Killie - Kilmarnock Football Club

[FM_TNSSO]

35 year old Chris Ball is hired as the new manager of Scottish Championship club, Kilmarnock. The aim here...get Killie back to the Scottish Premiership, then overhaul Scottish giants Celtic and Rangers, then experience success in Europe! Can I take Kilmarnock all the way to Champions League glory...it's a big ask....no it's a massive ask, but we're going to enjoy the ride!

Kilmarnock are a club with something in the trophy cabinet, but not a lot. One Premiership title back in 1965, three Scottish Cups with the most recent coming in 1997 and one Betfred Cup in 2012. The club hovered around mid table for years in the Premiership until last season when they were relegated.

And only immediate promotion (by winning the Championship) will do for the board. I'll have my hands full of expectation in my first season in charge!

And it's no wonder the board are being so demanding. The bookies have us down as 1/16 favourites to win the Championship title this season. I can honestly say I've never managed a side that is such heavy favourites for a title in my life!

Well I certainly can't say that I don't have a big enough squad to help me achieve my goal in the first season. It's massive!

And it's clear that we have one of the standout players in the division and without a doubt the best striker in the league in Kyle Lafferty! I expect him to tear it up for us in the Championship this year!

Although strike partner, Scott Robinson, isn't exactly a million miles behind him! Every team in this division is surely going to struggle to deal with this deadly duo!

 

[leckuno]

Yasss super Killie. Best team in Ayrshire. Supported them for the last 30 years

 

[FM_TNSSO]

We only had one game to test out a tactic before the Betfred Cup kicked off and it's fair to say that what I tried didn't work against Schalke and we were battered by the German side!

In the Betfred Cup, we were uninspiring too as we gave away 2-0 leads in both of our opening games! We went on to win one and lose one on pens!

We finally got our first win though against Dumbarton and it was backup striker Oli Shaw that scored both the goals!

A disappointing draw with Falkirk rounded off our Betfred Cup campaign and it was Ayr United who progress as group winnners. All in all, it's been pretty underwhelming and I sure hope we'll be better in the league when it kicks off!

With the league season about to kick off, three of our players are amongst the pre season favourites to win Championship Player of the Year, with Kyle Lafferty coming in as the bookies favourite.

We kicked off our campaign with an absolute thriller at home to Queen of the South, although the win should have been a lot more comfortable after taking a 4-0 lead into half time!!

We lost our concentration late on against Partick Thistle as well and had to settle for a single point! Disappointing that we allowed them back into the game after they went down to 10 men!

And it got even worse when we lost at home to Raith Rovers despite dominating from start to finish! Our strikers are the best in the league and can't finish!! WTF!!!

We had 9 days before our next game against Greenock Morton to get our acts together! And during that 9 day period, I decided it was time to make my first signing as I really haven't been impressed with our keeper. So Sol Brynn is the new number 1 between the sticks after I forked out £75,000 to bring him here from Middlesbrough.

And in addition to that, I signed Lars Dendoncker on a season long loan deal from Brighton to bolster our midfield options. He is a good talent and will certainly get game time here and hopefully he can make a solid contribution to our promotion bid this season!

Both my new guys went straight into the starting lineup and both made an immediate impression. Dendoncker was man of the match and Sol Brynn kept our first clean sheet of the season!

And we made it back to back 2-0 wins against Inverness! We might just be finding our feet!

We sit 4th in the league after 5 games, but it's tight and there's a long way to go yet!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Our next game would see my first venture into the Challenge Cup and we took on a Greenock Morton side that we had already beaten 2-0 in the league. Things didn't entirely go to plan this time round and we had to rely on a penalty shootout to see us through to the next round.

Back in the league, there were no problems at all as we record an easy win over Hamilton, with Kyle Lafferty bagging the first hat trick under my management at the club.

But we were p155 poor against Arbroath in our next game and didn't deserve to take anything from this one! The team look solid in some games and all over the place in others!

And again we concede a late goal to drop points against Dunfermline! The concentration in this team is really poor and we have already dropped a lot of points late on in games this season!

ANOTHER 90th minute goal conceded as we lose to Queen of the South! WTF is going on!!

And things go from bad to worse as we are embarrassed by League Two side Stirling Albion as they knock us out of the Challenge Cup.

Things clearly weren't working for us. The counter press, attacking, high pressure football that I normally play just didn't seem to be suiting this team, so it was time to go back to the drawing board and develop something different (for me anyway). I spent over an hour tweaking this time and time again until I was happy with it, but this is where I'm at with my new tactic. It still focuses on attacking play, with a short passing possession based game, but no counter attacking football leaving players out of position and exposed. Instead it relies on the holding it's shape in possession to be more patient in the build up and not try to force the issue, and regroup and get back into position when we don't have it. The short, high tempo passing is designed to unsettle the opposition by moving the ball around the park quickly. We'll play narrow in attack and in defence, keeping a compact shape to make us hard to break down and not press quite as much or quite as high up as normal. I will also ask my defenders to hold a deeper line to avoid quick attackers taking advantage of exposed space behind our defence. A ball winner in the central midfield will be my hard working runner, whilst the deep lying playmaker next door is our creative outlet for the defence to pass to. Full backs instead of wing backs will again with keeping a more compact shape as they won't drift as wide and leave gaps in the back 4. Wingers instead will give us necessary width in our attacks and up top we will have a pressing forward to close down opposition defenders and an advanced forward as the main spearhead of our attacks! In theory it all sounds great....but would it work!

Well, to say it's working would be an understatement! We went on to record 5 straight league wins with the new formation and the lads have taken to my new vision like ducks to water! I love it when a plan comes off!

And that form was good enough for me to lift my first Manager of the Month award.

And it means after 14 games, we sit 2nd just a point behind Partick Thistle. The top 4 have already opened up a huge 12 point gap to the chasing pack!

We've scored 8 more goals than anyone else in the division at this stage and both our key men up top are in early contention for the golden boot.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Just when everything looked like it was going smoothly, Hamilton step up and throw a spanner in the works as we concede another one of those 90th minute goals to suffer a shock defeat!

We had the perfect opportunity to get back to winning ways immediately as we took on non league side, Berwick Rangers, in the next round of the Scottish Cup...and we did just that with a comfortable victory.

And we followed that up with two more wins against sides that are also in that top 4 group in the league!

Which sees us move to the top of the league table for the first time this season. Finally, we are starting to play like 1/16 odds on title favourites!

Our players are finally showing their extra bit of class compared to most of the players in the league and that's proven in the stats. We literally have the 4 best performing players in the division so far this season!

We very quickly relinquished top spot though as we could only manage a draw against our fiercest rivals in the Ayrshire Derby in our next game!

It seems that moving to the top of the league had led to total complacency as we turn in a very lacklustre performance as we're beaten by Queen of the South! We didn't play anywhere near well enough here and deserved nothing from the game!

And to make matters worse, Kyle Lafferty has put his foot down and is insisting on leaving the club during the January transfer window after some recent interest in him!

Timing couldn't be worse as we are just about to face Partick Thistle in a top of the table clash!

A game we went on to lose and our form has taken another dramatic turn in what has turned out to be a topsy turvy season so far! Yet another 90th minute winner against us...our concentration in those final stages is so bad!

Unrest is creeping in and Brandon Haunstrup approached me after the Partick game to have a pop about my team talks (fair to say the lads got a b0110cking at the end of the match)! I put him firmly in his place and told him to get on with his job!

His response was to become the 2nd player in less than a week to hand in a transfer request!

Maybe a clearout of the trouble makers is what we need to turn things around....and Lafferty is the first to leave in a £10,500 deal that sees him move to Cypriot side AE Limassol.

Or maybe that isn't going to be the answer as we immediately lose to bottom of the league, Greenock Morton, just days after Lafferty's departure!

So in a matter of just a few games, we have gone from top of the league down to 4th and now 9 points off the pace!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

SACKED!!!

I'm starting to think I'm absolutely terrible at this game! After the run of results below, we dropped out of the top 4 in the league and another defeat in the Ayrshire Derby was the final straw for the board who decided it was time for me to go! It was short lived and I wasn't in the slightest bit successful so it feels weird to say I enjoyed this short stint in Scotland...but I think that says a lot for me love for this game more than anything else, even though I'm shockingly sh1te at it!

One thing is for sure....I'll be back very soon with another go at another club!