Dan

Biggest culture of failure you will ever witness in your life.

This is as bad a game as I can remember.

Maguire gets treated like he's Maldini when it comes to England. I'd have taken him but people go a bit far.

I feel like 26 is worse than any other for illogical moves. Players who ask to leave but often turn down moves when you accept a bid. Got offers of around £1mil for Donno at the start of January and he decided he wanted to go, I negotiated he could go for £6mil (which felt big). I then somehow negotiated Osijek up to £8mil and Groningen up to £10.25mil but he turned them both down. Then PAOK come in with £6.5mil which I kind of have to accept due to what I promised, however I wait and see if anyone else comes in. Hannover do the same. Both of them non-negotiable which is annoying. By the time of the week passing since the PAOK bid, he's joined them after my board just accepted it anyway. I was going to reluctantly accept it but they just did it, which was nonsense because we'd had better offers than that. We're gonna be absolutely flush by Serbian standards. I mean we were before this. He's a big loss though and probably hurts my chances in the Conference.

I'll wait and see with Tuchel. It's not what I'd have gone for but I backed the appointment thinking you have somebody here who has at least got a track record of success. Albeit he's got a stinker in him as well. Can't help but think we're playing a dangerous game with left backs again. Was a complete farce in the Euros having Trippier on the left creating a bottleneck in build up and you could see similar happening. It's mental how Palmer's not got in. I'm not even saying I disagree with it but imagine if after the Euros somebody told you a fully fit Palmer wouldn't go.

Because he's getting sacked and is damaged goods. It's an opportunity to actually get somebody who might be a bit 'above' what we could realistically attract in normal circumstances. The bit that puts me off, more than any moral thing is how much of this spying, which he clearly has a track record and reputation for, is actually his edge and now that he'll have to reign it in, is he actually going to be any good?

2017/18 was definitely a big opportunity spurned. We were pretty comfortable favourites at one point to finish 7th and Burnley ended up getting it. Not quite the disaster of other times but was definitely a chance blown.

Assadi was the best player in the league when I did Greece, PAOK bought him and kept hold of Konstantelias. The main reason they stayed so good for so long. Quality player and god knows how he didn't get snapped up by anyone from PAOK.

It has actually gotten a bit silly now and it's why the cup result has pissed me off no end, it's not really that rewarding anymore and yet I ultimately want a league and a cup in each country I do, and I'll have at least another season and a half of it. That's presuming we don't run into any big scary 2nd tier teams next year.

Last time we got relegated to League One we appointed the manager Southampton let go.

2031/32 - half way... I've created a bit of a monster. Lets cut to the chase. Summer not totally ideal missing out on top target Maksimovic from Cukaricki, but in Preljevic, Matovic, Jelic and Perisic we had four players who could contribute who class as U22 Serbian for this season. Midfielder Preljevic breaking the club record with right back Jelic matching it. Matovic at left back has been a big upgrade. Perisic is pure meat and potatoes, he isn't as good as Maksimovic, but he will do and he's out of contract in a year. The other two are 5 star prospects who'll be playing U19 football. We start with a comeback win at Partizan which sets a brilliant tone for the season. The next few games, frankly, are hilarious. Have you ever seen a club break their club record win in consecutive games? You can forgive the dreadful Havnar of Faroe Islands, but Cukaricki's ability to completely collapse at the sight of us is spectacular. We were 1-0 up in the first half before they got a red card (they're really rare on the game btw, only been two in the whole league all season) and off the back of this they just totally imploded, we ripped into them and seemingly scored every time we got the ball. We didn't slow down, a near perfect August with only a second leg with a massively weakened team at Slovan Bratislava being the blot. Our first ever win at Vojvodina and actually showing we can grind out a 0-1 there and at Plovdiv, for all we had the firepower up front. Bubanj and Jovanovic, my two strikers, were scoring a hatful. Unsurprisingly. We had a relatively kind set of Conference League fixtures (as well as the usual £2.5mil rolling in for qualifying). To be honest, I think it became evident from around the end of October that we were going to win the league. We're just battering most of our opposition in this league now and the European opposition aren't faring a lot better. We were 3-0 down at TSC so for that to be our only dropped points, even that felt like a win. We got revenge on Graficar in the cup but I tell you what, it wasn't easy, we didn't score until pretty late on. With the cup a priority this season due to it being the one missing piece in Serbia. Seemingly there is no super cup here, though I wouldn't consider that relevant if there was. November was more of the same. Records could fall here. And then came the twist. The one utter, utter nightmare result I really didn't want. So it's hit a point now where the league doesn't feel at all rewarding. The big two are both having shocking seasons and stand next to no chance of catching us bar an absolute implosion. So the plan, ideally, is win the cup and start a new save. So this happens. It would be easy to blame the red card, but honestly, we were absolutely foul throughout. I'm not really a possession player but to only have 30% of the ball against a second tier side. Both of their goals were absolute belters but they fully deserved to win. Out of the cup to lower league opposition for what I think is now the fifth time - and this was even bigger a disgrace than last year. Even bigger insult to injury was Zvezda went out to lower league dross themselves so it really was there for the taking, and we fumbled it. Luckily though, we did finally get our win at their place, the first in our history. It only took totally outplaying them for about the seventh time running before it arrived, but we'll take it. It comes with a huge blot, but what a ridiculously good season it's been so far. Virtually every player is smashing it. We've scored 106 goals already in 31 games in all competitions. Absolutely romping the league. Mateja Bubanj has scored 24 goals in 13 starts in the league Jovanovic has 12 in 8 in the Conference League with 22 in all competitions. We've been an absolute machine. Bar the collapse of all collapses, the league is done. It seems to take about 73 points to guarantee top spot in this league so just 26 points from our final 16 games should do it. We won't continue at that rate, and I don't think we'll go unbeaten. Because the plan is to have a real go at winning the Conference League. I don't think we'll quite get over the line, but we only finished behind Aston Villa and Trabzonspor in the league phase. I'd be disappointed if we didn't at least make the semi finals, but with no cup competition and the league secured bar a catastrophe, it's worth throwing everything at that. With 5 spots in Europe in Serbia this season (whoever comes 5th should be sending us a thankyou) and the league winner getting into the Champions League play-off round, I'm thinking one more season here after this one to give the CL (hopefully) a go and get that bastard cup won. But failing that I will probably start elsewhere. I'm seriously surprised by this though. We finished last season well but it felt like pragmatism rather than domination. We've gone up a level. I do think we're in danger of losing a couple of players, most notably Andrea Donno in January though. Oh and finally, the new stadium was postponed twice and I'm thinking that after three and a half years of playing in Pancevo in the league, and Belgrade in Europe, we will be going home at last. The new ground holds just under 7,000.

In 2019/20 we had Justin, Chilwell, Soyuncu, Maddison, barnes, Tielemans, Ndidi, Iheanacho all 23 or under. All thriving in the Premier League. To bungle that and end up in League One in six years. You just cannot emphasise how dreadful this is. If we were a bottom half PL team now that would be a fumble, let alone this.

If we'd been even averagely run we could've had a European trophy in the last five years. The level has come down substantially.

That's it for me as well. I really think it's quite disproportionate given what plenty of others do get away with. Lets see if it's the start of a hard line on cheating. But spoiler alert, I promise it isn't.

We did, Rodgers is notoriously shit in Europe, but it's definitely gotten easier with this new format. Freiburg wouldn't have made the semis five years ago.

Also think it's very convenient that they've admitted to Oxford away and Ipswich at home - two games they didn't win and were therefore fairly inconsequential other than arguably Middlesbrough should've finished above them and got the home leg 2nd. There's no way it only happened three times. Absolutely no chance. I think I just really dislike seeing teams achieve things by default. It won't actually happen but if Man City are stripped of their titles, using an extreme example, we've now got a load of clubs netting Premier League trophies by default and is that seriously what people want?

See I don't agree with that either. I don't think there's an ideal solution to this and I can see why they've done it, but my point all along here was there would be a bigger knock-on effect than people realise. Wrexham have a right to be aggrieved if Southampton have essentially robbed them of 6th. If you're docking points then who is to say that they shouldn't have been relegated for it? Therefore Oxford in 22nd have a right to feel aggrieved. I saw an Arsenal fan saying it regarding the FA Cup as well, which seems ridiculous and I think it's typical of their fans, but they actually half have a point for me. I hope Hull beat Middlesbrough, but god after their little thing there I'm even less sure of that. Four points deductions in under a year in the Championship. If you'd seen that was the Romanian 2nd tier you'd piss yourself.

Like I say - can of worms opened.

Nothing changes until he's gone. It's very clear.

We're struggling this time around as all of our friendly opposition happen to be in our league.

If you're a Portsmouth fan you're wanting to somehow get hands on a Southampton Hull one.

Hull will be buzzing. I've nothing against Middlesbrough, but after this, I really hope Hull do it.

Remind me who he manages again. There's no way he wouldn't have been anyway.

The problem is where do you actually draw the line. So is it fair on Wrexham who didn't get a crack in the play-offs? Or Oxford? It's a dodgy precedent. They deserved punishing. A heavy fine that is actually a deterrent to teams doing it in future - for example if they're fined £5-10mil for it teams won't consider it close to worth the trade off. But Middlesbrough should not have a chance to be promoted. The entire thing is just a mess now.

You can't still be crying about that?