retired_pmetzger1

someone needs to have a word with the Hibs groundsman, he appears to have left parcel tape all over the pitch.

retired_tns0001

I only lost 1-0 after putting an MLR with a GK rating of 3 in net due to massive injury problems.

To Reading. 4 divisions above me. Talk about the romanticism of the FA cup.

retired_radz

My first attempt at (semi) Low Level Management has left me with some 'interesting" friendlies to begin with.

Most notably was against Sunderland home. Time to test my new tactic. 5 minutes into the game a through ball finds my striker. 1-0.
2 minutes later my winger decides to get the ball near our cornerflag. Goes on a run which zig-zags across the pitch. Ends up at their opposing side cornerflag, from our left cornerflag to their right sided cornerflag, crosses and find my striker and a new contract heading his way. 2-0
half hour mark. My centre back gets fed up with simply passing around and keeping control and decides it's time to hoof the ball up to a lonly broken through striker... 3-0

10 seconds into the second half their keeper decides to take down our striker in the box. Penalty to be taken by our keeper (how the...)
4-0
And this was where sunderland decided it was enough.
within 2 minutes they were back up to 4-3 and I went off in some sort of gung-ho headlesschicken defence which was high-speed-extreme-tight-marking-high-closing-down-hoof-every-ball-upfield style play....
I can say that 40 minutes where the shots tally went from 9-2 to 9-34 are nerve wrecking even in a friendly match with nothing at stake.

And still sneak out with a 4-3 win and several teams interested in my goalie.

creative36

A match from a now-abandoned game.

At home against a mid-table team, with my best 2 keepers and best 2 strikers out injured and with my best centre-back suspended, we give away a penalty after 6 minutes, for which the defender is sent off. (5th penalty in successive games, by the way, which is part of the reason this game was abandoned).

They score another shortly afterwards, against my re-jigged defense and then sit back. We somehow nick a goal a few minutes before half-time and then come out after the break expecting to be under the cosh again. A couple of substitutions make no difference until, in the 78th minute, a defence-splitting pass leaves the goal so far open that my striker simply couldn't miss.

I'm, naturally, delighted by the turnaround and even more so when, with a minute to go, we repeat the trick to win 3-2. Even the derogatory remarks by the AI couldn't put a damper on that one.