The first season in Top 100 has came to a close and what a first year it’s been, top effort from Frank and everyone involved in the setup!

At the start of the season Everton replaced fans favourite Roberto Martinez with a young, exciting new manager Michael Bowes. His plan was to carry on the philosophy Roberto started and play on the floor, passing, attractive football. He wanted to excite the fans that pay to watch his team play.

With a new manager coming in there was obviously going to be a few changes to the playing staff but no one expected the amount of change that was about to happen. The only first team members who survived the changes were highly rated Ross Barkley, Tom Cleverley, Bryan Oviedo & Muhamed Besic. Michael Bowes went about replacing everyone with his own set of players, building a team around the man who he rated extremely highly, the player who he thinks has the mental strength to hold the clubs hopes on his shoulders even at the age of 22, that man would be Ross Barkley. A massive 75 players were transferred in to Everton with 61 leaving.

With a top half finish the objective for Bowes and his back room staff, the manager might had been surprised to see his team finish 7th and grabbing the last play off spot. “With all the ins and outs we’ve made this year, a play off spot was definitely a rewarding thing for the club and the players, it shows were going in the right direction and where we want to end up in the next couple of seasons” Bowes explained. Sadly the club didn’t make it past Portuguese side Porto who beat Everton 3-0 and eventually winning the play offs to made it into Division One. " They were the better side on the day, but we have a young squad who now have the experience of feeling what a play off feels like, playing a match with so much at stake and I’m sure this will spur them on for the new season to try and go one further" Bowes added.

End of the season means awards. Teams getting promoted and players winning trophies for there performances during the season. Everton’s Ross Barkley being nominated for the Young player of the season echoed the thoughts for manager Michael Bowes on how important he is to the club. 12 goals, 14 assists in his 32 matches was an excellent return from someone who’s so young. Ross went on to win the award and gave full credit to the manager, he added he’s enjoying his football under Michael Bowes and is looking forward to the bright future the club has.



Ross Barkley with the young player of the year award


Top goal scorers

1. 12 goals - Ross Barkley
2. 10 goals - Eduardo Salvio
3. 10 goals - Loic Remy

Top assists

1. 14 assists - Ross Barkley
2. 8 assists - Loic Remy
3. 5 assists - Eduardo Salvio

S.L. Benfica 4 Ever S.L. Benfica - End of the Season Benfica board is quite happy whit this few weeks together whit Nuno Bento. The Portuguese Manager was able to keep Benfica in Divison II whit only two defeat in is hands. Taking Benfica form 18º to a safe 14º position. In order to keep the 50 cap squad some young players will leave Lisbon. The President Luis Filipe Vieira also announce that he will make everything to bring back some ex-Benfica Academy players to Lisbon. Interviewed by Benfica TV he said "We will enter in transfer talks whit Monaco and Valencia and we hope to be able to bring back to Benfica loved players as João Cancelo, Andre Gomes and Bernardo Silva! Will be difficult but we are ready to release some of our best players to get them!" Lets see lets see!  The wanted ones are!

Only Two days ago Mister Malcolm’s Fiorentina were awarded ITALIAN TEAM OF THE YEAR at a lavish ceremony in Rome much to the disgust of Top Italian journalist Gino Kinnearo…

Kinnearo refused to acknowledge the Fiorentina players as they were "undeserving"

“In all my many many years of journalism I have never seen such bull crap! To give DP second place as well when he failed to get Juventus top 4 is a joke, he shouldn’t have been top 10.”

La Gazzetta dello Sport

25 DEC 2015

Florence named

Italian team of

year

By MISTER MALCOLM
In a leading hotel in Rome, the
brave and the beautiful of Italian
football met to hand out the award
for Italian football team of the year.



There were plenty of glum faces as
this has not been a golden year for
Italian football with one ray of sun-
shine. So in third place came Ju-
ventus DP91 led the strong team to
within 13pts of the title. He was
awarded a used Lancia Beta for his
e orts.
In second spot came Udinese who
still have the playoffs to fight for. A
solid squad with a great late season
burst still lead them open to promo-
tion. They were awarded freedom of
the city of Udine for the remainder of
2015.
In top spot came Florence or
Firenze. Despite many nay sayers
and doubters all of whom were ob-
viously proved wrong, the greatest
manager in SM history ever, led them
to promotion in just one season. All
this despite the handicap of not being
able to bring back their best player
from loan all season. The whole team
were given the keys to the Berlosconi
mansion and Mister Malcolm the ti-
tle of SoccerManager Best Manager
in perpetuation. Merry Christmas

Good afternoon and welcome to my last Thursday blog of the season. First of all, on this Christmas Eve, I would like to wish everyone and their families a Merry Christmas and I hope you have a really nice time tomorrow and all just chill out, relax and leave all the stress and running about to everyone else. After all, you have deserved it after the stress of Season 1 in the Top 100. These women think that we just sit on our arse ‘playing a wee game on his computer/laptop/tablet/phone’ (delete where appropriate) without realising the thought and the stress of trying to get to the top of the division against some very tough opponents and some shit ones (you know who I am talking about). Anyway, just make sure you enjoy your day and your Christmas dinner, whatever it may be.

Our Christmas will begin a bit later than it used to do since the kids are grown up now, well kind of grown up going by their behaviour at times. When they were young it was always a 6 or 7am rise with the wife being the most excited of them all. I have to hand it to the wife at Christmas. She is more interested in buying things for everyone else than getting things. The kids always had a bin bag full of stuff and to be honest, so did I. I felt like a kid most years and I probably get more stuff now than I did when I was growing up. This year she has bought me a new laptop and quite a few other things that I can’t really think of the now but it will be the regular stuff for a guy like a nice after shave, socks, a jumper, new jeans and lots more. I think I am getting a few Dallas Cowboys things and I definitely seen a book about their history. She also said, just this morning, that there is a surprise present. Oh the excitement!! She leaves me behind on all this present stuff with what I get for her. To be honest, I don’t really have a lot of time to buy stuff and rely on the girls to help me out. I know she loves Estee Lauder, so I have her this Estee Lauder kit thing that has lots of make up and other things in it. At £250 it better be good. I also have her a dressing gown, Lady Millions which is her favourite perfume and a Sandra Bullock DVD set, whom she likes a lot. It will be a good day and I must admit she is outstanding when it comes to Christmas dinner. I do admire her cheek though as we give her help with the dinner, just the small things that need done, and she takes ALL the credit. Not like a woman at all eh? Anyway, as I was saying, we used to get up very early with the kids only having about 5 hours sleep due to Elise being unable to sleep and doing her Dancing Monkey act in front of the mirror in her room, which was really just her dancing like an idiot. We have all done it I suppose although we would be full of the drink. Tomorrow will be much more relaxed and we will probably get up about 9, open presents and then the girls will go back to bed for an hour or two, depending what they have been doing tonight. In fact, just remembered, Janene is working at the stables and we wont see her until early afternoon. I always make the Christmas breakfast for whoever wants it as I must say, I am a damn good cooker of sausages, bacon, egg, potato scone and whatever else has been got from the butchers. After that it is chill out time, maybe a wine or a beer, depending on my mood and also be at the call of the wife when she needs help with the dinner. The girls will set the table with the crackers etc, of which they do a nice job. Night time will be relaxing for me and not too late a night as I am working boxing day with a 7.20am start. So that will be our Christmas Day. Not as hectic as it used to be but still as enjoyable.
Last week I was too busy to do a Thursday blog and it was a shame as I had an event that I wanted to share. In a nutshell, Janene won her first affiliated show jumping competition which was held at SNEC in Edinburgh. This was her third competition and to win one already was a great achievement for her. She has won the odd competition before but they were all unaffiliated, meaning they weren’t official and weren’t recorded. This was her first win as, I suppose, a professional and she won a grand total of £25. Yep, £25. It’s not much but it is the winning that was the big deal and not the prize money. Me being me, couldn’t resist the wind-up of course and after she had received her prize, I told her to remember and keep some for the taxman. I told her that you have to pay tax on all winnings and to keep a record of it. She believes anything I say and asked how much it would be. About £7 roughly I told her. She said ok and how does she go about it. I told her it was quite complex but I knew how to do it and if she gave me the £7, I would make sure it was all done. The wee soul handed me a tenner and said to sort it out. I just looked at her and said I was only kidding and the winnings were all hers. She wasn’t that amused but more so because she had fell for it. I have a video of her winning clear round on my phone but I have no idea how to put it onto the blog :( so heres a couple of photos of Janene on Piretta IV

It’s been all about Janene these last days and you will remember that I told you about her ‘‘boyfriend’’. Well, it is still going but I get the feeling that she isn’t that bothered about him. She was a bit unwell last night and jumped inbetween me and the wife in our bed last night as she does when not feeling great. I asked how they were getting on and she said ok I suppose. Not that keen sounding if you ask me. She said she liked him but didn’t think it was going to work out. That’s a bit of a shame as, although I am not that good with so called boyfriends, I still want her to be happy. I had bit the bullet earlier in the day when we were texting and I asked her outright whether they had had sex yet. Now, I think I have said before that Janene is 18 but inside I still think about 15 would describe her better. She replied that they hadn’t had sex and that was what I expected as I don’t think she is anywhere near ready. To make light of it, I replied ‘Ok that’s fine. He can live ………. for  now’. Of course, I knew she would mention this to her big sister and that Elise would have something to say since she knows everything. Yep, I was right as she said to me that I shouldn’t be asking Janene that. I was ready for her big, outspoken mouth though and told her to mind her own business and it was nothing to do with her what me and Janene talked about. We had been talking and it didn’t involve her so keep your nose out. Surprisingly, she didn’t have an answer for it and hopefully she knows that other members of the family can talk about anything they want without having to have opinion heard.
Well, that’s been the main events of the last days with the only other thing happening is that the puppies are leaving today. They are just over 8 weeks old and they go to their new homes. Awwww most people say but Thank Fuck is my words. They were very naughty puppies this time and ran riot about the house. They were so fast and trying to catch them was an ordeal in itself. If they weren’t chewing someone’s slipper, they were in stealing the big dog’s food which gives them the runs and they are not supposed to be eating the adult food. Anyway, off they go today with their Kennel Club papers, their five week free insurance and a puppy bag that we make up ourselves. 4 x £650 for us as they had already paid £100 deposit each. Oh happy days!!!

As far as we are led to believe, Soccer Manager will change to the new interface at the beginning of 2016. This will be D-Day for many players of the game who will have to decide whether to quit the game altogether, give the new interface a chance or decide that they are happy with it and the game goes on. Personally I am still in the balance. The only thing I know for certain is that I will not give them another penny of the wife’s hard earned money and instead of buying £20 of SM coins, the £20 will go on the first favourite at Chepstow. I have something like 19 days of gold membership left so there was no point in spending time on the gold teams I had left and therefor they are now history. I have 5 custom worlds that I am in including this one and I will give them a chance although I have, now and then, used the new interface to try get used to it but am still of the opinion that it is too much effort just to pick a team. That should be a simple thing but it just isn’t. It doesn’t look good for the future and I must say that my enthusiasm is definitely not as it was. I used to look forward to getting up in the morning and checking what messages each team had and if players had gone up in ratings or I had beaten someone to the signing of Yaya Banana. I am not excited anymore. In my opinion they have ruined an excellent product and it could be the breaking of them. Either that or the game will be full of 12-14 year olds. Anyway, it’s now a waiting game to see if I can get to like it and then decide what to do.

Tonight is a big night in the Top 100 as we enter the final game of the season with lots of clubs playing for promotion or a play off place, or indeed, to stave off relegation. In Division 5, I am glad to say that we, Club Brugge, are sitting in a favourable position. Sunday’s excellent 4-1 win in Holland against FC Twente Enschade seen us move into fourth position in the table and our last game tonight should confirm a play off spot for us. I do have to congratulate Bela Guttman (AZ Alkmaar), Son of Pluto (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk) and Rob Ryan (Montpellier HSC) on already sealing automatic promotion to Division 4 this season although I think Son of Pluto obviously had some sort of advantage with his dad being a God.
Club Brugge, as I said, are lying 4th with a 3 point and a 7 goal advantage over Santos FC in 7th place so only a complete disaster tonight would prevent our season being extended. I must say how proud I am of the boys who played in the 4-1 win at FC Twente. The fact that they had to do it without our two main strikers said lots for their character. Pabon and Athanasiadis both missed out with Pabon almost certainly ruled out of the play offs as well after he tore his groin while trying to do Agadoo with a banana placed between his legs. I wont go into the full details but lets just say that Agadoo should only be done with the full supervision of an adult. Those who tried to throw pineapple rings onto the banana should realise that the banana was long gone by that time and the rather excited Pabon soon regretted his party trick. Athanasiadis got himself sent off in the game against Partizan and tonight is his second match of a three match suspension, meaning he could return for the play off Final if we can get there.
Tonight we entertain Celtic, managed by Jens Mourinho-Jairzinho. Is this Jens Litamen in disguise. I fully expect him to win tonight if he is going to include Mourinho in his name. Hmmm hold on …. on the other hand…..
Anyway I know it will be a tough game and our main decision is whether to go out and attack to win the game or play conservative knowing that a point secures our play off spot. That will be a game time decision.
Our opponents in the play offs, as they stand, would be FC Augsburg managed by Dale Piero. I have known Dale for two years now, or so it said on Facebook, and we have had plenty of games against each other and I have to admit, I couldn’t tell you who has the better record as we have both won a few with a few draws. Would definitely be an interesting match up but Dale has some work to do if that game is to be realised. It is very close for the play off spots and if Dale wins tonight and I lose, he would overtake me in the table and would be the one with home advantage in the play off should we meet. But that’s a big if because my guys are not going to lose to Celtic.
Anyway I have rattled on enough for this week and it’s now down to the nitty gritty of the season end games. I would like to wish everyone luck tonight if their game is of importance and I am sure we would all like to thank Frank Hirst for a great set up as the first season comes to a close.

That’s it from me. Merry Christmas everyone and I should be back next Thursday with news of our play off situation and also how our Christmas Day went and if Janene’s boyfriend has lived for another week.

Ciao