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#327939 2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread
Eric Portapotty
#327934 2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread
Eric Portapotty
#327845 2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread
Eric Portapotty
I still think he's got fab technique tbf, and I did think he was the best we could get in his 1st season or so.
That said having seen the club spend big on Ozil and Sanchez and witnessing Giroud turn into one of the laziest players in recent memory it's starting to become baffling how he stayed 1st choice for so long.
#327734 2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread
Eric Portapotty
jogswalks back to defend - it's like all he ever fucking does nowadays.And he needed to be fucking completely unmarked to place a header properly for once.
As for Arsene... This has shades of Pool at the end of last season with Rodgers not giving a fuck and all, not good.
#327727 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
A dour game settled by a Batuhan Duman free kick, funny that.
Doesn't detract from the fact that he's been very poor this season, struggling to adapt to that AMC role.
Tore Sporting a new one in our last derby matchup, had nowhere near the appetite to do the same in this one.
Conceded a very early goal, subsequently struggling to mount a comeback, mount said comeback only to fall behind straight after their kickoff.
Fortunately Silva found another equaliser with another fluke goal from wide left, good old glitchy match engine eh
Another dire match lit up by Matuszczyk pouncing on their backline's mistake to score the opener.
We only really deserved the win if we held on, but we didn't so you can't raelly say we deserved it anyway.
The intent (as is the case for the big games this season) was to sit back and absorb pressure.
Didn't work, as we (AGAIN) conceded early and proceeded to concede another, before we exchanged goals to go into the break 3-1 down.
Having actually scored against Barca I decided to pile on the pressure and had a few decent chances, and did convert one of them - unfortunately it was all we could muster.
What a fucking disaster of a game, their 1st 2 goals came about form only 1 shot on target, while the 3rd saw our keeper beated at his near post.
We 'bravely' attempted to stage a comeback (and nearly completed it) but that 1st half was an absolute shambles, huge problems coming to the end of the season.
1 PPG this month is really relegation form, so thank fuck we're virtually safe already.
#327283 FM Game Collectors
Eric Portapotty
Probably because I always loaded all leagues, but still.
#327282 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Just has I thought we'd fixed our problem of conceding early goals, we go behind in under a minute....
We owed it to Matuszczyk (again) who curled in a peach of a goal to equalise, oh if only we kept our backline solid to the end...
Villareal were on a poor run of form and they were definitely for the taking here, so despite not conceding at the start or at the end it's still more disappointing that losing to La Real.
Scratch that, we still conceded right before the interval, couldn't even hold our concentration into the break.
Finally a clean sheet - Matuszczyk and Schultz helped us on our way with 2 goals in the 1st 5 minutes.
Schultz's strike was a peach as well - was one of the Goals of the Month.
We got absolutely wrecked by a 10-men Elche side earlier in the season, so we had revenge on our minds.
But actually playing like we wanted that was an entirely different matter - watching us go 2 goals down before the half hour mark was infuriating.
Fortunately we clawed one back at 30 minutes, though we had to wait a long while more to nab the leveller, Matuszczyk saving our asses yet again.
Another 4-point month, out it does mean we've reached the (generally accepted) safety mark of 40 points.
And Matuszczyk is now 5th-highest scorer in the league, carrying the team right now - won't be surprised of another club sniffs around for his availability.
Anyway, it's March again so:
A new intake with really only 1 potential star.
Got him into tutoring from the off with captain Alava, a Balanced Personality won't do his growth much good.
Finally another pre-contract signing:
I'll be losing a couple of GKs in the summer (loans/contracts expiring) and I really want a young stopper to (hopefully) establish himself to be 1st-choice for the next decade or so.
Probably going to be a pipe dream, but at least we'll be able to sell him for a pretty sum when he does ask to leave right?
#327173 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Like in the reverse fixture earlier in the season Andrey Tumashev proved to be the bane of our existence - the wonderkid striker's pace was something I'd failed to learn my lesson on.
Not that we really deserved anything more than a draw - Romero's opener was actually a horribly hit cross, and had he not done that we would've had a struggle.
Betis have been massively underachieving this season, finding themselves deep in the relegation scrap despite having the squad to at least challenge for the top half.
They certainly showed their quality here, absolutely tore us to shreds; if only they'd like they were getting relegated...
Another early goal conceded, was beginning to look like the Betis whitewash.
To our credit we fought back - and then some. Matuszczyk with another goal before Pascual finally put his rather wasteful ways to a side with the winner (before going back to his wasteful finishing).
ANOTHER early goal conceded, big problem here.
Luckily for us Holtz then applied a clinical touch to fire home from a corner, before Matuszczyk bailed us out yet again.
A great month where we got over 50% of points available, and we're now 12 off the relagation spots.
Matuszczyk was the real hero this month, 5 goals in 4 games (including 2 winners and an equaliser.)
Also, got a couple of young'uns on pre-contracts from Olympiakos:
Nikolau comes in as competition/alternative/backup to Matuszczyk (and probably Rosero's replacement, who is on the wrong side of dirty and isn't aging well especially with Matuszczyk getting all the game time).
Looks about as out-and-out a striker can get, good finsihing and composure, not afraid to get stuck in, good work rate and has is slightly faster than Matuszcayk, with the potential to get better.
Bosganas I'm less impressed by, having had a second look at him.
Still, like Nikolau he does have age on his side and being Artur Silva's main deputy next season he might get proper game time.
#326599 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
1st game of the new year, oh dear.
We didn't ever really gain a supremacy in the game, and they did have the better chances.
That said we had some opportunities of our own but for Matuszczyk's poor finishing here.
Dammit we were staring at 2 losses to start the new year, Atleti had our number and going 2 down against title challengers isn't good news.
After that though, their LB somehow contrived to have a complete nightmare and let Vargas (our right winger) net a double and provide the assist for Duman.
Absolutely ballsed this up, again with improper match prep, which lead to yet another horrific start to the game - Fernandez was a fault for both goals and proceeded to get injured in an impressively self-destructive cameo.
We regrouped in the interval and quickly got back level in the 2nd half but couldn't find a winner despite our continued chance creation.
This was just a disaster, nothing done, couldn't defend, and we got what we deserved.
Still top half, and more significantly 9 points off the drop zone.
Definitely need to get some form going though, in the bottom 5 or thereabouts in form.
Oh and just the 1 signing in the January window:
Loaned out my young backup RW (wasn't getting any game time) and Schneider comes in as a cheap option to cover both flanks.
#325684 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
By far 2nd best here, struggled to get out of our area and when we did we couldn't find the net.
But cometh the hour, cometh the man - Rosero was subbed on the play in an unfamiliar right wing role, and scored what was apparently a screamer.
Won the Goal of the Week award, that good apparently.
Absolutely ballsed up the match prep (and as a result the 1st half) but after some major tweaking we hauled ourselves back into the game and salvaged a fortunate draw.
This was just a disaster - sitting back and playing on the break would've worked - if only we didn't concede in the 1st fucking minute.
We only ever looked like getting anything out of this in the last half hour, at which point it was too late anyway, and our lack of clinical ability saw to that.
An increasingly uncomfortable 7th here, we aren't as far from the drop zone as our position suggests, and continued poor form could see us land right into that mix.
Now for the Copa del Rey:
An away goal, but we definitely should've put them to the sword here.
... And we paid for it here. Oh fucking hell.
A significant number of injuries and the upcoming Valencia game meant that it was a significantly under-strength side here.
Still, losing n aggregate lead and conceding 3 goals at hoe? Come on guys.
#325623 2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread
Eric Portapotty
You been living in a hole for the past 8 months or so?
Really though I think most people have already agreed that this trumped #moyes.
#325525 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
I'll admit, this match was all on me - playing with the single intention to sit back all the way because it's Barcelona wasn't wise - they have the quality to inevitably break through (which they did) and we couldn't get out of our shells to hit back after that.
This was a derby apparently - a good way to get back on track with a far more positive performance from last time.
We didn't capitalise on our early lead and I'd though we paid for it when we conceded the equaliser.
But Fernandez rose highest to score a header almost immediately afterwards to regain the lead, and we didn't let go this time.
Welp, back to sitting back - but it ain't my fault they're playing that stupid 4-2-3-1 with 3 AMs.
Still, 5th, which is amazing tbh, but also misleading - we're ever really only 6 points from 18th.
There's also a transfer to report:
I needed cover at CB, and a bit more variety in midfield - he fits the bill methinks.
Hard worker, good physicality, not too terrible in the air, above average passer, only issue would probably be the (relative) lack of game intelligence.
#324647 Transfer Rumours 2015/16
Eric Portapotty
#324548 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Our opener was very much against the run of play, but playing an increasingly reactive style of football meant that we were really looking to hold on and wouldn't be able to come back if we conceded an equaliser, which we eventually did.
We suffer our 1st loss of the season after playing some rather insipid football, with some route one football being dished out, so we could be in some trouble here if it means teams have figured us out.
A more proactive game was played here, we looked to have them on the back foot from the off and had dominated proceedings, only for us to fluff our lines and Villareal to nail theirs against the run of play.
Vargas equalised with his trademark finish (right winger running onto a through pass and finishing on the far post) but that was pretty much all that we could conjure.
Back to winning ways!
Didn't look like it from the off, Granada had us under the cosh with their quick passing, and we were lucky not to concede in the 1st half.
After the break it was more of the same until a controversial penalty was award to them (and they duly oblige to take the lead), only for us to hit back immediately from a corner, Horst Holtz with a sorely needed goal after a less than stellar start to life in Spain.
Borell then came on (as a desperate last throw of the dice) and he relived his (occasional) heroics of last season, with another late winner.
Brought back down to Earth, what a rude awakening.
I though it'd be a good game when their left winger got an early bath, only for us to (somehow) lose complete control of the game from then.
No possession, no attack, and we always looked like conceding.
Even Silva's late consolation came about as a fluke cross, there was nothing positive going on for our side on the day.
At least we didn't have to end the month with a loss, Rayo were good but Matuszczyk was just better.
1st goal in 6 games too, he definitely needed this double.
Batuhan Duman also broke his assist duck here, providing the winner and finishing with a rating of 7.9 - even more important than Matuszczyk ending his drought IMO.
We find ourselves with a surprising comforts of 6th, though we're closer to the relegation zone than Atletico at the top (not that we should be aiming for that anyway...).
Couldn't ask for a better start to the season tbh, well maybe if we'd held on in the 2 stoppage-time draws.
Next up? Barca.
#324510 2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread
Eric Portapotty
#324451 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Matuszczyk is the GOAT.
Unfortunately the defence was less all-conquering, and despite the hat-trick the team couldn't see the win out the whole way.
Another game where we were outplayed (going to be a theme this season) but at least we took our chances this time and didn't concede more than what we scored.
Matuszczyk was again instrumental here, a couple of assists to make up for his non-scoring.
Absolutely outplayed here (again - see?) but we'd actually carved out a slender lead going into stoppage time - only to concede yet another equaliser at the death.
Gutting.
First time all season that we played proactively, and I guess it did pay dividends, though both goals were awesome FK work by Alava.
They were that good.
Far too draws really (especially conceding 2 injury-time goals) but we're still unbeaten so we've at least got that going for us.
Matuszczyk has been a revelation so far, contributing to 5 goals and 5 assists of our 13 goals in total.
#323740 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Man this game was full of HOLY SHIT, nice way to come back to La Liga isn't it.
Started off as any sane club would do against a side like Real, sit back and hope for the best.
Unfortunately that backfired horribly and we of course found ourselves with a mountain to climb going into the interval.
During the break some changes had to be made, obviously so since the game couldn't get any worse.
That said I didn't expect coming back to earn a draw, and we might've even won had we been more clinical(!).
And there's the more mundane side to La Liga.
Playing very direct football we created a lot of chances, but alas our inconsistent finishing reared its head.
Unbeaten, which is good news, but we do need to nail that 1st win to give us a bit of a lift.
Oh and we've secured yet another loan signing:
Not particularly fast as an RB, but I definitely need someone who can at least compete in the air so we won't get caught out by far post headers but a deceptively tall left winger.
And finally, some good news on the finances for once:
Plastics.
#323501 Transfer Rumours 2015/16
Eric Portapotty
And Hart can always work on his footwork...
#323498 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
First off, some admin:
I've recently read that most clubs don't have profits in real life so it's not all bad here.
Besides it keeps the taxman from sucking any more of our money.
There's no doubt that Matuszczyk would've won if he wasn't only on loan - beyond him I'd say it would've been a toss-up, though it should've been Alava given his all round contribution (though he doesn't control games anywhere near as well as he should).
Ehhhhh, not sure what to feel on this, it's a raise but it's essentially negligible, but then again we are newly promoted - won't make sense for a sponsor to put all their eggs on our basket.
Oh and look the joys of promotion right there.
Other than the fasting into our wage budget thing...
Transfers time, and boy we there some, as we looked to set this squad up for the top flight:
Artur Silva is the starting LB, we needed to cut out the nonsense of playing makeshift solutions in that position, so he slots straight into the first XI.
The King is back, long live the King.
Matuszczyk actually had quite an eventful past season - scintillating form that got us promoted also earned him a spot in Poland's 2034 World Cup squad, where they were unfortunately sent home at the Second Round. Still, quite an achievement for a guy who was still contracted to a Korean club (no offence) when he was on the plane with his NT.
I sought to change that - multiple deals involving players in exchange failed after our players repeatedly rejected their contract offers. Eventually there wasn't to be any more fooling around, a cash-only offer was made and he was ours in next to no time.
Batuhan Duman was trasnfer listed by Bremen and allowed to have his deal run down for us to pick him up on a free.
His weaknesses are glaring - being able to play only on the left flank doesn't go well with his embarrassing lack of speed.
Still, he's technically stellar, and if he can be trained to play AMC that there might yet be hope for him.
Horst Holtz was also listed for transfer by Bremen, only this time on his own request.
My biggest outlay so far, he's apparently got the potential to become a top La Liga centreback - whether it'll be too late for him remains to be seen.
In any case he comes in as our best CB, and his personality is vital to our fight against the drop.
Cotero is Silva's deputy, and is also serviceable in the centre.
Our backup stopper (Humberto) had been showing that he was not cut out for the big time so he was promptly shipped off on loan.
Shala comes in as cover/competition, though judging by his ability he's posssibly the best GK in the team right now.
Which says a lot of the quality of this team.
Like Shala, Kowalewski was drafted in for backup, but judging by the apparent state of our squad he may well be a starter.
Of the outs:
-Lots of senior players released (Rafael Manuel, Willain Cristofer Hernandez, Cermak, Basilio), but it remains to be seen if they're replaced adequately.
-Iban... Well Iban's a rightback who can't defend or attack very well, has okay speed but kept getting caught out in the air. Didn't play exceptionally well last season and his contract was coming to an end, so when an offer came in for him I snapped their hands off.
-Polovanec was a reliable player, but I wasn't sure that his lack of mental fortitude would bring us through this tough campaign.
Holtz's signing was the writing on the wall for him unfortunately.
On to our friendlies:
Can't tell much from here, barring the NAC loss we beat the teams we were supposed to beat, nothing too fancy.
The NAC blowout is a big worry though, completely outplayed there.
With preseason pretty much done (still a bit of the transfer window to go) it'll be interesting to see how our team stacks up to the rest of the league.
Surprised that there are 3 teams worse than us, but it's looking like a 5-horse race to avoid the drop.
And who do we start this race against, I wonder?...
Great.
#323254 Which one is best to Football Manager?
Eric Portapotty
#322194 What Was The Last Film You Saw?
Eric Portapotty
Affleck was meh, definitely wasn't bad overall but he didn't offer much.
The Luthor dude must've been trying to play that eccentric villain character a la Ledger's Joker but he just came across as extremely annoying - what was his motivation for everything he did anyway?.
Oh and Amy Adams was pretty hot for some reason.
#322077 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Overplayed a bit, but basically after the Sevilla game we secured the title - which was just as well since we proceeded to finish the season with 4 points from 9.
Depor join us and Valladolid in La Liga after winning the playoffs.
... Is this good news? Just makes us one of them yo-yo clubs the way I see it.
I wouldn't put too much on Muca's signing, he had an uncanny knack of coming on as a sub and scoring, but he was never going to start regularly.
#321897 Johan Cruyff passes away aged 68
Eric Portapotty
#321104 The Night Thread Mk. IX
Eric Portapotty
We need that weird German back.
#320254 Why am I receiving someone else's notifications?
Eric Portapotty
#320162 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Extremely frustrating to concede an equaliser so late in the game, would've made for a great result to bounce back after losing to Recreativo.
Welp, we took quite a while to break down this Zamora side, but yet again Matuszczyk popped up to secure the winner.
Our stopper had an absolute shocker here, we'd previously conceded 4+ goals this season but he hadn't been as bad as he was here.
Coming out of half time we looked like having a surmountable deficit only for him to drop 2 clangers early in the 2nd half.
Another scrappy win, Alava with a poacher's instinct to nab the only goal of the game.
In fact it seems like that actually his real game, not some playmaking role that I've tried to shoehorn him into.
The scoreline kind of did and didn't flatter our performance - we completely overwhelmed their backline with shot after shot, but our lack of shot accuracy was a worry.
In came Klajdi Muca, wwho found himself in the right place to fire home a double.
I should play him more often it seems, extremely coool finishing on show here and he now has 3 goals from 3 sub appearances.
I've been told that we only need 6 more points to secure the title, so it looks like we won't balls this up... hopefully.
#319274 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Might need some work on my tactics, having more possession but still being outshot by Baladona.
The nightmares of facing a 4-1-2-1-2 return, everyone well and truly shat the bed here, not a single forgiveable performance.
Not even the excuse of Depor being promotion chasers can account for such a hiding, the backline was caught ball-watching countless times, second best to every loose ball, absolutely shambolic.
We definitely have a point to prove after such a hiding, and it was fitting that Pontevedra were our next opponents, having unceremoniously dumped us out of the cup earlier in the season - game was over by half-time, too bad for us that we didn't look to increase our lead after the break.
Daramola came back to haunt us, as we struggled to get attacks going.
A 12-point lead still, but 2 losses in March have knocked quite a bit of wind out of our sails.
Now for the new youth intake:
Nothing exceptional, and HoYD Park Chu Young (yes, him) signed them all up anyway.
A pacey right winger? A dime a dozen here unfortunately.
#318960 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Well, the streak could only go so far - trying to play on the counter and rely on out backline could only go so far.
That said their goals weren't unavoidable, defence let us down on that regard this time.
It... It might be a time to panic.
With all due respect Lugo weren't expected to pose too much of a challenge... except we didn't meet our end of the deal to put up a proper performance.
Also, our backup GK isn't very good it seems.
BAM, with our backs to the wall and against a 4-2-3-1 side with their annoying quick passing, we ground out yet another disciplined defensive showing to win by a goal, from the counter no less.
Alava was actually dropped here, poor performances as playmaker has seen his stock drop, but he came on here to great effect.
Michal Matuszczyk is the GOAT.
For real, when he's on form he's nigh on unplayable - great workrate coupled with excellent reading of the game and clinical finishing, and with no second thought for getting stuck in, we've got a proper striker on our hands.
Great win, downsides were Polovanec being out for a few weeks, and Basilio getting unnecessarily sent off when the game was more than sealed already.
I'd hoped to not have conceded the 3 goals needed to achieve this record, but it's something I guess.
13 points at the top, the view looks good from up here but it won't take long to fall from this, so let's not.
#318087 Why am I receiving someone else's notifications?
Eric Portapotty
FYI user in question is BajaHater.
#318011 [FM14] Pentagon - Redux
Eric Portapotty
Not the best start to the year, losing the lead then going behind against Gimnastic, before grabbing a late leveller.
It sucks to lose a lead and having to claw back a point but given it was against promotion-chasing Gimnastic I can probably let this slide.
Despite having next to no influence on the game till then (really need to work on that playmaking role of his) Alava manages to end the game with a goal and an assist.
Expected more against a struggling Longrones side, but scraping wins like this is the mark of champions isn't it?
The initial plan was to take advantage of Levante's seemingly negative 4-4-1-1 and play out from the back with possession football.
Didn't work, as we were under constant pressure in our own half and eventually conceded the opener.
Somewhere through the 2nd half the players seemed to take matters into their own hands - Matuszczyk showed a rare burst of pace to latch onto a punt upfield and finished with style, while Rivero netted the winner after a quick succession of passes on the counter.
We actually finished with more possession, I guess having the lead let us settle into keeping the ball after Levante were tired out.
This here had a different strategy - 3-5-2 wasn't the formation that one would looks to play keepball against, so we let them have the ball and looked to play of the break.
Well that didn't work either - we got scored on, so a more proactive mentality was necessary - which it then paid off (eventually).
By far the least satisfactory game of the month - we'd looked to cruise and add more than 4 but our defence managed to balls it up to make the game still a contest all the way to the end of the game.
A 16 (SIXTEEN!) point lead at the top, if we fuck this up it'll be very embarrassing indeed.
Which is what I'm afraid of, incidentally.
Now for transfers, 2 of them in fact:
One half of the CB pairing that I fined 2 weeks' wages and subsequently went on striker has been sold despite signing a new deal in the same month - he no longer was the wantaway player but a key part of our backline.
The club wasn't in the best health financially and we really had a surplus of CB around, so cashing in was a struggle but I've got a feeling we'll ride this one out.
In comes this guy:
Polovanec had been playing LB for most of the season now and with Daramola's departure it might signal a move to CB for the defender who's more Sol Campbell than Hector Bellerin, put it that way.
Heraldo's not ready for a couple of weeks though, so there'll have to be a stopgap till then.