At the start of Season 20, I had a team half full of 89, 90, 91 and even 92 rated players.

Unfortunately, they had an average age of 93, and a tradeable value of about £94 each.

And even with their decent ratings, my side's average was still better than only four or five teams in Division Two.

STICKY SITUATION
I was in a sticky situation.

I could stick with what I had and maybe challenge for the playoffs (if I got my tactics right more times than not).

Or, if the SM gods were against me, I could spend the season fighting relegation.

Or I could make the most of what little player exchange value my players still had and rebuild.

TEA AND BISCUITS
With the end of contracts thrust upon us, I felt that I had to be bold.

It was now or never.

If I didn't move them on now, my players would only decrease in value (and ratings).

They would cost a fortune in tea, biscuits and nappies, before retiring and leaving me with nothing.

To allow me to focus on some kind of rebuild, I brought in a previously unknown but extremely precocious tactical coach, Guglielmo Bardelli.

IMAGINARY FRIEND
My imaginary friend would take over control of all match preparation, team selection, formation and tactical decisions for almost all of the season.

On the few occasions I intervened, we lost.

Bardelli pulled off some audacious wins - Sao Paulo home and away, Genoa in the Shield, Sporting away, Chelsea and Barcelona in the Youth Cup.

We topped the table early on.

But as the season progressed, I was selling ratings for youth and he had less and less to play with (except in the Youth Cup, of course, where he had more and more).

CLEAN SHEETS
More importantly, perhaps, than a few big wins against big teams and big managers, Bardelli ensured victories over teams we knew we had to beat to have any hope of avoiding relegation - including double 1-0 wins over Zenit and River Plate.

Peter Gulacsi was a revelation in goal and between him and his replacement Kepa they kept 12 clean sheets.

We started the season with a 90 rated team of pensioners - Gulacsi, Clauss, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Alba, Naby Keita, Cabella, Luis Suarez, Ashley Young, Slimani, The Ox, Willian, and Enzo Perez.

ALL GONE
They've all gone.

Gulacsi (somewhat unfairly I felt) got a -1 in the reviews, as did Vertonghen, Alba, and Luis Suarez.

Naby somewhow retained his 90 rating, but expect he will be at 88 next time.

In their place, I've got Kepa (who got a +1 and is now Real Madrid's new goalkeeper), Marcus Pedersen, Jaka Bijol (who somehow didn't get a rise this time despite being one of the best performing CBs in Serie A), Quentin Merlin, Sambi Lokonga, Jose Cifuentes, Angelo Stiller (to complete move next season), Emile Smith Rowe, Morgan Gibbs-White, Ander Barrenetxea, Georginio Rutter, Yann Karamoh and Cameron Archer, among others.

NO THOUGHT
I also let go of Willian Pacho (for Smith Rowe), Savio and Ratkov (for Tom Krauss for the Youth Cup effort), and Asllani (for Turati, again for Youth Cup). When I let Pacho go, I had no thought of getting beyond the second round of the Youth Cup, but really did need to strengthen our midfield options for the first team.

My team now has an average rating of 87, which is a huge drop. Alessandro at Ajax tried something similar and unfortunately paid with relegation and his job.

TERRIFIC ACHIEVEMENT
So I was over the moon to finish in 13th place for the second season running, with two more points than before.

We also finished third in the Youth Cup, which was a terrific achievement considering we started with a 67 rated goalkeeper, and a team average of 79 for the opening group game. We're well set for next season, too.

CRAZY TACTICS
Next season in D2 is going to be very tough. I took over tactical operations again for the final few games of the season, as Guglielmo Bardelli started conceding huge amounts of goals with, frankly, some crazy tactics. He's now the Technical Director of Football.

Hopefully I can find the right combination to win enough points to stay up, and buy some time for my players to develop in real life and in SM ratings. I'm not saying we have world beaters, but I think the club overall is in a much better position for value and potential going forward than it was at the start of the season.

Dear Gino,

I am writing to you today to ask for your advice on a matter of great importance to me. I am a new coach in the esteemed custom game world “Top 100”, where - I’m told - only the best, most knowledgeable and expert fantasy soccer managers are worthy of residence.

My team has three young Brazilian players. All three players have great potential, and I believe that they could all play at the highest level.

We have recently been offered a deal for all three players by a club in Serbia. The club is offering a package deal for all three players (“Hey fofo, anything for your three Brazilian kids”). However, I am not sure if this is a fair deal for our players.

I have been following the Top 100 newsfeed recently, and I have seen how players have been changing hands in the transfer market. Some players have been sold for really good players, while others have been sold for really poor players. Is this offer from the Serbian club fair?

I would like to know what you think is a fair price for my players. I would also like to know if you think it is a good idea to sell all three players to the same club. They don’t have any good players to exchange (they are all Glen Mullan’s cast-offs at Espanyol). I would appreciate your advice on this matter.

I’m a new coach in Top 100, in my first season, and it’s been tough getting results as my manager has sold all our best players for younger, weaker players. (He previously sold all his brightest young prospects for older stronger players… go figure!).

I feel like he probably knows a lot less than most other managers, who seem to know exactly how much everyone else’s players are worth, so I would be grateful for any guidance that you can provide.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Guglielmo Bardelli

First team coach at Hamburger SV

Hamburger rocked the Top 100 universe last night with a stellar 3-1 victory against Galacticdisarray in Istanbul. The victory saw Der Dino launched into the final D3 playoff hyperspace, in what Skywatchers' and Top 100 veterans are now calling The Miracle of Istanbul, evoking memories of the Red Shorts' miraculous final game ascension to D1 in Season 11.

An unlikely series of cosmic implosions meant that the Red Shorts jumped from 11th to 7th in one night.

We're over the moon

Hamburger gaffer Marsden

Where did it all go right?

It was clear to me that if we carried on with our trajectory we were at risk of getting sucked into the relegation black hole, from which we might never emerge.

Drastic action was required. And that meant entering the vacuum of interstellar space itself - otherwise known as the Top 100 transfer market - usually occupied only by fading stars older than life itself.

Is there anything out there?

Looking into the future

We also managed to secure a couple of Future Transfers - not something I normally like to do, but with my telescope firmly pointed at next season....

Out of this world

We also did a few 'under the radar' deals with external clubs, partly to create squad space.

Sessa will take the RB slot in my youth cup team next season (hopefully Tomas Tavares will get a positional update to let him play LB).

Cetkovic was a tip from Gentleman James as compensation for removing my shorts and Gaga Slonina from my youth squad.

Romero will hopefully stay injury-free and get a run of games for PSV next season, while Joveljic has started well in MLS with The Galaxy (player of the week with two goals and two assists in a thirty minute substitute cameo last time out).

Towards a theory of everything

Following last season's effort, no season review would be complete without some attempt to explain the unexplainable.

I'm none the wiser, and lost an hour of my life in the process.

Here's to the playoffs and Season 18!

Die Rothosen were relegated back into Division Three on goal difference on the final day of Season 15 despite winning 3-0 at St James's Park against Newcastle's reserve team. North German rivals Werder Bremen lost at Schalke, sealing der Dino's humiliating fall.

It was the culmination of a poor season overall, of course, even if there was some bad luck along the way.

Only Swansea in S5 have won more games (13) than Hamburger this season (12) and been relegated. Swansea are also the only team to have finished with more points (45) than Hamburg and still been relegated to D3. Only Wolfsburg in S12, and Hoffenheim in S14 have accrued 44 points and gone down. 43 points is usually enough to avoid the drop, but not this time.

The season fell roughly into four quarters. HSV failed to win in their first ten games, and managed just three draws, no clean sheets, and were bottom of the table. Lucas Alario missed all of these games with an injury he picked up at the end of S14.

We dominated matches against relegation rivals Sevilla and Schalke, but recorded just just one goal and one point in those two games. Most of the others were close games on the stats, but losing by odd goal. Played mostly 4231B with Alexis Sanchez filling in at CF in place of Alario, and Zakaria Labyad coming in on the wing.

Upon Alario's return, the next nine games were a complete contrast, winning seven, all with clean sheets. We'd started playing the same 'slowball' system that had seen Hertha Berlin get off to such a great start in D1.

The turning point in our season really came when our much sought after youth prodigy Maxence Lacroix forced his way into the team. He'd been training hard, then one day (6 June to be precise) he suddenly (83 to 87) started to look like a much better option than Fortuna Wallace, who had hitherto been a mainstay at the back.

Half-time

In the return fixtures beginning at the halfway stage of the season, we managed two wins and three draws from the next ten games, but just one clean sheet (in a defensive masterclass at Benfica).

On 20 June, we got two red cards at Ajax (both first choice CBs, Fernandinho and Lacroix). Went 352 for next few games to try to compensate with quantity for lack of quality at CB.

By 18 July, things were looking desperate. We went all out attack playing oldskool Der Dino 343 and dominated the Nordderby with 'kick and hope' Bremen, only to concede a late equaliser.

The same tactic backfired catastrophically the following week when we lost 4-0 at home to a poor Lazio team. A mistake from the manager, when reverting to 4231B would surely have seen three points and safety?

The final nine games saw three wins and two draws, a slight improvement, and despite a late season trip to a motivational boot camp, it was too little too late. Young Lacroix played 18 games, during which time we had five wins and five draws (including four clean sheets), and was sent off three times!

Not many positives to take from our season as a whole. We knew it was likely to be tough following S14's 16th place escape, but felt we had made improvements with Rui Patricio and Luis Fernandinho coming in towards the end of S14.

Alexis Sanchez played all across the frontline and scored eleven goals - not a bad effort considering scoring goals was our problem all season with only bottom club Dynamo Kyiv managing fewer. And despite that run of seven clean sheets in nine games in the second quarter of the season, only Ajax, Newcastle and Kyiv conceded more than us over the season.

Although we reached the semi-final of the Youth Shield (thanks to DP 91 for including the final results in his must-read whole of Top 100 season mega-review), we had hoped to do better in the Youth Cup itself with our best ever team. But it never really clicked, much like for the first team in the league.

We did win a few new player lotteries this season, and hope that one or two will develop into players we can use in the first team or for trade in the future. We also made a couple of changes with next season's Youth Cup in mind.

Work to do next season. We came close to bringing in a new keeper and striker (but were informed by the manager we thought we'd agreed a deal with that we had 'the wrong Tavares' to offer as part of the exchange).

In the end, we've decided to stick with what we have for the most part (unless anything changes, and we've been there before). Apologies to Glen at Napoli for sticking with the plan for so long and ultimately suffering disappointment.

Back in D3 where it all started for Marsden in Top 100 in S2, where we will be up against some higher rated but to date underachieving teams. No easy games or divisions in Top 100. Long may it continue!