[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by terpkristin

Hey FM,
I know you don't want to do a full-on dynasty, but do you think you could give us a weekly update of key wins (losses? ), injuries, transfers, etc?
Not the huge long reports you've been giving (unless you really wanted to), but just an update of how the team's doing. That would be really cool.

~tk

Wow, I see we got a severe case of Luton addiction here

I'm afraid there are more than with our first season in the Championship. The date is now April 17, 2007 and we have just about clinched relegation to League One

When I last reported anything, we were still one point out of relegation, in 20th position. It pretty much went downhill from there. How to explain it? Well, many factors. We had an amazing rash of injuries. At some point, we had 8 or 10 injured players, most of them starters or top backups. Three defenders got injured at aboute the same time, one of Them Chris Coyne, for a full 2 months. Joe Murphy completely fell apart. Him who pulled the whole team through the playoffs last season, well he was letting in in easy goals, often getting ratings of 6. I got tired and started playing Rob Beckwith in his place pretty much the last third of the season.
Here's how the league table looks after 42 league matches:

Pos	Team	Pld	Won	Drn	Lst	For	Ag	G.D.	Pts
1st	Wolves	42	29	11	2	80	20	+60	98
2nd	Sheff Utd	42	22	9	11	68	41	+27	75
3rd	Plymouth	42	20	15	7	70	44	+26	75
4th	Crystal Palace	42	18	14	10	56	42	+14	68
5th	Q.P.R.	42	17	15	10	56	44	+12	66
6th	Leicester	42	15	20	7	49	34	+15	65
7th	Stoke	42	16	14	12	60	50	+10	62
8th	Coventry	42	15	16	11	47	47	0	61
9th	Ipswich	42	16	11	15	59	62	-3	59
10th	West Ham	42	15	13	14	61	54	+7	58
11th	Nottm Forest	42	15	13	14	46	42	+4	58
12th	Leeds	42	14	11	17	57	50	+7	53
13th	Gillingham	42	14	11	17	42	50	-8	53
14th	Preston	42	13	13	16	54	69	-15	52
15th	Hull	42	13	12	17	49	55	-6	51
16th	Cardiff	42	12	14	16	47	52	-5	50
17th	Rotherham	42	13	11	18	45	53	-8	50
18th	Burnley	42	13	9	20	51	65	-14	48
19th	Reading	42	13	9	20	40	59	-19	48
20th	Millwall	42	11	14	17	47	68	-21	47
21st	Sunderland	42	10	15	17	38	44	-6	45
22nd	Tranmere	42	9	17	16	45	59	-14	44
23rd	Derby	42	11	8	23	41	68	-27	41
24th	Luton	42	9	7	26	42	78	-36	34

Here are the match results for the matches after the 1-3 loss to Preston, the last match I reported about...
Match #24: Luton 0, Coventry 2

Match #25: Luton 1, Plymouth 1
Match #26: Luton 2, Reading 2
Match #27: Luton 2, Millwall 3
Match #28: Luton 3, Burnley 0
Match #29: Luton 0, Tranmere 1
Match #30: Luton 0, Cardiff 3 (TV)

Match #31: Luton 0, Q.P.R. 4 (TV)
Match #32: Luton 1, Nottingham Forest 0
Match #33: Luton 1, Stoke 2
Match #34: Luton 2, Ipswich 0
Match #35: Luton 3, Derby 1
Match #36: Luton 1, Gillingham 2

Match #37: Luton 0, Crystal Palace 1
Match #38: Luton 0, West Ham 4
Match #39: Luton 1, Wolves 2
Match #40: Luton 2, Leicester 2
Match #41: Luton 0, Rotherham 1
Match #42: Luton 0, Leeds 2

The two TV matches were probably the most frustrated I've been all season. I wanted to do well, and probably put the team too much in attacking mode, given that both matches were on the road. We then almost pulled ourselves out of the drop zone in the 6th block (from #31 to #36) with 3 wins over 6 matches, but then we got shut out in 4 of the following 6 to completely kill any hope...

Here's how it looks, 6 game block by 6 game block:

Block #1	2 wins	3 losses	1 draw	7 points	-3 GD
Block #2	1 win	5 losses	0 draw	3 points	-7 GD
Block #3	1 win	3 losses	2 draws	5 points	-9 GD
Block #4	1 win	4 losses	1 draw	4 points	-5 GD
Block #5	1 win	3 losses	2 draws	5 points	-2 GD
Block #6	3 wins	3 losses	0 draw	9 points	-1 GD
Block #7	0 win	5 losses	1 draw	1 point	-9 GD

While the team kind of fell apart, I didn't sit there just going through the motions. I had mentionned having some money to spend and some wage budget to spare, well that injury rash was the perfect time for me to use some of it. I used some of the wage budget to appease Keith Keane and Kevin Foley. Keane was on a loan and came back still wanting to move on to a bigger club. I liked the fact that he got an average rating of 7.48 in his League One loan, so I offered him a contract around 5k per week, much better than his current 1650 per week. He accepted that offer, for 3 years. Kevin Foley has been having a monster year at right wingback/fullback for us and him being only 22, I saw a big future for him. He started complaining about his current contract and I didn't want him to be pissed about it. I offered him a contract around 4k and he accepted it.

I first acquired a bargain central defender in Sagi Burton, for only 14k from Cheltenham. Burton is the captain the of the St Kitts & Nevis national team, so he's not all bad, and he's costing us peanuts in salary, at $1100 per week. A starter at some point when we had injuries, and a very solid backup when everybody will be healthy. (click on thumbnail for player profile)


Second player I bought is English right/central defender, James O'Connor. We paid 160k from Aston Villa for the right to talk to him. They had him listed at 260k and we kept talking them down, until we agreed on 160k. He's only 22, has amazing tackling and marking skills, with decent heading. He's also pretty brave, but lacks a lot in the positioning department. He's costing us a bundle in wages at $8400 per week, but we could afford it at the moment. He has played 10 matches for us so far, all as starters and he's averaging a form rating of 6.8. Not the greatest, but many players had low ratings when I tried a bunch of tactics... (click on thumbnail for player profile)


Third player I got is (yet another) striker in Wycombe's Neil Mellor. He's 24yo and I may have panicked when I decided to buy him. That was in the middle of the rough patch where I felt we were not scoring enough. He's been a good goal scorer for Wycombe in the past and after 9 appearance for us has an average rating of 6.89. He'S shown some flashes of brilliance, but we'll have to wait and see. He's fairly strong, so he could be a good middle striker in the three strikers attack we often use. We paid 600k for him, some 110k up front, the rest over 18 months, and his wage come up to 6k per week. (click on thumbnail for player profile)


Fourth player to get to the team is the aforementionned defender Alex Bruce. He too has had some ups and downs in his form ratings. I bought him more for his passing skills than his pure defending skills, when I felt that we were not able to clear the ball from our end zone... (click on thumbnail for player profile)


The one good news through all this is that the Luton Town Team Board, and our fans, are still delighted with my work as manager and the progress the team has made.

I played one match last night, after taking the little notes I needed for that report and with that 0-0 draw with 20th place Sunderland, we clinched relegation

That draw was a perfect example of the many little things that went wrong this season. Many opportunities, not as many as them, but still, and we can't put one in the net... sigh...

FM