Marc Wilmots, Road to 2014.

Marc Wilmots takes over Belgian giants Anderlecht on 9th January 2009, with the side in a lowly 9th place in the Belgian Pro League. The previous manager had resigned in exasperation, with the board expecting a title challenge, but with all prospects of topping the table already gone, former World Cup star Wilmots looked to steady the ship and possibly creep into 6th place to ensure a berth in the Europa League.

Well, I've tried three times, but it won't let me add seasons with FM2009 screenshots, so a brief overview of January to May 2009.

The team had been knocked out of the Belgian Cup by Standard to instigate the change of management that brought Wilmots - an ex-Standard player - to the club.

Progress was initially slow, but a two-month unbeaten run, late Feb-late April took the side up to 5th in the table, and a possible European place, but one point from the final four games saw us slip down to 7th, and out of the European Places.

This run was notable for defeats against Anderlecht's most difficult opponents - Club Brugge, Standard and Genk - who time and again would seek to frustrate Wilmots' ambitions.

Initially it seemed that Wilmots would be very much a selling manager - Jan Polak and Nemanja Rnic for a combined 5 million were sold within weeks of Wilmots taking the job, with the only addition, for a budget £250K, young Dries Mertens, one of the 'players of the future' Wilmots hoped to build his squad around over the course of the next few years...

2009/10

The board expectation now was merely to finish in a position of European qualification, which was easily achieved.

After thirty games of the regular season, Anderlecht were top of the 16 team table!



Among the most notable results, a 3-0 home win over rivals Standard in the penultimate regular season match.



The first choice line-up featured the regular back four which almost became a litany: Wasilewski, Juhasz, Kruiswijk, Deschacht.



A regular feature of the season would be a well placed corner by either Lucas Biglia or Jonathan Legear, and a headed goal by Juhasz or Kruiswijk, who, as central defenders, ended the season scoring five and ten goals respectively. A total of 21 goals from corners were scored during the season, twice as much as any other team!



Sadly, the league campaign crashed and burned in the play-offs. After the 30 game regular season, new rules meant that the top six teams would have to play each other in a further ten rounds, with half the points from the regular rounds carried forward. Bad news for Anderlecht, who were becoming known as 'flat track bullies' with the easy wins against lesser opposition, but struggles (3-0 epic v Standard apart) against their fellow title rivals.

Sure enough, the first three games of the play-off round were all defeats...



The team were never able to recover from this, and finished a disappointing third...



However, all was not lost, as Anderlecht reached the Final of the Belgian Cup - and won it, on penalties, against or all people, Club Brugge!



Goalkeeper Michael Cordier was Man of the Match as the highly favoured Brugge team peppered the Anderlecht goal with shots, and another rearguard action frustrated the favourites so much, they went to pieces in the shoot out, giving Marc Wilmots his first trophy with the club!



2009-10 Transfers

Cordier was actually the most successful incoming transfer of the season, a summer snip at £90K. Wilmots had spotted that many goals the previous season had been given away by the poor kicking of keeper Daniel Zitka, and Cordier certainly corrected this, and proved a superb shot stopper as well.

Less successful was the signing of veteran Argentinian striker Lazzaro, in an effort to dovetail with underperforming Nicolas Frutos. IN 21 appearances, Lazzaro scored only one cup goal, and also gave away an own goal! Frutos only scored 5 from 27, and the South American duo were shamed by the performances of the central defensive duo, and journeyman striker Tom de Sutter, who finished with 13 goals from 44 games, still nothing special for a potential title winning side, which was becoming far better known as a solid defensive outfit rather than the attacking force Wilmots had promised on his appointment.

The only other incoming transfer in Summer 2009 was another one for the future - teenager Christian Benteke, a long term target of Wilmots, was signed for £250K to play in a strong under-19 side. In January 2010, another player admired by Wilmots, Ajax's Toby Alderweireld, who had in the summer turned down a move on the basis of Ajax's superior training facilities, agreed to a six month loan, which eventually became a permanent deal at the end of the season.

With constant pressure from the board to keep down the wage bill, Wilmots released two players and sold talent worth £4million during 2009-10. The transfer of Boussoufa proved particularly controversial, with players such as Nelson Cuevas expressing disappointment that Anderlecht was becoming a 'selling club', and lacked ambition.



Wilmots also had to put up with constant transfer speculation surrounding Argentinian midfielder Lucas Biglia during 2009-10, but he managed to hold onto the star (and his superb corner kicks), for the following season, which would for Wilmots be a genuine push for the Belgian league title...

Currently playing 2010-11 - very exciting, so more of this to come.

Love this idea of signing up and coming players, would be interesting to see if you could get the national job and almost replicate the real life squad at the 2014 world cup

The problem is, not many of them want to come to Anderlecht! 'Marc' has been turned down by Vermaelen, Lombaerts, Chadli and Witsel, despite having bids for them accepted. And Eden Hazard seems totally out of Anderlecht's league. Bizarrely, in 2011, Vincent Kompany is struggling in Man City's reserves, so I might try and bid for him, but even though I expect Anderlecht is one of this favourite clubs, I wouldn't be surprised to be turned down. £45,000 a week wages is a lot of selling to make room for him on the wage bill as well!

Alderweireld and Mertens aren't regulars either yet (though have had their moments) and Benteke is still with the Anderlecht u-21s, though doing very well. Don't even ask about Courtois.

So I think Marc needs to try and win the title with Anderlecht in 2011 (of which more to come) and then maybe apply for any Premier League jobs. Everyone wants to come to the Premier League.

2010-11

Summer transfers.

Finally lost patience with the underperforming Argentinian strike force. The disastrous Leandro Lazzaro retired (presumably out of embarrassment) and Nicolas Frutos was sold to Preston for £3million. This enabled us to pay £4 million of Kevin Vandenbergh of Utrecht, son of Anderlecht legend Erwin Vandenbergh from the 80s, to team up in a home-grown forward partnership with Tom de Sutter.
Argentinian winger Enzo Perez was signed on a free transfer, and the deal to bring Alderweireld from Ajax on a permanent basis was agreed. An up and coming Slovak striker Kubistel was signed to partner Benteke in the under-21 squad, though he played a part in the senior squad when Cuevas was out for three months early on.
A number of fringe players were released or sold for small fees.



Europa Cup.

Anderlecht managed to battle past St Mirren to qualify for the group stage. Having won the home leg 1-0, Wilmots' side was 2-0 in Paisley and heading out of the competition, having had two players injured during the game, until on 84 minutes, a long ball forward by Alderwiereld was misjudged by the St Mirren keeper and de Sutter was able to turn it into an empty net. 2-2, Anderlecht through on away goals.

The group stage was tough though - Spurs, Udinese and Malmo. Everything was staked on the two matches with Udinese, on the basis that Spurs would win comfortable and Malmo would be beaten with similar ease. As it worked out Spurs beat Anderlecht 2-0, Anderlecht beat Malmo 3-0 then came away with a creditable 1-0 defeat in Italy. But in Brussels against Udinese, it all went wrong... going into the last two minutes of normal time at 1-1, Wilmots realised that this would not be enough to progress, so went all out for attack, only to concede two quick goals on classic Italian counterattacks... a 3-1 defeat from a game in which Anderlecht had competed well without creating too much.

Two dead rubbers saw us surprisingly held in Sweden, but gain a last minute home draw with already-qualified Spurs, which certainly buoyed the fans.

Now the aim was to qualify for the Champions League by winning the domestic title.

League

Anderlecht were competing well at the top of the league by beating the smaller teams as usual, but the key to this season was always going to be the clashes with Club Brugge and Standard which were the undoing in the 2010 play-off round.

In November, a defensive, counter-attacking approach in Liege brought a shock, almost fluke 2-1 win away at Standard. Standard took a 25th minute lead into half time and things looked like going the usual way, until early in the second half, another of those set-piece routines brought a headed equaliser from defender Juhasz, then just before the hour, de Sutter took a swing at a volley at the edge of the box and stunned the Standard keeper with a freak goal, 2-1. The defensive block, with Alderweireld sitting just in front of the back four, held steady and a famous victory was achieved.





Things looked to be going well until a combination of injuries and the ridiculous disciplinary rules - suspension after just THREE yellow cards - deprived us of our entire regular back four away at Cercle Bruges, and our title chances looked damaged beyond repair with a 4-0 defeat.

A friendly fixture list took the side through to January still in contention, and it was then that Wilmots made the signing which might be the one to turn the whole season. Looking for defensive cover, the idea was to sign a player *like* the competitive Club Brugge full back Pernia on a short term basis... in his thirties, Pernia had had a string of impressive games from Club Brugge against Anderlecht and was also superb at set pieces. Almost as a joke, Wilmots put in a £210,000 bid for the player... and was stunned to have it accepted. Even better, the board were happy to meet the player's wage demands, and so he signed a contract to the end of the season!



With Pernia's experience at the back covering a injuries and suspensions - Roland Juhasz's torn hamstring has finished his season - Anderlecht are currently on a ten game unbeaten league run, and sit eight points clear of Standard (who have a game in hand) with 4 games left of the regular season. Even better, Pernia came back to haunt Club Brugge, as once again we came from behind to beat title rivals, and Pernia's perfectly placed corner enabled Losada to head in the equaliser just three minutes after going behind, when it had looked as though we would be swamped.



Van Damme's 3-1 goal was a lovely one, a glancing header swept in of Enzo Perez's cross. When Perez was signed on a free, I was told that the board were 'disappointed' with the signing, but he has been excellent, setting up a number of goals. He came for nothing, is now worth over a million (though injured right now). As well as Belgium and England, I decided to make the Argentinian league active, as when I started, Anderlecht had four players from that country, and I thought if I needed to fill a space and couldn't find the player I wanted in Belgium, bringing an Argentinian in would be best as he'd already have four fellow Spanish-speakers in the squad to make him feel at home. Didn't work with Lazzaro, has worked with Perez and to a lesser extent, another free South American signing, Nelson Cuevas.



So more from the end of the regular season - and the Cup run, quarter finals once again - after I've finished it!

Pernia! His setpieces were the best.

He is good isn't he?

So why did one of my title rivals sell him to me for £200,000? This could be the basis of a thread 'transfers that make no sense to the selling club'. He did get sent off in his first match, a Cup game, but we won that anyway on a shootout, and other than that he's been excellent. He's even signed a new contract to 2012 now. If he wasn't around, I'd be stuffed because a defender seems to be suspended every week under the stupid 'three yellow cards' rule.

The AI doesn't make sense in the best of days, so you can't be too surprised really.

Bingo. That's how I managed to get Hervin Ongenda for £400k, PSG stupidly transfer listed him despite being awesome.

So we finished the regular season with a 6 point lead! The final match was a 2-1 win over Standard Liege, with two Pernia corners securing the win - one headed in by Kruiswijk just before half time, then, with just a minute remaining, and the score at 1-1, another corner curled into the danger area which brought about a foul and a penalty converted by Vandenbergh.

The Belgian Cup had finished in the quarter-finals. To be honest, I wasn't too fussed when a 1-0 first leg lead became a 2-1 aggregate deficit away at Beerschot. Two more matches against Standard in the semi finals was the last thing we needed in the run up to the championship play-offs, so I didn't make much effort to get it back once we had fallen behind. We won the Belgian Cup last season anyway, and the priority was the title, and entry back into the Champions League, to raise the profile of the club.

The annoying thing about the play-off system is that you can only take half your points total in with you... so like the previous season, the lead that Anderlecht had built up in the regular season was instantly halved, from 6 points to 3. Even worse, the first play-off fixture was an away match at Standard, who I hate playing against because of their formation - three attacking midfielders buzzing round a striker, meaning I always have to play a defensive midfielder just in front of the back four, and only leave one up front. I tried to attack Standard before, with the usual 4-4-2, but we always ended up losing.

Now, having just beaten them 2-1 at home in a rough, dull game, the away match had to be even duller. Biglia sat just in front of the defence and the Witsel/Jovanovic/Defour attacking midfield was nullified in a dismal 0-0 draw. This isn't the way 'Marc Wilmots' wanted to win the title, but this seemed the only way to get through the dreaded play-offs, after the gung-ho approach of the previous season had seen us drop from first to finish far back in third.

The new approach is working, with half of the 10-game play off programme completed - attack at home, kill the game away.





Pernia has continued to be very important, with a stunning free kick on the stroke of half time giving us a 2-0 lead over Mons, before a clever finish by Vandenbergh in the second half made it 3-0 and gave Mons to high a mountain to climb. Vandenbergh now has 14 goals from 32 league appearances, many close range placed finishes, and exactly the sort of thing that was needed when Wilmots sold the underperforming Frutos for £3 million and bought Vandenbergh for £4 million. £1 million net spend.... 15 goals from 36 games (all competitions) over one season as opposed to 6 goals from 47 games over two seasons. Surely the best change of personnel ever!

Lucas Biglia is also superb, with his corners, free kicks, all action style and important goals. In the 2-0 win over Club Brugge, he ghosted in to convert a cross in a crowded penalty area for the first goal, and had a shot saved from which Vandenbergh tapped in the rebound for 2-0 minutes later. Sadly, he still wants to leave, so it looks like he will after the end of this season, but hopefully leaving us with the title.

And, with 2011-12 on the horizon, a very important piece of free transfer news...



Prospective Champions League play helps Anderlecht beat off 6 other contract offers (including the dreaded Standard) to sign Lille contract rebel Hazard, who could well be a very important player in the next 2 or 3 seasons! The project starts to take shape....