Itchygon

We finished the season well, beting champions and treble winners Heartland 3-0 and turned around a 3-0 to a 3-3 draw in the last match with Iheanacho equalizing in the 95:th minute.



Finishing sixth seems decent, considering our horrible form in the spring. But I'll write more in the season review in the next post.



The stand out player this season is in the end Kelechi Iheanacho who scored 21 goals in all competitions. Not bad at all for the now 18 year old league debutante. The summer signings Sunday and Ovoke were also highlights in the squad. And a special mention to Iheanacho's striker partner Conally Collins from last year's youth intake who scored 12 goals, and he just turned seventeen.

And to end in a positive note:

I really think he can do a great job surrounded by our young strikers.

I had hopes for a top three spot, meaning continental football, but due to a poor start and the six losses in a row in May we had to settle for a decent 6:th place. On the positive side we picked up form and played really good from mid June till the end of the season in October. Hopefully we can build on that for the next year. The 3-5-2 is working quite well, we score a lot of goals, but some times we a a bit vunerable to counter attacks - but who aren't? We have a lot of young players who made their debuts in professional fotboll this season and I'm sure they can all build on that experience and take another step forward. Iheanacho has recently signed a new three year contract, meaning we could get good money for him once the European scouts come sniffing.

So, what's needed in the squad? Well, our midfield need strenghening. As we play five men there, and they get tired and injured all the time we really need a lot of them. Currently we only have one left winger, though I am re-training wingback Yampe to be a defensive winger, we could use some extra option there. One more centerback is also on the list. I have a lot of strikers, and with the arrival of Shola Ameobi will should have more than enough.

This year's youth intake were pretty good, with these players as stand outs:


Yet another promising striker, I will probably send him out for loan if I can.


Will be retrained to a box to box midfielder, so he have to work on the physical attributes. I will give him a couple of starts in the first team this year.

Shola on 700p/w... Quite a fall from grace that.

Apparently I wasn't the only one to think Izuchukwu had potential:



When Toulouse offerd 650 K it was not for me to turn down. It's by far the highest bid in the clubs history and we should be proud of producent talents like that. Valued at 550 Euro that bid is about 1000 times his value... He will stay here for a year and when he turns 18 he will head up to France. Good luck to him



But he looks happy enough. Unfortunatly he will retire at the end of the season, despite having a two year deal.

The friendly games belonged to one and only one player - Shola Ameobi.
I let assistant manager Ikpeba arrange our friendlies. However he believed that one friendly was enough. I didn't agree so I arraged a few, all against rather poor teams. But it's good to see us keeping a clean sheet through all matches. And as you can see Shola the Great scored 6 goals in four games (he didn't play in the last one). Let's see if he can keep that up in the competitive matches.

I did some transfers, not as good as I had hoped. It took me until deadline day to find a left midfielder, and the one I got was actually a good scout (unfortunatly not that good of a player), so he was appointed as Player / scout. I also signed a 34 year old central defender who looks quite alright.

That's about that.

Serious amount of money that for your club I would presume.

I would like to compliment you on the sufficient amount of Shola in this thread. Many careers fall down with severe lack of Shola

It is. Probably more than my entire squad's worth.

Thank you. Shola is like cowbell, you allways need more. And there will be more. A LOT more.

Mind me asking where you downloaded the leagues from? Thanks

I believe you can download them via steam

That's right, they're from steam.

March - April 2015

That's how it's done!



I really need Shola to keep his form, because:



He missed the first four matches when he was away with the Nigeria U-20 squad, so he has only played 3 games this season (4 goals, 8.17 AR).

NOOOOOOOO!

Oh dear, thst is desperately unlucky.

Have the wheels come off your title challenge yet? Or will you be able to ride it out?

May wasn't a good month, but compared to last year when we lost five games in a row. This is ok. But the big blow was ofcourse the news item in my previous post. Now both my starting strikers, stars one would say, are out for several months.



Yes, how did we fare without the leathal duo?



Not bad. Not bad at all! The team played extreamly well, solid defending (only one conceded in the league) and scoring quite a lot. Buhari Jafar and Connally Collins are doing a great job up front, and I have recalled Terry Envoh (another young striker with bags of potential) from loan. In the cup game I let a lot of reserves and youngsters start and Kazeem Yakeen, my back up goal keeper, made his debut - terrible in the match, but made it up by saving two penaltys.




Other news:


and then, rather uneventful:



No real changes, only I signed a new contract with the new owners.

Don't think I have seen this before. The thing is he has been training i the ML position for over a year, and he is still not even got an orange dot for that position. And it's not like I'm training him to be a goalkeeper or something - he's a DL/WBL and training him as a defensive winger...

He might have low adaptability, they don't tend to react well with positions they aren't familiar with.

Do what I do and continue doing it - if you try and push a square peg through a round hole long enough you'll eventually get through, even if it means breaking one or both items or your hands.

Good June month Will the new owner going to pump the money into the club?

Will do! He's only a back up, so I don't care much. And I'm not about to change my tacticts to suit him.



Thanks Johno! It doesn't seem to be any money unfortunately. Just a loan to be payed... But come January, my young midfielder will leave for France and the money problems sgould be solved.

Lots of games played during these months, with a mixed bag of results. Heartland keeping the pace and is now only one point behind us with six games to go. The first game next month will be the cup final against them - it could be a double, and it could be nothing. Iheanacho has returned from his injury, and played the last two games. He looks rusty, as you could expect.



Sold another young player for a good fee. Hopefully we get an equally good intake next time. He will not leave until March however, needs to be 18.

Well, we blew it.



Season review's coming up.

Started the month by getting thrashed in the Cup final. They scored two from corners and one from a free kick. I need to get a set piece player in.
We drew to Shooting Stars in the second to last match of the season, and that was enough for Heartland who won their last 10 games in the league. Gutted.
But look at that come back from Shola Ameobi! He came back to play the last three games and scored 4! It's so sad that it was his last matches in his career, he could have a couple of good seasons left.



Heartland, champions for the third year in a row.

But good news:



Not as good yough intake this year, but this one could be alright.

Gutted Few draws went in their favour Hopefully you will win it next season!

Gutted to see Shola retiring.

Yeah tough luck that getting so close. Pity you cant try and talk a player out of retirement either.

Any chance of a screenshot of the african leagues rankings? Would imagine Nigerian would be in the top 3 with South African and Egyptian.

Yeah, it was shocking. Shola remains in the club as a (really good) youth coach. I have found his replacement, I can't remember his name but he's Nigerian and was a big star in Azerbaijan...


Oh how I searched for chat that could keep him playing...

If I remember right, the Nigerian league is 6:th in Africa with Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa in top five. I'll post a screen shot when the computer's up.

Thanks for the comments guys!

Pity about Kelechi's injury. Be really interesting to see how he develops.

Indeed. He only played 10 games last season, and I'm really looking forward seeing him fit for a full year.

As there are Champions League qualifyers coming up, we didn't play as many friendlies as usual. Three good wins, nothing out of the ordinary.

[b]Transfers[/b


First the outs: Akanji was the left winger / scout I had as a back up. I would have liked to keep him, but he wasn't interesred in a new deal. I couldn't get Malian midfielder Traoré to sign a new deal either which was a big blow, he later signed for Dolphins with only 200 € more per week than I tried to offer him. Well Dolphins are in the relation zone at the moment. Ha ha. Barnabus Imenger is sharing Traoré's faith. Afolabi is an aging central defender, who is actually still quite good, but I have signed a couple of new ones so I thought I could let him go.

The ins (the interesting ones):


Shola's replacement. Has scored a lot of goals in Azerbaijan...



New starting center back. Last year we struggled a bit due to too slow defenders, Ali's a lot quicker than the others. Solid.



Young, pacey, good tackler. I like this one. He can also do a job as a winger.

In the Preliminary round we easy went past Civics from Namibia. Opara with a hat trick on his debut!

And then our first trophy under my reign.


As requested earlier, the ranking of the African league: