Matchday 31: Chester – Chelsea 1-1

Every seat in the Deva Stadium was taken, every fan was hoping for a good game against one of the best teams in the league. And my players didn’t disappoint me, they gave their best on the pitch. Unfortunately we couldn’t win the game, but we came very close… We hade numerous chances, a better ball posession, but we couldn’t score more goals because of that incredible goalkeeper named Petr Cech.

Matchday 32: Everton – Chester 2-4

We played a good first half, an absolutely stunning first part of the second half and a dreadful final part of the game. Fortunately for us we managed to score four times during the best period of the game, so we snatched a great win for the morale of our players.

Matchday 33: Chester – Ipswich 2-1

We played 3 times until now against Ipswich and we lost all three games. The lads were determined to change the statistics a little bit and Michael Harper took care of things scoring twice in the first half. A missed penalty in the second half made Ipswich hope for a draw, but we managed to hold firm and go home with another victory in the bag.

Matchday 34: Middlesbrough – Chester 2-1

Not too many comments to make over this game, as our opponents showed their superiority in front of their own fans. We couldn’t make our posession count, they blocked us in the final third so we couldn’t pose too many threats.

Matchday 35: Chester – Newcastle 3-1

Newcastle were right in front of us in the League table, we were 8th, they were 7th. With only 4 games to go I checked the possibility of a Europa League qualification for my Chester and I saw that if we finished in 7th place we could hope for a spot in next year’s European competition. But we had to win the game with Newcastle, this was a do or die situation. I explained the whole thing to the boys and asked them to play for the fans, to give their best out there on the pitch and they did. They had a brilliant performance which brought us a historic victory. Now we had a good chance to finish 7 th, we were only 2 points behind Newcastle with 3 games to go.

The best player for us in these 5 games was undoubtedly our Italian regen defender Ciro Lazzari: he scored 3 times in the last 5 games and had an average rating of 7.86! He definitely made his 1.93 meters height count in the opponents’ box!

Let’s recap: 3 games to go and we are 2 points behind Newcastle that are lying in 7th place, the last place that could bring us a wonderful Europa League qualification. We have another 3 games to play as I said, 2 at home, against Portsmouth and Manchester United and one game away against already relegated West Brom. I think that if we could grab at least 6 points ot of these 3 games we would definitely have a chance to have that 7th place. We’ll see how it will go, stay tuned to find out!

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Matchday 26: Chester – West Ham 1-0

After the 0-0 draw at Reading our attacking game was still suffering. Fortunately my young regen striker Michael Harper chose to end his 10 hour long goal drought right in this game bringing us a very important victory and the three points that go with it.

 
Matchday 27: Chester – Aston Villa 4-1

This was one of the best games we played in the Premier League, we gave Aston Villa absolutely no chance of walking away with something out of this game. Estonian striker Henri Anier was again in top form.

Matchday 28: Manchester City – Chester 2-1

Although the scoreline was pretty tight the game was controlled by Manchester City, they made their superiority show and count, I doubt there would have been more to do in this game.

Matchday 29: Chester – Bolton 1-1

We met our nightmare again, Johan Elmander. He scored twice against us last year, scored again this time in a game that we should have won. Unfortunately the team isn’t consistent enough, after a good game there always come one or two very weak displays. Next up, Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

Matchday 30: Arsenal – Chester 7-1

What can I say after such a result? We were taught a lesson again… My players already believed they are superstars, Adebayor showed them what that means… After this disgraceful display we slipped one position behind in the league table, we are now 9th with 8 games to go.

I guess the crucial player in this period of time was young Uruguayan regen defender Esteban Martinez. He played very well so far and when he wasn’t available it really showed. Guess what… He didn’t play in the Arsenal game, the 7-1 defeat, because he was away with his national team…

Another 8 games to go. Next up we have to play Chelsea, I hope we won’t concede 7 goals again, it would be too much, really.

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The first one is Portuguese regen Rui Almeida, a very promising creative midfielder. He played around the globe at Levski, Slovan Liberec and finally at Los Angeles Galaxy from which I bought him for 3 million euro. I really hope he will show his talent in the Premier League.

The other attacking midfielder that I segned, for free this time, was Swedish hot prospect Albin Ekdal. Formerly a Juventus player he didn’t get the chance to prove his skills in Italy, so Juve released him on a free transfer because they couldn’t renew his contract. I offered him a very good deal and the prospect to play regularly so he chose Chester over clubs like Leverkuse or Benfica which offered him good contracts too.

I sold some of the players that didn’t prove to be worthy of the Premier League, but that’s now very important right now. Let’s see how the next games went.

Matchday 21: Chester – Tottenham 2-1

They dominated the game and we won… Well, that’s better than the games we dominated but lost Anyway, another brilliant performance from my young strikers, they scored twice from only a few chances they had.

Matchday 22: Fulham – Chester 3-1

As I said, mybe it’s better to play badly and win than to play well and lose. We played a decent game at Fulham but we were unlucky to concede three goals in the first half, it was like a nightmare in which every shot they had was going in. As a matter of fact they had only 2 shots on goal and scored 3 times, with our own goal!

FA Cup 3rd Round: Blackburn – Chester 1-2

A very tight game in the FA Cup against one of the better teams in the Premier League. My lads were very determined to go through to the next round and they made everything they could to make that possible. Unfortunately the draw wasn’t too good: we were going to play against Liverpool in the 4th round. And Liverpool was our next opponent in the League too.

Matchday 23: Chester – Liverpool 1-1

A very entertaining game in which we were again a little bit unlucky to put the ball past our own keeper. It finished 1-1 with chances on both sides and a good solid game for our young goalkeeper.

Matchday 24: QPR – Chester 0-2

QPR were firmly standing in the last place and  I was certain that we wouldn’t have too much trouble with them. We played a quiet game, not giving them too many chances to show their skills and we proved again that we were the better of the two teams.

FA Cup 4th Round: Liverpool – Chester 2-0

We couldn’t repeat the performance that we displayed against Liverpool in the last Premier League game, we were beaten at Anfield Road although we had many chances to score. A bitter defeat which knocked us out of the FA Cup. 

Matchday 25: Reading – Chester 0-0

One of the ugliest games I’ve seen this year, with Reading trying to defend and with my boys trying to forget the defeat against Liverpool. We didn’t manage to break the defensive wall that Reading put before us, so it ended in a draw after a game that we should have won.

After 25 games played we were safely in 8th place, so I guess relegation is out of the question. There are another 13 games to be played, only a disaster could get us relegated.

Stay tuned for the next episode, some beatiful games still to be played!

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Matchday 16: Newcastle – Chester 3-1

This was a pretty confusing game. Although we dominated the posession and we created some chances Newcastle never seemed to let the game get out of their control. The gave us the ball, we didn’t make our posession count, they punished us when they had the chance and that was it. Our top strikers in the first games of the season, Luke Moore and Henri Anier were having trouble getting back into shape after being injured, so we had to fight hard in order to score.

Matchday 17: Portsmouth – Chester 7-3

We were leading quite comfortably, 3-1 in the 60th minute. What happened after that looked more like a plane crash for us than a football game. We were humiliated, destroyed by Portsmouth’s two great strikers, Peter Crouch and Danny Welbeck (remember, they bought him from us last season…). It was the most humiliating game in my entire career, I was ashamed to get out of the house the next day. I couldn’t forget the last 40 minutes although I was desperately trying to put all the bitterness behind and face the future challenges.

Matchday 18: Chester – West Brom 2-1

Finally, a win! After the disastruous defeat at the hands of Portsmouth I was quite pessimistic because none of my players seemed to have what it takes to lead the team out of the black hole we were diving into. And that’s how young reserve striker Michael Harper stepped up: he scored 2 goals and gave us a crucial win.

Matchday 19: Manchester United – Chester 0-1

This was a great opportunity for us to show our former parent club what we were made of. I was hoping to play a good game and maybe snatch a draw. My boys played a magnificent game and deserved a glorious win. Just take a look at the game stats, we dominated the posession and had quite a few chances to score. The Manchester United players did play a little bit rough, that’s why Rio Ferdinand was sent off, he even deserved to hit the showers earlier. A great win which brings us many hopes for the future.

Matchday 20: Blackburn – Chester 3-2

This is another game that we lost due to our defensive errors, too many mistakes, too many times our defenders were left off dreaming of a better future while their strikers were having fun with our goalkeeper. This is obviously a problem that I have to solve but I’m not sure that I know how to do that or if I have the players to do that. We’ll see.

Anyway, so far so good. We were 9th in the Premier League table, 8 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses. Relegation isn’t very close, but we have to be careful as a bad streak of defeats can bring us right near the relegation places.

The player that really led the squad in these 5 games was Michael Harper, a 20 years old English regen striker. I didn’t plan to use him as a first team player at the start of the season, but the injuries and the weaker form of my other strikers pushed me to give him a chance. He was a little scared at first, he played 12 league games without scoring a single goal. And then he exploded: 5 goals in the last 5 games!

I bought Michael Harper from League Two club Bournemouth this summer, and I really feel that he will be a very good player soon enough. He’s already a Under 21 player for England, he scored 3 goals in 2 games!

That’s about it, stay tuned to find out how the Chester adventure in the Premier League continues!

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Matchday 11: Chester – Arsenal 1-1

Ohh, we were sooo close! Damn! Our team played a fabulous game, we had a better posession of the ball than Arsenal, we created some chances and we led 1-0 until the last minute! Unfortunately a defensive blunder gave Adebayor an easy chance just when the referee was preparing to send everybody home. And Adebayor didn’t miss Don’t get me wrong, I think that a 1-1 draw against Arsenal is a good result for us, but after having the victory in the bag for the entire game it’s tough to see it go right at the end. Four games without a win, the next game away at Chelsea…

Matchday 12: Chelsea – Chester 2-0

Not much to say, they did a professional job with us. They let us play, we had more posession, but they kicked us when they needed to and that was it. Five games without winning, we were beginning to slide down the table.

Matchday 13: Chester – Everton 1-1

A very difficult opponent, but I was hoping to get a narrow win somehow. We managed to get another 1-1 draw, which was the just result after all. 

Matchday 14: Ipswich – Chester 1-0

This was one of the worse games we played this season. Although we had a few chances ourselves we never looked determined enough to get something out of this game. The team was suffering, the players were low on morale, we didn’t win in 7 games, the situation was beginning to look desperate. We simply have to win the next game, whatever it takes!

Matchday 15: Chester – Middlesbrough 2-1

And we won it, but it was tough, very tough. They were leading 1-0 with only 20 minutes to go, but we finally got some luck on our side when Onuoha put the ball into his own net. I was sure that we could win it after that own goal, and our Estonian striker Henri Anier scored the crucial goal in the last minute of the game. Finally, our first win after seven games! The Premier League is tough, really tough. But we survived so far, we are 8th with 22 points to our name.

Maybe the best thing, even better than the league position is the financial situation. We were in debt for the past two years, now our balance is finally on the “green” side, we have more than 3 million euro in the bank! This is mostly thanks to the higher gate receipts we got this season, around 500 K per game, even more for the games against big teams like Arsenal.

The player that I’m going to bring to attention this time is our 21 year old Turkish/Greek/German regen goalkeeper, Serdar. I signed him for free after his contract with HSV expired and I believed that he will grow in the shadow of our veteran keeper Jan Lastuvka. He proved me wrong, his performances made me send Lastuvka to the reserves bench. With three Man of the Match awards sp far Serdar is slowly becoming one of the pillars of our squad.

Only 3 games before reaching half way and we are 8th in the Premier League. Stay tuned to find out how it will end!

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