Singaporeans In Valencia

As you would know, Valencia CF is one of Spain's great footballing institutions, with their La Liga win under Rafael Benitez, their regular forays in European competition, and the likes of Pablo Aimar, David Silva, David Villa and Isco having played for the club.
However, due to some terrible mismanagement from the board and the financial crisis it has seen the club buried in loads of debts - debts that they wouldn't be expected to pay off.
And with an old stadium they couldn't sell and a new ground they couldn't afford to finish building, these were hard times for Los Che.

Well, imagine their surprise when someone stepped in and offered to solve all their problems:



(I couldn't find a picture of him that wasn't unflattering, but when you're as loaded as him you won't really care)

A former stockbroker, Peter Lim eventually became one of Singapore's richest men, and his passion in football led him to make bids for some of the biggest clubs in the world - Liverpool (despite being a self-confessed Red Devil), and Valencia.
It was with the latter that he would make his mark in world football, and marked Singapore's biggest contribution (well only contribution, actually) on the global stage.

And who would be taking charge of this revitalised team?



Quah Kim Song is widely regarded to be one of Singapore's best footballers, a decent striker in his own right during the 70s.
Making his European managerial debut at the ege of 62 might be slightly late for some, but hey, if you're good enough, who cares?

Good luck with valecia mate.Loving the OP.

Brilliant OP! Another exciting challenge of yours

Great challenge, I'm sure you'll bring them some success! Good luck

Thanks guys, hope I can this to work

(And a bit of backstory here - I've not been playing top-level sides for a long time now (last time I did was nearly getting Arsenal relegated and actually doing so with Watford back in FM07), since then it's been LLMs and Journeyman carriers. Fingers crossed this turn out better.)

(A shoutout to ArcheonDaniels as well, for his Transfer Update DB, which was AFAIK the only one which would let me start from the 14/15 season.)





Mr. Lim's not around apparently, so it's Señor Salvo who has given me the lowdown on the club.
Not liking the part about signing high profile signings though, given my biggest profile signing was Peter Crouch for 25 million - I'm not a very ambitious man.



They're quite good aren't they?



You'll see that there's a large number of future transfers, both in and out, so it's currently virtually impossible to give a proper appraisal of the team at this point in time.

What I can do, however, is take a look at my staff:



Yeah he's useless, so:



Ouch.
However, it does allow me to promote a club legend:



Yes, that Ruben Baraja, ex-long serving Valencia midfielder and Spain international, who was previously working as the U19s manager.
It's better to keep continuity at the club, so promotion in-house was the direction taken.

I'm also slightly jarred at the fact that my HoYD is a newgen, but I'll give him the chance to prove himself before I wield the axe on him.

Anyway, after a bit of time at the club the board offered me to voice any issues with the philosophies. Needing to sign high-profile players was a problem for me so I'd obviously mentioned that, as well as allowing me to develop our own players - here's how it concluded:



Rocky start, this.

Your head of youth development looks to be better as a scout I reckon.Always thought baraja was a legend myself.David albelda still hanging around too?

I'd agree with Martinez, but he's got his sights on the HoYD job only, so not much hope there.

Funny you mentioned Albelda too, I was looking to reunite him with Baraja (in a frankly under-appreciated midfield partnership) on the coaching front.



Too bad he's complete rubbish.

That is a shame.They were a class act together them 2.

Preseason, Transfers & The Team

Been a busy transfer window, this:



Most of the deals were already set in stone before I arrived, but I did make 3 signings:

Sakai was my big-name arrival this summer, a very exciting wingback from Stuttgart.
He's from Japan too, which meant that:



BINGO, I'm glad the board was with me on this.

I'm pretty sure Gabriel wasn't my best option as well, but all things considering (and having already thrown a lot of cash around) he should prove to be a workable budget option.
No fuss on the next one, ex-Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia will be around as a backup to Diego Alves.

Of the Outs... Pereira was 1st out upon the signing of Sakai, sad to see him go but with a year left on his deal sentimentality was more of a stumbling block here.
Liverpool Legend Antonio Barragan was out shortly after, he was worse than Pereira and I got him out on loan only because no one wanted to get him permanently.
Domenech was a horrid 3rd choice GK, while de Paul - while being decent enough - was taking up a foreign slot and was shipped out in next to no time.

So this'll be the bulk of our squad (bar Spurs favourite Helder Postiga and Jonas) that'll be playing this season:



3 names almost instantly stand out:



The star of the team, he returns to Spain after a year in England where he ended up as 4th choice.
It's hard to see that happening here, he's an instant starter here and it's good to know we've got him locked down for the next couple of seasons.



Always a wanted man by Europe's top clubs, that he has moved to Valencia is a massive boost.
Will be paired with Shkrodan Mustafi, who must be infuriating David Moyes right now having seen his rise to prominence.



One of the best stoppers in Spain for a number of years now, having outlasted Guaita he'll have the No.1 jersey for keeps for the foreseeable future.

Onto preseason:



We beat sides we should be beating, conceded late against Alcoyano, and were comprehensively outplayed by Fiorentina - not a good sign.
Yang Xu was a trialist forward from Guangzhou, a poor man's Negredo, and I'd have signed him (for the Sakai effect in China) had we not already maxed our foreign quota.
He was on decent form too, 1 goal and 5 assists in 1 start and 1 sub appearance.

Rossi also tore his hamstring 6 minutes into the Fiorentina match, can't catch a break that guy.

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This is Europa League qualification here, so it looks an attainable goal for us to build on.



14-1 isn't exactly title-winning odds....
Also, apologies for not having Eibar on here, no idea what went on there.

decent looking squad mate.had a good pre season too.

August 2014

A relatively surprising opening day win against Atleti, less so was both defences being better than their forwards judging by the scoreline.



Quite the opposite here, setpiece defending practice not put to use.
Negredo hasn't been performing in either match too, might need to work on his role.



I gave Barca far, far too much respect here - setting up to play on the counter while sitting deep, we never managed to relieve the pressure and they just kept coming.
Probably should've gone toe-to-toe from the start, at least to make their lives harder.



4 points from 2 of last season's top 3 and Sociedad could be argued as decent, though if we're going to finish in a European spot then we'll have to aim higher.

I've also made some signings:



Ins:

Well who else, but the legend that is Emile Heskey! His first stop at Spain at 36, he's backup to Negredo in the burly targetman role uptop.
Pareiko is a very inexpensive 3rd choice GK, even more so on loan.
Hoffmann is primarily a destroyer, and is able to use those skills across the defence or in midfield.

Of the Outs, the only significant one was Guardado. I"m still in two minds on whether I should have sold him, because in truth he's a very good attacker.
The case against him is that the same can't really be said for his defending.
Still he was 1st choice, but will now have his role occupied by Lucas Orban.

This then, is our final squad (for the next 5 or so months anyway):



I'm still not really impressed by this set, don't think I've fully strengthened in the transfer window.

September 2014

Awful finishing from both sides, we and Villareal had 9 and 14 shots respectively, but only got 2 and 4 of them on target.



Even worse here, 1 of 14 for us.
Fortunately we made this one count.

Diego Alves won the MoM award for both matches, shows you how much he's had to do when we're unable to relieve the pressure.



Okay, Pros:
-Negredo finally scored his 1st goal for Valencia, been a long time coming;
-Piatti also made his 1st appearance off the bench since returning from injury, and also broke his seasonal duck;
-and the 1st time we scored 3 in a match this season.

Cons:
Conceding 3, thrice losing leads, and the 2nd worst defensive performance so far.

All in all, not good.



Well it got worse.
Rodrigo in particular was terrible, he got himself into a number of promising positions but some truly diabolical finishing meant that it all came to nought.



Too many draws not converted to wins, mainly due to our ineffective finishing.
I should also add that Sakai didn't play a minute of this month due to being away for the Asian games, and he's just come back with strained knee ligaments which looks set to keep him out till December - last thing we needed really.

October 2014

Getting real sick of these goalless draws, in this sort of situations we've got the defence right on cue, but the attack completely missing.



Well here's an alternative.
And yes, that's 37-year old ex-Chelsea 'prospect' Jiri Jarosik fucking scoring the equaliser.



My head would've rolled if we lost this - Levante might be shit but this is a Valencian derby nonetheless.
Well we won, but our attack was so toothless you'd be better off trying to argue whether Heskey (who -fun fact - made his debut in this game) was worse than Negredo.
(The question's harder than you think, judging by the latter's performances so far.)



All 3 goals conceded were setpieces, not ideal.
And we actually turned up for this, and Negredo even had a goal chalked off for offside - if only we did this to lesser sides as well.
Oh and Zuculini is a moron.



5 points from an EL spot, we need to start scoring pronto.



Alternatively, we can try to win the Copa del Rey.
Not that I think we can, in fact we'll probably lose the Granada here.

At least we start November with some good news:



That's around 40 million pounds apparently, so all I need to do is to hang on to the job till January to use the cash.

Not the best start, but if you can get Negredo scoring, you can make it til January and use some of that cash.

Good luck and keep it up!

Ahahahaha, 'if' mate, 'if'...

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A cracker of a match, wasn't nice to sit through, but no matter as we win anyway.
Also, our 187cm leftback Lucas Orban was outjumped by Gerard Deulofeu for his 2 goals - baffling.



Oh look, back to square one with another turgid draw.



Fucking hell, this has got to be a nadir, because if it gets any worse I'm going to be sacked.
Being completely outfought at home too - there are problems that need solving, fast.



Well whaddaya know - one of our best performances this season, with both attack and defence working well.
But even in this good result we must still have problems - Gabriel with his 2nd dismissal of the season, and since this one was a violent hack, leads him to a 3 match ban. I've half a mind to cut short his loan in January if I can find a replacement.



I'm amazed that I haven't been sacked yet, but if we can use the Malaga match as a springboard that then the only way is up for here on in.
Again, 'if'.

'If' is the key here. Make a good use of it.

December 2014

We started off the month with the Cope del Rey 4th Round, where there were 2 legs:



A shocking 1st half display, as we were comprehensively outplayed again.
A tweak to a less expressive system paid dividends as we did well to come back with 3 away goals.



Maybe a more solid style of play was what we should have been doing - the team fnanlly getting into its groove with a great win over Bilbao.



Way to bring us back down to earth, guys.
On hindsight I should never have played my 2nd-choice fullbacks, Al Arabi had a blast toying with our LB on that right-side channel.



At least we ended 2014 with another win, Negredo finally exploding to life.



Managed a couple of beauties in said match as well, well done.



Incredibly we now find ourselves in the European spots, Not too bad considering we were in the bottom half of the table only a few matchdays ago.

... Except that wasn't the end of it, I then organised a couple of friendlies:



Suffice it to say we were horrible.

Now for off-the-pitch matters:



Extremely surprising, considering he was pencilled in for the B Team at the start of the season and was only included here after I'd realised that he was our 2nd best RB.



Big money, very big, but it might just be worth it.
Obiang's meant to be Javi Fuego's long-term successor, and with age on his side he might even go for a big profit.



It also spells the end for Gabriel here, he was a budget option with budget performances, and with a foreign slot on his back he probably had to be culled.

January 2015

22 shots and no goals, Negredo showing the profligate side of his game here, some awful attempts at scoring on show.



Gave him a proper scolding, so he reacts by getting himself injured.
This meant that I now have no (proper) strikers (Heskey's effectively a flop by this point) so I played a 4-6-0 for the next game:



Didn't work, and we were thoroughly embarrassed -not much else to say really.



Way to kick a man when he's down, Mario.

Not a good way to start the month to say the least, and no doubt the board took notice:



Yeah, basically 4 wins from the next 5 games.
Who will we face next? Barca.



HA! Piss off, haters, we've nicked a point of Barcelona!
We did get a very dodgy penalty, but I'll take it any day.



Oh.
Negredo was hopeless up front, well our attack was poor as a whole, and our defence... It doesn't really mattter now does it?

Oh right, and:





A deserved sacking really, a comical inability to improve the squad properly (HESKEY) and a sheer lack of goals would not do justice to a club of Valencia's standing.



26 goals in 22 leagues speaks for itself really, hopeless.

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Oh well, I had plans for this career here, but it blew up in my face even before things could get going.
Back to trying not to get sacked in Saint Kitts and Nevis then/.