Everton F.C - Turning Merseyside Blue

[FM_TNSSO]

Tuesday 11th May 2021

Richarlison

Tuesday 11th May 2021
'The Final Run In - Do I Keep My Job?'

Semi Final
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Pickford, Coleman (Weiser 105), Lascelles, Dunk, Digne, Gueye, Vlasic (Palacios 65), Barkley, Pavon, Richarlison, Edouard (Martial 65)

Without a doubt the biggest game of our season so far, and probably the biggest of my career to date as well! It was a tense, nervy affair with both sides defending well and cancelling out each others attack for the standard 90 minutes and with the score at 0-0, extra time was required to settle things! We attacked hard for the extra 30 minutes and created a number of chances, but were unable to take one despite coming very close a couple of times! The dreaded penalty shootout was going to be needed....Martial netted to get us off to a perfect start and Pickford pulled off a fantastic save to ensure we led 1-0 after a penalty each. However, a miss from us and a goal from them soon levelled it up! Both teams scored their 3rd pen, whilst we missed out 4th with Palacios hitting his effort straight down the middle for an easy save! Barkley stepped up and needed to score to keep us in it and he hammered home, which left Pickford needing to pull off a save to keep our dreams alive....but he dived the wrong way and we were out! With tears in my eyes, I left the famous Wembley pitch fearing the worst!

Matchday 32
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Pickford, Weiser, Lascelles, Dunk, Taylor (Digne 63), Gueye (Thuram 63), Palacios, Vlasic, Clarke, Richarlison, Edouard*

We went 1-0 down early on and I feared the worst, but by half time we were in front! Fulham piled on the pressure in the 2nd half but we held on well to secure a good victory against a side that are massively overachieving this season!

Mitchell Weiser set to miss a few games after picking up an injury in training!

Our upcoming game with Bournemouth was billed as 'El Sackico' with both manager's positions looking precarious!

Matchday 33
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Pickford, Coleman, Lascelles, Dunk, Digne*, Thuram, Palacios, Vlasic, Clarke, Richarlison, Martial

Bournemouth find themselves deep in the relegation battle, so on paper you'd expect us to win this one, but we knew they'd be giving it everything! We also had the disappointment of crashing out of the FA Cup to contend with and we now had virtually nothing to play for in the league...it wasn't looking good for me as a manager looking to save his job! I was now heavily reliant on the lads wanting to keep me around as an incentive for them to play well between now and the end of the season, and that seemed enough to motivate them for this one as we battered the Bournemouth goal for 90 minutes and ran out easy winners!

Matchday 34
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Pickford, Coleman, Lascelles, Dunk, Digne*, Thuram, Palacios, Vlasic, Clarke, Richarlison, Martial

A game of two halves as we dominated the 1st, but failed to score, then they dominated the 2nd and with a superior attack they were able to score a couple and take the victory!

Only 6 teams made a bigger loss than us in the Premier League this past year!!

Matchday 35
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Pickford, Coleman*, Lascelles, Dunk, Digne, Thuram, Vlasic, Barkley (Sigurdsson 63), Clarke (Pavon 63), Martial, Edouard (Richarlison 75)

After dominating this whole game, it looked like we were going to have to settle for a draw. That was, until Richarlison popped up at the back post to volley home from Seamus Coleman's cross in the 87th minute to give us a big win over The Gunners!

Jordan Pickford won't play again this season after picking up an injury that will take him beyond the end of the season!

Matchday 36
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Virginia, Coleman, Lascelles, Dunk, Digne, Thuram, Vlasic, Barkley, Clarke, Martial (Pavon 61), Richarlison* (Calvert-Lewin 61)

A good away win at West Ham as we notch up back to back victories and seem to be finishing the season with a bit of a flourish which might just be enough for the board to keep me on next season! Richarlison scored the pick of the goals with a nice effort into the bottom corner after dribbling past two West Ham defenders cutting in from the left side of the box!

Matchday 37
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Virginia, Coleman, Lascelles, Dunk (Mina 63), Taylor*, Thuram (Gueye 63), Palacios, Barkley, Clarke, Martial, Richarlison

Where on earth has this form been all season?! Another awesome performance and another massive win as we beat Chelsea with surprising ease in front of the Everton faithful! You have to wonder if the players are just turning on the style so late in the season to attract interest and earn themselves a Summer move elsewhere...or maybe I'm just being sinical!

Matchday 38
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Lineup; Virginia, Coleman, Lascelles, Dunk (Mina 45), Taylor, Thuram, Palacios, Barkley*, Clarke, Martial, Calvert-Lewin (Vlasic 64)

Our final game of the season was away at The Saints, a club we have a pretty poor record againt. Under my management, we had only beaten them once in six games coming into this, losing four! And despite dominating this game, we couldn't get over the line and defeat them again here, instead having to settle for a draw to end the season!

We finish the season in 9th place, with 11 points less than last season, but with 5 points more than in my first season! ****** Liverpool win the league again for the 3rd straight season as they are really dominating English football at the moment under Jurgen Klopp! Both the Manchester clubs make the top 4 this year, whilst Leicester are probably the surprise team to go down!

Only £23 million received in prize money from the Premier League this season!

Which isn't enough to help with our terrible financial situation! Despite me staying within my budgets, the club finds itself in more than £80 million of debt!!

Despite the club's financial situation, the board still hand me a mega transfer budget of nearly £60 million for the Summer window. Not sure where they are planning to get the money from?!


Talking of the upcoming Summer transfer window, I might have a hard job keeping some of my players here this year, with substantial interest from a lot of clubs, and without the lure of European football next season to keep them here. Current interest in my players stands at...

Jamaal Lascelles - West Ham
Lewis Dunk - West Ham
Charlie Taylor - Brighton, Huddersfield
Khephren Thuram - Bournemouth, West Brom
Jack Clarke - West Ham
Anthony Martial - Manchester City, Inter Milan, AS Monaco
Yerry Mina - Fulham
Cristian Pavon - Sevilla
Jordan Pickford - Tottenham
Odsonne Edouard - Valencia, RB Leipzig

Final news for this update is that I will definitely get the Summer window to do my business and will definitely lead the squad out for the first game of next season! The board invited me to a meeting at the end of the season asking me to explain our poor performance this year...they seemed determined to sack me, but I have managed to persuade them to give me a chance! However, I have had to give them assurances to keep my job...I must deliver 11 points from the opening 5 games of next season or I'm sacked! Yes, that means I need to win 4 of our opening 5 games of next season to keep my job!!! The pressure will most certainly be on!!
​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Tuesday 1st June 2021

Tuesday 1st June 2021
'End of 2020/21 Season'

Competition Winners

Premier League; Liverpool
Championship; Watford
League One; Charlton
League Two; Oldham Athletic
FA Cup; Arsenal
Carabao Cup; Manchester United
Community Shield; Tottenham
Champions League; Real Madrid
Europa League; Tottenham

One word to describe this season....inconsistent!!

It doesn't surprise me at all that Anthony Martial cleaned up at the club awards night! Jack Clarke was impressive as well and fully deserved the young player award!

Anthony Martial replaces Richarlison, whilst Lewis Dunk replaces Kurt Zouma, in the overall best eleven!

Despite a season of underachievement, the little rally in the league at the end seems to have ensured we finish with decent morale amongst the squad!

Considering it wasn't the best season, the individual performances from most of the team have been well up to standard with most of them finishing with average ratings above 7.0! Anthony Martial was the star man (as expected when I signed him last Summer) finishing the season with the highest average rating, 31 goals, 6 assists and 8 man of the match awards!! Odsonne Edouard and Richarlison again hit double figures in the goalscoring stats, whilst Lucas Digne was awesome at left back this year contributing with 15 assists! Cristian Pavon had to share the right wing role with Jack Clarke this season and they both chipped in with 10 and 9 assists respectively! The defence seemed to struggle to gel as a unit this year and this is something that will need addressing if we are to improve next year!

My Player of the Year; Anthony Martial
My Young Player of the Year; Jack Clarke
Must Do Better; Idrissa Gueye
Most Disappointing Player; Gylfi Sigurdsson

Jordan Pickford was selected in the Europa League Team of the Season!

The board had every right to expect better of us this season after we had one of the highest net transfer spends in the league!

£5 million lost on sponsorship and £11 million down on broadcasting revenues this season! However, there were slight rises in the other areas of the commercial summary!

The chairman injects £22.5 million into the club!

Which, combined with the sponsorship money etc, takes the club's bank balance into the black again!

We're now 4th in the league on wages to turnover ratio! This is something I'd love to improve, but all the time the budget is available I feel inclined to use it!

Summer Plans; I think this Summer transfer window could be dictated by the players that leave! There are bound to be departures as I am sure I will struggle to hold onto some players without upsetting them and causing major unrest amongst the squad. I need us to go into next season with a positive dressing room and unhappy players could cost me my job very early on next year if we don't hit that 11 point target in the first 5 games! Anyone that does leave will obviously need replacing so that will take priority! On top of that, I must strengthen the defence and will potentially look to bring in at least 1 world class centre back if there is the right player available at the right price!

Merseyside - Blue or Red?

Well I think it's pretty obvious it is still very much red! We continue to struggle against Liverpool in the Merseyside Derbies and they won their third league title in a row this year and look pretty unstoppable at the moment! One things for sure...I ****** hope they aren't one of our first 5 games next season!
​

 

[MightyBlue]

brilliant thread mate

top thread mate, i find myself always coming back to this thread to see how youre getting on im glad you didnt get the chop, a couple of signings in defence and you'll soon climb that table again

 

[Brane_Orsou]

WHAT!!! 11 points from 15 when you don't even know the fixtures yet! Bit harsh considering what you achieved in first 2 seasons. Fingers crossed mate. If the worst were to happen and you were sacked would that be the end of the save I assume or would you take another job?

 

[FM_TNSSO]

WHAT!!! 11 points from 15 when you don't even know the fixtures yet! Bit harsh considering what you achieved in first 2 seasons. Fingers crossed mate. If the worst were to happen and you were sacked would that be the end of the save I assume or would you take another job?

If it were to happen and I really hope I can avoid it, i'd probably start something new as this whole save was aimed at making Merseyside blue

 

[gubbz89]

I'm impatiently waiting for your next post TheNoSoSpecialOne... I'm a big blue so don't let me down

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Some serious **** going down this Summer!! A £55 million departure from the club and two new centre backs in at a combined cost of nearly £50 million!

 

[davisdj]

Stellar year for him.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Summer Transfer Window

Summer Transfer Window 2021

Released Players

Theo Walcott is far and away the biggest name to leave the club at the end of his contract this season. He is getting on a bit and was eating up £120k of the wage budget, so it was definitely time for him to go!

Players Out

Outgoing; A massive outgoing transfer that wasn't expected at the start of the Summer, but Jordan Pickford has taken the plunge and joins European giants, PSG!! I have received a fee of £55 million for him though which we will get £35 million up front and the other £20 million in 2 installments over the next 24 months! Pickford has been great for me and yes it's sad to lose the England number 1 between our sticks, but £55 million is a **** load of cash!

Outgoing; Yerry Mina was ****** for most of last season due to his lack of first team football, so I took the decision to get rid this Summer. He moves to China for £17.5 million!

Outgoing; With the likes of Exequiel Palacios, Ross Barkley, Khephren Thuram and a couple of new signings (detailed below) all able to play the centre midfield role, it meant there was no place for Idrissa Gueye! He is nearly 32 years old now and on over £100k per week with us, so it was time for him to move on. He'll be a good signing for Celtic I'm sure and they stumped up £8 million to take him off our hands!

Outgoing; Another big Everton name to leave the club this Summer was Gylfi Sigurdsson. He has fallen behind both Ross Barkley and Nikola Vlasic for the attacking CM role in the squad, but was still cleaning up £120k per week, so unfortunately I just couldn't justify keeping him around on that sort of money! He joins Sevilla for a fee of £8 million.

Outgoing; This seems like the Summer of clearing out the Everton old boys, as Seamus Coleman becomes the latest to leave the club! At 33 years old, his ability is starting to decline and he wasn't justifying his £70k per week salary either! Stoke have snapped him up for £3 million.

Outgoing; There were new arrivals this Summer (Detailed below) in the centre back role, so something had to give. Yerry Mina had already left the club and Lewis Dunk now does the same. He follows Seamus Coleman to Stoke and we recouped most of the fee we paid for him, raking in £18.5 million.

Outgoing; Jamaal Lascelles threw his dummy right out the pram when I removed him as captain, and started upsetting the entire team so he simply had to go! I can't have players around the club behaving that way, so he was quickly shipped out for £19.25 million to Southampton!

Outgoing Loan; I have quite a lot of attacking players, so when Juventus came in and offered me £300k per month and to pay all of his wages for Viktor Fischer on loan, I gladly accepted! We have a clause in there that they can buy him for £30 million any time during the loan as well!

Players In

Incoming; The one area of the squad that needed improvement this Summer was the defence, so it's no surprise that my first signing is a centre back! I've paid £14 million to bring Rick van Drongelen in from PSV Eindhoven and he's a great piece of business considering he's already valued at £20.5 million on the day he signs! Rick is a great tackler, with very good marking ability and has some good pace about him for a defender as well! He also had a great season for PSV last year as well, recording an average rating on 7.43 during 29 appearances! At 22 years old, he has his best years ahead of him and could be at the heart of our defence for years to come!

Incoming; So it was then my job to go out and get Rick van Drongelen a suitable and worthy centre back partner! And the man that's come in to sit alongside him at the heart of the defence is 25 year old Italian, Gianluca Mancini! He joins us from Atalanta for a fee of £28 million, which could rise to £32 million with add ons. His stats are awesome for a defender and again he isn't slow for a centre back as I look to increase our speed at the back this Summer. Again, I have tried to sign a player with a proven history of success and Mancini has recorded an average rating above 7.0 in Serie A for the past 3 seasons running, so is proven at the top level!

Incoming; One thing I failed to do last Summer was bring in a backup goalkeeper, so this year I managed to address that! I've paid a small fee of only £1.4 million to bring Bristol City keeper, Joe Lumley, to the club! He will largely act as a deputy between the sticks, but is a massive step up on the youngsters I had to fill this void last season!

Incoming; With Jordan Pickford leaving the club, I needed to bring in a new number 1 keeper as well! And who better, than the man that currently challenges Pickford for his spot in the England team. Welcome Angus Gunn who joins from Southampton for a fee of £12 million! A bargain price for a top keeper!

Incoming; Each year I have tried to bring in at least one or two English players and this Summer is no different! With two English goalkeepers already joining the team, I then moved to bring 25 year old central midfielder, Harry Winks, to the club from Tottenham. He has been struggling to get in their first team over the past 12 months and was available at a cut price £11 million, so I quickly snapped him up! Winks is a player with a fantastic attitude, good work rate and works extremely well in a team...everything I look for in a centre mid! Pleased to have him on board!

Incoming; With the likes of Viktor Fischer going out on loan and the potential that Anthony Martial might have left, I needed to bring in reinforcements for the wide midfield roles, but wanted to do it without breaking the bank! Dimitris Pelkas can play all across the front line and has been quietly going about his business in Greece and I managed to snap him up for just £11 million and he's on relatively cheap wages too. He's not a superstar but will serve a purpose as a good squad rotation player!

Incoming Loan; Bayern Munich had their £47 million rated central midfielder, Thomas Partey, up on the transfer list! Now, I didn't want to commit to paying such a high fee for him, but I'm really pleased to have picked him up on loan for the season and I do have the option to buy him at the end of the season for £42.5 million if he turns out to be awesome for us! Best thing about the deal is that we will only pay 30% of his wages this season too (£27k p/w)!

Incoming Loan; Another great move (if I do say so myself) bringing in another top class player on loan for this season. I mentioned last Summer about the right back role needing strengthening and Djibril Sidibe could be the man I've been looking for in that position! He joins us on loan for the season from AS Monaco and we'll only have to pay 30% of his wages (£27.5k) for this year, and if he turns out to be the player I think he will, I have an optional clause to buy him at the end of his loan deal for £24 million.

This is my squad going into the new season. No doubt we are a little short in numbers in defence and two youngster in Craig Scott-Gilmour and Ryan Astley have been promoted from the U23s and will be given their shot! I have to admit I made a bit of a **** up here and should have had another centre back in the squad, but Lascelles left on deadline day and I didn't realise I only had 1 hour to get someone in and ran out of time! In midfield and attack we look very strong though and this team should be able to score bundles of goals. Keeping hold of Anthony Martial was key, but he is unhappy that I rejected £45 million bids from Barcelona and Dortmund for his services...hopefully he can get over it quickly! Odsonne Edouard is also worryingly ****** off as well, as I didn't allow him to complete a £30 million move to Bayern Munich! Finally, I do also have unhappy players in Ross Barkley (Arsenal came in with a bid of £25 million for him) and Lucas Digne (PSG offered £22 million for him). I really hope the team can come together quickly or I'm going to be out of a job very quickly!

The is the healthiest financial position the club has been in heading into a new season, under my management! We are normally £30 or £40 million in debt by now, but instead find ourselves with £11 million still in the bank! I've also trimmed the wage bill right down to well under £2 million......£700k under my allowed budget, which should save us a small fortune over the course of the season!
​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Wednesday 11th August 2021

Gianluca Mancini

Wednesday 11th August 2021
'It All Comes Crashing Down'

We had a decent enough showing in the Europa League last season and as a result have moved up 16 places in the European club rankings!

We dropped to 8th in the matchday revenue stats this year, with West Ham leaping above us and Man City into 6th! That Olympic Stadium is starting to pay off by the looks of it!

Jamaal Lascelles didn't exactly lead us to glory last year so it was time for a change with the armband. Our new centre back, Gianluca Mancini, takes over the captain's duties with Nikola Vlasic his new deputy.

The board have made it clear that they want to see a marked improvement on last season!

Our fixtures were released for the new season and these are the 5 games we need to get 11 points from! That means if we don't win all of the first four games, we will have to get something from the Liverpool game...bearing in mind we've never beaten them under my management!

Bang on same predictions from the bookies as last season for us with only the big 6 predicted to finish ahead of us. Let's hope we can live up to it this year!

Matchday 1
Formation; 4-2-3-1
Lineup; Gunn, Sidibe, Mancini, van Drongelen, Digne, Partey, Palacios, Clarke (Sent Off 53), Vlasic (Pavon 53), Richarlison, Edouard (Martial 53)

Bollocks...the worst possible start means that we now need to win all of our next 4 games for me to keep my job!!! Jack Clarke's sending off was the turning point in the game as we were well on top up until that point, and then The Magpies simply took advantage once we were down to 10 men!

Matchday 2
Formation; 4-2-3-1
Lineup; Gunn, Sidibe, Mancini, van Drongelen, Digne, Partey, Palacios, Pavon (Pelkas 61), Vlasic (Barkley 61), Martial (Richarlison 61), Edouard

Shocking result! We dominated the entire game and had 14 shots...they had 2 and scored 1!! I thought I had plenty of firepower in this squad, but failure to score in both our opening games means we all know what's coming next!

So there we have it....after 3 seasons in charge, I lose my job!! I'm gutted I didn't get an opportunity to see how all my new signings would do this season and feel really let down by the players in the opening two games!

My record wasn't a terrible one, winning half of my 147 games in charge!

Thanks to everyone who has followed and commented on this story and I can only apologise for letting you all down! Although it's come to an end, I've really enjoyed the journey and writing the story and feel I've found a format for my stories that I really like, so I will return with something new very soon!
​

 

[HugoCaldeira1234]

Oh Boy
You Got Sacked By Everton
Maybe You Must To Do V Guimaraes Or Rio Ave

 

[Travis Comery]

Genuinely gutted mate. Was a cracking read, looking forward to your next challenge! Try not to get sacked

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Genuinely gutted mate. Was a cracking read, looking forward to your next challenge! Try not to get sacked

I'll do my best mate. The new Stuttgart save is up and running mate...hope you'll follow as keenly as you did this one!

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Unlucky mate, think to get 11 points from opening 5 games was always going to be a tough ask, especially when you were going to have new players to bed in. always the same when clubs get too much too soon.

 

[JamesScott2908]

Gutted you were sacked and the journey has come to an end! What's planned next?

 

[001PDG]

Real shame it ended like this...

If you haven't deleted your last save, perhaps it could be interesting (or gut wrenching...) to see how your successor managed by simulating the rest of the season(s)?

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Gutted you were sacked and the journey has come to an end! What's planned next?

I have a Stuttgart story on the go mate

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Real shame it ended like this...

If you haven't deleted your last save, perhaps it could be interesting (or gut wrenching...) to see how your successor managed by simulating the rest of the season(s)?

Unfortunately I already deleted it mate....but if I'd have thought of this before, it would have been interesting to see how someone did with my signings as I thought we were set up for a good season there (despite the bad start of 2 defeats)!

 

[davisdj]

Tough way to go, but definitely has been a good read!

 

[Sam91]

What a story. Sucks you got sacked mate but what an enjoyable read it was!