"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference between football success and football failure."
A Football Manager Career by ChrissBurns1993
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ChrissBurns1993
ChrissBurns1993
ChrissBurns1993
ChrissBurns1993
January was supposed to start with an 'easy' win over Bristol City but who wants to be predictable? Not Bristol City that's for sure, they took the twice against us but thankfully we had enough fight to pull back level twice and draw the match. Not the result we wanted but we avoided defeat which was a relief. After taking a two goal lead against Hull we looked to be in cruise control but Robert Snodgrass' goal before half time changed things and Hull went on to score two more goals in the second half to secure victory over us. Another disappointing defeat was inflicted upon us by Manchester United next. Crucially it is worth noting that Tomas Kalas was sent off with just minutes to go until half time and prior to his sending off we had equalised and actually looked to be in control of the game. Wayne Rooney and Angel Di Maria killed the match off with their strikes though. Our FA Cup replay went a little like this; one nil Bristol City, one all, two one Bristol City, three one, three two and then four two was the half time scoreline. Despite our best efforts in the second half we just couldn't turn the tie around and City progressed despite Winston Reid's best attempts at mounting a comeback but his goal proved to be merely a consolation in the end. Our match against Newcastle wasn't worth mentioning too much as a one all draw was played out to a disappointed crowd who must have been bored the whole much. Darren Fletcher thought he had got his side off to a dream start when he scored the opening goal in the seventh minute for his West Brom side, they had got off to a great start but it didn't last long. New boy Will Hughes grabbed his opportunity with both hands and netted a fantastic first half hat trick while Jordan Rhodes also netted to give us a four one lead at half time. Early goals by Saido Berahino and James Morrison in the second half gave their side a glimmer of hope which was promptly crushed as Matt Phillips put the game beyond them with his strike. A red card given to Lee Cattermole proved to be a big difference in our game against Sunderland as he was sent off just ten minutes into the game. Despite that Jermaine Defoe gave his side the lead five minutes later but Sunderland couldn't keep us at bay for too long and before they knew it the final whistle had blown and a four one victory for us was confirmed.
We completed the month of January undefeated in four games after a one nil victory over third placed Tottenham and we'll be looking to build on that in the coming months. An impressive first couple of appearances for [link name=Will Hughes]http://gallery.neoseeker.com/chrisburns1/photostream/414493135[/link] led to a well deserved young player of the month award for him. Will's a player I've been chasing for at least a year and I'm glad to finally have him on board. Charlie Austin and Patric both picked up injuries which rule them out of action for a couple of weeks and both will miss our next match against Arsenal disappointingly. With Austin ruled out we looked to be a bit thin up top with just Rhodes, Guidetti and Munir so we added [link name=Nelson Oliviera]http://gallery.neoseeker.com/chrisburns1/photostream/1874041177[/link] to the squad on loan and already that looks to be a great piece of business as the big man has a goal, two assists and a man of the match award to his name already. We're paying Benfica £36k a month for him and we also have the option of signing him for as little as £4m at any point during his loan deal. After our poor run of form of six matches without a win I got fed up with the poor performances of our rotated team. I like to try give eveyone a chance to shine but that led to too many poor performances and as a result I decided to terminate the loan deals of Sergi Roberto, Edgar Le and Zakaria Bakkali. Alex McCarthy, Nelson Oliviera, Tomas Kalas, Leroy Fer, Paul Dummett and Hermann Kayembe are the players who miss out on our Europa League knockout stage due to our registration difficulties.
ChrissBurns1993
ChrissBurns1993
February was an extremely short yet somewhat productive month for us. we had just four games to play, three in the league and two in the Europa League. With two of our league games coming against Arsenal and Chelsea it was expected to be a tough month for us. Arsenal took a two goal lead against us, twice as Tyler Blackett scored with the Gunners two nil up to reduce the deficit only for Alexis Sanchez to put them three one up. We fought back excellently in the second half though and Jesse Lingard made it three two before Oliver Giroud got himself sent off with five minutes to play. That may have been the turning point for them as Jordan Rhodes struck a late equaliser for us. We dominated Arsenal from start to finish despite the first half score and our equaliser was long overdue. Lingard produced another nine out of ten performance in our next match against Fulham as he, Jordan Rhodes and Winston Reid netted in our three nil win. A Rhodes inspired performance led to a four one victory over Maribor in the Europa League and it was the Scotland striker that netted all four goals. We had some false hope in our match against Chelsea as Will Hughes put us one nil up after ten minutes and we went in at half time level. Chelsea blew us away in the second half though as goals from Diego Costa, Eden Hazard and Willian added to Leanardo Bonucci's opener to secure a relatively easy four one win. A dominating performance in our final game of the month against Maribor had a bit of a shine taken off of it as we scored just the one goal. A major positive from that though is that Charlie Austin netted the goal after making his return from his four month multiple injury lay off.
ChrissBurns1993
With us playing catch up in terms of games in the Premier League we were a couple behind the team around due to our participation in the Europa League. Our match against Everton was a big match for us as with them sitting in seventh place and four points ahead of us we had to close the gap on them. As is the norm these days, we went one nil down to them after Tyler Blackett's own goal. Thankfully though, Jordan Rhodes and Marco Asensio netted two second half strikes to secure a fantastic win for us. Our Europa League encounters with Bayer Leverkusen weren't great as we fell to a four one defeat in our first league as Stefan Kiesling caused a riot with his four goals. The second leg fared slightly better although a Rhodes hat trick and three one victory wasn't enough to see us through and we were eliminated from the competition. Our two other matches of the month were in the Premiership, our only focus now, and they did not go well. Bournemouth and Hull should have been winnable matches for us as both sides are relegation favourites. We didn't produce any sort of performance against either side though and we were humiliated with our consecutive league defeats which slide us further down the table. The only positive to come from the month of March was the emergence of our now youngest ever player to feature in a competitive match; [link name=Richard Tipple]http://gallery.neoseeker.com/chrisburns1/photostream/1349915336[/link] from our youth academy. When I watched the lad play I was really surprised to find out that he was just fifteen as he had all the ability in the world! I gave him his debut against Bournemouth and it was perhaps a bad game to give him his first start due to the result in the end but hey ho, he'll improve as will we.
ChrissBurns1993
After a run of poor form these past few months we put a lot of work in on the training ground to come up with a better tactical alternative to our four four two diamond shape and eventually plumped for a four five one or four one two two one depending on how you look at it. It seemed to go well for us against Crystal Palace as Jordan Rhodes' double saw them off, their late strike made our comfortable win appear hard fought yet it really wasn't. A couple of injuries meant that we used a slightly weakened team against West Ham but fortunately it worked well as Richard Tipple scored in just his second start to become our youngest ever goalscorer in a competitive match, back up centre back Tomas Kalas also scored the winner after West Ham had equalised. April was a horror month for us as injuries to seven players meant that our second string had to step up big time which wasn't too terrifying a thought except for the moment news came through that Jordan Rhodes was ruled out for three months with a hip injury and had to go see a specialist, that was when we started to worry. Rhodes had practically carried us this season having scored practically half of our goals! It's a real shame that his season was over as he was having an absolute stormer. Despite our injury problems we went on to have a fantastic month as we racked up five wins on the trot with our last three being our most comfortable due to the clean sheets kept and eight goals we managed to score. Fernando Pacheco was initially brought in to be our back up goalkeeper but after rotating with Alex McCarthy a lot this season the Spaniard has claimed the No1 position as he's played two games more than McCarthy but conceded twelve less and kept four more clean sheets. I'm thrilled to see Charlie Austin getting among the goals again too after a bad season of injuries have limited his appearances although strangely enough he's only three goals off of last seasons tally yet he's played nineteen games less which points to a more prolific run of form. Another player continuing to impress late on in our season is Richard Tipple who was named young player of the month for the month of April, an impressive feat for a fifteen year old. The managerial award of the month also went to myself. Having occupied eighth position at the tail end of last month we now go into our final two matches of the season sitting in seventh. Our next two games against Liverpool and Manchester City are vital as both teams occupy the two positions directly ahead of ourselves. If we're to finish any higher than seventh then we need to win at least one of those matches but two would be excellent as that would ensure we finished ahead of eighth placed Everton no matter what.
ChrissBurns1993
With such an open ended, closely fought Champions and Europa League fight so late on in the season our next two games were crucial ones. First up was a home tie against Liverpool who were sitting sixth and we were sitting eighth before kick off. At half time that remained the same as Luis Alberto had given our opponents the lead. A fantastic display in the second half from our players ensured that wasn't how the match would finish though. Goals from Munir, Will Hughes and late substitute Jesse Lingard gave us a three one win. Going into the final match of the season was a bit of a déjà vu moment as like last year we could get fourth but also miss out on Europe with an eighth place finish too. A miserable draw with Manchester City left things pretty open on that front but did we manage to go one better than last seasons sixth place finish?
We did, what a fantastic season that turned out to be as our league form was so inconsistent and we actually sat in the lower half of the table until our twenty fourth match of the season when we eventually climbed up to ninth place. We were predicted to finish tenth by the media and my chairman wanted a top half finish, it's fair to say we exceeded both of those expectations. Our big disappointments came in the cup competitions as we could only reach the quarter finals of the Capital One Cup, reach just short of the quarter finals in the Europa League and failed spectacularly with a third round exit to Bristol City in the FA Cup. Although not much was expected from us in those competitions I expected better. On the end of season awards front Marco Asensio won the players young player of the year award while Tyler Blackett, Jesse Lingard, Adel Taarabt and Asensio made it into the seasons best XI, Blackett's second season doing so. A great achievement for a couple of our lads and the awards were well deserved. In terms of everyone else Eden Hazard claimed footballer of the year, Diego Costa claimed the players player of the year and top goalscorer award with Hazard falling just short of him with a goal less, Jordan Rhodes was third top goalscorer on twenty two goals in thirty appearances. Jesse Lingard's fourteen assists in the Premiership this season made him the most creative player in the league as he finished ahead of Jordan Henderson, Costa and Hazard. The award winner for the Golden Glove this season was Hugo Lloris who finished ahead of Thibaut Courtois and Wojciech Szcesny with his seventeen clean sheets outdoing Courtois' sixteen and Sczesny's fourteen. Jose Mourinho won Manager of the Year for the second season in a row. Jordan Rhodes finished as top goalscorer of the Europa League with thirteen goals in eight games and had injury not have kept him out of the final four games of the season he may well have finished top of the Premiership goal scoring charts too.
Suffering the consequences of poor seasons at their respective clubs Hull's Steve Bruce, Manchester United's Louis Van Gaal, Southampton's Javier Aguirre and Manchester City's Roberto Mancini were all sacked upon the seasons end. Van Gaal's was a big shock as he has guided United to two consecutive second placed finishes which isn't too bad a record when you consider the class, guidance and ability of the current Chelsea side. Manchester City's decision to fire Mancini once again comes after he was re-hired immediately after last seasons dismissal of Manuel Pellegrini following a seventh place finish. This seasons eight place finish though is completely laughable and shows that it was the wrong move by the City board. Harry Redknapp resigned from his position at West Brom and retired from football altogether too.
ChrissBurns1993
If there's one major stand out thing that I've learned in my two years of football management it's this; expect the unexpected. In my first season we were expected to be relegated, we finished sixth. Next season, expected tenth place finish, fifth. Yet that's not even what I mean by expecting the unexpected what has surprised me more is how you can be really content with the squad that you have and not have any real intentions of buying anyone yet one bid comes in for one player and it can change everything! That's happened this summer and after wrapping up a deal worth £11m for Nathaniel Clyne I received an offer of £12m for Lucas Silva which of course was laughed out the door. Manchester United were determined though and came back and asked how much I wanted so I told them £28.5m, £2.5m after one international appearance for Brazil and fifty percent of any future transfer he may make, to my surprise they accepted and off he went. Before that I had no intention of letting him leave but for the fee? Why not, he's replaceable. A player I didn't want to let leave is Marco Asensio and I turned down sever £50-60m bids for him from Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool. If they bid £80m then he's theirs, until then, no deal. Before Silva left there was a departure before him and surprisingly it was Winston Reid who left and he left to join the team he joined us from! West Ham paid £7.5m for a player they let go for free last season... Reid wanted to leave as he was unhappy he played so little first team football last season, sixteen starts and nine sub appearances, and West Ham bid £3m for him but I managed to get the fee up for him and we've made one hell of a profit on that one. Tomas Kalas is another who was well sought after and we received bids from both Manchester City for Tottenham and after rebuking their derisory offers we set an asking price of £15m for him. Neither team matched that fee but Spurs offered £8.5m up front and £2.5m after fifty league appearances plus twenty percent of the profit on his next transfer fee. So just to make this clear we spent £8m on all three players and received £47m up front and or in installments with potential returns from any future transfer fees too. Now that is unexpected. The departure of thirteen players in total raised £69m for the club but we reinvested that back into the squad of course and brought in nine players for just under £50m. I'm extremely happy with the squad at my disposal for the upcoming season and I look forward to us potentially breaking into the top four this season, that's my main aim.
Our stature within the game is steadily rising which has meant that we've been able to attract the biggest names to our side the past couple of seasons, not THE biggest but world class players no less. We have went from the one hundred and ninth best team in the world to the fortieth best team in the world apparently a study has shown. As well as that we went from the forty third richest team in the world to the nineteenth. With our stature growing in the game I made a fair few request's to the board and it was quite a lengthy meeting. I asked for Tony Fernandes to upgrade our youth and training facilities, upgrade our junior and youth recruitment, find us a commercial feeder team to enhance our reputation worldwide and for more scouts and coaches. We brought in three more scouts, two more coaches and a new assistant manager when that one was confirmed. We had a bit of a raid on Udinese for those staff as two of the scouts came from them while Dejan Stankovic joined as my new assistant manager as we had to replace the retired Bruno Demichelis, Antonio Di Natale becomes a coach for us too after hanging his boots up as a player with Udinese at the end of the season. Real Madrid legend Raul joined us as a coach too. Further to those requests I also pushed it and asked for a higher wage structure as our finances couldn't stretch to the signings of Christian Benteke and Aleksandar Dragovic as Manchester City stole them from under our noses. They even had the audacity to come in for John Stones after our bid was accepted and thankfully Stone elected to sign for the better club. I guess they can't get the scouts over their way so they just use ours! Suffice to say Manchester City are becoming a bit of an irritation with their desire to spend inflated sums on players they don't need or want but hey I'm Queens Park Rangers manager not Manchester City's right?
ChrissBurns1993
1/3 season complete
With the season a third of the way gone I thought it would be good to have a look over how our season has gone so far. As we enter December we sit seventh in the table but to be fair we're actually quite close to second place as there's only seven points separating us and Chelsea who surprisingly don't occupy first spot. We're progressing as a club massively and in almost all of our matches this season we have been the better and most dominant side. What we're struggling with this season is a world class poacher who'll score for fun. Jordan Rhodes has done well for us the past couple of seasons but it doesn't appear to be happening for him this season. Loic Remy has a few goals too but the performances from both players have been a bit sub-standard. One player who has been a big stand out for us this season is Thorgan Hazard who we bought last year for £3.5m then immediately loaned him to Hamburg for the season. When he came back to join us for pre season I wasn't entirely sure what we going to do with him but I decided he deserved a chance to prove himself. Initially we played him in the Europa League and the Capital One Cup but after five games, three goals and two man of the match awards he forced his way into the starting eleven in the Premier League for us too. The matches that have cost us are the ones against the bigger teams as we're struggling to make our match performances count, by that I'm saying that we've been the best team against the bigger teams we've faced but we've lost out due to our insatiability to score, something we need to address soon. With all the big clubs sniffing around Marco Asensio lately I made the decision to give him a new five year contract as he had less than two years on his previous one and with the big clubs circling trying to make him unhappy it was vital we tied him to a long term deal to ensure that he doesn't leave on a free transfer. Jack Robinson and Jordan Rhodes were awarded new deals as well although both players were told that if they are to remain here for the foreseeable future they have got to improve their performances. We've done particularly well in the cups and in Europe this season as we saw off both Hull and Nottingham Forest in the Capital One Cup and we sit top of our Europa League group despite losing our opening game. That opening game was a big, big disappointment but one we moved on from quickly as our fourteen game unbeaten streak across three competitions showed. With the transfer window opening up soon we'll definitely be in the market for a player or two should we have the funds to do so. Although we signed Steven Naismith this month he isn't going to be a first team player for us and in actual fact he's been bought so that we can sell him on again. A strategy I firmly believe in, and with him not being able to feature for us in the next couple of months Blackburn have agreed to sign him on loan for three months and will pay £300k a month. Our fans are absolutely loving the brand of football being played by us this season and our attacking quartet of Adel Taarabt, Jesse Lingard, Marco Asensio and Thorgan Hazard are the main reason for that. All four lads have fantastic dribbling, vision, flair and technique which has been causing havoc to the opposition defend time and again. Now to climb that league.....
The attacking quartet of Adel Taarabt, Jesse Lingard, Marco Asensio and Thorgan Hazard.
ChrissBurns1993
2/3 season complete
It's fair to say that out performances over the festive period were shocking and I'm not scared to admit that it saw me seriously considering my position as manager of Queens Park Rangers. To have sailed through the Europa League with five wins out of six games, drawn with Chelsea and beat West Brom easily enough.... to four unbelievable and unforgettable matches which saw us conceded thirteen goals and score just two. It was astounding and although losing six nil to Arsenal is by far our worst result of the four our failure to beat Sheffield Wednesday in the quarter final of the Capital One Cup was more gut wrenching as we yet again failed in a domestic cup. An month long injury to Jesse Lingard affected us too but worse than that, when he returned from injury Thorgan Hazard broke his leg and was ruled out for the remainder of the season, a timely return for Lingard for us but heartbreaking for Hazard who was having an incredible debut season for us. Loic Remy picked up an injury which kept him out for two months of the season too and as a result we terminated his contract, brought Steven Naismith back from loan and signed Christian Benteke. Now just six or seven months after he had chosen to sign for Manchester City over us for £17m he joined us for £5m and a significantly lower wage than we initially offered him, a good deal all round for us it would seem but his spell with City has seen his ability drop quite a bit, the hope is that we can get him going again. Four goals and three assists in nine games isn't spectacular but it's a decent start. When things weren't going well for us for a spell we decided to switch up our formation again so that we weren't so predictable any more. A plain old basic four four two worked wonders for us in our first match using it as we thumped league leaders Liverpool three nil! The goals started to come again for Jordan Rhodes who seems to enjoy playing alongside Benteke when they're up top together and thrives when we go with the lone striker as the competition is fierce. The performances of John Stones have been excellent too and the fact he's been grabbing some important goals as well definitely helps. Still, none of that mattered as we crashed out of the FA Cup yet again and it was yet again to a lower league side and that only points to one thing; complacency, something that can't be tolerated at a big club such as ours. On a more positive note, our league form has been great these past couple of months and we've climbed up to fourth position in the league thanks to a nine game unbeaten streak. We also progressed to the last sixteen of the Europa League after a five one aggregate win over Lille and we now face Anderlecht in the next round. It would seem that sacking season is in full swing around Europa as no less than seven top club managers were sacked at the tail end of February, Manchester City's Diego Simeone unsurpring