Part 48: Chapter the Fourth: Put up or shut up.

Chapter the Fourth: Put up or shut up.
October 10, 2016-November 2, 2016

Lincoln. Dagenham and Redbridge. AFC Wimbledon. Accrington Stanley. Plymouth. Five games to prove that I have what it takes to guide this team to the promised land. Let's do this thing.



Holy cow. The US needed not only to beat Panama at home, but for Canada to draw or lose against Honduras. They somehow made it to the hex round of qualification, making them the Mexico of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. If they make the World Cup it'll be nothing short of a miracle after drawing and then losing to Canada in their first round of qualification.



I am unafraid!

(I am a little afraid.)

At Lincoln, October 15, 2016
League Two


William Harrison is struggling with his fitness, as a young player he's gotten worn out from all the playing time he's been getting with both our first team and on his national U21 squad. I move Coulson up top and Franks to the right wing, and we should be fine. It would be really nice if Mujcik started showing something, he's not had a truly dire performance so far but hasn't had a single game where he's really shown his quality.



The annoying thing is that we should be handling a team like Lincoln with no difficulty, our backups are better than their starters. Toni Murphy would be the only one of their players to get time on our team. Yet we're the ones who are massively underachieving while they're bobbing right along in the lower mid-table.

Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Al-Beloushi, Thomas, Todd, Reid, Smissen, Simpson (c), Cobb, Bailey, Franks, Mujkic, Coulson.
Subs: Higgs, Ashton, Poole, Jenkins, Kadhim, Netala, Spilsbury.

I sent the team out to attack from the very start, and they do just that. Within twenty minutes we're up two-nil, thanks to a lovely little goal by Justin Bailey and a well played set-piece goal by Luke Reid. Lincoln throws themselves into the attack, and I order the players to drop back and absorb the pressure. It doesn't work, we allow goals off of corners just before and just after the half-time whistle, and are clinched at two-all. I wearily order the boys back on the attack, replacing an ineffective Coulson with Spilsbury at the hour mark. Spilsbury proves the hero, scoring 89 minutes and 22 seconds into the game, and we've got the first three of the ten points I need to save my hide.

Man of the Match: Justin Bailey




Lincoln 2-3 Wrexham



One victory doesn't remove me from the sack race.



Mujkic has been unimpressive considering his talents, though his last match did earn a 7.2 rating. I'm going to see if he'll take the break he seems to need.



Kid's headstrong, but I'm sticking to my guns this time. Two weeks rest are what the physio ordered. Same goes for Harrison.



Beer is still full price, of course.



You too?!



The players need to spend less time whining and more time working.



Our FA Cup draw isn't too bad. Tranmere is a shadow of their former selves, we should be able to beat them again. This does mean that we're having a slight run of fixture congestion, between October 15th and November 1st we're playing six games.

vs Dagenham & Redbridge, October 18, 2016
League Two


Fixture congestion means team rotation, so Higgs and Price are getting starts. Dag & Red are having a surprisingly good season, and currently lie in fourth place, but we're still favored as we're on home turf. We'll start out with a marauding gameplan, and switch to something less aggressive if we can nab an early goal.

Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Higgs, Tench, Reid, Poole, Ashton, Simpson (c), Cobb, Bailey, Price, Netala, Spilsbury.
Subs: Al-Beloushi, Smissen, Lewis, Kadhim, Jenkins, Franks, Coulson.

The match is tightly fought, but after 45 minutes nothing of real interest has occurred. That continues into the second half, with Dag & Red missing two good opportunities to put up points. I pull Spilsbury and Price after yet another attack breaks down, replacing them with Coulson and Franks. Franks nearly makes me look like a genius, getting himself into perfect position to score, but smashes the ball off the crossbar from mere yards away. It's Coulson who finally wins us the game on a well timed run and well executed finish in the late minutes of the game, and we've gone from being unable to find a win anywhere to pulling games out at the last second. Six points down, four to go, three games remaining.

Man of the Match: Gary Tench.




Wrexham 1-0 Dag & Red



With the fixtures coming every day or two, there isn't much time for other things to happen between them. Looks like we've gotten 1500 more people than usual at the stadium.

vs AFC Wimbledon, October 22, 2016
League Two


AFC Wimbledon is in first place. They haven't lost all season. Moreover, unlike Dag & Red they're not really playing above their talent level. We're going to be much more cautious in this match than we were in the prior one.

Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Defense
Starting 11: Al-Beloushi, Tench, Todd, Reid, Smisson, Kadhim, Simpson (c), Bailey, Coulson, Netala, Spilsbury.
Subs: Higgs, Thomas, Lewis, Jenkins, Cobb, Franks, Price.

Despite playing defensively the game is massively in our favor. We get off 29 shots. Only five of them are on target, however, while a whopping 14 of them see a Wimbledon player interpose their body between ball and goal. We can't score, letting the many chances we have slip through our fingers. The other side of this is that Wimbledon manage a total of six shots, and while nearly all of them are on target Al-Beloushi manfully stops them all. We walk away with a draw, a point, and many positives to take from the match despite not getting the sorely needed win. With two games left on my probation we need just one win to keep the sword of Damocles from lopping off my oh so pretty head.




Wrexham 0-0 Wimbledon



I really wish we could have given them a win, but this should still improve future draws. Wrexham has a population of just 42,000 and just 130,000 live in the county as a whole, making this a pretty popular event for the locals.



We've won three of our last four games! What more do you want?



My players are just like you goons following this LP. A few bad results and everyone gets cranky.

At Accrington Stanley, October 25, 2016
League Two


Accrington are in 18th place, and aren't in very good form. They won their last game against Lincoln by a big 4-0 margin, but prior to that they'd lost three and drawn once. We're away, so I'm not going to ask the players to attack straight out of the gate, but I might move us to a more offensive footing if the counter isn't getting it done. Harrison and Mujkic are back from their week's rest, and no longer look knackered. This is good, seeing as much of the team is still worn out from our last game.

Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Counter
Starting 11: Al-Beloushi, Thomas, Reid, Lewis, Smisson, Kadhim, Jenkins, Cobb, Franks, Mujkic, Harrison (c).
Subs: Higgs, Ashton, Poole, Simpson, Bailey, Coulson, Spilsbury.

We look dangerous in the first thirty minutes, but let Accrington stay in the game through a lack of finishing. Harrison is the culprit behind two missed chances, and looks disgusted with himself after one where he could have taken an extra moment to settle the ball and take his shot. The start of the second is more of the same, so I yank Harrison for Spilsbury and bring on Simpson for Jenkins. But Accrington has finally found their footing, and the run of play weighs heavily in their favor. We keep them from scoring, but I now need to win our next league game to avoid getting tossed out on my ass.

Man of the Match: Luke Reid




Accrington 0-0 Wrexham



Poor Stewart Lewis, he gets buried on the depth chart early in the season and when I finally give him a start he gets hurt. I'm regretting the sale of Stuart Martin at this point, Poole has been inconsistent and Todd is not making good on his promise yet.



Do you even lift, Coulson? With Natala, Mujkic, Franks, and Price all needing playing time I'm going to let Coulson heal up rather than risk further injury.



Lincoln has been in takeover turmoil since the middle of last season. Takeovers suck, they result in transfer embargos where you're not allowed to bring in new players and can result in radical changes to your owner's personality and team's funding. Lincoln was already a mediocre team last season, being hamstrung during the window has lead to them starting teenagers who shouldn't be getting near a professional pitch.



Our biggest single television payday so far. It's still a piddling sum compared to what we'll see in a few years.

At Tranmere, October 29, 2016
FA Cup, First Round


Bring it on, Tranmere. You haven't improved since the first time we handed you your head at the start of the season. They're in 20th place, have sacked their manager, and might sack the new one before the season is through. We're not going to let ourselves get knocked out of the FA Cup by them.

Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Al-Beloushi, Tench, Reid, Poole, Smisson, Simpson (c), Cobb, Bailey, Franks, Mujkic, Harrison.
Subs: Higgs, Thomas, Todd, Kadhim, Jenkins, Price, Spilsbury.

Here's the thing. First Football Manager crashed right after our match against Plymouth. We won both that match and this one. Then, when I was editing the update, my word processor crashed and I lost everything before the original Tranmere match. So I'm just going to leave the original version of the Tranmere writeup. We actually only won 3-1, and it was Luke Reid who was the man of the match, but just imagine the following:


Here's the stats from the game that officially happened.

Man of the Match: Luke Reid




Tranmere 1-3 Wrexham



I made a gif! I tend to draw the teams one at a time so I can build up the tension for myself by looking at who's left in the draw. We're either going to go up against minnows Cammel Laird or recently relegated Bury. I feel good about our chances of reaching the third round for the third straight year..

at Plymouth, November 1, 2016
League Two


As I said above, we won this match before FM crashed and I had to revert back to where I had saved. It's a good thing we won. I'd have been fired even if we'd earned a draw, as I learned while replaying it. So this match won't have much tension, as I already know that we win it and the only question is how that win comes about.

Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Al-Beloushi, Tench, Reid, Poole, Smissen, Simpson (c), Cobb, Bailey, Franks, Netala, Harrison.
Subs: Higgs, Thomas, Todd, Kadhim, Jenkins, Price, Spilsbury.

We do much better than we did the first time I played this match, but Harrison gets hurt just before halftime and has to come off. We get lucky and he won't miss any time beyond the remainder of the game, without Harrison we'd be thin at striker with Coulson still nursing his own wounds.

I guess, given that I was robbed of the 5-0 win over Tranmere by balky coding, I won't cast too much side eye at our 4-0 victory here rather than the 1-0 nailbiter we originally had. Still, I was hoping to recreate the lost games as closely as possible, and that didn't happen here. Regardless, we win, we've earned 11 points from our last five games, and I don't get fired. The very first thing I'm doing after exiting the match screen is saving the game so I don't have to do this over again.

Man of the Match: Luke Reid




Plymouth 0-4 Wrexham



Well this explains partly why the board was so quick to threaten my termination. They don't think we're doing well enough on set pieces. That's ridiculous, we've scored eight of our twenty-one total goals from dead ball situations in just the league alone- we've scored another two goals from corners in our four cup games. Ten goals from set pieces is a lot for 17 games, certainly enough to earn me more than 0% confidence. I'm guessing there's a bug in the programming here, and it makes me even more irritated that I was being threatened with sacking because of it.



The team picked up at just the right time. We're not all the way back on track for promotion, but we're only two points back of the promotion playoffs. We've also made it to the second round of the Johnstones Paint Trophy and the FA Cup, we'll have those matches coming up in November. We're also in the midst of a stretch where we're playing five games in a row, and eight out of ten, away from home. That we've turned it around in this stretch is even more comforting to our ambitions, and I'm going to treat the six game skid as an aberration brought on by bad luck.



Also, as a bonus, Tackleford is struggling in League One. They're mid-table. I expect that we'll be facing off against them next season if all goes according to plan.