Leicester City's rise to glory

Hey guys, I've been reading a lot of your blogs and forums and recently and thought I would join in and have a piece of the action. I got this game as a Christmas present. Straight away my thoughts were filled with different clubs to take control of. After a good 20 minutes, I decided to take the job at Leicester. This was because for a championship team, they have good finances and a few decent players such as Jermaine Beckford, John Pantsil, Matt Mills and Yuki Abe.

Usually, I don't tend to do so brilliantly on football manager games, but this time, it was going to be different. My starting budget was about £7 million. I already had two players on loan. These were Michael Johnson from Manchester City and Gelson Fernandes from Saint- Etienne. My first signing was a Dutch winger called Charlton Vincento. He cost me something in the region of £3 million. I also bought ex Bolton midfielder Sean Davis and French striker Ahmed Soukouna on free transfers. By the start of the season, having won all of my pre-season matches, I started the season to five straight wins. My formation was strong because I played everyone in their strongest positions, and by upping the workload when it came to training, Leicester were able to beat teams easier.

My formation that I managed to keep to all season was as follows
Gk: Kasper Schiemchal
Rb: John Pantsil
Cb: Matt Mills
Cb: Alekander Tunchev
Lb: Paul Konchesky
Cdm: Gelson Fernandes
Cm: Michael Johnson
Rm: Yuki Abe
Lm: Charlton Vincento
St: Jermaine Beckford
St: Jeffery Schlupp

By the time of the January transfer window, Leicester were top of the championship by six points, West Ham trailing me, closely followed by Reading and Southampton. Due to injuries, I bought out of favour Stoke's cdm Diego Arismendi. He provided solid cover for Michael Johnson who picked up an injury that kept him out of action up until two games before the end of the season. I was soon knocked out of the FA Cup which was a disappointment as I had been knocked out of the two domestic cups in the first round possible, having shockingly lost to Walsall in the league cup. However, my league form was strong and consistent. Jermaine Beckford and Jeffery Schlupp scored many goals between them. To my amazement, Matt Mills was nodding in the goals regularly. I secured promotion with 7 games to go, but, having getting complacent after promotion, my form dropped massively in the last five games, and only finished top by 4 points, with West Ham coming second, and Brighton winning the play-off final. 4 of my players were named in the championship team of the year; Matt Mills, Jermaine Beckford, Kasper Schiemchal and Yuki Abe. My top goal scorers were Jermaine Beckford with 28, Jeffery Schlupp with 22, Matt Mills with an incredible 15 - not bad for a centre back, and Yuki Abe with 11. Charlton Vincento supplied with 29 assists proving to be an excellent singing.

Any comments would be much appreciated so I know how to make this blog better for a reader for when I show a more detailed story of my second season. Hope you enjoyed season 1. Any questions you have, please do ask!!

Season 2 will be much much better

Okay, so its my second season, and first season back in the Premier League. My main goal was to stay up in the division, this meant that for this season, i was going to spend as much money as i could without getting into debt. This meant only signing a couple of future prospects, with the bulk of my money going for current decent players. Having won the Chamionship in the previous season, i recieved a staggering £30 million from my chairman to spend, even though i said my season expectation was to be in the relegation battle.

Transfers
Karim Matmour

Frankfurt-Free

Patrick Olsen

Bronby-Free

Jamie Pollock

Motherwell-Free

Harmeet Singh

Valerenga-Free

Martin Angha

Free Transfer

Joselu

Real Madrid- Loan fee £95k

Shay Facey

Brentford- £85k

Kris Stadsgaard

Malaga- £1.6m

Kyle Naughton

Norwich- £1.7m

Ragnar Sigurdsson

FC Copenhagen- £2.8m

Jake Livermore

Tottenham Hotspurs-£2.9m

Sofiane Feghouli

Valencia-£3.2m

Gelson Fernandes

As Saint-Etienne -£3.5m

Matt Phillips

Blackpool-£5m

Luuk de Jong

FC Twente- £7m

All this spending came to a massive £28m, but i had confidence in my signings. I must say Luuk de Jong was my stand out signing as he is regarded as a hot prospect in Holland. Jake Livermore was also a great signing as he was voted as the Premiership's young player of the year in the previous season, so to get him for £2.9m in my opinion was a bargain. I got three defenders in Kyle Naughton, Kris Stadsgaard and Ragnar Sigursson for only £6.1m which isnt bad buisness and will really bulk up my defence. I re-signed Gelson Fernandes who was on loan last season, who put in consistent performances, hence why i re-signed him. Matt Phillips is also tipped for greatness, but i was disapointed that i had to fork out £5m for him.

→
This post was edited by r_johnners (2012-02-24 17:30, 2 months ago)

Sounds good congrats on getting promoted and your teams looking strong for the new season. I think you will easily avoid relegation with that squad. I will carry on reading your story mate good luck.

I cant see the pics, only the codes.

#42185 Shameless : I cant see the pics, only the codes.

Yeah I know! I'm not sure why it didn't work! I clicked on the picture button and typed in the web link for the pics. Do you know I went wrong??

I'm not sure.

I use the imageshack, upload the pic and the copy the Forumcode to the report. You tried that?

Okay, im going to get this picture problem sorted out, but, for the mean time, lets continue the story.

With a media prediction of 18th place, i had to start well in order of having a decent chance in staying up. However, my first fixture of the season was Man City at home. Although i was full of confidence, we did come away only losing 2-0, which for a first game back in the premier league against the team with a media prediction of 2nd place, isnt such a bad result! The next game was against Wigan, in which we came away with a cracking 2-0 win away from home, with Matt Mills, Captain Fantastic, and Jermaine Beckford getting on the scoresheet.

More to follow........................
ps. only once i've got the issue of uploading pictures sorted.

okay, im using imageshack to upload my pictures, but it doesnt work. Im trying to see why thiss doesnt work. This is the link i use to upload the pic here

[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/karimmatmour.jpg/[/imgy]

thiss doesnt produce the picture, and it would really helpful if one of you could explain why!! please!!

[color=#F57900][/color]

#42662 r_johnners : okay, im using imageshack to upload my pictures, but it doesnt work. Im trying to see why thiss doesnt work. This is the link i use to upload the pic here

[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/karimmatmour.jpg/[/imgy]

thiss doesnt produce the picture, and it would really helpful if one of you could explain why!! please!!

There shouldnt be a y.
Only [/img]

Try that mate

Media prediction of 18th place. You hit Top-6 and youre a God for the fans

#42738 Shameless : [color=#F57900][/color]#42662 r_johnners :
okay, im using imageshack to upload my pictures, but it doesnt work. Im trying to see why thiss doesnt work. This is the link i use to upload the pic here

[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/karimmatmour.jpg/[/imgy]

thiss doesnt produce the picture, and it would really helpful if one of you could explain why!! please!!
There shouldnt be a y.

Only [/img]

Try that mate

It still doesnt work!!

[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/karimmatmour.jpg/[/img]

hmmm, it shoudl work.... are you using the correct link from the imageshack page?

I was just thinking as DEMBA. How about if you shortly describe in what way you post the links? I’m sure we’ll figure it out from there mate

i finished 6th in my second season as boro. good luck with leicester mate!

cheers