Finding Glory - Doncaster Rovers

The first thing I've noticed as I begin to evaluate my players at Preston and develop a tactic is that my top three players, according to my assistant, are two center backs, Paul Huntington and Tom Clarke, and my keeper, Anders Lindegaard (On loan from Manchester United West Brom). I suppose this is a good thing considering we are predicted to finish 22nd in the league and a strong defense will be a necessity to survive relegation from the Championship. My tactic has begun to develop itself as a 4-2-4 which might surprise a few, but I don't expect it to play anything like that.

As you can see above (hopefully), this is what I have developed so far. This has never been tested, and it might look absolutely ridiculous for a team that is predicted to finish 22nd, but for some reason I have a good feeling about it. I'm yet to choose a mentality, even though it will be a counter attacking system, or decide on any instructions, but they will be decided before the friendly with the U-21's and will, of course, be developed throughout the preseason.

To share the image on the forum, you need to copy the link that is "Direct" to the image itself, so it ends with .png,.jpeg,etc

As much as I loathe to aid a PNE manager

As you can see above preseason has gone very well. As much as I appeared to have confidence to have in my tactic, I was actually very surprised in how well it performed. The real test was the game against MK Dons, as they are in the Championship with us. We won the game 2-0 as you can see and I was very pleased with that. In terms of performances, the best player over the preseason in my eyes was Stevie May who recorded 6 goals and 2 assists in 9 appearances.

I terms of the tactics, the formation hasn't changed at all and I have developed it into a counter attacking system.



It appears to be working fairly well but we will have to wait and see as it's real test will be in these first few league games

I have made very few transfers as I can't see where I could improve this team at this time. When I say few I mean only the 1 transfer.

Luke Ayling was brought in as a replacement for Vermijl who, I noticed, was at fault for many of our goals conceded. He allowed far too much space between himself and Huntington at the RCB position. I ended up paying $2m (£1.51m) for him, and despite the expensive fee, I am very happy with the transfer. It did take up, basically, Preston's entire transfer budget, but that isn't all that bad considering I have nothing else to spend it on anyway.

Our first league test comes up against Middlesbrough who will certainly be a challenge, but I have faith in my new tactic and am optimistic. Hear is the schedule of games approaching in the near future.


Last of all, I'd like to thank Suffolk Seasider for his help on how to insert images into this story. I'm new to this, so if anyone has any suggestions feel few to comment on this story.

Michael Patterson
Manager, Preston North End

My time as Preston manager is now officially underway as we begin our quest to stay up in the Championship and, as you can see below, we have gotten off the a good start in terms of the league.

The only real disappointment is the game against Northampton, as we crashed out of the Capital One Cup in the first round but I will analyze that game shortly.

First up is the game against Middlesbrough, and the first of our league campaign. This was a bad way to get the season started, especially in front of seventeen thousand Preston faithful at Deepdale. We were never really in this game but, by some miracle, actually managed to take the lead trough our star striker, Stevie May. Middlesbrough then proceed to smash two screamers by us. They also pounced on a lapse in concentration by our defense, most likely caused by a lack of belief in their abilities after the two wonder goals. Overall I wasn't too concerned though, on another day it could have easily been a draw or better.

On the other hand, this is when I really did get concerned. It was like we didn't even show up to this game. I played nearly the same lineup from the last game only two days prior, which may have been the problem. The players played like they were absolutely exhausted, which they definitely were at the end of the game. The thing is, we really did dominate but just couldn't finish our chances. From what I remember, Stevie May had plenty of chances and could have potentially won us the game with two simple finishes. The board was not very pleased by the result either, with their confidence plunging in me just two competitive games in.

It's hard to say that the referee didn't influence this game with The Dons getting two men sent off. I've just checked though, and the FM claims the ref's rating was a 7.6, so they were, most likely, justified red cards. The two reds really seemed to distract everyone from how well we actually performed. We managed to net two goals on the day and won the game quite comfortably. MK did have a lot of shots but none of them really threatened the goal. This result shot us up the table as well.

Funny enough the exact same ref from the last game was the referee here and, one again, gave a red card in favor of us. He does quite like his yellow card, this Carl Berry guy. Anyway, this performance, despite not losing, was not really all that impressive considering Rotherham are predicted to finish one spot below us in 22nd. We really should have won the game but Bailey Wright decided to clear the ball of Daniel Johnson, who had just passed it to him, and basically played a defense splitting through ball to Joe Newell who did not fail on the finish.

I was happy with the result in the game because we got absolutely smashed. In typical fashion we managed to score first through Adam Reach. Unfortunately Ipswich responded almost immediately with last year's top scorer, Daryl Murphy, getting the goal. In the situation, as you can see, the counter attacking system worked wonders.

I was trilled with this result because, at the time, Hull were top of the league, and they were unbeaten as well. They were able to keep their unbeaten streak but we did what we needed to and held on to a draw in the match. There isn't a whole lot more to say there.

I did forget to mention these two signings last time, they were both signed on a free from the trial day.

Abdul Razak is a great backup to John Welsh as a ball winning midfielder in the center and I see him as a long term replacement to the thirty one year old. He has insane stamina meaning he can run up and down the pitch as much as he like.

Ian McLoughlin is a promising young goalkeeper and might even end up in the squad next year. Lindegaard is great and all but appears to not be able to hold on to the ball. Because of this I might not renew his loan next season of attempt to sign him.
At this time, my main target for next season is to permanently sign Adam Reach because he has been playing very good and is very composed in the finish.




Michael Patterson
Manager, Preston North End

Well... that was really bad.

We are currently on a run of sever, YES SEVEN, matches without a win. You will see why soon here.


Derby are a good side in the Championship and after 56 minutes I thought a draw would be a good result. Unfortunately, Chris Martin showed up a ruined the party. On a positive, Stevie May was back on the score sheet and I felt that we were unlucky to lose the game.

This game was more my fault than the player because I tried to play an attacking tactic as opposed to our normal counter attacking tactic. Bristol City scored early on and we were never able to make up for it. This game was incredibly important being a relegation six pointer and we failed to pick up any points on the day.

I wasn't expecting anything out of this game at all, but when we scored first, as usual, I thought we might be on to something. Then, Brentford came in a very quickly squashed our dreams. Eoin Doyle's wonder goal did certainly lighten the mood though.

We had the lead in this game twice, TWICE, and lost it both times. That's all I have to say about that one.





If anyone has any ideas of why this isn't working, please feel free to mention them. If anyone has any suggestions for the career go ahead and mention them as well (I'm new to this).

Just noticed after finishing this update, this may be a problem.

Might want to examine Mr. Cunningham at left back...

Michael Patterson
Manager, Preston North End

A Lucas Joao hat trick and two Alex Lopez screamers later this is the result. Funny enough we held the lead twice in this game before folding late. I'm not sure if this is down to my tactic or the mentality of the players. I attempted player Calum Woods at Left Back instead of Greg Cunningham as he seemed to be a possible cause of our issues and, clearly, it dodn't work too well. This proves the legitimacy of the screamers well:

To make things worse this popped up after the game:

I told them that the players let us down on the day, as they did, and the Preston board members seemed to agree with my stance on the issue after the 6-2 defeat the Sheffield Wednesday.

In the next game we took on Cardiff at Deepdale. At the time Cardiff were 18th and we really needed something from this game. After their first goal I switch to a 4-3-3 and we look better after that a probably deserved to win the game. But, of course, they scored a complete fluke of a goal to take the lead in the 69th minute.

We stuck with the 4-3-3 in this game and showed signs of improvement. Unfortunately me us, Reza Ghoochannejhad (nice name) scored a ridiculous volley off of a fairly good headed clearance. If Stevie May was able to stay on the pitch for the entire game (gashed head) we probably could have won or, at least, drawn the game.

I think this may have just saved my job for the time being. The new 4-3-3 worked wonders for us today and I think I may just have ti stick with it. Hopefully the players can kick on from this and we can finally find some good form. Before this result, we had gone 10 matches without winning a game.

This was a very good game for us. At the time Bolton were 4th in the league. The goal they scored was a bit crap as well considering Wellington Silva scored off of a header, he's only 5' 7". I feel as if we should have won the game but the defense just didn't quite hold up.



As you've seen above, the tactic has changed into a 4-3-3 and appears to be working well so far. We still have a counter attacking mentality. There is just the two instructions now of being more disciplined and adopting a higher tempo.



Michael Patterson
Manager, Preston North End

Under a bit of pressure mate, let's hope you can turn it around.

Yeah... It really hasn't been going that well. I did just accidentally play a game in December and you WILL want to wait and see that. (Hint Hint)

Not the best start to the month. We were very unlucky in this game as Stevie May had chances that he would typically put away. It was just a really bad day in front of goal for everyone.

This will help a lot, maybe he'll show a bit more composure in front of goal now too.

This game was really, really stupid. I was up 2-0 at the half until my computer decided to restart. I do everything exactly the same and lose 2-1. To make things better Stevie May missed this:






I can't actually show you this because of the fact that I accidentally played an extra game but, rest assured, we are still bottom.

Michael Patterson
Manager, Preston North End

Can it last much longer?

Need to find something soon or that door will be shut behind you

I took us long enough. That's only our 3rd win this season and I hope that more are to follow. It was even better considering Bunley is a fierce local rival apparently (still American)



Even after the win in the previous game this proved the be the end.

I ended up resigning during a meeting after the game as the board didn't really want me around anyway. Let me know if you want me to continue this story with a team who actually know how to kick a ball around.

Michael Patterson
An unemployed Manager who isn't very good at this

I've landed a job at Doncaster in League 1. This club is a mess at the moment despite sitting mid table currently. The finances are a mess as the club is nearly £12m in debt (I've changed my currency for realism purposes and to upload seasons). The main problem, relating the the finances, is that Doncaster have a very old squad. With age comes the demands for more money as "experiences is valuable." Experience can be very valuable but when 7 of the 23 players in the squad are 30 or over, I see that as a problem, especially with the financial situation of the club. For example, James Coppringer, at the age of 34, is earning £5,000 a week, £1,300 more than any other player. At this club, in this financial state, we just can't pay a player £260,000 a year. Of course, there's not a whole lot I can do about it now. The best thing I can do for the club is to win games.

In the first game we did exactly that with a great 3-0 win over Burton. Burton won't be the most difficult team we have to face throughout the rest of the season but they're not bad so this result is very encouraging.

It was very unfortunate that we lost this game as Scunthorpe scored at the death through David Mirfin. We were by far the better team and just didn't take our chances.

The blame for this one can go mostly on me. I didn't react to their first goal when I could have changed our system tactically to prevent the other goal or to go down a equalize.





Michael Patterson
Manager, Doncaster Rovers

I'd call that a pretty good month if I don't say so myself.

I held off mentioning my tactic to evaluate its performance and it appears to be fairly solid.



Considering the team's immense physical abilities a defensive tactic seemed to be the best approach. So far it appears to be working the way it is intended. I also have it in an attacking version but, it is still largely unproven as we've lost the two games in which we used it.


Defense first, attack second...



There were absolutely zero highlights in this game, just how I wanted it.



This game was one of those where we actually played very well but Walsall just got one goal off of a deflected cross. It really should have been a draw or better.


During the five games this month we've collected an impressive ten points. I'd call that a good start.



I know this will matter to one particular reader:

Oyston is still there by the way

Michael Patterson
Manager, Doncaster Rovers

Donny Rovers, much better team to manage! Seems to be going better for you as well

Hah, it makes no odds who they sack whilst they're still there.

Solid month, nothing great but solid.


We've signed Jake Hesketh on loan from Southampton on deadline day. He will, most likely replace Coppinger in the starting lineup as he is not natural in an attacking midfield position.



This was a great win against local rivals, Scunthorpe. We were given a very weak penalty in the 47th minute but, we did score form open play through Curtis Main late in the game.





Backup keeper wanted to play. You'd think if he wanted a spot he'd actually try and play for it.








Yeah... It's bad


The "Finding Glory Derby" coming up and the end of the month

Michael Patterson
Manager, Doncaster Rovers