Newport County - 2015

7.1.09
The new season hasn't even begun yet, but I've already got some good news. The board unexpectedly announced today that our stadium will be undergoing yet another expansion. This time it's a meaningful one - we're expanding by 3274 seats! This will nearly double the capacity. The expansion will be done in 8 months.

Beyond that, the training facilities upgrade is under way as well and that will be done in 3 months time.

Like last season, I told the board we will avoid relegation. The results are a transfer budget of 60k and a wage budget of 81k p/w. The transfer budget remains the same from last season but we got a 10k p/w bump in our wage budget. Still quite meager, to be honest, but I suppose it was necessary since the board went into debt to double the stadium capacity.

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7.4.09
On a whim, I made the decision to start over from scratch yesterday. At first I started up a new game with Man City, but as soon as I started combing through the roster I decided to get back to basics with Newport County again. The biggest reason is that I want to try some new tactics.

Rather than play the same 4-1-3-2, I'm going to run a mix of 4-3-2-1 and 4-4-2. I like the results that my ultra defensive formation typically provides - grind-it-out 1-0 games. Thing is, even in the Championship League I'm behind the power curve because of all the speed I face both offensively and defensively.

The 4-4-2 will be the vanilla version that I use on narrow pitches - 2 CB, 2 FB, 1 MCa, 1 MCd, 2 SM, 1 FCd, 1 FCa. This will be pretty similar to the 4-1-3-2 formation I've used extensively, only with a little more width in the middle of the pitch.

The 4-2-3-1 will be a wildy more offensive formation (for me) that I will use on wide pitches - 2 CB, 2 FB, 1 DMC, 1 MC, 1 AML, 1 AMC, 1 AMR,1 ST. As you can see, this formation will play very wide with lots of attacking options in the final third.

With all this said, it will be interesting to see how these formations play out with the lack of talent I will start with in the Blue Square South. When I set up Man City with these formations, I was salivating at the thought of how potent my offense would be. Robinho in the AMC slot, flanked by Elano on one side and (can't think of the Russian player that always gets linked to Man City) on the other. Throw in a half-decent ST that can bang in headers and we're good to go!

Back to reality and Newport County, we'll need to add pieces as we go along. I'll get a blog going to chronicle my new adventures.