Dan

Our draw is the most TV avoid draw I think we've ever had. But I'm not unhappy with it. We were due a home tie (12 of our last 15 have been away) and we'll be favourites. I want a run.

Cheers. That's very unlucky. 3 corners seems like hardly anything in a game where one team was 1/5. A good win for you as well by the way. Nice to see I'm back miles off 8th again!

To be honest the Azaz one is fair enough. The Cundle one is particularly brutal as they're not even selling him to Stoke, just another loan. Two key players gone and they won't see a penny for it. For that to happen once is hard but twice is sickening, just after the manager goes and it looks like now they'll probably have to sell Morgan Whittaker to Brentford too, I'm guessing that's to finance replacements for the other two, as well as Whittaker himself now. I think any club worth their salt shouldn't be scared to lose people, but when you're losing that many and not even taking any money in a couple of instances it's a bitter blow and it could derail them a bit I fear. Hope they survive. You just know their one away win this season is going to come at Stoke.

Can't find the stats on this on flash scores - going to assume it didn't win as you would imagine that the game being level is when you'd get more corners. But obviously that isn't a given.

Only four new grounds in that for me and two of them are still not yet even through. It'd be nice to get Maidstone away but the thought of being the victim of a famous scalp would worry me slightly. Wrexham away for me. Never been there and very winnable. I'm very much in the camp of going for it. We're 1/66 to get promoted with the bookies. We would have to produce a once in a generation level of drop off to blow it and I think it would be good for us to get tested by a Premier League team in a competitive game later down the line - to gauge where we're 'really' at.

Looks like I've done it yet again. Genuinely next week might just stick a couple of banker games as over 0.5 to see which ends 0-0.

Fairly short notice one, but pick one is Bologna tonight at home to Genoa at evens.

It's far quicker I think. You can pretty much just get anybody you want gone, gone. Nobody is ever running a contract down again under my watch!

The great fightback of Vitoria de Setubal part 2 Each tier of the Portuguese system seems to have a particular quirk. In the fourth tier you had a split after 26 games and a group stage to confirm your promotion, so a 32 game season, potentially a 33rd (which we did play). The third tier's system had 20 teams in it. These were split into north and south leagues, so two leagues of 10, you would play 18 games before it splits as the top 4 of each go into the promotion league and the bottom 6 of each go into the relegation league. We are placed into the southern section and will face the likes of Sporting B again and I fully expect both of us to get into the top 4 given the level of dominance we demonstrated in the fourth tier. I continued the seemingly never-ending overhaul of the squad and brought in some... interesting shall we say players. Islam Slimani catches a few eyes, once of Sporting Lisbon, once Leicester's record signing, just off the back of a 20 goal year in Brazil aged 36 but clearly on the wane and has come to us. Henqirue Pereira (left winger) and Habraao (centre back) are coup signings, as well as young winger Goncalo Martins who we beat a couple of second tier teams to sign. He's got very big potential so it's a real coup. We make no mistake in the first half of the season and we finish 2nd behind the ever relentless Sporting B, who are the only team who beat us (doing so in both games). Academica Coimbra and Sporting Covilha join us from the southern section to go into the promotion league, along with Porto B, Vianense, Lank FC Villaverdense and Vitoria Guimaraes B. The fact there are three B teams is a bit of a concern to me, seeing the way Sporting have blitzed their way through the last 18 months. I fully expect them to win the league. There are 2.5 promotion places - the top two go up, and the team in third will face the team third bottom of the second tier over two legs to determine who plays in the second tier next season. I bulk the squad further in January, the signing of Pedro Santos is another real coup on the right wing and he's a player I see going pretty far should he develop well. We have a strong squad and I think we can push the top two, but it is going to be tough. We make virtually no errors at all and fly up as champions. We're presented with what was in my opinion our biggest game as the opener and we beat Porto B 3-0. I considered this the biggest as I believed Sporting B would win the league and that 2nd was probably going to be between us and them. I wasn't miles out, but there was a surprise in the league. Vianense claimed a shock promotion. They were ranked as literally the weakest of the eight teams and they seemed to find this horrible style for teams to play against. They were the only team to beat us in the championship group as you see there, and they pipped Porto and Sporting B against all odds to 2nd spot on the final day. Porto B did actually unfortunately manage to get promoted and I say unfortunately because I'd rather less B teams flew up the leagues. There will be three in the second tier next season which is a shame. Never have liked the idea. Lots of the players who delivered for us in the fourth tier stepped up with ease. Patrick was the story of the season as for the second year running he forced his way into the team late on and couldn't stop scoring. Slimani was actually a huge disappointment on the whole but clearly tailed off massively during the season after an impressive start. I fancied a lot of the players who had come in to step up to the next league up, with our strength undoubted being out wide as Pereira, Santos and Martins were all players who belonged at a higher level. I gave myself a five year mission to get to the top tier. We've made it to the second tier after three despite flunking the first season. So we have two years to get back to the top tier. With yet another generous relative wage bill that was comparable to what 7th in in the second tier spent this season just gone, I felt we could look up the league rather than down, although this would be a bit trickier than the last two years.

I have to say the hire an intermediary is my favourite feature on this game in years. It's both realistic and so convenient to me.

The great fightback of Vitoria de Setubal part 1 When I took these over at the start of the game I made a target to get back to the top flight in five seasons. Blowing promotion as favourites in the first season is a massive knock to my chances here, but I think I knew the root of the issue and it's that in these leagues there is no forgiveness for blowing important games. You can't simply accrue too many points for the others, you have to do this and deliver in some big matches. It was the latter where we failed. I totally overhauled the squad, releasing all bar around eight players and bringing in those above to pad out the squad. Highlight signings were Rouai (winger), Diogo Gomes (holding midfielder) and Paraskeva (goalkeeper). A concerted effort was made to ensure that unless they had an ability that vastly exceeded the division we were in, nobody who has an aversion to playing in big matches would be signed. I simply cannot risk having players who will bottle it. I need reliable heads. It's hard to measure your progress in this situation as we'd delivered such a comprehensive domination of the fourth tier last season, but fell when it mattered. A good start however was having the same opening day fixture as last season in Oriental Lisboa at home, and this time winning 7-1 rather than drawing 1-1. We did however lose our 3rd and 4th games and I realised that I needed a bit of a tactical switch, that our system while capable of producing pure obliteration was vulnerable to the counter attack and created ding-dong games which we would occasionally lose. We went on to get a record of 21 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses from our league. The highlight being an extraordinary game away to second placed (at the time) Lusitania Acores where we would go down to 9 men and still remarkably pinch a winner in injury time. Another of note was a 4-2 win in the cup over second tier Varzim - a massive test of our credentials passed, and we took Sporting Lisbon to extra time in the next round at home but did crumble during it. To my mind, we were operating already like a side who could push 2nd/3rd tier teams and we were far too good for this league. So back we went into the play-offs to be put into a group alongside Tirsense, Beira-Mar and moneybags Lusitania Lourosa. We went into the group on the back of a 10 match winning run and we kept it going for most of the group, dropping points just the once to secure promotion. We would then face Sporting Lisbon B on a neutral ground in the play-off final. A game simply to decide a champion rather than any promotion. Their record was even more dominant in the league than ours was - a record of 25-1-0 and scoring 90 goals, simply a team far too good for this level of football. We lost the final on penalties after a goalless draw that saw Sporting pick up two very late red cards. I was happy with the performance against a side that was better than us but a bit gutted to take no silverware. I fully expected that both teams could make a promotion push the following season as well. The best XI and subs for the season. Seven of the first XI were new signings. Heliardo delivered after a poor first season for me. Pedro Graca was the player I had to concede I'd made a big mistake on. He didn't feature much in the first season and he was absolutely instrumental throughout. We had become a well functioning team, a solid unit and I thought providing the wage budget wasn't too unkind to us, we had a good foundation to go up again next season. More to follow.

WEEK 22 - HAPPY NEW YEAR WEEK 22 STATS Winning bets: 2/6 Winning selections: 6/10 Weekly forum position: +£96.60 (Ranked 1/22) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 39/154 Winning selections: 133/290 Total forum position: -£294.67 I think on the law of averages we were about due some collective luck on the forum, although it's pretty clear that one particular bet has carried the collective in a week where plenty went big. So the obvious place to start is to congratulate the new leader in @Lucas who becomes the first of the four players so far to use the £25 bet on a winner - at the biggest odds of the four too. The bet was for both Salah and Gordon to register a shot on target and draw a foul in the Liverpool v Newcastle game and they obliged. The biggest win of the season. Despite registering his first win in three months, this is the week where @Pyfish is knocked off the top of the table. Maybe fortunate to be allowed the winner as Hearts' win over Livingston took place outside of the date, but I'll make an allowance, only a day out and everyone loses track over Christmas. It pays out anyway, along with having Liverpool to win the same game as Lucas. That's where the positives end, but the profit is strong enough to still make this the best week we've had. @CaaC (John) falls to a seasonal low position of 6th following Hearts' failure to win, ironically. They were 2 down at home to Ross County but could only get a draw rather than go all the way, while Aston Villa won an equally dramatic game over Burnley in the last minute. No winner this week and the only player to drop by two places. The big losers of the week are @RandoEFC and @Stan having both played their £25 chip and backing losers. Rando is extremely unlucky as Burnley's game with Liverpool yielded exactly 8 corners when it was over that total that was required, although on the flip side I think if this had have landed, then the manner of which the Ipswich Leicester both teams to score selection won would've been extremely fluky as Ipswich scored a last minute equaliser courtesy of two deflections. Stan actually put in two bet selections this week. Now it's a bit tricky because they weren't at the same value so there's no obvious outcome here. I've awarded the £25 loss as it was the first selection to be made and it had already settled, although it's slightly unfortunate. And once again I finish with myself. A nine game losing run and further irritability as Aberdeen deliver an absolutely abject showing at home to St Mirren, before just three days later going away and thrashing Ross County while St Mirren get hammered themselves (in fairness by Celtic), so I retain they were probably the right side on the wrong day. Juventus won 1-0 although I watched the game, they were fairly comfortable and I still think their price was generous. Just cannot catch any sort of break whatsoever, although I've gotten slightly closer to 8th given the £25 losses above me. These are the straws I'm having to clutch at this point. FA Cup 3rd round weekend this time out. For me it's a huge trap which I'll probably avoid, but there is plenty else as the European leagues start returning from Christmas.

Plymouth are great value. Their games are total chaos.

I've been doing a few like this lately. Arsenal lost there in both of the last two seasons as well (one in the cup). I had Luton to beat Newcastle 4/1, Preston to beat Leeds 5/1, got close with Rotherham beating Sunderland at 5/1. The angle I'm increasingly taking is that home teams are overpriced. I will need big odds to get on an away team.

I'll allow it as it's the silly time of year and I run it Tuesday to Monday to fit in line with the typical football week. Tuesday daytime games feel very NYD-y.

Naturally Aberdeen are absolutely walloping their opponents today. Just infuriating luck again. I'll get an updated table in today. I believe we have a new leader.

That must be one of the worst appointments ever made. Total disaster and self-inflicted decline yet it's not the first time for that club. But at least they have tried to rectify it and owned it. If they end up getting Cooper out of this then I would say they upgraded on Eustace. The fact Cooper is linked is quite encouraging for them. If he went there you would have to assume he had assurances of a pretty generous backing.

He's had that game today at the perfect time as we've now lost Daka and possibly Iheanacho for a month with no sign of Vardy's return. We have a conundrum in attack anyway. This is his chance to nail down the place. I like him. He's a good striker. This generally helps for a striker but he's great at shooting. Lovely technique.

Fucking hell fair play. Looks like there is hope yet. This is the sort of thing I'll need to land just to break even.

I'm trying to be humble and it's impossible. We have absolutely no business in this division. Well done to Maresca and the team for demonstrating the level of failure those before you produced. Really happy for Cannon. Two really good goals. The first is a lovely strike and the second - I've not seen a forward shrug off a defender like that for us in a while. Never really been Vardy/Iheanacho's forte. He looks another good buy.

Fans in this league have a bit of a chip on their shoulder I've found. If it was up to me this month I'd be taking 2/3 punts on prospects from abroad in the mould of Fatawu - fairly low risk but high upside players, as we're in a great position to actually integrate them without any real risk this season. We're linked with a midfielder from Bodo called Albert Gronbaek - exactly the type I mean, it'd be easier to incorporate someone from the Norwegian league in the next six months than when we're up. We will need to bring in a couple of difference makers upon promotion though. Striker is going to be a quite big priority.

I can't think of a single club we have a better record against since I've followed football than Huddersfield. I've even seen us play this exact fixture twice on new years day in previous years and we've won 6-1 and 3-0 so it bodes fairly well.

If the other Championship fans think they hate us now they're going to be in for a whole world of pain this month. I think we're likely to get another 2/3 in.

Think the three who came up will all go - you have a genuine possibility that the 2022/23 and 2024/25 Premier Leagues have the exact same 20 teams.

I've spent the season trying to not be too carried away because ultimately it is my belief that our relegation was absolutely staggering underperformance and that anybody considered a breath of fresh air could come in and probably get us promoted. This is probably going to be what stops Maresca getting all the credit that he does deserve. 20 wins from 25 is very good even if it is expected of us and the question I'd ask is how many of the Premier League would manage that? I reckon it's certainly less than 17, which bodes well. The recruitment in the summer was largely good. Fatawu is looking like more of an absolute gem of a signing by the week, 19 years old and has the most chances created per minute of any player in Europe. Mavididi has faced a bit of criticism but he's too good for this league as well. Hermansen and Winks are a class above the league as well. Dewsbury-Hall is likewise proving his level is above this division. It was expected of us, but it was also expected of Leeds and they're now the same number of points away from us as they are from Birmingham in 20th. After last season and how depressing it was, and despite the fact our performance this season has kind've reaffirmed every single word I said about how badly we underperformed last season, it is nice to be moving in the right direction on the pitch again. Credit to Maresca - who is still a rookie in the game.