Injury Crisis?
I think I ran out of centerbacks...
No Surprise
We defeated Qinghai Oulu, just as we thought we would. The final tally was 5-0, though it could have been a lot better.
Our xG was 8.15, which is simply incredible. I think we hit the woodwork 5 or 6 times in the match, and Younes Delfi missed a penalty in the 85th minute.
That makes 31 wins in a row, and it’s not going to stop.
We’re still on a roll, and I think we’re getting better and better. I think, that is.
Big Injury
Juan David Torres, who has been an incredible centerback for us, tore an abdominal muscle while doing weight training.
He’s going to be out for 3 months, which puts him out for the rest of the season.
We’ve got a few options to replace him, though none of them are great.
There always is Ye Jie, but he’s in a bad mood, and I really don’t want to play him. We need to look for other options, and I particularly want to see if we can’t use this opportunity to develop some young Chinese players.
We’ve already pushed Yan Kun up to the senior squad. He’s a 20-year-old 196 centimeter Chinese central defender who is coming off an injury of his own.
Yan Kun came in during our first transfer window. We bought him for 4 million RMB from Jiangsu in another one of our big signings from that club.
Everything about Yan Kun looks good, and I really am eager to see how he’ll play once he’s ready. But he still needs some time to recover.
The other Chinese option is Shi Jiayang, a 16-year-old centerback from Panjin who is already 192 centimeters tall.
We bought him from Qingdoa Qingchundao not too long ago. I bet he never guessed that he would wind up straight with our first team, but that’s where he is now.
It’s not clear if Shi Jiayang has what it takes, though, and he hasn’t played a game for us at any level. This is a huge risk.
The final option we have is Ariel Guzman, a 19-year-old Chilean centerback who is only 181 centimeters tall.
Guzman comes to us from Universidad de Chile. We bought him for 1.25 million RMB, and we’re going to need to get our money’s worth quickly.
Guzman is probably the best of our options. The problem, though, is that he isn’t Chinese, and we can’t put out a team of only foreign players.
Transfer Day
It’s February already. The transfer window is now closed.
Our Director of Football surprised me by putting an offer in for yet another attacking left midfielder. His name is He Chen, he’s 26 years old, and he looks like he’ll be fairly good.
The Director of Football agreed that he’ll be an important player, which likely isn’t going to happen. However, it’s good to have Chinese players who aren’t total disasters.
Meanwhile, the Wu Ping saga has come to an end. I finally put him on the transfer list, and Wuhan Three Towns bought him off of us.
Their 900,000 RMB offer is nowhere near what we thought Wu Ping was worth when I first came on board, but we’ll take it. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Even with all the money we’ve spent, we weren’t the highest spending club in China during the transfer window. Shanghai Port spent 365 million RMB, beating us out by about 100 million or so. We did bring in 125 players, though, and also sold 34 players, which was more than anybody else.
Most of the Shanghai Port transfer total came from buying Goncalo Inacio from Sporting CP for 300 million RMB. I think we had the better transfer window, to be honest.
Jingchuan-xian Wenhui
We’re playing that obscure team from western China once again.
We’re going to win this one without many problems: that I can guarantee.