Aberdeen FC, Return to the Top

[michaelmilne29]

Aberdeen FC 2020 - Return to the Top!

Welcome to my FM20 Aberdeen FC Save!

This year will see me take control of the Aberdeen team again. With the returning strength of Rangers and Celtic's ongoing dominance I believe Aberdeen should be the third contender for the title. Out with the old defensive mentality that has seen Aberdeen struggle to score and in with a more attack minded approach. I will also look to develop a younger squad which means a lot of focus will be placed on the backroom staff improvements.

Aberdeen are in the middle of some of its most exciting times in recent years with its new stadium and facilities being built and the recently announced partnership with Atlanta. A new chairman and now a new manager!


Goals & Ambitions

This might be a little bit too far fetched, but I would like to challange for the SPL title in our 2nd season. Our first season I hope to finish runner up. I would also like to make it past the Group stages in the European cup in our 2nd season.
Longer term goals are to establish a strong youth team and become the dominant force in Scottish football.


Season Results

To be updated at the end of each season

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[michaelmilne29]

Pre Season Update


Tactics

I have decided to try and stick to one tactic throughout the majority of this first season. I feel that the 4-2-3-1 suits our current teams strengths and with the additional players I have brought in, should allow for plenty of depth.

Below also shows what I expect to be my current starting 11, so far this side have performed above my expectations.

Transfers

I have made six transfers into the squad and ten transfers out with three youth players going out on loan.
The reason I have shipped off ten players is to try and help with the cash flow of the club. Aberdeen have given us a very limited transfer budget and and extremly poor wage budget. This means finding players who are free agents or out of favour with their current clubs was critical. Below is the full transfer history for my pre season period.

Key Signings

I have made a couple of key signings for this season. First up is Bicho who I managed to snap up as a free agent. Pre season his average rating has been 7.56 and is a promising star for the future.

Next up we have Antonio Marin who has also had a big impact on our pre season efforts averging a rating of 7.62. Marin is a promising young player who will continue to improve and add quality to the team.

Lastly I have Jack Byrne (Who I have stonecold to thank for) I did pay more than I probably should have for him but he has been a very solid choice (Thanks Stonecold!) Averging a rating of 7.96 through pre season.

Pre Season Results

Below are our pre season results. So far i cannot complain with the performance. The real test however will start shortly!

 

[michaelmilne29]

August Update

The month of August has seen continued improvements to the backroom staff. I have continued to look at young high potential players and have also setup my mentoring groups.

Transfer Updates

We have had a slight disaster... I knew at the start of this save that I had a couple of players who would be difficult to keep a hold off. Sam Cosgrove and Scott McKena.

Well Arsenal came in and proved me right!!

However we did manage to get a loan back clause for the remainder of the season and this did give us a bit of a cash injection which will prove helpful.

We have brought in one further player who I have as more of a back-up and my hopes are to utlise them for mentoring the younger players.

Dabo is more suited to the attacking WB role that my current tactics call for.

August Results

Now to the juicy section!

August has been a month of tremendous ups and extremly surprising and upsetting lows.


We managed to pull off an impressive win over Feyenoord, but we also managed to lose on penalties in the Betfred Cup to Montrose!

The Montrose game was my own doing. I tried to utilise to many young prospects and that back fired in the end. However we are through to the Group Stages after toppling Feyenoord.

We have been handed a tough but not impossible group stage, with a bit of luck we might just sneak through here.

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[michaelmilne29]

September Update

September's update is just going to be nice and breif. A quick look at our results, league standings and also a look at our key performers so far.


Results

The results are pleasing enough, a draw with Rangers has helped as I didnt believe we would rescue a point from them especially when we had two sending off's (Time to review the "Get Stuck In" choice..)

Happy to draw with Frankfurt though, it keeps us in the hunt for trying to make it through the first group stage.

League Standings

Happy with sitting in 2nd so far, okay I know its very early on but with our loss to Ross County in the first game I was getting worried we would have a poor start.

Key Players


Okay, time to take a look at who is performing so far this season.

As you can see from the below snapshot, the team has a fairly high average rating. The stand out players are Jack Byrne, Sam Cosgrove and Bicho. Lewis Ferguson has also been performing at a respectful 7.50 average.

Finally to top the month off I was awarded the Manager of the Month Award.

Thank you for this well deserved award, I would just like this opportunity to thank my Laptop for handling the game and my Dog who has sat listening to me screeming at my team to play better.

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[michaelmilne29]

Update!

Okay so I have gotten carried away for the past couple months in game and have neglected to stop and update this post. So here goes!



Results so far...

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As you can see from our results, we went through a little bit of a rough patch with results. The Rangers game was especially dissapointing as we were down to 10 men in the first half so to come so close to rescuing even a point would have helped.

However we managed to pull off a major upset to continue in the Euro Cup. I honestly didnt think I would get this far in the first season and given our form running upto the Wolfsburg games I was not confident at all.

Now however we face Borussia Dortmund...


Transfers

We have made a further three transfers, all free agents as well and all defenders (Specifically Wingbacks)
The reason for this is that we are lossing Scott McKenna at the end of the season and Logan is not getting any younger.

The formation I have been running with now is pretty heavy going on the WB's so you often need to substitute them and rotate them between games. Hence my requirment for good strong replacements.

I also realised that Greg Leigh who has been performing fantasticlly for us so far, has a future fee agreement in his loan contract. This meant I was able to buy him for 100K!

Competition Updates

Overall I am happy enough with how we have progressed this year. I can't see us catching Rangers this year but I do believe we can hold onto the runner up spot.

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