Coventry City – Saving my Boyhood Club

[MEBaker]

Coventry City – Saving my Boyhood Club

Introduction
Hi guys, I’ve decided that over the past few weeks (Over 100 hours play time) that I have gained enough FM experience to start telling the story of my second long term management career. In my previous save with Dundee United, I witnessed Coventry (Who I support) fall out of league 1, lose some of their best players on the cheap and begin to consolidate a mid-table place in league 2. Combined with worsening finances and still no permanent home for them, I decided that my next save would be to resurrect the club and hopefully get them promoted.

 

[MEBaker]

Goals
The short term goals I have for my save are:
· Survive the first season’s point’s deduction without being relegated.
· Have some fantastic cup runs.
· Gain income for the club and protect the clubs long term future.
The long term goals of my save are:
· Boost the income and become a financially viable football club.
· Get the club back to playing in a permanently club owned venue within Coventry.
· Promotion to the Championship, Premier League and maybe one day win the Champions League.

 

[MEBaker]

Transfers
To put a long story short, my transfer budget was non-existent and my wage budget was very minimal. Being given a budget like this was really disappointing, but in times like this for the club there wasn't much I could do. Making use of loans from premier league clubs who didn’t want the wages covered, the odd free agent who turned out to be a bit of a panic buy, and gaining Liverpool as a parent club, the transfers I made were:

Jack Stephens and John Egan come in to provide some much needed cover at Centre Back.
Danny Potts comes in to add a rotation option for our own full back Blair Adams.
Jack Dunn is there for when heavy fixture congestion becomes a problem and our main attacking midfielders struggle with fitness problems.
Craig Lynch can provide back up for the strikers however he may not get used and could go come January or be released on a free should he not provide or not play.

 

[MEBaker]

Pre-season

No complaints with how our pre-season went, other than throwing away a two goal lead at Nuneaton.

We started well by coming from two goals down against Woking to come back to win the game. Aston Villa loanee Nathan Delfouneso showed what he can for the club by picking up a brace in the 4-2 result.

In our next game we demolished Matlock 6-0 making it two wins from two. This time centre back Jack Stephens was on hand to pick up a brace, and the panic buy, Craig Lynch, scores in the dying minutes of the game.

For our third win on the bounce we travelled away to Hartlepool where once again Nathan Delfouneso showed why he is pushing Coventry kid Callum Wilson for the starting spot up top. He scored the only goal in an ugly 1-0 win.

For our forth pre-season friendly, it was in the form of Premier League opposition. We came back from a goal down to beat Stoke 2-1 at six fields, including a rocket of a shot from Conor Thomas. This was a great result helping us to show what we want to do in the cup competitions this season.

In our last pre-season friendly, we had our obligatory fixture against Nuneaton Town. After scoring two goals, and looking comfortable to go on to for a rout, Nuneaton managed to come back and level the scores and produce a 2-2 draw. The pick of the goals from the game was another Rocket from Conor Thomas, despite his long shot stat being just 8.

 

[MEBaker]

The Tactic

I would say the tactic I'm using is designed with the tactic Steven Pressley was employing at the beginning of the season in mind. It uses the basis of a fast paced attacking style of football, designed to wear the opposition out. I suppose its main function was to outscore the opponent by using the pace and strength of Callum Wilson and Leon Clarke respectively. This is why the club had so many exciting, high scoring games, including a 5-4 win over Bristol City and a 4-4 draw with Preston. Albeit most Coventry fans boycotting Sixfields didn’t get to see these games.

My tactic is the increasingly more common 4-2-3-1 and its main objective is to exploit the pace of the lone striker by having them waiting to pick up balls from a high quality midfield five who are able to pass well. Its high tempo enables fast attacks to be produced from simple passing movement.

The screenshot for the tactic, pre-season results and transfers are attached to the introduction.
It would be greatly appreciated if constructive criticism was left, thank you for reading! I really hope you enjoy my hopefully long and positive management of Coventry

Matt

 

[MEBaker]

August to October Update

August to October Update

The league

So far in the league significant progress has been made to achieve the short term goal I set myself of surviving relegation. Currently we sit 14th​ in the league, having played some huge games already early on in the season. Should we not have had the 10 point deduction, we’d be sitting in 3rd​ place, just two points behind the leader. Hopefully that becomes possible over the course of the season.

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Key games

Bristol City – We start our home away from home season with a bang scoring 4 goals against a team who are arguably one of the biggest threats in the league.
Preston – Another win against a big team in the league, the 2 goal comeback may come in handy at the end of the season should we challenge for the playoffs.
Shrewsbury – In the 7 goal thriller away from home proves how the attack mentality of the formation works its magic. 4 goals for Wilson show why he’s one of the league’s hottest prospects.
Brentford – A big loss at home to rivals for promotion Brentford brings us back down to earth after an unbeaten run.

Capital One Cup

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I did say I was dreaming of a good cup run, and sure enough we began to start one. Strong wins against Leyton Orient and Watford gave us the dream of a cup run. We lost out at home to traditional rivals Aston Villa due to a very questionable penalty decision. But I guess that’s just football.

FA Cup

Not much to say regarding the FA cup, other than we’ve been given an interesting cup tie against our ground share hosts Northampton.

Johnstone’s paint trophy

Currently only one round played in the Johnstone’s paint trophy, will have more to show after future rounds have been played.


The next updates will be done monthly giving a better view of how the season is going.

 

[MEBaker]

November Update

November

Results
A bad month see’s the club drop away from pushing for promotion as we pick up just 3 points from a possible 12, go crashing out of one cup and suffer a penalty shoot-out to progress through another.

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Notts County – We begin the month with a fixture against League 1 surprise package Notts County, unfortunately we are unable to get the better of them in the 7 goal thriller and we fall to defeat as a result of a former Coventry loanee in the form of Callum Ball, bagging himself a first half hat-trick.
Northampton – Having led twice in the game through Billy Daniels, the team gave up our lead and we fall to a second half defeat against our ground share hosts. I suppose it would've been rude for us to win.
Gillingham – Again leading a game, Gillingham equalised and took the game to penalties after the 90 minutes. It took former Coventry front man Cody McDonald to miss his penalty to send us through and earn us a tie against Oxford United. Felt like a bit of a contrast to beating League 2 Newport county in the previous round 4-0.
Bradford – Our only win in November comes away against Bradford City in a 4-2 victory. It was great to this time be on the end of the comeback, coming back twice to equalise before scoring twice in the last 20 minutes.
Tranmere – Once again we pull back the deficit however we lose out to a second half strike despite chances to level the game and even pull a winner. The game just reflects the poor form we've had all month.
Mk Dons – An incredibly frustrating result see’s whatever I changed (more defensive to save embarrassment and the same for more attacking to bag a consolation) not work out. Felt like one of those games as we had more shots on target yet they were able put 5 past us while we scored none.
So here’s how the table changes after a frustrating November:

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As you can see we sit 16th​ in the league now, 11 points behind Bradford. Worse still is that we’ve hit bad form and the relegation battle is closing in on us with Gillingham just 6 points behind. Without our points deduction we’d be sitting one point behind Bradford.

I’m hoping for a better month in December and it’d be great to push on this season and get closer to the play-offs and increase the gap between us and the relegation zone.

 

[MEBaker]

December

December Update
After a bad month in November, December is a much more positive month for the club. We progress in the Paint Trophy, begin to pick up our early league form again and start to lower the clubs wage budget.

Results

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Oxford United – We begin the month with a game which was motivation for the players against potentially weaker opposition. The huge win earns us a tie against league 2 opposition Plymouth in the two legged area final. Glad not to have to face penalties again against Oxford.
Crewe – We get back to winning ways in the league again with a solid 3-1 over Crewe. As our first choice winger Denzel Slager is out injured, veteran Carl Baker stepped up and scored, Moussa also scored before Danny Seaborne scored a diving header in the second half.
Rotherham – in a frustrating fixture where neither side was making the use of their chances, Billy Daniels equalised for us late on to bag us an extra point for our campaign.
Swindon – As the underdogs we’d be wrote off to win this one but our change in form saw the team take a 2 goal lead before conceding late on to produce a nervous end. Fortunately we were able to hold on for the win and get the 3 points.
Peterborough – After conceding three goals in the first 20 minutes, I felt like I was in for another demolishing like the MK Dons game, however Callum Wilson scored twice for us to bring the game to 3-2. Unfortunately for us we couldn’t do enough to stop David Somma scoring his hattrick shortly before half time
Oldham – Frank Moussa scored twice before Billy Daniels made it 3-0 against bottom of the league opposition. Once again however we were not able to maintain a clean sheet, one side effect of a heavily attacking tactic. All in all the 3-1 win rounds off a good win to end what has been a much better month.

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At the half way mark our results leave us 12th​ in the league, and leaves us 7 points off the play offs. We also stand 11 points above the relegation zone which I feel is a safe gap. Over the next few months I can see us pushing on up the table and am currently hoping for the play-offs.

Finances
Our finances have been eased a small bit as key players Franck Moussa and Joe Murphy sign new contracts to keep them at the club. Moussa stays on his same wage and Joe Murphy takes a £500 pay cut per week however this won’t be significant enough. Elsewhere Cyrus Christie unfortunately looks set to leave and I’m keen to sell the right back in January so some of the financial pressure can ease more.

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All in all it’s a good month for us, and we look to keep this form going into the second half of the season. Please keep reading and once again if you have any advice for me let me know.

 

[MEBaker]

End of season 1

End of Season Update

Results
The club has been heading in the correct direction for the second half of the season, however due to the attacking mentality of the side at one point in the season I thought we were going to score and concede over 100 goals.

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And we did the unthinkable, finishing the season in 5th, could we go all the way and secure promotion to the championship…

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And we did it!

Johnstone’s Paint Trophy
We almost won the JPT, however we crashed out of the final in a 2-0 loss to League winners Wolves. Very pleased with the progress we made but I was gutted to see us go out.

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Youth Intake
Youth intake was fairly good this season, we picked up a few four stars, four and a half stars and one 5 star striker with Leading Premier League Potential. Here he is:

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Would be great for us to sign him and may come in handy to boost the clubs finances out of the red should I sell him.

Key Players
1. Callum Wilson scored 33 times in 46 league appearances whilst assisting the side 6 times. He achieved an average rating of 7.27 by the end of the season.
2. Billy Daniels was impressive in the attacking midfielder position which he managed to hold down over players like Franck Moussa and Carl Baker. The 19 year old managed 18 goals and 21 assists in 47 appearances.
3. Danny Potts was a great addition at Left Back on loan, he made 37 appearances over Blair Adams, managing to pick up 3 goals and assisting 8 goals earning a rating of 6.99.
Thank you for reading this season’s updates, any advice for the championship would be greatly appreciated as it seems pretty daunting.