Inter Milan question

Hi guys,

I started with Inter and unfortunately it pains me to say that my beloved team is a proper mess in terms of finance. I sold Sneijder, Chivu and a bunch of reserve players that wouldn't get playing time as well as poor youth players. I bought in 2 free players to add depth to the team and bought Zakaria Bakkali from PSV (any other great prospects were too expensive for me). Bakkali is developing nicely and I think he will be able to replace Millito upfront in 2 seasons. I rid the club of all the deadwood including staff.

At the moment I am 1 month before the January 2013 transfer window and am doing quite well: 2nd in the league after Juventus and qualified for the next round of Europa league, and the board while not putting pressure on me is suggesting to offload more players - in my case it would be my two biggest earners and the players that are actually keeping me alive (Millito & Cassano). While my form is good so far, we know that there comes the time during a season when things go bad (i.e. if Millito gets injured I have no replacement for him) so I'd like to bring in at least 2 players: 1 good striker, 1 strong defender.

Alas, here's the problem: I can't sell my top earners/best players unless I bring in adequate replacements, yet I have no budget to do that.

Advise please

you can try what i did. in my game AC Milan were £50m in debt, 3rd from bottom in the league with 10games to go, with at least 5 players earning over £100k a week and several others not far from that, whilst still in charge of Newcastle i took over on a 2nd manager profile to try and rebuild AC Milan to their former glory. I deceide to sell all the players earning over £50k a week and replace them with high potential youth players, playing them in my first team gave them plenty of game experience and only cost me around £10m and i got 6 quality youth players on next to nothing wages. Now i managed to survive relegation in the season i took over but now im about to end the season in 5th place and therefore get into Euro cup which im delighted with.

I personally say dump all your high earners and go for youth with high potential, yes you probably wont win any trophies for 2 years but in 2years time your team will be much better off financially and you will then have a bunch of players that you can build on for the next 5years as opposed to ageing mercenaries like you will probably have now. You should find that as soon as you sell a player, even if its after a closed transfer window, your board will still give you the advanced funds to enable you to buy the youth players.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD MY FRIEND :-)

Thanks Rob,

Yes, I was thinking about that. But am worried that a squad with low experience will not meet the board expectation...even with the terrible finance they want me to challenge for the title & win in Europe. That was the lowest expectation available for me when I took over.

2013-02-13 12:51#80932 Robp : you can try what i did. in my game AC Milan were £50m in debt, 3rd from bottom in the league with 10games to go, with at least 5 players earning over £100k a week and several others not far from that, whilst still in charge of Newcastle i took over on a 2nd manager profile to try and rebuild AC Milan to their former glory. I deceide to sell all the players earning over £50k a week and replace them with high potential youth players, playing them in my first team gave them plenty of game experience and only cost me around £10m and i got 6 quality youth players on next to nothing wages. Now i managed to survive relegation in the season i took over but now im about to end the season in 5th place and therefore get into Euro cup which im delighted with.

I personally say dump all your high earners and go for youth with high potential, yes you probably wont win any trophies for 2 years but in 2years time your team will be much better off financially and you will then have a bunch of players that you can build on for the next 5years as opposed to ageing mercenaries like you will probably have now. You should find that as soon as you sell a player, even if its after a closed transfer window, your board will still give you the advanced funds to enable you to buy the youth players.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD MY FRIEND :-)

Updates!

Just started season number 2. I was knocked out of Europa League in the 2nd knock out stage by Leverkusen but I managed to finish 3rd in the league which means Champions League football this season.

I have taken your advice, bought some young talent, loaned in some experienced players and sold everyone who's been paid too much, I have significantly reduced my wage expenditure yet the club's finance is still in a very bad condition. In fact, there was a takeover and I now have a new board.

My plan for season 2 is to win the treble, I wonder if that will solve my financial problems?

yeah it will (winning the treble), for winning the english premierleague i get around £30m plus then the next season you get an even bigger TV Revenue upfront, and for each win in the champs league you get around £1.7m plus other bonuses. All the bigger football clubs struggle with finances purely because of Wages (inc Bonuses) and paying stupid transfer fees for players nearing the end of their career. Keep doing what you're now doing with the younger players, in a year or twos time your finances will be awesome and then you can decide whether to start paying the fees again or not, but by that time all your awesome younger players will have matured and you wont need to spend £30m on that striker !

Interesting question, when Arsenal got relegated in one of my saves I was really tempted to take them over and bring them back to glory (instead I poached Wilshere at a ridiculously low price!).

Since I've never been in that situation I'm not 100% sure, but isn't that what the board request for being given more time to rebuild the squad is for? I always assumed it would lower the board's expectations for the season (or maybe longer), allowing you time to get finances and the team in order without being as likely to get sacked. Might be worth a try!

Thanks a lot guys, the treble solved the problem. I was given a 40m budget for season 3 but I don't need to spend it all as my squad is good as it is and ready for another treble

@JoeyRaptor, i thought the "request more time" was if your job stability rating was very low and therefore was the thing you would use to try to give you more time before you were fired for poor performance.

Personally i have never been fired for not acheriving a target set by the board. I think its more likely to happen if your reputation is low and you are a new manager that keeps underperforming where the expectation is to do a lot better.

That's kind of what I meant by "lower the board's expectations", I just didn't explain it well

Me neither, but then I always have some area in which I'm doing well (performances, transfers, wages, etc). If everything's going badly then I expect it'd be a different matter.