Hello. My name is Woy Hodgson. I’m a PE teacher in South London who has had a career in non-league. This is my story into football management after a suspicious call from someone from Sweden. I hope you enjoy the story!
I didn’t think the Europa League final season with Kobenhaven would be beaten but with Fulham we were a whisker away from qualifying for Europe after a horrible start to the season. It was made even better by the fact we did qualify for Europe by winning the FA Cup! So now, the 2036/37 season awaits!
With Fulham now seeming to be a rich club, we were given lots of money to spend. I wanted to sign some top players for a push in all competitions while also remembering that keeping loads of players from last season would create a great dressing room atmosphere and cost me lesson in bowling trips as team building exercises.
With this, I spent £120 million on 4 players. A lot I know but I spread the cost a bit. I also raised £36.5 million selling last years signing Nelsinho because he just didn’t show me enough.
In the end I signed centreal defender Daniel Newton from PSG for £30 million. He’s good, Belgian and I’m hoping to team him with the current defenders to create a solid back line. And at only 23 years old, I’m hoping for some improvements and a possible return on the investment, should Manchester City want to offer us £100 million!
Next up is Humberton Luis to replace one of the OAPs retiring in the right back position. He needs a bit of work on the crossing but a very brave boy. And, again, to fulfil the club mentality of signing younger players, he’s only 19. With some work on his leadership, he could be a future captain!
Nelsinho‘s replacement, second South Korean in the team: Kang Jung-Yong. This guy did not come cheap! A bit of a panic buy towards the end of the window I had to part with £60 million for him. He is considered a future star so let’s hope it’s work it. Again, Manchester City can give us £100 million for him in a few year to make up for it.
Finally, there is Nicolás Gaitán. And Argentinian striker with a fairly decent release clause of under £30 million. Given the age of Zeigler, I thought it might be worth it to look to the future. This guy would return a profit from day one and with his ability to score, I thought he’d be a future partner for Englebrecht. Now let’s go play some of the footballs!
Due to the fact we won the FA Cup last season, we would face last year’s league winners in the opening game of the season in the 2036 Community Shield. It’s a bit of a glorified friendly to the loser but to the winner, a chance for silverware before the season even begins. For us, it’s the former. Manchester City took us to the cleaners and won 4-1. So let’s pretend it never happened.
Instead, we faced Burnley in the opening game. We won 4-0 but a few diasallowed goals has me rethinking the whole tactic despite it being game number one of the season! I didn’t change anything and we went on to an unbeaten August and September.
Our first loss came against old club Leicester before an inconsistent patch. A very busy December has us winning 7 of the 8 games losing only to Burnley who were set for taking their revenge!
This opening half of the season see us climb to the top of the table! We have played one or two more matches than those around us but we are currently top of the league! Is it even possible to win the league…
The opening rounds of the EFL Cup starts for us in the third round in September. We draw Arsenal who we beat 2-0 away from home.
This leads to a fourth round tie against moneybags Newcastle. A closer match where we needed to take it to penalties. Luckily we do win to reach the quarter finals.
The quarter final against Southampton was another draw which went to penalties. Again, we come out victorious to set up a semi final tie against Everton.
The two legged semi final would see us travel to Everton for the first leg. We lost 3-0 so had it all to do in the return leg. We lost again at home 2-1 meaning this would be as far as we went in this competition. An injury crisis in the goalkeeping department has let us down. It was a shame not to reach another final but the board aren’t interested in this competition anyway.
Another 10 games on from being at the top of the league saw a continuation of the little green dots that signified winning. January was where we lost out only games in the new year due to an injury crisis at the club. Both first choice and second choice ‘keepers were out with injuries and international matches due to the African Cup of Nations being help in January. This mean we lost to mid-table Arsenal and Manchester united who were at the top of the table with us. I was also offered the Arsenal job in this time but turned it down. I wasn’t done with Fulham yet!
Once the ‘keepers were back, we hit a goof run of form winning 5 games and drawing one. Despite the wins, we found ourselves in third place, 2 points behind Manchester United and 5 points behind league leaders Liverpool with only 8 games remaining!
After winning the FA Cup last season, I wanted to retain the title. We were heading into a title showdown with some big clubs and I wanted to make my mark on English football by winning the league and cup double only 1 year on from winning the FA Cup for the first time.
We join the competition in the third round in January with an opening match against Norwich. Despite having to use a reserve goalkeeper, we win 3-0.
An emphatic 5-0 victory at home against Walsall would see us host Oxford City in the fifth round of the cup.
Two games would be played at the end of March. A 3-0 victory against Oxford would set up a quarter final tie with Southampton. Despite having a full strength side again, we could not score. Southampton win with the only goal of the game knocking us out the competition and a chance to focus on winning the league. It worked for Leicester in 2016 not having cup competitions. Fingers crossed!
With the remaining 8 games to play, we’ll go one game at a time. First up would be a televised game at home to Tottenham.
The Tottenham game we start strongly scoring the only two goals in the match. A great way to start the title showdown! This victory send us second and only 2 points behind leaguers Liverpool!
The next match against Chelsea was bizarre! Nothing all game until we concede a late goal in the 86th minute. Not dead and buried, we fire back with two extremely late goals to win it 2-1! That’s the passion I’m looking for! That’s a title winning desire, right there!
Next up was a 0-1 loss to Everton that would prove costly as the teams around us all win their fixtures to add pressure. We drop to third, 3 points behind Manchester United and 8 points behind Liverpool.
Next up was a strong Manchester City who were up there fighting for the title too.
To our surprise we edge them in a close 2-1 where much time wasting was necessary to ensure the victory. We were even more pleased to see Manchester United lose 5-1 to Tottenham too meaning with four games remaining we were level on points with United but above them on goal difference and 5 points behind Liverpool. All to play for! Up next would be West Brom.
What we really need is for Liverpool to slip (Sorry Gerrard) up again. Somewhere, they needed to drop some points. Our next game against West Brom was another narrow 2-1 victory.
That was followed by a comfortable 3-0 win against Leeds. And heading into the final two games of the season, we see Liverpool have also won meaning we are still 5 points behind them. We’d need some miracle to happen to stand a chance of winning. But with both Manchester clubs on our tails, maybe I should be looking behind us at the chasing pack. They do have a game in hand afterall!
No miracle happened. Liverpool has done enough to win the league. But with a draw against Southampton – who are quickly becoming our bogey team and ruining everything – and a final day loss to Bournemouth, we slip to third behind Manchester City. Had we not conceded late against Bournemouth, we’d have finished second. If you had said before the season began that we’d finish third, I’d have been over the moon! So that’s what I must remember. I wonder if next season we can do one better? Or should I suggest TWO better!
Once again the final part to this year’s story is the European football journey. This is my favourite part of each season, trying to better what I managed the year before. Last year we didn’t have an European football but this year, we have the Europa League!
We join the group stages and this year, we share a group with Sevilla, BK Hacken that I know well from my Sweden days. LASK but not least (see what I did there!) is LASK.
The last time Fulham go to the end of this competition, they lost to Atlético Madrid with a certain De Gea in goal and Sergio Aguero up front! Not sure who the Fulham manager was back then…
We started with a win against LASK 7-0 to build a bit of confidence before heading back to Sweden to hammer Hacken 6-1.
Next up was a trip to Sevilla where we did lose 1-0 before a return fixture put things right again where we beat them 2-0.
Another 5-0 beating of Hacken at home and a 3-1 away visit to bottom of the table (or should I say LASK place team) LASK. We top the group after Sevilla drop points to Hacken but still able to qualify second and poor LASK filling in the final position in the league.
Finishing top of the league would mean we have longer to wait as we by-pass the first knockout round and head straight for the second knockout round. Our opponents would be Hoffenheim.
Leg one was away. It’s preferable, especially if you can get the away goals you need as a cushion to take back to the home leg. That’s exactly what we did. We scored two goals without reply to take back to the home leg meaning they’d need to outscore us by about 3 goals to progress.
We never let them and goals from last season’s top scorer Engelbrecht and January signing Gaitán each scoring a goal ensure we won the match 2-0 and 4-0 overall.
A decent result that would put us in the hat for the quarter finals. With some big club still in it, we ended up looking forward to heading back to Germany to face Borussia Dortmund who were doing well in the Bundesliga.
The first leg was another opportunity to get some away goals. And we took that opportunity and made it ours! 4 away goals were taken conceding once to win the match 4-1.
The return leg was another victory with Engelbrecht being rested, it was Ziegler’s turn to score. Gaitán getting 3 across the two legs also helped us to a 6-2 aggregate score.
With two previous clubs in Leicester and Kobenhavn still in the competition at this point, we had a high chance of coming up against one of them. This time, it was Kobenhavn.
We won the first leg of the tie 1-0 at home. It was closer than I thought but a late 80th minute winner by wingback Emile Green won us the first leg.
The second leg was one we didn’t necessarily have to win given the chance to use the away goal rule should the game finish as a draw. If we could steal one goal it would put us on the front food. But we didn’t need to worry about that as the performance was nowhere near the standard required!
We quickly found ourselves 2-0 down after 38 minutes. But it got worse as we conceded twice more to finish the game 4-0. The away goal rule never stood a chance and we found ourselves exiting the competition in the semi-final, embarrassed by our performance at the hands of a previous employer!
Kobenhavn would go on to lose to the other of our previous employers, Leicester City, in the final.
A frustrating season. Missing out of the premier League title. An EFL Cup semi final exit and a FA Cup quarter final exit left us trophy-less.
There was some exciting new, though, as now legendary striker and most famous Leichtensteiner of all time, Engelbrecht claimed English Footballer of the year scoring 29 in 28 games. He also was top scorer and would also be names EURO Cup player of the season with Nicolás Gaitán coming in 3rd! Finally, I was named Manager of the Year. Something that I am most proud of.
Engelbrecht was the only player outside of the Liverpool and Manchester City squad to make the team of the year.
Something else that’s quite exciting was the board are looking to build a new stadium to upgrade from the near 30,000 seater one we currently play in. I wonder if it’s too soon to ask for it to be named after me… They may name is after Engelbrecht!
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