Revenge of the Bloods!

And so yet another hectic transferwindow has come to an end! Once again I'm very pleased with the signings I managed to land, includeing my new star (atleast I hope he'll be): Felix van Hulst



I realized that I for the first time ever felt that quite happy about my squad thoughout two promotions without making alot of changes. Oliver, Blazques, Cossu, Morini, Taylor are all still a big part of the first team, something I'm proud of! Felix is my biggest improvement of the season, no doubt! However I signed some other players that will be vital for success this season. A close number two after Felix is Thomas Hübner, a DC from Germany. He doesn't posses the same star-qulities as Felix, but since my defence has been the biggest worry through out my time at the Bloods, he'll have even more responsibility then anyone else in my starting line-up. Saintini and Kern also have potential to become leading stars in the leauge and I'm keen to see what marks they can leave at the Butch. Summing up the captures and releases:



The financial situation went from bad to worse during the last couple of months as the leauge ended quite early and thus the income seased. I ended the season with a fisty -€150k in the bank. As a result I decided to do some major pre-seasoning playing no less then 13 friendlies, two of which against PL-teams and the majority of the rest against top-teams of the Championship, which in the end gave me a much needed boost of €300k!



Looking at my squad I feel pleased about the depth and overall quality. However I can't see any real Leauge 2 stars except for Felix and I'm honestly not sure what to expect from this year... I'm sure we'll secure playing Leauge 2 football next year without breaking a sweat, but other than that I have no idea where we stand... But as always, I have a good feeling and if nothing else works Taylor could always play Messhia and bag a deuce to prevent demotion!

And so the first major setback... or maybe setback is a bit strong for a team nobody belived in but still finished close to the top. It was all looking fine in a crazy evenly matched leauge were there were only to gaps in the intire table larger then 1p and with many teams beeing sepatared though goal-diference. We managed to say afloat just above 4th place (top 3 meant direct promotion) for about 30 games, then someting dangerously fimiliar happened... it all started with a number of lost leads, with the lowest beeing litterary letting in a goal right of the kick-off in the 94th after taking the lead just passed the set injury-time... the small disasters were followed up with letting in insanely easy goals and a total inabillity in front of the oppositions net... so after securing the play-offticket in the very last round we lost the first round by one goal after what could have been a superb comeback signed no other then Paul Taylor (hwo was the leauges second best goal-scorer)...



So as I've stated eariler the season wasn't a disaster, but the latter half would definetly qualify as a bitter dissapointment, from everybody! I can't honestly say that one singel player in my squad did what I expected from him... Every now and then someone had a moment of briliance, but these were rare occasions and if I remembered correctly two players managed to maintain a "last 5 games rating" above 7, and that didn't last for long.

When trying to decide how to move on from this I stood with a bunch of outgoing contracts and a huge decision to make: to stay on the path of keeping my leading players even if they hadn't delivered this time around, or letting the contracts run out and build from scratch... with painful memories of how things ended the last time I refused big changes in my roster without a promotion, I decided to put on my shiny shoes and go shopping!

With almost twice the wage-budget of last season (the only big win I managed to bring home last year was financial with a profit of almost €400k) I hoped to find myself some new stars that would carry the soon to be proud herritage of the Bloods. This is what I came up with:

Out of the new signings I have the highest hopes for Wright-Phillips. I hope he'll be the successor of Paul Taylor, whom I decided, against by better judgement, to let go.

And so we're nearing the sprint for promotion... after our by far worst season we've finally gotten things back on track and are on the hunt for atleast a play-offspot, but the 3d place doesn't feel all to unrealistic either after demolishing the topteams my last couple of games...

This is our starting position and I'm really looking forward to take on my biggest challange yet!

And so, after hitting yet another cold-streak and magic offesive displays in my last two games we're playing with the knife to the throat and hoping for some help from many teams. It's not an impossible task but I'll definetly be doing som praying just in case...

So by maintaining our nice form, beating one of the four (including us) teams who competed for the two play-offspots up for grabs and with some luck when another lost thier last game, we managed to clinch the last ticket to the dance!

The semi-finals against Bradford were alot easier then I first though they would be. After winning the first game 3-0 game 2 was more of a formality... though I suffered a huge loss when my top-scorer Anjembe who was playing on surrenges, was even more hurt during the first leg and thus missed the final. On a positive note Wright-Phillips elevated his game and came through big time along with Oliver who showed what kind of footballer he was capable of being.

In the final Crewe awaited, infront of a 51k croud the game got going. Once again injuries was the big theif as my star CB Virgo was hurt and I was forced to replace him with Hübner who had spent the intire year making fatal misstakes and thus costing me sheadloads of points... today was no exception, after 40 minutes he cut out the legs from under a Crewe-striker who was in no position at all to score, and so we fell behind and went in to the dressingroom with a one-goal lead to come back from. We were playing pretty well even though we were behind so no changes felt nessicary. In the second half we continued to bring the heat and 15 minutes in to the second half Maston hammered a shot towards the goal and the ball found its way into the net! Crewe clawed their way into the game again and we traded chanses for about another 15 minutes until, as so many times before, the opposition (Crewe) were awarded a corner, and guess what? a ball towards the near post, a flick and a goal... frustrated I used all my subs taking out the three offensive players who had preformed the worst and threw in some fresh leggs and told the team to go all out offensively! After some half-assed chanses one of the subs, Kern, was in the clear infront of the goal and smacked the ball into the net. But once again, the de javú moment from the BSP made itself painfully reminded as the assistant raised his flag! Not much happened after this and so there was nothing left to do but congratulating Mr Thompson to the promotion and think about how to make things better next autumn.

This is how close the offside was:


Leaugetable:

Oh no! I've been a follower also, haven't commented yet (sorry!) but you've been desperately unlucky with offsides! Knowing me and my impatience, if that was my team I would probably have restarted the game

Well I used to do that as well, but I found the game so boring once you won every important game... I hope that it has helped me to appriciate victories even more and thus made we work harder and become a better manager!

I know I've been bad updating as of late, I blame the girlfriend! Chicks just don't get FM, that's for sure!

Anyway, once again we got off to a strong start in the leauge and a few months in the board actually to suprise me for the first time of my career:

So I know the protocol says to post the message you recive in the game but I forgott to and now it's been removed from my inbox so this'll have to do. The Butch use to take around an even 3k with just over 900 seats and spearing you the math the expansion gave me another thousand in capacity of which 500 were seats, I'm hoping that another expansion isn't too far off though concidering that we're still selling out every game! I just hope they expand the Butch to it's maximum so that we can stay here for as long as possible, just love it!

As I said earlier we got off to a good start, just as my previous seasons in Leauge 2, however, as the season progressed we managed to steal some wins and play stable, a fundamental diffrence compared to the last couple of years. Now, poeticly enough, we have to show that we have the composure and concentration to make it in the final third! Something we have failed misserbly with for too long now!


Anyother pressuring issue, once again, which I blame on the lack of progress since our last promotion is the financial situation. However I think that the stadiumexpansion comebined with not having to push my wageexpenditure futher (I only 3 players who are not signed on for next season, none of whom are irreplceable and if I'm promoted they will definetly be let go).


And so I hope I've got all of your fingers crossed for me moving in on the final stretch! I'm a bit worried about our form as we've lost 2 of our 3 last games and on the Butch to make matters worse... but ey, I'm confident in my guys and what can go wrong with our man Marshall blasting out through the stereo firing them up!

Here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again!



And yes, this is what todays press-conference looked like:

For the first time in a long time I feel pumped to sum up the season! We finally made sure to keep focus all the way through and managed to clinch the top-spot, making it my third leauge-trophy and promotion. Here's the final table:

Might add that Exter won the play-offs and were promoted as well

The key this year was stability, we managed to keep it tidy around the own net, though set-picses is still a problem, but the biggest diffrence, hands down, was Anjembe, who won countless games for us on his own. The screen speaks for itself:


Finally, here's a recap of the past year's signings:

And so it's time to show that we want the revenge this story has been all about! We're right at the point were my last save went south, a strong season, good position, but still with alot of football to be played. With a fisty -€1,2mil in the bank promotion is vital!

And so doomsday has come! The next game is at the Butch against Leyton Orient who are 15th in the table. It should be an easy game, but if one thing becomes clear when you play FM for a long time it's that nothing ever is for certian... I've already lost out on four points my last four games against teams in the bottomfour... And having my best CB, MC and winger injured doesn't make me feel any better... The fact that this is precisley the point I was at when the collapse came the last time around...

'nuff said!

Well done mate, I personally found it tough with Staines in League One, we had to rely on an 8-7 penalty shootout playoff final win! Trust me, I had no nails left after that

Yhea, L1 is the hardest leauge I ever played, but then again I've always come into it with a couple of recent promotions, poor economy etc. and since I didn't make it to the Championship last time (which many say is the hardest)it remains to be seen if L1 is the hardest test or not. Did you make it to PL with Stains?