FM16 | Watford FC | The Hornets Are Buzzing

So, after recently joining the site and reading through some of the stories on the forum,
I've decided to give my own little series a whirl. I'm not sure exactly how long this is
going to last, but I guess that depends on you guys and how much you enjoy it. Please
leave a comment, all feedback is welcome, I want to make the save as interactive as
possible, and as fun for me as it is for you.

Now, in terms of the team I'm going to be taking charge of, I thought who better than
the only Premier League side Football Manager 2016 has the full rights too, Watford F.C..

http://www.bestsportswallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Watford-F.C.-Wallpapers-4.jpg

Now, not only do Watford have all of the player images etc. in the game, but they also
have a very generous transfer budget of £15 Million pounds, so there is plenty of room
to manoeuvre in the transfer market in terms of bringing players in, especially
considering that Watford do have a fair number of unwanted squad players that could
amount to an extra £5-10 Million.

In terms of an upload schedule, I'll try to get at least one update up per day for the
first week to use as a sort of gauge to see how much attention the save is getting
and how much you guys are enjoying it, and so on. After that it could possibly be
bumped to two uploads per day, but probably (almost certainly) not on weekends.

So, let me know what you think guys, does a Watford save peak your interest? Who should
I sell? Which gems should I be looking to bring in to drive us forward to glory? Let me
know in the comments section, and I'll see you all in a bit!

WATFORD. <3

Watford would be an interesting save!

http://www.bestsportswallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Watford-F.C.-Wallpapers-4.jpg

So, here it is guys, the first "proper" update from the Watford save, sort of, as I won't actually be bringing you any results from competitive matches just yet. Instead, I'll be using this post as an opportunity to do some much-needed housekeeping, letting you in on the tactics I'll be using for the forthcoming season, as well as pre-season results and the all-important transfers. Possibly across two posts depending on how long the first one is.

First of all though, I thought I'd show you the objectives that I'm expected to fulfil by the time the season comes to an end; although I must say that personally I do have higher expectations, I just didn't want to set my sights too high and pay for it with my job if I don't manage to achieve. Here is what's expected of us this season;



To be honest, I think if you consider the side that we have, these expectations are incredibly fair. Mid-table is more than fair, and in-fact I upped the expectations a little bit for some extra money, so even if we don't finish mid-table, as long as we don't get relegated we should be okay. With a few lucky draws I feel that the sixth-round of the FA Cup is a more than achievable goal as well.

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Now to the transfers, beginning with the outs. As I mentioned in the original post, Watford have a lot of squad players that I could have kept around, but in reality they probably wouldn't have featured. So, even though I didn't even get a tenth of what I thought I might from offloading players, here's what I did manage to do;



This one might come as a bit of a surprise - and it's definitely the most high-profile departure - but I just felt that I had better options in his position within the squad already, so long-time servant and winner over 100 Watford caps Ikechi Anya has left for the Liberty Stadium in a £1.5 Million transfer.





Something of a double swoop here as both Essaid Belkalem & Tommie Hoban have left Watford and gone to Turf Moor and Sky Bet Championship side Burnley. Belkalem, a decent centre-back whose face never really fit in at Vicarage Road has left on a permanent basis for £750K and promising young centre-back Tommie Hoban has joined him, although that deal is only a one-year loan deal.

As you can see, Hoban is a decent young player who will probably feature much more in my plans either next season or possibly the one after, depending on his development as a player over the coming season. For now though, I felt that a loan was probably the best course of action.





The best of the rest now as two rather benign deals round off the transfer activity in terms of outs, Lloyd Dyer and Rene Gilmartin, who made a combined total of 14 appearances between them for Watford have left the club with the former leaving for Brentford and the latter joining Colchester for a total sum of £122.5K.



Now for the most excicting part of any Football Manager save, new signings. And with a transfer budget of over £18 Million it's fair to say that I had a fair amount to play with, however getting major names did prove to be something of a challenge. Here's what I did manage to achieve, in ascending order of what I believe to be the most exciting, starting from the bottom:



Straight away I have to admit that the only part I played in this transfer was dealing with the contract. The process of scouting, arranging a fee with Sheffield United and so forth was all done by my Head of Youth Development, Chris McGuane. However, after looking at his current statistics & potential, I could hardly say no for £625K. Promising central defensive midfielder Louis Reed became the first ever signing of the Leon Young era at Watford.



I think it's fair to say that the weakest area of Watford's squad is the goalkeeping area. A concentration rating of eight and seeing some of his performances in real life meant that despite not conceding in pre-season, Heurelho Gomes just wasn't ever going to be my starting goalkeeper in this save, and I won't even waste time explaining why I didn't want to play Arlauskis either. I did try and secure a higher calibre keeper (i.e Victor Valdes & Diego Alves) but ultimately fell short. I do feel that Willy should be able to do a job though, and brings with him a wealth of top-level experience. £4.1 Million was spent in total to secure this deal.



Now to the steal of the summer transfer window, young Serbian attacking midfielder Andrija Zivkovic has joined in a £1.8 Million pound deal from Partizan Belgrade. And considering he's valued at almost £5 Million without even making his Watford debut, is already a steal. If this career mode is going to be a success, I believe that Zivkovic is going to play a major part.



The biggest signing of the summer, and Watford's biggest ever signing period. Former Newcastle United man Siem de Jong has joined in a deal worth just over £10.5 Million. Although I have plenty of attacking options within my squad already, I just felt that the likes of Almen Abdi & Steven Berghuis didn't possess the quality that Siem does. Hopefully he can rekindle his Ajax form and lead Watford's Premier League charge, I'm expecting big things from this one.

And that's it folks, three quality signings that fill the key holes that I managed to identify within the side, and hopefully one star of the future. And there's still £6.51 Million left in the bank, so business may not be done yet. Watch this space.
That's it for now, and that means there'll probably be a double update tomorrow, with the final part of the pre-season updates, and then first month of fixtures. Subscribe to the story, let me know what you think so far, and what you would like me to do. As ever, I'll see you all in a bit.

Some good signings there, a good mix between youth and experience.

http://www.bestsportswallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Watford-F.C.-Wallpapers-4.jpg

Here we are, the final bit of tidying up before the first season gets underway proper. In this post I'll be taking you through tactics, the team, and pre-season results. Let's get into it.



First things first, the formation. I've opted for a basic 4-2-3-1 formation, for no other reason than because I've had success with it on other FM 16 saves and it also utilises the strengths within our squad nicely.

In terms of player roles, the defence is pretty standard with two full-backs on either side playing automatic and two central defenders on defend. The two central midfielders play different roles, with the left-sided midfielder acting as a deep-lying playmaker and the right side operating as a box-to-box midfielder; both on support.

The left and right sided attacking midfielders both operate as wingers, although have slightly different jobs to do as one is attacking and the other supporting. The CAM within the side will act as a trequartista, hopefully finding pockets of space to exploit.

The sole striker within the side will begin the season as a poacher, hopefully pouncing on chances created by our wingers and the man in-behind. If that doesn't go so well though, I can switch it up as I've had varying results using different strikers performing different roles with the tactic.

Here's how it worked out in pre-season anyway:



Pretty well.

I always take advantage of the intra-squad friendly on my FM saves so that's how this one got under way, our team looked good as they secured a comfortable 2-0 win against their U-21 counterparts. Deeney & Oulare with the goals.

Then things got a little bit more difficult as we took on AFC Wimbledon for the FM Cup, securing our first piece of silverwear, if you can call it that. We absolutely dominated this game, having a total of 21 shots to their 2 as well as 65% possession. Ighalo at the double and a goal for Diamanti rounded off proceedings.

After that we moved on to a trickier looking tie as we took on Dutch side Excelsior in our first match at Vicarage Road. A spirited effort from the lads, but ultimately a 0-0 draw in the end. Allan Nyom picking up the man of the match award.

Then we moved on to what was without doubt the highlight of pre-season, a 4-0 demolition of Hearts away from home. 26 shots in total and 15 on target as Zivkovic, Watson, Prodl & Oulare all got their names on the scoresheet, a very impressive debut from the young Serbian Zivkovic. Hopefully a sign of things to come. Allan Nyom picking up his second straight man of the match award to boot.

The final game of pre-season was an easy looking fixture against one of our affiliate clubs Hemel Hempstead. That's exactly what it proved to be as goals from Britos, Capoue & Oulare secured our fourth win out of 5 in pre-season. Things were looking good.
After those performances and rotating the squad quite a bit, here's the side that will be facing Tottenham in a difficult looking away tie to start the season:



New signing Willy Caballero will be the man between the sticks, with a back four of Holebas, Britos, Prodl & Nyom in front. Both full-backs looking particularly impressive throughout pre-season. Etienne Capoue will be operating as the deep-lying playmaker and Ben Watson as the box-to-box midfielder.

Two new signings in attacking midfield positions as Siem de Jong & Andrija Zivkovic join loanee Alessandro Diamanti in what looks a very threatening line-up. Young Belgian Obbi Oulare will be playing as the sole striker after out-performing fellow strikers Troy Deeney & Odion Ighalo in early matches.

Some decent options on the bench as well as experienced goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes is joined by another loanee in Nathan Ake & Craig Catchart to make up the defensive options. Not the strongest but hopefully neither will be playing too much. Valon Behrami, Jose Manuel Jurado & Almen Abdi could add something to the midfield if required and club captain Troy Deeney will be starting the season from the bench.

And with that comes the end of the boring bit, updates from tomorrow and then on will all be results from competitive fixtures. I'll probably be updating results on a month-by-month basis rather than a certain amount of fixtures, because I think it's a clearer way of laying out information. That means that the next time I update this thread the results from Totenham & Newcastle away as well as West Brom & Bournemouth at home will all be confirmed. As well as a second round tie from the Capital One Cup, although I'll probably post a mini-update with the draw from that shortly.

Hopefully you're enjoying things so far, let's see how big we can make this thing. See you all very soon.

Looking good, playing oulare up front is risky - but could pay-off long term.

Looking forward to seeing Cook develop!