Mandy42

Has Charlotte started dropping hints to go back home? Loving the read so far Keep it up!

Fuming! Absolutely p*ss boiling fuming... What in the actual teabagging rancid badger anus is wrong with people! Follow these instructions, not follow some of these instructions. Follow ALL of those instructions, the ALL is implied. So Guisley AFC won the game 4 - 0, that isn't the problem. The problem, is that greedy no talent hack tried get more. He kept Adams on beyond the time the note said to sub him off. What happens when you don't follow the instructions? Bazil Brush the Hyde United defender (that is actually the unfortunate guys name) comes through like the karate kid (original version not the blackwashed remake) and more or less kills Adams. Red card for Bazil, which is fine, his team is losing 4 - 0, he doesn't want to share that bath of shame with anyone else. Which all boils down to more work for me. Now I need to see if the ramifications of Mr Brush getting a red card affect us in anyway. On top of having to find a new way to get the results now that our big burly goal magnet is in a cast for at least a month. As if going away to top of the table South Shields in the next game wasn't tough enough. Adams can't exactly pop up in the last five minutes and head Guisley level when his left leg is encased in a rather obvious white contraption. Which has by now been made even more conspicuous by some comedian writing on it in hot pink marker "there creepy and there kooky" More thought required on the next note, here goes. See what happens when you don't follow ALL the instructions. Your job is still on the line fat man. Everyone expects you to go away to South Shields and lose. That doesn't mean that an embarrassing blow out won't end your career. Follow ALL of the below instructions and maybe I won't continue to be so mad, and thus less insulting in the future. Bit much? Maybe, but liquid food had been pretty much replaced by liquid lunch three times a day at this point. Agony while drunk was bearable, agony while hungover was not. Which any genius can work out the solution to that problem, stay drunk. 4 - 5 - 1 with the following marking strategy will get you a draw. A tough, hard fought, bloodied nose draw. Which is not only the best result you can hope for in terms of points. But has the added benefit of making you the first team all season to hold a rampant South Shields attack. I then outlined the game plan requirements as if I was talking to a five year old with some serious learning difficulties. The adult version was basically parking the bus. With the five midfielders set up specifically to thwart the South Shields attack. Both wide midfielders would work in such a way to prevent crosses coming into the box. Basically funnelling all of the oppositions possession into the middle of the field. Then the three central midfielders would be waiting. Two of them had a South Shields striker each, follow him around, get their foot in, especially when any one twos were being played in and around our box. Stop the back four from being pulled out of position. Then the "spare" central midfielder is tasked with chasing down lose balls, blocking passing lanes into the South Shields attack and basically being as much of a d*ck without getting carded. The striker, if you can call him that, in this set up (I had contemplated playing a defender up top but felt that was a bridge too far), was basically a wrecking ball across their back line. Keep them honest, stop them having too much time on the ball to find the pass which might unlock the fortress wall. He better flaming follow these instructions...

Well that all changed quickly, and no I don't mean the intended destination for posts for this story The plan was to be unemployed and just watch the boy play. Though the constant media offers about "whether I'm willing to work abroad" are already grating. Plus it seems that watching game engine highlights is tied to having scouts watching a game? As sitting unemployed I seem unable to watch any games at all. Which is slightly frustrating when wanting to describe the goals as and when our featured player scores. But then Ralf Rangnick left Man Utd of his own accord. They wanted to interview me, which I turned down. Firstly not wanting to go to the club, and secondly, at that point I didn't want a team at all. At this point Callum had featured in two pre season friendlies for Halifax, a 2 - 0 win against Curzon Ashton, where he led the line well and provided both assists. He played in the next game against Everton U22's. The score was 2 - 2, and although he played well, Callum didn't influence the scoresheet in anyway. That however, would be the end of his fledgling Halifax career. On the 22nd of July he joined Chelsea on a youth contract. He turned down Arsenal. At the same time, Thomas Tuchel departed Chelsea to take the vacant Man Utd position. Two days later Chelsea offered me an interview. Which I accepted. Seemed like a lifetime, but on the 16th of August Chelsea asked me to be their manager. So now I hopefully can do the appropriate in depth following of Callum's career. While also playing my favourite club!

Monday the 2nd of January, Bournemouth at home. While being so good yet so relatively far away from City was frustrating. I think I need to make it clear that the progress we'd made compared to my first season is simply night and day. That said, there's a minimum required amount of effort. And we hadn't reached that against Fulham. So while I was in high spirits, which can be discerned from my blasting music from my office. To be fair I'm always blasting music, I'll probably be deaf before I retire. Which might not be a bad thing with how horrendously tedious press conferences are. But if I'm singing, likely very badly, then I'm in a good mood. So in the run up to the Bournemouth game I was singing along to Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man, specifically Your time will come! Repeatedly, in reference to our ability to win a title. The lads certainly started the new year with a bang. Four for no reply. Emile Smith - Rowe and Dominic Calvert - Lewin in the first half, then Bakayo Saka in the second saw us coasting with a 3 - 0 lead. Which is probably why I left Aaron Ramsdale take our injury time penalty at the end of the second half. Also because as soon as we won it, he came running out of his area doing jumping jacks. He seemed to definitely got the taste for it after I let him take the last one against Coventry. My mood couldn't even be soured by the fact Man City had won 3 - 1 away to Everton. The Scandy bloke getting himself a hat trick. Third round FA cup action was next, and the fixture gods had been quite kind to us. We'd been drawn Cambridge at home. Which suited me fine, especially as our next two games were both away to Man City! With no Continental competition to occupy them, the kids got a run out in the domestic cup. They seemed to be just as keen as they were in Europe. With Byone - Gittens and Nelson scoring, the first on the half hour and the later with nine minutes to play. Strolling into the next round, which is perfect. Etihad round one, 10th of January, Carabao cup quarter final. I was in two minds in the run up to this game. On the one hand, the plan had always been to focus on the league. But realistically, even if we beat them home and away in the league, we'd still need to at least match their record (and they hadn't lost yet) plus not only outscore them, but make up the goals we were already behind. In reality, I saw the league as having gone regardless, so I'd go back to trying to fill the trophy cabinet. On top of that, if the first choice XI didn't play in the Carabao game, then they would have been on a 12 day rest by the time we played City in the league. That length of time didn't sit well with me. Either City didn't care about this competition, or they didn't respect us. Because they fielded a second string team. Now don't get me wrong it was still a strong side. I guess I was just affronted that Haaland wasn't starting. He hadn't featured at all in the Community shield, and sitting their top scorer on the bench against second in the league felt insulting. If our players felt that way, they didn't show it, Man City looked like they could have put their grandmas on the pitch and we wouldn't have been any better off in the first half. It dragged out to a goalless snorefest. It must have been bad, as I remember laying into the players a bit at halftime. Something I try to avoid in away fixtures. But we'd been disrespected, and regardless of that, we needed to show them we had what it took to give them a run for their money in the league (even if deep down I didn't believe that.) The message must have gotten through, as straight from the kick off we surged forward. I say we, Smith - Rowe on the left got the ball halfway inside their half, skipped past two of their players and buried the ball in the bottom corner from just inside the box. 1 - 0 with just a minute of the second half played! City woke up a bit, but nothing we couldn't handle. And we slowly began to grind towards the semi final. A Calvert - Lewin header from a 77th minute corner doubled our advantage and we looked to be home and hosed. I'm also pretty sure that the bookmakers cut their odds on a double barrelled Arsenal scorer on a daily basis. But back to the game, as our players peeled away towards the corner of the Etihad with our fans in it. A certain blonde Man City substitute was getting his studs checked by the fourth official. He was on from the restart and it took him all of five minutes to get a goal. 2 - 1 with eight minutes left to play, and to be honest I thought we were not only going to be pegged back, but beaten. Haaland just handled our back line, and only some smart stops from Ramsdale protected our slender advantage. Which is pretty awesome from the lad, seen as he'd had more or less nothing to do for the previous 80 minutes. Just four short days later we were back at the Etihad in the league. Now I was nervous that our first XI had a full 90 minutes in their legs, while City were going to come at the game fresh. And a fresh Haaland scared me. Right from kick off the atmosphere was completely different. This wasn't a game for the "other" English cup competition, this was potentially for all the marbles. If City saw us off today, then they had a nine point plus goal difference advantage over us. Their fans knew it and they gave us a right roasting as kick off came closer. But that only seemed to galvanise the players, as though they too realised this was a proper game, with an appropriate crowd response. Calvert - Lewin, once again from a corner, went a long way towards quietening the crowd. Problem was, if scoring a goal away from home to take the lead is indeed a problem, was that only eight minutes of the game had been played. While City didn't seem to have made any adjustments to their defending at corners. I'd come up with some plans to try stop Haaland from giving me kittens every time he touched the ball. Mainly to have Franck Kessie follow him all over the pitch and be there to help out the back four. Only issue there was, I didn't want City doing anything cute like pulling Haaland way out of position and then exploiting the game that Kessie following him would create. So the second part of the scheme was we parked the bus and sat on the edge of our area. That way there wasn't really a gap for them to exploit. It certainly got the crowds back up, the howling and chanting returned. Our 3,000 travelling fans had a blast chanting "1 - 0 to the Arsenal" amongst other things. Never mind not being a threat, we didn't even get out of our half for the next hour. And just as it looked like we were going to get the ultimate reward for our tenacity. Serge Gnabry skilled off the right touchline, exchanged a swift one two with Kevin de Bruyne and curled the ball past Ramsdale into the far bottom corner. 1 - 1 with 72 minutes played. Now I didn't know whether to stick or twist, I doubted the team could go from zero back to anything near a high enough gear to get a goal. Plus there was a chance that going for it now would open the flood gates and City would run away with it. Know what made up my mind? the jubilation of the City supporters in the stands. They were celebrating as though they'd just won the league. And while part of me thought they might have if we didn't take three points off them here. I wanted to wipe those grins and cheers right off their faces. So we went for it. Haaland had scored on 82 minutes just four days earlier, in what turned out to be a meaningless event in the context of the game. There was nothing meaningless about the goal which came on 82 minutes in this game. Saka exploded down the right, getting to the by line and cutting the ball back. Calvert - Lewin had made a run to the near post and his presence in the box had drawn three City players towards him. Smith - Rowe had ghosted in from the left and, as the ball bypassed Calvert - Lewin, was there to stroke it home with his right foot from near enough the penalty spot. 2 - 1! eight minutes to play! And I had to hold myself back from going full Jose down the touchline to celebrate with the players. City seemed shell shocked, they had nothing in the final minutes of the game and for the second time in four days we beat them by the same score line! A scant three days later and we were back at the Carabao cup. No idea why the fixtures were so squashed? Everton at Old Trafford. And while Richarlison had taken 80 minutes to score his sides consolation goal against Man City in the league. It took him only seven minutes to put his side in front against our second string XI. The next decisive moment in the match would come from another of the Everton Brazilian contingent. But not in a way they wanted. Allan, their defensive midfielder went in two footed on Reiss Nelson, resulting in him seeing a red card. From there, it only ever seemed like a matter of time until we would emerge victorious. Jamie Byone - Gittens pulled us level on 38 minutes. He would score again on 81 minutes, with Reiss Nelson having bagged himself a goal on 65 minutes. Due to some kind of fixture congestion, the semi finals were only being played over a single leg this year. So we progressed to the final at the final whistle. Which just left the small matter of three Premier league games in seven days to round out the month. City played before we did, beating Fulham away 3 - 1 to restore their six point advantage. Three days later on the 21st we hosted Newcastle. At this point in the month the first and second XI had kind of gone out the window. I was playing an amalgamation of basically whichever players were fit enough to feature. Though this reduced consistency between the players on the field meant we started slowly, once we scored through Kieran Tierney on 37 minutes, we never looked back. We ran out 4 - 0 winners with Byone - Gittens, Saka and Folarin Balogun putting them cherry on top. Three days later and I was fuming, midweek evening game against Coventry, and we just ran out of steam. Though even with no steam and one leg tied behind our back we should have been able to see off the bottom of the league club. Instead we dragged out a draw, gifting them only their fourth point of the whole season to press. Man City squeezed past Liverpool at Anfield 1 - 0 with that blonde haired idiot securing the points. Claw back three points at the Etihad, throw away two on the road just two games later. GAH! Last game for us came at home against Liverpool. Franck Kessie swept home from just outside the box inside the first 20 minutes to put us ahead. And just like the Newcastle game we never looked back, we didn't score anymore goals. But we didn't ever look like giving up the lead. A token revenge for them beating us 2 - 0 at home in November. We played Saturday, City didn't play Coventry until Sunday. So for 24 hours the gap at the top was a scant two points. But Coventry couldn't muster the same response two games in a row. They capitulated 4 - 1, a Kevin de Bruyne free kick and a Haaland hattrick... Felt like a lot of work for only chipping a single point off the difference between us and City in the league. We had another cup final to look forward too. And while February wouldn't see the return of continental football. We still had the joys of finding out who we'd play in the first European knockout football of my stewardship.

With the Qatar nonsense winding down, we had to get ready to go again. So we had three friendlies in December before the restart of the league on boxing day. Bit of a mixed bag on the friendly front to be honest. But then the same could easily be said about the squad. The games were basically there to bring in some cash, and to turn the legs over of the players who hadn't been selected to represent their respective countries. A Gabriel Martinelli brace was enough to see us past Red Bull Leipzig. Even with Albert Sambi Lokonga achieving the impressive feat of being sent off in a friendly game. Brian Brobbey had scored for the visitors on 20 minutes. But they showed little to nothing else. So even with a man advantage, even for only eight minutes, they couldn't find another gear to go up into, No such problem for Paris St - Germain, Frank Kessie put us in front just before 20 minutes played. But Marco Asensio equalised just 10 minutes later. And a back from Qatar Neymar saw the French side beat us. Mainz 05 away was our final friendly, bit cruel sending the players away just four days before Christmas, but there you have it. Dominic Calvert - Lewin scored the only goal of the game in the second half. We hadn't blown anyone's socks off, but while we didn't look like we were quite at the level we had been before the break. We looked to be heading in the right direction. At least that's what I thought. Until we fizzled out like an indoor firework at Craven Cottage on boxing day. A drab 0 - 0 draw saw us look completely disjointed. Man City on the other hand won 1 - 0 at home to Southampton. The scorer, who else but that Norwegian chap. We still sit second, six points behind now. Might as well be seven with their goal difference. Hits home that we've only lost two games. Shows how close to perfect we are likely going to need to be in order to start lifting the title. Break is definitely over though. Eight games across three competitions coming up in January!

YES! I've made it I tell you!

Nah, I own my mistakes. Plus that would result in the posts coming after it not making any sense. I'm happy for it to stay there. Might even make it an award ceremony tradition!

not where I left that post! and I think that's the least embarrassing thing I've done in a cheeto coma!

Limited access in the first season means limited stats. Callum played 22 times for Halifax in his first season. He scored 10 goals. His performances contributed to the clubs highest Vanarama National league finish in 15 years. Where they placed fourth, and earned themselves a playoff spot. Once again the lack of vision into the league means I can't actually get any indication of how they played in those playoff matches. Beyond the fact that they didn't gain promotion. Callum has also represented Wales this last season. Making four appearances in the U21 Championship qualifiers. He's scored two goals for his country. Opening the scoring with a brace in the 4 - 0 win over the Faeroe Islands. Wales are in group 2 of the qualifiers. Currently in third place behind Portugal (who have already qualified) and Sweden. If I'm honest I don't understand the playoff structure for the championship. There's a second phase playoff, then a further playoff. Wales sit three points behind Sweden. I believe they will make a playoff spot if they can over turn that deficit and make it into the second place spot. Whether its his appearance on the international stage. Or just some in depth scouting of the football pyramid. But Callum has caught the eye of several Premier league teams. The only team of the "big six" in the English top flight not to be interested in him is Liverpool. Which surely puts the advantage for his signature in Chelsea's hands. As Callum's favourite club is (well technically its his hometown club of Welshpool) but in proper football its Leeds. Though shortly behind them is his step dad's club Chelsea. So fingers crossed on that front. In the wider world over the past year: Man City won the Premier league title with Liverpool runners up, and Chelsea finishing third. Roma won the Europa Conference league, beating PSV in the final. The Italian European dominance continued with Napoli and Atlanta battling it out in the Europa League final. Napoli coming out the victors. But the biggest prize in European continental football went to Germany, with FC Bayern beating Liverpool in the final of that competition. Italy won the Nations league against Spain, with France the third place team.

Limited access in the first season means limited stats. Callum played 22 times for Halifax in his first season. He scored 10 goals. His performances contributed to the clubs highest Vanarama National league finish in 15 years. Where they placed fourth, and earned themselves a playoff spot. Once again the lack of vision into the league means I can't actually get any indication of how they played in those playoff matches. Beyond the fact that they didn't gain promotion. Callum has also represented Wales this last season. Making four appearances in the U21 Championship qualifiers. He's scored two goals for his country. Opening the scoring with a brace in the 4 - 0 win over the Faeroe Islands. Wales are in group 2 of the qualifiers. Currently in third place behind Portugal (who have already qualified) and Sweden. If I'm honest I don't understand the playoff structure for the championship. There's a second phase playoff, then a further playoff. Wales sit three points behind Sweden. I believe they will make a playoff spot if they can over turn that deficit and make it into the second place spot. Whether its his appearance on the international stage. Or just some in depth scouting of the football pyramid. But Callum has caught the eye of several Premier league teams. The only team of the "big six" in the English top flight not to be interested in him is Liverpool. Which surely puts the advantage for his signature in Chelsea's hands. As Callum's favourite club is (well technically its his hometown club of Welshpool) but in proper football its Leeds. Though shortly behind them is his step dad's club Chelsea. So fingers crossed on that front. In the wider world over the past year: Man City won the Premier league title with Liverpool runners up, and Chelsea finishing third. Roma won the Europa Conference league, beating PSV in the final. The Italian European dominance continued with Napoli and Atlanta battling it out in the Europa League final. Napoli coming out the victors. But the biggest prize in European continental football went to Germany, with FC Bayern beating Liverpool in the final of that competition. Italy won the Nations league against Spain, with France the third place team.

Other than most handsome attendee (which I win by such a HUGE margin every year that its not even announced) I don't think I picked up an award this year. I could be wrong though and be suffering from cheeto induced blindness. And I think Cambodian Pele received my vote due to the fact he shined short and very bright! Keep up the excellent content!

congratulations! first and last award of the evening? Good job you didn't sneak out early! Congratulations to all winners. And to our host / organiser. Now unfortunately as a Chelsea fan I need to go an take a number 2 in a corner somewhere and then go home.

leaving orange cheeto dust all over this white room isn't trashing the place? Right, I'll be smashing some of those strip lights on the way out then

CAMBODIAN P E L E ! Get in there Jon! As much for the consistency of posting as well as the quality of those posts. Now, can you threepeat?

I'm out of cheetos so all the previous award winners will just have to hug you. But congratulations and well deserved!

Played is a strong term to use in this case

I shed a tear at not wining the comedy award... So I care about that one. And don't mention the American Football, I'll be watching it after this ceremony is over. Sans cheetos

ALL THE CHEETOS least that's what I thought I heard. And that way I can't take any of them home to drown my sorrows in.

congratulations! and don't worry. I have enough cheetos for you all!

coats over your heads when you win an award is to stop you getting cheetos in your hair!

Its like I knew who I voted for... .... which obviously means I know who is going to win

not with that attitude anyway

Yes Jon! Can't beat a bit of Cambodian Pele!

Whippet and a flat cap personally

Congratulations Mark! Again!