After a year-long sabbatical in Finland managing HJK, Warthog has returned to Valencia to finish the job he started after they lost their way without him in charge. Fans had been calling out for changes at the club after a disastrous season last year which has seen them return to the bottom Umbro division. It should be familiar surroundings for the manager who returns with almost all players being familiar faces from when he left. Whilst Warthog had his own challenges last season which meant he couldn't give HJK the full attention they needed, we still managed to win the league and earn a World Club Trophy spot. The same can't be said for Valencia who were runners up in the WCT the season before with Warthog in charge, but he'll have to focus on other trophies this season given Valencia didn't qualify. This season we're aiming for a top 3 finish fully aware that there are some good clubs in this league, not least GlenMac's Red Star Belgrade and Skittles' Shaktar Donetsk, both of whom will no doubt be confident of taking the title at the end of the season.

With the club finances being good they have been further enhanced with the quick sale of some fringe players. Milunovic and Rodriguez joined Sporting Lisbon with Correia and Gomez going to APOEL Nicosia and Sonogo joining Borussia Mönchengladbach, collectively bringing in £385m. Although this makes the squad quite thin at the moment they are hoping to invest in the transfer market in the coming weeks to strengthen further. The club did delve in to the free market after needing to strengthen the centre back area with experienced Dejan Lovren signing along with young prodigy Zozomo Diaz providing cover in the defensive midfield department, for a combined fee of £225m. Further transfers have seen youngster Alex Kral join from Spartak Moscow in exchange for Francois Coquelin who had seen his better years go behind him. Soler & Rapadori also left in this deal with Larsson and Victor Moses joining as makeweights. To enhance the spending powers of the club we have also signed a deal with eBay who will be the main shirt sponsors for the season which brings in a lump sum straight away as well as continued money throughout the season. We're hoping for a bumper payout too at the end of the season should things go to plan. We've started to re-invest in our stadium too with the aim of bringing it up to a 100,000 capacity by the end of the season. We are hoping to sign top targets in the upcoming auction and are hopeful that the impending New Year giveaway is kind to us too so at the moment everything is looking rosy for the club once again.

With regards to the captaincy for the season, this has been awarded to Hamed Junior Traore. A controversial figure in his short career so far but we are confident he can be one of the stars of the team this season. Jesse Lingard has won the vice-captaincy as a stalwart of the side. With Innocenti still at the club and only being a bit part player last season we're hoping that he can rediscover the form that saw him score 35 goals in season 2 when we won the Umbro League and League Trophy.