Chelsea FC | A Football Manager Career

[kyhadley]

[kyhadley]

[kyhadley]

All
2011/12

 

2012/13

 

2013/14

 

Champions League

 

Premier League

 

FA Cup

 

League Cup

 

[kyhadley]

2011/12


2012/13



2013/14



2014/15

[kyhadley]

2011/12


2012/13


2013/14

[kyhadley]

Footballer of the Year

 

11/12

12/13

13/14

Golden Glove

 

11/12

12/13

13/14

Player's Team of the Year

 

11/12

12/13

13/14

[kyhadley]

extra

[kyhadley]

So this is where I'm going to post about the happenings of my FM career. I'm currently about half way through my 4th season, so my plan is to give some notes on my first three seasons, and also highlight some games in my 3rd season (where I realized I was losing earlier match reports so started saving some).

I'll clean up and make the layouts a bit prettier once I can catch up to the present.

[kyhadley]

2011-2012 Notes
2011 wasn't that exciting in the league. We were pretty good in the league all year round, but United still managed to be better. We had a couple hood unbeaten runs of 7 and 13, but away draws to Newcastle, Manchester City, and Stoke killed any chances of a late surge for first place, and we settled for second.

Wins over Portsmouth and Derby in the FA Cup sent us to a fifth round meeting away with Tottenham, but the Spurs prevailed.

The League cup is never really a focus for us, and after beating Bradford and Wolves, Tottenham again beat us in the quarter final 3-2.

In the champions league, we progressed easily into the group stage, with impressive 2-0 and 2-1 wins over AC Milan being the highlight. We had Bayern Munich in the first knockout round and played our way to a 0-0 draw at home in the first tie. On the road Bayern took the lead first, but a late goal from Juan Mata sent us through on away goals. It was on to Arsenal in the quarter finals.
It was a thrilling affair in the first leg at the Emirates, with both teams having a 2 goal lead at one point, and it ending 4-3 in favor of Arsenal. In the return leg though, it was all us as we cruised to a 4-1 victory.
We met Manchester City in the semi final and again played a goalless draw at home to start the tie with neither team really threatening much. We got the goal we needed though by Drogba and won 1-0 to make it to the final, where Barcelona (of course) was waiting.
It was a sad, anticlimatic one for us though, with David Luiz getting sent off for a straight red in the 14th minute, forcing us to chase the game against the best team in the world. We were able to hold them off for 74 minutes but an odd bounce over Terry's head got Messi in and he finished to give Barca the lead. A second yellow for Ramires in the 80th added insult to injury, and Fabregas got Barcelona's second to clinch it in the 85th.

As for transfers, during the first half of the season it was only a few solid prospects that I brought it: French striker Yaya Sanogo for 2.5M, french striker Lenny Nagis for 2.3M, and Portuguese winger Bruma for 3.2M. In the January window, my one big purchase was Argentinian CB Nicolas Otamendi for 13M. No one really went out, but I did loan out John Obi Mikel for 2.5M to City since he didn't really figure into my plans. After the season I let Bosingwa (50,000 p/w), Anelka (90,000 p/w), Paulo Ferreira (45,000 p/w), Drogba (100,000+ p/w) go for free. I sold Alex to Atletico Madrid for 5M and sold Yossi Benayoun to Zenit for 3.4M. I also loaned out a bunch of my younger players including Sanogo and Nangis. And I managed to get 2.3M for Turnbull who wanted more playing time.

That summer, I brought in 16 YO French LB Nilton Reis (four star potential) for 2.8M, 15 YO Italian Enrico Cacciatore (four star potential), 24 YO Dutch RB Gregory van der Wiel for 17M from Ajax. Two not so great signing in retrospect were 28 YO Chris Brunt for 8.75M and 26 YO Phil Bardsley for 12M. At the time I wanted them both for cover but it was too expensive and they wanted first team football (even though I signed them as backups). My last signing of the summer was 23 YO Argentinian right winger Eduardo Salvio.

[chazmaniandevil]

following

[kyhadley]

2012-2013 Notes
My team to start this season consisted of Torres, Lukaku, Malouda, Kalou, Mata, Lampard, Salvio, Ramires, Meireles, Essien, Cole, Terry, Luiz, Otamendi, van der Wiel, Ivanovic and Cech. The transformation was beginning. And it showed on the field to start the season.

We started the season on a 24-match unbeaten streak in all competitons, with only two draws in those 24. If you don't include the League Cup match that we lost that discontinued the streak, it makes it 33 matches unbeaten. It was Wolves that ended the run on February 5th, 2012, making us 20-3-1. We would lose three more times on the season away to Arsenal, Liverpool, and City, with our final record being 31-6-1, 19-0-0 at home. We won the league over United by 13 points.

In the FA Cup, we beat Burton, Manchester United 2-1 in the 4th round, Reading, Aston Villa dramatically after scoring 2 goals in extra time to force a 6th round replay that we won at home, Ipswich, then Tottenham in a penalty shootout to capture the FA Cup crown.

In the Champions League, it was an easy road to the knockout stage through Omonia, Kobenhagen, and Sevilla. We crushed Benefica 6-0 on aggregate to make it to the quarterfinal against Real Madrid. The first leg at the Bernabeu saw Madrid win 1-0 in a well-battled game. On the return leg at Stamford Bridge, a 4th minute deflection off of David Luiz's back into the net gave Madrid a 2-0 lead. That was a killer. We fought back and scored two goals ourselves, but Madrid advanced on away goals through a dumb OG.

In the January transfer window we brought in young 4 star potential prospect Vicente Gonzalez Robles, a Spanish CM from Malaga for 3.8M. The big splash was 13M for Brazilian attacking midfielder/winger Willian from Shakhtar. On their way out was John Obi Mikel to Sevilla for 14.75M.

During the summer, the first purchase was Juventus Chilean CM Arturo Vidal fro 15M. The biggest purchase of my career so far then came in 22 YO German left winger Andre Schurrle for 27M. 17 YO French CB Julien Dupont (3.4M), 18 YO French LB/RB Dann Cooper Kayembe (3.2), Marcel Gunther (free) all also came in during the summer, all 3.5-4 star potential.

I had to eat my losses on previous purchases of Phil Bardsley and Chris Brunt, with both leaving on free transfers in the summer. I sold Darron Gibson (in on a free) for 1M. I let Daniel Sturridge (60,000 p/w) go on a free. I sold Patrick van Aanholt (2.5 potential) for 1.5M and Florent Malouda (off a great season, age 32) for 5M to PSG. I was able to loan out Essien to Lazio to get some of his wages off my books (no one would buy him).

[kyhadley]

2013-2014 Notes
2013 was a very exciting year for me, my transfer spendings were really starting to translate into a style of play on the field, that mostly consisted of speed and super direct passing. I had Torres/Lukaku up top (Lukaku had grown into a star player at this point), with Schurrle on the left wing, Willian/Salvio on the right wing. Mata/Willian in the trequartista role. Vidal/Ramires/Meireles/Lampard (an aging Lampard mind you) in the CM, with Cole/Bertrand at LB, Otamendi and Luiz/Terry at CB and van der Viel at RB.

Spoiler alert: we dominated the EPL to shreds. 112 goals for, 30 goals against, 99 points. 31-6-1 record, 19-0-0 at home (38 straight home wins btw). Two 1-1 draws away to Stoke and West Brom, and four 2-2 draws away to Stoke, United, Wolves, Blackburn, and a thrilling 3-4 loss to Arsenal (second to last game of the season) were the only blemishes on a oh-so-nearly-perfect league season.

We lost in the 5th round of the FA Cup to Arsenal, and the quarter final of the League Cup to Spurs.

Our dominant league form carried over throughout the season into the Champions League. We won our first five group stage matches over Marseille, Leverkusen, and Malaga before sending out the reserves against Leverkusen in the last game and losing 0-1. We had Benefica first in the knockout round and it was the same story as last year, this time with one more goal winning 7-0 on aggregate. It was then off to Manchester United in the quarters but two solid 2-0 victories first home then away sent us through to the final 4-0 on aggregate. Next up was Olympic Lyon after they beat Man City. They didn't prove to be any match for us though with a 3-1 home win and 2-1 away win getting us back to the CL final for the 2nd time in 3 years. It wasn't the most exciting final to be honest with Inter Milan (after beating Real Madrid) with two header goals off corners making it 1-1 before it finally went to a shootout. Cech made three saves, we made three goals and won it.

In the January window, we brought in 4 good prospects: 17 YO Portuguese ST Fernando Campos (3.4M) from Porto, 17 YO Spanish CM Valeriano Rojo from Deportivo (5M), 16 YO French CB Ruud Pluim (2.3M), and 18 YO Greek CM Giorgios Christofileas, who has the most potential of them all, for 9M.

In the summer I left Lampard go (which the fans did not like, but he wasn't that interested in returning and wanted 90,000 p/w. yeah right) and Ashley Cole go (same story but the fans understood more). I sold 31 YO Meireles back to Porto for 5M (was a tough decision, but needed room for Christofileas to come up). I sole Essien to Genoa for 1M (FINALLY), and Kalou to Valencia for 4.5M (didn't need him, not that good). I sold fairly promising CBs Jeffrey Bruma for 7M (I already had better CB prospects in front of him) and Nathan Ake for 1.5M, both to Juventus.

Before the summer transfer window, I had agreed to buy Douglas Costa from Shakhtar for 4.8M (a bargain!). I was then given a spectacularly huge transfer budget after winning the CL, so I had 150M to play with once the transfer window opened I didn't really have any holes at all, so I decided to splurge on the areas were I needed help: RB and CB. van der Wiel gets injured all the time and was proving to not be that reliable, and Ivanovic doesn't fit my system well enough to be playing all the time. So I went after Lyon's 22 YO RB/WB Ali Pierre (ratings). 35M got him, and he was immediately slotted into my starting RB spot.
In the midfield I had Lampard and Meireles on their way out, and wanted a stronger presence. Enter French CM/DM Moussa Sissokho (ratings) also for 35M. Also coming in was 18 YO Turkish CM Mehmet Kul, who had agreed to join in 2012, but Turkish restrictions prevented him from joining until he was 18. He cost 2.5M. Nicolas Escobar (ratings) a CM/DM/CB hybrid was signed for 6M.

[BigHouseUSA]

Why does Hilario hate you?

[kyhadley]

2013-14 Game of Note

1/19/2014 at Manchester United

Chelsea was 21-2-0 coming in, while Manchester United was realing after away defeats to West Brom and Aston Villa, but Chelsea knew the Red Devils would always be a tough fight and wanted to retain their unbeaten streak.

Things looked bad for Chelsea after two first half goals from Fletcher and Nani gave them a 2-nil lead but great efforts from Schurrle and Torres would complete the comeback, the two teams finishing level at two.

[kyhadley]

Why does Hilario hate you?

I think he wanted first team football and I told him he sucked. Then let him go on a free.