Chapter 19: A Massive Injury Blow
As we continue developing our worldwide presence, we have added another affiliate club, this time to bolster our reputation in Australia.
Going into our cup tie against Monaco, both the board and fans don't expect us to win the game.
Which I find strange as I have an unbeaten record against them so far.
And we kept our unbeaten record (under me) as we go through after a penalty shootout. Anthony Lopes was the hero of the shootout as he saved Monaco's first two penalties to put us well in the driving seat. Then 4 perfect pens from my lads ensured we go into the quarter final draw.
The Quarter Final will see us play Brest, the side we beat 2-0 in the semi final last season! Hopefully we can repeat the feat to gte through to the last 4. Nice could be a potential banana skin for PSG.
With that quarter final looming just 4 days away, I rotated my squad for the league game against Troyes. Daniel Naumov and Rico Henry were handed debuts, whilst Beljo gets an opportunity to lead the line.
Beljo took his chance up top by scoring a brace, with two headed efforts, on route to another league win!
But we did receive a massive blow during the Troyes game. Corentin Tolisso who is undoubtedly one of my first names on the teamsheet has suffered an injury that will keep him out for the rest of the season!!
Despite the absence of Tolisso, we cruised past Brest in the quarter final of the Coupe de France. The 2-0 scoreline doesn't really reflect just how dominant we were here and we could easily have had 4 or 5.
If we are going to retain our Coupe de France trophy this season, we are going to have to do it the hardest way possible as we've drawn the odds on favourites in the semi final.
For now though, we turn our attentions back to Ligue 1...a competition we haven't lost in for nearly a whole year now!! The last team to beat us in March 2023 was Nantes, who will be our next opponents.
But this year Nantes are really struggling at the foot of the table and we inflict a big defeat on them here! Habib Keita will likely be getting more game time after the injury to Tolisso and he scored his first goal for the senior team here to get us up and running.
After a few months without any Champions League action, it was time for the 1st leg of our last 16 tie against Wolfsburg and we'd head out to Germany first to take on the club that are currently struggling in 9th place in the Bundesliga. We are certainly favoutites to come through this tie and a win in the away leg would put us in a strong position.
But things didn't exactly go to plan as we suffer defeat! We're still very much in this tie, but we have it all to do in the home leg now!
Back in domestic football it was business as usual though with a win over Lille. Rico Henry's first goal for the club seals the victory.
It can't be underestimated just how big that win was over Lille as we are only the second team to beat them all season! The gap between us and them in 3rd is ever growing, but unfortunately the 6 point gap between us and PSG at the top hasn't closed at all. We have won 7 league games in a row, but PSG just keep winning as well!
Chapter 20: I ******* Hate PSG
How we didn't beat Reims by about 10 goals I'll never know...we missed a whole host of golden opportunities in this game. However, we weren't punished for it and the single strike by Pablo Sarabia was enough for the 3 points!
At least we got a win to go into our massive Coupe de France semi final against PSG. However, the last time we played PSG at their home ground, we lost 6-0...
This result was a lot more respectable than that, but we did still lose and are out of the cup to the team that continues to be a thorn in my side! I really thought we had snatched a draw to take it to penalties as well, when with 94:44 on the clock, Lucas Moura found himself one on one with the PSG keeper only to see his shot hit the inside of the post before trickling across the line and then cleared! Gutting!
I was hoping we could make amends for the cup defeat, by overturning our first leg result against Wolfsburg in the Champions League.
And we did exactly that. An excellent performance as we battered Wolfsburg on our home turf, with the win capped off with a wonderful strike from Ben Romdhane as he hit a powerful volleyed effort from outside the box which hit top bins for our 4th goal.
And we followed it up with a comfortable win over bottom of the league, Brest!
This year's youth intake has been classed as 'good' but I'm not so sure. There doesn't seem to be a single prospect in this year's crop that I'm looking at with any real excitement.
The quarter final draw for the Champions League pits us against AC Milan who have a much richer history in this competion than us! Everyone will be looking at that Bayern/Man City tie with the winners likely to be favourites to win the whole thing.
And if we can get past Milan, then we could end up facing Italian opposition again in the form of Juventus. That's if they get past Liverpool of course!
But before we play any more Champions League, we had three more league games to get through first. Three league games that resulted in three more wins! That is now 12 straight Ligue 1 wins in a row for us now!
But every time we win, so do ******* PSG!!! It's official, I hate them!! We are unbeaten all season and have won 20 of our 27 matches and are still 6 points off the lead...it's insane!
The Rennes result took us to 37 games unbeaten in Ligue 1 which beat PSG's previous record of 36!
The 50 best wonderkids in world football are again announced and we actually have a player in the mix this year...and it actually shocked me as I haven't taken any notice of him whatsoever up until now!
Mohamed El Arouch is out on loan at Caen this season and has done OK, but not spectacular. However, with the recognition he is getting I look forward to his return in the Summer when I may look to integrate him into the first team squad.
The wonderkid I can't believe doesn't even make the top 50 is Diego Coppola who has been absolutely amazing for us this season at the age of 20! His stock in the game has risen so much that he is now worth in excess of £60 million and he's even been performing at a high level in the Champions League despite his young age. How this kid isn't in the top 50 I don't know...he should be up there in the top 10 in my opinion! I wrote all this little rant and then realised the fact he isn't in the list is because he is 20 years old...but he's still worth showing you anyway because he is so **** good!
Chapter 21: End Of Season 2
Time for our Champions League Quarter Final and we're off to Italy for the first leg! As expected, AC Milan are the favourites to win this game and their main danger man is Rafael Leao with his lightning pace and dribbling skills.
And he absolutely destroyed us! We were never in this game and got royally battered! We need a miracle to turn this around in the 2nd leg and it looks very likely that this is where our Champions League run comes to an end!
I could only hope that that battering wouldn't effect us as we faced off against Monaco back in Ligue 1. But my worst fears were realised as we were thumped for the 2nd game in a row! Absolutely awful and these last two games have seen us put in our worst two performances of the season by a long, long way!
We were miles better back in the 2nd leg of the Champions League and gave a good account of ourselves in the home tie against AC Milan. However, the damage was done in the 1st game and was always going to be near on impossible to recover. Hopefully, we can take something from this though and get back on track for the last few league games.
The money in the Champions League is game changing though as we all know and even going out at the quarter final stage nets us more than £9 million! On top of everything we have already raked in this season from the competition!
With league games being played at the same time and results going in our favour, we are guaranteed a top 4 finish this season and will definitely be back for more Champions League football next season!
And with that, the board announce a £200k per week boost to the wage budget as well as making nearly £25 million available for transfers this Summer!
Our next league game at home to Angers left me angry (see what I did there) with the amount of chances we missed again! A bad point!
Three away days followed and we quickly put things right with three straight wins.
Alan Velasco has three goals in his last two appearances and the youngster has really emerged this season into a very quality player! Hopefully we can keep him here for years to come and build the attacking side of the team around him!
Our final home game of the season would be against Le Havre, who will be happy with their season. They sit 12th and have done well to steer clear of the relegation places all season, despite being tipped to finish dead last.
It was an easy win for us to round off the home side of our campaign though. Henrique Araujo moved into double figures for the season with his goal! A good return for the youngster who only signed in Jan.
Our final game of the season would once again be against PSG, just as it had been last year. And just as it did last year, it ends in a draw! A decent performance from my lads and we have managed to hold them to a draw in both league games this season!
But it is PSG who again lift the Ligue 1 trophy by 8 points over us who have to settle for the bridesmaid spot again. Just as last season, we were well clear of 3rd place, but it's hard for us to take that we were still so far behind PSG when we only lost a single game all season! Unfortunately, all the time they are winning 29 of 34 league games, it's going to be a very difficult challenge to overhaul them! But we will continue to build our squad and try to get closer again next year.
PSG also lifted the Coupe de France after beating Reims in the final!
Chapter 22: End of Season 2023/24 Review
It was again a decent season where we finished an easy 2nd place to the mighty PSG who are going to take some serious pegging back! Marseille and Lille will join us in the Champions League next year, while Nantes just about avoided the drop at the other end after they had a disappointing campaign.
Another good cup run in the Coupe de France came to an end in the semi final where eventual winners, PSG knocked us out. No shame in that though.
We also did ourselves proud in the Champions League this season, coming through our group as winners, before a good victory over Wolfsburg in the last 16. AC Milan proved too strong for us, but this year's efforts amongst Europe's elite gives us something to build on.
This year's annual revenues were all on the rise from last season as we continue to grow as a football club. The prize money was the area where the most significant boost was seen due to Champions League football.
The new signings this season for the most part proved to be very good additions. Both Dion Beljo and Henrique Araujo got their goals tallies into the double figures and with them both being young still, they could easily improve on this next season. Rico Henry was a fantastic addition at left back and recorded a really strong average rating in the second half of the season, whilst Pablo Sarabia is the bargain of the century still for me! Lucas Moura did his bit without being outstanding, but the signing of the season and biggest revelation was Diego Coppola and the centre back wonderkid looks like he could be at the heart of our defence for years to come!
The Best 11...
Houssem Aouar picks up fan's player of the season for the second year running, whilst Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane is the surprise winner of the young player of the season, which I really thought would go to Diego Coppola.
Aouar continued to grow his reputation as well as he came 3rd in the Champions League midfielder of the season!
Overall squad stats...
Houssem Aouar was our only player to make the Stars Team of the Season this year.
He also made the Ligue 1 Team as well.
Going into next season, the suppporter profile hasn't changed much and Champions League qualification in the league will again be seen as sufficient.
Which will be the same for the board as well. The main aim with the club structure is very much to continue focusing on youth development and bringing good young players to the club.
Chapter 23: Double Swoop For Rennes Duo
As the title of this chapter suggests, we kicked off our Summer transfer business with a double swoop for two players from Rennes. I will be looking to offload a couple of squad players this Summer in the central midfield positions and I wanted to bring in a player who ticked a couple of specific boxes for me in that role. Firstly, I wanted a French player and secondly I wanted someone who can play my DLP, BBM or AP role, so they needed to be quite versatile. That player is 29 year old, Baptiste Santamaria, who comes in for a fee of £8.25 million. He will be an excellent squad rotation option and because he can play any of my three central midfield roles, he is likely to still get lots of game time for us.
The second player from Rennes that joins is attacking talent, Amine Gouiri. It's great to add another French player to the ranks and the 24 year old has been one of Rennes best players over the past couple of seasons, bagging 12 goals and 5 assists during last year's campaign. He will provide competition down the left side for Alan Velasco and I forked out £16.5 million to bring him to the club.
Another player that joins the club to boost the attacking options for next season is Arsenal's Fabio Vieira. He only joins on loan for the season after making 57 appearances for The Gunners over the last two seasons, although most of them have been cameos as a substitute. He can make an impact in France. We will pay no monthly fees for him and cover 70% of his wages for the duration of the loan.
Meanwhile, two teenagers have been promoted to the first team squad for the upcoming season as I look to introduce them to senior football at Lyon. The first is right back Sael Kumbedi, who made a couple of appearances at the back end of last season and showed a little promise. He has lots of potential! The second player is a product of season 1's youth intake - Bernard Lasserre. He is still only 16 years old, but valued at a whopping £20 million plus and is one of the brightest prospects in French football...we'll see what he can do, but this kid surely has a massive future ahead of him!
Our first departure of the Summer sees 35 year old Jerome Boateng leave the club for CF Monterrey for £135k. He only made 10 appearances for us last season (4 as a sub) and I feel we have much better options at centre back now.
With Boateng leaving the club, I wanted to bring in an experienced centre back as his replacement and someone who could offer some mentoring to our young guns, Copella and Erakovic. I've turned to London and raided Arsenal for another loan signing and I'm delighted to bring Gabriel to the club for the upcoming season. We are having to pay £130k monthly fee and his entire £100k per week wages, but he could prove well worth it!
We had to balance the books a little on the wage budget after taking on Gabriel's salary, so Alexandre Lacazette becomes the latest player to leave the club. He was on a whopping £90k per week and wasn't justifying that with his playing time last season, so he joins Cadiz for £1.5 million.
And he is followed out the club by right back Ivan Balliu. I signed him for £3.4 million at the start of my career and after playing 51 league games for the club, I recouped £3.6 million back for him. I'll take that.
Johann Lepenant is the next to go as he joins Eintracht Frankfurt for £3 million.
The main player I wanted rid of this Summer was Florian Thauvin and I've had a right result. After offering him out again, Al-Ittihad came in with a bid of £18 million and I bit their hand off to get rid. Made £8 million profit in a season on a player who only played here for 6 months and was pretty rubbish. Touch!
My next signing into the club was a big one in terms of coaching staff. I have a new right hand man in the form of ex Spain, Real Madrid and Sevilla Assistant Manager, Pavlo Sanz.
Then came my biggest signing of the Summer. Jordan Pickford comes in from Everton and becomes the highest paid player at the club on £125k per week! He will be our new number 1 keeper for the next 2-4 seasons and the £17.5 million fee I paid for him should easily be paid back with his quality between the sticks!
And Anthony Lopes goes in the opposite direction for £17 million.
What a servant Lopes has been to the club, spending his entire career with us and making 380 league appearances. A true Lyon legend and maybe one day I'll try to get him back here in a staffing capacity.
And then I made a massive balls-up! I've signed a new striker which is obviously a good thing as Gabriel Barbosa joins from Tottenham for a fee of £13.25 million! However, what I didn't realise is that I now have 5 non EU players in the first team squad and I'm only allowed to register 4!! Someone's got to go but I don't want to lose any of them. I've got Pickford, Rico Henry, Gabriel, Alan Velasco and Barbosa!
Chapter 24: Start Of Season 3
Rico Henry was the player I decided to omit from the squad (due to the non EU rules) and try to sell. But that would mean that I needed to bring in another left back to replace him. The main I opted for is 26 year old Croatian, Borna Sosa, who joins from Stuttgart for £9.75 million. Sosa is a good attacking wing back, with strong crossing ability and decent pace. He has 16 assists in the Bundesliga over the past 2 seasons and I'm hoping he can bring the same level of creativity here.
With Anthony Lopes leaving the club this Summer, I needed a new captain and there was no better man for the job than my favourite player!
Aouar's first game with the armband would be the Trophee Les Champions. After PSG won both the league and cup last year, it falls upon us as runners up in Ligue 1 to face off against them in this pre season trophy again. Both sides were taking this seriously though with strong lineups.
It was a case of same old story though as we were well beaten after a dominant performance from PSG!
That's now seven meetings we've had with PSG and haven't managed a single win!
At least the rest of pre-season went well!
With the Ligue 1 season about to kick off, it's time to take a look at the preview. Our odds are the shortest they have been for the title win at 13/1, but PSG are still massive odds on favourites to lift the title again. Every single one of the media dream 11 is a PSG player again as well...it's actually quite ridiculous!
Our season was to start against a Nice side that were predicted a top 6 finish, so it would be anything but easy. And it did prove to be a tough game, with just a single goal to settle it...luckily it was us who got it!
Our second game would be against PSG and I needed to try something different after no wins in 7 against them. This is the tactic that will hopefully unlock the door to a better result!
We did manage to pick up a draw but it could have been so much more after we took a 2-0 lead into the half time break! We were absolutely battered in the second half though and in the end a draw will do!
It was straight back to winning ways against Lorient though. We won by 2...probably should have been 4 or 5! Jordan Pickford made a big penalty save in the 77th minute to ensure we didn't have any nervous times in the last few minutes.
The Champions League starts it's new format this year in the league of 36 teams!
And we have been handed a very mixed bag in terms of fixtures. Some of Europe's biggest and best and some games we should win comfortably. Should be interesting!
For now though we had another league game to take care of and Brest were our next opponents. Talking of games we expect to win, this is one of them as we have a perfect record against them under my management.
And it was another comfortable victory, even despite Coppola's sending off early in the 2nd half. A solid defensive performance and we took our chances well too.
Four games into the new season and we top the table with an unbeaten record. So basically, we just have to win our next 30 games without dropping any points to finally prize the title away from PSG! Easy right?!
Chapter 25: Unbeaten League Start Is Gone
The transfer window is now shut, but just before it closed there was one final departure from the club. Lucas Moura has fallen well down the pecking order and when Atalanta came in and offered me £10.75 million for a player I got on a free, I was more than happy to move him on.
Our bank balance is actually in a very strong position right now! We also have a nice £11 million in the transfer budget for Janaury too. Things are looking pretty rosy financially.
Strasbourg were our next league opponents and to say it was an easy win for us would be an understatement! We smashed 6 past them with our front line on absolute fire!
Our first Champions League opponents this season in the new league format would be Sevilla. A club that have become experts in the Europa League having won it 6 times in the last 18 years, but never quite done it at the elite level.
And their fans will have questions for their team after this as well. We were clinical in the first half, taking a 2-0 lead, only for Sevilla to bring it back to 2-2 in the 81st minute. With their team on top, it looked as though they would go on and win it (if anyone would). However, substitute Pablo Sarabia comes off the bench to hammer home a winner for us in the 85th minute and our Champions League campaign kicks off with a win!
Our youth development is strong...we know that...and it is backed up by the latest numbers of top league player development. Only 5 teams in Europe have been responsible for bringing through more players that are now playing their football in Europe's top 5 leagues!
Three more Ligue 1 games and three more unbeaten but with mixed feelings about all three. The draw away at Lille is respectable enough, especially as they were very good. The draw against Metz is bitterly disappointing! The win over Nantes is a very good result considering they are 5th in the league and doing a lot, lot better than last season!
Our unbeaten start to the season has prompted the board to offer me a new 5 year contract, which I gladly accept!
Meanwhile, Henrique Araujo's performances over the past month have earned him the Player of the Month for September.
Back in the Champions League, we record a very easy win over Rosenborg to make it 2 wins from 2 in the competition. Fabio Vieira starred with 2 goals and an assist.
Vieira has actually settled in her very well and already has 9 goal contributions in 9 appearances this season, 4 goals and 5 assists.
We'd need him to be at his best in our next couple of games as Ligue 1 was going to throw up two very difficult fixtures!
The away fixture at Monaco was the only league game we lost all last season and this year it has proven to stump us again! Sael Kumbedi's sending off on 29 minutes certainly didn't help and it was a brave effort from there, but ultimately it was too much to ask!
However, I got the perfect response from my lads as we went out a beat Marseille in the following game. A massive win over our rivals!
10 games into the season and it's a familiar story with PSG top and us 2nd. Only a 3 point gap at the moment though!
In the Champions League we dropped points for the first time this season as we have to settle for a draw out in Denmark. We thought we'd won the game in stoppage time with Dion Beljo hit the back of the net, only for the goal to be ruled out for the narrowest of offsides.
After the opening 3 games though, we sit in a decent enough position.
Chapter 26: Still Unbeaten In The Champions League
I kind of love my board. Last year as we approached the January transfer window, they boosted the transfer kitty, and this year they've done it again!
We paid back the board for their financial boost with two more wins on the pitch. A big win over Lens as we smash 5 past them before a last minute winner over Montpellier!
That would lead us into one of the toughest, if not the toughest possible Champions League fixture. Manchester City were our next opponents - a team that sports the best striker in the world in Erling Haaland, alongside Kevin de Bruyne and Phil Foden, whilst they have also now added the likes of Dani Olmo and James Maddison to their ranks!
But we absolutely held our own against one of the best sides in the world and earned ourselves a very credible point!
Back in domestic football, both Baptiste Santamaria and Amine Gouiri had their first opportunity to return to Rennes following their Summer moves. However, it wasn't a happy return for them in a game where everything went wrong for us. Awful goalkeeping performance from Pickford, a red card, a penalty. A really terrible day at the office!
The best 50 players in the world are named and again not a single one of ours makes the list.
A very good all round performance against Clermot Foot ensured we quickly put the disappointment of the Rennes result behind us!
We carried that form into Europe as well with a good win at home to AZ in the Champions League! A couple of banging goals here as Tolisso opened the scoring with a powerful shot from 30 yards that went in off the bar, before Aouar curled home a free kick in the 2nd half for our 3rd goal.
Two comfortable wins against Le Havre and Toulouse continue our good domestic form as well. Finally, Gabriel Barbosa has his first goals for the club after a really slow start in a Lyon shirt!
But there was some pretty tragic news between those two games as we lose Jordan Pickford to injury for the next 3 months!!
An impressive team effort against Hoffenheim after the 39th minute sending off of Nicolas Tagliafico ensured we kept up our unbeaten run in the Champions League this season! We're pretty much guaranteed to finish in the top 24 now and get a playoff knockout place no matter what, but top 8 looks a real possibility which would give us an automatic spot in the last 16.
Our last Ligue 1 game of 2024 resulted in an away win at Auxerre. Never really in doubt!
It means that at the half way stage of the season, we sit in our all too familiar position of 2nd. However, there is only a 2 point gap to PSG...who are still unbeaten!
And we finished off the calendar year with a rout against French minnows, Marignane, in the Coupe de France.
Really like following this story; you're doing a great job! For a future update; might be nice to go a more in depth about you're tactics, the way you set up your team and the reasoning why?
Chapter 27: One Full Back Out, One Full Back In
Rico Henry is the unfortunate casualty of my **** up in the Summer of bringing in too many non EU players and he has left the club to sign for Club America for £13.5 million. Gutted to see him go, but at least we recouped what we paid for him.
The new player to join is right back Fabiano Souza who comes in for £20 million to challenge Malo Gusto for his starting spot in the team. The 24 year old may be Brazilian but he doesn't class as non-EU as he has Portuguese as a second nationality (I did check before signing him LOL).
Meanwhile, in contract news, my favourite player signs on for another 5 years!
Back to the action now after the Winter break and we kicked off the new year with a Coupe de France win over Dijon.
Our first league game back wasn't the greatest though as we laboured to a 1-1 draw away at Metz, who haven't won in 13 matches! Poor, poor result!
And to make things worse, we lose Borna Sosa for 3 months to injury! That's both Sosa and Pickford now missing on long term injuries!
It meant I needed a replacement for him, but I didn't want to sign anyone on a permanent basis. Ludwig Augustinsson has been in and out of the team at Sevilla this season and I moved to bring him in on loan until the end of the year as cover.
At that point I received a massive £55 million bid for central midfielder Maxence Caqueret. I thought about it...for about 5 seconds...then swiftly rejected it!
He's been a key part of my squad ever since I took over and is getting better and better each season! It would take possibly 80 or 90 million for me to consider letting him go!
A very entertaining game away at Brest saw both teams muster up 37 shots at goal between them. But it was us that just about came out on top, even with 10 men after Tagliafico was sent off. That's the 3rd time this season he has seen red and I'm going to be having words with him about his conduct!
Our next Champions League game would be a massive fixture as we played hosts to Atletico Madrid! A win would almost guarantee us a place in the last 16 and fans and pundits do give us a pretty even chance.
And they were right to give us a chance as we go out there and pick up a very big victory! What a performance and this is definitely up there as one of the best results of my career so far!
Barring something dreadful happening in our last game, we will be guaranteed a top 8 spot and make the last 16. Our last game will see 1st take on 2nd in the league table as we take on one of Europe's best out in Germany!
Before that though, we had another Ligue 1 game to play as we faced off against Lorient, the overachievers of the season. Despite being predicted a 14th placed finish by the media this year, they find themselves in 4th place and challenging for European qualification next year!
However, we dominated them here and get a good win over one of the teams trying to chase us down at the top end of the table.
But the injuries keep mounting up and we've now lost both Fabio Vieira and Malo Gusto for up to 4 weeks each!
Hopefully, even with these key players out, we can keep up with PSG as best we can. They have a 4 point lead over us and just one defeat could put them out of reach for another season!
Chapter 28: We Finally Beat The *******!
Our final Champions League game ended in defeat out in Germany. I'm not too worried though as we had a number of players missing and Bayern are one of the best teams in the world.
I'm even less fussed because despite the defeat, we make the top 8 in the league stage and get an automatic pass through to the last 16 of the competition!
Transfer deadline day came round and I had £12 million sitting spare in the kitty. I decided to spend some of it on some future prospects. Welcome three sixteen year olds to the club. Cihat van de Gevel (signed from FC Twente for £4.5 million), Seidu Quansah (signed from 1860 Munchen for £250k) and Niccolo Brescia (signed from Parma for £575k).
Meanwhile, PSG strengthened on deadline day by adding the £45.5 million signing of English winger, Marcus Edwards, to their ranks.
However, that doesn't even close to the £123 million paid out by Liverpool to bring Dusan Vlahovic to the club from Juventus!
With the transfer window now out the way, it was time to turn our attentions back to actions on the pitch and a potential banana skin cup tie against Ligue 2 side St Etienne. The fact it wasn't as easy a tie as paper might suggest with us in the 1st and 2nd tier was reflected in the match odds. Probably because it is the Rhone Derby so anything can happen!
But it was an easy win for us and bragging rights go to our fans! The scoreline doesn't reflect just how easy this game was for us and we really should have won by about 5 or 6!
And that sets up THAT TIE again! Yep, it's us against PSG in the quarter final!
In a bid to continue improving our affiliations we clubs in other countries and ideally give us access to their youth players, we have set up a new one with Croatian side, Hadjuk Split.
A narrow victory over Strasbourg and a thrashing of Lille followed in the league, before possibly the biggest week of our season so far!
The reason that week was going to be so big was because we were to face off against PSG in both league and cup within 5 days of one another!
The league game came first and we finally did it! We finally beat PSG!!! And we were ****** good value for it as well! I'm so happy!
Not only was it the first league game PSG have lost this season, but it closes the gap between us and them to just a single point! Yes the advantage is still with them of course, but we have reduced their margin of error massively!
Unfortunately we weren't able to replicate the PSG result in the cup and with home advantage back on their side they got the better of us to knock us out for the 2nd season in a row. However, it was still a brave effort from my lads and we were very much in this game!
Chapter 29: Another Encounter With AC Milan
The last 16 of the Champions League has thrown us against the same side that knocked us out in the quarter final last year. Will it be repeat or revenge against AC Milan?
Before that though, our next league opponents would be Monaco who have beaten us in both of our last 2 meetings. We have a very even record against them and the general consensus was that this game could go either way.
And it really could have, with both sides creating some good chances. Neither set of strikers were on form with their finishing though and only a headed effort from Gabriel was enough to tip the points in our favour. A big victory though against one of the best sides in the division.
So we're off to Italy next for the 1st leg of that Champions League tie and this was a fixture we got absolutely battered in last year.
Although we didn't gte smashed this year, we unfortunately do still lose the 1st leg. It's so frustrating to concede that 2nd goal in stoppage time and it could make all the difference at the end of the tie! We have it all to do at home!
I only had a six day gap before the 2nd leg and had to fit in a league game with Nantes in between as well!! So squad rotation was key for that game, but we still got the job done!
But despite trying to rotate the squad and give limited game time to everyone, both my first choice left wingers got injured in that game for the next 3-4 weeks! How's your luck!!
We went into the second leg of the Champions League feeling like we had a chance of turning around the 2-0 deficit. We won this game 3-2 last season after getting thrashed 5-0 in Italy, so knew we had the beating of Milan in front of our own fans. Our confidence was heightened when Houssem Aouar ran through and chipped over the keeper to give us the lead in the 20th minute. However, Rafael Leao put the away side back in full control of the tie before half time when he poked in from close range. It was going to be a massive 2nd half for us! But we couldn't find the big 45 that we needed and it was actually quite a disappointing effort from the lads when I'd demanded a lot more (even despite Erakovic's late winner)! AC Milan knock us out for the second season in a row.
There is no denying that this year's youth intake is slightly disappointing too. Only classed as 'good', not a single player here looks like a future first teamer for us!
At least we were able to get right back on track in the league with a big win over Montpellier.
That was a game that saw 21 year old Rayan Cherki get his first man of the match for the club. The youngster is gradually working his way into my team this year and has turned in a number of decent performances in Ligue 1 this season.
Lens pretty much came to town with a plan to stick 10 men behind the ball and get a draw. They proved very tough to break down with their negative tactics, but luckily we are OK at set pieces and Gabriel rose to meet a corner and head home on 40 minutes for the winning goal!
And with that win, we are guaranteed Champions League football again next season!
To reward me for my achievement, the board have raised the wage budget significantly and given me my largest transfer kitty to date at nearly £40 million!
One of the toughest games we would have left this season would be to go away to Marseille who sat behind us in 3rd in the table. And we were ******* awful!!
The only silver lining that we can take from the Marseille defeat is that PSG drew with Toulouse in the same game week so we still have an outside shot at winning the title with 6 games to go!
Been doing well so far, hopefully you can overtake PSG and win the league this season, though that war chest you've been given could be enough to help.
Chapter 30: Our First Proper Title Race
We had six games of the season remaining, with a 2 point gap between PSG at the top and us in 2nd. Our first game in the run in pitted us against 5th placed Rennes, who had beaten us earlier in the season already! We were definitely the better side this time round, but for a long time it didn't look like we were going to get the result here. We had two chances cleared off the line where goal line technology had to be used to prove the ball didn't cross into the goal, and on top of that we hit the post twice as well! However, we eventually got the goal to seal the win through substitute Rayan Cherki, who dribbled past two Rennes players into the box before smashing a powerful effort past the keeper!
Meanwhile PSG could only manage a draw away at Nantes, which means we go level on points with them. However, their superior goal difference is the factor that keeps them top at the moment. Five games to go!
Clermont Foot were our next opponents and we knew they would be giving it everything. They sat 16th at kick off and are very much involved in the relegation battle. And we very nearly fell to an unlikely defeat in a game we dominated when our opponents took a surprise lead in the 70th minute. However, a penalty got us back level before Gabriel popped up and scored the winner with just 3 minutes remaining! That sound is me breathing a massive sigh of relief!
Toulouse had recently held PSG to a draw and could certainly present us with another potential banana skin in the run in. And it took another late goal to seal the 3 points as Rayan Cherki stepped up again to produce the goods. The youngster is becoming quite pivotal in these last few games of our title challenge!
Dion Beljo hasn't been first choice striker this year, but he was given the opportunity to lead the line against Le Havre and he grasped it with both hands as he bagged a brace on our way to a comfortable victory. It was Amine Gouiri's goal that really caught the eye though as he hit a low shot from 30 yards with pinpoint accuracy that couldn't have been anymore in the bottom corner.
Just two games to go now and PSG and us remain locked on the same amount of points! All we can do is try our best to win our last 2 games and hope that they stumble somewhere!
Our penultimate game should effectively be a walk in the park. Auxerre are propping up the table and have nothing to play for as they are already relegated.
I expected a bit more of a fight than they put up though. This was a ridiculous result for us, but should give us a massive confidence boost going into the last day of the season!
And just as importantly as our big win, Lille only went and held PSG to a draw in their game!!!
Final game of the season and we are driving seat!! It's simple....we win and we are champions!!
The last game of the campaign will see us go away to Nice whilst PSG play host to Metz. It is a must win game for us if we want to guarantee we will win the league as a draw won't be enough if PSG win because of their superior goal difference.
We have had some very close encounters with Nice since I've been at the club, but we can definitely take confidence from the fact we haven't lost to them under my management.
We started the game on the front foot with Pablo Sarabia hitting the post inside the opening 3 minutes. Just 10 minutes later it looked like we was about to take the lead when Amine Gouiri found himself unmarked at the back post, but his shot was met with an incredible save from the Nice keeper. Then on 19 minutes we had the perfect opportunity to get our noses in front when Pablo Sarabia was brought down in the area and the referee pointed to the spot. VAR checked the incident but decided it wasn't a pen!! Unbelievable!
Only a minute later, disaster struck when Nice scored from their first attack of the game!
We continued to attack the Nice goal relentlessly though and were finally rewarded on 34 minutes when Dion Breljo slotted home from 14 yards out, low and hard into the back of the net! 1-1!
Just before half time, my heart was in my mouth when Gaetan Laborde found himself 1 on 1 with Pickford, but he shot wide and missed a glorious opportunity to put Nice back in front before the break. So we went into half time at 1-1, but had certainly been the better side.
The second half saw much of the same as we continued to dominate and created a number of good chances, the best of which came in the 83rd minute when Baptiste Santamaria had his effort saved from only 10 yards out...he really should have scored! Things were getting nervey with just 7 minutes on the clock and us still desperately needing a goal!
Then came the biggest moment of our entire season! On 87 minutes, we got a free kick which was fired to the back post by Fabio Vieira. Houssem Aouar gets up and heads back across goal where Nicolas Tagliafico rose amongst a whole bunch of players to nod home from close range! Could this be the goal that wins us the title!!
It proved to be the case and we held on to get the win we needed! Absolutely delighted is a complete understatement!
There was late drama in PSG's final game as well as Kylian Mbappe scored a 90th minute winner to give them a 1-0 victory. However, our win secures us 1st place by 2 points!
