Matt Bullard's Managerial Career

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Bullardinho

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Bullard Unveiled As New Gills Boss


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Gillingham Football Club are set to give young, unproven manager Matt Bullard his first opportunity in professional football. Many Gills fans are sceptical of their clubs new appointment, with most worried that his limited experience will not be enough to help the club fight off the expected threat of relegation.

Club Chairman and Owner Paul Scally has never been one to shy away from controversy and has once again shocked the Priestfield faithful by appointment Bullard as the clubs new boss, despite the 27 year old not having any previous experience.

Bullard himself has spoken out against his doubters, 'I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to manage such a big club in my first professional managerial role, I know that many will doubt my credentials but I am hungry, I am passionate and I will succeed'.


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Transfers

After taking a few training sessions, it was clear to me that whilst there was a great atmosphere in the dressing room, there was a distinct lack in quality. The first report prepared by my new assistant suggested that there would be some decent talent in the squad, however things weren't quite as rosy as he had first made out. Compared to some of the squads in the league we are severely lacking the quality needed at the moment to stay up and recruitment is my main priority right now.


First Signing

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Absolutely delighted with my first signing, Dani brings some terrific technical qualities along with a certain European flair. This signing does eat up a lot of our budget, making him our marquee signing but I also have a lot of free transfer and loan options lined up.


Dani Aquino Profile

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Pre Season

I feel like it has been difficult to learn much about the squad over our pre season with most of our friendlies being against lesser opposition and the majority of my time has been spent trying to find the right players to improve the squad. Unfortunately we do not have the best scouting network in the world due to our lack of funds and employees, making the task extremely difficult and putting a lot of the onus on myself find the talent. That being said, we did have a pretty straight forward pre-season and the squad seem to be in good spirits. The only negatives being that it has shown that just one injury to our 'first eleven' puts us in jeopardy.


Friendlies

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Stand Out Players

Cody McDonald

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John Egan

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Jermaine McGlashan

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New Signings

Jack Collison - Free Transfer

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Jack has had an awful time with injuries over the last few years after such a promising start to his career with West Ham in the Premier League. With big game experience and full international caps to his name, I felt that he would be well worth the risk.


Luke O'Neill - Loan - Burnley

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We were really short on quality in the wide defensive areas and Luke offers us a good option on both the left and right, he may not necessarily be a first choice option but he definitely offers quality in depth.


Frank Simek - Free Transfer

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The ex-Arsenal player Frank Simek once again adds some much needed experience and quality to the team, a decent amount of Premiership/Championship matches coupled with his international experience can only be a benefit to the team.


Graham Burke - Loan - Aston Villa

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George offers us more options in attack, he possesses some good technical and physical attributes compared to the league's standards and will be a good addition to our attacking options.


Charlie Taylor - Loan - Leeds

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I am delighted to bring Charlie into our defensive line. He has bags of potential and wouldn't be out of place in most Championship sides, adding real quality to our back line.
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New Affiliate Club

With the finances dried up and our squad still needing some big improvements, we were desperately in need of a parent affiliate club, hopefully a big team who had good youth players they were willing to send out on loan for free, I made my plea to the board straight away and to my good fortune..


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I am absolute delighted to agree affiliation with Mourinho's Chelsea. They have some fantastic youth players that we can bring in for free and the annual payment of £80k is a good bonus as well. With that agreement we saw the addition for three players come in with in a matter of days.


New Loanees

Ruben Loftus-Cheek

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Alex Kiwomya

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Charley Musonda

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get Lewis Baker!!!
he'd be your first choice set piece taker, amazing player!

20 penalties.. he hasn't missed a single one on my save for 3 years, and he scores a good amount from free kicks as well..
 
xtremeRED said:
get Lewis Baker!!!
he'd be your first choice set piece taker, amazing player!

20 penalties.. he hasn't missed a single one on my save for 3 years, and he scores a good amount from free kicks as well..
Click to expand...

I was hoping to sign him along with Izzy Brown but unfortunately they were both on loan.
 
Season Odds

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Clearly the media seem to think this is going to be a challenging season for us but I really hope we can prove them wrong and at least push for a mid-table position.



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August

Results

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Not the start to the season I had hoped for, however we have battled well in each game and I cannot fault the players on their effort. The highlight of the month was definitely the performance against Newcastle in the FA Cup 2nd round, we were so close to causing a massive upset and I was extremely proud of the lads. Just two points out of a possible fifteen in the league isn’t good enough and we definitely need to show improvements soon if we are going to avoid the drop. We still have a lot of new players that are yet to settle in the team and I have confidence in us being able to turn our fortunes around and have a better month in September.


League Table

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ouch! tough start to the season there.. but hope with time you can turn things around..

I have observed playing 4-1-4-1/4-4-1-1/4-4-2 helps in lower leagues...

deadly circle is the best 4-4-2 tactic I've seen in the forum here..
 
Bullardinho said:
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New Signings

Jack Collison - Free Transfer

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Jack has had an awful time with injuries over the last few years after such a promising start to his career with West Ham in the Premier League. With big game experience and full international caps to his name, I felt that he would be well worth the risk.


Luke O'Neill - Loan - Burnley

View attachment 936260
We were really short on quality in the wide defensive areas and Luke offers us a good option on both the left and right, he may not necessarily be a first choice option but he definitely offers quality in depth.


Frank Simek - Free Transfer

View attachment 936263
The ex-Arsenal player Frank Simek once again adds some much needed experience and quality to the team, a decent amount of Premiership/Championship matches coupled with his international experience can only be a benefit to the team.


Graham Burke - Loan - Aston Villa

View attachment 936266
George offers us more options in attack, he possesses some good technical and physical attributes compared to the league's standards and will be a good addition to our attacking options.


Charlie Taylor - Loan - Leeds

View attachment 936269
I am delighted to bring Charlie into our defensive line. He has bags of potential and wouldn't be out of place in most Championship sides, adding real quality to our back line.
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Click to expand...

good start mate.. following!
o.png
 
xtremeRED said:
ouch! tough start to the season there.. but hope with time you can turn things around..

I have observed playing 4-1-4-1/4-4-1-1/4-4-2 helps in lower leagues...

deadly circle is the best 4-4-2 tactic I've seen in the forum here..
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, I have played around with the tactics a little and I think I have found a 4-3-2-1 system that works. I will give that tactic a look cheers!

wheelercolby said:
good start mate.. following!
o.png
Click to expand...

Thanks mate :)
 
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September

Results

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September was a much better month for us, a small tweak in the tactics seemed to improve our fortunes. We notched up a four match unbeaten run including the Johnstone's Paint Trophy away win against Peterborough and managed to grab 7 vital points out of 15, a vast improvement on August. We actually had the better share of both matches against Walsall and Sheffield United, we just seem to be lacking a goals coring presence with Cody McDonald not at his best, ultimately that was what cost us both games.


League Table

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October

Results

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I am pleased once again with what I have seen in October despite our exit from the Johnstone's trophy, a competition that I do not have any real interest in. 7 points in the league means we are keeping the our head about water for the time being. The most pleasing performance of the month has to be our first game against Notts County, going a goal down twice before fighting back valiantly to earn the 3 points. Pleasing performances for the most part and plenty to build upon.


League Table

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