I sensed that competiton for places had reached a new high for this game. Most of them had shown what they could do at some point so far and I was expecting a bit more back-lash than normal from those not included.

This was the latest we'd left it before naming the team. Just 3 hours until kick off. They all gathered out on one of the practice pitches as the names were read out.

"Lopez, in goal" He looked surprised again.

"Josemi, Godin, Fuentes, Capdevilla - that's the defence"

Insua swung a kick at a near by training cone, accidently sending it into the groin of a still dazed Bruno.

"Midfield - Senna and Pjanic...Mati you play left, Cani, you play right"

Pires gave me a dirty look and kicked a nearby water bottle....Bruno, still clutching his privates in pain took the bottle full in the face.

It wasn't the right thing to do to laugh at him but I couldn't help it, none of us could. I almost wanted to play the guy now to make it up to him.

Picking Cani felt liked I had caved in a bit but Pires had hardly done enough to justify starting every week.

"Nihat, play just off Rossi"

I walked away to the sound of various different languages complaining.

At kick off there was a good vibe in the stadium. I introduced myself to the Murcia boss Lucas Alcaraz and congratulated him on the good start his team had made this season. He thanked me and told me to ignore the banner that was being unfurled behind me.

The 'come back Pellegrini' banner was back.

I sat down, powerless to do anymore now than shout and point. We kicked off.

Almeria 1 Racing 2
Ath. Madrid 2 Mallorca 1
Barcelona 2 Athletic 0
Betis 0 Real Madrid 0
Deportivo 2 Levante 1
Getafe 0 Valladolid 2
Osasuna 1 Recreativo 1
Valencia 2 Sevilla 1
Zaragoza 0 Espanyol 1

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The dressing room was all hugs and beaming smiles.

Our best performance of the season so far and almost everyone had a good reason to be happy. Only Rossi, another game without a goal, looked downhearted. Several of the players shook my hand and thanked me although I'm not sure what I did...apart from make frantic Benitez-like arm gestures for 90 minutes.

I was on my way back out to my car when Ruben called me back holding his phone out in front of him.

"it's for you" he said, handing me the phone with a wide smile

I took the phone off him, confused

"err...hola?"

"Jon...my name is Manuel Pellegrini...I just want to say congratulations on this win...already this club will start to love you"

I went to reply but it sounded like his signal was breaking up so I handed the phone back to Ruben.

"thank him for me Ruben, that meant a lot"

We all had the day off on the Thursday and Lucy and I decided to head into town for a nice Autumn walk through the park. I still couldn't tell what was going on inside her head, would she one day just insist on us moving back home or would I catch her calling Spain home absent mindedly in the middle of a conversation. The problem was I hadn't really thought through what my response would be if she did demand we went back.

We popped into a shop to buy some groceries only for the shopkeeper to embrace me and call out several of his relatives from the back room out to do the same. It was then that I saw the Villareal scarf up behind the till.

"Senor, por favor...you hold yes?"

He thrust a cereal box in my hand and positioned me near the till.

"photograph please"

My wife sniggered as I was left there confused for several minutes whilst he rumaged around in the stock room for his camera. Meanwhile 2 old ladies impatiently stood behind me with thier shopping.

Eventually he re-appeared and took his photo of me pretending to buy something. This was followed by several snaps of me with various members of his family, holding the dirty looking scarf above our heads.

We eventually left the place without buying anything.

"wow, I guess this is how it feels to be famous" I said as we headed further into town.

"it was hardly front page of HELLO magazine Jon" she replied.

But I think she had put ideas into her own head as we spent the next 3 long hours in clothes shops looking for expensive outfits for her.

Friday morning and a particuarly nasty journey in (6 near misses, 6 road-rages, all in one really bad bit of driving by me) and by the time I got into work I was desperate for a rest.

I made myself scarce in the office, opened a few big files out over my desk and rested my eyes. Roig had hardly been heard of around the place. I hadn't expected him to say well done for the Murcia game but I was starting to miss my little run-ins with him. No-one was clear what was going on but the most common rumour was that someone had made a bid for the club and he didn't want to sell. Then again there were plenty of people who just said he was a grumpy son-of-a-bitch.

I was startled awake at 11am by my phone ringing, it was Lucy.

"hey, how's it going?" she asked

"busy babe, pretty hectic here today" I lied, moving the mouse to ged rid of the screensaver.

"let me guess, the police have found more of our stuff in Peru"

"close, Portugal"

"good grief Luce, our stolen stuff has travelled more than we have"

"oh, and another thing, Mark just turned up here"

The guy was definatly running a risk. Almeria had easily found out Mark was the one who had dropped him in it and I was surprised he had come within 500 miles of Spain.

Meanwhile the players were out on the pitches training. Bruno had apparently asked Ruben if I was going to join them again today...that was all the convincing I needed to keep me firmly in my office.

As the day wore on my boredom got the better of me and I began to install a pc game onto my computer. I went out to the coke machine and returned to see some Spanish corrupt message on the monitor complete with what looked like files being deleted. I recognized the word 'fatal' on the screen and decided to walk away from the whole mess by going to watch the youth squad train.

We had an away trip to Valladolid on the Sunday and Ruben and I had already decided that we were going to make a couple of changes to keep players fresh. Confidence was really high and we had every expectation of another victory like Wednesdays.

At the end of the day I made my way across the car park and saw Roig heading towards his car. I decided to make a change in direction to avoid the guy when I became aware of a fan, wearing a Villareal shirt with 'Riquelme' on the back, running towards him. I ran over to them both but by the time I'd got there the fan had pushed Roig against the wall and was about to land a punch.

Now Roig is a bit of a monster but at that moment he looked nothing more than a terrified old man.

I managed to grab the guys arm just before it connected with Roig's cowering face. Dragging the guy to the floor as he swore and spat, I held him down on the tarmac until others arrived. The police were on the scene quickly and took him away.

Roig stood waiting for it all to conclude. he looked pretty shaken.

"I want to thank you eh? you are perhaps a good man after all"

He got into his car, reversed it back into the bumper of Bruno's jeep before moving off, just as the rain began to fall.

The evening was spent at Pablo's with Lucy and Mark, laughing about the good times we'd had back in England.

Saturday saw the team train lightly in preparation for Sunday's game. Many of the players (apart from the injured Senna) must have been confident of retaining thier places so I was ready for a little reaction when we maned the starting eleven.

"Ok, Lopez - goalkeeper, Josemi right back, Fuentes and Godin will play centre defence...Emiliano Insua left back"

I could feel Capdevila's stare burning right into me.

"Midfield is Carzorla on the right" I hear another water bottle being launched by Pires. "Fernandez left, in the middle Josico and...and Bruno"

He looked as surprised as everyone else but with the absence of Senna it made perfect sense.

"Nihat, play just off Franco"

Rossi did his best to hide his dissapointment but must have seen this coming.

"Ok guys, see you in the morning."

I spent the evening watching one of the games on TV wondering if I'd done the right thing making changes.

.................................................. ........

Athletic 1 Valencia 1
Racing 1 Barcelona 3
Real Madrid 3 Deportivo 0

The following morning I joined the squad who seemed to be in up-beat mood. The oppostion had started ok this season but these are the sort of games where 3 points are there for the taking. The bus headed for the airport as the rain fell again.

By the time we arrived at the stadium the players seemed more relaxed than I'd ever seen them before, joking around in the dressing room, trying various tricks with the ball. We went over some of the tactics again but they didn't seem to be that responsive. Ruben meanwhile was looking worried.

"what's up?" I asked him as he tipped his bag upside down.

"It's not here...I've left it back at home"

Turns out that Ruben had taken his small china Virgin Mary to every game and kissed it each time the team scored. He's only ever forgotten it once before and so he was getting a bit worked up.

"listen, it's ok my friend...we will be fine" I said patting him on the shoulder as the players began to assemble in the tunnel.

.............................................

Espanyol 1 Osasuna 1
Levante 1 Zaragoza 0
Mallorca 1 Betis 0
Murcia 5 Almeria 2
Recreativo 1 Getafe 2
Sevilla 2 Ath. Madrid 2

...............................................

Llorente celebrates his disputed second goal

Another away day loss for the Yellow Submarines

The dressing room afterwards was one of arguments and dissappointmet. Only Rossi seemed to look happy.

As we began to pack up to leave Ruben saw his small china Virgin Mary on the floor.

"bit late now" he said, putting it in his pocket.

Without question one of the hardest parts about being out here in Spain has been the language. I still couldn't understand what most people were saying to me but I was actually grateful for that as Roig set his fury upon me for a good hour on the Monday morning.

For the first ten minutes I was putting up with it, the throwing of things, the in-your-face swearing (he smelt of booze and it was only 10am) but after a while I was getting bored. Everytime I went to speak he cut me off and went at me again in Spanish.

Now I kinda thought that saving him from that maniac fan might have put me in his good books for a while but it seems like a whole lot of rage was all coming out on me.

Afterwards Isabel told me not to take it personally, he was a man with a lot on his mind at the moment and if it hadn't been me then it would have been someone else taking it.

The players had been called together to watch the dvd of the Valladolid match. It was not a pretty sight, never had a team looked so lazy. But how could I be angry when all the way through the dvd there was me, stood like a confused nutter waving my arms around on the touchline?

We all agreed to put the whole experience behind us and prepare ourselves for the challenges ahead.

I popped into the physio room where the numbers now were worryingly building up

Tommasson, Senna and now Santi Cazorla. Any more and we were in trouble.

I went back to my office, forgetting that I'd left my PC with the blue screen of death. I called reception to let them know the bad news and was told that I had to let Roig know first....I thought I would wait a little before that.

We had the return leg with Anorthosi on Thursday which meant a welcome rest for some of the first team and a chance to prove themselves to some of the others. Roig, in a rare moment of clarity suggested that we fly out on the Tuesday to get used to the heat and bond as a team. He obviously still didn't understand the trouble this lot get into when they have some freedom.

As I headed for my car at the end of the day the sports channel was on the TV in the club cafe. Various staff had huddled round to watch so I stood at the back wondering what was going on. Of course most of it was in Spanish until they cut to a middle aged man in a white suit and a big wide brimmed hat.

"yeah siree...what you say is true...I wanna invest in this soccer business, it looks pretty neat. This Vill-err-roool franchise looks like something I would be happy to add to my portfolio...I'd very much like Mr Roig to sit down with me and talk about business"

Well, that would explain things. You could say it was his own fault. He had got himself involved with the US market and Jozy Altadore's arrival from the MLS in January seemed like a marketing dream for any American looking for a club as a toy.

The fans wouldn't go for it and it seemed Roig wouldn't either.

I got in the car and headed home, thinking of how I'm going to keep my team out of trouble for 3 days in Cyprus.