A Swarm Of Bees - Chasing Talents (EP 25)
Deals, deals, deals.

After the successful campaign last year we were determined to be even better this season and attack more seriously the spots giving us European football. We have already packed squad and the arrivals before the last season's end made it hard to find place for all the players. The club wanted this strategy, however we may soon need an U23 team in the league and even win this league as our reserves are playing in some of the Europe best leagues.
A lot of Chinese teams again overflowed us with offers for our players, but this time were not for the players that we want to let go. We rejected some serious offers for Benrahma & Pontus Jonnsen. Both for around €25M.
At the end of the summer we were attacked from Premier League sides again for our best players, rejected €30M for Ollie Watkins and another €25M for Benrahma.
The Departures
Clearly we need to get rid off some players. The first ones that I wanted out of team were in fact my first signing back in the winter of my first season here as I didn't expect that the quality of the team to be this good. The club bright vision for the transfer policy is just one - SELL PLAYERS FOR MORE THAT HE IS BOUGHT.

Niclas Eliasson (AML) joined us for €2.8M from Bristol City and will leave the team for the exact same price with the 20% bonus from the next transfer in his career. The winger joins Independiente Santa Fe and won't be remembered with anything special in his stay with us playing 19 games and scoring 2 goals.

Sean Reggett (DC) is another player departing without leaving any mark in the team. Joined from Portsmouth for just €500k., now he leaves for Toronto FC for €1M. He made only 3 appearances for us and it's not needed by the club.

Adam Andersson (RB) actually was going to receive another chance with us after the failed last season, but Barnsley came up with a offer and with the funds we had, it was the right thing to do to go for another right back this season.. We wanted the same player as Mads Roerslev after we lost him, but although Andersson get a lot of chances - he never met the expectations. We get €1.4M which is with 400k more than the price we paid for him.

I really wanted the things to have worked out with Simon Tibbling (MC) but when Lille came with €6M offer for him I could not reject it. He had some good matches with us, however he only played in one half of the season and purely we made €4.2M profit from him (as he was bought for €1.8M). Nice to see him in a good team.

Our midfield was too packed and we needed to sell someone. Christian Norgaard (DM, MC) was that someone. €6.25M and he is now player of Genoa. He contributed enormously in our season in Championship, but last year he faded away from the starting XI, also was injured for a long time. Great servant, just his time came. (He was bought for €4.1)

Julian Jeanvier (DC) was another player that was in the team before my arrival and didn't have a single bad game under my coaching. Great player in both Championship and Premiership but he wanted more playing time that I could give him. We also had some troubles with him last season when he tried something like a riot against me in the lockerroom. Really good defender, even averaged 7.45 rating in our first season, scoring 3 goals. Sad to see him go but we have great depth at centre back so we won't notice his absence. €9.5M from Huddersfield (bought for only €2M).
We also continued the tradition of letting our young starlets on loan to get first team experience.

The most notable players that won't be around the team are Marcus Forss & Toni Moya at Maritimo, Francisco Sierralta at Kobenhavn, Hussayn Touati at AIK.
A lot of all these talents have great future and probably will have a chance in our team.
The Arrivals
Our budget for the upcoming season was something else - €50M. That is something else for a club that his best signing was €13M (Alexander Isak). However I really want to follow MY WAY in the transfers, don't buy pricey old players and develop young prospects by giving them first team football. We get another €27M from the players that we sold so we are fockin` rich at the moment.
We also have 3 players coming into the first team arranged earlier - Youssef Bennasser (€3.2M from Monaco), Jesus Vallejo (free from Real Madrid) and Andrew Gravillon (free from Inter).
So I searched only for deals that we NEED to do, to get more depth or to strengthen some area. And the end of the transfer window we might have more money than we originally had.

The right wingback is one of the places we need to improve. Although we found a good replacement in the face of Oskar Buur, we need another good player on that position. With the departure of Adam Andersson we again looked at our lovely Scandinavia for a quality option. FELIX BEIJMO (RB) is our choice. The Swedish international comes from Werder Bremen for the price of €4.2M.
Hopefully he can finally fill the gap left by Mads Roerslev, I was even thinking for bringing him back but Venlo already had bought him from the relegated Hertha.

Manchester City youngster Patrick Roberts (AMR) is the next guy we really wanted in our squad. Bringing him for €7.25M with the intentions for a lengthy career in our squad. After the weak period at the end of the season was important to boost our attacking options and the Englishman will look to revive his career after playing ....

I was looking at this transfer from the first day I came in Brentford FC.One of Croatia brightest talents finally is in our squad, after 2 failed attempts in the past (because of the high price demands). "The Balkan Messi" LOVRO MAJER (AMC) is coming from Dinamo Zagreb for €9.75M and will be key to our transformation into a 4-2-3-1 side.
He also can play at the CM position, can take our corners, score free kicks. He can do whatever he wants! Great player, expecting miracles from him!

Our final addition to the squad is the French wonderkid AMINE GOURI (ST) coming from Lyon for €8.5M. We needed to have another quality striker added to the team after last season goal drought for our front players. In fact if he performs well, quickly can guarantee a spot in the starting XI because of Isak poor form. Win - win situation for me, having 3 wonderful strikers battling for the spot of the main man upfront.
Alfa Semedo is back from his loan spell and again will play for the club.
Overall
At the end of the day we spent only €3M more than the sum of the player we sold, which is great. All the other money are free to be spent if we want (but we don't). We didn't even break the record for record signing and still have perfectly balanced squad to battle in the next season.
All of our younger players got their loan deals, playing somewhere that they can be every match in the starting eleven and develop. We will start gathering the fruit of our work from the winter or the next season when some of this players will have their chance in our first team. We don't have a youth intake - however we have the best youngsters!
Also our squad is very young - only Pontus Jonsson is older than 30, two players are 28 aand mainly the other players are around 23-25 years old which gives another dimension to the future of this football club.

Our preseason went really well both in the camp in the USA and in England where we faced lower tier clubs and Sheffield United in our final game before the start of the season. All of the players had nice start of the long season. Mbeumo and Guiri performed really well and scored 4 goals each. Andrew Gravillon also scored 4, a hattrick against Yeovil.
Jesus Vallejo missed almost all of the matches and it's behind with his physical condition, Jeong Woo is injured for two months, missed the pre-season and will miss August games for sure.
The schedule wasn't on our side again in the beginning of the new PL season.
Liverpool (A) - opening away match against the champions.
Brighton (H)
Leicester (A)
Millwall (A) - EFL Cup
Wolves (H)
Thanks for reading & hope you enjoy it!
-
COMMENTS:
ScottT - We tend to start well and loose focus down the road in the league and also in the matches.
TheLFCFan - Hopefully both of them will be a lot better this season and pass the 10 goal mark. Also with our new additions, plenty of options are available.
Tango - Actually I finished my first season before your I think, doesn't matter. Always tracking down how the leagues develop, it's fun for me.
MidKnightDreary - Welcome on board!
Jack - Still the beast from the first season, tearing attackers, scoring goals, making mistakes, making penalties. I wonder why I didn't accept the offers for him (both over 25M.)
