Bah-Humbug!
With things in the league not exactly going according to plan, the January transfer window looms into view presenting me with the perfect opportunity to restore our title challenge.
With the transfer funds drastically disappearing and the finances at Dortmund revealing that the club might not have such deep pockets as expected, it was always going to be a truly testing window.
Non the less I swung into action...
...It wasn't exactly dramatic.
Just the one solitary departure as back-up stopper Danilo Taddei makes a move across the Country to Gladbach. The Italian keeper had grown increasingly frustrated on the side-lines but a quick transfer has him snap up first-team football with the mid-table side.
With an important departure and the club on the slide, surely the arrivals in Dortmund would kick-start this season...
...maybe not.
A complete dud of a window.
With no new arrivals and just one departure my attempts at trying to strengthen the team for one last ditch push to the title come to a very abrupt end.
With money in short supply, the transfer market being unusually quiet and a host of over-priced and over-rated players taking my attention I opted to keep the purse closed for now.
A gamble that proved to be even more costly as the window drew to a close...
My entire defence just melted...
With three injuries added to an already worrying large number of sidelined players, only one fit central defender and a brutally tight season ahead of us, this window could prove to be a complete disaster.
Despite the doom and gloom I did manage to find one faint glimmer of hope deep in our prestigious Youth system.
Alexander Kowalski. Our new second-choice stopper. At just eighteen years-old the young keeper has bypassed a spell in the lower leagues with our second-string team, being immediately thrown into action with the Bunesliga giants. With a host of developing still to do, this agile teen could well develop into a cat-like keeper between the sticks.
...So yeah.
It's been a bit of a gamble.
With a solitary departure and the only reinforcement to the ranks coming in the shape of an untested and potentially star-struck teenager, I think my risk might not pay off.
...I certainly make things hard for myself at times.
