Managing in Malaysia...I must be crazy?!

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Season 2 - Part 1
Pre-season


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A decent pre-season however against lesser opposition for the main part except the last game. Good to see we have carried our form from late last season into pre-season.


After finishing 5th, the bookies make us 3rd favourites for some reason. They expect Darul Takzim to bounce back just as strong, as do I.


Shas and Samsudin are both defenders that will improve the back line. As Razali was released we were short on defenders.
Kamaruzaman is a young striker to play under study to Edward Wilson.
Rahim and Mohamed are young prospects that I am hoping to develop.
Alot of young players were released who wouldnt make the grade. the only first team players we let go were Razali and Azmi.

 
Season 2 - Part 2
The first half of the season​

A great start, the team have been superb defensively with special mentions to Miladinovic and Umar. We were missing Edward Wilson and Mohd Radzi (captain) to injury for the first 6 games or so, but 16 year old Mazlan has been playing central midfield and has been out performing Hariss Harun in all honesty. Kunanlan has been immense, some of his goals have been sublime, he has a habit of collecting the ball, waiting for the tackle to come, dodging it, creating space and then lashing the ball into the top corner, he has done that about 3 times.
As you can see, we have won every match...except the most recent one! A home defeat, I am worried that this could be a turn in our fortunes, although we did dominate that match and probably should have won.


Darul Takzim just will not back off. Hardly surprised that they average 2.5 goals a game, their front 3 is a different class. Kelantan are just not the team they were last season, they lost alot of players and seem to have a very young team now that is really hit and miss. You can see just how good our defence is!
We have had injury problems so far, Wilson, Radzi, Mohd Nor and Shas have all missed significant portions of the season so far, but as long as we keep Kunanlan and Miladinovic fit and Mazlan keeps playing like a Malaysian wonderkid, they hopefully we will do ok.
 

Could not be happier! Darul Takzim spent money in the transfer window bringing in a number of players whilst we signed a sub goalkeepers and a back up midfielder. I wasnt sure we were going to get over the line when Kunanlan and Wilson picked up injuries (Wilson missed probably the last 7 or 8 games of the season), but we managed to find our way to the title. We were disappointing in the FA Cup semi final, Takzim were by far the better team and I have to wonder if the season was 10 games longer would we have actually won the league.

But it is a 22 game season and we have won the title. That means we qualify for the Asian Confederations Cup (Europa league equivalent) for our first time! Kelantan and Terengganu played in it this season and neither club got past the group stage so I am thinking we will have our work cut out if we want to be successful but I cannot wait to find out!

Kunanlan was the player of the season and rightly so, he was also voted Super League Malaysian player of the season.
Wilson was superb when fit.
Mazlan really stepped up, just 16 years of age and he showed Radzi and Harun how to play central midfield.
Miladinovic, Umar and Ramli were great in defence but I wonder how much of our solid defence was down to an ever present Ewan Grandison playing just infront of them.
Suhaimi who we had on loan for the second season running has signed a contract to join us permanently.

Next season promises to be interesting...Miladinovic and Grandison's contracts expire soon and they are not playing ball on their renewals :/
 
Season 3 - Pre-Season
Higher expectations


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So after last season the expectation from the board and the bookies is higher than its ever been. Clearly we will need to be on our game this season if we are to repeat the achievements of last season.


A short pre-season as a number of players were playing international football over the break and I dont want to risk injuries as I have been plagued with them the last 2 seasons. An encouraging pre-season and no injuries were picked up!! Hurrah!


Miladinovic wanted a 150% pay rise and at 34 I felt that a deal like that did not represent value for money. 20% of our wage budget would have been spent on him had we been able to renew his deal. So although he has been superb for us, no one is bigger than the club. On the plus side, Ewan Grandison did sign a new deal, over the moon with that!

One thing you will notice from our transfers in is that only 1 FGN left, but 3 came in, meaning the club now has 6 foreign players (only 4 allowed in a match day squad, one of which must be Asian). My thinking behind this is that by only having 4 FGN players in the squad, we rely on them all being fit all season, this has never been the case, Rahan missed all season in year 1 and Wilson missed 8 or 9 games last season. With this in mind I decided to have a couple extra to cover for injuries and also in the hope that I can play all 6 in Continental competition where the rules on player restrictions are different.

Here are the 3 new FGNs:


Musa is Miladinovic's replacement, 10 years younger and should be a great player for us.
Papel is a regen who was offered to us by an agent, should be cover incase Wilson gets injured and act as his long term replacement.
Alexandre will form a great midfield 3 (alongside Harun and Grandison) in continental competition.

We also signed a Malaysian regen that our scouts found...high hopes for this kid:

 

A link up with Guangzhou Evergrande is an interesting one, they will pay us £15k per year and be able to send us players on loan, in exchange for them having first option on our players. We will have to see if there is anyone worth loaning once the transfer window opens.

As for the Continental qualification rules changing, that is huge news for Malaysia. Adds even more incentive to winning the league this season as you will now go into the Champions League qualifying, rather than the Confederations cup. Shame it didnt come a season earlier, but hopefully whoever gets the champions league qualifying spot does it justice to ensure we dont lose it.
 

Winning the Charity Shield was a nice way to start the season, especially as it means I have now won 3 out of the 4 pieces of silverware possible in Malaysia, with only the FA Cup escaping us so far.
Our first 4 league games did not go to plan as we found just 1 win!
Edward Wilson couldnt hit a barn door and we were lacking creativity. A couple of changes, most notably, saw Kamaruzaman replace Wilson in the side and he has been in rich goalscoring form since.
Musa has been a rock, Mazlan continues to excel in centre midfield and Ewan Grandison continues to prove what an asset he is.
Kunanlan also keeps turning on the magic and Kamaruzaman is usually on hand to finish it off. Papel has also recently broken into the side and is playing well.

You can see from the league table, it really is anyones title this season. Kelantan have slipped up recently but Darul Takzim, like us, have only lost once this season, its going to be interesting!

Asian Confederations Cup draw


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I feel confident. Teams from Myanmar and Chinese Taipei dont worry me too much, although the North Korean's may challenge us, especially away from home. I think we will be the two looking to win the group. As Kelantan and Terrangaru couldnt even get out of the group last season, I think we stand a good chance of doing Malaysia proud.
 
Season 3 - Part 3
The season gets exciting


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FA Cup - For the 2nd year running we are knocked out by Darul Takzim over two legs, looks like that piece of silverware will evade us for another season but I dont mind too much.

Super League - Huge wins over Darul Takzim and Kelantan mean we are 5 points clear with 5 games to play. Kamaruzaman has been inspired leading to my decision to release Edward Wilson at the end of this season. Mazlan continues to progress! My left back, Ramli has picked up an injury for 3 months meaning he will miss the rest of the season, its a shame as he has been so consistent all season.

Asian Confederations Cup - Very pleased to progress through the group. We had progressed after 4 games allowing me to play some youngsters in the last 2 group games. We have drawn Hong Kong Rangers in the next round which will be our biggest test yet, they have alot of Hong Kong internationals with a few FGN players similar to us. As you can see Darul Takzim were highly disappointing!

As I mentioned, Edward Wilson (our highest paid player, £1200 per week) will leave at the end of the season, he has not been good this season at all and at 32 I think its time to move him on. With that in mind I signed his replacement already:

 
Season 3 - Part 4
Consecutive league titles!


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We did it! Only 1 defeat all season and conceded just 13 goals in 22 games, yet despite that we only won the title by 5 points as Darul Takzim threatened all season. Roslan (GK), Umar (DR) and Musa (DC) were named in the Super League team of the year and rightly so. Mahayuddin will be leaving at the end of the season so it is nice that he signed off with the winning goal in our final game at the age of 35.
Special mentions to Kamaruzaman, Kunanlan and Papel, an immense front 3 and with Suhaimi and Pereira coming off the bench I have 5 quality players up there. Also Mazlan, averaging 7.14 at just 17 years of age.

As for the Confederations Cup, a convincing win against Rangers from Hong Kong, the Quarter Final awaits!


Champions League qualification!! Biggest achievement yet and I cannot wait to test myself on the biggest stage Asia has to offer.


I am apparantly the best manager to have ever managed in Malaysia :) I guess that was one of the reasons for this....


Of course I declined the offer. Oxford, York, Port Vale and Gillingham also offered me interviews. No thanks! Very flattered but we are on the cusp of something massive in Malaysia.

In other news, Edward Wilson will be joining Darul Takzim when his contract expires.
 
Season 3 - Youth intake​

Very pleased with this season's intake, both players below have 4/5 stars potential according to my assistant. With Mohd Radzi leaving at the end of the season, I see Muhamad as the replacement for him. Cheng will probably be my back up right back for Umar.

 

Delighted to do the double!!

Confederations Cup - Knocked out at the Quarter Final stage by Al-Orouba of Oman who went on to win the tounrament. We just couldn't cope with them away from home and it cost us. All in all though I am quite pleased with our first continental showing and looking forward to the Champions League next season.

Malaysian Cup - To win it for the 2nd time is fantastic. I was able to blood a few youngsters, especially in the group stage. The final against Darul Takzim was quite a spectacle. 3 of their starting 11 are joining us on free's at the end of the season. Edward Wilson was up front for them and scored the equaliser that meant we went to penalties. Who missed the penalties for Takzim? Edward Wilson and Brendan Gan (who is now on £5,000 per week). To be honest, Darul Takzim had way more chances than we did but we have a very good goalkeeper which is just aswell as they will be a real threat next season with Wilson and new signing Jerome Doe up front.


Coming next....an ex-England international signs for FELDA United!​
 
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