Dan

Can Oxford really be called an outlier either? Burton was very similar. Notts County wasn't loads better in terms of performance.

Martin I think probably does have some positives about him as an influence around the place. It's just a shame his football is so utterly flawed.

Have great memories of this ground. Really sentimental one for me. The 2007 one where Leeds got relegated. Following year was even more tense and we won 0-1 again. But we did end up going down. Kind of glad I can't taint it by going on Saturday albeit I do remember the loss there in 2013 - that was one of the worst performances I've ever witnessed from us.

Christ Wales must be absolutely dire now. Like Lithuania level.

I'll do a half season thing this time around, although I think there is probably a fairly obvious reason for it. This year I think is going to be the one. Something quite interesting happened in the summer. Bayern just left themselves totally underprepared. I was monitoring what they did and they seem to have had two things happen at once in that a lot of their better players are hitting their mid thirties, while they have gone bizarrely light on the squad. I mean look at this. What is happening?! They have left themselves completely underprepared for this season. It's still the skeleton of a team that just won the league, but that looks vulnerable to me. Nowhere does this vulnerability show more than the fifth game of the season, away at Bochum. Unfortunately though, it still ends in a Bayern win, Bochum's first points dropped of the season and a first loss at the new stadium. Bayern win, but my god, they were bad. We outplayed them in a way I just don't really remember happening. If that is the performance level on offer this season, they are catchable. We make a very good start overall. Then our eighth game of the season arrives. It's truly extraordinary what plays out. We go to Freiburg who fairly recently had beaten us 2-0 at their place. We look on fire going forward this season, but this just clicks in a way that I'm laughing to myself during the game. 0-6 just before HT, then somehow 2-6 at HT, then 3-9 after 54 minutes. The red card actually seems to help Freiburg as they decide to finally stop letting us walk through them. A really mental game and I can't remember seeing anything quite like it. In classic FM style we only draw our next game at home to Leverkusen 1-1, but at the half way mark, these remain the only points we've collected. And my god was I right about Bayern. You can never totally discount them from the race, but to be 15 clear of them already. The issue is Dortmund are also flying. We go away to the three teams below us which is a concern, but we have been an absolute machine. Padilla has 8 goals and 11 assists in 16 games. The likes of Andric, Olderheim, and new striker Francisco Souza Silva are also hitting very encouraging numbers. Souza Silva has 19 goals in 20 in all competitions. Meite's form fell off a bit late last season and I couldn't pass up what looked a top striker on paper for £25mil so in he came. I broke my club record to sign a player that I sold for £22mil two years ago. Gavin Darby is back. He just ticked too many boxes unfortunately and I never wanted to actually sell him in the first place. The only other signing of note is Dutch centre half Juricmar Hose, who I'm hoping is of a similar category to Andric and Padilla. I would've taken the Padilla money in a few situations, but we don't need money urgently and this is the best chance to win the league I'll have. I've identified a replacement for him and I'll possibly sell in the summer, but for this year he will stay. Simply not worth it. Bring on the unlikelier of the title battles.

The last two times we've won before Saturday, excluding Blackburn as it was the final day, there has been an air of relief that we would get back into gear and kick on, both followed by a presentable home fixture. Comfortable losses and ultimately collapses on both occasions. The wins are the anomaly.

We're already massively playing catchup. He's got to go on a seriously good run to convince me.

Think these might play into our hands. As dreadful as we've been during the last couple of years, I'm noticing we do tend to get results against the better sides in the league. Ipswich and Middlesbrough last year. Stockport and Plymouth so far this. I'm not sure Barnsley are in that sort of category but I think they set up that way a lot of the time. They would be wise here to change it up.

Total insult to the fans he still starts. I knew he would as well.

Everything I feared in a way. It's a good result but totally unconvincing and buys Martin undeserved time.

Bob haha just what we needed.

Can't get out our own half against Stockport.

Dear oh dear.

I've thought this of many of them and they've disappointed. There seems to be an endless floor.

Chelsea offered us £88mil rising to £130mil in October out of the blue. Even more insane is I said no. He can go in the summer but not yet. He's got no release clause. He wants to go but the game has weirdly created this promise where we sell him if we sign a replacement. So I simply won't sign a replacement until the summer. His form during the second half of last season was superb and encouraging. This season he has been unbelievable. A genuinely world class player.

It is worth pointing out that Martinelli, the Italian goalkeeper I signed, has been completely reasonable and met expectations. Without being outstandingly good, and not without a couple of bad games, but generally he is just consistent and reliable. It's all I'm really hoping for. The frequency that I have a goalkeeper averaging about 6.6 beggars belief. Maignan was probably the worst of the lot. I have to say for the bigger fees I've paid, generally, I have done pretty well. I have played another half a season and I'll do a full season run down when I'm done, but lets just say, Andric has caught fire, and Padilla has absolutely exploded. Both are huge hits. They're below.

For my next one, final FM26 save, I'm introducing pure HOOFBALL. To build a physically brutal, dirty team relying on long ball football. I play more direct than most play the game I think, but I've never quite built a club entirely around hoofball and I'm interested to see how far I take it.

I'd name him in the lineup for the Fulham U21 game and then **** him off the day after. Same with Thomas and Bob. People falling for it again with him. He would let us down again. No doubt about it. He 'better suits' a style which is complete madness and proven to fail repeatedly. The absolute worst case outcome is a slight uptick which sees him back in the fold, sees Martin's job security raised but crucially, still won't have us near promotion contention. How many times do these players have to let us down before we can them. We've got to break the cycle of going cap in hand to these useless ****wits.

How absolutely embarrassing is that. The bookies cottoned we were shit slower last season than this, a league higher up.

Will no doubt then end up finishing above us.

The following season was about building on what I had rather than ripping it up and going again, which is better. We made five big signings in the summer. Nguomha joined on a free transfer and became the highest earner on £83k a week. Two longer term targets arrived in Benjamin Andric from Copenhagen and Luis Padilla from Club America. Both just under £20mil each. Both extremely high potential players that I think could actually kick on to the very top. The other was a slightly controversial move, but the declining form of goalkeeper Nicolas made me go for it. On a one year deal for an enormous £155k a week came in Mike Maignan. He was old, but he was still performing well for AC Milan. Not my usual type of signing, but I am fed up of being plagued by goalkeepers. Despite his age I'm still hopeful he can be the solid, reliable goalkeeper I just cannot seem to bring in. The other was striker Mohamed Meite who had just been released from his Saudi club. A serious coup I thought, substantially better than our other striker options. We make a very decent start this time around, winning 8 and drawing 1 of our first 9 games. Meite is banging the goals in. Padilla and Andric, while not ripping it up, aren't doing too badly. The problem though is we are still letting goals in. Maignan hasn't really solved anything. The most egregious is a complete shocker of a performance in the CL at home to Roma, which prompts me to look for a new goalkeeper for January already. Maignan was a dud. Is it the tactic? Is he just finished? I'm glad I only signed up for a one year deal with him. We're in proper title contention, but it all comes crashing down in January. Bayern inflict our first defeat of the season and we go and lose pathetically at Hannover the week after. As good as we've been, Bayern really are back this season and they just look too much for us to deal with. January does see some interesting movement. Aljoscha Kemlein, a steady midfielder, is sold to Leipzig for a ridiculous £31.5mil. I liked him but I couldn't believe they bit on that, he's worth probably half of that. Shun Muto, my left back, again - good, but not amazing, makes a £38.5mil move to Wolves. They are replaced by Sebastian Olderheim (who is a better tactical fit) for £8.5mil and Jofre Torrents (who is better than Muto) for £18mil. Once again a post Saudi free agent rocks up here as goalkeeper Tommaso Martinelli joins for £44k per week. One of those classic, satisfying FM windows where you improve your team and make money in the process. We are dumped out of Europe again by Manchester United, this time in the knock-out play-off round of the Champions League. Our league form remains steady, but we suffer a couple more silly defeats, a totally undeserved 2-0 loss at Freiburg, and late on a 3-1 loss at Bayer Leverkusen to bury any small hopes of the title we had. Disappointingly, we ended up slipping to 3rd after all. So it's the same as last season. But I felt we'd improved. We scored more goals and we're definitely playing at the highest level I can remember us playing at. Other than the 11th placed abberation we have ended up on 72-75 points each season. We're going to have to bump that up slightly to win the league. But Andric and Padilla were looking encouraging and definitely improved as the season went on. I don't think we are far off. But Bayern are just beyond annoying. Our final ever game at the Ruhrstadion is a 5-1 win over Hoffenheim, which sends them down.

22,000 last time and judging by flash scores it's frequently just over a third full. It'd be interesting to do but would imagine we'll probably do some other stuff now, with an international weekend triple header lined up for November.

Sums up everything we all suspected already. Absolutely sod all changed after the car crash interview. Surprise surprise.

will add as well the taxi driver when criticising Serbian football (he didn't even know the derby was on!) said if Partizan have a chance of winning then Zvezda will get a penalty or something and just win. Sure enough.

Tell you what I'm miles off there. Zvezda's record at Partizan is actually pretty shit. They have won the last two trips there but before that there were no wins in 11. That's pretty cool. Predictably though Partizan are winless in their last 15 trips to Zvezda.