Outta This and Inter Something Better

A New Adventure


As mentioned, there was an offer from Bayern and I chose to accept it. Bit of a pay cut (like that means anything). Last season they finished second to Dortmund and Guardiola moved on to take over the Spanish National team.

The board aren't expecting much...


So. For the challenge I had to make a few changes to the squad. Here they are:

Before I had the chance to settle in, Alaba and Shaqiri headed to Barca for a combined £50m, wanting to play in a "better league." Benatia then decided that he wanted to go too and to be honest, I didn't really mind as he's getting on a bit. Dante went to my old side Inter who were splashing the cash given that I'd taken Juan and Santon with me, taking advantage of both of them wanting to go to "bigger clubs." Draxler came in for an extortionate amount, activating his release clause and satisfying the squad's demand for a big name player to replace Alaba. The rest that came in are young regens.

The Squad

The squad looks like this now, ageing but hopefully young enough to win some trophies soon! With the abundance of AMC's and strength of holding midfielders I've started off with a bit of a random 4-2DM's-3AMC's-1 and will develop it as we go.

Pre-Season

Bar the strange Bournemouth result it was a fairly decent pre season.

August 2016



In the first competitive game I went with a full strength side against minnows Grimma to give the team a chance to gel a little further. After 8 goals in the first 50 minutes I assumed that was a good amount of gelling and so made some changes. Vietto, Draxler and Santon all grabbed debut goals.

A solitary goal from Gotze saw us scrape past newly promoted Mainz at their place in an underwhelming performance.

In front of the home crowd we beat Bremen 3-0 with 3 screamers, the pick of the bunch being a 30 yard header from Lewandowski to open the scoring.

Champions League


Our group is quite testing as it features the 2015 winners Liverpool, last year's semi finalists Bilbao and then presumed also-rans Dinamo

September 2016



Well. Not great. Definitely not great.

We started with a routine win against Hertha, not a lot to shout about other than the disappointing feat of conceding our first goal of the season

We enjoyed conceding so much that when we went to Liverpool we thought we'd let them score 3 in the first 10 minutes. After clawing 2 back, Balotelli wrapped up his hat-trick and finished us off. A truly awful start to european life.

We then started slowly again, this time at home to Stuttgart who we pegged back through another Santon goal, he's really making the most of his attacking role this season.

After a great start against Leverkusen we allowed them to peg us back to 2-all before Lewandowski netted to clinch the point.

Our most impressive performance to date came against Schalke with Gotze getting us a goal in 8 seconds and then Lewandowski scoring again just 4 and a bit minutes later. We could, maybe should have scored about 15 here but only managed the 1 as Scweinsteiger tucked away a belter of a free-kick.

Given that performance you could have forgiven us for being confident as little old Dinamo rolled into Munich... 90 minutes later we weren't so happy as they walked away with a point.

Disappointing month really, leaving us trailing Dortmund by 2 points in the league and sitting third in our CL group with a solitary point.

C- must do better

October 2016



We had a poor start to the month with another draw... however Gladbach did come 3rd last year and so in hindsight this might be okay. As you can see, Draxler stole that point for us right at the death.

We then had a run of 4 home games which was probably needed to generate a bit of decent form.

A 6-0 thrashing of Nurnberg got us into our rhythm. 5 goals in the first half and then a third for Lewandowski saw us show the form I expected when taking over Bayern.

In the CL we then put 4 past Bilbao... I say we, it was Lewandowski again dominating everything. He really is special.

Wolfsburg then came to visit and despite and own goal from former Bayern man Luis Gustavo, they held us until right near the end. Sub Vietto and Robben saved it for us right at the end.

We then played Dusseldorf in the cup with a 'weakened' side which nearly cost us! I'm assuming we got a bit over-confident, allowing them back into the game at 2-2. ANOTHER late goal took the win again...I kind of like this about us.

As we finally left Munich for a visit to Frankfurt we dropped to our first league defeat of the season. Lewandowski netted his 8th and 9th goals of the month but it wasn't enough to stop us from floundering against poor but resilient opposition.

Once again I haven't taken a league screenshot but we sit 1 point about Dortmund at the top of the league. Our win in the CL picks us up a little but still means we need at least 2 more wins to come close to qualifying

November 2016


We started the month with a decent with against Bilbao in the Champions League, finally getting a foothold on the competition!

Augsburg was a very routine win, going in 2-0 up at the break and coasting through the second half as the visitors never troubled us

We then lost on our travels to in form Hoffenheim and then in Munich wit the visit of the formidable (I know, I can't believe it either) Liverpool. They pretty much wrapped up the group and left us still with work to do to ensure our qualification

We scraped a win against Koln thanks to a Draxler tap in

We wrapped the month and Champions League qualification up with a 6-1 at Dinamo, Thomas Muller a man in formidable form during that game. This is how the table turned out:



As it happens, we could have lost the final game and still gone through as Liverpool picked up 100% of the points. Our reward for qualifying? Barcelona of course. In 2 years I'll have faced both of the 'el classico' teams in the first knockout rounds.

December 2016


The month started with a 'must win' game against our title rivals Dortmund... we didn't win. But we then found a bit of form.

We got by Hannover in the cup with a comfortable 4-0 win but did lose Gotze for a month as he was injured in the tie.

Lewandowski scored another brace as we saw of Freiburg in a 3-0 win. Draxler was quality stepping into the open trequartista role, scoring a goal to celebrate

We then met Hannover and were a lot less fruitful as we couldn't score at all against what looked like an 8-1-1 on the match screen

However our previous 2 scorers were at it again as we came from a goal down against Kaiserslautern to win 3-1.

Table


That defeat against Dortmund and the slip against Hannover leaves us with a lot to do after the winter break. It's going to be tough to chase down those 5 points but I'm sure we can

January 2017

January started with a couple of confidence friendlies to get the team back into gear. Both team we played were of much lower stature and so don't read too much into that!

The return to the league at Bremen was somwhat muted but we took the 3 points that we needed

An early goal then saw us squeeze past Stuttgart in the cup, amazingly making us the only top division side left in the competition.

February 2017

A fairly busy Feb saw us start with a bang in a 4-0 win at home to Hertha

Luis Suarez gave us the worst start possibly against Barca in the CL knockouts first leg. Thankfully Ribery, somewhat of a forgotten man this season, turned up and grabbed us a very late equalizer, leaving us with hope for the second leg

Much like Hannover. our league game against Stuttgart ended in a draw despite beating them (although only just) in a previous tie.

Bottom side Mainz gave little resistance as we put 4 past them, not too much to note here other than a solid performance

Much like the last game we were solid against Leverkusen too, despite going a goal down we fought to get the 3 points

Finally, against Schalke we won 3-0 as we did earlier in the season, trying a deeper formation in preparation for our second leg with Barca

March 2017

That second leg started our month and as with the first, we went 1-0 down to a Suarez goal in the early minutes. Then... something amazing happened and we went 3-1 up before half time. I felt confident, asked the lads to keep it up. Javi Martinez however, decided that he didn't fancy another 45 minutes and so got himself sent off from the kick off leaving us with 10 men to stop the top side in Spain and Europe... in the very last minute we failed to do that. So much for winners as the board asked.

With Europe out of our minds it meant we could concentrate fully on the domestic titles which is essentially all I'm wanting from this save. Hammering high flying Gladbach was a good was to set things straight

We then attempted to throw a 2 goal lead away at Nurnberg only for Vietto to save us

Then at Wolfsburg we managed to go 2 down in the first 4, score after 5 (Lewandowski's 6th consecutive game of scoring) and then we levelled just after half time.

Good stuff bar Europe. Forgot a table shot but we were pretty much neck and neck by now.

Youth Intake



Contrary to my norm, I'm hoping not to be here to see these players through. Those over 2* have been signed but it's pretty much irrelevant!

Closing Out 2016-17

April 2017


Well, April started poorly with two 0-0 draws, first with third placed Frankfurt and then at struggling Augsburg.

Another draw against second division Hamburg in the cup was a definite worry, 2-0 down in the first 10 minutes clawing back to get to penalties. Thankfully we took the chance there and made the final where we'll face another B2 team in Furth

We got back to winning ways in the league against Hoffenheim but drew again on the road with Koln, form really starting to slip

With the title race very tight we faced Dortmund and put in a solid show with former yellow Lewandowski getting us the win and giving us a 5 point lead with 3 league games to go.

May 2017


May was a glorious month.

We comfortably beat Freiburg and in doing so clinched the title as Leverkusen held Dortmund to a draw, meaning we couldn't be caught. The final two games became about cup final prep and 2 wins were a great way to do it.

The Table 2017

Self explanatory really. Pretty pleased with this!

DFB Pokal


Quite a comfortable win in the end, as should be expected really. A decent note was that Muller scored his 100th Bayern goal with that penalty and then lifted the trophy as captain for the day. This means that in the last 2 seasons I have done identical things, league and cup winners whilst bombing in the Champions League.

Elsewhere
My old side Inter managed to finish 7th under AVB despite all of the spending that I was continually asked about and of course, the quality side I left behind. In England Man United managed to repeat their historic League, FA Cup and Champions League treble.

How did I celebrate this productive year?



There's a clue in there as to where I might head next.

A New Stomping Ground

As I departed Bayern, Brendan Rodgers became the favourite and instantly stuck his name into the hat. As he'd won the Champions League in 2015 I'd imagine the board didn't think very much about it and snapped him straight up. This meant that Liverpool (who have beaten me twice in the last year) became available and they seemed pretty happy to take me on. Told a few white lies about being in it for the long haul, but I envisage that this won't be a 1 season wonder like my last challenge!

And so we begin

Transfers


I was given £8m to spend but then realised as I arrived that the club were operating a staggering £300k per week OVER the wage budget. This meant that there were players to move before I could really commit to bringing them in.

Out
Can and Origi both left for what they deemed 'bigger clubs' although neither were likely to feature in my plans.

On deadline day, Man City came in for Sterling and I jokingly set the asking price to £60m for a player who was going to feature less than last season (as I am playing with no wingers) and by the looks of his history, hasn't been all that great. They came back with £52m which I accepted, allowing me to make a deadline day move of my own.

Everyone else that left were for wage reasons and the fact they were never going to play. there were also around 14 players who left on frees including Jose Enrique who was picking up a cool £100k per week in the under 21s.

In
On the other side, our deadline day deal was for young midfielder Leon Goretzka from Schalke. He's a player that in previous FM's has been brilliant for me (mainly with Schalke) and I tried hard to get with Bayern but failed. He'll slot straight in as our CDM, moulding him into the next Schweinsteiger despite his preference for AMC.

Kieran Gibbs came in as cover at left back and was followed by two under-17 Germans, again who I tried to get at Bayern but failed. As before, it's unlikely I'll see them develop but good habits and all that.

You can see from the figures that I'm a bit of a scrimp and saver, the clubs finances look a lot better and that will hopefully help us fuel future transfer pushes.

Pre-Season


Minimal fuss, a lot of weaker teams

Champions League


That's a decent group I reckon, coming up against former rivals Juventus and two 'weaker' sides in Galatasaray and BATE... however, I have said that before

Community Shield


Our first 'competitive' game was a chance to win a trophy and what a game it was! After a mad first half we ended up drawing the game after both defences decided not to bother. As we went to penalties we clinched the win and handed last season's treble winners their first defeat since November 2016.

The League


Our first league game saw us storm to a 3-0 league at half-time thanks to the core of our team. Centre midfielder Hamsik, centre half Nkoulou and centre forward Balotelli (who is quality btw!) all scored before Norwich grabbed a consolation goal with a minute to go.

We travelled to Southampton and were rather disappointing, despite created a lot of chances we just couldn't score. 2 goals from corners saw us slip to defeat.

Next Up
We face Man United again, this time it's for points

September 2017



The month started with a great win over potential title rivals Man United. It was our two Cameroonians that rocked up with the goals before Rooney grabbed them a late consolation

Tottenham was a frustrating performance in which we dropped more points, almost rendering the United win pointless.

WE made a much more successful start to the Champions League this year than I did at Bayern. We managed to batter BATE and rest a few of our main players in the process

Resting them clearly worked as we traveled to 5under1and where Mario was on fire, netting an incredible 4 in a 5-0 rout

We then changed the whole 11 for the visit of Man City in the Capital One Cup. I expected to see them rotate their side too but they came at us full strength. Our team, including a 16 year old striker managed to hold City to a 1-1 draw sadly losing out on penalties

To finish the month we traveled to Fulham and again we bagged a load of goals. Mario made it 7 in 4 and as we managed to bag another win and jump to the top of the table

--- Apologies again for the slow updates, kind of reflective of my free time at the moment!---