OJ

Okay, second session is over. Prematerily cause some twat came uninvited to the game and started messing around.

Well anyways, I started managing Ipswich and the mutual goal we all have in our club is to only make a French visit to the Div 1 and return to the EPL as champions. The situation wasn't the best with a 15M pound bank loan and some huge wages but thank god I got them lowered really much!

So, I knew I also would need some transfers to make my team as good as needed and first I decided to check what players are available on loan. Some good players were available and I managed to snap Mista from Valencia, Gavilan from Newcastle, Christanval from Barca and Naysmith from Everton. So really good players and I don't have to pay a single penny for them. Then I also managed to made 2 good buys, Lescott from rivals Wolves for 600 thousand pounds and Alex Farnerud from Sweden for 700 thousand and that was it, my team for the season was ready.

My starting XI looks like this:

----------Mista-M.Bent----------

Farnerud-Magilton-Holland-Reujser

Naysmith-Gaardsoe-Lescott-Wilnis

-------------Sereni-------------

Pre-season went good with few big victories and a 0-1 defeat agaisnt FC Bayern. So far I have played 5 games in the div 1 and won 3 and drawn 2 times, with Sereni 3 clean sheets. Also I progressed to the Uefa cup first round by beating M. Tel Aviv, if I recall correctly , 4-1. So things are looking really good for us and I doubt whether there will be a team capable of stopping us, atleast in the div 1, maybe in the Uefa cup there are a few teams... Couple of players also deserves to be mentioned, Marcus Bent has been the best of the bunch with 7 apps and 6 goals plus 6 assists. :eek: Also Mista has been in a creative mood and has played good and of course Jolean Lescott, he has been the rock around my defence and I still can't think of a reason why Wolves let him go. Oh well, their loss...

So that's about it and you'll be hearing more when I keep trashing the other teams on my way to EPL!

"elite"

Stupidity, it never seizes to amaze me. What that idiot would get out of trying to trash the game, i'll never understand. But to move on to the game itself.

The pre-season with my Millwall was as dull as it usually is, just trying to get the squad fit in condition and familiar with the tactics. About the tactics. I've had a annoying problem in every game i've started in cm4. The passing style i first try to implent never works, and the matches are dull and not many chanches are created. Then when i change it to another, THEN i start to create and winning matches.
This seems to be the case now again.

I play a 4-3-1-2...

-----------------F------------F---------------------
----------------------AM----------------------------
-------------MC-------MC........MC------------------
DL-----------DC------------------DC--------------DR

...with the right/left mc going wide upward.

I've bought only young players cause this has been mine filosofy in cm for years. AND to let owngrown players a chance, specially when playing a team like Millwall, who got some exellent talents in the team and a great youth academy for some weird reason. Samba, Ben May, Dolan, Livermore, Ifill, Reid, Sadlier... from wich Sadlier is the oldest being 23.

to be continued...

"elite"

...conntinues

My most important purchases has been:

Mark Kerr: no introductions needed here
Garry Hunter: age 17(S C) quick as hell! about 70k e
Ivan Bosnjak:age: 22(?) (F R,C) about 100k e
David Bell: age 18 (Att mid C) 80k e
Tommy Wirtanen: age 19 (Att mid R) only 20k e
(and a defender R from Falkirk, don't remember his name.) about 250k e

Because of this weird passing style problem i always get, the start to the season hasn't been all that great, plus having "some" injuries: Ifill 8 months, Wirtanen 4 months and Reid, Dolan, Sadlier, Cahill being out for 2-4 weeks didn't help. I lost two away games, one being against Moncs's Wolves 2-0 with no chance of winning and Wolves just bitchslapping me around the pitch and then scoring a narrow home win.

In last nights online game i started with losing to Watford away 1-0 with Gayle capping the winning goal in the last minute of play and winning a ultradull game against Leicester with just 1 shot and winning 1-0 (Hunter scored as a sub on his debut ). After this i thought that this cannot continue and changed my passing style, and voila! Started to control matches and create lots of chanches and most important of all, actually won all the matches we played after that.

So i warn you other lads now, don't take Millwall for granted, we got HUGE potential and the marging to the top ain't that big. And having the 2-4 week injured players back. Things are starting to look much brighter in the hallways of The Den.

OJ

Damn guys, I really hope we could play tomorrow cause it comes sooner than tuesday. I'm really looking forward for our next session...

"elite"

Last nights session wasn't that great for me either. To be more excact mine away games are just awful. Being the 1st team in home is great, but being the 22nd team away is just frustrating. Just one draw against Preston (who is leading the table) and losing all other matches away... But the fact that i've won all home matches this season tells me im doing something right, then again i must be doing something wrong in away matches...

Going out in the League Cup against Charlton wasn't a great schock considering it was an away match, and fellow fin Jonatan Johansson capping both goals. Still having injury problems but thats football sorry to say. Coventry slipping down in the table is good, but the table is tight. A couple of matches can change a lot of things.

Have to start winning away matches....

OJ

Well, my season has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, I've played absolutely fabulous in the Uefa cup where i've beaten M. Tel-Aviv, PAO and Hajduk without much trouble and i'm in the third round against Livingston next and if the previous rounds tell anything, i should dispose Livingston pretty easily and advance all the way to the fourth round.

On the other hand, in the league i haven't been dominating as i would have expected, currently i'm at 11th place but with a game in hand and also the table is very, very even and with a good run of results i can climb all the way to the top.

Probably my best player so far has been Marcus Bent with 6 goals and 8 assists, he got injured for a month which really hurt my team but fortunately he just got back and i'm sure that helps me score more. Lescott has also been pretty good in the back four, while Farnerud has been a little disappointment with a low av. rating and not many assists and goals. But he's only 18, so he will come better. Also i sold Reuser to Vizenza, if i remember correctly, for a total sum of 1.3 million pounds, and Counago to Wolwes for 700 thousand, so i now have a little spare money to use and maybe i can find a few interesting guys...

So, looking forward positively and you'll hear more again in the next week.

"elite"

The season has been pretty ok so far . Im 6th and my home record is the reason why. With 8 wins and 1 draw against Rabs Coventry, I can't complain. But my away record on the other hand is terrible with just 3 draws from 8 matches. The good thing is that everyone else also seems to have problems away. Only exception being Preston who dominates with a great point margin to the rest.

Changed my tactic wich seems to work better if you count the scoring chanches. Started to win more easily home but away it's just the same, maybe a few more goal chances.

Injuries are one aspect of the game wich I think is more realistic in cm4 than in the cm3 series. There's more of them and they are longer. Can't say I enjoy them but everybody suffers from them atleast. But that's how your depth of your squad is really tested during a season.
So in my case the squad has showed some depth wich im gratefull of. Only thing i fear is my gk to get injured! *knocking on wood*.

The table besides Preston is very tight and everything is still possible. I said in the beginning of the season that a playoff place would be the aim and at the moment it seems that it's a very realistic goal. Maybe to even finish second after Preston...

OJ

Well, tonight's session is over and you don't believe how ****ed I am. Not because something is wrong with the game itself but because my players have played like **** lately. I mean pure amateur performances. Also I've had basically my entire striking force injured, so naturally goal scoring has been painful. Also crashed out of the uefa cup against Livingston, so can't be that pleased. Well, now I can atleast focus on the Nationwide which is good... Here's a few screenshots about the results and also about the league table.

Hmm... actually how do I add the screenshot?

"elite"

Best session so far. Not perfect due to the last match.

A Bradford 0-0 A dull football match where we could have won it in the dying seconds of second half, but no.

H Derby 5-1 Derby are struggling and we just smashed them. It was 5-1 already in HT. Sadlier 3 goals and a young promising midfielder in the name of Peter Sweeney getting 3 assists. (OJ, stay away! )

A Crystal Palace 2-1 November 30th, so it took this long to actually even score away and we were a bit lucky in the end.

H Rotherham 3-0 This was a important fixture beacause Rotherham was in 2nd place before the match. But i was confident that our attack would be too much for them and so it also turned out to be.

A Ipswich 1-2 First of all i missed the entire first half due to technical difficulties (SI, c'mon!). So i had some problems getting a understanding of the match. (whinewhine) But anyway my lads played much better than the opposition. But thats football. :o

My new tactic is 4-3-1-2 ,the same as i earlier have shown, with the exception that the two arrows points straight up instead of diagonally. And have to congratulate myself in finding Dragan Nacevski. He's a forward with high passing/creativity and has been truly helpfull to the teams cause.

The table after last night:
(22 matches played)

won / g.d / points

1. Preston 16 / +15 / 50
2. Portsmouth 12 / +18 / 41
3. Rotherham 11 / +19 / 40
4. Millwall("elite") 11 / +12 / 38
5. Coventry(Rab) 10 / +15 / 35
6. Wolves(Moncs) 9 / +11 / 35
7. Watford 10 / +2 / 35
8. Stoke 8 / +6 / 33
9. Wimbledon 9 / +2 / 33
10. Brighton 10 / +1 / 32
11. Ipswich (OJ) 8 / -3 / 31
12. Gillingham 9 / 0 / 30
13. Grimsby 9 / -2 / 30
14 Nottm Forest(Razor) 7 / -2 / 29
15 Sheff Wed 7 / -3 / 28
16. Norwich 8 / -4 / 28
17 Leicester 8 / -4 / 27
18 Bradford City 7 / -10 / 26
19. Crystal Palace 6 / -5 / 25
20. Walsall 6 / -8 / 25
21. Sheff Utd 6 / -14 / 23
22. Reading 6 / -11 / 21
23. Derby 5 / -13 / 20
24. Burnley 3 / -22 / 14

Excellent and exciting fight over the second promotion and playoff spots.

[This message was edited by "elite" on 28 May 2003 at 12:00.]

"elite"

In-law duty, you gotta bite the bullet sometimes.

Hope things will continue tonight as well it did in the last session.