I walked in to my office, slouched in to my chair and stared out the window on to the pitch. Pre season was over, the league campaign only a few days from starting.
What would happen, what has happened?

I wanted to make sure I was going into the season with all the correct formations, players and training so I had arranged to sit down and have a discussion about how pre season and the champions league qualifying went.

Ok I said to myself, I made my way down the corridor to the meeting room, my coaches and assistant were sat waiting for me, I could hear the laughter from here, they were in a good mood, the mood in the club was good. Walking in to the room I was greeted with a cheer, finally they said, You have arrived.

Yes, sorry guys, been busy sorting paperwork, ok, I want to talk you all through how I think pre season has been and then at the end get a discussion on how to take the club forward

Friendly Fixtures:

Well the 1st 4 games were fantastic, I was very happy with how it was going, scoring goals and a lot of them, only 1 clean sheet to straight away, something we can work on is defensive training.
The 2nd 4 games were not as good, only 1 win, 1 draw and 2 defeats. 1 of the defeats was to Zaragoza so I can and we can accept that defeat, defense wise we improved a little, getting 2 clean sheets in the 4 games, it was goals that were the problem, was disappointing due to the 1st few games.

Champions League:

Champions League:

We lost but I was actually very happy with how we did, we went to Poland and managed a draw, playing very well. We did not take our chances at home which was upsetting but I saw a lot of positives and can see our team is looking good.

Signings:
We did well on signings, a lot of respect to the scouts who found a lot of the players for me, helping us develop the team, looking mainly at Jon Macken and Lee Hendrie, both very experienced players who I think will help me get my feet under the table in Wales.

Signings:

Link:
We secured a link over the summer with AFC Bournemouth, straight away securing some loan signings off them to help fatten up the team

Link:

So, over to the room, what do you guys think we should be looking to do, think of this as a brain storming session before the season starts?

McHugh (Assistant) – We need to work on Fitness, been the only Professional club in league, if we can improve fitness, in the long run we will control games.

Monk (Coach) – Set Pieces, in training we are looking poor at defending and attacking them, we need to work on that over the next few weeks.

Ruscoe (Coach) – Team Cohesion, we need to gel as a team, a lot of signings and they are forming groups in the dressing room, maybe so days out to help the team bond.

Great guys, nice feedback. I will take all these on board and we will see what we can come up with, lets hope for a good start to the season.

Good luck to us all

I sit on my couch at home, looking out of the window, rain pouring so heavy I can hardly make out the name of the shop my flat over looks, I had just finished reading the newspaper. The back pages were full of pictures of TNS, it was good to see. It was a mid point review in the local paper, I had sent my assistant to the interview about it so I had fun reading what he thought so far about the season.

Well, things could not have gone better, we have been playing amazing, Paul has settled into his job perfectly, he has control and respect in the dressing room. The players have adapted to a different style of play, trying to control matches, a philosophy he is wanting to use in Europe, He keeps talking to me about the group stages of European competitions within 5 seasons, I think he is going crazy ha ha. We are leading the league and into the League Cup Final but that is a long way from European Football, I am not sure how long before we would be close to that.

I went to the kitchen, gasping for a cuppa, still in shock.
How could he go out in public and laugh at my ambition, at what I wanted for the club, we had been progressing very well and we had shown in the champions league this season we are not far behind some good clubs like Legia.
I am thinking I need to have a sit down with my assistant and discuss if we are both going in the same direction.

I see at the bottom of the newspaper piece there were a few pictures, the league table so far aswell as TNS fixture list so far, it looked good, a lot of green.

Table:

Fixtures to date: