X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

[jdsx]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Just played the last game of our season, as 'Four Candles' get to sit out the last round. 'Over the moon' (as I believe they say) with second place in Division 3 - given that, as a newbie, we've had to buy two goalkeepers, four defenders, one (expensive) midfielder and one (cheap) forward this season, I'm looking forward to having the budget to train some players next season. Hehe.
Started out with a load of complete b*ll*x apart from three good young defenders and two excellent 27yo mids, so we've had to re-shape somewhat.... Bit disappointed with end-of-season DV tbh, but I guess that's what you end up with when you buy players throughout the season...
Have now left the assistant manager to train the f*** out of the remaining players in preparation for the CR while I jet off to sunnier climes.
Looking forward to season 45 already.....

[Sits]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Great work jdsx. Never played before last season? You'll be past Berkshire Swine this time next season, you watch.

[Me Old Flower]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Providing Wensleydale don’t lose heavily to Brian Munchingflapjack, The Blues are also going up for the first time in their history. That’ll mean local league derbies with Wharfedale Generals.

[Auntie Beryl]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

It's going to be a corker of a final matchday in OTF Division 2, as four teams vie for the three promotion places.

Meanwhile at the other end, the final relegation slot is undecided. My Turds are one of three teams who could head south.

There are no dead rubbers.

[ad hoc]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

For personal reasons I am very much hoping that Wednesday de la Zouch and Locomotiv Noj will be meeting in a hyper-local derby in Division 1 next season. It is also, however entirely possible that they will be doing so in Division 2 instead. That relegation game between Die Ambosse and W-d-l-Z is a huge fixture.

[jdsx]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Me Old Flower wrote: Providing Wensleydale don’t lose heavily to Brian Munchingflapjack, The Blues are also going up for the first time in their history. That’ll mean local league derbies with Wharfedale Generals.

I can't see you losing by 7 clear goals Me Old Flower. Surely League re-organisation is a bigger threat to promotion.... speaking of which, is there a new recruitment thread in the offing? Just asking, like....
EDIT - Bu**er - that'll teach me not to look further downthread.... Thanks Etienne/SotS

[Sits]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

The OTF League - never dull.

[SouthdownRebel]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Tobermory knocked off the league-leaders away from home today, which was particularly pleasing. Seven games in and we're the only unbeaten team in the Pro Zone. All of which leaves us three points ahead of the drop zone and looking nervously over our shoulders!

The Xpert Zone - never dull.

[SouthdownRebel]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

So...apparently I'm the highest-rated manager in the OTF league currently.

OTF - 1st
Heineken - 2nd (behind VA)
Xpert Zone - 4th
World Premier League - 4th
THL - 8th
World League X - 10th
MLX - 16th (probably plummeting!)

Nowhere to be seen in the J4GL and Cosmopolitan leagues, and only just joined the Brythonnic.

[Sits]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

SouthdownRebel wrote: Tobermory knocked off the league-leaders away from home today, which was particularly pleasing. Seven games in and we're the only unbeaten team in the Pro Zone. All of which leaves us three points ahead of the drop zone and looking nervously over our shoulders!

The Xpert Zone - never [strike]dull[/strike] fair.

Fixed.

Well done on your rankings SDR. I think I probably won't put mine up.

[SouthdownRebel]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

I sense I've touched a raw nerve there Sits. You make a strong point though.

I'm rather shaking my head in disbelief at those rankings, there are a plethora of better managers in those leagues.

[Sits]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Duroc-Jersey Reds (Redux) DVs pre-CR, in the U23 Premier League. Interesting league this one. Haven't had the team very long; I've shown the bank balance not to brag, but to illustrate one of the aspects of this league - the cash piles up. And obviously there's a lot of trading when players hit the Logan's Run ceiling. EvilC would love it.

[Etienne]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

We've not had any new blood as yet, which leaves us with 41 currently active teams, which is a bloody awkward number. But certainly some re-organisation and disruption to promotion places looks likely.

[Me Old Flower]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

I'm OK with Wensleydale forgoing promotion again. A retirement and my policy of youth-team only recruitment will leave my team less than competitive in a higher division. It would give me a chance to actually try and win the division this time.

[Etienne]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

It may be the last stand for the OTFers in MLX, but we won 3 out of 4 games, with ZZ and UU dumping out the 4th and 5th seeds. Unfortunately that means we are drawn together now. Pulau remain strong contenders. Unfortunately, KK-K couldn't make it.

[Wouter D]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Congratulations to VA for managing to see out the season in style. Vita Mortis conceded six goals in the entire campaign, and as far as the Season Overview statistics go back (i.e.: since Season 32), that is a top-flight record.

In Seasons 32-41, only one team conceded a single-digit number of goals over a whole campaign: Fourth Lanark in Season 37 (nine goals against). In Seasons 42-44, four teams did the same: Dandy Town (S42, eight goals against), Eriskay Expression (S43, eight goals against), Dandy Town again (S44, eight goals against), and Vita Mortis (S44, six goals against). Defensive discipline is the hip new thing.

[Various Artist]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Wow, that's extraordinary – thanks Wouter. That is as defensively rigid as the Zeugmabus, believe it or not. Our 2-0 win today represents 25% of the goals the Dandies have conceded all season, equally ridiculously. Mortis meanwhile have been playing 3 at the back the whole time. Frankly, it all makes very little sense to me and, at the risk of repeating myself, I have virtually no idea where this season came from. I'm very happy it's happened, though.

That's cheered me up a bit, actually, having just watched our match and discovered moments later that even in our finest hour we can still have the rug pulled out from under our feet by the whims of DV. All my squad stayed on the same DV as before the game, except for defender Brynjar Snorrarsson – the man who perhaps more than anyone won us this title – who played yet another 90 minutes in a winning cause only to lose a point, falling from 17 to 16.

Stupid fucking game.

Ahem.

[Various Artist]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Looking at those Season Overviews, I see we've also matched the modern-era 22-game record of 18 wins and 57 points set by the Dandies two seasons ago (18-3-1), with a goals F/A of 40-6 even topping theirs, though they won the league by a preposterous 17 points from Banik. (I'd forgotten quite how odd Mortis' record was that term, finishing 4th with 7-11-4 and GD of -3 thanks in large part to one memorable encounter with Banik...)

We've also equalled the 18 wins achieved by Hideous Towns in their title-winning rampage one season earlier, whose outstanding 58 points (18-4-2) came from 24 games, and matched our own top-flight goals record of 40 from that season. We even beat our bogey team Les Incoherents once!

Our +34 GD this season also appears to be the equal second best on record, along with the Dandies from a now bonkers-looking Season 34 – where they won the league with a F/A of 57-23 and no-one averaged less than a goal conceded per game. Strangely, their record GD of +36 from last season was set in finishing runners-up to Eriskay Expression.

Heh, and in rather lovely news, I've just discovered my everpresent midfield veteran Gregor Crompton was awarded his first ever Xpert-XI captaincy from today's performance – in his 302nd appearance out of a possible 308 league games in club history. That's a really nice high note to end this remarkable season on. His landmark 300th was the game a week ago at Banik where we clinched the title.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

Bollocks bollocks bollocks. Got stuck in traffic and didn't get my tactics on for Saltney Drawers' biggest game of the season. Arsebiscuits.

You're still in with a good chance VT, both us and GNR have to play the best sides in the division while you're up against the worst. I'm also playing for DV as I genuinely don't want to go up this season.

Flipping heck. Well - good luck next season Ant - we were nowhere near good enough to go up in truth and would only have come straight back down.

[Antepli Ejderha]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Thanks VT, we'll be straight back down as I doubt the Zeugmabus will be that effective in the top flight.

New season set up in the Heineken and I've sneaked a promotion, the aim is survival.19 divisions again, great work Sean.

[Various Artist]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Ooh good stuff, must go and check that out. Nice one Sean, great going once again.

Back in the OTF, would have been looking forward to renewing acquaintaince with whoever came up from Division 1, but bad luck VT given the circumstances though congratulations to AE for Zeugma getting the necessary draw from promoted Deva today. All four teams vying for those three slots were already established when I joined the league for Season 31, so it's great to see them all competitive now.

Looking through some of my team's stats, I've just realised that Mortis' Wilbur Greenwood was the goalkeeper for today's Xpert-XI, his first ever appearance and another fitting finale to the season – I may have done him a disservice in anointing Snorrarsson as chief contributor, given that Greenwood also played all 2038 minutes of the campaign and kept 16 clean sheets. I think possibly the deciding factor in our title win is that he didn't get injured. Probably did no harm either that he got his gold heart midway through that run.
As noted previously, I swear the only significant change I made was selling junior keeper Earl Mulligan, as the lone viable source of ready cash before the season started – and then didn't get offered a good youth replacement until after I'd realised a title push was potentially on. A moment of respect please for 18/5 GK Luther Bower, who popped out of the academy in mid-March and in any other season would've become my next-developed goalie, but instead was urgently shoved out of the door in exchange for 291,816 econs.

A nod too to Dutch youth forward John Courtlandt, a 19/6 arrival (I can't remember the last time I had one of those) one month ago: he made 416k on the market, an amount crucial in helping push us over the finishing line as we'd just run out of the last of the Mulligan cash. We really do seem to have walked a tightrope to get there, don't we...?

Oddly, having said that, I got another 19/6 – midfielder Wayne Wanstead – at United Underground just a couple of weeks or so ago. Again, I couldn't keep him as it was so late in the season, but his sale likewise proved vital in getting us over the line into the playoffs.
Was amazed to have sneaked past VVV last night, coming from behind with two late goals just when I was thinking their unbeatable Cup form was continuing in the knockouts here. It's going to be a fascinating collision with Etienne's side in the quarters, and with both of us having made it there against the seeding. At least it means one OTFer guaranteed to make it as far as the semis!

[steveeeeeeeee]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

What a finale to the OTF Division 2! Can't believe Poplar Massive Crew won the league, that's our second league title in succession. I must admit, I found the quality in Division 2 lower than Division 3, which is quite a bugger to get out of.

Really happy with my team, the youth players are really starting to shine when given a chance, usually they do nothing. I've got goal-scoring defenders as well.

Mid-table finish in Division 1 next season would suit me fine, but I was expecting to be fighting for survival in Division 2, and we've bloody gone a won it!

[Hot Orange]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Tremedous season, VA. 18 wins out of 22 is remarkable. And to think we finsihed level on points with Mortis last season...

Meanwhile, Hideous Towns DVs:

Miyosi - 33/12 - 6
Barreto - 21/8 - 18

Pugh - 34/11 - 5
Ahlund - 30/14 - 13
Abell - 28/12 - 13
Bunton - 26/12 - 14
Gemesy - 21/9 - 15
Lilleby - 19/6 - 16

Abad - 34/12 - 9
Andreasson - 29/12 - 14
Bogdanovici - 27/12 - 13
Hand - 25/11 - 10
Josefsson - 23/10 - 17
Gottskalk - 21/8 - 15
Lager - 18/5 - 17

Zeeberg - 29/13 - 15
Boe-Jakobsen - 19/6 - 14

Not great. Three players who doubled last season - Gemesy, Gottskalk and Boe-Jakobsen - may struggle to jump again. There were disappointing middling efforts from Bunton and Bogdanovici. Title-winners Miyosi and Pugh have had their day and were used sparingly.

Hand missed the middle third of the season and I'm quite pleased to have got him back up to 10. Happy with Lager as he was a lateish arrival from the academy and Barreto flourished after unexpectedly becoming the first-choice keeper.

[Etienne]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

I fear the Zeugmabus is unlikely to get a chance at the top division, much as I'd rather not have to share a division with it. Unless we get a substantial recruitment boost anyway, but the third placed promotion slot to the top division is the promotion at most risk of not being honoured.

Congratulations Steveeeeeeeee, the Massive Crew have been brilliant. I think the step up to Division 1 is substantial, but hopefully not impassable.

[Antepli Ejderha]

X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

Thanks Etienne, it's parked successfully in division one so would take some moving.