Part 80: Chapter the Sixth: The other shoe refuses to drop.
Chapter the Sixth: The other shoe refuses to drop.January 1, 2019-January 31, 2019
Announcing our candidates for the club presidency: McGavin, Shieldhill, Jaguars!, and Ferrosol. Good luck, guys. I'm also very impressed by the civility and good nature of everyone while posting political things, there wasn't a hint of strife over the single greatest source of strife on this planet excepting
As I had hoped, Baker is off for the rest of the year on loan. It saves us a minor sum, but also keeps him from being grumpy on our reserve squad.
Smissen realized that cap from England was never going to happen, and is now an international for India. Mujkic is, of course, still being held hostage in Upside-downland.
vs. Leyton Orient, January 5, 2019
FA Cup, Third Round
Our bank balance is hurting. We're in January and already our bank balance is in the red. Our expenses are up in every single category, and we've been losing close to £500k each month. Salary is only a part of the problem, our wages are up significantly over last season but not to nearly the extent that we should be seeing these types of losses. If we get knocked out before earning a couple cup paydays I'm probably going to look to sell some players to recover our financial footing. This match won't help, as there's fewer than 4,000 fans are in attendance. I can sense the trap closing in around us, our Dragons have a tendency to play to the level of their competition, but it's too late to avoid it.
Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Higgs, Siegrist, Todd, Lewis, Garuti, Simpson(c), Shirra, Bailey, Coulson, Gorman, Harrison.
Subs: Love, Peters, Poole, Holland, Tedesco, Rainey, Pym.
We're terrible and play down to Leyton Orient's level. I hope that I can get the team going with a fire and brimstone speech at the half, but if anything we're even more lethargic after the restart. We're too good of a team to lose, fortunately, but this means we have to play another FA Cup match. Bailey and Harrison are worst of a bad bunch, and hopefully this is a wake-up call that our good run can easily end if we get complacent.
Wrexham 0-0 Leyton Orient
Will anyone depose that despot Sky Shadowing? Wake up sheeple, he's destroying this team. Just look at how much ticket prices have gone up since he took over!
I'd stop holding presidential contests, but I know that the minute I don't Sky Shadowing will resign.
Meanwhile, he'll just keep taking out “bank loans” from the “First Bank of Badaboom and Badabing,” located in scenic Secaucus, New Jersey.
If we can get past friggin Leyton Orient, we should be able to give a real game to Crystal Palace. They're in yet another relegation fight, and thus a perfect target for a hungry young team like ours.
The sole silver lining of having to play Leyton Orient again is that we'll get more revenue.
The game doesn't give me the option of talking to him about his contract, which is just as well because I'm not giving him a raise right now, and telling him that would just make him angry. I am considering selling one of our signings, if only to save some money. We need to get promoted inside of the next few years or we're going to get into very rough shape financially, Wrexham itself is not nearly big enough to support a team with a Championship payroll.
Every
vs. Middlesbrough, January 12, 2019
Championship
Spell your name right, Middlesbrough! Or at least spell it in a way that makes sense. Middlesboro or Middleborough are both more sensical than Middlesbrough. Anyways, Middlesbrough is a small city of about 130,000 in northeast England, near Newcastle. Which puts it in the middle of nowhere, rather than the middle of somewhere. It's also a place where some poor dudes get their junk chopped off, which I discovered while googling the area to make sure I wasn't confusing it with some other part of England. I should have known that cock-loppage was a common occurrence on knife-crime island.
Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Higgs, Peters, Lewis, Poole, Mejasic, Troelsen, Djurovic, Tedesco, Rainey, Gorman, Harrison (c).
Subs: Love, Siegrist, Todd, Holland, Shirra, Coulson, Pym.
We're up 2-0 by the end of the first half thanks to a Middlesbrough own goal and a very nice piece of work from Gareth Rainey. That's all she wrote as our defense locks down in the second half and preserves the shutout. It's a solid home victory and we look much more awake on the pitch than we did in our last, lackadaisical fixture.
Man of the Match: Gareth Rainey
Wrexham 2-0 Middlesbrough
We need money, and Johnston isn't anywhere near our first team plans. Clearly I should stall this offer and see if Everton want in on this bidding war at £800,000.
If we don't win this game, I might not be able to update for a while because I'll have put my fist through my monitor.
At Leyton Orient, January 16, 2019
FA Cup, Third Round Replay
Come home with your shields or on them. That's all I have to say. And no, I'm not explaining the reference, Shirra. It's like you spent all your youth playing football and never attending school.
Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack
Starting 11: Higgs, Siegrist, Todd, Lewis, Garuti, Simpson, Holland, Shirra, Coulson, Gorman, Harrison (c).
Subs: Love, Peters, Poole, Troelsen, Bailey, Rainey, Pym.
The Red Dragons are trying my patience. We go down after 17 minutes, but are able to pull level when Gorman ties the game after Shirra's hustle wins the ball at midfield. Coulson puts us ahead on what the announcers gush was a “truly unstoppable shot” that streaks past the flailing keeper. We're not able to lock the game down, though, and Stewart Lewis makes an error that leads to an equalizer. It's no matter, he corrects his own mistake by putting us ahead on a corner, and we see that lead out. The one concern is an injury to Chris Todd late in the match, with Vaillant in the Cup of Nations tournament we're thin on centerbacks at the moment.
Man of the Match: Mark Holland
Leyton Orient 2-3 Wrexham
Nothing is ever easy. With Vaillant playing in the Cup of Nations I'm going to be relying upon Poole and Lewis for every game. Leighton Chapman isn't nearly good enough to be more than an emergency substitute yet, but he'll be on the bench for each match for the time being.
This boosts us back up to nearly a million pounds in the black. Combined with our advancement in the FA Cup, we should be able to see the season out without going much into the red. Ideally we'll beat Crystal Palace and then get a big club at their stadium.
Australia is dominating all comers in the Asian Cup, how wonderful.
At Ipswich Town, January 19, 2019
Championship
I played this game on the subway at about midnight on Friday. I make no apologies for what happened while burrowing deep beneath Boston. You should merely be relieved that I wasn't dragging my laptop around on St. Patricks Day. The booze miasma most likely would have wiped the save.
Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Counter.
Starting 11: Higgs, Peters, Lewis, Poole (c), Mejasic, Troelsen, Djurovic, Bailey, Rainey, Gorman, Pym
Subs: Love, Garuti, Chapman, Simpson, Tedesco, Coulson, Harrison.
As the orange line ferried me home from a friends, Ipswich jumped all over us and put us down after less than a minute. We bounced back. Pym finally plays like a good target man should, getting in position between three Ipswich players and their keeper to head in a cross for the equalizer. Bailey jumpstarts the second period with a perfect one touch ball to Rainey, who takes a shot that Ipswich's keeper cannot corral. Their keeper can only watch as the rebound falls directly to Pym, who doesn't miss the tap in. We don't make anything else of multiple chances before the match ends, but we give them nothing after that opening goal.
Man of the Match: Tom Pym
Ipswich 1-2 Wrexham
I would be doing more wheeling and dealing, but I don't see anywhere that I could improve the club on the cheap. We're OK for money thanks the selling Johnston, and I don't want to risk jostling team chemistry given how awesome we've been since October.
At the very least I'll be selling them this summer rather than letting them go on a free.
At Crystal Palace, January 26, 2019
FA Cup, Fourth Round
A top half Championship club versus a Premier League club battling against Relegation. How much better than us could they be? A lot, they could be a lot better than us. But I give us a solid punchers chance. We're playing good football right now, and a win here would be a nice cap on our season.
Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Counter
Starting 11: Higgs, Peters, Lewis, Poole, Garuti, Simpson (c), Shirra, Bailey, Coulson, Gorman, Harrison.
Subs: Love, Siegrist, Chapman, Troelsen, Djurovic, Rainey, Pym.
The Palace fans see us wrong foot their team for nearly the entire first half, and are at our most dangerous when Harrison has a point blank header saved at the last moment thanks to the imposition of the Palace keeper's fingertips. Not long after we play a pretty piece of possession ball which results in a lead after Harrison makes himself a moment of space and delivers an accurate finish. Despite pushing around our hosts for the first half all we get is the one goal, and Harrison misses a chance to put us up two around the hour mark, sending his shot into the side netting. Crystal Palace is able to tie it up off a corner, our continuing Achilles heel, and we walk away with a draw when we should have had the win. The replay will mean a packed house at the Racecourse grounds and, if we play as well as we did today, a trip to the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Crystal Palace 1-1 Wrexham
This is the second time our upcoming Huddersfield match has been postponed, I'm looking forward to it if only because I'm interested to see how we do against the team that gave us our most decisive defeat of the season.
Bolton and Huddersfield both made offers for Mark Holland in the half-million range. I initially accepted, but then chose to renege on them as he's a useful rotation piece for the club.
There are no easy matchups left in the FA Cup draw. West Brom away is not a good one for us, though. Not only do the Baggies play in a small stadium, they're only a season removed from finishing seventh in the Barclay's Premier League. While they're back down into the lower ranks of the Prem it's going to be hard for us to take down two higher division clubs back to back. None of that will matter if we can't win our replay, though.
Watch us, England, as we crush your fancy London club! Bwa cyn eich arglwyddi Cymraeg, Saesneg!
vs. Crewe Alexandra, January 29, 2019
Championship
Crewe are risking relegation, they're buried at 23rd in the league. We're at home. We should win this game. At the very least we should score a bunch of goals. So let's finish this month on a happy note. Youth prospect Lloyd Eden is up to make the start at left wing as Gorman has gotten a bit worn down over the last two months of constantly filling in for the absent Mujkic.
Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack.
Starting 11: Higgs, Siegrist, Lewis, Poole (c), Mejasic, Troelsen, Shirra, Djurovic, Rainey, Eden, Pym.
Subs: Love, Garuti, Chapman, Simpson, Tedesco, Coulson, Harrison.
Poole opens scoring on a corner where he crashes unmarked towards the near post. Crewe replies immediately with their own goal on a corner kick to the near post where somehow their striker is standing unmarked not 5 yards from the net. It's not a good moment for fans of sound fundamentals. We're the better team all game, but Pym has apparently lost his finishing boots once again, and misses multiple chances. I pull the rookie Eden, who has been ineffective, and bring in Coulson to play out of position on the left side. It pays off, Coulson scores a late goal thanks to an excellent assist from Pym, who salvages something from his poor match. We keep battering at Crewe until the whistle blows, but even without another goal we take all the points.
Man of the Match: Matthew Poole.
Wrexham 2-1 Crewe
Pfft. You weren't the only one unimpressed by the performance they saw. We didn't need to be at our best to see you off.
Derby and Bolton seem determined to unsettle Holland at the club, if they can't get me to sell him. It doesn't work.
Australia finally lost, to South Korea. It doesn't mean we get Mujkic back immediately, they still have to play for third place. Mujkic is due back on February 3rd, but he's looking very tired from all of the international play he's been subjected to and I may have to give him a week or two off before he's rested enough to start playing for the club.
Who needs reinforcements when we've got Meteor coming back? I mean, I wouldn't mind some, but we're pretty good with what we've got.
This dream season just keeps getting better. We won all three of our league matches, and sit just a point back of the promotion playoffs with a game in hand. Our goal differential has poked above zero, and while I doubt we'll be able to make a real run at an automatic promotion spot we're definitely in the chase for the playoffs. Meanwhile, we're still alive in the FA Cup after drawing with a Premier League club in their house to earn a replay at ours. If we can get past Crystal Palace we should be good for money until the end of the season. Other than the draw with Leyton Orient, things couldn't have gone better. And we're doing this all without our best player.
