We were well beaten again by the title favourites and didn't offer much in attack at all, only mustering up 2 shots in the whole game. In short, we were battered.
Transfer News: Nathan Wood has always struggled to get into my team and has only managed 30 league appearances under my management in 3 and a half seasons, so it was time to let him leave the club in an attempt to revive his career. He joins Watford for £3.2 million.
Premier League
Matchday 24
Well from having just 2 shots against Chelsea, we had 19 here and in an entertaining attacking display managed to put the ball in the back of the net 3 times, which was enough for the win. It was disappointing that Blackburn only managed 2 shots on target and scored them both, but 3 points is 3 points.
Transfer News: Warren Zaire-Emery is a product of the PSG academy and now he has reached the age of 19, he is becoming a fine player and probably a future star for the French national team. I'm delighted to bolster my options in central midfield for the rest of the season by bringing him here on loan.
Premier League
Matchday 25
Villa are really struggling this season and find themselves embroiiled in the relegation battle down in 19th position and we heaped the pressure on them here with a solid win.
Transfer News: There was only one addition on deadline day and it was a player for the future as we snap up 16 year old left back Greig Cunningham from Hibs for pocket change of £170k. He has some strong mental attributes and if he can improve his technical ones, he could develop into a fine player in the future.
With the transfer window closing for the rest of the season, we can take another look at the current wage bills in the Premier League and looking at this alone shows just how much we are overachieving at the moment!
Premier League
Matchday 26
We haven't played this badly in a while and I'm not entirely sure what happened. I'm hoping it's just a bad day at the office.
Premier League
Matchday 27
I think it's fair to say that City got their revenge for us beating them at our gaff earlier in the season. Haaland was rampant and we simply couldn't deal with him!
Premier League
Matchday 28
We really did give Arsenal a game here and it would be fair to say that the scoreline flattered them. We created plenty of chances, but just couldn't take them and that cost us on the day.
Premier League
League Table
With 10 games of the season remaining, we still sit 9th in the table and are surpassing all expectations for the year. The European spots are out of our reach (realistically anyway) for this year, but if we can maintain a level of form to finish in the top 10, that would be a wonderful achievement and give us something to build on further next season. Liverpool have opened up a healthy lead at the top and will take some pegging back from anyone looking to stop them defending their title. Meanwhile, Blackburn and Brentford are in danger of immediately returning to the Championship following their promotion last year, whilst Aston Villa have finally got themselves out of the relegation zone.
Stadium: I asked the board to upgrade the stadium where possible as we are maxing out our capacity every week. I'm pleased that they have agreed and at the end of the season, we will gain an additional 2,700 seats which is roughly a 13-14% increase.
Premier League
Matchday 29
Well that was ******* dreadful! Never in the game!
Premier League
Matchday 30
Absolute ******* dog ****! This is a ******* shameful performance and result in front of our own fans!
Youth Intake: I'm really not sure how my HoYD can be saying these are excellent intakes year on year, when I look at the players and really struggle to see who is going to develop into future first team players.
The best of this year's intake is striker, Fraser Heppell.
Premier League
Matchday 31
We were still **** in defence but a much better attacking performance brings about a much needed win after 5 straight defeats.
Wonderkids: Fair play to my scouts. They found Juanpa earlier this season and I signed him in January for a fee of just £1 million. Just a few months later, the 18 year old Colombian is rated as the 5th best wonderkid in world football!
Premier League
Matchday 32
Oooooh David Turnbull....Oooooh David Turnbull! Altogether now! The midfielder's 9 minute hat trick in the first half ensures we take all the points at Craven Cottage.
Premier League
Matchday 33
We've had some great results this season and this is up there with the best of them. A fantastic win which puts a serious dent in Tottenham's play for the Champions League spots.
Premier League
League Table
We are now approaching the end of the season and we won't finish any lower than 12th so it's going to have been a good campaign no matter what happens from here. We could still reach as high as 8th though and that would be an incredible statement of our intent to encroach on the European spots in the next couple of seasons.
One thing that is nice to see is that for the second season in a row in the Premier League, we were again a profitable club.
Olsson's sending off after just 20 minutes left us in the **** here really. A good effort nonetheless from the rest of the lads and we came close to earning a draw even with 10 men.
Premier League Matchday 35
Brentford are right down the bottom end but clear of relegation so didn't have much to play for. But you wouldn't have thought it as they looked really good here at times. However, two spot kicks got us over the line in a win that we might not have entirely deserved.
Takeover: After months and years of speculation, there has finally been a takeover at the club, but it's not the rich tycoon I was hoping for with huge amounts of investment. Instead, not much is changing at all really!
Premier League
Matchday 36
The new owners witness a pretty poor display as we offered no real competition for United here.
Premier League
Matchday 37
Our shooting was what let us down here. Palace are fighting for their lives, so we knew this was going to be a tough game, but it is disappointing to have 19 shots on goal and not hit the back of the net!
Transfer News: Two deals have been done, which will go through in the Summer when the transfer window reopens. It's fair to say Danny Ward wasn't an amazing signing for us and the 32 year old keeper has only played 11 league games this season and not exactly shone. Still, despite signing him for £5.5 million, we have made a profit and he will leave the club to join Tigres in a deal worth £7.5 million.
Transfer News: It meant I needed to bring another keeper into the club and we have a significant upgrade in the form of Alban Lofont who will be signing from Al-Ain for a fee of £9.5 million (£5.5 million up front).
Transfer News: Another player that will be leaving the club is Bobby Decordova-Reid who will be going to Turkey to play for Fenerbahce when his contract ends at the end of the season. He's played 88 league games under my management since I signed him for £1.3 million and has been a big part of what we have achieved, but he is 33 now and probably not good enough for us anymore.
Premier League
Matchday 38
We finish off our season by losing to the champions, which there is no shame in at all. We actually played pretty well to be fair and didn't disgrace ourselves in our final outing of the campaign.
Premier League
League Table
A successful season all round and significant improvement on last year as we record a top half finish! What an achievement with the squad we have and the budgets we've been working with!! Liverpool lift the title for the second season in a row, whilst it's a disappointing campaign for Newcastle who finish only just above us but miss out on Europe. West Ham again performed well and make top 7, whilst at the other end we lose Aston Villa to the Championship as they were overtaken by Palace on the final day of the season!
Budgets: This Summer will see me handed my biggest budget so far since I've been in the job. The wage budget hasn't been boosted at all, but we can add some funds in there from the healthy transfer budget if required. And I already have a couple of free transfers lined up to introduce you to, that will improve our squad in both defence and midfield.
A great season where we really built on staying up last year. I didn't expect us to break into the top half in just two seasons of being in the Prem so I am naturally delighted.
We just can't seem to get the hang of cup competitions though.
The New Arrivals
The Best 11
Overall Squad Stats
Club Awards
Despite doing much better this year and recording a top half finish in the top flight, we seem to have lost nearly 90,000 social media followers which is strange. In terms of fans expectations next season, it's pretty much the same.
We were only meant to get a small upgrade to the stadium at the end of the season by nearly 3,000 but thanks to some additional funding that has been secured, we are now upgrading by nearly three times that amount!!
Commercials
Finances
Now we are 4 seasons in, let's take a look at the overall best 11 and a bit of a round up.
3rd August 2026 Transfer News: There's no doubt that one of our biggest weaknesses last season was going forward. Only one player scored double figure goals and our highest assister all year only got 5!! So there was no doubt where the focus would be in the transfer market this Summer and our first signing is a new striker in the form of Manchester City's Liam Delap! This kid has bundles of potential and at 23 years old should strat coming into his prime...I hope so as we I've broken the club's transfer record, agreeing a deal worth £22.5 million to bring him here (£10.5 million paid up front).
Transfer News: Another attacking player to come in is Kanya Fujimoto from Gil Vicente. I've had my eye on him for a while and he finished top of the assist charts in Portugal last season so that made my mind up that I had to go and get the Japanese star. He joins for £19.5 million with £11.5 million paid up front.
Transfer News: My third signing of the Summer is a bit of a bargain one. Gaetano Castrovilli was transfer listed by Fiorentina despite playing 31 league games for them last season (predominantly as a sub), so we only had to pay £4.9 million to bring him to South Wales.
Transfer News: It's important to keep an English/Welsh core to the team, so my next signing was with that in mind. Keane Lewis-Potter has had a good season in the Championship with Watford and he tore us apart when they knocked us out of the FA Cup. He's a risky signing at £12.25 million, but hopefully it will pay off.
It's fixture day for the new campaign and we can't complain with our opening 5...there is absolutely no reason to feel like we can't take at least 9 points from these opening games.
Facilities: The youth setup is getting another upgrade as we continue to develop the club off the field as well as on it.
Transfer News: Time for two free transfers to come into the club on pre contract deals that had been agreed a few months back. The first is centre back Jerry St Juste who has to be one of the paciest centre backs I have seen. He can also play right back too and is a great signing on a free.
Transfer News: The second freebie is Turkish creative midfielder, Barkey Ozcan who got himself 9 goals and 9 assists for Istanbul Basaksehir last year and I'm hoping he can bring those sort of numbers to the Premier League.
Transfer News: This guy certainly deserves a mention. Matt Grimes has played over 300 league games for the club, 128 of which were under my management. He was a large part of getting us to and keeping us in the Prem, but he's 30 now and struggled to hold down a place in the first team last year, so it was time to cash in whilst we could still bag a decent sum for him. He joins Blackburn for £5.25 million.
Transfer News: My next sale out of the club is a bit of a strange one. 19 year old Steve Davies hasn't ever really been on my radar and doesn't strike me as a star of the future, so I was a little shocked when Bournemouth came in and offered us £9 million for him. Naturally I accepted and just hope now he doesn't go on to become a world superstar.
Transfer News: I needed a second right back in the team for the upcoming season but transfer funds are now running low, so I turned to the loan market and have managed to pick up 19 year old prospect Jason Gardiner from Chelsea.
Transfer News: And then I signed a young 18 year old right back for the future. Frank Reyes comes in for just £750k from Sporting Cristal in his native Peru and the youngster has some brilliant mental attributes...if he can improve on his technical ones over the next couple of years, he can develop into a fine player.
I've been working on a new tactic for the upcoming season after all the additions this Summer and here it is...
And during pre season, we did alright with it to be fair.
For the first time since we got promoted, the bookies actually don't have us pegged to finish in the bottom 3. We're getting at least a little bit of respect after our 10th placed finish last season.
Well, it's fair to say season 5 didn't go to plan. I was sacked 18 games into the new season as we propped up the Premier League with just 10 points. The new formation didn't work, but reverting back to previous tactics didn't seem to revive our form either. The players signed simply weren't good enough with some really shocking average ratings. It's been a hard slog this save and at no point did I ever find it easy, but I have to thank Swansea as this save reignated my enthusiasm for the game again and I'll certainly be back with something new....probably in a different country though for a new challenge.
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