Season 24 Week 22 processing, last week of the season...

Nicolas Anelka going out on a high note there as he announced he would be retiring from playing to take up a coaching job at Charlton for next season. What a great player he has been over the years, not always appreciated by his peers, but one of the best for sure...

Paul Hemmings wrote:

Villa 2 Norwich 4 Beattie on 89 minutes.

There's work to be done.

Independente 2 Boca 2 Sven Bender rescues Rob from the jaws of defeat in the dying second of his final game in charge at Boca, where, lets face it, he has been supremely successful.

and that's it, it is really all over now, for another season, so let's waste no time in confirming the various league Champions for you...

Paul Hemmings wrote:

Nicolas Anelka going out on a high note there as he announced he would be retiring from playing to take up a coaching job at Charlton for next season. What a great player he has been over the years, not always appreciated by his peers, but one of the best for sure...

Been a great signing for me, will always have a place at The Valley.

Fantastic performance all season from the lads. I can enjoy my honeymoon in peace now! Congrats to Tom who pushed my team all the way. Will be emailing/PMing my turn in Paul if that's ok as obv won't be back home...?

Argentina Boca Juniors
Brazil Flamengo
Eire Bohemians
England Plymouth
France Nantes
Germany Bayern
Holland Ajax
Italy Inter Milan
Poland Gornik
Portugal Benfica
Russia Spartak Moscow
Scotland Inverness
Spain Barcelona
USA Galaxy
Serbia Red Star

Congratulations to all the winners and especially the "Double" winners, Rob and Matt.

Okay I have to crack on now and get the rest of the things run before sending them out, I hate these short weeks tbh. I hope it has been an enjoyable season, I know I have really enjoyed it again, and it really is a pleasure for me to run this little game of mine. So thanks very much to all of you for another very enjoyable season.

Paul, thanks a million for making it such good fun.

Paul Hemmings wrote:

Okay I have to crack on now and get the rest of the things run before sending them out, I hate these short weeks tbh. I hope it has been an enjoyable season, I know I have really enjoyed it again, and it really is a pleasure for me to run this little game of mine. So thanks very much to all of you for another very enjoyable season.

As enjoyable as ever!

Great improvements have been made to the game again this year, there is always things to think about.  Its a pleasure to play it.  Many thanks for all the hours you put into it.

Sounds like there is gonna be some big transfer news this week....

Fantastic season once again Paul and thanks. Tom/Rich your job to convince Will to come back - perhaps Forest is beckoning now Rob is in England...?

Been a great season, delighted with Watford's progress after a very nearly being relegated last season.

Congratulations to all the title winners.

Many thanks Paul for all your hard work.

Can't wait for next season, sounds like Plymouth are going to be even stronger!

Just finished running the transfers and some of you now have 40 players in your squads as a result of loans ending. So I have tweaked the maximum squad size hard limit to only apply on weeks 1 to 22. So during the 2 weeks of the mid-season there is now no hard limit of 25 players. That should help alleviate the congestion.

Transfer highlights

Watford signed Diego Costa for £37millions from Inter, that was the big deal of the week.

Eriksen returned to Feyenoord as his loan ended, he will now be available for bids on week 23. He wasn't available this week due to him still being at Newcastle. 

Mangala did move to Plymouth 
Siem De Jong went to Betis
Celtic grabbed Ochoa
Blackburn sign Ben Foster
Milan grabbed Afellay
Charlton swapped Kolarov for Willian

and

Ancona got Courtois for a bargain £6millions !

plenty of other deals went through this week mostly endloans as you'd expect.

doing the financials next then I'll be emailing out the turns, today.

okay email turns sent out, doing the printing now.

Printing all sent.

Paul Hemmings wrote:

Just finished running the transfers and some of you now have 40 players in your squads as a result of loans ending. So I have tweaked the maximum squad size hard limit to only apply on weeks 1 to 22. So during the 2 weeks of the mid-season there is now no hard limit of 25 players. That should help alleviate the congestion.

Thanks Paul,  just a quick question regarding academies as I'm not sure anyone else has had this problem.

I've had more players graduate from the schoolboy academy due to age than the youth academy.  They can't go in the youth academy as that is full.  However, the youth academy has players that could go into the schoolboy academy (under 20).  Is there a quick way to move all of them into the right academies or is it just a case of enrolling them one at a time?

Many thanks

One at a time i'm afraid, always best to spread this type of thing out over a few weeks else you do get swamped at the end of the season.

Cheers Paul for your hard work over the season!

Barcelona's best season for me, can't grumble with a treble including the champions league. On a sad note it was Carlos Puyol's last game before he retired so he came on for the last 5mins to lift the la liga trophy.  Now for a sort out with some players leaving to get the squad size down a bit!

As for Flamengo, they did it the hard way on the last day coming back from 3-0 down.  Very happy to have pipped Santos to the title and a respectable runners up in the cup.  Big decision now is if I can fit Lewandowski in at Barcelona or keep him at Flamengo for a bit longer? Next target copa libertadores, bit more of a chance now Robs moved to England!

Hello all, been a mad few weeks, got promoted at work so not been at home for the majority of it with training unfortunately, will all be finished before the new season starts thankfully so can enjoy the start of that with no distractions! 

Very happy that Gremio managed to pull off the great escape on the last day of the season and their squad is finally under control so can hopefully have a proper go next season! Just need to sort Birminghams squad out, lots of promotions from the youth academy so will be looking at letting some go that havent stepped up.

Congrats Ben on winning the league and to everyone else that has had some success this season.