Goodbye Huang Bowen?
Will We Sell Our Young Star?
Beijing Renhe
We defeated Beijing Renhe again.
It wasn’t anywhere near close this time. Luciano Parra got another hat trick in the first half. Huang Bowen, who is furious with me, still managed to score a goal. And Han Jin, who my coaches say isn’t good enough for our team, scored another one after a mistake by their defenders.
We looked absolutely awesome out there this time around. I wish we could play like this every match.
This means, of course, that we’ve now won 26 matches in a row in the league. It’s also helped a little bit with our squad cohesion and overall mood.
With the schedule slowing down a bit, we can rest our actual starters a little bit more. It’s going to be a shame for the players who aren’t quite good enough to actually start for our first team squad, of course. And we’ve got a lot of players coming in once January rolls around. Things are about to get really crazy around these parts.
Xia Xu, who I sold not long after arriving, actually had a pretty good game for Beijing. But there was simply nothing he could do about how awesome Parra is in the attack.
The media asked me whether I thought we could part with Hou Yu after he turned in yet another clean sheet. They don’t know yet who I’ve signed to replace him in goal.
Don’t worry: we’ll be just fine.
The Huang Bowen Saga
Huang Bowen has been unhappy with me all season. And things finally came to a boiling point this week.
It might be because of the frigid Yanji temperatures, or because he’s not scoring goals the way he was. Whatever the reason, I’ve had enough of Huang Bowen and his reluctance to try.
His most recent training performances have been nothing short of awful. I got in an argument with him afterwards, and warned him that I would be forced to get rid of him if he didn’t shape up.
After his flippant reply, I put him on the transfer list.
Nobody wants him, interestingly enough. The general feeling is that his wages are too high for any other Chinese club. And, interestingly enough, no foreign clubs seemed interested in him.
I also offered him out for a loan until the end of the season, but nobody seemed interested in that, either.
He might wind up being a real thorn in our sides.
Left Back Issues
We signed a 25-year-old named Zhang Jianyi back at the beginning of the season to help fill a hole in left back.
We’ve got a problem now, though. Due to injuries, international duty for Pak Myong-song, and a suspension Zhang Jianyi picked up for accumulating too many yellow cards, we now have no actual left backs to play our next match.
It looks like Lee Jin-Yong is going to wind up playing in that position.
I haven’t been happy with Zhang Jianyi ever since he arrived. I really wish we had a good young Chinese leftback to take his place. We’re not going to renew Zhang’s contract at the end of the season. However, I’m not certain what we’re going to do for a replacement.
And I really don’t like playing our baby-faced midfielder at left back. But we have no choice.
Coming Back Home
Speaking of Lee Jin-Yong, he’s back.
Charlotte is thrilled, of course. The whole Lee Jin-Yong fan club is happy to see their hero return.
He seems refreshed after taking that month to recuperate in South Korea. It’s not great for his development, but at least he’s been able to clear his mind a little bit.
I really want to keep him here for the long run, and am more than happy to cater to his desires, no matter how strange they might seem.
Aidan Quinn is also back from his month in Scotland. The sad thing is that I’m not sure I even noticed he was gone.
Luciano the Great
I know I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Huang Bowen and not quite as much talking about Luciano Parra.
It turns out that Parra is on the verge of breaking the Yanbian FC record for most goals scored in a season.
The old record was set by Ha Tae-Goon (하태균) back in 2007. Ha had scored 27 goals in that season, back when Yanbian FC was in the old Chinese Super League.
Ha’s career sadly faded away after his Yanbian days. He found himself playing for a smaller side in the Chinese First Division, and then wound up back in South Korea in an emergency backup situation.
Parra’s career is going to be different, though. He’s got real talent.
Youth Intake
It’s not quite youth intake time yet, but we did have a preview come through the other day.
Our Head of Youth Development seemed a bit perplexed by the whole thing. He told me that this looked like a real golden generation for our team, and yet he also said that none of the players coming in look like they will ever have the ability to play for our first team squad.
My guess is that the presence of so many talented players on the first team squad is skewing his thinking a bit. I’ve got a feeling that one or two of the new boys will probably wind up good enough to hold down squad positions once we’ve trained them up well. Of course, if they don’t work out we’ll just buy good young players from other teams and call it even.
Gansu Tianma
We’re playing Gansu Tianma again.
We’re going to win this match. The question is whether we’ll score 10 goals against them again.