Links to Part I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX / X
The Millwall bastards riding out into the Premier League with their studs held high seemed a nice way to close out the series. But is a fairytale ending really the stuff of Millwall, or is it instead a gritty slog through the depths of the league table, being last on Match of the Day every week, hacking away at De Bruyne's ankles, with it all inevitably ending in disaster? I think we all know the answer to that question.
The Warchest, Part I
The Premier League millions are coming our way at last. I'm handed a £35m warchest, and I plan to make it the most literal use of the word warchest ever seen in association football. The board, perhaps worried I'll waste the money on veteran bastards, try to sneak in an objective for me to sign young players for the future, but thankfully relent after I repeatedly refuse to accept it.
I immediately go mad. We have bids accepted for a number of key targets all across Europe, with no thought given to how they'll actually fit in the team. Ed Woodward eat your heart out.
After some disappointing setbacks – Ander Herrera and Sergio Busquets refuse to talk, still fairly important players to their teams even in their mid-30s, and I'm gutted to learn that Sergio Ramos has retired after 18 seasons at Real Madrid – I scale back a little, and sign Mo Besic on a permanent transfer instead for a modest £650k. He did well when needed last year, and can do a job again this time. I also poach German left wing back Oliver Kragl from Benevento, as he seemed useful as a squad player, though this does leave us with four left backs.
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If the fans were worried about a lack of ambition, the next two signings show our real intent. Legend of chest control and flailing elbows, Marouane Fellaini, is next through the door. Considering his age, declining ability, high wage demands, £2m transfer fee, and him not at all fitting our system, it's not a sensible signing.
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Neither is our next new face. The definition of shithouse. Absolute Bastard. Perennially 40-year-old Diego Costa is prised away from Fiorentina for £700k. He's scored just two league goals in two years. But I don't care. The new Barnes-Costa partnership will be a spectacle regardless.
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It's a Rich Man's World
Top division football is a new world for me. I'm not acclimatised to the insane wage demands this high up. This isn't made easier by the conga-line of players visiting my office every day demanding new contracts. I make the mistake of telling Travis, last season's disciplinary record breaker, that I'll offer him a new deal, only to back down once he demands a 400% wage increase… Thompson, Cooper, Fisher, and Collins' requests for new deals are all ignored. A mutiny is already brewing and we're yet to play a game…
We also struggle to compete on the transfers front. Thankfully no other clubs were stupid enough to gazump our Fellaini and Costa deals, but two other key targets go elsewhere. A rare young shithouse, Man United left back Brandon Williams, rejects our contract and joins Spurs after a protracted transfer saga. And most gutting of all, legendary nutcase Alfredo Morelos refuses our approaches to join arch rivals West Ham instead. I'm inconsolable, and even consider handing in my resignation at this news.
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Furthermore, to cut down on salaries in prior years I'd made generous promises of promotion wage rises to nearly all our players. The second it's confirmed we're going up these clauses all trigger, immediately adding 25% to our wage bill… Despite this, the club's finances are in another league entirely to every other team in the division.
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The Warchest, Part II
It's not just about playing staff. Burnley, now a Championship club after selling us Ashley Barnes, appoint my coach Torsten Frings as their new manager. I replace him with Jaap Stam. Jens Lehmann, the most infuriating man in the world, seems happy to remain unemployed, demanding extortionately unaffordable amounts of money to be my new goalkeeping coach. I do, however, tie Cattermole down until 2029. I see him as my successor, and hope he learns a lot under my leadership. The Arteta to my Guardiola.
Our monkeys with machineguns approach to player transfers, meanwhile, continues unabated. Gary Medel joins on loan from Al-Ain, with us footing the bill for his £32k a week contract. Again, I have no idea where he'll actually play. We also bring in central midfielder Allan Campbell from Motherwell for a hefty £5m. The fact that he was born in Glasgow, winds up opponents, and argues with referees will hopefully make up for his limited technical ability.
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With deadline day looming, we're in desperate need of a forward who can actually run around (Vardy, Barnes, Costa, Smith, and Fellaini having all lost their pace aeons ago). Instead, I bring in two more aggressive centre halves. Scottish bastard Ryan Porteous joins for a club record £11.5m, and is followed by long term target Darragh Lenihan. At this point I'm actively hoping for suspensions to be able to give everyone enough playing time…
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The Departed
Much is made of the likes of Man City having enough players to field two world class teams. Millwall are no different. Minus the "world class" part. As the season approaches, we have over thirty first team players. With an average age of 28.96.
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A cull is needed. Smallwood heads out on loan again, as does Sonny Bradley. Contract rebel James Collins, despite his good performances last year, is offloaded on a £500k loan to Shamrock Rovers, and long serving Shaun Hutchinson is reluctantly allowed to leave after wanting a new challenge. Evidently the Premier League wasn't challenge enough.
Joe Garner and Lee Tomlin are the latest players to hang up their boots, joining the backroom staff as a scout and head of youth development respectively. Andy Carroll also retires, but the less said about him the better.
Speaking of Lee Tomlin, his appointment to our youth setup is already yielding results. I'm delighted to see a good number of Millwall academy products with "argues with officials" and "winds up opponents" embedded into their playstyles. We're the exact opposite of La Masia, and it's beautiful.
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| Players In | | Players Out | |
| Mo Besic | £650k | Richie Smallwood | Loan |
| Oliver Kragl | £700k | Sonny Bradley | Loan |
| Marouane Fellaini | £2m | Billy Mitchell | £450k |
| Diego Costa | £700k | Tyler Burey | £93k |
| Gary Medel | Loan £10k p/m | James Collins | Loan £100k p/m |
| Allan Campbell | £5m | Shaun Hutchinson | £170k |
| Ryan Porteous | £11.5m | | |
| Darragh Lenihan | £3.8m | | |
Lads on Tour
With Millwall now in the big leagues, our pre-season potential has skyrocketed. I don't let this opportunity go to waste. After an easy victory away at Canelas, we embark on a tour of clubs previously sanctioned by UEFA. I want the team to learn a lot, and hope that even the Millwall fans can pick up a few new things from the likes of Lazio, Zenit, and CSKA's ultras. And Leeds.
The results, considering the half-decent quality of the opponents, are promising. We narrowly lose to Zenit, but draw with Lazio, and beat Leeds and CSKA, picking up six yellow cards in the latter. With any luck the league campaign will follow suit.
In the pre-season press conference I'm bullish about our chances, before tipping West Ham for relegation, out of hope of signing Morelos more than anything. When I realise they're managed by Solskjær, that blind optimism seems far more astute.
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Baptism of Fire
We open away at Southampton. It's a winnable game, made more difficult due to suspensions for Fisher and Rafferty. And Thompson. And McClean. All carried over from last year's playoff sacrifices. I pick as strong a line up as possible, with Costa, Barnes, and Vardy leading the line. Our Premier League debut has arrived.
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Reality bites. My worries about our limited strikeforce seem realised, as on balance the game wasn't as one-sided as the result, Southampton were just far more clinical. On a more promising note, we did manage to commit an impressive 31 fouls – bringing Gegenfouling to the global audience it deserves.
Next up is a narrow 1-0 defeat to Newcastle, before we're annihilated at the hands of Leicester, Tammy Abraham making a mockery of our slow back line. We pick up a £25,000 fine for our discipline, but this is clearly unsustainable. Things need to improve, and fast.
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In what should have been a morale-boosting victory, we crash out of the League Cup to third division Swindon Town, and, though we score our first goals, courtesy of Diego Costa, eventually go down 3-2 against Norwich, Fisher's first-half red card the difference in the end.
Hard Mode
With zero points to show for it, the easy fixtures are over. Next up are Pep Guardiola's Man United. He lauds our "wealth of experience" in the build-up, though I'm not convinced he'd genuinely prefer to have James McClean over João Félix. As usual, what Pep says and what he actually does can be quite different. as when I try for a McClean-Félix swap deal it's sadly rejected outright.
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Astonishingly, we take the lead for the first time this season via Fisher's header, but despite our efforts the inevitable happens – an equaliser from a free kick is swiftly followed by another, and we're condemned to our fifth straight defeat.
Like David Moyes and his 4-4-1-1, I stick by my trusted 5-2-3 for the away trip to Man City. It doesn't work.
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Adapt or Die
Though the board are rightly devastated by our form, even more concerning to me is that the cards have dried-up. A single booking in our last two games is unacceptable, and this pattern is seen across the reserves teams too. We're not even getting the fundamentals of my philosophy right.
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Something needs to change. I revert to a 4-4-2 diamond, initially dropping the AM back into a CM for the game against Wolves, and moving Karamoko out of defence into a defensive midfield role. Whilst we succumb to a seventh league defeat in a row, there's some promise to our play, and we're back in the cards again, picking up five bookings.
Two huge fixtures approach, starting with a home game against 19th-placed Watford. I tell the media we have 31 cup finals ahead of us and we're just taking each game one at a time, before storming out of the press conference.
It's a big game, and aside from goalkeeper Grabara being out injured, Fellaini returning from injury means I have a full squad to choose from. I play him at the spearhead of the diamond, just behind Vardy and Barnes.
It's a masterstroke. We run riot, Barnes slotting home after a lovely through ball from our lumbering Belgian playmaker, before the big man himself rifles a shot into the top corner to double our lead. Things immediately descend into a hack and slash slog, with both teams picking up four cards, before we tie things up from a Cooper header from a corner late on. We're off the mark at last, and off the foot of the table!
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Taking Stock
Eight games down. Considering the woeful start, somehow we're in with a chance of dragging ourselves out of the relegation zone if we can build on this victory. And the next game is the biggest yet – away at rivals West Ham...
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