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Not good news at all. Ruben has been the heart & soul of our midfield & one of our most consistent performers. Replacing him is going to be all but impossible!
Life After Depor...
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View attachment 253485
Not good news at all. Ruben has been the heart & soul of our midfield & one of our most consistent performers. Replacing him is going to be all but impossible!
DreamTempest
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I've been lurking for a few days and just managed to catch up with this great story keep it up. Go Galiza! Go Depor! :$ Despite those complicated last few games your league position is still awesome.
Villarreal 2 - Deportivo 0
Goals - Acosta (48, 85)
P.O.M. - Franco Acosta (Villarreal)
"As I said before, I didn't really care if we got through here but it would have been nice if I'm honest.
Unfortunately, it never looked likely. Once again our ball retention was horrendous. 38% possession about sums it up I think. Even so, we defended admirably &, on another day, may have pinched a draw & taken the tie to extra time & maybe even penalties.
It wasn't to be though, Franco Acosta proving the difference.
Where we were wasteful with our limited chances, Franco was deadly.
His first goal came just after the half when an Urbaneja cross found him unmarked on the edge of our goal square. He met the ball with his head & guided it gently into the top far corner, agonisingly just out of reach of German Lux. A brilliant finish really.
His second was a thunder bolt from the edge of the box after a string of short passes allowed him to get one on one with Luis Hernandez. A simple turn & snap later & the game was gone.
A disappointing end to our cup run &, to be honest, a bit of a worrying performance."
Finally caught up with this and I can say that the 73 pages of reading was worth it!
Cheers mate, glad you're enjoying it!
Elche 3 - Deportivo 0
Goals - Iiguez (58), MendesRodrigues (79), Pozuelo (90+1)
P.O.M. - Victor (Elche)
"OMG! Things are much worse then I had imagined. Elche were 18th coming into this game!
Despite playing away from home I set out to attack in this match. As mentioned, Elche are really struggling this year, if we turn it on surely they wouldn't be able to go with us!? WRONG!
From the kick off it was obvious that the guys had lost confidence. We were slow, predictable & Elche looked like a team possessed! Mendes Rodrigues was causing us all sorts of problems, constently beating his man & getting into dangerous positions.
How we got to the break on level terms I'm not quite sure but I decided to give the boys a rocket to try & snap them out of it. Bad move. To a side already struggling for confidence, the hair dryer treatment only made things worse.
The second half was a whitewash! One way traffic! & to make things worse Alejandro Pozuelo came off the bench to stick the knife into us only days after his exit! A dreadful result!
It is obviously time I re-evaluated the way I am approaching things. We are no longer the confident side we were to start the year & my approach needs to reflect that. I have made errors here, big ones!"
So after the humiliation at relegation threatened Elche we slide out of the CL spots & down to 6th! No honeymoon can last forever but at my man Kloppy would say: that's a very, very dramatically thump back down to Earth!
With just shy of 2.5M in the transfer kitty & already being at our wage limit I decided to move some dead weight to the B team both to free up some wage room as well as to. hopefully, increase the chances of our B team being promoted to a "playable division."
Instead of trying to sign a star player (Unlikely to be possible with the funds I have anyway), I have instead been focusing on playing the futures & plugging holes in our roster.
My first such signing was the bargain purchase of Marcos Llorente. Here are another 2 arrivals I hope can either develop into first teamers or just generally help to plug holes.
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Once touted as a future star of the game, Hervin has fallen victim to PSG's laughable spend at will transfer policy. The youngster managing just a handful of games for the PSG reserves.
Undoubtedly his star no longer shines as bright but for just 85K I am willing to gamble that he can still make progress & at least be a good money spinner for the club.
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With veteran Luisinho homesick & wanting to leave the addition of a leftback was a priority. Valancia man Salva Ruiz seemed to fit the bill nicely. The meagre 150K asking price a steal for a guy that still has a tremendous upside.
CantGetEnoughOfJelavic
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Nice moves, unlucky on the tough form.
Cheers mate, appreciate that!
I think the football can get a bit stale after a while so like to throw a few side stories in to keep it fresh. Glad its entertaining for others as well.
Deportivo 2 - Mallorca 1
Goals - Cases (6.), Lucas (55 pen), Ongenda (69)
P.O.M. - Omar Abdulrahman (Deportivo)
"After the tough lesson's learnt on the road to Elche I returned home (Yes I know I F'ed the header up!) with a much more cautious mentality against fellow strugglers Mallorca.
In just the 6th minute I feared my changes had been to no avail when Jose Maria Cases put the visitors in front after a long spell of possession.
I resisted the urge to go on the attack, preferring to stick with the plan I'd formulated pre match.
To our credit, we came back into the game, even controlled it. Although Mallorca continued to create chances at our end.
By the half I felt we had done enough to be level, if not in front, but we trailed 1-0. This time I chose to encourage the boys rather then be too harsh.
The second half started the way the first finished. Us in control, probing. In the 55th minute Omar A was bought down in the box & Lucas stepped up to take the penalty. My heart was in my mouth but the winger kept his cool & drew us level, phew, I had a bad feeling about that one!
The goal did little to change the flow of the game as we settled straight back into our flow.
In the 69th minute Abdulrahman played a wonderful little through ball to the feet of debutant, Hervin Ongenda, the new boy beat the keeper with a tidy finish to cap an impressive first up display & hand us 3 points. A very pleasing fight back."
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PatrickLFC
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****, I like Mallorca
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I honestly thought all my business was done. I was even preparing a boastful little piece about how Manuel had turned a relegation threatened team into European contenders without spending over 850K on a single player. That was until a news item caught my attention.
Former employers QPR had a ridiculously low 2M bid for Barcelona starlet Adama Traore accepted with just 3 hours left on the clock! I had been trying to loan Adama all window only to have him turn down my advances. I even made a bid to buy him but Barca quoted me 90M!!!!!
So with no time to waste I quickly tinkered with the finances & somehow scraped up just enough to join the race. I had been beaten to the punch by QPR before but this time would be different, this time there was no JC to grease the wheels with lap dances & the like, this time I would get my man!
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What a steal!!! I have spent my entire budget & am now 20K over wage budget but F@#K it! A potentially world class player & a chance to stick it to QPR! I couldn't pass that up!
CantGetEnoughOfJelavic
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Excited by Traore, could be what gets you the European football!
Yeah, I was absolutely shocked when I saw that Barca had accepted a 2M bid! Then when he agreed to join I was even more shocked! He had turned a loan deal down twice earlier in the window & 34K p/w was almost 20K short of what he wanted, although I did throw a lot of bonuses his way.