Stop the Drop

Some of you may have seen my "Emulating Red Bull" career, and that's still going, but... sometimes I just want to do something a bit more fun.
So, the plan here is to start a career by trying to save a team in the English Premier League from relegation and then seeing where it takes me.
I have the following leagues loaded: England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, China, Mexico, USA, Argentina and Brazil.
The plan is to holiday until the beginning of December, and then take over at the next club to sack their manager as long as they are fighting relegation (bottom 5 or so depending on the points gap). Then hopefully we'll get the january transfer window to make some changes.
I should also point out that I've started the game using the latest data update, so Paul Clement is in charge at Swansea

The premier league table on December 1st

So far, no managers have been sacked in the division this season. The 3 most insecure jobs are those at Southampton, Everton and Hull.
Lets see who goes first...

And the winner is...

Everton!
Considering some of the jobs that I could have ended up with, this feels like I've fallen on my feet. Although, as a Liverpool fan, it feels like FM just wanted to joke around with me.
Lets get this show on the road

Meet The Manager
Seeing as I'll be managing Everton, I chose not to set a favourite club. Don't want to make things harder than they will already be. I don't mind a challenge, but I do want this save to be a bit of fun, so I didn't want to start with Sunday League rep and no badges. I've settled on Professional Footballer (Local Level) and my Continental C License. Hopefully, there'll be time to improve on that.

And with that, I take charge

The First Day
My meeting with Farhad Moshiri goes well. He reminds me that the club has a philosophy to concentrate on youth, both by signing young players and developing our own. I'm happy with that.
With no assistant manager (Erwin Koeman obviously left along with his brother), I also get to meet wit Duncan Ferguson, who sends me through a team report. Basically we lack depth across the defence including goalkeeper, and we can't score goals. Our midfield depth is great though!
On top of that, a quick look at my squad shows that I may struggle to hold on to some of my best players in January. Lukaku is wanted by both Manchester clubs and Coleman by Chelsea.
On the plus side, I've got a transfer budget of £42m and a spare wage budget of £100k

The first thing I'll need to is find an assistant, so I make an approach for former Everton favourite Phil Neville. He has decent stats, a link to the club and it should help get the fans on side.

My expectations are to avoid relegation and reach the 5th round of the FA cup (They were already knocked out of the EFL cup by Bristol Rovers in round 2). Although more money was available for setting higher targets, I didn't want to make things too complicated. One step at a time.

My only unhappy player currently is Lukaku who want's to join Man City because of the wages they can offer. If they come in with a big bid, I may be tempted. He has only scored twice in 14 league games... I best be on the look out for a striker.

I see no reason to take the captaincy away from Jagielka. I do however make Ashley Williams the new vice captain.

My first team meeting starts ok. Only James McCarthy complains about wanting a higher profile manager. But the players aren't happy when I say we can avoid relegation, and even changing to a mid-table finish has them thinking I'm not optimistic enough. They seem to forget we're already 5 points adrift of safety!

The day ends with the FA Cup 3rd round draw... A trip to Arsenal! That could have been easier.

The First Match

My first match in charge is a visit to Crystal Palace. They line up with a 4312, so I give it some width as they don't have any and employ a DM to counter their AMC. Things don't go well...
We end up losing 5-1.
We have more possession and more shots, but terrible defending, goalkeeping and finishing costs us dear. There is plenty of work to do

The First Win

Thankfully, the first win came in the next game. At home, to 19th placed Hull. It was only 1-0 (even tho we had 11 shots on target), but a win's a win!
Some better performances here, especially from Man of the Match Kevin Mirallas, and an unchanged back 4 managing to restrict Hull to just a single shot on target.
I started Robles in goal here instead of Stekelenburg, but personally, I don't think either of them are up to the job. Hopefully this will be the first January signing

It's January
I've reached 1st January and I'm not bottom...

Now just 3 points off Burnley in 17th and I have them at Goodison in my next game. A real 6 pointer.

A couple of transfers have been pre-arranged.
I've let Gareth Barry leave for Sunderland (£950k) and replaced him with a transfer listed Michael Carrick (£700k). Swapping one 35 yr old for another but definitely an improvement. Also coming in Martin Caceres on a free. He's at home playing centrally or on the right of defence, and at 29 has a few years left in him. I've further strengthened the defence by bringing in Mbemba from Newcastle (£16.5m).
I don't plan on doing much more in the window. Just a goalkeeper and a striker, maybe 2 strikers if Lukaku goes. Although... Victor Lindelof is transfer listed, and I shouldn't miss out on a chance to build for the future

hopefully shouldn't be too difficult to get everton safe, there squad is too good to be down there...

I was surprised that it was the Everton job that came up. Hopefully, I'll get them safe and then build for the future. Really, I was just looking for a different team to start a fun career with

The Transfer Window Closes

I missed out on Lindelof. He decided that PSG was a better option for him. I did however manage to find a striker and goalkeeper, well, 2 goalkeepers...
My first goalkeeper signed was Predrag Rajkovic. He didn't get a work permit, but I signed him anyway and sent him out to my new feeder club Willem II. As he's not going to be available to me for a while, I also brought in Mathew Ryan on loan, as he wasn't getting game time at Valencia.
The bids for Lukaku never came, even tho I told him I'd accept a realistic bid from Man City. Chelsea did make an offer for Seamus Coleman, which I rejected. I expected him to kick up a fuss about it, but he didn't. He did however go and injure himself for 2 months!

As you can see, I also brought in a couple more loans to pad out the squad. Depay and Sturaro should prove useful.
The outs were mainly loans, although Lennon moved on, I have plenty of players that can play there and he just wasn't good enough.

January Results

We got shown up in the FA cup, but 2 wins and a draw have helped move us up to 15th in the league, although only 2 points clear of the relegation zone

February Update

We've only had one victory this month, in our last game, we beat Watford 4-1 at Vicarage Road. 3 defeats prior to this haven't helped matters and we currently sit 17th, 3 points clear of relegation.
We currently top the injury table tho with 5 players out, including Barkley, Coleman and Ashley Williams. Thankfully these are for weeks rather than months, so I won't be without them for too long.

We have a agreed a couple of transfers for players out of contract this summer. Guillermo Ochoa, will take over in goal (Until Rajkovic gets a WP), Seydou Doumbia will add some fire power up front and, even tho he's 33, Felipe Melo will still add some competition in midfield. This means come the summer, I can concentrate on signing some younger players to develop.

Sosa doesn't join until next January due to being under 18

MARCH 2017

A quiet month due to not being in any cups. Just 3 league games...

Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City though, so hardly the 3 easiest games. The Arsenal game was frustrating. Being 3-0 up at half time and just couldn't hang on. A credible draw in the derby was then followed by a great 3-0 victory over City. Pep is on the verge of getting sacked as they currently sit 9th, so this really won't have helped him.
We still sit 17th in the league, 2 points ahead of Burnley and level on points with Hull, who are above us on goal difference.

We've agreed one more signing for the summer, Andres Cubas from Boca. He's not likely to get a work permit straight away, but he's one for the future

Three good results in March, @Jon Harrod. Shame about the Arsenal collapse but a point's good away to them. Made some decent summer signings too. Good luck!

Thanks
Quick update, Man City's next game was a 2-0 defeat to United and this saw Pep get the boot. Current favourite to take over is former Villarreal boss Marcelinho.
The only other manager to be sacked so far this season is Tony Pulis at West Brom. He was replaced by Alan Pardew

Manager Update
In the end, Man City tempted Rafa Benitez away from Newcastle, even though they are well clear at the top of the Championship.
And speaking of the Championship, there's a few interesting names down there. Ryan Giggs has replaced Steve Bruce at Villa, Harry Redknapp went in at Reading and Sven-Goran Eriksson is now managing Wolves...

THE END IS NEAR
Its 1st May 2017. I have 3 league game remaining. Home to West Ham and Southampton and then finally away to Stoke.
Here's how April went

Went down to a last minute goal against Spurs after I thought we'd snatched a draw.
Lukaku got stretchered off 10 minutes into the United game and is just about to resume training.
We then picked up two vital wins against teams that are around us, meaning we are now 2 points clear of the relegation zone!

Burnley have a difficult run in (Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal), while Hull still need to play Man United. So I think one more victory will see us safe.

I'm slightly worried by the fact that the club is almost £60m in debt. Hopefully Moshiri will inject some cash to help with the running of the club, otherwise I can see a lot of players leaving and not being replaced in the summer

We did it!
Griffiths came on after 65 minutes when Lukaku picked up another injury, and he certainly impressed!
Still one match to go, full season round up coming soon

Well done! Plans for next season?

End of Season Review

2 wins out of 3 in May saw us stay up quite easily in the end.

Seeing as we were safe before the last game of the season, I used it to give a few youngsters a game. It backfired a bit, but we didn't lose any league position because of it.

Final Table

A 14th place finish is decent enough considering where we were when I took over. In the end of season team meeting, I've told them we are working towards a top half finish next year. One step at a time. All the players seem happy with this.

Awards

Baines gets the fans' player of the season. It's no great surprise with his 7.05 avg rating and 9 assists.
Mbemba actually ended up with an avg of 7.42 from the 14 games he played for us, so I'm surprised he didn't force his way into the team of the season.
Barkley is a wanted man, but only by West Ham, so I'm confident of keeping him and Lukaku isn't wanted by anyone anymore, so he should be sticking around too.
Some players are wanted though. Coleman (Chelsea), Mirallas (Swansea, Man City) and Deulofeu (Man City). Of the 3 of them, only Coleman would be a major loss.
I don't plan on making offers for any of the players I've had on loan. Ryan will be replaced by Ochoa, Sturaro by Melo.Valencia and Depay will probably need to be replaced, but that will depend on whether Mirallas and Deulofeu leave.

As far as big awards go, none of my players made it. The list is as follows:
Golden Glove - David De Gea (Man Utd)
FWA Player of Year - Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal)
Golden Boot - Jamie Vardy (Leicester)
Manager of Year - Arsene Wenger (Arsenal)
PFA Player of Year - Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal)
PFA Young Player of Year - Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool)

Seamus Coleman did come 3rd in May's Player of the Month though

Burnley and Watford both sacked their managers after being relegated.

In the FA Cup final, Chelsea beat Man City.

As far as summer spending goes, I need to sell before I can buy. I've only been given £421k to spend...

Manager Movements

I'll update on my pre-season plans shortly, but first I just wanted to mention a few manager changes that have happened at the end of the season.

Burnley hired Garry Monk to head up their Championship campaign, while Watford went for Roberto Di Matteo.
Newcastle, who won the Championship with ease, eventually hired Manuel Pellegrini. The other teams promoted were Bristol City and Play-Off winners Blackburn.
Real Madrid sacked Zidane after only finishing 3rd. Looks like their number one target is Antonio Conte.
Patrick Vieira has returned to his native France as manager of Marseille. Rudi Garcia left to go to Monchengladbach

Season Expectations

Before I agree my expectations for the upcoming season, I should explain that I have moved on 2 players already. Deulofeu put in a transfer request to force through a move to Tottenham. I got an initial £14m rising to a possible £21.5m. Also moved on is Ramiro Funes Mori. He had become my 4th choice DC and wasn't happy at his amount of play time, so he's gone to Newcastle for £8.25m (rising to a possible £9m).

The board's options range from top half finish, to qualify for Champions League. As I feel this season will be transitional, I'm just opting for the lowest expectation on each. this means I'm aiming for a top half finish and the Quarter Finals of both the FA and EFL cups.

With the money I have brought in already, this gives me a transfer budget of £21m and a spare wage budget of £110k. I also get to keep 90% of any other player sales.

Some clubs have already been busy in the transfer window. Eden Hazard has joined PSG for £74m, Roberto Firmino has joined Man City for £34.5m and Gabriel Paulista left Arsenal to head to China, joining Quanjian for £16.5m.
In slightly smaller news, Ighalo joined Hull from relegated Watford (£7m), while Cathcart also escaped relegation with a move to West Brom (£6.25m).

Planning For The Season Ahead

I've just reached 1st July 2017, so my previously arranged transfers have now arrived at the club. I can now work out what I need and who to get rid of ready for the upcoming season.

Generally, I play a 433 formation with a DM, 2 wingers and a striker. On occasion I push my DM into a CM role. I have a stand by 2 striker formation but I rarely use that.
I like to have 2 senior players and a youth prospect for every position, so 33 players in total, but a bulk of these will be under 21 when it comes to squad registration.

Positions I definitely need to sign are an AML and a couple of CMs. Yaya Toure has been released by Man City, so I'm hoping I can pick him up on a free as he still has at least one more season left in him. The only other free agent of interest is Branislav Ivanovic, who would be useful as cover at both DC and DR.

There are some interesting players transfer listed (that are out of my price range) including Oscar, Payet and Theo Walcott. Payet would make a great addition as AML and £21.5m is reasonable, but he wants to move to a bigger club, which I'm probably not and his £130k wage would be an issue.

Looking through other transfer listed players, there's a few worth scouting... lets see what happens

The Signings

In my search for a left winger, I decided to meet Diogo Jota's release clause of £9.25m, but he refused to even enter negotiations as I wasn't in the Champions League. So, I turned my attention to Federico Carrizo at Boca. As a 26 year old with no caps, I wasn't expecting him to get a work permit, but he did, and without me even needing to appeal for it.

As you can see, he's far from being World class, but at £3.1m he's definitely worth a punt.
I also made a bid for a transfer listed Adnan Januzaj, but his £72k wages proved a stumbling block.

As for my CMs, the first I picked up was Lewis Baker from Chelsea.

He needs some work before he becomes 1st choice, but he's a useful back up option. The Toure experiment looks to have failed, unless I can free up some wage budget before he goes elsewhere.

I've scanned over the 3 relegated clubs and found that Michael Keane at Burnley has an active release clause of £11m (Which isn't bad for a player valued at £14.25m), he'd become my best defender and a good replacement for the aging Jagielka. I'm tempted to try and sign him and take advantage of the interest in Jagielka from the MLS...

The Australian Training Camp

The board thought it would be good to send us all to Australia for a training camp. We were based out of Sydney for 10 days.
While we were there, we played 4 games against local teams.

Obviously the standard of opposition was poor, but it gave most of the players a chance to get match fit.
Before the season starts, I have 2 more regular friendlies and then 1 against my feeder club, Willem II. We then take part in the MLS All-Star match, before finishing our pre-season with a home glamour friendly against AC Milan. Our Premier League campaign starts with a trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea.

While is Australia, we managed to agree deals for a couple more players. However, after agreeing a loan deal with Chelsea for Marco van Ginkel, I was very disappointed when he rejected it.

I've shifted out much of the dead wood, plus James McCarthy who was only a fringe player anyway. This gave me both money to spend and some available wage budget. I've still got a couple of players that I want to shift, as well as a few players that are wanted, but I'm determined to keep hold of.
As far as signings go, Leitner is a 24 yr old, solid CM, already valued at double what I paid for him. While Michael Keane was just too much of a bargain to pass up (especially if I end up with a bad brexit!).
This means that I am now very happy defensively and will be even more so once Rajkovic finally gets a work permit.
I'm also quite happy with my strikers. Lukaku, Doumbia and Griffiths should be good enough to see the season through, although I've been offered the chance to pick up Fernando Torres on a free by his agent and if I can fit him into my 25 man squad, then I may be tempted to have him as a backup option. The only real problem I'm going to have is if Lukaku starts to kick up a fuss now that Tottenham are interested in him.
The other players that are interesting other clubs are; Barkley, Mirallas, Gueye and Robles.

My main concern with my squad is still in the middle of the park. I still have £30m available, which should be enough for a quality, young CM... The question is who?

The Jigsaw Is Complete

Yaya Toure was still a free agent, so I took him in on trial. This was mainly to see if he was actually interested more than to see if he was any good, as I had quite thorough scout reports on him. While he was on trial I approached him again and was surprised to find that he'd pretty muched halved his wage and signing on demands. This was enough for me to take a punt and makes him my 2nd best midfielder after Barkley.
My final midfield acquisition was a tough decision. I scouted many players and made numerous enquiries before finally narrowing down my choices to Max Arnold, Harry Arter, Gianelli Imbula and Johannes Geis.
All 3 were affordable both in transfer fee and wages although I decided that Arnold and Geis had wage demands which were higher than their ability dictates. So, my decision ended up being Imbula. He's of similar ability to Arter but 3 years younger.

I'm now at the stage where I no longer feel the need to bring in new faces unless I'm forced into selling members of the first team squad.

The Odds Are In

So the bookies don't rank me or my players very highly. We come in at 35-1 to win the league, with a predicted finish of 8th. Favourites are Arsenal.
Best chance of top goalscorer is, unsurprisingly, Romelu Lukaku, priced at 500-1. The favourite being Jamie Vardy.
Lukaku is also my best chance at getting top player, but for this is priced at 900-1. Alexis Sanchez is favourite here.
Ross Barkley still classes as a young player and is my best chance of winning that award. 400-1 though doesn't give him much hope! Anthony Martial just pips Marcus Rashford as favorite here.

The title challengers have all made big name signings already, so any title challenge probably is unlikely. Here's a quick breakdown...
Arsenal - Mauro Icardi (£53m rising to £80m)
Chelsea - Aymeric Laporte (£56m), Kalidou Koulibaly (£29m rising to £37.5m). As mentioned before Hazard left for PSG (£74m)
Liverpool - replaced Firmino with Mario Gotze (£35m rising to £57m). Joao Moutinho (£8.35m rising to £12.75m), Mario Mandzukic (£13.25m rising to £18.75m)
Man City - As well as Firmino, Diego Llorente (Free) and James Rodriguez (£52m)
Man Utd - Marco Verratti (£87m), Stefan de Vrij (£20m rising to 25.5m)
Tottenham - Balde Keita (£11m rising to £17.25m) plus taking Deulofeu from me.
A quick mention for Leicester who lost Riyad Mahrez to Real Madrid (£31m rising to £41m). They haven't directly replaced him, but have brought in Marco Benassi (£11.75m rising to £18.25m) and Munir (£8.75m rising to £13m)

It's going to be tough to finish above any of those teams, so maybe the bookies prediction of 8th is about right.

Pre-Season Is Over, Let Battle Commence

We finish our pre-season with a defeat, but performed well.

We should have held on to our 2 goal lead in the All-Star game. I clearly need to look at how we finish games once we have a lead.

As you can see, I decided in the end to take a punt of Fernando Torres. I just about got away with it within my squad rules, although it was enough to push my board to start complaining that I haven't signed enough young first team players. So any future signings need to be of the younger variety. I may look to bring in 1 or 2 under 21s on loan's with options to buy to sit on my bench, in an attempt to appease them.

Now that I have my squad and tactics sorted, I can look at evolving my back room staff, looking for youth and, if the club ever gets out of debt, doing some coaching badges!

The Season Starts, The Window Closes

August started and finished well for us, but we suffered a bit of a blip in the middle that saw us go out of the EFL cup.

I put out a weakened side against Bolton and was punished for it. Good wins against Chelsea and Man City, but I'm not really sure what happened against Spurs.
Melo's goal against Bournemouth won him goal of the month, it was a 30 yard screamer that went in off the underside of the bar. Meanwhile, I came 3rd in Manager of the month.
It's early days, but we currently sit 4th in the table. Hull are top having won 4 from 4, but they've not played any of the bigger teams.

As far as transfers go, I decided to use the rest of my transfer budget to bring in some under 21s, who wouldn't effect the squad registration, but should cheer up the board.

Moreira came in and although he's 21, he wasn't classed as an U21 for registration purposes. This meant I needed to move Robles on as I didn't have enough spaces for both of them. His loan at Villa comes with an option to buy.
I don't think Tarashaj is ever quite going to make it, I was tempted to sell him, but I'll give him another loan spell for now and see if he improves.
Jagielka is now well passed his best, and when an offer came in, I didn't see the point in keeping him around. Carter-Vickers will act as cover and is U21.
No bids came in for Lukaku or Barkley, this means they will be the core of my team this season and I haven't had to worry about them getting unhappy with me for rejecting offers.

I've overhauled my scouting team this pre-season, but have had less luck with my coaches. My board refuse to allow me any more. I only have 9 coaching staff, whereas I have 19 members of the scouting team. I'll leave it a few months and try the board again in an attempt to get it increased.

A quick update on other big money signings...
Man City sign Mo Salah for £36m
Man Utd sell Jesse Lingard to Milan for £26m
Divock Origi leaves Liverpool for Atletico Madrid
Barcelona sign Koke (£87m) and Mario Fernandes (£36.5m)

September Roundup


After a couple of disappointing games, I replaced Lukaku with Torres, and he proved that he was worth taking a risk on, scoring 5 goals in 2 games.
We currently sit 6th in the league, only 3 points behind Liverpool and Hull who are joint top.

Aside from Torres, Ashley Williams has been putting in solid performances at the back, with an average rating of 7.27 from 6 games. However, we have conceded 16 goals already this season, which is the second worse in the division.It's a good job we are scoring so many!

Some of my fringe players have already started complaining that they aren't playing enough, so I'm probably going to have to implement a better rotation system... Should be fun