Aberdeen Save 2019/20

[Mr_Grieves]

Season 1 Review


Aberdeen Squad

Ryan Hedges gets my vote for player of the year. Fighting with Gavric for the starting spot taking it through the end of season. Byrne was right with him as our wings was where we were best this season. Scott McKenna has done everything to earn a £10m+ move in the summer perhaps. Tissone has done a treat of a job while Lewis played every game with 49 games with a spectacular 25 clean sheets. Better than half!

Team of the Year

Shay Logan who was dropped mid seasons as i loaned a player to pick up his slack wins player of the year.


My Players of the Year

Ryan Hedges

Despite being a back up from the start of the season he made the most of his chances as my starters all went down and becme the most valuable player in the squad with goals or assists in almost every game.

Scott McKenna

The biggest name at Pittodrie was our stand out defender and wall as he saw his value climb over 10 million and become the starter for Scotland under there great manager.

Fernando Tissone

The old man of the squad laced up his boots for 35/37 possible starts and 45 games in total and was sublime which is all you would expect from a man of his history.


SPL Table

Aberdeen win the league for the first time since 1985, ending the old firm dominanace. They finished tied on 88 points but Celtic managed a better goal difference by 21 goals. Motherwell were the best side to miss the top 6. Livingston and Ross County were the bottom 2 all year and ROss County go right back down and are amazingly replace with Alloa who held off Dundee Utd to win the league and a playoff defeat mean we wont have a new firm derby next season either.

Livingstone survive but needed more than 180 minutes to do it.


Scottish Cup
St Mirren 0-1 Rangers

Each of the big 3 get a trophy in season 1

That was not enough for Steven Gerrard to keep his job as the unholy alliance of Rangers and Liverpool ends.

His replacement will make Rangers even more dangerous!

Major leagues

Atletico cause the big surprise

I will forever hate the playoffs appearing in this screen rather than the league table.


Champions League
Barcelona 1-0 Man City

Antonio Griezmann makes sure the oil rich sides are still to win a major european title. Celtic finished bottom of a group with Liverpool and Benfica


Europa League
Roma 0-1 Arsenal

Mesut Ozil wins Unai Emrey another Europa League. Oh what could have been! Rangers were knocked out at the last 32.
​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Euro 2020


Squad

The squad is in a very strange shape. Craig Gordon should be at his last tournament and the only player over 50 caps. The bulk of the starters will be between 28-32 at the next world cup when this side will be in its prime, infact only 2 of the keepers will be over 32 by 2022. Griffiths has a shot at the golden boot as he is always rediculously good when in my teams.


Warm Up games

12 goals in 2 games will have confidence sky high for our opening game with England at Wembley before playing Ukraine and Sweden at Hampden


England 6-2 Scotland

We lead this match twice. Thats all i can take from this shambles

Scotland 2-1 Ukraine

Both sides lost there first games so this was must win! and thanks to Kieran Tierneys goal 15 minutes from time secured our first 3 points of the campaign. Sweden and Englands draw means we can still finish anywhere in the top 3!

Scotland 1-2 Sweden

Gutted to have taken the lead and gone on to loose to a 92nd minute Swedish winner just moments after our winner was disaloud.

Thankfully we just had enough to make the last 16

Last 16 Draw

We might not make it much further!


Spain 2-3 Scotland AET
NEVER DOUBT THE SCOTS!

My most increible result! WE came flying out the blocks with John Mcginn scoring in the opening minute and holding a lead for over 80 minutes till Paco Alcacer dragged Spain into extra time where Thiago looked to have secured Spain there spot in the Quarter Finals. However with nothing to loose we put on a 3rd striker in the great Eammonn Brophy and immedialy Leigh Griffiths had us level again. The mind moved to penaltys John Fleck smashed home what inexcuasably turned out to be the winner to deservasdly knock out Spain and reach the last 8!

Greece cause the only other upset

Quarter Finals

Sweden were almost beat in the group. Can we do it in the clutch of a knock out game

Sweden 2-1 Scotland

The distant dream of winning the Euro's at Wembley ends with the most frustraiting 5 minutes of Football Manager i can remember. My own center back Scott McKenna got injured after 15 minutes and his replacement Grant Hanley was sent off after 5 minutes on the park. Thug! So we had 70 minutes to play with 1 sub and a tired team and my only surprise was it took Sweden 61 minutes to take the lead. They scored a second with 2 minutes to go and we got a consolation that is no consolation as we fall over our feet in a possible once in a life time run through a championship.


Final
Portugal 2-1 England

Ronaldo retains the Euro's and keeps our papers grief free. Thanks​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Aberdeen Season 2
Pre Season 2020/21


Transfers

A Massive intake of u21s as we try to build a squad for the future and for this season

Moha ML

I really struggled to make the leap in terms of quality players so based on how much i wanted to add depth to the squad Moha will take Niall McGinns place on the team

Dani Morer DR

The best player in our squad after joining on loan from Barcelona last year was available for £400k so he was snapped up

Manolo Portanovo MC

A Juventus u20 player that im sure i've herd of before. He and Lewis Ferguson will fight for the spot.

Claudio Ramos GK

The only player i've signed with no plan of what to do. Joe Lewis is 32 and at the peak of his value but there is few players out there i could get reinvest the money in so i will probably keep both for now.

Stephen O'Donnell DR

Adding two starting right backs might be strange but i had already signed O'Donnell before the value that is Morer was offered. No harm in the depth with all the games upcoming.

Youth

9 signings for the U19 team. This might be the case for the next few years till our youth system gets up to scratch.

Loan

We failed to find a quality Left Back, Center Back & Forward si in came Thierry Correia DL, Rhian Brewster AT & Ethan Ampadu DC all on the verge of being good enough for the English top flight so will be a huge boost for us in Europe.


Out
Sam Cosgrove was our star player going into my first season but didnt do anything stand out. James Wilson was the same not lethal infront of goals so the combined £5m will rebuild the club and pay for a upgraded youth facility. Shay Logan, Niall McGinn & Andrew Considine were all over 30 and in there last reason of servicable use to me so i cashed in now. My greatest achievment was selling Logan for more than his upgraded replacment and new back up DR combined. Ojo and Bryson were not required last season never mind now. The 3 youngsters that were sold for pennies as they showed no signs of being usefull to us.


Champions League Fixtures

3 wins and a dodgy home defeat to Legia see us into the 3rd round where we got Dinamo. A big step up!


Squad

Gelabert and Vidosavljevic will look to make big impacts based on there potential. Gelabert has plenty opposition for game time. Not a massive upgrade on last year but the new players and loans give us double the 3.5+ players we had in May.


Youth

7 player over 4* players. We need to give them a chance!


League Preview

Celtic are favorites as you would expect. Rangers under new leadership also jump the defending champions.


SPL Transfers

Celtic were very busy with the 5 top deals and 5 biggest domestic transfers. Hibs spent similar to us but no sign of Rangers who made no moves. Celtics summer is even more intimidating when you see they also loaned Victor Wanyamam Riqui Puig and ALphonso Davies. They are not messing.


World Transfers

Pogba and Kane moving on are the summers stand out moves with lots of tier 2 players also on the move.​

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Some big moves there! See Celtic have splashed the cash to try and retake the title!

 

[REIDZER2020]

Rhian Brewster is a goal machine in the SPL

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Some big moves there! See Celtic have splashed the cash to try and retake the title!

I can't see how we'll beat that sqaud this season

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Rhian Brewster is a goal machine in the SPL

Well i expect better than last season at Rangers!

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Well i expect better than last season at Rangers!

View attachment 16358

OUCH! That's a shocked of a season in a "lesser" league. No goal or assists in 20 appearances! ?

 

[Mr_Grieves]

OUCH! That's a shocked of a season in a "lesser" league. No goal or assists in 20 appearances! ?

Most of them were sub appearances but still to not score a single goal is unbelievable!

 

[Mr_Grieves]

August

The really exciting transfers at Aberdeen went down after the season started.


Fixtures

Welcome first to our confusing as **** start to the SPL season. Sometimes we score for fun. Sometimes we dont. Our defense was a sieve till the end of the month no more than for 15 minutes against Livingston when all 3 of there goals came. Celtic & a second trip to Vienna in less than a month will be a true test of where we stand.


SPL Table

Celtic start as i expect them to go on. Massive signing and giving Griffiths the lead role up front is disasterous news for us and Rangers chasing them down.


Champions League Qualifyers

Our struggles in front of goal, aka selling Cosgrove & Wilson came back to bite us in the *** with two scorless games with Austria Vienna cost us the moneyspinning trip to the Champions League group phase


Europa League Group J

Top 2 will be the target and is achievable!


Major failures from old firm as they both go out in the Europa group qualifyers to Partizan & Vitesse mean all our nations coefficient will come from us.


Transfer Window

Out
Usually i would start with players coming IN however the storys all start with players we loose. Man Utd came in with a offer of £3m for Lewis Ferguson. Fair enough but i had no plans to sell. Double it! and they did so for a squad building fee of £6m he left to join the biggest team in the world. With Ferguson lost i decided we would go whole hog and sell captain Joe Lewis as well. A 3 north American sides offered over £5m for him and it was CF America in Mexico that he joined. Strange move since they already have Mexico's NO1 Guilermo Ochoa but still we get a strong share of that £11.5m to spend ourselves

In
I spent at least 4 hours going through the world of football and in the end came up with 3 very different but very good transfers for Aberdeen


Pelayo Morilla MC

YES That Morilla! Sitting in the Gijon B team and still making pennies everything conspired together for us to make a move for the best u21 Spanish midfielder in FM19. Lets hope he can repeat in this years game.

Toni Herrero DL

I tryed to sign him earlier in the window but this level of money was not there to spend. He will be my main left back making Correia's loan deal £45k a month in the toilet.

Chris Mochrie AT

Scotlands best u19 forward was going to cost over £1m in January but after i caused him to fall out with new Dundee United Craig Levine he appeared on the transfer list for £100k! No wonder there in such a mess!

Ilija Babic had already joined the u19s before Ferguson left.

​

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Looks like some good business done there!

 

[Mr_Grieves]

September
After a fumbling through August we come alive in September

Fixtures

We could not have made a better start. Thrashing Celtic 3-0 with all goals coming from loan stars. Celtic had almost a full strength side but we strolled over them. The first game back in the SPL after the break seen us destroy Motherwell 5-0. We gave our star players a few games off and a youthful and back up players and despite some nervy moments we won both games.

SPL Table

Thanks to Hearts putting 4 past the mighty Celtic we go top, the last unbeaten side in the league.

Europa League

That is how you start a group campaign. We destroyed the Austrian team in a way that makes me wonder how we couldnt score 1 over 180 minutes against Rapids biggest rivals.

Scotland

We make an abysmal start to our Group B campaign Wales were the better team for the whole 90 minutes then back home we couldt find the killer touch against Bulgaria.​

 

[gba83]

Great story so far, always enjoy reading your stories on here.
Awesome first season with the Dons mate ( also love the fact your name is Stone Cold ).
Dissapointing for you not making it in to the Champions League but good to see you got off to a great start in the Euro Cup.
You've done really well to keep a hold of McKenna this long - always a first signing for me ( current Lazio and Celtic in the EPL game ).
Pity that Scotland insist on still being Scotland even with you in charge, hopefully you can turn this around

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Great story so far, always enjoy reading your stories on here.
Awesome first season with the Dons mate ( also love the fact your name is Stone Cold ).
Dissapointing for you not making it in to the Champions League but good to see you got off to a great start in the Euro Cup.
You've done really well to keep a hold of McKenna this long - always a first signing for me ( current Lazio and Celtic in the EPL game ).
Pity that Scotland insist on still being Scotland even with you in charge, hopefully you can turn this around

McKennna requested a transfer, i rejected his request but there was no offers except Celtic £9m i think. Scotland are so poor in all levels, Except left back! MC is not bad.

 

[Mr_Grieves]

October


Fixtures

It was all going so well until we came back from the international break and only picked up 1 point from two away games. We laboured to a goaless draw at St Mirren and then even worse was how we dragged ourselves off top spot after being swept aside by Rangers who led 2-0 and as soon as we go ourselves back in it we went down to 10 men and lost a 3rd goal.


SPL Table

Looks like we have ourselves a title battle 2 points split the top 3 and Rangers now lead the way.


Europa League

3 from 3 and were waltzing through the Europa League. Two wins from our last 3 games would secure top spot. 4 points from the last 9 will secure top spot.


Scotland

9 goals from 2 games has us back in the chase. We'll need some help from the Bulgarians to get top spot but that would leave us getting destroyed by the division A teams!​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

November



Fixtures

We booked our spot in the League cup final by thrashing Motherwell and we'll play Rangers in the final

We had to fight to get the 3 points against Hamilton before thrashing Livingston. Next up was a straight forward win at St Johnstone. Well not really. Both wing backs went off injured after we made our 3 subs leaving us very short in players for a busy December


SPL Table

We loose our spot on top and stumble down to 3rd place and 4 points off the top.


Europa League

Two games two wins and almost £1m in win bonuses and most importantly the 96th minute winner from Milutin has secured top spot in group and a spot in the last 32.


Scotland

We needed two big wins to secure the impossible top spot earned with a handsome win at home to Wales gave us a shot and then Wales collapsed against Bulgaria by the Welsh means we wil qualify for Division A for the next campaign.

​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

League Cup Final 2020

Aberdeen 0-1 Rangers

We lost a cup final which is always sad but outside of the 18 selected players the rest of the first team players were injured and the red card for Byrne in the first half made this mission impossible against Bielsa's well orginised Rangers team who lift the first trophy of the season.​

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Going great! Unlucky with the final, pretty even game despite the injuries and red card, sure you have bigger targets for the season

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Going great! Unlucky with the final, pretty even game despite the injuries and red card, sure you have bigger targets for the season

A Deep run in Europe, League & Cup double is the dream!

 

[Mr_Grieves]

December
Ups, downs and the crazist 20 minutes of the season against Rangers


Fixtures

We started with a brave win at home to Hibs spending 70 minutes with 10 men. Alloa was easier than it looked then a simple win against Motherwell led to a huge drop in form. Two games before christmas without a goal and only 1 point from 6 against St Mirren and Kilmarnock. We thrashed Hearts with a back up team and then there was Rangers a game that deserves its own space.

Aberdeen 3-3 Rangers

A game that was must win gave us the most mental 19 minutes of the save. A quarter of the game wasnt even gone and we led 3-2 which is how it would stay till the 92nd minute when Arsenal winger Gabriel Martinelli kept the Old Firm at arms length at the top of the table.


SPL Table

The top 3 is exactly how i pictured it pre season. The old firm, Celtic especially being too good for us. European football has held us back and kept the old firm fitter but only 7 points off top we are far from done!


Europa League

Despite a sprinkling of kids we end the campaign with a perfect 6 wins.

Last 32

Red Star vs Aberdeen
Not a bad draw here either.​