Anyway, here’s some pictures.

I won a major award!

My star player! Noooo!

The day after the injury. Bittersweet.

The most annoying thing about the injury is that I should have prevented it. Jason Norville was getting tired, but he’s so very, very good that I didn’t want to be without him. So I decided to play him for the first half and replace him at half time. In the forty-third minute he picked up his three-month injury.

Still, after another rebuilding (i.e. losing) phase after his injury, we seem to be back to winning again. Maybe it won’t be a complete disaster.

*sigh* @thatrevchap has stupid Football Manager on his stupid iPhone. I miss him.

Also:

He seems to take personal offense every time the other team gets a goal.

I only played two matches last night! Two!

The first didn’t go so well. A great start, but then… aaargh!

Noooooooooooooooo!

The second, though, was my first win of the season.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Hopefully it’s the start of something good. (Though I did get a bit frustrated and applied for a new job in a fit of pique, so maybe I won’t be at Oxford for long.)

Well, you know what you’re getting. It’s Football Manager… on the iPhone. Cut down from the PC version, but very familiar to anyone who’s played the PSP version, the only really important thing is the interface. First impressions suggest that it’ll be fine once you get used to it, but it’s unfamiliar and not especially intuitive.

(There’s a separate manual app that you can download for free – I’ve had to refer to it a couple of times.)

Still, I’ve managed to play a few games, change my formation and change around my squad, so it seems to be workable.

I took over Oxford United because there’s no random option that I could see. (Incidentally, there’s also no obvious way to get team info before you select them, which is a shame.) They come with a default 4-3-3 formation, so I left that alone for my first friendly match.

We lost 3-0.

So I decided to go back to the old standby of 4-4-2 for the next friendly.

We lost 3-0.

The score didn't stay 0-0 for long.

Hmm. I stuck with 4-4-2 for the next match, but focused on attacking.

We were down to 3-0 within twenty minutes. Oof.

Hooray for Norville!

Near the end of the game, though, there was a glimmer of hope as Jason Norville scored a late consolation goal. That’s something. I think I need to see how things go at the start of the season and see if I can work out a way to get the best from my squad. I’m a firm believer that midfield is what counts in football so I’m going to concentrate on that. There’s still time to bring people in.

Either that or I’ll look for a new job.

Next game, against first-place York at home.

Didn’t hold out much hope, but in an incredible match that saw each side have a player sent off, we won 7-2. Now we’re top of the table again. Hurrah!

We’re also through the first round of the FA Cup. We’re going to be playing Hampton & Richmond away.I won’t be too upset if we lose – the fewer games the better, I reckon, when you’re going for the league title.

All is well right now, but we have a few long-term injuries and another one in the wrong place could send us hurtling towards oblivion.

I should mix up my tactics a little more to stop opposing teams getting used to my style of play, but I’m not much of a tactician. I tend to choose the best players to fit into a standard 4-4-2, only deviating when forced to by injury. The usual extent of my tactical changes is asking the players to play more attacking football now and again.

Not bad with such a small squad.

According to my stats, I’ve bought twelve players for a total of £95,000 and sold six players for a total of £425,000. I’m great at transfers, me.