Welcome back to the Party at the Palace. If you haven't caught any of the previous posts, you can start from the beginning here.
Right, let's get to the start of the new episode.
We re-join the party for the second half of the season as we always do heading into the turn of the year.
It was a decent first half of the season, sitting 7th in the League and already qualified for the latter stages of the Europa Conference League.
Before we get into the second half of the season action lets catch up on all the off field updates including the January Transfer Window.
Youth Intake Preview
With all the excitement of Decembers jam packed fixtures we had a delayed Youth Intake Preview. With all the improvements to the facilities it must be time for a belter.
Or maybe not. Only one A rated position shown isn't promising at all. I am not holding out much hope.
January Transfer Window
We had a very quiet pre season in terms of transfer activity due to the financial constraints.
I was happy with the way the squad had coped with the season so far and wasn't planning on making any drastic moves or any moves at all for that matter.
January 2028
2028 brings a renewed hope of success, there is an air of confidence around the club. January is a very tough run of fixtures with games against Man City and Liverpool to start us off.
The results looks a lot worse than they are. The defeats to Man City and Liverpool are annoyingly expected at this stage in our development.
Good wins against Everton and Southampton sandwiched an uncharacteristic performance away to Villa.
The worst result of the month however, happened off of the field.
We were powerless to Arsenal's offer due to the release clause in his contract and we say goodbye to one of the stars of the save so far.
Bought for £10 million 3 seasons ago the price is a huge jolt to the club and one that will help us in the long run.
Even more frustrating was the last minute nature of the deal which left us with absolutely no time to find any form of replacement and i was very reluctant to panic buy for the sake of it.
So we will utilise Olise as usual on the right wing with Mudryk deputising in emergencies.
February & March 2028
We roll into Februrary and March having lost one of star players very abruptly. The fact he scored 2 goals in his last game shows his importance to the side.
I deployed Mudryk out on the right wing as Olise was struggling with a knock.
Its a strong showing across the 4 games, especially when you see the results against Chelsea and Arsenal.
Leonardo and Schjelderup really stepping up and contributing to the goal count getting 4 and 3 respectively.
We also have the Round of 16 fixture in the Europa Conference League to contend with as we face Danish Giants Brondby IF.
A straight forward path to the quarter final with a 5-1 agg win. A good amount of rotation achieved and Olise grabbing 2 goals back from injury is another bonus.
Youth Intake
The preview really didn't fill us with any hope of finding the next star and my word was it right.
A real shame as we have made huge improvements in the facilities over the last year or so. I am hoping that next season will see the full effect of these improvements.
April 2028
After an unbeaten month, Aprils busy period came around at the perfect time. Winnable games all the way through and a chance to really burst through that invisible wall into the top 7.
Its disappointing to see some red on this image. Leicester and Newcastle appear to be slight bogey teams for us.
They have collectively derailed our momentum up the league and it possibly sees us finish outside of the top 7 again.
We dust ourselves off and focus on the Quarter final of the Europa Conference League. This could be our best chance of getting back into the Europa League. We face Dutch premier division team FC Utrecht.
Its an even more straight forward victory than our L16 games as we ease by 8-0 on agg. Into the Semi Finals and dreaming of repeating our success of two seasons ago.
May 2028
With the league season all but wrapped up we may have made some rotation decisions focusing on the upcoming ECL semi final.
A mixed bag to end the domestic league season. Nice to see Nico Adam grab a Premier League hattrick when given his chance as the spearpoint of the attack.
Now for the biggest two games in May. The two legged tie against French team Reims. Two legged Semi Final for a place in our second European Final in the 3 seasons.
Definitely a Semi Final for the Neutral with two teams just going gung ho at each other for 180 minutes, we come out on top 9-5 on agg.
Into the Final We go, where we face Italian giants Inter!
We go straight to the Final as we are huge underdogs. But when has that ever stopped us.......
EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE CAMPIONS!!
We become the first team to with the competition twice in its short history and it took an extra time goal in the 118th minute from substitute left back, Guatam End!
Incredible stuff!
We had the top 2 players in the competition too as Schjelderup and Adam grab 12 goals each through the competition.
Domestic Cups
As always we finish our season round ups with the domestic cup coverage. Lets start with the League Cup.
We bow out at the fourth round stage after losing to United on penalties. A shame as we have a really strong recent history with this cup.
FA Cup
Now for the one everyone dreams of as a kid. The FA Cup is the grandest domestic competition there is and one that needs to be won on this journey.
Well we have a phenomenal run into the final. I have always said that the FA Cup you need some luck with the draw along the way, we got that with some ties against some lower league opponents at key times.
Getting revenge against united on penalties after our League Cup defeat was sweet and then seeing off "bogey team" Newcastle at a packed Wembley was very special.
Now for the Final as we face Premier League and Champions League winners, Liverpool.
No easy task but we have already proved that in one off finals when the underdog we can be lethal.
VERY LETHAL INDEED! WHAT A VICTORY.
We capture the FA Cup for the first time in the clubs history, stopping Liverpool achieving a Club Treble in the process. This crowns a huge season and one that will be VERY hard to match in the future.
I've got Goosebumps writing about it!
Final League Table
An 8th placed finish isn't to be sniffed at all and it does equal our best ever season.
I just don't think its good enough for our 6th season and although winning 5 cups in that time has glossed over it, we need to improve to be challenging for Europa League or even Champions League through our league finish.
As Always I will leave you with Season Review.
Thank you so much for reading. This save has grown very close to my heart and we are continuing to see such great responses to it. I appreciate you all.
Cheers
Panda
