The most tough relegation battle

I haven't written anything in a while and there are several things I want to blog about. So, I'll begin with a FM challenge I decided to go with. I finally found some time to start my first FM 2009 game (it's sad, I know...). I had a talk with RedArmy20 trying to find a team to manage. I wanted a lower league team from England and I was thinking to manage Histon as I am a little sentimental due to the great moments we had together back in FM 2007 (haha). Red suggested I should pick a League Two team instead and that Luton should be a good challenge because of the points deduction they have. He said they have something like -10 points. So, I began my game and went to check out Luton Town... to my surprise I found out the points deduction is -30. I thought "Now that's a challenge!" and I immediately accepted to become their new manager!

A bit of history about Luton Town FC from wikipedia.
Luton Town Football Club, commonly known as Luton Town or informally Luton, are an English association football team based in the town of Luton in Bedfordshire. They are nicknamed The Hatters due to the historical association of the town with the hat-making trade. Luton are one of a relatively small number of teams to have played in all four divisions of the Football League. Rarer still is the fact that Luton have achieved this twice.
The financial chaos culminated in Luton Town Football Club 2020 taking over the club in 2008, and facing the brunt of what the former owners, Jayten, had done. Due to financial irregularites, Luton were docked 10 points for the 2008-09 season - and then 20 points by the Football League for exiting administration without a Company Voluntary Arrangement. Luton Town therefore started the 2008-09 campaign on -30 points.

Dawn of season 2008-2009
Chairman asked about the season ambitions, I went with the lowest one, to battle against relegation. Of course I got no money for transfers and around 36K for wages (my currency is EUR). I survived the 'meet the press' media conference and started thinking about free transfers and loans I could close deals with to strengthen my squad.

I began offering contracts to several free players. I could mostly snatch french players. Here's the list of players I signed. Need to write more here about the new players, but later.



And this is how my squad looks (both first team and reserves) after the additions.



Pre-season friendlies
My team didn't do any good with the friendly matches and I'm quite troubled regarding the tactic I should go with. Results:
3:1 v Arthurlie (A)
0:1 v Hamilton (H)
0:1 v Preston (H)
0:1 v Newcastle (H)
1:3 v Blackpool (A)
0:2 v Bristol City (H)

To be continued :)