly dented the amount of our attacks however after five ten minutes we were back up and running. With less than half and hour to play we won a indirect free kick outside the Everton area. Petrov laid it up for Reo-Coker to hit. Reo-Coker hit it straight at the wall in what was a awful free kick. However the ball bounced like a ball in a pinball machine and it fell at Lupoli’s feet. However this time the Everton defence were more switched on and close him down. He was forced to the right of the goal, he turned and tried to shoot from a very acute angle. Again the ball bounced around, and again the ball dropped to the feet of an Aston Villa player, this time it was Gouffran, he took no chances and hit a hard shot along the floor, and this time the ball managed to miss everyone and nestle into the back of the net.

1-4

The match was really dead and over now, and the Everton team couldn’t wait for the match to end, and we ran out the rest of the game with no further problems.

Everton 1 – 4 Aston Villa

Yakubu (31), Lupoli (45, 54, 64), Gouffran (77)

Attendance- 40565

MOM- Lupoli

When ever a player gets a hatrick he's almost guaranteed to get the MOM award and this time it was duly awarded to Lupoli, it was a brilliant performance from the young striker, he had taken all his chances in a cool and collected manner the defied his young age. The MOM award could have equally gone to Van Der Vaart who had given another wonderful performance setting up two goals. I was extremely happy with the lads, but with the end whistle came the dread of what I had to do that night.

[madog308]

The coach ride back was horrendous, the two hour coach ride seemed to take six, and although we had come off a good win I just couldn’t celebrate with the lads. They soon took the hint and just celebrated with each other, even Claudio left me alone and went and sat with the other players. As the coach drove into the Aston Villa parking lot, my heart sank; I knew what I had to do. I was last off the bus, and I slowly walked up to my office, the walk of a man in despair.

The lads had gone home, and at 9pm the club was fairly empty with only the cleaners and dedicated staff still there. I sat down in my office and opened a bottle of wine; I needed something to calm my nerves. It was half nine when Claudio poked his head round the door.

‘I going home, good game today. You ok?’ he said

‘Yea I’m fine, good work today’ I said in a tired voice.

Claudio walked out, and I got up to close the door. I slumped back into my chair, and tried to think. Eventually I got my address book out of the drawer in my desk, I looked under L. I found Randy’s mobile number, and I found my bankers number. I called my bankers number first.

‘Hi, Andrew its Alex here, I’m sorry for calling you so late but I need a favour and you cant ask why, but I need it doing today. I need to get 500K in cash my tomorrow, can you do that?. Yes I know it’s a crazy thing to ask, but I need it and I need it tomorrow. YES I’M BEING SERIOUS. I’m sorry, I’m just…..Thanks, I owe you one’

I put the phone down, drank the rest of the wine in my class and picked up the phone.

Just as I picked it up, it rang. The shrill drill of the tone penetrated my brain like a sledgehammer. Who was calling me, who even knew I was still at the office?

‘Hello’ I said tentatively.

‘Well hello’ said the dreaded female voice.

‘I just thought I would check up on the progress your making’ she said sweetly.

‘You’re a b***h, do you know that a real b***h’ I said fiercely.

‘Well you’re a pussy, a weak man you can’t even deal with a woman. You don’t even deserve to be at Aston Villa. I’m going to break you then I’m going to break that **** of woman you call your girl friend. Goodbye Alex, hope you rot in hell’ she snarled and cut me off.

The little bitch. I thought and I slammed the phone receiver back onto the phone. I slammed it so hard that it broke. Just perfect I thought. I picked up the rest of the phone and smashed it onto my desk. It splintered and phone parts flew everywhere.

I fell back into my chair; I could feel myself beginning to cry. I had only been at Aston Villa one season but I already felt so attached to the club, the players even the fans. I tasted salt in my mouth, I was crying. I looked up from behind my fingers and something caught my eye.

‘What? Is that…no….NO….HAHA I’ve got you know, you sneaky little c**t’ I thought.

I sprung into action and picked up my mobile and dialled 999.

Half an hour later two policemen and one detective were standing in my office examining the pieces of my phone.

An hour later I got a call to say that Lacy Jordinson had been arrested and would I come down to the police department to identify her. Needless to say I certainly would.

I took total pleasure is pointing out Lacy and confirming that I knew her and that it was her that was blackmailing me. I also identified her photographer friend.

I was told to go back to my office, and help the detective search the rest of my office.