[FM24] Tefana to the Top

AS Tefana: Tefana to the Top

Back in 2021 in the height of COVID-19, the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) postponed their OFC Champions League. This meant that there the OFC representation for the FIFA Club World Cup would be down to sporting merit and decision making. Naturally, the OFC voted that Auckland City would be the representation for the continent.

Auckand City FC are the most decorated club in Oceania and it was most logical that they would be the candidate for the upcoming Club World Cup. However, New Zealand COVID-19 laws meant that the team would not be able to compete due to isolation laws. With that, the OFC had to go back to the drawing board and it was this decision that put the island of Tahiti on the world map; they decided to extend the invitation out to AS Pirae of Tahiti to represent.

Unfortunately for AS Pirae, they lost a number of players before the tournament due to positive test results for COVID-19 and they ultimately lost their first round match against Al-Jazira 4-1. It was not to be for the Tahitian side, but it was the start of a dream for the island. 

Could it be done again?

When you begin to research football in Tahiti, there are a couple of observations:

• AS Central Sport are the record holders for most league titles with 21 trophies, AS Pirae are second with 12.
  • The capital city of Papeete has been home to 47 league title wins from 8 different clubs since 1948.
• AS Pirae are the only side from Tahiti to reach the final of the OFC Champions League (OCL); they lost 3-1 to Auckland City in 2006 and 4-0 in 2024.
• Tahiti sit 153rd in the world rankings; most recently beating Samoa and Vanuatu 2-0 and 3-0 respectively.
  • They are actually ranked higher than Malta and Andorra for reference.

With what seems a clear two dominating the football scene in Tahiti, it would seem logical to go one of these clubs and look to build. But there is no challenge to be had there. So lets take it down a peg...

Just over 6km to the west of Papeete lies the commune of Fa'a'a, and the home to the club I will be looking to build with. They are deemed one of the strongest clubs in Tahiti in recent times, but there is still a bit of competition to be had with AS Pirae, AS Punaruu and AS Venus. 

AS Tefana is the chosen club for this save as I look to develop not only the club but the reputation of the island as a whole. Despite being one of the most beautiful islands in the world, their football infrastructure is extremely limited to the point that the football league itself is Semi-Professional; imagine the smell after a long day of working on the harbour and then having to train straight afterwards!

Whilst AS Tefana are one of the stronger clubs on the island, they have only won the title 6 times so there is room to grow from within and develop further to become the island's leading contender in the OCL. And with this in mind, I have clear objectives with the club:

• Local Dominance
  • It is deemed that winning the league itself should be straight-forward. However, I am not just satisfied with this notion. I want AS Tefana to become the island's leading dominant force and consistent representation in the OCL.
  • Whilst winning the league year-on-year could be deemed as being dominant, there is much more to consider and that is the youth academy. The club needs to have the leading youth academy on the island and this will in turn, push to help our exploits on the Oceanic stage.
• Cracking the OFC Champions League
  • This is where the real war begins as we look to overthrow Auckland City (11 times winners) whilst also laying down the gauntlet to other New Zealand sides such as Team Wellington and Waitakere United, whilst also being wary of new boys Wellington Olympic who won the 2023 New Zealand Championship.
  • Whilst New Zealand clubs are the most dangerous, it would be rude to ignore football in Fiji, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia - three other countries that are just ahead of Tahiti in the FIFA World Rankings.
• The Road to the Club World Cup
  • Perhaps one of the hardest things to achieve; qualifying for the Club World Cup. In order to do so there are two simple steps for this to be possible:
    • Winning the Tahiti Ligue 1
    • Winning the OFC Champions League.
  • Once we have won the OFC Champions League, we then enter the newly reformed Club World Cup's knockout stages.
    • First Round - Winners of host nation's national league V OFC Champions League Winners
    • Quarter-Finals - Winner of this tie will go into a round that consists of the African, AFC and CONCACAF Champions League winners.
    • Semi-Finals - UEFA Champions League and Copa Libertadores Winners are introduced at this stage.
    • Final

Sure, its a crazy old journey. But this crazy old journey is exactly whats needed to fall back in love with FM24. Especially until we hear news of the next instalment...

Name - Teva Marama

Age - 34

Previous Experience - Former Tahiti international. Former youth coach for AS Tefana.

Coaching Badge - National A.

Playing Style - Possession-based.

Philosophy - Develop homegrown talent.

Teva Marama will be the protagonist for this adventure as we look to brush shoulders with the greatest clubs in the world on the big stage.

Once a promising midfielder for AS Tefana themselves, a serious knee injury forced Teva’s hand into retirement at the age of 28. Whilst Teva had opportunities to leave Tahiti and work abroad, he refused the opportunities to stay on his home island and help AS Tefana develop the next generation of footballers.

After witnessing AS Pirae compete at the FIFA Club World Cup, Teva found a new source of motivation to get more involved with the game; as a manager. With his aspirations set, the door of opportunity presented itself when AS Tefana announced the departure of their manager. Eager to impress, Teva applied for the job immediately and was granted his chance.

Teva dreams of taking AS Tefana to the world stage.

Inspired by the great Barcelona side during the 2010s, Teva’s style of play is based on that of the Catalan giants. He demands his side to be fluid in the attack whilst looking to control games from start to finish. In order for his team to do so, he felt that this would be the best approach for the short-term:

The idea was simple. The deep lying playmaker will dictate the play and tempo from a deep position, allowing his two midfielders to push forward and support the attack. The wingers are tasked with creating chances for the lone runner and doing the selfless supporting runs to free up more room.

With a high press demanded, Teva’s vision was to move the ball quickly from side to side in order to tire out the opposition, forcing them into mistakes that can be capitalised on. Now this requires high fitness levels from AS Tefana themselves, and a fitness coach was at the top of Teva’s priority list.

When the need arises, Teva is willing to sacrifice the pure attacking edge to his team for a more structured and defensive look to the side. This was more looking toward the future when OFC Champions League games are a thing, but with both wingers tucking back one, they will still have the ability to support the lone striker alone with one of the two central midfielders.

Good solid start, let's see how far this goes.

Great Manager Storie, awaiting for more…

Love saves with random nations / clubs like this. Following.

Thank you @HockeyBhoy, @lorek007 & @bigmattb28 for the kind words. Glad to have you on-board for this journey! I have to admit that I have been finding game-time difficult to come across recently. I've recently moved into a new property with my partner, and whilst the house is not habitable just now, most of my set-up is at the property whilst we live elsewhere for the time being. Will drip feed some updates into here for the time being, but hoping to be back at it properly in the next couple of weeks - social plans and life just come at you too quick!

Unfortunately the database is slightly inaccurate in the fact that they class Tahiti Ligue 1 as a straight league system. IRL, the league goes into a Champions Playoff where the winner qualifies for the OFC Champions League.

Therefore, in 2006/07 season, AS Tefana won the league stage but lost in the first round of the playoffs, so their count of 7 in game is factually incorrect. The second post of this thread is accurate. The above graphic is a direct comparison with AS Pirae to show that the competition is extremely healthy in the league, but that AS Tefana have got a corner to turn under new management.

Brief Squad Overview

I am never against referring to the assistant’s rating of a player’s ability when starting out at a new club. I don’t tend to rely on them thereafter, but I still hold the opinion that it carries some worth.

François Hapipi

Hapipi is deemed as the best player at the club, and with the early experience in Croatia and France, he should absolutely stroll through the league campaign. With it being a semi-pro contract, I reckon we will struggle to fend off attention.

Tehotu Louis Gitton

Gitton is dubbed to be the brightest talent at the club, and it’s clear to see why. A bonus to pinch him off AS Pirae, this creative midfielder should be key to any success we want to have in the near future.

First up for us in this season is the Coupe des Champions match against our rivals AS Pirae. We will be without 9 senior players as they are away on international duty with Tahiti for the Pacific Games, our opponents are without 5. Not the ideal start to the season, but this could be the massive boost of confidence we need going into a new season.

Since starting the save, I have reverted back to using the Iconic skin by Mustermann to add an additional layer of difficulty to the save. Updates from January onwards will include screenshots from this skin as opposed to an attribute skin, but if there are any questions surrounding the detail within these updates please let me know!

The opening weeks of life in Tahiti was certainly an eye-opener. Despite it being semi-professional football, games occur every 3-4 days, so managing squad fitness is a huge consideration with each passing week.

Our quality in depth is not there as of yet, so this then makes it trickier to manage. Sometimes making 1 or 2 substitutes has a far larger impact than 4 or 5 and losing quality throughout the pitch.

Until we get our first youth intake through the door, if we have games during international periods then we will be relying on the created players for that match-day. Far from ideal, but it is needed at this level. 

From the last post, I had mentioned that nine of our players would be missing for the Coupe des Champions match against AS Pirae.

I had to rely on four of those players; two starting at goalkeeper and central defence.

Despite the clear lack of high quality chances, we were absolutely lethal with the chances we did have on goal whilst having the lion’s share of the ball. A massive start to our domestic campaign and an early trophy into the cabinet.

With one trophy in the bag, it was time to move onto league business, and we had a tough opening month with games against AS Dragon (x2), AS Punaruu, AS Venus & AS Central Sport.

A solid undefeated start to the league campaign, shipping only 4 goals and scoring 16; our attacking threat is certainly showing promise.

Our stellar start to the campaign has us out in front by 3 points which bodes well for the season:

Life in Tahiti is bliss!

Love this dude I just got a laptop to have the full version finally so I started in ofc pentagon style journeyman too and started in Vanuatu. 

Thanks for the kind words! 

Vanuatu brings back glorious memories, always got a gig out there when starting out as unemployed. Really enjoying the change in quality out in Oceania, hope you enjoy it too!

With another segment of games coming thick and fast, this would be a real test of character and team spirit as we come up against AS Pirae, AS Venus and AS Central Sport during this period and entering the domestic cup at the second round. We also found out about our OFC Champions League group draw during this update. 

A sign that the Barcelona-esque system is working well against island opposition with areas to be worked on and improved upon. Drilling down into goals, both for and against, I found the following:

• 54 goals scored in 18 games - averaging 3 a game.
  • Over-performance on our xG by 4 (49.2).
• 13 goals conceded in 18 games - averaging 0.72 a game.
  • Under-performance on our xGA by 2 (10.9)

Whilst delighted with the attacking performance of the side, I am concerned about the defensive side in our game. Whilst we are joint top for least conceded, we have conceded only 1 goal from a set-piece all season. We have allowed 87 shots on our goal (36 on target) so far in the campaign, which is averaging out to 4.83 shots (2 on target) per game, and it is a concern to see teams taking these chances when they come along. 

Naturally, with the level of ability in this league, there will be mistakes that will be punished. Manatini Sienne (21-year-old central defender) has had two mistakes that lead to goals: Avearii Bennett (24-year-old right-back) and François Mu (28-year-old winger), both of whom have been responsible for one mistake each.

So, with five goals accounted for, the remaining eight have all come from open play. But where? Unfortunately, due to a lack of data analysts, I don't have access to the report to quick show this, but I am determined to figure this out!

• AS Dragon 1-1 MD1 - 84th Minute.
  • Ball over the top from the middle of the park.
• AS Punaruu 4-1 MD2 - 51st Minute.
  • Our left side of the park. 1-2 throw in and cross to far post. Out-jumped RB (5'7").
• AS Dragon 2-2 MD4 - 7th & 64th Minutes.
  • Ball slipped in between right-back and centre-back.
  • Penalty.
• AS Olympic Mahina 5-2 MD8 - 84th & 93rd Minutes.
  • Corner and Teriinohopuatierai (GK) fumbled it into the path of their CB. Tap-in.
  • Our right side of the park. 1-2 from a throw-in and crossed to the far post. Out-jumped LCB (6'4").
• AS Pirae 2-1 MD10 - 72nd Minute.
  • Unchallenged cross to the front post and got across Hapipi.
• AS Pueu 4-1 MD11 - 62 Minute.
  • Free header from a deep cross to the back post.
• AS Taiarapu 3-2 MD14 - 3rd & 68th Minutes.
  • Bennett mistake. Intercepted pass and finish from distance.
  • Winger drives to the by-line and cuts back.
• AS Papenoo 5-2 MD16 - 57th and 67th Minutes.
  • Long ball over RB head and slots home.
  • Mistake from Sienne - intercepted pass within the box.
• AS Central Sport 3-1 MD18 - 44th Minute.
  • Penalty.

Not too sure when the Mu error comes into matters; however, there tends to be a common theme happening. We have conceded twice from long balls over the top, and the others have been from crosses. Unfortunately, you cannot plan for a player under six feet to be out-jumped, but we can make precautions. 

Dropped defensive line from "Much Higher" to "Higher".

Introduce "Stop Crosses" instruction.

I am intrigued to see what difference this will make for the second half of the season, but as things stand, we are sitting very pretty at the top of the league:

OFC Champions League

Well, to be the best, you need to beat the best. Holders Auckland City are drawn alongside us in the group stages, which is a huge blow compared to the other groups. We know that this will be a mighty difficult game, but what of the other two?

ABM Galaxy:

• Vanuatu representation.
• 2 time league champions - Tafea are the record holders with 16.
  • 2 times runner up, 2 times finished 3rd.
• Similar reputation to AS Tefana.

Ne Drehu:

• New Caledonia representation.
• No major honours won.
  • Runners up the last two seasons.
• One of the lowest reputations in the competition.

We will play each team once, and the top two go through to the Quarter Finals. Now, it would mean, should we qualify, then we would avoid Auckland City in this round, which could be big for the club. However, we would be foolish to underestimate the other clubs in the competition. 

By the end of February, we had played two out of three games, and our fate was in our hands.

We were probably aided by the fact that ABM Galaxy are currently in their pre-season with the Vanuatu league kicking off in March, but we still had to get the job done to secure three points in the opening game of the group. Disappointing to give two goals away; the first was from another long ball, but with a recent tweak, I was not expecting the issue to be ironed out completely. The second was a bit of pinball outside our box before a thunderous effort beat Teamotuaitau in net. 

Some work is to be done in terms of the 4-1-4-1 formation as we were too passive over the 90 minutes. I tried to make slight tweaks to the system without directly touching the structure as I felt we did defend well in spells, but we had no attacking outlet at all. The main positive is only losing by 1 goal to keep a healthy GD, and it leaves our final match against Ne Drehu as a must-win following their 3-1 win over ABM Galaxy. 

It seems like every two-months contain a mammoth segment of games for my to navigate with AS Tefana, but none more so than this update. We had one game to secure passage into the latter stages of the Champions League, whilst also looking to maintain our domestic form in both the league and the cup. With 7 league games, 1 cup game and 6 Champions League games in this update; it certainly is a huge time.

The eagle-eye amongst this community may recognise the Iconic skin by Mustermann, and I am a sucker for making things more challenging. After being fascinated with data throughout Football Manager 2024, I feel it does add a new element of difficulty to the game as I try to rely on outputs and team performance to judge if a player is good enough to take my sides to the next level. Recruitment-centric posts to follow!

Moving back to life in Tahiti, and you can see from the above screenshot that we have had a rollercoaster period in charge - starting with a draw against New Caledonian minnows Ne Drehu:

It seemed to be a lacklustre performance for large spells of the game, and when the visitors edged in front, I feared for the worst. However, a couple of inspired subs flipped the momentum back into our hands, and star-striker Klaid Steeven Leon saved our blushes with the equaliser that was enough to book our passage into the Quarter-Finals.

The draw could have been a lot more kinder to us, but to be the best in the continent, we have to compete with the better teams. I felt that we performed amicably well against New Zealand's elite in Auckland City, and it would be good to brush shoulders against one of the lesser teams in NZ; Miramar Rangers.

I thought I grabbed screenshots from both legs of this game, but there is a good chance they are on my Mac in the new property as opposed to the MacBook I share with my partner currently. However, a heroic performance away from home kept the tie alive before we picked them off easily on our own island. 

We can compete in this competition, but Auckland City are always going to be a step above.

A harsh scoreline in Auckland sent us back to Tahiti knowing that our journey in the competition was pretty much over at this point; the late completion of Manickum's hat-trick was probably the turning point in the tie that just put it beyond doubt, but I knew that we wouldn't give up when we got them back on our own turf.

And despite not really having a foothold in the game, we frustrated the competition favourites and narrowly lost the second leg. Given that this is a side that has had no recruitment brought in at this stage, I was delighted with the performance and I knew that if I could research the right type of player to take us beyond, we could be in with a shout in the years to come. 

Domestically, it was business as normal for us. A couple of results where we did look tired and the scoreline appeared to be a lot closer than what it actually was, but we maintained a winnable run to extend our lead at the top of the table to 13 with 2 games in hand. It was inevitable that we would win the league, and that it was more a question of when. 

A domestic treble in the first season of management would be a great marker to lay down, and it looks more and more likely with each passing week.

The big task is now identifying players that will improve the club. I feel it is easy to neglect the youth sides due to youth intakes, but with this database I have my Reserves and youth side in the second division - which will benefit their development much quicker than playing youth football or looking for loan spells.

Whilst our first youth intake of the save is deemed to be an excellent intake, I do hold some reservations given the drop-off in estimated quality. However, I do feel that we are lacking in defensive options, so it is pleasing to see that the core coming through are full-backs. While I wait for these players to actually arrive at the club for their trials, I do have one youngster on loan that I am keen to bring back into the senior fold next season:

The above snippet is from 17-year-old striker Dylan Hutia who is currently on loan at Ligue 2 side AS Excelsior. He went out on loan halfway through the season and is currently the league's 3rd top scorer - only 2 and 3 goals behind second and first respectively.

Now diving into his actual footballing ability, he doesn't striker me as a leading AS Tefana striker by any means, but there are a couple of areas that I feel could add an additional dynamic to our side. Jumping & Heading are two areas I feel we are weak in, especially when we decide to drop to the 4141 and we don't have the target to hit. His composure & finishing means he could be effective in the final third domestically, which would then give us the opportunity to rest players for the OFC Champions League.

The future could be very bright out in Tahiti...

The League Flags Coming Home Again!

April 8th - AS Tefana 4 AS Papenoo 1 - League Winning Game.

Welcome back to another update from Oceania as I look to round up S1 and then look to the future transfer plans. 

As expected, bowing out of the Champions League meant that the players were just about ready for their holidays. We were 8 points clear with 2 games in hand, it was highly unlikely we would go on to lose the league from this point. The only thing left to play for was the Coupe Tahiti Nui, where we have a semi-final tie against AS Vénus - they will be right up for this match so we had to find form quickly.

Ligue 1

Results were very mixed, but expected knowing that the league was going to be ours; it was just a matter of when.

Continental hangovers carried into our first league game following disappoint against Auckland City, and whilst we got back to winning ways to secure the title just a week later, the team suffered from what I call the Arsenal-effect - under-performing once the league was wrapped up.

Losing one game over this period is still impressive, but the nature of the performances certainly dwindled. Goals looked to dry up at times, whilst we seemed to be a bit leaky with our defending.

Regardless, the job was done and we ended the season 17 points clear of AS Dragon.

Coupe Tahiti Nui

Despite a bump on the road against AS Jeunes Tahitiens in the QF where we required extra time, I was hoping that we could get back onto the straight and narrow wins inside 90 minutes. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

AS Vénus took us another full 120 minutes, but we did manage to secure a 2-1 win to book our place in the final. One final game from a domestic treble in our first season - it was huge. 

AS Central Sport inflicted our only defeat of the season just a matter of weeks ago, and it was time to exert revenge on ruining a potential invincible domestic campaign. Yet, the final was a familiar story.

Extra time was required for the third round in a row, and things were starting to be concerning - more on this to follow.

The Season in Data

With our first season now officially completed, its time to review the season's performance as a whole. This is going to be the only way we can improve the squad going forward and look to dominate the domestic scene whilst building our way to continental success.

Goals Against

Whilst I don't like to rely on the xG table on its own, I do feel it gives a good perspective of how our outputs looked.

We conceded 3 more goals than what was expected, which is not horrendous given our overall performance, but it was a bit high for my liking. We ended the season with the best defence (27, 31 was second best) and our goalkeeper ended with 15 clean sheets for the season. As a whole, we conceded 2 goals from set-pieces all season, but 27 goals were attained from 78 shots on target. What is the issue?

6 of these 27 goals came directly from mistakes, which I can expect at this level of football.

Goalkeeper

Teave Teamotuaitau was our number one throughout the season, playing 32 of the 33 league games. But his metrics don't give me confidence going forward.

A negative xGP coupled with one save per 90. I feel like being Tahiti's number one, we should see more of a performance from the GK. And this is where I decided to take action.

AS Vénus finished 4th, conceding 39 goals, and I feel that their goalkeeper could be a worthy consideration. 

Despite having a negative xGP, it is in a far better position that Teave's but it comes down to his xGP in the league that is worthwhile to note:

A differential of 3.35 is huge at this level and it is something I can fully get behind. Anapa will come in during the summer and should make a push to dislodge Teave as both national and club number 1.

Defence

With the goalkeeping situation sorted, it was time to move one up the team to review what was going wrong with the defence. I had already explored some of the goals earlier in the thread, and I can accept smaller defenders being out-jumped by taller attackers, but that can't be the only source of goals conceded. 

It is clear to see that there is a gulf between our defence's ability and mental capacity to see snuff out opposition attacks. But where do we begin to look?

A bit of ying and yang between my starting central defenders, as one doesn't win many headers and both seem passive in the tackles. Neither of these performances give me much to go on - its off to the data-hub to find out more information. 

Inverted Full-Back

Stéphane Faatiarau played 28 times in the role of an IFB so it is naturally his data is driven from the CB segment. Unreliable with the ball, and infrequently wins the ball, he does win his tackles and puts pressure onto the opposition during counter attacks. It comes as no shock he does not win headers at 5'10", so that could be a large area of concern.

Thoughts

30% of our defensive actions come from inside our box, but despite our few tackles we win a high percentage of these (+80%). A majority of our possession is lost in the middle third (20% inside our own half, 30% inside opponent's half).

I don't feel our natural CBs need to be replaced, but there is an arguement to be had concerning Faatiarau - 34 years old, out of contract and not winning his aerial duals. 

Teiki Kananou strikes me as a potential ideal replacement for this role - 8 years younger and standing 5 inches taller, he wins his headers whilst being solid in the tackle and retrieving the ball for his team. Scouts are being sent out to advise further on his ability for next season.

Goals For

91 goals scored in the league campaign; 11 in the cup; 6 in the Coupe des Champions; 12 in the OFC Champions League. 120 goals in a year, and Klaïd Steeven Leon grabbed roughly a third of these goals (41).

It is clear that all success came down to this man, but the issue is that he is dying on his feet. With no talent to replace him, we were sacrificing his ability to win a game to rest and rely on our midfielders to score (Gitton 14, Mu 9, Kaspard 7 & Morgant 8). And this just isn't sustainable going forward.

Dylan Hutia will be back at the club during the summer and should look to help out when it comes to rotation so that Leon can get the rest that he deserves, but I do have my reservations over the teenagers ability. Being the lone striker, I don't feel his engagement is high enough for our style to choke opposition inside their own half. Which is a rich statement given that Leon records 1.27 more pressures per 90.

The above chart is a result of our xG and xGA in the final 10 matches, and whilst there are positives to take from this, I do feel tiredness plays a big part in Leon's output - he average an xG of 0.5 over this run of games.

Tactical change for 24/25 - AF to a PF. No need for additional signings as of yet.

Kaspard was our inverted winger throughout the season, so I would expect less goals from this role. However, he is right-footed playing on the right, and this is not sustainable going forward. 

I've asked him to train on playing on the left as our inside forward, and I think his numbers can back this up. But that would then leave a gap on the right. Thankfully, I have sourced a player to fill that void.

Franck Papaura will join from AS Pueu in the summer on a free-transfer, and at the age of 18 has a lot of promise behind him. AS Pueu deployed him on the left as a more traditional winger, but I think he can cause havoc on the right in the role of inverted-winger. He is joint 11th for assists in the league (8) and has a 1.56 ratio of key passes per 90.

Young and raw, he will certainly bring excitement to the team.

With 3 new signings in through the door, a host of dead wood out the door, it was time to see if the subtle changes outlined in the previous post would come to good effect with a quick pre-season roundup.

Opposition at this time of the year is difficult to come by, so we played 3 island sides and invited CS Lanaudière over from Canada to give us some preparation for the new season. Dubbed favourites at odds of 10/11, the pressure would be on us.

After the AS Piraé match, I took to the data hub to see how things had been going over the early friendlies and made one subtle change.

It was deemed that the opposition broke into our final third 147 times, and roughly half of this came from the middle of the park. Now I do operate a RPM and AP in the middle two, as I would have thought a DLP in DM along with an IWB on the right was sufficient cover, but I elected to drop the RPM back into a B2B. That should still carry some attacking threat whilst shoring up the central positions of the park. 

Another concern was the lack of final third entries down the left-hand side of the park - which I do expect given our LB is tucking in as part of his IFB role. I am hoping that having a B2B should aid that side of the park and even allowing our striker to roam from his position.

Yet a common theme keeps occurring. Goals against from extremely low xG. Granted that two of the four goals conceded were directly from mistakes, one from a player that is a depth option and one was a penalty, it still needs worked on and it will be monitored throughout the course of the season.

Our final game against AS Dragon saw me reverting back to a RPM in place of the B2B midfielder - this is something that will take to work as we do sacrifice an additional attacking threat. However, in the case of this game, the change worked as Morgant scored the winning goal. Perhaps it is a good thing to know that the change back can be effective during matches.

With the appointment of an analyst, I can now dive into their report concerning our trends:

In our last 4 friendly matches, 12 of our 15 goals have come from inside the box, with 9 being slap bang central.

6 of 10 assists have come centrally from outside the box, 1 has come down the right (new signing Papaura) and 3 from within the box.

We have conceded 2 goals from outside the box, and 2 from the central area of the box (one being a penalty).

2 of these 4 goals have come directly from set-pieces - one corner and one free-kick. The third was a direct mistake and the fourth being the penalty.

With the addition of three players in crucial areas, it will take time to gel, but I have full confidence that this is the right way forward.