Dwindling Crowds
Despite our success, the fans just aren't showing up
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.
Qingdao FC
Another day, another victory. We hammered Qingdao FC in this one, 8-0.
It wasn’t really close. Pietro Rovaglia scored 4 goals, making me wonder whether he’s going to give Luciano Parra a run for the most goals in the league.
Suphanat Mueanta actually won the man of the match award, however. He powered through 2 goals of his own, and made 2 excellent assists to boot.
It’s getting hard to decide which of the strikers to start each game. Delfi seems unstoppable from the attacking right wing, and I want to give Zhu Bin as much game time as I can on the attacking left wing. That means that Rovaglia, Parra, and Mueanta are all fighting for two striker spots. It’s not an easy choice to make — but it is a good problem to have.
At the moment, Mueanta seems to have the upper hand. I’ve been toying with the idea of moving Rovaliga on, but he keeps improving. Parra, who was my favorite to begin with, has been playing poorly in his most recent matches, and I’m afraid that he’s starting to look like our third choice striker.
We’ve also got Cheng Binbin, a Chinese striker who was recently out with injury. He hasn’t played much for us, but still happens to be among the most proficient attacking players in the league. And he’s only 25.
The future is going to be mighty interesting.
Month In Review
We’re now into May, and things are winding up. There are 3 league games remaining, two of which will be on the road. We’ve also got our Chinese FA Cup Final match coming up.
There isn’t too much surprise in our month in review documents. We’re still rich, of course. We’ve lost money this season, but it hasn’t been as extreme as it could have been.
In fact, the board has been a bit too generous with our budgets for next season. They’ve given me a 381 million RMB transfer budget, despite the fact that we’ve still got about 90 million left of last year’s budget. The wage budget is also going to be around the 17 million RMB level, even though we’re not close to the 12 million level that our budget was at originally. I guess Chairman Guo really does like throwing the money around.
The board have given me an A for my overall performance, though only a C+ for the matches. The board seems most impress with the culture around the squad. It thinks that my transfer activity has been subpar.
The supporters have given me an A-, but have only given me a D for my transfers. They’re really frustrated with my habit of buying unproven 15 and 16 year old Chinese players in the hopes of turning them into something in the future. We’ll see who will have the last laugh there.
Our dynamics remain good, and Pak Myong-Song has turned into a highly influential player. This might prove crucial, as I’m secretly planning to move Ye Jie on this summer (assuming he’ll agree to a transfer). We gave Pak Myong-Song a 3-year contract extension not long ago, even though he’ll be turning 29 soon. He’s a much better player than Ye Jie, and is far more consistent, which I value very highly. That also keeps a strong Korean cultural presence on the squad, another thing I consider quite important.
This summer should be interesting.
Tai’an
We’re heading to Tai’an for our next match, in another one that we should win pretty easily.
Our goal differential currently stands at 206, which is extremely high. I think the trick now is to simply win our three remaining leauge matches and hope for the best in our upcoming cup final.
Meanwhile, Jiangsu FC are one win away from securing promotion to the next level for themselves. I was hoping a few weeks ago that they would miss out, but it seems that we’ll have to play them even more next season. I sense a rivalry brewing.
Please note that you can find the latest standings and selected statistics on this splash page.