Halfway House Report - Boston Rock

Sheriff sums up his season so far...

I'm going with Barack Obama and giving myself a B+ for my first half of the season, although I'm getting slightly concerned about my ability to keep up my momentum (as evidenced by my weekend crushing defeat to The Dead Parrots, admittedly one of my bogey teams, but still...)

As you know I've been a little disillusioned with the league turning into a hegemony of three or four teams taking all the plaques away, even if I'm one of them. So at the start of this season I decided to impose the following rules on myself;

1. English players only (which was something I'd been working toward anyway, and which my close-season trade of the Da Silva brothers plus cash for John Terry enabled me to adopt)
2. Squad shape to remain 3 goalkeepers, 9 defenders, 9 midfielders and 6 strikers throughout the season
3. Continue to bring on young players in each position, rather than pack my squad with first teamers

This has led to some challenging situations, particularly recently, when I've had only 2 playing defenders (King, both Ferdinands and Davies all injured, Johnson "rested", Richards dropped and Smalling a young player not in the first team picture), but I've stuck to it rather than bring in a non-English playing defender to help out my squad (for example, I considered buying Hull's Paul McShane out of the pool, but he's Irish!).

In those circumstances, I believe Boston Rock has risen to the challenges and done pretty well. One could argue that with adding John Terry to a first team mix which finished second last year and won both cups, plus with Defoe and Bent guaranteed first teamers for the whole this season, I should damn well be doing well, but I think I overachieved last year, so I'm in better shape this year for a successful season.

The likes of Terry, Bent, Defoe and Lampard are performing as I'd expect them to, so I'd say my star of the season thus far (edging David Dunn into a close second) is James Milner. He's popped up with some vital goals and superb performances too, and looks to be a shoe-in for the England World Cup squad for South Africa. Go on my son!