cm4-Gravesend

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i am a vet of cm games but have had limited success so far with cm4. I take control of the team for no other reason then i like the team name.

I have 0 dollars for transfers and 60% of recieved transfers will be made available(gee i guess i need to prove myself)

We have a wage limit of 9k currently using 6.2k

The board expects a battle against regulation

I examine the squad and although there aren't many players(21) i really like the a few of the guys we have. I extend every contract that is expiring this season so i will have 1 year at least to "get to know" these players.

I have 3 young players in my reserve team and play 6 friendlies against them using a 4-4-2 attacking tactic(although i have used a 2-6-2 tactic i hope try to stick with our wingbacks this time around)

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the players

gk- paul wilkerson is 27 valued at 26k looks to be better we are happy to have him.

gk jamie turner 22 valued at 3k and my be overpriced as i see no use for him maybe he will become a decent backup down the road.

dl-justin skinner one of our best players 29 year old valued at 16k with acceration and pace 2nd to none on our team i just hope he stays healthy as he is our only left fullback on the team.

dr-matt lee our only right fullback he is 23 and valued at 8k i am hoping our scouts find a couple fullbacks i can loan as it will be hard to bring in a midfielder to replace this guy.

dc-francis duku 24 years old valued at 30k he is our best but suffered a broken ankle before i got here and will be out for another 5 months very infulentional 2nd best physically and best mentally and technically.

dc-ade pennock 31 years old valued 8k he is average at best all around will only be holding duku's spot for him

dc-nick burton 27 years old valued at 7k i like him as the 2nd best
he has probally the best physical skills of any of our defenders with aggression, strength, and bravery second to none hopefully his ballwinning skills will translate although i wish he was better in the air and faster you can't have too many ballwinners.

d/m aaron barnett 24 years old valued at 4k he is able to play 8 postions but none well will only be an injury replacement

d/sc craig wilkins 27 years old 5k is good in the air and nothing else if he brought something else to the table i would like him alot now he is just a sub i hope doesn't get exposed when plays

ml-jimmy jackson 26 year old valued at 60k team captin and maybe our best player physcially and mentally he could be playing in the first divsion although his technical skills need some work hopefully we can get there and he can lead us to a promotion.

mr-tostao kwashi 22 year old zimbabwean international(9 caps) valued at 3k i really like this guy he is our best croser and expect him to lead the team in assists this season

mc-ben white 20 years old valued at 6k another young starter i think this kid could have the world at his feet he looks to have all the tools to become an anchor in our midfield.

mc-jimmy strouts 30 years old valued at 8k will be third choice nothing special

mc-robert owen 24 valued at 3k wish he was better but will find a place on the bench have 4 years left on his contract and is looking for a new one which may find him looking for a new club
as a 4th choice central midfielder should not be asking for more money

amc-mark bently 24 years old valued at 60k right now he will be starting with white in the midfield i think he may be overvalued but has the most skill of any of our central midfielders

sc-che stadhart 25 year old valued at 9k our best goal scorer not quite as good in the air as we would like but we believe he will produce

sc-simon parker 25 year old valued at 2k i like him and believe he is undervalued 11 acc 14 pace and 15 finishing aren't bad for the conferance at all he isn't great in the air either

sc-kevin budge 25 year old valued at 1k and i think he is overvalued has no skill at anything

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our scout is out looking for youth players we don't have any money but hopefully we will get a chance at one down the road.

We play 6 games against our reserves as expected we do well scoring 3 or more goals in 4 of the 6 games but jimmy jackson and stadhart are unable to play the last game and we lose 2-1 i sign a couple of my reserve players to contracts although i am not sure about their abilities at this point. I am worried about our team depth was thinking of getting a wingback on loan but if we do get hit with injuries we will need other loans so we wait at least for a few games and see how things go.

We don't get any free transfers

the oddsmakers make a 40-1 shot to win the conferance and expect regulation a real possiblity. I really want to win a promotion now but without luck that isn't happening until we have some transfer funds

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our first real game is against chester
they come out with a 4-3-3 wanting to play attack minded football in front of their home fans. We use a 4-4-2 with our wingers coming all the way forward. We score 4 goals one in our own net with simon parker getting two on 3 shots. Nick Burton scored on a header from a free kick his heading is only 11 but won 13 of 13 headers he is strong and has good jumping. Ben White won 7 of 7 tackles which i am very happy about Stadhart ends the game with 48% condition hopefully he will be ok for our next game he didn't score but played at an 8 rating.

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our 2nd game is with farnbourgh
we miss a couple early chances only to watch our defense get dribbled through and our goalie comes off his line to challenge and the ball goes over his head and into the back of the net
we get a few more chances but none find the mesh. I think of bringing the tired stadhart off the bench but decide against it his sub gets a late goal with a header off a corner. We get a point but deserved more but we will take that point.

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team captin jimmy jackson is out for 2 weeks

with 3 games in that time we make a loan offer for manutd under 19 player paul tierny

we play halifax without either player stadhart gets us a goal not many chances on either side and we get a 1-1 tie we missed jackson's run on the wing his pace and accerlation are critical to our attack.

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our next game is against Yeovil

tierny big times us for greener pastures

we turn in a huge performance total domination yeovil is down 3-0 after goals from bently, parker, and stadhart in the 81st minute they go to a 2 3 5 formation and get a their first shot in the 89th minute but end up losing 3-1 we get the 3 points we deserved

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the montly awards come out and gravesend get no respect there we are sitting 7th overall with 2 wins and 2 draws i expect bigger and better next month.

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we go into our game against margate with high hopes and twice our defense is outpaced on longballs resulting in a 2-0 loss, i take this very hard as our stud defender is still not healthy and i have some cheap options shortlisted maybe a move or two in needed

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we play telford and bounce back from our last game giving a great performance our left fullback picks up an injury but we generate 9 scoring chances although we only finish 2 of them telford only manages 1 shot on goal glad to see our defense rebound from the last game

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We follow up with another great effort against forest green not allowing them a single shot their goalie played well and preventing an embaressment although stadhart beat him twice for a 2-0 win

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we won every battle and had more chances but our goalie had a shocker letting in more shots then he saved we lose 3-2 to burton albion although our goalie did make 1 save so i guess he did something

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for the 2nd month awards our central midfielder mark bently recieved conferance player of the month he has been in great form with 2 8's and 2 9's for his performances in 8 games he has 4 man of the matches with 8's being his "off" games his 18 dribbling and 16 flair and 15 strength allow him to hold the ball and dribble past around and through defenders creating space and chances for our forwards playing very well ben white who is averaging close to an 8 match rating himself

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Our 9th game is against Northwich Vics we go into their house and put in another dominating performance with bently controlling the game in the midfield winning 8 tackles and 3 headers and going on 11 runs winning his 5 man of the match of the season, Stadhart scored our only goal my only concern is with 65% possession rate we only managed 6 shots this game. Stadhart has 6 goals in 8 games my assistant didn't select him to the first team when i asked his thoughts but i think he is our best striker and is rewarding my belief in him.

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our 10th game is home to morecambe and our shots are back to where they belong outshooting them 14=1 we get goals from stadhart and budge who is playing because parker hurt his shin for 2 weeks. We have 5 injuries 4 are on defenders only having 3 healthy defeders i put dmc jimmy strouts on the backline. Bently wins his 6th man of the match in 10 games mostly by going on 21! runs

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our 11th game is home to hereford we dominate outshooting them 12-3 but mark lee our right fullback lack of pace gets exposed and they convert when one of our center backs try to cover for him leaving their striker scott fitzgerald unmarked simon parker back from injury scores our only goal and we only get 1 point when i believe we deserved more Bently again gets man of the match (7 out of 11 games) going on 37 runs and he is extermely tired not sure he will be fit for our next match

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our next match is home for the fa cup qualifing against the grays who are overmatched the whole game and we beat them 2-0 could have been alot worse. In a few games this season our strikers lack of ability in the air has shown up we sold one of reserve players for 4k but we have been losing money each month hopefully we can go on a run in the fa cup and bring in much needed funding.

we get 20k for our fa cup win but are still over 30k in the red and we draw 2nd division Stockport as our next cup foe, i really hope our team can get up for this game as we will need to play our best to advance

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i take time to praise mark bently in the media as his 8 man of the matches in 13 games is a critical reason why we may be able to challenge for promotion

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the board is very happy, i win manager of the month and mark bently wins his 2nd conferance player of the month

i make an offer on northwich vics reserve fullback danny smith he is only 20 and out of contract i need some cover for my defense hopefully he will even be able to challenge our inedpt mark lee

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in our league game woking comes into our house and we continue our good form outshooting them 16-2 netting 5 goals in the process 2 from parker 2 from stadhart and 1 from team captin jimmy jackson mark bently's 21 runs from the midfield earned him yet another man of the match

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we have a critical game away to barnet who sit 5th on the table we are currently third both teams have scored 25 goals so far but they have conceded 9 while we have given up 11. We get a goal from stadhart but the celebration is cut short as parker was said to be offside. At the half we have 2 shots to 0 lead but we need to really come out and dominate the 2nd half to ensure a win. The second half junior argo beats mark lee(i see a pattern here) and when our center back tries to cover for him mark gower is left unmarked in the center for the pass and score this game was pretty evenly matched although we did have a shot advantage we failed to convert our chances and our promotion bid could be a season or two away as this was a game i circled on my calender as a test to where we are. We can compete with anyone in the conferance but we are not consistant enough to win game in and game out (yet). Danny smith rejected 2 contracts offered to him and called off negotiations. I will keep my eyes open for players out of contract that may help this team.

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we travel to stockport for our cup tie we are really hoping to show something and get the shock victory at halftime we are outshot 7-0 and ben white is the only player doing anything and that is getting carded, the biggest concern the team catalyst mark bently has gone on 0 runs without his playmaking our team just isn't the same. I make some tactical adjustments and hope we can show some offense without exposing our defense. They outshot us 5-4 in the 2nd half but neither side is able to beat the keepers we are going to get a replay at home where we hope we can show our fans something

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our next league tilt is against kettering we outwork them to a 16-3 shot advantage Bently instead of setting it up finishes the job on a nice through ball by mark lee(maybe he doesn't stink after all) bently get man of the match stadhart also chipped in another goal for his 12th of the season. We move up to 4th on the league table

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our cup replay simon parker is out and then team captin jimmy jackson gets hurt in the 3rd minute we need all our horses to get past these guys we go into halftime with a 0-0 draw but more importantly an pretty evenly played first half with them getting 3 shots to our 2 nothing very exciting except ben white had a bad first half missing too many passes they again stopped bently from running wild around the field with the ball hopefully we can generate something to find the back of the net in the 2nd half. (i started this game with the tactic i used to finish the last game against them i am bascially committing 7 players to the attack when i have the ball its very tiring for the players as i am asking alot from them hopefully we can get the result

Stockport got a poession advantage in the 2nd half but didn't do much of anything with it in the 82nd minute reserve team forward/midfielder louie evans playing for the injured jimmy jackson does what no other player had done for 172 minutes of play and that is beat the keeper for 1-0 Gravesend lead! The lead holds as they outshot us 8-6 and deserved a better result. Luke Beckett striker for stockport was able to break down our defenders without help which is a concern going forward

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jackson is injured for 2 weeks

we get another 20k for the win in the fa cup

our next oppenent is hull who is 2nd in the 3rd division we need to be at our best to beat them but i think we can do it(stockport has more quality than hull looking at the team)

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we play doncaster and outshot them 11-5 but they convert a penalty kick and we miss one and end up losing 2-0 i guess this is karma for stealing a victory in the cup game. We now have 3k to buy a player and i put in a 2k bid for Paul Steele from Woking who are scout had recommanded earlier. I really want to get 4k together to make a bid for a young forward he recommanded earlier from doncaster the guy has speed to burn and can dribble if i can land him i will allow parker to persue first team football elsewhere

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i have my backups getting games in the resvers and they came up unable to play as they had a game that day i am forced to play 2 non contracted players in our starting lineup and my only healthy sub is our backup goalie our right winger goes down and i am forced to bring on our backup goalie in the outfield all that being said dag and red and us play a close matched game with both sides getting 7 shots with mark bently getting his 12th man of the match in a losing effort 1-0

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mark bently wins his 3rd straight conferance player of the month award hopefully we can go on a run to get us back into promotion contention

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we travel to hull for our fa cup tie and we get outshot 8-2 in the first half stadhart is out for the match we miss our leading goalscorer the 2nd half is more of the same they outshot us 20-6 but we get an unearned 0-0 tie and a home game replay hopefully we can get a result there

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we travel to scarborough who are 5th while we have fallen to 7th stadhart is back in the lineup and scores our only goal bently gets his 13th man of the match and we move up into 6th in the league table

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we play hull at home for the fa cup match its a pretty close game we lose of leftback skinner and stadhart our striker to injuries and end up losing 1-0 hopefully neither will be long term

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southport comes to our park gets outplayed and beats us 1-0 stadhart missing the game hurt parker had multiple chances and couldn't finish reserve player evans cost us 2 goals being offsides i think about fining him but reconsider our central defender that was out for 5 months is back he is severly lacking match practice and didn't show us much hopefully he will find his legs and improve our backline

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our "best" defender earns a red card in our game against nuneaton borough our once proud team is 17 points behind pacesetters stevenage and our goal differential is shrinking. We were outplayed and recieved a 2-1 loss for our troubles if this duku guy doesn't turn it around before the end of the season i will try to sell him i give him an offical warning

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we are home to stevenage who outplay us our midfield has not been dominating like earlier we are outshot but are able to get a much needed 3 points with a 1-0 win hopefully we can find our earlier form soon

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chester comes to visit us and our midfield control the game although we don't generate the shots we are capable of parker steps up for the 2nd game in a row this time getting 3 goals for a 3-0 win.

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we travel to farnborough and carry our form from last game getting 2 goals from stadhart returning from injury and parker adding another i pull my players back and bring in 3 reserve players for the 2nd half and the game finishes 3-0 giving myself hope if we can continue this form mark bently gets his 15th man of the match award and has the highest match rating of any player in the conferance

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parker is out for 3 weeks and ben white is out for 4 this is not a good time to start picking up injuries but the team has been lucky in that regard and will be able to deal with these as long as others don't mount

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in the fa trophy match we play woking its pretty even although we have a slight edge in the stats reserve midfielder steve mckimm scores a header off a corner for us to get a 1-0 win.

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halifax visits us but we rest several key players as they are not game ready we get a good game from reserve player craig wilkins getting his first man of the match (he is our best target man and my assistants think alot more of him than i do)

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our form falters in a game away to telford. The game is pretty even with us having a slight advantage and then they change tactics bringing players forward i sit on my hands and they score 2 goals in 2 minutes i adjust but its too late we lose a game 2-0 feeling we had played a better game for 88 minutes

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margate travels to stonebridge and we hope to get 3 points although i am concered as 5 of my players are injured 4 of them are 2 weeks or less but half of my outfielders are reserve players which isn't a good thing, we played well but end up with a 1-1 tie thanks to a goal from stadhart bringing his total to 16 and bently is awarded his 17th man of the match

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we travel to yeovil with 3 of my 10 first team outfielders on the pitch. The game really isn't close as we get outshot 15-3 and lose 2-0, i just want my team to try to get a couple results until our players come back

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i win conferance manager of the month but i really an not happy with my team right now. There are 15 games left and we have a chance to challenge for a promotion but it has to start right now, no more playing well but not getting the result, doesn't matter who the better team is that day we need to earn or steal 3 points every match

our next match is away to stevenage. In the 44th minute central defender nick burton get a red card leaving us with 10 men for the rest of the game to add insult to injury its a penalty kick and they score leaving us down 1-0 at halftime. Stadhart comes to life in the 2nd half out racing the stevenage defenders for a lose ball and hitting the upper corner. A Stevenage corner kick in the 78th minute leaves them with too many men forward as Stadhart out paces them having only the keeper to beat the keeper comes out and challenges but instead of shooting stadhart goes wide and fires the ball into the empty net, they said it was an amazing indidual effort and i agree 2-1 gravesend in the 85th minute simon wormall finds the ball at his feet after it hits off the post and puts it into the empty net to make the game 2-2 i am furious we had this game and get 1 point i need a personal reporter to say i would rip the hart out of the defense but it doesn't have one

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i fine my entire backline 1 weeks pay for their performance they may not like it but i need to send a message to these guys. Its not fair for the players who are playing hard to let these guys ruin their year. The striker i was keen on is now valued at 14k i don't think i will be able to get him and the players i have options on for 3k or less none have looked like first teamers.

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we play burton albion at home and outshot them 9-1 and get 1-0 victory but more importantly 3 points with 14 games left we are 16 points away from the top i sure hope we can win the next several games to put make it the stretch run interesting.

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we travel to the lawn to play forest green their fans just protested a 5-0 loss so i hope i can add fuel to the fire.
Parker scores for us but odejayi scores for them we have have a serious poession advantage spending 38% of the game in their third of the field finally stadhart finishes a chance and we get out with a 2-1 win i feel we should have scored much more but will take the 3 points

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we get terrible news our #1 goalscorer will again be out this time we have to go 4 weeks without stadhart.

we play a tight game with morecambe both teams getting 8 shots and them having a slight possession advantage they put 2 of their shots behind our keeper and we failed to get a single onsides goal (2 offsides) and end up with nothing to show for our efforts

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our next game is home against northwich vics we outshoot them 10-0 and dominate them the whole game for a 2-0 win parker gets his 15th goal of the season bently gets his 18th man of the match award

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our backup left winger who had been playing for injured team captin jimmy jackson has now gone down for 4 weeks

we make a loan offer for bolton for jonathon walters a 19 year old stiker who hopefully will make the loss of stadhart bearable

we put in an offer for danny pugh a left midfielder listed for loan by manchester united hopefully we don't get any more serious injuries

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we travel to hereford and play a tight game but lose 2-0 i believe that lost cost us a chance to still consider a promotion, my disapointment level is very high and have very limited enthusiasm for next season as i feel we didn't give it our best this season and that is not acceptable