Dan

Season four. I have a strange situation this season where the main objectives will be in August - if we can somehow creep into the league phase of the conference league. This is a very tall order for us as a small Serbian club, but I'm willing to essentially throw the first 6 weeks of the league campaign to focus on this despite the risk. Just making it to the league phase would net us around £3mil which for a club that have had a bank balance that somewhere sits between -£100k and £200k, would be a genuine gamechanger. But they weren't kind to us. Maccabi Haifa to kick things off in a round where you would expect some dross from Lithuania or whatnot. Just to make things that bit harder they threw an away game with Zvezda between the two ties and then gave Zvezda preference on the fixtures due to their own European tie meaning I was going to send my reserves to Zvezda. We're actually very good at home to Haifa and lead the game until the 87th minute but as feared, one slip from us and they equalised, showing their superior quality. I didn't fancy us to go and win away there so we needed to just bombard them in the last few minutes, and I got even more than I bargained for by scoring from a corner in the 90th minute and then running up and hitting a 25 yarder with the last kick of the game to win 3-1. Hilariously my reserves went and got a 1-1 draw at Zvezda as well (they beat someone really rubbish in their qualifier and did not need the advantage). We travelled to Haifa intending to spoil, and what panned out was pretty hilarious. Very little actually happened in the game, Haifa dominating possession and getting another breakaway goal, but we managed to score from 3 consecutive corners in the first half and then saw the game out with relative ease. Haifa enslaved. 6-2 on aggregate which was a seriously impressive scalp. Next up - CSKA Sofia. This was a trickier tie. We won a really drab game in Bulgaria 0-1 and ended up withstanding the late barrage at home to draw 1-1 and advance to the play-off round where we would face the losers of Kobenhavn or Spartak Trnava. If we can beat Haifa and CSKA Sofia, I think we can beat Trnava. Well we will never know. Kobenhavn went down in a shock aggregate defeat and it is them we would face to my horror. I mean I suppose if they're capable of losing to Trnava over two legs, are they all that? But looking through their team... it was ominous. These are better on paper than Zvezda are and we just had to hope that the fact I've not made the Danish league active is going to weaken them in the way the game seems to like doing, which has long been a bugbear of mine. We go behind early at home and I fear that's probably it. Blood rushes to my head and I think **** it, lets die by the sword. We're attacking them throughout this home tie with an aim to infuriate them in Denmark (given they had bafflingly drawn 0-0 at home to inferior teams on both of their previous ties). We get an equaliser but concede immediately afterwards. But we put in the performance of the save and end up winning the home leg 3-2. It'll mean a very tense game in Denmark but what an effort either way. We're an avoided defeat away from a real gamechanger for the save in general. What happens in Denmark was.... actually quite hilarious. I can only conclude that it's what I said beforehand in that if a league is not made active (this was also true of the Haifa and Sofia games) that it does maybe knock the level of the opposition down. Though I have had numerous instances where I've thought otherwise, losing to teams like Qarabag and APOEL. Anyway, we win fairly comfortably in Denmark, 1-3 on the night, 6-3 on aggregate. We have done it with relative comfort. We're in the league phase. The bank balance multiplied numerous times over. We're now probably the 5th richest club in the country and possibly even 3rd. I don't expect to go far in Europe, but there is some real, real dross in the league phase, including our first opponents in Dila Gori of Georgia, and given each win will reward us with another £300k, we can rack up a bit more yet. The two quirks are the board rejecting my request to increase the transfer budget due to "only just giving you the seasons budget" - as if that wasn't based on a bank balance of about £100k rather than £3mil. Hopefully they'll open their eyes in January. The other quirk is that we actually went unbeaten in the league throughout this whole period, albeit just drawing with basically everyone. We were in the bottom 3 but we had games in hand. It felt weird after coming 3rd last season to see newly promoted TSC's manager talking about us as a relegation candidate, but we will see about that. And just to prove I'm not automatically opposed to board members in both real life and FM, I will give them credit for improving both the training ground and youth facilities. Given the wages are so tiny in this league, there's really no excuse to not make these a relatively decent team - the only threat to that is splurging and wasting our newfound money. But what a boost this is. I really didn't think we would make it that far and the game is changed. Hopefully they can sort our stadium out. In Serbia as a newly promoted team with a ground of under 3k (ours holds 5k but we can only use 1,200) you get two seasons of using your own ground before you have to move into one of a sufficient size, and this means this season we play an hour away in Pancevo, which is crap and I want rectifying.

I'd imagine it probably would at an actual functioning football club. Fully expect a galvanised West Brom to win at Preston this weekend.

I'd say it's the least bad of the three and yet this is a side that spent money to make a short term fist of staying up while serving up one of the most abject seasons a Premier League side has ever served up. Maybe for the fact we were lucky enough to fluke playing the other two already relegated teams at home is what bumped it up to 1.5/10 rather than 1/10 on the other occasions.

These are common courtesies but it's quite amazing how we've landed on the combination of behaving like we're completely transactional yet being utterly shit at business as well. As ever, the worst of both worlds.

Their centre halves are a problem. They're better going forward than defending these days which is quite mad to think with Simeone. I got roped into watching that absolute dross Arsenal Sporting game tonight because of family. They will pay for this. I'd be amazed if the winners don't come from the PSG Bayern semi. They're both miles better than the other two.

Never seen a team as bad as this Arsenal one in with a genuine shot of the league and CL double. I mean I'd be amazed if they did it really but they have a very decent chance of being in the final. Time for Simeone to run the clock back. Fail to believe they'd avoid defeat in the final if they made it.

Barnsley away. That's probably it.

Rowett knows we're cooked. He'll definitely mentally checked out now and given up. He'll be counting down the days until the Blackburn game.

Very boring and done to death but the owners. They're a combination of utterly useless, pigheaded yet worshipped by a portion of the fanbase - the most dangerous possible combination imaginable. It's why staggering levels of failure have now become the norm. I would rip literally the entire thing up and start again. Every coach, every player - every single one of them gone and undertake an unprecedented level of rebuild with a totally different mindset from the off. The club comes first and **** pandering to any individuals. If it's not for you, then off you ****. This sounds drastic, but we're in complete crisis as a club and have now been relegated in abject fashion three times in four seasons. Literally anything is preferable to what is currently playing out. Just running the club at 5/10 level would have us at worst, a strong Championship side. I'd have Pearson involved in some form. Maybe a director of football sort of role is what he would be up for now anyway - I could be wrong but I'd imagine he'd like something more hands off. He's somebody who really understood what it meant to build gradually by adding the right characters to the club over a number of years and he was relatively well contacted, albeit he was pally with Ferguson who is no longer involved. It doesn't even necessarily have to be Pearson himself, but he ticks a lot of the boxes as somebody who will leave a club in a better place than he found it and even his naysayers would have to admit his judge of character was always spot on - I mean he had no time for the likes of Rudkin and Stringer from very early doors, which tells you a lot. Impose a wage cap. Nothing too drastic but a figure that will allow us to get our finances in order whilst not totally limiting ourselves. This obviously can be increased incrementally with rising up the league. Generally this will mean aiming for younger players, but not to totally overlook the occasional older head as well. Get rid of absolutely everything related to King Power with the exception of the Vichai statue - which I'd move to the memorial garden. In time our zombie element of the fanbase will remember that there was more to this club than those who currently occupy us and that there is far more to football than the insular delusion of the current regime. A club policy of high tempo, high pressing football. I'm absolutely convinced at this point that part of the club policy in recruitment is to sign weak and small players because the owner can relate to it. Build a totally new image and bin off this complete madness. Scout as far and wide as possible. Really learn value for money all over again. No dealings with sycophantic agents who we currently essentially work for by paying for their utter crap. Honestly, most of these things are just basics. But we've been starved of them so long. Just start acting like a football club again and not an arm of a tumbling foreign business. People will soon remember that football doesn't have to be permanently rubbish.

Portsmouth to be 2 goals ahead at HT - 9/1 Portsmouth to be 3 goals ahead at HT - 33/1 Portsmouth to be 4 goals ahead at HT - 150/1 All over them. This is a game we could properly tumble in.

I do agree with you. Think as early as the 2nd game though I did think there was an outside bet of it because it was clear, already, that the manager had placated the same players who needed gutting from the team. The performances in the first half of the season were mostly rubbish. Even despite everything there is no way they should be going down. That's three seasons out of four that you can rank at 1/10 without even exaggerating. The level of consistently staggering underperformance is nothing I've ever witnessed before.

United, Liverpool and Chelsea would all be upgrading going for Iraola. Fair play if he goes to Bilbao though. The basque country's rate of producing good managers is insane.

This'll rule Nigel Pearson out as well. Beyond sentiment I'm at a point where I would actually have him back and if people think as a League One club we're too good for that then they're in cuckoo land. There is no way they would go for him though. This McCarron seems a great fit for LCFC - underachieved, spent a lot of money and favours dreary, slow football. They're a match made in heaven. So I expect more of that.

They won't make the mistake of risking this again after Maresca. Bet they were so relieved when he left.

Usually predict a narrow loss but actually think this could be the long overdue annihilation. They bullied Ipswich by all accounts. I'd imagine it's the type of game where Portsmouth's players will get in the changing rooms at half time and piss themselves laughing.

That 5'3 prat - the most odds defying decline in a generation locked in. Pure disrespect to Mike Ashley to even compare the two. The most incompetent owner of my lifetime.

Official statement: Jon Rudkin to officially begin new role on 1 July 2026

We'd need 10 from here to even have a chance. This lot average about a point a game. There is no chance. It's over.

Agree with others - this isn't even a good Championship either. This last four years is as abject a four years as you'll ever witness. The most extraordinary fumble I've ever seen. If this was a film you would roll your eyes at it.

You would because you actually have any interests of the club and city at heart. Those involved wouldn't dream of it. They will grow further resent to the EFL off the back of this. Further protection to the players. Further contempt for the evil protestors. Our fans have been probably the biggest disappointment in all of this. They got exposed as the softest touch in football.

That's what should have happened in 2023 and 2025. It didn't. It'll be more of the same with further decline to follow. I wouldn't rule out League Two by 2028.

It's sad for those who will lose jobs over this, and for those who innocently just support the team. But my god there is some severe karma for this. Those players. The managers. The financial people. The owner and board, and every fool who backed them to now. Every one of them deserves every last bit of this. Enjoy your karma.

Manchester United - still crap by the way. Was hoping they would fall into the trap and give Carrick the permanent job but not convinced anymore. The luck running out.

Fantastic weekend in the PL it must be said. West Ham and Leeds winning is lovely.

Very minor but just sums up what a totally unserious and unprofessional outfit it is.