Football Manager

[Lanteri]

And in case anyone's curious, here's how Sordell, N'Gog, and Tim Ream look at this pont:

Marvin Sordell

 

David N'Gog

 

Tim Ream

 

[Lanteri]

Signed Koiikili on a free transfer as well to play left back after losing what faith I had left in Alonso. He'll be starting as soon as he's match fit.

I'm also trying to bring in Brad Guzan on a free as well, pending a work permit.

[Lanteri]

Got sacked 16 matches into the season after a 7 match losing streak.

[spiker]

I tried to sign an American last night and he was denied transfer because of work permit issues. I appealed to no prevail. Is there any way to get around this?

[spiker]

Nevermind. Found this at fm-base.co.uk

The players with higher potential ability have more chance to obtain a work permit.


The most important criteria is playing competitive (not friendly) international matches. During the two years preceding the date of application, a player must have played for his country in at least 75% of its competitive A team matches he was available for selection. If the player isn't selected for the international matches due to suspension or injury, this will be taken into consideration when applying the criteria.

Basically, it sounds like I'm boned because I'm playing with a Blue Square Bet Premier League side and the player in question certainly isn't on the USMNT. Damn. He would have fit with my squad perfectly at CAM and he was very interested to play for me too. He accepted my contract offer at about 66% of what he initially asked for.

[Bigpapa42]

You can sorta work around it in the Prem and maybe the Championship if you offer the player a contract with the highest squad status. Having them be considered a "key player" for your squad will often all you to get the WP on appeal. But no sure thing. And I doubt that makes any difference at all as low as the Blue Square, though.

Work Permits are one of the reasons I enjoy managing outside the UK.

[spiker]

So am I pretty much limited to only players from the EU?

[Bigpapa42]

So am I pretty much limited to only players from the EU?

Sorta. Non-EU players who have a second nationality that is EU work fine. For example, plenty of Argentine players can claim Italian as a second nationality. But in lower leagues, yeah, you are likely to have trouble getting in players who are coming in from outside England who are completely non-EU.

[Lanteri]

Started a West Brom save after getting sacked by Bolton.

Not a bad first match to the season, eh?

[Lanteri]

Halfway through the season at West Brom, 19 games played. Currently sitting 5th in the table with 36 points. 11 wins, 3 draws, 5 losses, 43 goals for, 20 conceded.

We've been unbeatable at home, turning in a perfect 9 wins and 1 draw (coming 2-2 against Man City. Was leading 2-0 til we went down to 10 men and gave up two). 32 for 8 against at the Hawthorns.

Away, we're quite mortal, with 2 wins, 2 draws, and 5 losses. 11 for 12 against.

Shane Long leads the team in goal scoring with 13 in 17. Odemwingie had 11 in only 6 (thanks to a 5 goal performance at home against Norwich, and a hat trick against Fulham, also at home), but has missed the last 13 games with a broken leg. He's slated to return in February, but I don't know effective he will be as the leg break has really hurt his physical attributes. Other goalscorers include Cox with 4, Brunt and Thomas with 3, Dorrans and Olson with 2, Tchyoi and Morrison with 1 each.

Brunt leads the squad with 11 assists, with Thomas trailing him at 8. Cox and Morrison have 4 each, 3 each for Long and Scharner, 1 for a bunch others.

Highest rated player is Brunt at 7.76, with Reid right on his heels at 7.47. Almost the entire starting XI is above 7.0. Tamas at 6.93 and Ridgewell at 6.84 are the lowest rated.

[Lanteri]

Only made two moves in the January window..

Brought in Jonny Evans on loan, and paid £5.5 for Rhys Williams.

edit:

Elected to sell:

Odemwingie to Atletico Madrid for £3.5m. Concerns with his rapidly declining physical attributes, combined with progression of Cox, and Chris Wood, and the fact that I only play a one striker formation to begin with, made this common sense as he was my highest wage man.
Tamas to Vitesse for £2.5m. Tamas was my lowest rated player all season long. With Dawson developing well, and Evans in on loan, he's the odd man out.

[Lanteri]

One last loan right before the end of the window, brought in winger Nene from PSG. Jerome Thomas went down with a double hernia, and is expected to miss 6 weeks to 2 months. Not confident in moving Brunt back to the left wing and starting Morrison or Tchoyi at right wing, so I elected to bring in Nene, who really is an upgrade over Thomas even when he's not injured.

[Fappin Raptor]

[Fappin Raptor]

FEAR THE SWAN!!!!!

[Lanteri]

30 matches down, 8 to go. We remain undefeated at home.

We're 4th in the table, ahead of Spurs on GD with the same amount of points, though Spurs has a game in hand. We're on 56 points, trailing 3rd place Arsenal by 8 points, and 14 points behind Man U. Trailing us just behind Spurs is Chelsea, with 52 points with the same # of games played, and Wolves at 50 in 7th before a big 12 point drop off to 8th.

So with 8 to play our range of where we'll be playing football next season still remains wide open. We can make the Champions League, Europa League, or miss it all. I think we're odds on for Europa anyway. Wolves have been struggling mightily lately and I think we should be able to hold off Chelsea.

Here's how our run out looks

@ Everton
vs. Blackburn
@ Man City
vs. QPR
@ Liverpool
vs. Villa
@ Bolton
Vs. Arsenal

Not the easiest run out in the world, given our road struggles, and having to go to Goodison, Manchester City, and Anfield is no easy task. I suspect we'll be lucky to get points from any of those matches.

Performance-wise, Nene has proved to be a very good loan signing, returning 5 goals and 3 assists in 8 matches so far. Thomas is back healthy, but is unlikely to crack the starting XI with Nene playing as well as he has. Long continues to score, and is on 21 goals now in 28 appearances. Cox trails him with 8 in 19 appearances. Brunt continues to be a catalyst, turning in 3 goals and 23 assists thus far.

Should be an interesting end to the season.