Liverpool F.C - The Road to Europe v2.0

I had a phone call in from Tom right after I had finalized the Sinclair and Daniels deals. The Liverpool chairman informed me that Fulham were resigned to losing Clint Dempsey with Anzhi and CSKA Moscow keen to bring him to Russia and Stuttgart of Germany are also very interested in the American. There are also interest from English clubs like Aston Villa. The Fulham chairman had just phoned Tom and asked if Liverpool would like to make a bid, obviously wanting to spark off a bidding war.

Clint Dempsey had been chased by Kenny before my arrival at Liverpool. I thought about the situation. So far I had been using Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling as backup to Joe Cole. Jordan is a natural center midfielder, Raheem is still an Under-18, while Joe isn't really that much of a quality player to be a starter, although the fans love him for some reason.

"Tell Fulham we are interested in making a bid but we want to lower their 9 million price down to 7 million," I told Tom.

After about half an hour, I had Tom on the phone again.

"Fulham aren't willing to budge," he said.

"9 million it is," I sighed. "Tell Fulham we want him and I'm willing to pay their valuation of him. 9 million."

It was a busy day. I arrived home at 7pm, having just finished a training session with the team to prepare them for the match against Fulham the next day - it also gave me the chance to look at our new signing. Scott has been pretty average in training so I'm hoping he'll work harder on his game to improve and find out how playing for Liverpool isn't like playing for Swansea...

I lived alone in an apartment just a few minutes walk away from the stadium, and was about to cook myself something to eat when my phone buzzed. I quickly answered, and Tom was on the other line. "Hey Glenn, how did the training session go?"

"Alright," I replied, laying myself down on the sofa. "Our new man Scott wasn't that impressive. But he made no mistakes either."

"Are you planning to start him tomorrow?"

"Yes, I probably will," I admitted.

"Okay," Tom said. "Anyway, I called to say that Fulham have accepted our bid for Clint Dempsey. The bad news is that Anzhi, CSKA Moscow, and Stuttgart have also made accepted bids and Spurs have also joined in the race with a bid."

"Spurs?" I grunted. "Well, that's alright, Tom. For now I just want to focus on the game against Fulham tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow, Glenn."

Scott had a horrible opening game as he played rather poorly in his first Liverpool game - a 2-1 loss against Fulham with Lucas scoring the only goal from our side, but I have faith in his ability to improve.

I had failed to get Clint Dempsey. He has decided to join Tottenham Hotspur, predictably. I was still a little annoyed at how Spurs wanted practically every transfer target of ours, they got that Icelandic land Gylfi Sigurdsson from us, now Dempsey, and how they've showed interest in every transfer target of ours.

The same day I learnt Dempsey had snubbed us, my best scouts Alexandre Ceolin and Luciano D'Onofrio paid a visit to my office and highly recommended me a certain player.

This was Marek Hamsik, Martin Skrtel's fellow countryman and the Slovakian national team captain. Having requested a transfer, his club Napoli offered him to clubs and some of the top guns in the Premier League and also in Italy want him, with Napoli prepared to sell for 20 million.

I was very tempted to join in the race but it was almost certain his wage demands would be sky high, seeing as how he is in demand. So, Marek Hamsik was a no-go.

Man City have made an offer of 26 million for Luis Suarez, which has been flatly rejected. Luis' agent then annoyingly came down and requested a new improved contract for Luis which I reluctantly agreed to. The Uruguayan now earns 100k per week at Anfield compared to his 60k per week in his previous contract.

Fabio Borini has been practicing his shots in training and he gave Manchester United fans plenty to hate about him as he bagged a hat trick in our match against Man U, in a 5-0 win in which David De Gea scored an own goal and our captain Steven scoring the last goal.

On the lookout for a new right winger, my scouts returned with reports of Arsenal winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who had been purchased by Arsenal last summer and had a storming season. Arsenal probably wouldn't sell to a rival though.

Instead I turned my attention to Newcastle's Hatem Ben Arfa. Their financial situation was different from Arsenal's and maybe a 10 million bid might prepare them to sell.

Of course, Toon rejected the 10 million bid. Tom Werner told me they were very prepared to sell Ben Arfa but wanted at least 19 million. After a bit of haggling with Newcastle's owners, Tom agreed that the price be 15 million.

I headed up to Tyneside, with my assistant manager Tony as well as first team coach Mark Howard. We discussed terms with Ben Arfa and his agent for about an hour or two.

Ben Arfa's agent wanted a sky high loyalty bonus and agent fee for his services, which I refused to give. The amount of appearance fees, goal bonuses, were also rather high and I refused to give in to his demands. After a bit of shouting, Ben Arfa and his agent left the room, with his agent looking rather annoyed.

"Seems like he won't come, boss," Mark groaned.

"No matter. There are still two weeks to go until the end of the transfer window. We'll find someone."

Charlie Adam has agreed a loan deal to Aston Villa until the end of the season. I'm hoping Villa will buy him because the Scottish midfielder is not in my plans.

With Ben Arfa not an option now, I decided to look at Cristian Tello. A 20-year-old Spaniard, Tello can play both wings but is best on the right wing, and is a product of Barcelona's youth academy. He had been chased by Kenny before he left the club.

I wanted Tello on loan before I decided anything. Tom phoned Barcelona and agreed a loan deal, in which Liverpool had to pay 170k and an extra 6 million if we wanted Tello permanently.

Within the next few days, we could already confirm Tello as our third signing in the window. I could see Barcelona liked to do their transfer business fast.

January
It has been a good month, a really good month.


We are only 1 point away from 1st-placed Man City and 2 points better than 3rd-placed Tottenham, although both of them have a game in hand.


It's also the end of the January transfer window and I am rather pleased with what I've done.

February
"Disappointing" is the only word that describes this month.


We have dropped down from 2nd to 5th in the Premier League, a terrible terrible thing.


There are bigger blows as Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll both returned from international duty with Uruguay and England injured. The worst part is that the injuries will keep BOTH of them out until the end of the season. A huge blow to my Champions' League hopes...

Agger and Bellamy also joined Suarez and Carroll on the sidelines but their injury is less serious and Bellamy will return within a few days while Agger should return in a few weeks.

How have you got Borini at the club when you start?

Our March matches so far has been good with us taking six points from two games against Wigan & Swansea, and also beating Stuttgart 3-1 in the first leg of the Europa League Second Knockout Round.

One of my youth coaches, Jose Segura, announced that eleven Liverpool trialists had signed on to be part of the Liverpool Trialists squad.

This was a yearly process that usually happened in early March. Eleven lucky boys around the age of 15-16 would be able to join the Liverpool Trialists and this eleven would play a football match against 11 players in my U18s. From that match the manager, which was me of course, would handpick the most talented out of the eleven trialists and hand them youth contracts.

I agreed to attend this year's game between Liverpool Trialists and Liverpool U18s.

#63474 LFC_adammay98 : How have you got Borini at the club when you start?

LFCMarshall's summer transfer update: http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=6702

After attending the game, I decided to hand two of the Liverpool Trialists youth contracts. Craig Jennings, a 15-year-old Welsh full-back, and Lee Rule, an English striker who was also 15, joined the Liverpool U18s with immediate effect.

We defeated Stuttgart 4-2 on aggregate and advanced to the Quarter Finals, where we will face Italian giants Juventus, whom last season won the Serie A with 0 losses.