Liverpool and Manchester United were new to starting out as Europa League teams. Liverpool, for the second time in fifteen years had sold for more money than bought. Manchester United’s response? Spend $370 million on transfers in! United can be scary when they get serious. They brought in Edon Lopes, the best Portuguese striker in the game from Fulham, Darragh Foley, the best young central defender I have been trying to pry from Nottingham Forest for the past four seasons, and Indio, a young Brazilian star goalkeeper from Valencia. Indio would end up on the world’s Best XI, with 25 shutouts.
Arsenal is the other big buyer, with $220 million spent on players this offseason. But just behind them is yours truly – $213 million later and here’s who we have:
While I have central defender stats highlighted, I actually think Jackson can play well in a right wingback role behind Nicolas Casier. I plan on playing him there and seeing if his dribbling and crossing can improve. If not, he’ll stick at central defender.
Speaking of central defenders, in comes Hamid Soleimani, a 6 foot 5 inch stud who I think can be re-trained to switch roles with Jackson.
Also joining the defense is my first signing of a player over 25 in Kingstonian history. Meet William Blaise, a Frenchman from Chelsea:
Blaise will link up with Ryan Reynders on the left and Casier with Maverick on the right to create dual French-Belgian connections on the wings. I didn’t plan for that but it’s a neat result. Considering that Sunday Umar can also play left winger, I wanted to find a bench player on the right.
Another Brazilian joins the squad, Vanderlei. He doesn’t have the greatest player trait or speed, but he does tick a lot of other boxes. And considering I just need him to warm the bench and rotate with Maverick, he’ll do. With all these Brazilians, though, I feel like I need something new from South America.
Diego Garcia enters with a lot of similar characteristics to Eric Aubry. He came with high recommendations from my scouts and just look at the summary – 17 pros! I’m a little nervous his finishing isn’t good enough for a 21 year old but maybe he will advance more with the higher competition of the Premier League.
I still feel like we need a new icon. It’d be great if they were English too. And now that I have filled the left wingback role, all that’s left is to add to the midfield.
Check, check, check. Rourke Cathline looks like Danny Johnson-lite but with striker qualities too. He looks fantastic and slots perfectly into the midfield with the other youngsters, Igor and Diego. Manuel Acosta heads to the bench as he has maxed out his potential, while Kurtis Butler, Alessandro Marotta, and Radim Ditmar are sold at a premium to afford all of the incomings and make room for the younger midfielders.
Season Results
Our win against the weakened Fulham (no Danny Johnson, no Edon Lopes) is now Kingstonian’s sixth straight opening day win. Reynders and Umar get a brace each. Reynders scored a goal in the next two games too, which includes an impressive draw against Liverpool on the road. Liverpool’s Dutch legend, Alexander Lemmens, gets on the scoresheet against us again; I’m going to be so happy when he retires. But at 33, he still has a few years of bothering us to go.
Next up is the Champions League draw. Here’s our group:
Wow.
We’re in the same group as Juventus and Barcelona. Talk about a rough welcome to the Champions League. Just take a look at the scouting report for Juventus.
Juventus’ Gabriel Rio was purchased for $156 million a few years ago and has been nothing short of remarkable since. Last season, he averaged a 7.9 in Serie A with 27 goals. I guess we’ll try our best against Augsburg so we can have a go again in the Europa League.
The draw with West Brom was our third in a row and I was concerned about the points we were dropping. But away wins at Watford and West Ham got us back on track. It helped that we thrashed FC Augsburg on the road in the middle of that early stretch. The home draw with Chelsea was predictable but October was downright surprising.
A 1-0 nervy win at home against Barcelona in which we went all-out defense after Igor scored a goal in the 61st minute. After sneaking away with that win, I was convinced we would lose against Juventus. But 4-nil was stunning.
Against one of the best teams in the world, we smashed them. We had 20 shots to their 4 and we had most of the possession. You can see from the small number of key passes that we didn’t have the most fluid of attacks spread evenly across our team, but Maverick was the star. I was also experimenting with a new defensively-minded tactic now that Diego could play an excellent defensive midfielder.
The new tactic has helped us secure those hard-fought draws against the bigger English clubs, like the 0-0 draw at Manchester United, and hold onto wins against mid-table sides like our 2-1 win over Leicester.
I don’t even know how to explain our 1-0 win away at Juventus. It should have been a draw. But in the 89th minute, Igor found himself unmarked just outside the box and struck the ball into the bottom right corner. An unbelievable 12 points after 4 games in a group with Juventus and Barcelona. After already qualifying for the next round, we took it easy against Augsburg and drew 1-1. This was hot on the heels of a disappointing draw at Brentford where Maverick was injured and would be out for a month, so I had a feeling our form was starting to falter.
A busy schedule showed what an inopportune time it was for Maverick to be injured. It didn’t help that Vanderlei was a colossal disappointment and utterly failed to be remotely competent on the pitch. I couldn’t even play him by the end of the month. But our standards at Kingstonian have never been higher as we still won five games this month, including a Carabao Cup quarter final win against cheeky Brentford.
Our losses against Arsenal and Manchester City were understandable as they were at the top of the table at the end of the calendar year.
With only two losses to our name in the first five months, we were on target for a title-contending season. It helped that Manchester City took a step back from their incredible season the year before.
It was a very entertaining game against Arsenal at home in the Carabao Cup semi-final. Arsenal scored the first two goals but we struck back with two from Aubry near the end of the first half and beginning of the second. Then, Arsenal took back the lead in the 78th minute but a strike from Cathline evened the score again a few minutes later. Then, finally, in the last moments of the game, in the 96th minute, Maverick scored the go-ahead goal. The return leg wasn’t as fun as Son and Maverick were injured in the big-time home win against Manchester United. We lost 2-0 against Arsenal on the road, just short of our first Carabao Cup final. The shellacking at Tottenham was also the result of injuries, which made our FA Cup win against Chelsea all the more surprising.
By this point, the entire team was struggling with fatigue due to all of the games. 18 games in two months is a LOT. The league wins against Manchester United and Chelsea as well as the less-than-superhuman performances by Manchester City made me feel like the club needed to give it a go at the Premier League title. Speaking of City, I noticed that they weren’t playing our good friend, Danny, as much this year. So I made a phone call and . . .
Welcome back, Danny! Sure, I spent $78 million to get him, but he is a club icon, could help us with our title run-in, will sell shirts, will be the captain soon enough, and is an important part of the England squad. He secures the midfield now and in the future for the next five years. I’m also excited to have him help mentor Cathline, who is averaging just above a 7.0 rating.
That Liverpool result is probably the best one we’ve ever had against them. Cathline, Soleimani, and Umar all scored goals, and each goal was about 20-30 minutes away from each other. We were better on the whole throughout the match, which is something I’ve not yet been able to say against the Reds. Fulham was a fantastic win too because we played the entire second half with only 10 men after Casier got sent off. This was our fourth straight victory over Fulham and helped put to bed a lot of our nightmares at Craven Cottage. We then secured a crucial away win at Ajax in the Champions League, one of the easier teams to face this year. Everything was going really well, but next up was Manchester City. But first, a look at the table.
A very close title race and a result against City would keep at least five points ahead of them before their inevitable charge.
It has been a season of exceeding expectations and this win over Manchester City was just the latest example. I’ve never experienced a team firing on all cylinders at the highest level like this before. Especially against monumentally good squads. Juventus, Barcelona, Liverpool, City – they all were vanquished by us. We just had to keep this going!
Ah, Anfield. We had 61% of the possession. But we didn’t threaten the goal at all, with only three shots taken and all off-target. A miserable 83rd winner was struck and we couldn’t muster any offense in reply. Another crash out of the FA Cup. After setting the goal to win the FA Cup in four years upon entering the Premier League, we would now be three years behind schedule.
My disappointment was not eased when we lost 2-1 at home to a weak Everton side who had gone down to 10 men just before halftime. I consider this our worst loss of the season. But the 2-1 defeat at home against Ajax is a close second. An incredibly frustrating moment occurred when Casier made a reckless challenge in the 13th minute, sent off on a red, and leaving us to play defense and not give up our one goal advantage. We almost made it too, not allowing the tying goal until the 84th minute. In extra time, Ajax scored again in the 99th minute and we replied with a Johnson penalty kick in the 113rd but that was it. Out on away goals. I fined Casier for several weeks of pay for his red card and will never forget his act. Frankly, I started looking for a replacement right fullback just after the game ended. Furious.
Then, of course, in the biggest match of the title race, we lose 1-0 to Arsenal.
Three promising and winnable competitions, all over in ten days’ time. Oh, also – I should mention that we were in the middle of a possible takeover bid by an investor who wanted to put the club on the stock market so we could generate some huge revenue. The loss to Arsenal put us out of the conversation of the title race and apparently this was enough to discourage the investor because shortly after, this happened:
I guess the league title is still technically possible, but we would need to be perfect from here on out and have Arsenal falter.
Some big games from Reynders, Umar, Diego, and Johnson throughout this month, who were consistently excellent and really pushed us forward from the March disaster. The big wins also helped us with goal difference. Meanwhile, Arsenal drew twice against Tottenham and Southampton and then lost at Leicester to put us back on top by a point. It helped that they were rotating their squad during the league games while attempting to advance in the Champions League. Also, Manchester City was vying as a possible spoiler, only two points behind. Three clubs, three games to go.
A draw with Brighton was an auspicious start to the month of May. Coupled with an Arsenal win, we were now down by a point. The key now was to see if Arsenal’s second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Atlético Madrid would tire them and force a rotated side to play cellar dwellers, Sheffield Wednesday. Otherwise, they would have a full week to rest, prepare, and beat Nottingham Forest on the road. The first part went well as Arsenal advanced against Atlético Madrid but it took 120 minutes to do so. The second part – not so much. Arsenal crushed Sheffield Wednesday 3-0. Meanwhile, our side did their part to keep the pressure on.
I think it’s official. We are a consistently better club than Chelsea now. We have surpassed our rivals, especially thanks to the efforts of Danny Johnson and his nine key passes. He has been on an absolute tear the last two months, along with Umar who keeps slinging in the goals and Son, who has been enormously strong at the back.
Just one game to go, at home versus Watford. Playing Watford is always a nice reminder of our first match in the Premier League, when we beat them and I felt like we had finally climbed the mountaintop from the base of tier 6. It would be fitting, then, if we could secure the title against Watford. We would need help from Nottingham Forest as only a Kingstonian win and an Arsenal draw/loss or a Kingstonian draw and an Arsenal loss would give us the title.
The pictures tell the story. Kingstonian has won the Premier League! Not even Arsenal, Chelsea, or Tottenham won the Premier League since this campaign began and yet here we are, the kings of England! I am dazed, confused, bewildered, ecstatic, and a whole mix of emotions between happy and amazed. It was definitely the year to do it considering that City dropped off and the competitiveness in the league was fierce. Just take a look at the final table.
Chelsea’s drubbing by us was the final nail that sealed their fate outside of the European competition spots, which makes that victory all the more sweeter. We have definitely kicked them down a notch in London. West Ham had a great year and will make a surprising appearance in the Champions League. It’ll be interesting to see if they can build on this success. Meanwhile, Liverpool and Manchester United will now have two seasons outside of the Champions League as the balance of power rests with us, City, and Arsenal for the time being. United certainly has to be feeling glum after spending so much cash in the summer.
Best XI
Something is wrong with this Best XI determination to come up with Vanderlei over Maverick. If you switch those two, and put Danny in place of Acosta, you can see just how good our squad was. Considering that Umar really should be a winger rather than a striker, I think a replacement for a striker, a backup for Maverick (replacing Vanderlei), and scouting for a replacement for Casier is the way to go for next season. I also want another English star to team up with Danny and Cathline. Check out who I find next time as we look to (I still can’t believe it) defend our Premier League title . . .
The Kings of London 