It's been a pretty solid first half of the season for
Bolton Wanderers and their manager,
Jose María Goya! With 10 wins, 6 draws, and 3 losses, the team has reached the Winter Transfer window in Promotion Zone, although not directly. Here is basically how promotion works in the English Championship,
PES 2019 edition: The top 2 teams are automatically promoted to the Premier League, and teams 3-6 battle it out in a Play-off to determine the 3rd promoted team! Sounds familiar? Yes, this was basically the same format with the Italian Serie B in my Reggina story!
It's pretty much all started at the back. 25-year old
Sol Campbell (who I've set his age before I started my ML), has been a rock-solid presence in my back 4, captaining the team and being the leader everyone has expected him to be. Not only does he have great fighting spirit, but also his tackling and aerial skills to head plays out of danger have been of crucial importance to the team. Manager Goya has deposited his trust in Sol, and the team is riding his solid and steady play to the upper echelons of the Championship.
Of course, One cannot continue mentioning this Wanderers story without the addition of my well known
"4 Musketeers". In addition to
Campbell, I've also added as you well know, the magical
Jay-Jay Okocha, age 22, (who has delighted the fans with his trickeries and showmanship as well as goals and assists), American star
Landon Donovan, 23, who is the top scorer in my team (and tied for second in the entire Championship with my Center Forward Clayton Donaldson), and Japanese icon
Hidetoshi Nakata, 22, who has been a jack of all trades playing in the midfield, doing a little bit of everything, scoring here, asissting there, tackling as well, as a very valuable addition to the team! My intention is to center my whole Master League with these "4 Musketeers" and slowly surround them with talent!
A surprising but very welcome addition to my season has been the play of unsung hero, 34-year old
Clayton Donaldson, my everyday striker. Even though he is hanging up his boots at the end of the season, he has used his skills, large frame, strength and speed to score 9 goals in the Championship, good enough for 2nd place! One of his greatest performances came against Derby County, in which he scored a hat-trick! Too bad he's retiring as he has been a veteran presence and has provided goals and leadership to the Wanderers! I'll have to look for a replacement once the season ends!
One thing is for sure. I want to give him a proper goodbye, it would be awesome if he capped his final season as a Wanderer with helping us reach the Championship. I loved this quote by him "I've still got a few games left in me-just you watch." It's great to have a proper veteran like this playing his final year and helping the
Four Musketeers find their place in the team! Loving this side story too, by the way.

In anycase, right now Bolton is sitting 4th in the Championship, in a super-tight league in which the top 3 teams only lead us by 1 point, and the difference between the first placed team and the 8th placed team is only 5 points!! An interesting point is that I won't be signing any new players probably until the end of the season, since I've renewed the Musketeers' contracts and have to save some money, but once the season ends, I will probably have more cash to spend and reinforce the team! A long way to go still, but things are getting really exciting and tight in this extremely well fought English Second Division!