Football Manager

[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.

 

[Lanteri]

Anddd down to 5. Beat Everton 2-1, Blackburn 3-2, before losing to Man City 1-0.

4th in the table, tied with Spurs on 62 points, leading in GD, but as before Spurs have 1 game in hand. We lead Chelsea by 3 points, with a game in hand in our favor for 6th place.

 

[Lanteri]

Secured at least a Europa League spot with 2 maches to go following a 3-0 win over QPR, 3-1 over Liverpool at Anfield, and 4-0 over Villa. We're still in 4th, clear of Spurs, but they've now got 3 games in hand, and we only have a 5 point lead, so whether or not we achieve the Champions League lay in their hands at this point.

edit: Heading into the Bolton match, (#37), we lead Spurs by 3 points with 1 game in hand. We're crushing in goal differential, so we just need to keep the gap the way it is.

 

[Lanteri]

Pretty excited heading into the final match of the season, and it's going to be a tough one!

At home against the Gunners, who are in the midst of a 10 match unbeaten streak.

We're finally even on matches played with Spurs at 37 a piece. Spurs trail by 2 points, so must draw to control our own fate. Our GD puts us ahead of Spurs if we draw and they win, so it's imperative that we capture the one point.

Now would be an awful time to lost our first home match, as it could make the difference between Europa and Champions League football.

Spurs have a much easier matchup as well, at home against the Cottagers.

 

[Fappin Raptor]

5-0-1 through 6 with Swansea, wins at home against Chelsea and Man City and I'm sitting in 2nd, tied for 1st with Tottenham.

 

[Lanteri]

Held on to a 2-2 draw against Gunners. Spurs defeated Fulham, but we finished level, and we're on to the Champions League!

League Table

 

Player Stats

 

As for my offseason plans:

Scharner, Fulop, Shorey and Thcoyi's contracts are expiring, and I will not be offering them new deals. Scharner was a good player, but his wage demands are absurd (he wants 50k p/w, which is almost a 50% raise on his current wages.) With Rhys Williams on board, and expecting a rotation role on the squad, I can afford to let Scharner go and pay a first teamer in the transfer market that's younger and worthy of the asking price. Fulop and Tchoyi were non-factors and unnecessary.

I'm likely going to take the £4m option to buy Ben Foster to be my long term keeper. I'm going to scout around first and see if I can't find a better option.

As good as Nene was, he's on the wrong side of 30, and I will not be looking to sign him to a permanent deal. His contract IS up though, so if PSG lets him walk on a free I may see what he's looking for in terms of wages. I'll definitely be searching for a good AML for long term.

I'm satisfied with my defense right now. Olsson and Dawson were a solid combo. Dawson wants to leave though due to Evans getting more playing time than him. Dawson started the last like 5 or 6 league games, but appears to till not be satisfied. I may have to get a new CB.

Left back, I'm very happy with Mattock. I recalled him from Brighton after Ridgewell had a miserable stretch, and he turned in a 7.21 rating in 10 matches. During those 10 matches we conceded just 8 goals. At right back, Steven Reid was my best player all season long. I signed him through 2013. I'm not actively seeking a replacement yet. Billy Jones and Rhys Williams are capable cover, so I'm likely not going to pursue fullback help.

AMC and AMR I'm all set at. Brunt was world class all season long. Dorrans and Cox were both brilliant in the AMC role. Striker is set as well between Long, and again Cox, and Chris Wood.

tl;dr version: I'll be looking for upgrades at CB, AML, DMC, and GK.

 

[Fappin Raptor]

Everton relegated. No bueno.

 

[Fappin Raptor]

Here's the formation I'm using with Swansea. Created the tactic myself and so far has been getting the results. Low scoring, counter attack.

 

[Lanteri]

Everton relegated. No bueno.

Once I get my initial budget I'm going after Howard. He's transfer listed by request.

 

[Lanteri]

Well, I was not rewarded with the transfer budget that I was expecting after guiding the team to Champions League football. Only received 7.5m for an initial budget, and then another 375k on setting expectations. The lowest expectation they've set for me is Europa League qualification, which strikes me as rather unfair given that they're not willing to invest in the squad. Lack of funds and a thinnish squad playing European football smells a bit like disaster in the making.

The board sold Craig Dawson, basically without my consent, after he requested a transfer, so the return on him gave me a budget of a little over £13m total. I lost out on Ben Foster after I tried, and failed to get Tim Howard to sign, so I bought Asmir Begovic for £4.4m. I also brought in left winger James McLean from Sunderland for £4.9m, adding to the Irish attacking contingent.

I'm left with a little under 3.5m for a budget with a center half and a DMC still needed. Going to ask the board for more funds. If that doesn't work I'm going to be scouring the free transfer market and the loan market.

 

[Lanteri]

Summer window summary

In:

GK - Asmir Begovic £4.4m
AML - James McLean £4.9m
CM - Charlie Adam £1.7m loan fee
CB - Mikael Silvestre in on a free
CB - Kyle Bartley on loan from Arsenal
CB - Ashley Williams for £6m
AM - Fahid Ben Khalfallah on loan from Bordeaux
DM - Samba Diakite on loan from ASNL

Total spent: £17.75m

Out:

LB - Liam Ridgewell to Blackpool for £1.5m
CB - Craig Dawson to QPR for £6m
CM - Keith Andrews to Burnley for £500k
AM - Zoltan Gera to Hannover for £250k
CB - Gareth McAuley to Birmingham for £500k
FB - Gonzalo Jara to Watford for £2m
Scharner, Fulop, Fortune, Shorey, Tchoyi, Daniels on frees.

Total Sales: £10.75m

Squad for the first half of the season:

GK: Asmir Begovic
LB: Joe Mattock
CB: Jonas Olsson (c)
CB: Ashley Williams
RB: Steven Reid
DMCL: Yossuf Mulumbu
DMCR: Charlie Adam
AML: James McLean
AMC: Graham Dorrans
AMR: Chris Brunt
ST: Shane Long

Bench: Boaz Myhill, Simon Cox, James Morrison, Kyle Bartley, Jerome Thomas, Billy Jones, Rhys Williams
Unused Subs: Silvestre, Ben Khalfallah, Diakite.

 

[calgaryballer]

Been putzing around with Crystal Palace lately, try and turn Zaha in to a beast. No real big moves so far, brought in Flanagan from Liverpool and Ashley Williams from Swansea on loan

 

[Lanteri]

Drew Valencia in the CL Best Placed Playoff.

 

[Lanteri]

First loss at the Hawthorns in my managerial career, comes 1-0 to Valencia, after we drew 1-1 @ Valencia, eliminating us from the Champions League before the group stage.

We were seeded 3rd for the Europa League following the loss. We drew a group of Schalke, Fenerbahce, and Dnipro.

 

[mgoblue2290]

Recently got back into my FM11 Liverpool/England game. I'm in 2014 and I got beat by Lyon in the quarter finals of the CL. Lost 1-0 on aggregate with their lone goal coming in the 119th minute of extra time in Anfield.

Season is almost over, I was down 5 points to Man U for first with 4 games left and I've just beat them 5-0 in Old Trafford. Absolute massacre. So now I'm 2 points back with 3 games left against Arsenal, Everton, and Sunderland. I need to win all the games and for United to drop one. Going to be tough.

I have Hulk as my striker and he's been amazing this season. He's got 49 goals in 51 appearances. 33 of them in Premier League games.

Also looking forward to the World Cup coming up. I've got England ranked 2nd in the world and our group doesn't appear to be too tough but you never know.

 

[mgoblue2290]

Won the Premier League. Thats 4 titles in 4 years. We won 11 Premier League matches in a row to finish the season. We were down by over 10 points to United at one time too. Great comeback and finish. Now onto the World Cup with England.

Final Table

 

Player Stats