steveapple7 - Comments

What the hell is this….just qualified for the champions league with United at the end of the first season and got my budgets for the next season set. £17m option to buy Amrabat in his loan contract. The date is 14/5/23 (outside of the transfer window!). I was going to purchase him outright with the champions league money and he breaks his ankle…Fiorentina recall him (how!?!?)…now they want £52million to sign him…whaaaaaat….

Won the champions league with Lyon first season and obviously qualified for the CWC. Semi final against Tigres is in Education City Stadium in Qatar and is played on 16th December 2020....only problem is....Education City Stadium isn't built until 2022 according to the game... even though its due to be completed in time for the CWC in reality...obviously the game anticipated its delay...

I've never wrote an FM story before but I felt that this story needs to be told to the community. After re-downloading FM (new laptop) I thought I'd ease myself back into the swing of things by taking control of a club who never seems to fail me when it comes to this engrossing way of life that is FM...a club I've supported all my life and will continue to do so despite our real life trials and tribulations, Manchester United.

Fixtures -

I took control of United from the outset of loading a new game with primary leagues in England, France, Italy, Germany & Spain all loaded so I could track the progress of my champions league rivals (see, thinking like a champion already) and immediately deleted any old friendlies previously arranged and arranged some high class friendlies mixed in with some I'd expect to dominate but as you will read on you'll soon realise dominate is a word I use few and far between. I also had a good study at the fixture list and sighed at my run of fixtures to open the season:

Home to Manchester City (brilliant!)....Away to Cardiff (better)....Home to Stoke (could be worse)....Home to Arsenal (been playing FM for years and can count on one hand the times I've beaten Arsenal :-/). Ok, so fixture wise I genuinely believed 7 points from a possible 12 was doable, as you will learn throughout I'm a bit of a pessimist but surely I can beat Cardiff and Stoke with the team I've already got and I've already planned on improving it.

Transfers -

Now I'm running FM with the latest winter transfer window update installed (downloaded from sortitoutsi) so Nemanja Vidic's bags are pretty much packed for Inter Milan and I've been handed an 80million war chest...hey, I'm not gonna argue with that. For some reason Patrice Evra looks to have seriously declined rather quick though.

In -

So, much like I would do if I were in David Moyes' shoes I identified a new left back to come in and fill Evra's boots...come in Southampton's Luke Shaw who I managed to get for a cheeky 15million. Following Shaw in was Dortmund's Marco Reus who's release clause I activated for 29.5million and Ander Herrera for 30.5million. Believe me I tried for a more "household" named centre midfielder but I settled for Herrera who I thought alongside Fellaini, Carrick, Cleverley and Fletcher (who I was to be without for around 5 months) could be my main creative spark and rely on the others to do the dirty work.

Out -

With an 80million transfer kitty I really didn't feel the need to disrupt the ship to much, hey, this team won the league after all right. I did however consider Alexander Buttner to be deadwood after Shaw's arrival and I didn't really see a place for Ashley Young with Marco Reus, Shinji Kagawa and Adnan Januzaj all more than capable of doing his job. So Buttner went to West Brom for 4.5million (which I thought was a pretty good deal) and Young went to Southampton for 6.25million...yes, Young was valued at 12million but I was kinda just glad to get rid of his crazy 70,000 a week wages and hey, it's not like I needed the money...

In terms of staff I've never been one to tinker too much with coaches and my training overall told me my staff were around the 3 1/2 to 4 star mark so I was happy to stick to that. I also had a shop around for a new assistant but after a bit of looking it actually dawned on me that Steve Rounds' stats are quite good and anyone that came close to his stats didn't speak English, so I stuck with Steve and cracked on with a squad I believed was ready to retain our league title, oh how wrong I was...

Tactics -

When it comes to FM I've always been an attack minded coach and this season was going to be no different. I decided to focus on 2 different tactics, they were 4-2-3-1 and 4-1-2-2-1. Basically one had an attacking midfielder off the striker and one had a holding midfielder in front of the back 4, for those dodgy European away nights...(and for Arsenal...). It wasn't often over the course of the season that I was able to choose from a full strength line-up because of the usual, injuries and suspensions but when I had a full roster to choose from, this was my starting 11:

GK - David De Gea

RB - Rafael Da Silva (however he only featured 12 times all season through multiple injuries and poor form so I retrained Valencia and him and Smalling rotated through this position)
CB - Phil Jones
CB - Jonny Evans
LB - Luke Shaw

CM - Michael Carrick / Marouane Fellaini
CM - Ander Herrera

AMR - Wayne Rooney (didn't take long to pick it up)
AMC - Juan Mata
AML - Marco Reus / Shinji Kagawa

F9 - Robin Van Persie

So, if I could just justify that a touch....De Gea was a no brainer and surprisingly it took Anders Lindegaard until April to hand in a transfer request because of lack of games. As I mentioned above, Rafael was injured more than he was fit, torn hamstring, lower back stress fracture and a sprained ankle to name but a few, he did however come back and make 12 appearances overall, but sucked in 11 of them, I mean, I had offers from Real Madrid, Barcelona and PSG at the start of the season for this kid and I rejected them all for him to suck all season long...great stuff. CB's I like Phil Jones and believe the boy is a star, especially as a "ball playing centre back" and I preferred Evans to Vidic (because he was leaving) and Ferdinand as his stats just seemed to decline over the course of the season faster and faster. CM picked itself really, Carrick would get the nod in bigger games for experience and his better defensive abilities. I took the risk of retraining Wayne Rooney as opposed to sticking Mata on the right because I felt Rooney could be my Ronaldo and cut in a nick a few goals, which at the start of the season he certainly did as you'll soon see! Reus and Kagawa I couldn't really choose between so rotation was the policy there (maybe that damaged that wing over the course of the season)....Van Persie up front just did his thing although on his off days Javier Hernandez did prove a useful super sub.

Pre Season -

Let's be honest preseason wasn't the best results I could have hoped for but it did help me decide on the Wayne Rooney problem. He definitely played better on the right wing but more importantly Juan Mata played brilliant in the AMC role as an Advanced Playmaker.

I never really care about results in Pre Season too much as I find teams are literally completely different when the league starts so my results were as follows:

Lost home to Bayern 1-4
Lost away to Cruz Azul 2-3
Drew away to Trnava 0-0
Drew away to Malaga 1-1
Lost home to Dortmund 1-2
Won away to Incheon 3-1
Won away to Gyeongnam 3-2
Drew away to Besiktas 1-1

So preseason sucked putting it bluntly...no goals for Van Persie at all but hey, like I said, I normally use it to get the tactic I want right and try and establish my first 11.

Community Shield vs. Wigan - Won 4-0

So first meaningful game of the season was the community shield against Championship side Wigan. Heck if I wasn't confident of a win something was wrong with me. I treated the community shield like my last friendly before the big Manchester derby season opener and got a nice 4-0 win. Goals coming from Juan Mata with 2x and Javier Hernandez (who filled in for the injured RVP) with 2x. This was my first and only bit of silverware to date (I'm half way through my 2nd season)

I was never gonna look at this like a game that would project my season but silverware in my first game was definitely a nice feeling.

First half of the season

Right, down to the real stuff, I wont bore you with detailed reports on all the games, just the ones I think really affected our season for good or for bad.

First game of the season was without doubt an important one against City at home...

Man Utd 5 - 1 Man City
David Silva (20)
Wayne Rooney (27, 28, pen 38)
Marco Reus (30)
Jonny Evans (42)

Couldn't have gone any better, ok, so we went 1-0 down but Rooney with a 9 minute hat trick, a debut goal for Reus and Evans proving picking him over Vidic and Ferdinand was the right decision. Great Result!

Cardiff 0 - 1 Man Utd
Ander Herrera (4)
Rafael sent off (83)

scrappy result but 3 points nonetheless.

Man Utd 0 - 0 Stoke
Robert Huth sent off (43)

this was definitely a game I predicted to win...

Man Utd 1 - 0 Arsenal
Shinji Kagawa (43)

so 4 games down and I'm up on my prediction by 3 points, I certainly didn't envision beating Arsenal whether it was at home or not let alone the drubbing of City, both brilliant results in my eyes. However being unable to score at home to 10 man stoke was a bad result, but hey, unbeaten after 4 and 2 HUGE games I wont complain. In all of this the Champions League group was drawn as follows:

Man Utd,
Celtic,
Shakhtar,
Ajax,

I wouldn't necessarily call it a walk in the park but I definitely expected to win the group, wasn't looking forward to Shakhtar away though.

Man Utd 1 - 0 Celtic - Champions League
Robin Van Persie (36)

first of the season for RVP in one of the most one sided 1-0's ever, but we did lose Rafael here for 3 months with a hamstring tear, commence project "retrain Valencia".

Swansea 2 - 1 Man Utd
Chico Flores (26)
Jonjo Shelvey (44)
Javier Hernandez (88)

well, I didn't expect this when it happened, a master class from Jonjo Shelvey and our first competitive defeat of the season, not a good result and I certainly let the players know it.

QPR 0 - 0 Man Utd - Capital One Cup 3rd Round
QPR 4 - 1 Man Utd - Penalties
Chris Smalling sent off (42)

so I definitely put out a weakened team here with first starts of the season for young Joe Rothwell, Ryan Giggs, Nemanja Vidic, Danny Welbeck and Anders Lindegaard but it did include Reus, Hernandez, Valencia, Evra and Jones so I was bitterly disappointed to go out in the 3rd round to be honest. Luckily I didn't really care about this cup and nor did the board.

Newcastle 1 - 3 Man Utd
Jonny Evans (17)
Robin Van Persie (pen 28)
Hatem Ben Arfa (62)
Juan Mata (89)

a nice win but broken ribs to Wayne Rooney meant 5 weeks without our best player so far this season.

Shakhtar 0 - 1 Man Utd - Champions League
Robin Van Persie (77)

9 shots each, 5 on target each, this was a great result I thought against a very underrated team.

Man Utd 3 -1 Chelsea
Antonio Valencia (22, 43, 51)
Pedro (65)

oh hello superstar stand in for Wayne Rooney, promoted from stand in for right back Rafael. 3 title rivals played at home, 3 brilliant results...things are going so well....at least I thought.

Everton 1 - 0 Man Utd
Romelu Lukaku (4)

definitely not what I expected.

Man Utd 0 - 1 Ajax - Champions League
Lasse Schone (pen 72)

another shocker in a match where we had 74% possession.

Hull City 3 - 2 Man Utd
Robin Van Persie (pen 22, pen 25)
Yannick Sagbo (49, 78, 89)

unreal, Hull had 4 shots at goal, 3 were goals and 1 was a saved shot which was rebounded in....I have to hold my hands up in a rush of blood to the head when Hull equalised I did go all out attack which cost us the game but still, this was a game we never should have lost and for the first time in my career the board were unsatisfied with my job as manager...I was still a bit surprised by that given the city, arsenal and Chelsea games but still, 3 defeats in a row in winnable games was not a good sign.

Man Utd 0 - 1 Aston Villa
Nemanja Vidic sent off (54)
Christian Benteke (76)

go for experience in defence my mind said, start Vidic, he wont let me down....unreal.

By this point we were sailing DOWN the league in desperate need of a good result, or just a result, could things get any worse??

Ajax 0 - 5 Man Utd - Champions League
Wayne Rooney (1, 6, 67)
Rio Ferdinand (28)
Nemanja Vidic (36)

Wayne made his comeback in a 5 minute cameo against Villa and couldn't save us there but boy did he announce he was back from injury against Ajax with his 2nd hat trick of the season on November 5th. Rio Ferdinand made his first appearance for United in this game and justified it greatly. Also Vidic offered somewhat of an apology for the Villa incident with his goal. Definite revenge for the home game against Ajax.

Norwich 0 - 0 Man Utd

normal service resumed....

Southampton 0 - 1 Man Utd
Juan Mata (73)

took a while to score but finally a league win on a very nervous night at St Marys.

Celtic 1 - 1 Man Utd
Teemu Pukki (11)
Marco Reus (73)

terrible result left us needing to beat Shakhtar again to guarantee qualification.

Man Utd 6 - 0 Crystal Palace
Nemanja Vidic (3)
Robin Van Persie (20, pen 23, 26)
Juan Mata (75)
Adnan Januzaj (79)

an easy win over the leagues whipping boys was nice but we definitely shouldn't be getting carried away.

Man Utd 1 - 1 West Ham
Robin Van Persie (18)
Matt Jarvis (32)

seems like we play better in the harder games.

Tottenham 0 - 2 Man Utd
Marco Reus (48)
Younes Kaboul o.g. (51)
Patrice Evra sent off (67)

a rare start for Patrice Evra results in a red card in a match we won surprisingly quite easily.

Man Utd 2 - 1 Shakhtar - Champions League
Olexandr Kucher o.g. (28)
Dmytro Grechyshkin (30)
Nani (86)
Marouane Fellaini sent off (73)

this game had it all, Nani started for the first time this season in place of the injured Wayne Rooney, and we were literally 4 minutes from going through to the knockouts in 2nd place until the Portuguese winger did about the only thing of note when it came to his season.

Man Utd 4 - 0 Sunderland
Adnan Januzaj (35)
Darren Fletcher (79)
Marcos Alonso o.g. (81)
Robin Van Persie (90+2)

unbeaten in 9 now and things are starting to look up thanks to a man of the match performance on his first start of the season for Darren Fletcher.

Man Utd 3 - 1 Liverpool
Robin Van Persie (pen 7, 18)
Joe Allen (47)
Wayne Rooney (90+5)

another return for Wayne Rooney and another goal to calm nerves in a game that was much closer than the scoreline suggests with Liverpool managing 20 shots at goal. Still, a win is a win and now we've played all the "big boys" and beaten them all. All at home of course (bar Tottenham) but its the smaller teams we seem to be struggling against.

Fulham 1 - 1 Man Utd
William Kvist (11)
Maarten Stekelenburg o.g. (34)

another poor away result leaves us hanging around outside the champions league places.

West Brom 2 - 2 Man Utd
Jonny Evans sent off (14)
Nicolas Anelka (15)
Javier Hernandez (31)
Morgan Amalfitano (71)
Tom Cleverley (81)

not a good day to be a United fan. 28th December and we sign off 2013 with a shocking performance against a West Brom side who definitely deserved 3 points from this one.

So 2013 ended with us in 7th place in the league however after beating Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham I did slightly wonder how were only here and not running away with the league but with January around the corner and a request to the board for more finances I had already begun targeting Barcelona's Marc Bartra and Porto's teenage sensation Juan Fernando Quintero to help us push on and challenge for the league in the 2nd half of the season.

An awful carling cup showing didn't seem to bother the Board but they were "slightly concerned" with my management of the team at this point so something needed to change.

Oh and as for the Champions League, well the advantage of Nani making sure we finished top of our group had landed us a First Knockout Round Tie with Borussia Dortmund....what a treat, a team that beat us in pre season....looks like Marco Reus will be going back to familiar territory sooner than he expected.

The second half of the season will be posted in the coming days and be prepared....it gets better....worse....and downright unreal with some crazy results.