Trebor Mahtal had successfully stepped into the shoes of Big Sam as he led Bolton Wanderers to European qualification and a UEFA Cup semi-final run. But a big summer lay ahead as he looked to refresh his playing squad.
Picking up the pieces after Big Sam Allardyce's Bolton Wanderers departure was never going to be easy. But Trebor Mahtal had made a pretty decent stab at it, leading The Trotters into the top half of the Premier League after five months in charge.
Three months on from Big Sam Allardyce's shock departure as manager of Bolton Wanderers, Garth Crooks's words are ringing true as there's a new face in the dugout at the Reebok Stadium for the 2007/08 season.
Merry Christmas everyone! To celebrate, we've got a special festive blog as Kris Kringle leads FC Santa Claus, fresh from winning the European Conference League, into the Champions League group stage as bookies' favourites to win the competition.
FC Santa Claus' domination had extended from Finland into Europe as they won their maiden domestic title and topped the Europa Conference League league phase at a canter. But manager Kris Kringle wasn't satisfied with that and wanted to take the club to new heights.
The young reindeer of FC Santa Claus had led the club into Finland's top tier for the first time and sent the club into Europe for the 2025 campaign. Kris Kringle was very happy with his young team and chairperson Papa Elf was very happy with his manager with two exceptions: his inability to spend the club's sizeable transfer budget and sign high profile players.
Christmas was always a particularly hectic time of year for Kris Kringle, but 2023 was his busiest yet. No sooner than he was done with the sizeable task of delivering presents to every child around the world than he and his reindeer were reporting for action at FC Santa Claus.
Christmas is around the corner so I thought we'd use Football Manager and, more importantly, the FM Editor, to spread a little festive joy. I started researching Christmas-related football teams and discovered the brilliantly-named FC Santa Claus, which is based in the city of Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland.
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