Crewe Alexandra Challenge

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January Results

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Crewe 1-0 Bournemouth (Moore)
Crewe 1-1 Carlisle (Osman)
Crewe 2-0 Portsmouth (Pogba x2)
Crewe 0-1 Oldham
Crewe 0-0 Swindon
Crewe 1-0 Notts County (Redmond)


How things can change in a month! After a shocking December I couldn't possibly see us having a start this good to 2013. 3 wins in a row and a 0-0 draw away at 2nd in the league aswell as a 1-0 win away at Notts County meant we have begun out climb up and away from the relegation zone. During this month, centre back Harry Davis was awarded player of the month and Mathias Pogba came 2nd in Goal of the month for a brilliant strike against Portsmouth. Also I came 3rd in manager of the month which I thought was a great achievement especially as we beat Bournemouth whose manager won 1st place in manager of the month. Overall, I think this is probably my best month so far on this career and I hope to continue my steady rise up towards mid table obscurity!


Deadline day signing:

Liam O'Neil - 50k from West Brom

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​

I am very pleased with the start made by Jake Bidwell who has slotted straight into my 1st team squad and has averaged 7.13 in the 6 games he has played. Unfortunately, Steven Heatherington arrived with an injury and has been out ever since and therefore is yet to play a game.
 
February results


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Crewe 1-1 Colchester (Osman)
Crewe 0-1 Tranmere
Crewe 0-0 Walsall


Not much to report from February as only 3 games took place. A poor performance against Colchester was followed by 2 good, but unlucky, performances against Tranmere and Walsall in which I dominated but my strikers are all on poor form at the moment. Another thing to point out is that Rhys Taylor (my GK) has picked up an injury but luckily will only be out for a couple of days. We remain in 16th place in the table, just 5 points above the relagation zone
 
March Results


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Crewe 2-1 Scunthorpe (Pogba, Moore)
Crewe 1-2 Leyton Orient (West)
Crewe 2-2 Sheffield United (O'Neil, Tootle)
Crewe 1-0 Preston (Osman)
Crewe 1-0 Swindon (O'Neil)



​Another brilliant month which included 3 wins, one of which was against 3rd place Swindon, a draw away against top of the league Sheffield United and just the one defeat. This was a fantastic month for new signing Liam O'Neil who made his debut against Leyton Orient and has gelled straight into the starting line up bagging a few important goals along the way. I'm very glad that we managed to stop our mini goal drought and we managed to score in every match this month, although I am still slightly disappointing that we only managed 1 goal in three of the matches. Despite this, I am very pleased with the improvement made by the squad over the course of the season so far and hope to finish the season in the same way we are playing now.


Mathias Pogba bagged himself second place in goal of the month for his piledriver against Scunthorpe BUT most importantly of all THE BOARD HAVE OFFERED ME A NEW CONTRACT UNTIL 2016!!!

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League table with just 5 games remaining:

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April Results


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Crewe 2-3 Coventry (Ellis, Murphy)
Crewe 1-1 MK Dons (Moore)
Crewe 0-1 Stevenage
Crewe 0-3 Doncaster
Crewe 0-0 Shrewsbury


Not quite the best way to end a below average season.


2012/13 Season Review

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After an extremely poor start to the season, things started to brighten up, but a terrible Christmas period resulted in an unexpectedly low finish. As the season started I was expecting to be in or around the play off mix but this was an obvious over optimistic goal from the start.


This is the final league table:
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Positives
Solid in defence - New signings Bidwell, O'Neil and Nolan slotted straight into the starting line-up

Club is now Debt free

Kept all young talent

Didn't get relegated!

Board offered me a new contract keeping me at the club until 2016

Negatives

Didn't get promoted!

Lack of goals

Max Clayton's poor form all season long

Heatherington's poor form and then long injury

Best Eleven

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Fans Player Of The Season: Abdul Osman​
 
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2013/14 Season

Aim

To improve on last seasons performance. Continue to develop home grown talent from the youth academy and sign young players to hopefully maintain a solid mid-table finish. Also I would like to add to the squad as the current squad is very small and when a few injuries occurred last season, we struggled and had to get players from the reserves and U18 squad to fill in.

Budgets

Transfer: £3.9m
Wage: £31k p/w (Currently 30k)

These budgets are flexible and can be changed at any time to add extra wage budget if necessary.


​
 
Pre-Season


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Crewe 1-3 West Ham (Murphy)
Crewe 1-1 Oxford (Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 0-1 Bury
Crewe 5-2 Leek (Pogba x2, Redmond, Dolan, West)


Not a very good way to start the season! I was expecting alot more from my players although I did play a few youngsters, I still expected to beat teams like Oxford! I have made 1 signing during the pre-season break:

Abdi Ibrahim - Free from Man City

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Any advice on cheap youngsters to buy would be much appreciated! :) ​
 
August Results


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Crewe 0-2 Doncaster
Crewe 1-2 Huddersfield - Capital One Cup 1st Round (Pogba)
Crewe 1-2 Colchester (Clayton)
Crewe 2-0 Scunthorpe (Clayton, Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 2-4 Peterborough (Pogba, O'Neil)
Crewe 0-3 Hartlepool

A very poor start to the season and it looks like if anything we have got worse since last season and may be in for a relagation battle! I wasn't too dissapointed with my games against Colchester, Scunthorpe and Peterborough as we played well in all three of them although we only won one. I am happy that Max Clayton has FINALLY started to pick up some kind of form after ending his 16 game goal drought in the match against Colchester. We are currently down in 22nd position.

I bought one player on deadline day and he is definatly one for the future:


Martyn McLeod - 130k from Hearts

View attachment 318394


As no-one seems to be commenting/replying to any of my posts recently I wondered if there was anything I could do differently to make this series more enjoyable/interactive?​
 
Quite an interesting read, maybe screen shot match results especially cup wins or big games, also break the league table showing into 10 game chunks maybe-you will get a final 5 game shot to finish the season.

There is a guernsey story that has a good format!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
I tend to comment little, but I still follow this.

Possible improvements is to include maybe some brief commentary about each match. On form players, out of form, positions that look to be weak or very at some points.

I say CLayton doesn't score again in ten games since last he did.
 
September Results
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Crewe 3-2 Tranmere - Johnstone's Paint Trophy 1st round (Clayton, Leitch-Smith, Redmond)
Crewe 2-2 MK Dons (Murphy, Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 1-1 Preston (Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 1-2 Tranmere (Redmond)
Crewe 4-1 Rotherham (West, Clayton, Pogba, Redmond)
Crewe 0-1 Wycombe

Although I only managed the 1 league win in September I am very pleased with the teams performances. Draws against highly places MK Dons and Preston were very pleasing and Clayton and Leitch-Smith are on blistering form! The reason I am so happy (as I will show later on a picture) is that although I haven't been winning, I have been dominating every game I have played in and apart from the Rotherham game I have been really unlucky. As it stands I am down in 23rd with my next match being against 24th! Last season I didn't score enough but so far this season I have been scoring but my defence has been shocking!


This basically sums up my season so far (look at the stats):

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This is the league table so far:

View attachment 318629​
 
Good stats. It looks like the last half season of my Crewe story. Controlling the match, bringing the game plan into the pitch, but just not getting the results. In my case it wasn't an apalling defense, but ocassional defense mistakes plus inability to convert the chances we created.

Hopefully you'll have better luck in future months.
 
October results

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Crewe 1-0 Leyton Orient (Pogba)
Crewe 0-2 Chesterfield
Crewe 2-0 Wrexham - Johnstone's Paint Trophy 2nd Round (Davis x2)
Crewe 1-2 Shrewsbury (Clayton)
Crewe 4-1 Notts County (Pogba x3. Redmond)
Crewe 1-3 Bristol City (Moore)
Crewe 2-1 Barnsley (West, Clayton)
Crewe 0-2 Yeovil

This is probably the most random month that is possible! (W,L,W,L,W,L,W,L)

The first match in October was a MASSIVE game against 24th place Leyton Orient as at the time I was down in 23rd. The game was very tense and nervy and there weren't alot of shots on goal but it ended up in a tight 1-0 win for me.

I am happy that we are managing to put together a decent run in the JPT and I believe we have a chance to go all the way. The match against Wrexham was the most one sided game I have ever seen on FM and 2 goals really doesn't show how dominant we were. We have got Burton away in the Quarter final coming up in December.

View attachment 319029

During this month I was offered the Scunthorpe job which I obviously rejected and then went on to get praise for this choice from my board and also players.

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As it stands we are in 19th position and are out of the relegation zone by just 1 point.
Some more good form from Pogba and Clayton is very pleasing but we now have to sort out some consistency and try to push up towards mid table.​
 
November Results

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Crewe 1-2 Crawley (Pogba)
Crewe 1-3 Gillingham - FA Cup 1st Round (Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 3-2 Carlisle (Redmond, Clayton, OG)
Crewe 1-0 Northampton (Moore)
Crewe 3-1 Coventry (Dugdale, Redmond, Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 1-4 Stevenage (Leitch-Smith)


Definatly my best month of the season by far! disappointing start to the month as a loss at home to Crawley and a battering away at league 2 Gillingham in the cup were largely unexpected and after being 2-0 up at Carlisle and being pulled back to 2-2 I started to wonder if I would ever get some luck; then ironically carlisle scored a 90th minute own goal! From then on my luck began to turn and 3 wins in a row propelled me up to 16th in the table and I was starting to look up towards the play offs, but then I was brought swiftly back down to earth with a 4-1 thrashing at home to 21st place Stevenage after Adam Dugdale's second red card of the season.

I am very pleased with the continued good form of Clayton and Leitch-Smith and also Redmond has started to bang in a few goals from the wing, with one of his goals winning second place in the 'Goal of the month' competition. Sadly Max Clayton has picked up an injury and will now be out for a couple of weeks so hopefully Pogba and Leitch-Smith can continue their fine form in his absence.

It seems as if I am the manager in demand at the moment as for the second time in 2 months I was offered a job at another struggling league 1 side in MK Dons (Which I once again rejected)
View attachment 319609

We end this month in 19th place, 4 points above the drop.​
 
December Results

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Crewe 3-1 Burton (Johnstone's Paint Trophy Quarter Final (Leitch-Smith x2, O'Neil)
Crewe 1-1 Bournemouth (Pogba)
Crewe 0-1 Doncaster
Crewe 2-5 Scunthorpe (Leitch-Smith, Own Goal)
Crewe 0-3 Colchester
Crewe 1-1 Peterborough (West)


Another terroble month! A good start in the JPT in a game which I dominated and went through into the semi-final where I will play Rochdale over two legs. Three shocking performances in a row against Doncaster, Colchester and Colchester left me down in 21st place with my future in doubt. A luck draw against top of the league Peterborough eased the pain but the pressure is on to get some results fast!


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The current league table:

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Any ideas for new signinings would be appreciated (DON'T WANNA GET SACKED)​
 
In my save Tunnicliffe worked quite well until he got a 3 month injury at the end of a season that really hurt him.

It could have some degree of usefulness some player with great mental stats even if physically would be mediocre. I can't guarantee that would be too good, as I never got to use my elders much. But I do know that when I gave them chances, they did generally well or very well.
 
January results


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Crewe 1-1 Leyton Orient (Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 1-1 Rochdale (won 12-11 on pens) - JPT regional semi final (Murphy)
Crewe 0-2 MK Dons
Crewe 1-1 Hartlepool (Leitch-Smith)
Crewe 1-0 Preston (Osman)
Crewe 1-0 Rotherham (Redmond)


A very promising month for my team! A very tense and nervous penalty shoot-out against Rochdale was followed by a crushing defeat away to MK Dons and after only managing a draw against Hartlepool it looked as if my job was in danger, but wins against Preston and Hartlepool have moved us out of the relegation zone.



During the January transfer window I made 3 new signings:


Luca Scapuzzi - 16k from Manchester City

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Martyn Waghorn - 10k from Leicester

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On loan from Sunderland until the end of the season

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This is the league table at the end of January:

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Suprisingly, I got offered the Portsmouth job during this month which I declined

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February results

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Crewe 1-0 Tranmere (Scapuzzi)
Crewe 5-0 Carlisle - JPT regional final 1st leg (Waghorn, West, Mellor, Noble, Scapuzzi)
Crewe 1-2 Wycombe (Mellor)
Crewe 0-3 Carlisle JPT regional final 2nd leg (5-3 aggregate)
Crewe 4-0 Yeovil (Waghorn x4)


WHAT A MONTH! A fantastic month in every way! Starting with a complete domination of play-off spot tranmere, this month got better and better. A massive win against Carlisle in the JPT meant we are going to WEMBLEY!!! We are now also 4 points clear of relegation and the new signings I have made have had an amazing start. Scapuzzi and Waghorn have slotted straight into the starting line-up and have both played superbly in every game they have played so far. I could have my 1st trophy of FM 2013 coming very soon! COYR!



 
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