2020/21 - Update One

2020/21 - Pre-season

Board expectation - Top half finish

Media Prediction - 6th

So, I needed to do a bit of a rebuild of the squad.  I had very little in the way of central defenders, on account of most of the ones I had last season being on loan from Inverness Caledonian Thistle.  Another gaping hole to fill was that of the left wing, where another loanee, Ross Gunn, had excelled last season.

However, despite all of the players I had being on non-contract terms, I still had to release some players due to the way the board factors their appearance fees into the budget, as they still have a cost to this even if it's not guaranteed money as such.

The list of released players is fairly large.  These are all players who had played very little part in the last season, or in the case of Bailey White, someone who had started promisingly but then faltered significantly.

Some players were poached by other clubs:

It was a shame to lose Ross Fleming, as he was a fairly solid left-back, but the one which did sting was Daniel Farrell as he had been my first choice goalkeeper all season and had won us several points with his efforts in goal.  But we couldn't compete with what Brora offered him - he had a £50 appearance fee with us, which I couldn't increase and he's on a contract with Brora on a guaranteed £95 per week, so there's no comparison really.

Will Brady was a youth team player who had not featured in the first team at all, and Rafa Mendyk had been one of the players I'd bundled out on loan to cut from the wage bill, and when he came back he was nowhere near the level of the other players in the squad, so I needed him off the wage bill as he was the only player left on a guaranteed weekly wage and he wasn't going to feature in my plans at all.  Thankfully, there was a couple of clubs interested in his services so he has gone now.


Finally, the players who have come in.

I won't go into detail with them all as there's a lot, however the most notable is probably Roddy Kennedy who had been one of the players I'd had on loan from ICT last season,  Turns out they released him, and he was happy to join us again, which I was pleased with as he scored quite a few goals for us at the end of the last season.

Thomas Dempsie is a player who is capable of playing all across the midfield, however he has primarily been brought in to replace Ross Gunn.  The Assistant Manager doesn't rate him that highly, but he showed some flashes of real skill in the friendlies so I opted to sign him after he came in on trial.

Finally, the friendlies.

We won the matches we were supposed to (although I hadn't thought we'd beat Stranraer reserves quite as easily as we did.  I was also very impressed with how we played against ICT - they were expected to beat us comfortably, however we caused them plenty of problems and were actually quite unfortunate to lose.

August 2020

Ok, so there's one match in July as well - but that wasn't pre-season and I thought an update with just a match from a minor cup competition would be a bit pointless.

As you can see, we drew Deveronvale in two separate cups, meaning three of our opening four games were against them - and none of them were losses, although I'd have preferred the league game to be a win!  I had to experiment a bit in the league game due to injuries, which meant we played in an unfamiliar 3-4-3 shape (due to most of the injuries being full-backs).  For another interesting point, our captain Charlie Mulgrew got himself sent off with a straight red against Hearts Reserves, and then once he'd served his suspension, saw red again for a second booking in the draw against Deveronvale.

Then, before his suspension was up ended up being signed by Dumbarton.  And whilst he's only ended up in their reserves, he is now on a guaranteed £120 per week compared to the £50 per match non-contract deal we were able to offer him so I guess from his perspective it was a no-brainer.  Not to mention, they're in League One.

We then scraped a win against Forres Mechanics, before being battered by Formartine United in the North of Scotland cup despite taking the lead twice.

We ended the month on a high with a demolition job against Buckie Thistle, in a match where Thomas Dempsie (who as I mentioned in the previous update is not rated very highly by the coaches) scoring a hat-trick and also getting an assist in, all from the left wing.

On another signing related note, Ross Gunn, who had been my top scorer last season, was released by Inverness CT in August as well, so although he is injured until late September, I did not hesitate to offer him a deal, which he has accepted.

We end the first month in the dizzy heights of 1st.  I'm not expecting us to stay there, but it's a nice place to be!

September 2020

This was a month where it seemed if you wanted to win, you'd better not score first.

We took the lead against Fraserburgh, who then turned it around to win to knock us out of the Aberdeenshire Cup. 

Then, we played Huntly who took an early lead and we turned it around and we got the win.

In the Brora match, it seems neither team wanted to win as we played out a bore draw.  Nothing else to say about this one.

And then we played Deveronvale again in a cup competition, having already faced them in the Aberdeenshire Cup and North of Scotland Cup.  This time however, was the big one - the Scottish Cup, where there's actual prize money for progressing.  They took the lead in the 3rd minute, but then we steamrollered them.  This was also Ross Gunn's first match since signing as he's now recovered from his injury.  He scored of course.  He should have also had a second, but it was registered as an own-goal even though as far as I could tell his shot was the last touch of the ball!  Never mind, no complaints about a very good win.

We will face East Kilbride, a Lowland League side, in the 2nd round.  It won't be plain sailing of course, but it does represent a good shot of progressing to the 3rd round.

October 2020

A very busy month sees us move on in the league, whilst also seeing our cup campaigns come to an end.

We end the month with our first league loss of the season.

As an aside, East Kilbride was the first match we played after I downloaded the beta patch.  None of the matches from here saw us play very well, so I'm wondering if the patch has rendered my tactics useless.  We'll have to see.

We remain top on goal difference.