From Villans To Heroes

[rawket]

North American, he hails from Mexico after all.

It's been a while (I was starting to miss my share from activity in Villa Park), and it's no wonder why...You've definitely had quite the summer so far...
Good signings so far (it's nice to see that Pereyra got a permit, it would have been a major pain to look for a replacement for him), the team is definitely shaping out nicely and don't worry about Fierro by the way as he ALWAYS work out wonderfully in FM (it doesn't matter the installment, he never lets trainers down).

You managed to get yourself rid of quite the amount of deadwood, but I'm afraid you'll definitely have trouble with EL's registration (in the worst case scenario, go on vacation one day and let the assistant manager do the chore... it always works).
Truth to be told as a villan I'm pretty much disappointed to see Gabby go to West Brom... but then again I'm royally ****** off at him for showing so little love to the club and choosing to go there so nonchalantly isntead of going over Watford... Does that guy really have claret and blue imprinted in his heart?

Anyway, keep it up ^^

.P.S.: That Croatian... I can't wait to see how he develops... Wouldn't it be lovely if he turned out to be the new Zvonimir Boban or something like that? <3

Oops my bad. North American*
This is embarrassing.

Yeah I much rather Gabby join Watford. Perhaps SI could delve deeper into the whole club rivalry thing and design future installments such that players won't be interested in joining rival clubs.

Though that could be a whole new level of frustration - Imagine trying to sign a young star like say Harry Kane as Arsenal. And after you painfully negotiate a transfer fee for him, his agent tells you the player is not interested in joining your club because you're a rival club. People be flipping tables. Or worse, the whole transfer has been successfully arranged. Then fan protests against the move force the club to cancel the deal.

I've plans for the registration already. I'll be using Grealish, Clark, Robinson and Henry Smith (the regen fullback) for trained at club. Ward-Prowse, Delph, Lowton and Steer will make up the other 4 to meet the 8 home grown quota. I shouldn't see any problems, unless Delph or Lowton leave. I think Delph is contemplating his future after the Gabby saga, and also to get more game time. But I'd really like to keep him as backup.

 

[rawket]

Minor Transfer Update

Helenius has moved to Watford for a fee of £6mil, while Senderos has joined A.C. Cesena for £1.5mil.
Helenius's old club AaB FodBold received around £900k of the fee due to a sell-on clause, but the remaining £5mil is still good, especially since he joined us for only £1.2mil. Senderos came to us on a free so we sorta made profits on both deals.

I'm starting to have second thoughts about selling all my strikers to other BPL clubs. I don't get it. Why are all the bids from BPL teams? I'd much rather sell to a La Liga or Ligue 1 team. I'll be fielding so many press conference questions this season about facing old players.

But the likes of Luna, Sylla, Tonev and Bennett have yet to receive any bids at all.

Also, as part of my search to bolster the wings, I went over some of the initial names that were suggested. And surprise surprise - Andrija Živković is available! When I first looked him up initially he had a transfer arranged to join Porto. I took him off the shortlist so I have no idea what happened. The deal probably fell through. But I'll be putting in a bid. I'm facing competition from A.C. Milan and Lazio though.

 

[SamPeters]

Some great transfer business there mate but unlucky with Cleverley! hopefully he dont score when you next face him!

 

[Zlatan Lumic]

6 millions for Helenius? That's quite the hefty sum ^^
And about Zivkovic, those are surprisingly good news. You do well in going after him, you have nothing to lose if he ends up snatched by either Milan or Lazio and a lot to win as he can develop into one of the world's best right wingers hands down with the proper development.

Good luck on your bid, I would love to see him on Villa Park.

 

[rawket]

Andrij Zivkovic joins for £3.7mil. I had to fend off offers from Lazio and Roma and had to sit down with the young Serb for hours and convince him that Villa is the club for him. Ok not really, I just offered him a slightly better contract than he wanted, which wasn't a lot. I think his demands were around £7k-ish. Offered him £10.75k and he gladly accepted. Fortunately for us, he obtained his work permit on appeal. He'll bring the much-needed pace, crossing and flair to our flanks.

And with that deal, plus two more small cheap transfers for regens, I can wrap up my spending for this window. Guido Vadala's deal was completed, then I realised he wouldn't be joining us until next summer. I always overlook the details. Luka Jovic whom I signed at the start would come in next summer too.

I think I still have £30mil in the wallet (more than I started with). Still trying to ship out Tonev, Sylla, Bennett and Luna though. None of them have received any offers and it's coming to 2 months that they've been listed. On the bright side, Xuxa has joined Russian side Tom on a season long loan. I'm not sure if he'll get a work permit come end of season but at least the first team football will speed up his development. Mour Samb, Tiago Moura and Patrice Kamga are still awaiting offers.

The New-Look Villa

GK
Brad Guzan
Nicola Leali
Jed Steer (HG)

LB
Aly Cissokho
Antonio Barreca
Henry Smith (HG, Trained at Club)

RB
Patric
Matt Lowton (HG)

CB
Ron Vlaar
Eder Alvarez Balanta
Matteo Bianchetti
Jores Okore
Ciaran Clark (HG, Trained at Club)

DM
Carlos Sanchez
Lucas Romero

CM
Roberto Pereyra
Sergi Roberto
James Ward-Prowse (HG)
Fabian Delph (HG)
Leandro Bacuna

Wingers
Jack Grealish (HG, Trained at Club)
Andrij Zivkovic
Zakaria Bakkali
Pavel Savitskiy

ST
Christian Benteke
Carlos Fierro
Callum Robinson (HG, Trained at Club)

My squad has been revamped, though I hope they're blending fast as I'll be playing competitive games soon, starting with the Europa League match vs Split. That's 27 players and I'll have to leave 2 out in the Europa League registration. Which is harder to get around since the conditions for U21 include being at the club for 2 years.

I'll be aiming to at least finish in the top 6 again this season and securing a second season in the Europa League, though a Champions League spot would be wonderful (but likely impossible). I'm looking forward to a good Europa league run, since the club gets more money the further we progress. And I'd like to really challenge for one of the domestic cups as well. Although, at the same time I'll have to give the backups game time in cup games vs smaller teams. I'm not sure everyone will get enough games to remain happy though.

I finished the remaining friendlies of pre-season with a 1-1 draw at OGC Nice, a 3-1 win against Shrewsbury and a 1-0 win against Frankfurt. I won't be delving into the details of the matches, but over the three games I've seen a great improvement in crafting out chances. However, the finishing is still lacking. There were a fair number of misplaced passes, even short ones, especially in the Nice and Shrewsbury matches. I'm pinning this on the team cohesion and understanding (or lack thereof) as clearly this side is technically a much better team than last season's, in terms of technical ability. Just look at our game against Frankfurt. We could have ended the game before half time, but we failed to score anything more than Bianchetti's near post flick on. Benteke was awful, Fierro fluffed two one-on-ones.

So I'm hoping that with a bit more time and Very High Team Cohesion training the squad will blend together eventually. I currently have a whole Spanish contingent, as well as an Italian one, in the squad. Sergi Roberto, Fierro, Pereyra, Balanta (he hasn't picked up English), Patric (basic English). They're probably all on the pitch with Grealish and Ward-Prowse delivering crosses in and be like "Que? Que?". At least they have Sanchez and Romero. Then there's the Italian-speaking gang of Pereyra, Barreca, Bianchetti, Leali with no one to help translate. And they be like "Parla Italiano, per favor?" Don't even get me started on Zivkovic, who speaks 4 languages but not a word of English.

At least on paper we're a better side now.


Next time on From Villans to Heroes... Aston Villa return to Europe, Clark wants to leave, and two key staff get fired.

 

[DonVilla]

Still loving your story mate. You have a strong team, just hope they gel early, then you could be in contention for Champs League spots

 

[rawket]

Still loving your story mate. You have a strong team, just hope they gel early, then you could be in contention for Champs League spots

Cheers mate! How's your save coming along?

 

[DonVilla]

I've given up on the Villa save for now. Felt I needed a bit more experience with a more decent team first. Doing quite well with Southampton at the moment.
Will return to Villa one day when I have the patience for that

 

[Artimus]

Please keep this going. Motivation is always an issue when you're writing for an audience and it doesn't seem like there's much of an audience, but we're here and we love it! Having a lot of fun reading this.

 

[rawket]

I've given up on the Villa save for now. Felt I needed a bit more experience with a more decent team first. Doing quite well with Southampton at the moment.
Will return to Villa one day when I have the patience for that

That's sad to hear. Southampton has a pretty decent team though, even after last summer's raid. I still have zero clue how Koeman got sacked and they got relegated in my save. o.o
Well with Villa you're always going to need patience. Have you seen how Lambert has aged over the last 3 seasons?

Please keep this going. Motivation is always an issue when you're writing for an audience and it doesn't seem like there's much of an audience, but we're here and we love it! Having a lot of fun reading this.

Why, thank you for your support. I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

I'll do my best to keep this save going, but things may slow down a lot more when I enlist next month.

 

[DonVilla]

That's sad to hear. Southampton has a pretty decent team though, even after last summer's raid. I still have zero clue how Koeman got sacked and they got relegated in my save. o.o
Well with Villa you're always going to need patience. Have you seen how Lambert has aged over the last 3 seasons?

They have got a seriously strong team, managed to beat Chelsea in Capital One Cup playing my reserves.

Need a lot of patience to manage Villa, as I hate failing with them. Always think I could do better than Lambert IRL, but then I can't even better him in the game...

 

[rawket]

They have got a seriously strong team, managed to beat Chelsea in Capital One Cup playing my reserves.

Need a lot of patience to manage Villa, as I hate failing with them. Always think I could do better than Lambert IRL, but then I can't even better him in the game...

Still annoys me that he won West Ham the FA Cup. But they got relegated anyway.

He's 2 seasons late but he's slowly changing Villa into a possession side. Supposedly inspired after watching Guardiola's training sessions. But he probably forgot to take notes on how to score in the final third. At least Gil looked impressive coming on last weekend.

 

[DonVilla]

Possession is one thing, moving the ball forward is something we appear unable to do. Agree, Gil looked good. Hopefully he starts vs Bournemouth and we score a few goals to boost the confidence.

 

[Zlatan Lumic]

Gil will be a wonderful asset in Villa Park, he did really well during his loan time in Elche and managed to decently well the very few chances Valencia gave him this year. As long he gets the confidence than Nuno Spirito Santo neglected to give him it'll one heck of an addition ^^

Anyway... Back to topic...
Congratulations for signing Zivkovic, it's nice to see that you managed to shape up such a competitive squad (or at least they will be once they learn to play together as a group and adapt to English football).
Nice pre-season so far, you got some fine results there such as the Eintracht Frankfurt win, German teams are always complicated to deal with and while it should have a more comfortable result judging the stats... a win is a win.

.P.S.: If you need a translator for your "Spanish Brigade" I humbly offer my services for such a chore XD

 

[rawket]

Congratulations for signing Zivkovic, it's nice to see that you managed to shape up such a competitive squad (or at least they will be once they learn to play together as a group and adapt to English football).
Nice pre-season so far, you got some fine results there such as the Eintracht Frankfurt win, German teams are always complicated to deal with and while it should have a more comfortable result judging the stats... a win is a win.

.P.S.: If you need a translator for your "Spanish Brigade" I humbly offer my services for such a chore XD

Yeah it's a pretty neat squad now. My only qualm is that we've lost the English backbone. I'm not sure if I should be bothered that one of the founding clubs of English football now have half their first team mainly speaking spanish and a quarter speaking Italian.

How do you say "Pass to Benteke" in Spanish? I think that's all I'll need for now.

 

[Zlatan Lumic]

I see your the point behind your concern, but for the time being focus on getting a good season first and then you can start thinking on renationalizing or Britisizing (does that verb exist? It should totally exist) the squad once again. ^^

It would be either:

"Pásasela a Benteke" (If you're talking to one person)
Or
"Pasádsela a Benteke" (If you're talking to more than one person)

 

[rawket]

RNK Split 0-2 Aston Villa

We played our first continental game in some time in Croatia against RNK Split, which like us surprised everyone by making it to Europe. Though they're just aiming to join in the fun while I believe the board expects us to at the very least get out of the group stages alive.

I started with Grealish and Zivkovic as Inside Forwards, so Fierro comes into the XI as a False Nine. Vlaar is still out for a few days with a groin strain so Bianchetti partners Balanta in the centre of our defence. Balanta just returned from a knee ligament injury, but managed to steal the spotlight as he put a strong header past Split's keeper, followed by a near post flick on. Fierro had a few chances but missed them, although he did hit the post once. Zivkovic though had 6 chances but none on target, preferring to shoot from out wide. He didn't make any key passes though, hence his 6.3 rating I think. He has the Shoots From Distance ppm, but also has pretty decent stats for long shots (14) which can only improve. Not sure if I should untrain his ppm though?

Also, Ciaran Clark approached me to request that he be allowed to leave Villa so he could get more game time. And as much as I wanted to get rid of him last season, he is needed here to fulfill the Trained At Club quota. I convinced him to stay, but I'm quite sure the issue will resurface in the future. He really isn't going to get anything more than reserve matches, with Vlaar, Balanta, Bianchetti and Okore all ahead of him.

Speaking of reserve matches, I've decided to let go of both Gordon Cowans and Tony McAndrew and takeover the U21 and U18 teams. As things stand, I won't be taking charge of the matches (though I might in the future). I'll have my Assistant Manager Joe McLaughlin do that. But being in charge of both the U21 and U18 teams allows me to pick the lineups freely, and thus have more control over the team that is being fielded. I can therefore give the much needed game time to my first teamers who need match fitness, rather than see youth players picked ahead of them. I also get to play specific youth prospects in the games to aid their development.

My *** Man Joe

​

And I get to rid myself of around £7k worth of staff wages. Now, to win the U21 league after finishing 8th last season.

 

[Average Joe]

I'd untrain him with long shots unless he has things like high technique, composure etc as well.

Pavel Savitskiy (spelling) becomes brilliant mate, I had to loan him out (from man utd) to Twente for a few years and now at 24 he is awesome! worth high 30 millions too!

 

[rawket]

I'd untrain him with long shots unless he has things like high technique, composure etc as well.

Pavel Savitskiy (spelling) becomes brilliant mate, I had to loan him out (from man utd) to Twente for a few years and now at 24 he is awesome! worth high 30 millions too!

Long shots 14, Technique 16, Composure 12, Decisions 14. This guy's pretty good all around. I should probably untrain him now then train him again in future. But a part of me is more inclined to leave things as they are.

I'm planning to rotate Savitskiy. He may eventually demand more action, but I'll tackle that issue when it pops up.

 

[rawket]

Aston Villa 2-0 RNK Split

Our return match against Split at Villa Park went well, by the club's standards. By mine, we were poor. Same story about the team getting the ball, crafting the chances but not scoring the goals. I was almost certain that Split would hold out for a 0-0 draw, or maybe even hit us with one of those fluke goals and snag a win, until Roberto's shot finally beat the keeper. And then I was certain that Split would push and score against us to grab a draw, until Savitskiy netted from a rebound in the last moments of the match. Moral of the story is you can't be certain about anything.

Except that if we can't put down Split, we're gonna have serious issues.

The players seemed pretty pleased with themselves though, and at risk of confusing everyone in the squad I told them they needed to improve.


Since a fair number of players are still lacking in match fitness, I arranged a few more friendlies for the side, one against Siena and another against QPR a week later.

Siena 1-6 Aston Villa

Finally a convincing win. Barreca opened the scoring with a header, Benteke doubled the lead with his own header in the 10th minute. Bacuna then set up Savitskiy for a shot and although his first touch was poor, he managed to swing in a shot for the third goal. Benteke made it 4-0 just before the break, tapping in a beautiful cross from Barreca. We were quiet for the next 30mins or so, until a Siena goal jolted us back into the game. I blame Clark for not marking his man, but crosses have always been a danger for us despite our defence's relative strength in the air. We responded instantly through Savitskiy, who tapped in a cross from Bacuna. He then rounded off the game after heading in another Bacuna cross at the far post, grabbing the Player of the Match award with his hat trick.The match also saw Vlaar return to captain our side after spending the past few weeks with the physios. And gives me yet another selection dilemma after Savitskiy put forth a strong case to start on the wing, ahead of Grealish.


Also, I should mention that AS Monaco came knocking with an offer for Cissokho. I'm reluctant to bring in more players, especially since the team is finally looking like it's gelling following the 6-1 thrashing. And Monaco's opening offer isn't that great - mostly in additional fees. But coming back to my original transfer window objective, with all the cash now should I replace Cissokho? There aren't a lot of good Left Backs available right now.

Meanwhile, Man Utd is hogging left backs, having signed Shaw, Blind, Rojo and Rodriguez.