Glory to the North East - A Middlesbrough Story

[leckuno]

Pre-Season
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We have had a fairly successful pre-season with only losing against RB Leipzig but this came in the middle of the 2nd round of the Europa League qualifying legs.

Players In

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Maximiliano Romero comes in for the vast chunk of our budget and even though he is only 21 he will be coming in to lead the front line and he can hopefully get us the goals our strikers struggled with last season. Sanabia will be playing back up to Romero along side Munir. Amiron and Chalobah come in to strengthen the middle the pitch after Foden and Alena's loans finished. Stengs comes in to help down the right as we lacked class there if Trincao gets injured. Lato comes in to compete with Moreno for the LB position and he could have a great future at the club.

Players Out

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We have made some great cash with the outgoings again this season which leaves us with only an £8 Million net spend which keeps the bank balance nice and healthy.

With the new players coming in we will be looking to play the same formation with new players gradually coming into the fold to gain experience and get use to the formation and tactics. Below will be the starting XI for the first game of the season.

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Below are the expectations set out by the club and we are expected to finish 7th in the league. I still believe that as long as we don't get relegated I'll be happy. In the cups they should be achievable as long as the draws are favourable.

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Europa League Best placed 2nd Qualifying Round 1st Leg
Titograd v Middlesbrough

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Thanks to the Olympics and injuries we were missing a few key players so had to do a make shift team but everything goes well and Almiron and Loftus-Cheek start their career's at the club with debut goals.

Europa League Best placed 2nd Qualifying Round 2nd Leg
Middlesbrough v Titograd

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Stengs returns form injury to have the best debut possible and bags a debut hat-trick which gets us a 9-0 aggregate win.

August Fixtures

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[leckuno]

August

Europa League Best placed 3rd Qualifying Round 1st Leg
Rostov v MiddlesbroughView attachment 21339
Romero comes into the team to make his debut and boy does he get off to a flyer with bagging a great hat-trick and give us a commanding lead for the return leg.

Middlesbrough v Manchester City

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We put out as much of a full strength team as we can after Europe and we manage to get our first ever win over Man City with Myatt showing what he can do with Marin's absence.

Europa League Best placed 3rd Qualifying Round 2nd Leg
Middlesbrough v Rostov

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We make it difficult for ourselves with going 1-0 down but we manage to take full advantage of the extra man and go through 7-2 on aggregate.

Middlesbrough v Arsenal

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All out players have returned from the Olympics and Marin picks up where he left off last season. His goal on the edge of half time gives us a boost and Tonali and Marin score again in quick succession to put them to the sword before Moreno rounds things off with a rare goal.

Europa League Best placed 4th Qualifying Round 1st Leg
AGF v Middlesbrough

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We rotate as much as we can and even though Chalobah gets us off to a great start we make things difficult for us by conceding 2 goals. the 4 away goals should really make this game over though.

Huddersfield v Middlesbrough

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The first team comes back out fresh for the league and we absolutely blow Huddersfield away. Trincao scores two amazing solo goals off the right wing for his first goals of the season.

Europa League Best placed 4th Qualifying Round 2nd Leg
Middlesbrough v AGF

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To make sure we win the game we put out a mix of first squad and rotational options and we get a good 3-1 victory to qualify for the Europa League group stages.

Middlesbrough v Wolves

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We get a very scrappy victory here with Pereira coming off the bench onto the left wing to get the all important goal to get us the 3 points.

Month Overview

We get our first perfect month of the season and I don't think we could of done any better with two massive wins over two of the big teams in the league which is even more impressive with how busy the month has been with the added fixtures of the Europa League Qualifying.

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For the Europa League we made really light work of everybody here by putting out our second string team. I feel the draw has been very kind to us as well and I would be very surprised if we don't make it out of it. TSG Hofffenheim should be my toughest opponents here with the harder game being away from home.

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September Fixtures

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