Jtomsett11

Yes, unfortunately I've shot myself in the foot with recruitment in the striker position and have annoyed all our new players who now are leaving/ want to leave, meaning we're very short. To be honest, I feel I've really struggled with recruitment so far, so I'm going to do a post on it post-season and look at what the problem is.

Play-off draw June Girona beat us 7-1 earlier this season...

May and beginning June 2025 Coruna 0-1 Andorra What I've realised is that our 4231 is too passive for playing at home, but working well away generally. Here we were undone by a great finish from the edge of the area, but looking at our xG we were nullified completely. Coruna 1-1 Huesca Yes, passive indeed. We scored here, but never looked like adding to it. To be fair, get rid of Huesca's penalty and neither did they. They did score from a free kick wide delivery which was infuriating as I've done really well to edit all set pieces except that one to make us much more sturdy (we still haven't conceded a corner since the changes). It was also old boy De la Fuente who got the goal. Granada 3-4 Coruna What a bizarre game! A 3rd minute penalty and a 5th minute goal set them 2-0 up, and considering we're not scoring many goals at the moment I thought that was it. Then we scored a header from a free-kick, which may well be our first set piece goal of the season, before Quiles finished a lovely cross and Barcia scored another great edge of the area goal that he's becoming known for when he plays inverted wing back. Granada then equalised from a tap in (which explains their very high xG along with the penalty) before Narro sealed a winner in injury time. We're a machine away from home it seems! Look how close it is at the top. We could realistically finish 2nd-10th with 3 games to play. Coruna 1-1 Tenerife Brilliant. Passive again, but this time with enough chances and a missed penalty. I stupidly left us more offensive after Quiles scored and we conceded on the break. Two games to go, away to Castilla and then home to Lugo to see where we finish. Probably 6th. That certainly won't help, nobody is even close to his goals this season! Castilla 1-0 Coruna We huffed and we puffed, but we couldn't score. Santamaria just doesn't seem to be up to this level and Lavin isn't there yet. I see a complete overhaul in the striker department this summer bar Quiles to be honest. Coruna 2-1 Lugo We might have been out of the running for 2nd and automatic promotion, but at half time we were also set to finish 8th. We turned it round by changing back to 4231 from 424 which just isn't working anymore. That sees us finish 6th, just above Ibiza, who had an even worse second half of the season than us! To be fair, when I checked this at one point we were P11, won 3, drawn 1 and lost 7, so we've come back reasonably well towards the end of the season.

Youth intake 2025 This looks great, but Silveira and Carcelen have terrible personalities. I like the look of Kotsaridis to be honest, although his pace is of slight concern. We've signed all the ones with letter by their name and Konate after looking at the attribute scores. It will be interesting to see what the attribute growth is like for the terrible personalities as usually I find you need to play them regularly for them to develop.

April 2025 We started off the month not wanting to extend this record. Oviedo 1-1 Coruna Well, we extended the winless run, but we did get a draw. Not really deserved in any way shape or form, but at least our 4321 allowed us to score and only concede once! Albacete 0-1 Coruna We've won! The same combination as the last game, a Zalazar through ball from AMC to Quiles and we win for the first time since the end of February. Also, we created many more chances here than we have been and could and should have scored more. I'll take the three points though. Coruna 1-0 Hercules What! Another win! It's a Quiles goal again, but this time from a Narro cross that sealed that 3 points. Suarez saved our bacon late on with a penalty save and again, we created two or three really good chances but just didn't finish them. Burgos 0-2 Coruna Ah, that winning feeling. It's 10 points from a possible 12 this month and 5 goals from Quiles who is really enjoying the improved service. Again, we were clear winners. Unbelievably I forgot to take a screenshot of the table but this had put us right back up to 4th and well within reach of 2nd. What a topsy turvy season! These were the fixtures coming up, with some definitely winnable games here. I think we're going to go into the red before the end of the season.

The issue is we haven't really made any chances at all! I'm going to try and drop one of the strikers back to see if having an AMC will just allow us to move the ball forward a little more easily. I don't like playing 4231 really as I love two strikers, but it just isn't working. I'm about to play a couple of games so hopefully we'll pick up that win!

March 2025 And this is what I thought was coming to be honest! Our form in the second half of the season reads won 3, drawn 1, lost 7. Ouch! I'm not quite sure what's gone wrong, but suddenly we lack options when passing, there's no movement, we're not creating much at all and we're making really poor decisions. Racing de Santander 2-1 Coruna Okay we were unlucky here perhaps, but we let them score from another corner and then some poor play letting a through ball in. Quiles hasn't scored, neither has Mraz in 8 matches. That tells you how far we've gone off the boil. Las Palmas 1-0 Coruna We tried 4-4-2 and it just made things worse if anything! I called a meeting after this. Rayo Vallecano 3-2 Coruna Even 2 penalties can't save us! We were poor and conceded again from corners. After this I adjusted our routines having done some internet research on better corner routines, as mine aren't working! This was the analysis before the Girona game. Yes, not very good. Coruna 1-1 Girona I adjusted things again here and actually we weren't appalling. We weren't great either, but having a DLP and BWM seemed better with a shadow striker in front. We probably should have put them under more pressure after they went to 10 men, but it was nice to see us with some confidence. Coruna 1-2 Ibiza And back to losing. My trial of shadow striker lasted 15 minutes until another brain-dead horror tackle ended our chances. Lavin scored from our one decent move in the match, otherwise we literally kept the ball and pass sideways with no movement. I'm honestly not sure how things have gone quite so wrong, but am going to try and go a little back to basics in the next games to see if we can at least end the season respectably. We have 10 games to go as I always forget it's not a 20 team league. Surely we won't lose all of them? I know we're in the playoffs but our form is just so bad I can't see it. Good news - we haven't conceded any corners since I changed the routine Also good news Jimenez has played quite well in his two games, 1 as sub and one starting. Obviously, we overachieved in the first half of the season. However, the way we've collapsed is really quite appalling and I'm now not sure we can cope playing 2 strikers, but we've also shown no offensive ability playing 1, so I'm really not sure which way to go. We are only 13 points above the relegation zone so we also need to not lose all our games, so I can't just experiment, play all my youth and see it out. I would say that this month is one of the less enjoyable football manager months I've had

Feb 2025 I'm starting to get a little concerned, as while we often look good and create chances, we've scored just 2 goals this month. One of those was a free-kick! Leganes 1-0 Coruna We started out with our 4-5-1 and we largely blunt until we went behind, after which we went 4-2-4 and really should have at least equalised. There's a couple of massive 0.3xG+ chances in there. 2 shots on target tell the whole story! Coruna 1-0 Algeciras Olabe scored his first of the season from a free kick (0.04xG) and then we managed to not score again. 7 on target this time, but some shocking finishing. I have 'chance conversion' on every week for training at the moment, so I'm not sure what else I can do. Zaragoza 0-1 Coruna We lost two strikers before this game, but I was going to play Quiles and Lavin anyway, so it didn't matter for this game. Neither of them was needed in the end as Barcia popped up for a really nice finish; that's the second time he scored from inverted wing back - he's been a good addition to the role as Tono is looking more and more past it now. Did we really deserve to win? Probably not, but to be honest they're much better than us and I was absolutely delighted with our game management here as they were restricted to long shots. Coruna 0-1 Levante That's 2 strikers now out for the game against Levante and I've also agreed to sell Mraz in the summer... to Levante. To be honest, I'm not sure why I've agreed this deal as it's likely he'd have just stopped being upset, but he hadn't scored in months and is throwing terrible performances in and missing horrible chances, and I accepted without really thinking through us having to pay him for months more before he leaves. This game really wound me up to be honest. We missed the early penalty and then Lapena elbowed one of their players in the head shortly after they took an undeserved lead, but we really couldn't cope with 10 men. The only bright news was a debut for another academy prospect. He didn't play very well though! League table Bizarrely, we're top! Ibiza have imploded, meaning we keep the top spot. However. The form of the teams behind us is mostly better than ours and we've stopped scoring. I really think that with 11 games to go we're going to struggle to stay in the top 2. I may be wrong, and even if we finished 10th I'd say a good season overall, but there's definite cracks in our performances at the moment. I'm really struggling to keep the second string fit as I don't trust them to play much and this is also holding us back when our first team are injured. Let's see what's coming up. Wow, 4 of the top 6 and a team fighting for their lives. I think this will be a tough month! Finances and board support We're slightly below where we were this time last year, but I'm not too worried by this as I'm already planning to lower some contracts by shipping players out who aren't performing and I think this will bring in a little bit of money as well as season ticket sales in the off-season. The board think we're crushing it, but the fans are harder to please!

A superb season so far, although the 3 draws in a row has cut your lead I can't see Chipenham winning every game which I feel they'd need to in order to overtake you!

Jan 2025 This wasn't a good end to December/ start to January - I was planning on loaning Sene out but suddenly both our BWM are injured for the month meaning we'll shift Camilo across and may need Sene to play a role. We also lost CB Sanchez and had a number of other injuries throughout the month and I think it's affected us. Two wins and two losses in the league doesn't tell the full story of some unlucky losses and undeserved wins. We were briefly top before the Malaga loss. The loss to Barcelona is the second time we've faced them in the third round of the Copa del Rey and we put in a good show. Coruna 0-1 Castilla We were Fm'd here. An absolute classic. We're still not particularly clinical. That was our first defeat in 7 though, which is great for our first season in La Liga 2. Sabadell 1-3 Coruna Not a convincing win really, with Sabadell getting plenty of chances. I was pleased Lavin and Tolaj got on the scoresheet, while Barcia scored a 25 yard screamer, a great goal from the CB. Lugo 0-1 Coruna' This was a lucky one. We certainly did not dominate after they went down to 10 men and to be honest we were seriously lucky to come away with 3 points. We went 4-5-1 to try and stop them dominating but it didn't really work, but was less worrying than our midfield in the 4-2-4 and 4-4-2 we rapidly transitioned from. Coruna 2-4 Barcelona A great game and one we actually played really well in, going forward at least. Lavin was superb, finishing a poor pass from a Barce centre back for his goal, but also contributing an assist from a driving run. I'm trying not to play the 16 year old too much, and I'm a bit concerned his attribute growth hasn't been great so far, but otherwise he's had a decent season. The big cost from this game was the injury to Trilli, as Blas just isn't as good. 2-3 weeks might not seem that long, but I'm still concerned. Sporting Gijon 0-2 Coruna After our last away performance, I was really chuffed with this as we scored a free-kick, then kept them at bay before a late goal after switching to 4-5-1. Our best performance this month. Coruna 2-3 Malaga Closely followed by our worst performance. We do have a slight problem in the squad that our highest rating for jumping is 14, and we struggled here, conceding from a header from a free-kick (goal 1), then CB Lapena miss-timing a jump and allowing their striker a free run for goal 2 before we conceded a free header from a corner having fought back really well with two Tolaj goals. Very frustrating! I think I will be looking to bring in some big CBs in the summer! More injury woes from this game as Quiles is out for 2-3 weeks. The good news is we're still second, but underneath the two wins lie some concerns about conceding from headers and not finishing our chances plus a few injuries to key players racking up. We've lost 2 games a home in a row so we need to rectify that. This is quite a tough set of fixtures. If we can take 6 points from these I'd probably be happy as we're overachieving by being 2nd. Transfer window We didn't see any outgoings in the end, but a couple of players are unhappy. Mraz was signed with the promise to play as an advanced forward which hasn't happened as Quiles started so well and Lavin needs minutes and isn't suited to DLF. He has a release clause of £1.7million, but now with the window shut I probably should have taken the £1 million I was offered as I don't really want an unhappy striker at the club. Trilli also had a late bid and I rejected that as it was only worth about £700k, he's now unhappy but the squad are united behind me. He is one of our best players and will leave at some point but not for that amount and not on transfer deadline day. I did let a couple of players leave on loan, including unambitious, lacking determination but high potential Yusuf. He just won't develop just training so it'll be good to see if some game time helps him. Curras, the RB was also another loan out as we see if he can develop. Puerto and Soriano deals were agreed last year at some point. I don't think we'll miss either player. Contract and finances I got offered a new deal, which I accepted. I also started a new coaching course. The Barcelona game also helped us to make a minor loss this month. It would be good if we stayed in the black ahead of the next lot of season ticket sales.

Youth intake preview I know from plenty of other threads that there's a disparity between the intake preview and intake, but if this is anywhere close we're in for a fantastic intake. I'd love a left wing back/ full back, as we're very short there throughout the squad.

Thank you! It feels like the youngsters aren't quite up to it having now played January and a little bit of Feb. That's okay though, as I'm not expecting promotion this year after promotion last year. It's about investing time in the right youngsters I think and I'm not sure I've got that completely right currently.

Seems like a really positive season all round. The B Team being promoted must be great for player development?

Really enjoying following this, you keep it nice and simple which makes it easy to read and easy to remember who your players are. Good luck for the next season!

Dec 2024 winter break performance analysis Goalkeepers On paper it doesn't look like Suarez is doing a good job, but he is 20 and developing so I'm happy to keep playing him. The 17% gap in expected saves is worrying though. To be fair, apart from one shocking game he's not conceded too many I thought he should have saved. LB/RB I was interested to see if you could tell that Trilli and Blas play as wing backs whereas Tono and Varela are inverted, but the only real indications are the dribbles and progressive passes which are much higher for my wing backs, even though in chances created Tono and Trilli are the higher ones. Trilli has 4 assists this season, but he also makes more key tackles, key headers and wins possession back more so it's no wonder he has the highest average rating. CB's I exported this data to excel as it's easier to filter players. There's not a whole load to read into this. Lapena and Sanchez play as a central defender, but it seems to me that Sanchez is the more successful, including in the air which is surprising as he has 11 for jumping. Saenz and Barcia play as the ball player, with Barcia suffering from a much lower average rating, perhaps due to his low headers? His clearance and key passes are impressive though... I'm much less able to make decision on my centre backs from statistics to be honest and find it easier watching in games. CM's I've been a bit worried about Camilo since his great start with 2 assists (his only two) in his first sub appearance, but actually his stats hold up well against Olabe who just happens to have had more of the chances he's created leading to goals. Val isn't as effective at winning the ball as Villares, but he intercepts it more and moves the ball forward more. Interestingly he has the highest points/ game ratio here. Wingers Narro comes in second for creating chances and assists and expected assists behind Mella, so it shows the dividends of my decision to bring him back in to the fold. Gomez and Ares are having mixed seasons to be honest, with 1 assist and 2 goals each. Ares wins the ball back a lot, whereas Gomez isn't doing that or creating much. Zalazar is having a pretty woeful time of it this season, although he leads the way on progressive passes and is second for key passes, so perhaps he's just been unlucky. Strikers Quiles is our standout player with 12 goals and a great conversion rate of 27%. His Xg is 6, so he's significantly outperfoming it. Mraz is also outperforming his xG, but he's less clinical. Santamaria has 3 goals and 4 assists but he's started just 8 times due to injury, so that's had a big impact. Lavin has done well with 3 goals in 737 minutes, while Tolaj has played too little to judge at this point. Overall comments There's no real shockers here, although I'm surprised by how well CB Sanchez is doing and how poorly Barcia is doing. I need to keep a close eye on my wingers as behind Mella there's nobody standing out over a period of time and we do have some performers out on loan. A lot depends on who we lose in the transfer window, but I've no real desire to make any signings unless somebody pops up who is too good to say no to.

Good luck! What's your personal aim for the season? Play offs again?

December 2024 A successful month, but also a pretty tight month with just the one clean sheet in the cup. Huesca 1-1 Coruna This was frustrating to be honest, as we created a few clear cut chances, with new signing Tolaj having 1xG himself from 3 chances and getting a debut goal. I'll go into more depth on his signing towards the end of the post, but I've signed him as I expect one of my strikers to leave in January. Deportivo 4-2 Granada A bizarre game where we probably should have lost, but were just really clinical. Quiles started it off with a good header, before Narro finished just as I was getting really worried about their offensive play. We then went 3-0 up when Mella put a beautiful through ball/ cross through from the left for Santamaria to nod home. Granada scored two before half time, but Quiles then scored again and we saw the rest of the game out. I think the balance with my wing back (a) on the right hand side and BWM (d) on the right of CM is slightly off, as while it looks great going forward we're really over committing at times. I'm testing out dropping to full back (s) and seeing if that has any impact. I was really pleased with Narro scoring here as I've decided to give him a run of games as first choice right winger Zalazar hasn't produced much at all this season and has 0 goal contributions to his name. Tenerife 2-3 Coruna My 100th game in management was another win and a well-deserved one I felt. We started out with our 4-4-2 but quickly changed to 4-2-4 when we went 1-0 down from a corner. I'd played my second string and made 5 changes at the 50 minute mark, including bringing on Quiles who got 2 goals to help us turn it around, while Narro continued his impact with 2 assists from the bench. Their second goal as you can see from their goalscorer, was identical to the first. It made me check our corners as we had significant problems against Girona. Not good, we've conceded 5. I've also realised that only 5 sides have conceded more than us this season. I know we conceded 7 in one game, but this highlights a problem to me. I've taken a look at corner routines to try and reduce the damage coming from those as a first step. Still, 7 points from 9 is good enough to keep us in second and only just behind Ibiza. As we hit the winter break, I can't be too unhappy as a promoted side! Cup Only just deserved to win this one, but it was a really nice ball over the top from Tono and excellent finish from 16 year old Lavin. We also gave a debut to Padilla from the 23 intake. He didn't play that well, but he's developing nicely and will play in the next cup game too. Early transfer dealings Out Soriano did well last season, but we've got an abundance of wingers and his lack of strength and determination have always bothered me. He also plays with the wrong foot for us. He is potentially good enough for this league, but I'm cutting my losses as even if we lose Mella as I think we will, there's players with higher potential and ones I prefer to recall. Puerto lacks the physicality in my opinion to play a role at CB for us, especially as my non-ball playing CB is usually my taller player, or at least fast. I wanted him to go on loan, but nobody wants him, so I've decided to sell him for very little in the hope that regular football aids his development with the potential for us to buy him later on if he's good enough and develops (I suspect he won't). I'll probably also look to sell Sene as I've come to see we don't need 3 players in any position really, and if we do then one of those should be an U19 youth player who can be promoted if we need. We still have 5 wingers (Mella, Narro, Gomez, Zalazar, Ares) and 5 strikers (see below), but I'll be amazed if Mella doesn't leave due to the interest from a Premier League side in Leicester. In Tolaj joins us on a free transfer, with the wages spent on Puerto and Soriano covering him. He's not ideally suited to either advanced forward (attribute score 68) or deep-lying forward (65), but he's got pretty good attributes otherwise and room to grow. I've mainly signed him as Quiles has a £3.5 million release clause and is wanted by Eibar in La Liga. I suspect he'll be bought and then Mraz will start next to Santamaria and Tolaj will then be able to pick up games next to Lavin. At worst, he's a free transfer on low wages and will then be sold for his release fee (£2million) and we'll reinvest. January fixtures Although I'll do a run through of performances before I play any more games to assess if anyone else needs to be promoted/ demoted/ sold, these are the fixtures for January.

I'm playing in Spain for the first time on FM this year and am finding the minimum fee release clauses add a new dimension to my normal approach to contracts (the longer and the cheaper the better) as you often have to give a new contract to a rising star on a quite regular basis if you want the minimum fee release clause to go up enough to ward off big clubs. There's also a much greater element of uncertainty once clubs are interested in your players as you're never quite sure whether they'll bid and whether it'll meet the clause. I'm still in La Liga 2 with Deportivo so my clauses are still low in value (highest £14 million) so I know if they're any good and they play well they could be off. I presume players signing for you are still mostly seeing your club as a stepping stone so you aren't seeing those £200 million release clauses the bigger clubs sometimes have? It's all an added challenge but one that can bite you as it clearly has for you. I hope your squad gels quickly and you get back to winning ways!

Did Leicester meet Pascual's release clause? Must have missed that! He really took off last season in terms of goals so is likely to be a big miss?

Nov 2024 This is a game of fine margins. We look much more assured again, but we cannot hit the back of the net enough to make things comfortable and it cost us against Andorra. Coruna 1-0 Albacete Gomez came on to score a fantastic free kick as we toiled for a winner. We were definitely the better side, but just could not finish our chances. I'm glad to get the win as I was really starting to worry after last month, even if the last two games were pretty good. Hercules 0-1 Coruna An away win is nice, our first won since September. Considering we were ahead from a Quiles header after 3 minutes, this game became quite tense as we missed a whole host of chances and then really allowed them back into the game in the second half. However, when you consider this was really our second XI as I targeted the home games this month, this is a great result. Coruna 3-2 Burgos Aside from their penalty and our poor play that led to their 76th minute goal, we were really in control here and should and could have won it by more. Okay, the missed chances we had aren't really good bar a couple, but we got into such good positions and then allowed the opposition back to make tackles/ blocks way too often. Still, 3 wins in a row is brilliant considering we lost 7-1 last month. Andorra 2-2 Coruna A frustrating end to the month as we threw away a 2-0 lead and had two big misses before and after their second goal. Their goals were sloppy mistakes and then from our corner, so this feels almost like a loss except for the fact that we've recovered our form overall and look like a team again. Varela's goal was a superb long range effort after really clever play to open up space, and Mraz scored from a corner which isn't very common for us, so there's positives here. If you'd have said after 16 games we'd be second, I would have bitten your hand off. If you'd have said after the 7-1 debacle we'd be second in a month, I'd have had some serious questions about your prediction. We conceded nigh on a third of all our goals in that one game. As it is, we're right in the fight for that automatic promotion spot. December Three games here against bottom half teams, but two of them are away, followed by the cup game against lower league opposition. I'm not sure how to play this in terms of rotation to be honest, but if we're still 2nd at the end of the month then I'll start to take our promotion bid seriously. We're a bit too up and down now for my liking.

October 2024 I started off October giving Mella a new contract, as Leicester are showing major interest. His minimum fee release clause is now £11 million higher than it was for minimal increase in wages. If he goes, I want it to pay for the next couple of seasons. Results wise, this month was pretty poor. Girona 7-1 Coruna Umm, yeah. This was just as goal number 5 went in. So far they'd scored 2 corner goals (same as last game) and three long range efforts. It didn't get much better, but we did win the second half! This was a real freak of a game I feel, but there's some real concerns around defending set pieces and Suarez in goal had a shocker for the last two long range strikes. I think Mackay will come in for a couple of games and some hefty fines are needed for poor performances. Coruna 0-1 Oviedo Not good. Worryingly, we're creating very little. They scored a direct free kick to add injury to insult from the last game. I made 5 subs at half time and then Santamaria got injured, so this one was a write off from then on. When I look through my team, work rate is quite low and I feel we're being outfought at the moment. Not sure where I put this right, but we'll use our 4-4-2 formation for the next couple of games just to try and stop the rot. Coruna 2-1 Las Palmas When we conceded first again, I feared the worst, but we came back to win for the first time in 6 games. We needed a keeper penalty to seal the 3 points though as we remain pretty wasteful. Ibiza 2-1 Coruna Ibiza have moved top, but I feel really cheated by this loss. Okay, we scored a penalty and missed one to equalise, but we also played really well and both penalties replaced what would have been clear goal scoring opportunities. We seem to be a little less shaky now, and we didn't concede 7 so that's good right? We're in fourth, but I'm looking down the table at the moment. Luckily, we have some decent games coming up in November, especially against Albacete. Finances and club matters A £750k loss a month would probably see us just about break even by the end of the season and then season ticket sales are likely to prop up our finances to similar levels, so we look roughly sustainable at the moment, although I suspect Mella will go at some point and that'll boost us. One of the originals has left our staff team, lured by the prospect of management. It'll be interesting to see how he does.

September 2024 If August was perfect, we came back to reality in September, perhaps not with a bang, but we at least had a bit of a bump. 5 points from 4 games isn't bad really, but it's obviously not a good as 4 wins in 4! We did go behind in all 4 games which may have something to do with it, so we need to take a look at that. Algeciras 1-3 Coruna Our only win of the month, and a really good response to going behind saw us equalise within a minute of their opener. Mella then slotted in before Mraz wrapped it up. As you can see from the match story below, we really accelerated once we'd woken up with their opener. Levante 1-1 Coruna To be honest, we didn't deserve a point here and were outplayed until subs Quiles and Santamaria linked up to allow Quiles to equalise. I'm not too upset by a draw though. Coruna 1-1 Racing de Santander If we didn't deserve a draw in the previous game, then boy should we have come away with more here. Mraz equalised with a deflected goal, but we missed 2 complete sitters beside that as we just weren't able to take advantage of having 11 men against 10. Frustrating! At this point we 20 games unbeaten, a new record for the club. Rayo Vallecano 2-0 Coruna Two headed finishes saw us lose for the first time this season, and lose top spot to Rayo in the process. To be honest, they were much the better side and I would have expected us to lose this, but the manner of the last three games without a win leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth. We're not going to go down, and if we can stay in and around the play-off spots going forward I'd be delighted. Anything that sees us solidify at this level is a plus really. Three of these games are against top 8 sides and Oviedo are 15th. Not the easiest run of games!

August 2024 Coruna 5-1 Sporting Gijon What a start! Quiles started as Mraz wasn't fit and boy did he respond. A superb angled volley started it off, and his other 3 goals were all clinical finishes. Camilo came on after 60 minutes and showed his class with two brilliant through balls for 2 assists on his debut. Malaga 0-2 Coruna Mraz wasn't to be outdone, and I have to say the first goal involved another superb ball from Camilo to Gomez, who also impressed on his debut for the club. Mraz then finished impressively from a cross from Quiles. I believe we might be okay for fire-power this season! Coruna 2-0 Leganes Gomez was brilliant from the left wing in the last game, and this time it was Mella, with a great run and ball across the goal-mouth for Quiles 5th of the season, and then a fantastic finish from the left corner of the area into the top right hand corner. Lovely stuff! Coruna 3-1 Real Zaragoza Wow! 12 points from 12. Gomez has impressed in his two games and Mraz also finished nicely from a Lavin ball in which bounced around. In between Lavin got his first goal of the season, the 16 year old finishing after a mix-up between keeper and defender. I've been starting him as DLF and Mraz as AF and switching them round quickly as I've realised I promised Mraz he'd played as an AF. I'm not sure if it'll work to meet his promise, but it's working in terms of results as we rotate the squad fully (bar the keeper) for each game at the moment. Lovely early view from the top of the table. I'm not sure how long it'll last, but I don't think we need to worry about relegation! September In my head Levante are a decent side, but they're currently bottom. Rayo were favourites before the season while Racing are 5th and Algeciras beat us away last season, so who knows how tough these fixtures are!

Pre-season July - August 2024 I know pre-season means nothing, but we've played a number of La Liga 2 sides and in Real Valladolid we beat a La Liga side, so I'm relatively confident we'll secure our safety at this level relatively easily. We start off playing some big sides, so it'll be a good test of where we are. The bookies think a lower-mid table finish, and while I've said mid-table to the players, I think we can do a little better perhaps. We've signed two additional player to ensure we have 3 players who can play in the CM roles and also I couldn't resist another striker. I liked this guy because his positioning and tackling is good as is his work rate, so for a ball winning midfielder he'll be fine (except for his marking) while he also has first touch 16 and vision 15 and is reasonably physical, so I think a roaming playmaker role also suits him. He'll be second choice DLP and third choice BWM. DLP And then I also signed Mraz on a free transfer. He's more a backup to Quiles than a DLF, but I coudn't resist adding his quality and I don't think it'll stop Lavin from getting some decent game time. Overall our transfers look like this: And after a very successful season ticket season, we're looking good for the finances too. It does seem much harder on this version to get upgrades as despite the money in the bank, it's a no to any improvements.

A very impressive season considering your squad! It feels like you're making very good progress but this seasons finish may be hard to maintain? I presume you're still happy just qualifying for Europe or are you now aiming for champions league each season?