Winner Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
Snipin’s a good job, mate! It’s challengin’ work, outta doors. I guarantee you’ll not go hungry
I’m three games in and I have a solid Kill:Death ratio of 3:0 which is how football bookies work out the odds. Now you know. You’re welcome.
👉 Boom! Headshot.
👈 Boom! Less definitive headshot.
👍 Board! Confident, as they should be.
I’m getting to grips with setting specific tactics and tweaking accordingly as the match unfolds. The 4-4-2 Squishy Diamond is holding strong but the weak links in the chain are starting to show. Namely I need stronger midfielders and I need another defender to play on the left.
David Ballantyne is my star player and top goalscorer so far. Sadly I discover that he is on loan from Falkirk and as such my time with him is limited. My limited budget means he’s out of my price range and potentially I think Falkirk could call him back or a bigger team with a bigger function room might snap him up. For the time being he is a happy bunny but I need to start readying a replacement for him.
Buy Me a New Bunny
I promote a few prospectful players from my Reserve team and review the next Shipley Report:
Well, Shipley, me old mucka, you’ve done it again. I can’t afford six out of your seven recommendations. Little Dale Michie is within budget but £500 is a quarter of my transfer funds.
He’s got some promising stats and a good deal of pace. Sadly I discover that the smallest increment I can bid in is £500. So it’s a bid of £500 or £0. I offer them NO MONEY and Arbroath accept which makes me wonder how small their function room must be. 
Dale himself would like to be paid and I graciously accept his request to be paid a lower wage than my other players. I might be role playing this game as Scrooge. I wonder if I can book a friendly on Christmas Day?
My wheeler dealer days go by fast. After being approached to sell one of my players for £0 I ask for £500 and Brechin decline. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, why I don’t play the stock market.
Oh No! The Hibees!
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of the bell tolling for my undefeated streak. I’ve drawn Hibs, a top division team, in the Betfred Cup. The Scout Report says I’m doomed and I agree. A win for me is to have a respectable loss but this could very well be a 7-0 scenario.
Noooooo! Not Kavdanski! He just returned from playing for Bulgaria. Quigley rushes the field chased by the NHS demanding to see his papers.
At half time I’m 1-0 down. I’m ecstatic. The Board will be ever so pleased.
As the final whistle blows, I’m proud of the team and happy to take a 3-0 defeat. I really thought we’d get destroyed.
While the news report we gave “a decent account” of ourselves the match report tells a different tale. “No outstanding qualities to report”? I didn’t die! No one died! We could have all died! Death lurks round every corner in the Betfred Cup. Everyone knows that.
Right I’m going to focus on playing the game and will likely write another page in The Football Manager DiariesTM once I’m well into the season. I may be gone for some time.
