Part 171: Chapter the Sixth: Bombardment.

Chapter the Sixth: Bombardment.
January 1, 2025-February 1, 2025

OK, we have some ground to make up. First is a trip to Burton in the FA Cup, where we need to keep ourselves from getting Chesterfield'd. Next we play host to Manchester United in the most important game of the season. If we win, we're neck and neck for the title. If we lose, they have a potential eight point lead with 18 fixtures left. After that things should be easier, with only five more games before the end of the month.



Just because it's New Years day doesn't mean I won't call you into the office and call you on the carpet for slacking off, here?




I'm glad we understand each other.




AU-Erik Lamela is the best player since AU-Messi. This year sees him become a four time Ballon d'Or winner, something that no real life player has ever accomplished. He's never going to catch AU-Messi, though, because the award was given to his doppleganger Joaquin Morales seven times in a row from 2013 through 2019.



Boooo. Now String knows how Shirra feels.



Mujkic tops Bastable for best AFC player. The award is going to shuttle between the two depending on year for the next half decade or so until they're both in their thirties.







I've mentioned my shortlists before. One of them is of every 3.5 star prospect my scouts know of and the other is of players above 24 who rate 2.5 stars or better for the first team. Along with giving me a one stop shopping list for new players, my personal assistant will remind me when they're eligible to sign on a pre-contract for free. They won't join us until their contracts expire at the end of June, but they don't cost us a penny in transfer fees. We've offered Mitchell Pickee a deal, and I'll probably make an offer for Ciganek. Bezruk and Lorenzo are both interesting, but Lorenzo wouldn't get a work permit and Bezruk's agent has a 20% stake in him and wants £1.5m for it.



I'm not accepting less than we could have gotten over the summer for Aarts. He's saved his spot on the squad with his recent barrage of goals, and having a top quality striker who can fill in when Thiago goes into one of his mini-slumps is huge for us. Our only other options up front would be Stringel or Parr, and while Stringel could certainly lead the line I feel he's better as a creative attacking midfielder.



Our transfer budget sits at a meager and sad £15,684, not enough to cover Pickee's Agent Fee. It was at nearly £2m just a month ago, so I'm not sure what the hell is going on. The board won't let me increase the amount of money in the transfer budget, either, as we only have £61k/week free in the wage budget at the moment. There's a sale going through that will solve the problem, but for the moment we'll have to delay this deal.



No one understands the brilliance of the WM!



I can't give Allan away. He's pleased that I've at least tried to get him a loan, so I doubt he'll get pissed if he's still here come February 1st.



Dortmund came to me with an offer, and seeing as Fitzgerald is on inflated wages (he was making as much as Kovacevic) and was grumping about not having a path to the starting 11, it was time to make some money off of his signing. He came to us on a free and left for an 8 figure sum, that's pretty solid work if I do say so myself. Lajos Kocsis has really impressed at the youth level, so he's becoming Kovacevic's backup.



Aww, I was only asking for another £12.5m and 20% of the next sale. What happened to you, Real Madrid? You're supposed to throw money around like you're still using the peseta.



Pickee will follow shortly. Only £3.5m of the £10m we got for Fitzgerald was put in our transfer budget due to our negative balance. That's more than enough to play with when it comes to small bore signings and luring youth prospects into our van.

At Burton, January 4, 2025
FA Cup, Third Round


Burton are scraping the bottom of League One, a loss to them would be the biggest embarrassment of my tenure. Our youth team should be able to beat them. Enrique and Coleman are both going to be starting this match, they should enjoy this more than their debuts against Basel.

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Cirjak, Laux, O'Hanlon, Loseille, Enrique, Bailey (c), Parr, Coleman, Petts, Aarts.
Subs: Kocsis, Quiboulaz, Rickard, Mair, Allan, Taborda, Stringel.

Keith Coleman has played in two matches for the senior team, and he's scored two goals. This one comes when Burton makes the mistake of trying to push up the field. Cirjak blocks a pass, Enrique gathers the ball and sends it upfield to Coleman, who gets it to Parr at the midfield line with a one touch pass. Parr takes a moment to look around, and spots Aarts far upfield and breaking for goal. The pass is accurate, but Aarts is forced outside by a defender. So he slides the ball towards the top of the box, where a charging Coleman picks it up and beats the keeper. We won't have to worry about failing to score this time around.

The Brewers fans can start packing up after eighteen minutes, when Petts his second goal in three minutes from the left wing, a position he's shown some impressive skill at in his limited appearances there. It's 5-0 at halftime, with Petts getting his hat trick by converting from the penalty spot. We're a bit flaccid in the second half, giving Burton some chances through slack defending, but they are long past the point of recovery.

Man of the Match: Richard Petts




Burton 0-5 Wrexham



Wigan Athletic and Nottingham Forest are both midtable Championship clubs, given the home advantage we should advance to the fifth round without much fuss.



Give me your tired, your poor, your aging second tier players yearning to get an international cap. He's not bad, I'll add him to the national pool and possibly give him a call up for a friendly.




Nothing to be done about the loan, we need to cover operating costs. £500K a month in repayments sucks, though. Now, can you get us another feeder team?



Thaaaaanks.



£80m or I'm hanging up the phone. Hello? Hello? You still there?



There we go. Sorry about the delay, Pickee. But you're going to go on loan when you arrive here anyways.

vs Manchester United, January 11, 2025
Premier League


We desperately need to win this game to claw back the points we dropped from draws and the loss to Chelsea. If we lose and Man United win both of their games in hand we'll be eight points back.

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Reed, Laux, Quiboulaz, Taffarel, Shirra, Ünsal, Collett, Stringel, Mujkic (c), Thiago.
Subs: Kocsis, Cirjak, Hammatt, Mair, Petts, Taborda, Aarts.

The Red Devils know they're not in Old Trafford anymore when Taffarel scores 128 seconds into the match. Thirty minutes later Thiago sends a free kick off the crossbar, and Ünsal collects the rebound for an easy second effort. We keep control of the match until the final fifteen minutes, when Reed makes a dumb, dumb challenge and gets his second yellow card. United pepper the goal, but we're lucky to get a set piece goal from sub Bram Aarts to take the wind out of their sails. This is a huge win, and we've taken six points from back to back to back league matches against Chelsea, City, and United.

Man of the Match: Sinan Ūnsal




Wrexham 3-0 Man United



Next time it's a fine, kid.



Sure, let's give it a go. The only area Loseille is lacking is mentally, and Shirra has by far the best appreciation of the game of any 24 year old worldwide.




Argh. That's just so, so French of you Loseille. Fine, see if I care.



Manchester City weathered their stormy first half, and have secured the loyalty of their remaining stars. They're in fourth place, and are back to buying new players.



Prochazka will never break our first team, so when Celtic offered £600k for him I accepted. Apparently they tried to lowball him. Their interest sparks other teams making offers, though, and the 17 year old suddenly has a bidding war for his services.



It's been five games without a goal, so he's naturally going to score a hat trick soon. He'll have to wait, though, because Aarts is on fire and I don't want to sit the Dutchman.

vs Burnley, January 14, 2025
Premier League


Burnley are in last place. This isn't going to help them.

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Cirjak, Quiboulaz, Hammatt, Taffarel, Mair, Petts, Parr, Stringel, Mujkic (c), Aarts.
Subs: Kocsis, Loseille, O'Hanlon, Bailey, Shirra, Taborda, Thiago.

It's freezing out. Below freezing, to be precise. -2 Celsius, or 27 degrees as the last bastion of Fahrenheit would call it. It's also snowing. That doesn't trip up String, who puts us in the lead after 12 minutes. It takes another eight minutes for Burnley to complete a single pass in our third of the pitch. We extend the lead to two after a halftime sermon on the sin of complacency, and ten minutes later Aarts picks up his eleventh goal in just over two months.

Burnley gets a goal back when Hammatt misses a tackle during a breakaway, but I'm confident in seeing out the match and am rewarded by a slicing Meteor strike in the 60th minute. Then Burnley score again a minute later. Then Parr scores twice in the next ten minutes. There's been an offensive bonanza of six goals in the last 25 minutes, and I'm not liking the part where we've given up two and forced Kovacevic to make two more saves. Shahed Parr gets a chance for a hat trick on a penalty shout not long after, but his effort is saved. The fireworks display is well and truly over when Rodrigo Taborda gets a goal called back for offside. It leaves us up 5-2 on hapless Burnley.

Man of the Match: Shahed Parr




Wrexham 5-2 Burnley



You, like me, might have thought that the name read “Sinan Ünsal.” Sadly, this Sinan is a seriously off brand version that I have little use for.



Eh, Reis isn't a prospect anymore and I'm likely to sell him next summer for a tiny bit of cash. Let him play wherever.



Newcastle United are valued at £98m but have debts of £130m. They basically have to stay up to avoid being put into administration, they're already £12m in the hole as of this point in the season and they can't look forward to nearly the end of season payout we'll get as they have no Champions League money and will get only 20-40% of what we do in television bonus cash. No wonder they didn't hand over the documents to Brain-in-a-Jar Rupert Murdoch.



Moffat is the guy that AJ_Impy just recently tossed out on his ear. The coaching carousel isn't quite as bad in England as, say, Italy, but it's still a very real thing.

At Blackburn Rovers, January 18, 2025
Premier League


Blackburn haven't won a game since October. That bodes poorly for them.

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Reed, Laux, Hammatt, Loseille, Shirra, Ünsal, Parr, Stringel, Mujkic (c), Thiago.
Subs: Kocsis, Taffarel, Quiboulaz, Mair, Petts, Taborda, Aarts.

Stringel scores 30 seconds into the match as an overlapping run by Loseille leaves Mujkic plenty of room to work with and an open passing lane to the young Mexican star. Blackburn catch us immediately, scoring two minutes later when Reed plays a terrible pass that's nowhere near Laux and the Rover's striker is able to pounce on it for an easy goal. A tumultuous opening 10 minutes comes to an end with Parr restoring our lead, heading home a Meteor corner kick. That marks the start of our orbital bombardment.

Mujkic gets his third assist of the day on another corner, this time picking out Thiago at the near post. The striker's roundhouse kick volleys the corner into the net and is his first goal in five matches. He adds a near post header from another Meteor corner in the 33rd minute and we're up 4-1. Even after those two goals Blackburn declines to mark Thiago at the near post on corner kicks, giving him his hat trick and Mujkic his fifth assist of the day.

Shirra finally breaks the Meteor monopoly on assists in springing Parr for his second goal, and this is well and truly a rout. Mujkic scores in the 56th minute from a shot all the way over by the corner flag, and it's 7-1 Wrexham. When the final third of the match is over Thiago's added a fourth goal, and nips the Man of the Match award from Meteor, who had a goal and five (!) assists. It's our biggest margin of victory since I've been with the club, surpassing a 6 goal romp over Stevenage all the way back in League One.

Man of the Match: Thiago




Blackburn 1-7 Wrexham



Huh, and here I thought he had warned me that he would leave if we didn't win the Premier League after we missed out on the Champions League trophy last season.



I'll take the chance to re-up him, though. His contract was due to run out in 18 months and thus needed to be renegotiated by this summer. I'm happy to bring him back at what's a reasonable price for a top quality centerback.



Well, what good are you to me then? I'm unsure of why the board isn't letting me pick our feeder teams in the first place. I've been at the club ten years, and it usually unlocks after five or so. Perhaps it's based upon our ownership type, and the fact that no owner has been in charge more than four terms. I'll keep pestering the board about this until we finally get a Chinese or Brazilian affiliate.



While I like Kocsis as a prospect, I don't want him being forced between the pipes in multiple games, especially not against an EPL side. Kovacevic will hopefully be recovered for our Premier League tilt against Everton, but the rookie will have to take the helm for our FA Cup match.



I don't think we're going to do much else this window, unless someone bowls me over with an offer.



De Blasio was meh at Southampton, and Norwich declined to take him on loan when I couldn't find anywhere else to put him. He's rapidly approaching the end of his tenure with us, he just didn't develop as I hoped.

vs Nottingham Forest, January 25, 2025
FA Cup, Fourth Round


You're doomed, Loxley. You and your merry men will bow to the might of the Prince of Wales! Just, pay no attention to the 19 year old in goal...

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Kocsis, Reed, Laux, Hammatt, Taffarel, Shirra, Ünsal, Parr, Stringel, Mujkic (c), Thiago.
Subs: Murphy, Cirjak, Quiboulaz, Mair, Petts, Taborda, Aarts.

Nottingham Forest are dilly-dallying over free kicks and throw-ins less than 15 minutes into the match, trying to slow the game down to a crawl in order to bleed time off the clock. It doesn't stop Thiago from scoring in the 18th minute, though, set up by an incredible pinpoint pass by Stringel. Now they've got a hole they need to dig out of and can't just sit back and defend all game.

We get a second when Mujkic scores when left alone 10 yards from the net by a Nottingham defense that chose instead to collapse four men on String and Thiago, and after half an hour you can put this one in the books. Thiago adds another goal, after wandering in the desert for five matches he's now got six over the past two. Taborda finishes the day with a goal after having come on for a slightly singed Stringel, but we allow a late consolation goal thanks to our constant foe, complacency.

Man of the Match: Shahed Parr




Wrexham 4-1 Nottm Forest



We have plenty of depth to cover for him, Callum Allan will finally get some playing time, but I don't like seeing our best prospects pick up even minor injuries.



The draw blesses us with another home game against a Championship side. I have to admit I hope we're getting Norwich.



Eh, now he can't complain that I didn't do everything possible to find him a loan.



Oh crap. The only healthy keeper we have at the moment is a piece of flotsam from our youth system. Kovacevic will be available in 1-3 days, and our match against Everton is in two.

At Everton, January 28, 2025
Premier League


Kovacevic isn't all the way back, he might upchuck on the pitch a couple times, but even a sick Viddy K is better than 16 year old Dylan Murphy of Wrexham Gardens.

Starting Formation: 4-2-3-1 Control
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Reed, Laux, Quiboulaz, Loseille, Shirra, Ünsal, Collett, Allan, Mujkic (c), Thiago.
Subs: Murphy, Cirjak, Hammatt, Mair, Petts, Taborda, Aarts.

We give the jaundiced Kovacevic some breathing room right away, as Callum Allan scores in the first minute. Shirra provided the assist from waaaay out wide, just like a proper wandering Trequartista. Which would be great, but he's supposed to be lying deep in the midfield. Oh well. That's what happens when I put a player with “Gets Forward Whenever Possible” as a preferred move as holding midfielder.

The team doesn't make it that easy, though, as Kovacevic has to heave his ailing body through the air to make several saves. We allowed Everton too much of the ball to make his life comfortable. But not to worry, Mujkic finds Thiago at the near post on a corner. This time the shot is blocked, and spins to a waiting Laux for a tap in. A goal from super-sub Taborda polishes off the Toffees.

Man of the Match: Meteor Mujkic.




Everton 0-3 Wrexham



That's too bad for Collett, but Parr has been brilliant this season and would have been starting regularly anyways. I'm just hoping Shahed stays healthy enough to keep crushing the hopes and dreams and children of our foes.



Why the hell is Argentina playing a World Cup Qualifier in February? Taffarel is sulking because he wasn't chosen to join Taborda.



Prochazka had his pick of clubs, settling on Bologna. We turned a 2000% profit on him. Well, 300% profit if you include the wages we've paid him over the last year and a half.



On the last day of the window Chelsea offered me £11m for Mair. I came back with a demand for £17m and they jumped at it. I'll miss Mair, he was the first diamond in the rough I ever found, but I just can't refuse that much money for a backup who isn't named Bailey. At least he and Chris Todd can reminisce about the good times.



That went swimmingly! It's looking like our tactical tweaks are working, there's no way to be disappointed with averaging 4.67 goals per game. Bolstered by a soft schedule we're in great shape, with only United able to catch us if they win both of their games in hand. The next month will be harder, with a trip to the Emirates against Arsenal and another to Madrid to begin the process of avenging our losses to Atletico in the CL semis last year.