Post by stouters on Sept 12, 2020 0:48:24 GMT
Portadown Mid-Season Update 2046/47
League
For me the first half of the season is becoming a little bit of a study of how we are doing in certain areas. Nothing fancy, just stuff like goals scored, conceded and any defeats. Based on this, i can’t complain about how we are doing. We’ve scored one more than our previous best and conceded 2 fewer than our previous best. I still think we’ll fall short in beating Glentoran’s record of 168 scored. This goal scoring fun is coming from both strikers, Jennings and Soria. Jennings is leading the pack with 23 goals in 19 appearances, down by quite a bit from the last couple of years. He got a random red card for a 2nd yellow and also had to sit out with an injury for a week or so. Soria has also helped out while Bertini has been injured. He has scored 19 goals in 17 appearances. He has managed to do something i haven’t been able to get Jennings to do...score a double hat-trick. He managed it when Jennings was suspended and had to be paired up with Betini in the Linfield 11-0 slaughter.
Even though we have a brilliant defensive record, i have been swapping Miller and Campisi to take turns in goal. Miller is now happy to stay but won’t sign a new contract..
If there was anything i could improve on it would be the wage bill. We are sitting at £36.5m pa and it is twice the amount that Glentoran pay, even after the transfers. This is something i would like to sort out sometime.
Fixtures
¦
Other
We get £956k for unallocated match prize money for drawn matches in the Champions League. Our now superb youth facilities are getting upgraded again and will cost £5.25m.
Palmitessa has got quite comfortable in midfield as a DLP(s) and has contributed with 15 assists in 19 league games. I’m not quite sure how good that is in the grand scheme of thing, but i’m not complaining. Unfortunately, he is now sold.
Soria wins the Best Rookie award. This is the 2nd year in a row a Portadown player has won it. He also wins European Golden Boy award and Argentine World Player of the Year.
The board will not budge on my demands for a new stadium. So, i have all but decided to end the save if i do not get any movement on the stadium or if i do not win the Champions League within the next 5yrs after this season. I’m not saying i should be winning it now, i just think i should be going a little further into the competition.
Intake
Transfers
The only transfer in was Mikel Álvarez*. He was a £1m pre-arranged transfer from Barcelona. He will have to take over from Guilherme.
The transfers out were a little unexpected. Marco Palmitessa leaves for Watford £25m rising to £31m, Guilherme leaves for Sevilla for £37m rising to £52m. While he was a very important player, i felt that this was a more than generous offer for him. Pires has been wanting to go for a little while and £10m rising to £15m was more than enough. Not bad for someone bought for £20k.
A few players have gone out on loan including CB Rego for a fee that will come to £1.5m.
NI Teams In Europe
Glentoran - Finished last as expected but at least they got 2 draws
Institute - Fluked qualification from a group consisting of Lokomotiv Moscow, Basel and FCSB. They were 4th after 5 games with 3 draws, but they got a 1-0 win at home on the last day to sneak in at 2nd. I’m very happy they got through and picked up a win, this will do the coefficient nicely. What is unfortunate is they play Valencia in the Europa Conference League 1st ko round.
Dungannon - They managed to get past MilsamiOrhei 5-2 in the Europa Conferece League 2nd qualifying, but lost to Dundalk.
The NCC is 7.500