FOOTBALL Football Manager Discussion

Bit of a dilemma here, of who to sign. I'm going well and should stay up, currently 12th in the league, and not a tough run to the end of the season with already both matches against Chelsea and Liverpool out of the way and only really one match each against Arsenal, Man City and Man Utd. My midseason expectations change meant I now have a transfer budget of 11M and yet to make any transfers. I probably will only spend up to about 8M of that most likely, trying to improve finances. Already getting an expansion for the ground and better youth facilities although I'm making pretty much a 1M pound profit each month.

So I don't know who I should go for. I was probably looking at a keeper, young prospect and maybe another striker to partner Goodwillie up front since DJ Campbell and Harewood have been a bit in and out of form this season and I don't really have any choices other than them. So here are my options:

Lee Hodson (DR) - Likely a 1.7M pound deal and already made an offer, although I'll be rivalling Chelsea to get his services. Will definately be a great right back in a few seasons time.

Chris Wood (ST) - Much more expensive signing, my scout saying it could take a bid of about 4.3M pounds to sign him but I'd really like to sign him.

Wilfredo Caballero (GK) - Decent keeper, says he's much better than my current keepers, assistant recommended him as a solution to my goalkeeper problem at likely 2.7M pounds.

Tomas Hubocan (DC) - Well a free transfer. Huge rivalry going on for his capture going on with already offers from us, PSV, Porto, AS Saint-Etienne and Ajax. Doubt we can sign him over those clubs.

Jon Knudsen (GK) - A short term prospect as a keeper at 36 years of age, but says he's much better than my other keepers, and should be signable at about 625K.

Yacine Brahimi (AMC) - A free transfer although doesn't really fit into my XI.


At the moment, there's my options and probably more will come through. Major decision though is deciding between Knudsen and Caballero as my keeper.
 
Well Hodson rejected the offers from Chelsea and Man Utd to join Blackpool.

West Brom wouldn't accept my offers for Wood up to 4.7M so I gave up in the end, and instead found CFR Cluj striker, Cristian Fabbiani for 150K and currently in contract talks but it seems a deal should be settled soon.

Still waiting on replies from Mchedlidze and Hubocan who are considering a lot of other contract offers so I'm not confident.

Also made an offer of 2.7M for Caballero so hopefully I can capture him for under 3M and that will end my ventures into the transfer market for this window.
 
Doing similar to me, although I'm in the 2013/14 season.

Currently 11th after 13 games. 4 wins, 2 draws and 7 losses. Still have a GD of 0 though, which is great.

We also battered a northern side, although it was Newcastle not Sunderland.

Are you using Gilks in goal? He's been immense for me, and even though I had to bring in a new keeper, Jan Mucha who is an international, he just isn't as good.
 
Yeah, Gilks is my keeper at the moment after Kingson's horrible run at the start of the season. Gilks has been good on occassions. Sometimes pulls off blinders and sometimes lets in 3+ goals so inconsistent.

And yeah, I hope to be competing for a top 8 finish by 2013/14 :p
 
Well I had to start in the Championship after spells at Aston Villa and Stoke.

The thing I find with Blackpool is that the defence is very poor but they also score a lot of goals. Last season when I went up, we scored the most goals by a mile, but had one of the worst defences. So I wouldn't blame Gilks too much for conceding big, it's usually because of the amount of shots on goal. He saves a hell of a lot.
 
3 goals in the space of 10 minutes gave us a 3-2 win over Sunderland in the first leg of the League Cup semi final which is pleasing, Charlie Adam scoring a double, getting into the perfect position twice to score pretty much tap ins while Goodwille scored the other goal with a superb individual effort. And also had a bid of 3.5M pounds accepted for Caballero so hopefully he can accept by the game against West Brom in 2 days :p

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What! Seems like everyone wants to sign with us :p

Mchedlidze has now accepted our offer, rejecting offers from Wolfsburg, Lazio and Galatasaray inparticular, so he'll be joining us at the end of the season, provided he is granted a work permit, the decision to be made in 4 days and I just realised that my scout said he'd probably fail to sign one :facepalm

Although Caballero has signed with us on a 3.5M pound deal.

So my lineup for the match against West Brom

GK: Willfredo Caballero

DL: Michael Ball
DC: Craig Cathcart
DC: Ian Evatt
DR: Lee Hodson (Think I'll play him in this match and see how he goes)

ML: Christophe Gregoire
MC: Charlie Adam
MC: Ludovic Sylvestre
MR: Gary Taylor-Fletcher

ST: DJ Campbell
ST: David Goodwillie


And yeah, I have the most goals scored out of the teams not in the top 4 with 37 goals. Also conceded the most goals though :p
 
Can't beat it!

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I'm also the Australian national team manager. Just drew Brazil, England and Morocco in the 2014 World Cup. Great.
 
CBI.jpg


IN TOTAL DISBELIEF!!! :facepalm:facepalm:facepalm

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But two matches later

GAW.jpg


Absolutely delighted! First win away at one of the 'Big Four' clubs after 2 1/2 seasons! :D
 
Well just beat West Brom 2-1 and Caballero justified his transfer straight away with a tough penalty save and a few other important saves. Although Hodson was the one who gave away the penalty but it was a pretty harsh decision and he didn't have a bad game apart from that, with a rating of 6.7.

Goodwillie now has 14 goals for the season, currently third in the league, which is pretty impressive.

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tweaking hell, Caballero then gets injured and out for a month now.
 
Well here we go for a long update, since the signing of Zarate.

26.1.11 - Got defeated 3-0 in the second leg of the League Cup semi final so knocked out by Sunderland who went on to beat QPR. Pretty disappointing

29.1.11 - Then we were taken down 3-1 by Nottm Forest in the FA Cup, Gregoire scoring our only goal.

2.2.11 - Well great news as we recorded only our second away win of the season, with a 3-2 win over Birmingham, a double to Marlon Harewood and Charlie Adam's first league goal this season.

5.2.11 - On the road to Arsenal next but were hammered 4-0 although never expected to take anything from the match.

12.2.11 - Got worse when we were defeated 1-0 by Stoke at home and needed to get back on track.

26.2.11 - It didn't seem to get any easier with a match against Man City but a wonderful performance from keeper, Caballero (8.5) and defensive line, Eardley (7.0), Ball (7.1), Cathcart (8.1) and John Baptiste (7.1) meant we took a 1-0 win away from home thanks to DJ Campbell's goal. (Just realised Man City was in 15th :p)

5.3.11 - Zarate made only his second start since joining the club and first league match and immediately justified his selection with a double against Everton as we won 2-0 but Goodwillie's goal draught continued.

20.3.11 - A 15 day break was hopefully enough time for Goodwillie to regain some form but it didn't seem to make any difference as we were defeated by 3 goals to nil by Sunderland.

2.4.11 - Defeated 5-1 by Fulham earlier in the season, we were looking for revenge and Goodwillie stepped up finally with a double, while Zarate scored another goal and an own goal from Pantsil meant we won 4-0 and Caballero's fine form continued as he now has match ratings of 7.4, 6.8, 7.2, 8.5 and 6.7 since coming back from injury.


So now we are currently sitting great in 9th place with 7 games to play and we pretty much have avoided the drop no matter what our form is now with a 21 point gap to last place and 14 to 18th.

Our run to the finish is:

Wolves (A) - 14th
Aston Villa (H) - 16th
Wigan (A) - 19th
Tottenham (H) - 5th
West Ham (A) - 10th
Blackburn (H) - 11th
Man Utd (H) - 4th

So a pretty easy run to the end of the season with only 2 top 5 fixtures and both at home so I could finish even 7th or 8th.
 
Recently changed my formation from 4-1-4-1 to 4-5-1 and it has worked a treat. Winning games, scoring goals and didn't concede in like 14-15 games in all competitions. Suddenly, I conceded 3 in 3 games and all came from corners! :facepalm
 
Just finished the season, in 9th place, and finished it off in style with a 2-1 win over Man Utd, with a 92nd minute goal.

Arsenal finished top with United second, Liverpool third and Chelsea 4th and Ancelloti got sacked as Chelsea manager :p

But yeah, a nice 9.6M pound prize for finishing 9th :D

Goodwillie was cheated out of the Young Player of the Year Award though, not even coming in the top 3 despite scoring 22 goals (third) and 9 assists with 8 MOTM awards and an average rating of 7.33.

I came third in Manager of the Year though :D
 

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