From Villans To Heroes
- Thread starter rawket
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Cheers mate! And congrats on winning the Championship and taking Brighton to the Premier League (again). Very impressive feat!
If I were to sell Cissokho off to Monaco, I would need to search for a replacement real quick. Barreca may be decent in terms of technical ability, but he has a long way to go mentally before he's Premier League standard. I have been scouting fullbacks through the transfer window, so I already have a shortlist of players. Just a list of left backs whose names I've seen thrown around the forum discussions, plus some that I know of. This is quite like a repeat of The Striker Search, except that I am more than halfway into the transfer window. And there are far fewer solid fullbacks in the world than there are strikers. Speaking of which, a lot of regens are either STs or AM(C)s.
Now Cissokho is a good enough Premier League left back. He has 13 for pace and acceleration, which is decent, and 15 for marking, tackling and positioning, which is pretty good defensively. His anticipation, bravery and concentration are all decent as well. He is also somewhat decent with his jumping and heading. But going forward, his dribbling is an 11 and his crossing 13. Which is okay I guess, but if I'm going to replace him I'm looking for someone with better crossing and dribbling. After all, I do rely on my fullbacks/wingbacks a lot to move up and support the attack. But defending ability is still appreciated.
On to my not-so-shortlist!
List of Names
And I should have known better to trust my 89% scout report. Not that 100% would really make a difference I think. A.C. Milan's opening price was £33mil. That's like twice the amount suggested by my scouts. I negotiated hard, but eventually Milan put forward a non-negotiable £18.5mil or so upfront, plus a bunch of really dumb additional fees, including £4.8mil over 48 months. I accepted the deal, thinking that it would be worth it.
But no. Sometimes it's funny how the game trolls you. But it gets pretty frustrating. De Sciglio demanded £87k wages. Up from the mere £28.5k he is on and nowhere near what my reports indicated. Talks broke down very fast as he felt my £65k wages (the highest I was willing to go) was too far from his demands. I really wanted him, and he was available. But in no way was I going to break my wage structure by handing him such ridiculous wages. The highest wage I'm paying out is £58k (Sergi Roberto), and I'd very much like for it to stay around that region.
So, going back to the now very-shortlist, I was actually seriously considering Ward as a replacement. But I woke up the next day and said to myself "Screw all this, I'm gonna break the bank for a good left back." Like, what's the use of all that money in my transfer budget if I don't spend it?
Now I look to the players who are interested, but their club isn't selling. I'll have to pay much more than their value, but I was probably already on my way to doing that with the De Sciglio deal. In the meantime, I negotiated a very meaty deal for Cissokho.
£7.5mil upfront, £10mil over 48 months. That's a good £17.5mil I'll be getting. And after 20 games for Monaco I should get another £1.6mil, and if they're gonna shell out this much for him, I'm quite certain I'll get that. And for the first ten games he plays I'll get a total of £1mil as well. Lastly, there's a 30% future transfer fee.
Now that that's settled, it's back to narrowing down players. Spent an entire day on this and I've got a list of the pros and cons for most of the players I'm looking at, but I'll skip all that stuff since you'll probably have little interest in it. If you're curious though, feel free to ask and I'll answer your questions.
What you're probably interested in is who I finally signed for £12.5mil upfront and £14mil over 48 months (I think).
I talked about how I wanted a left back with more threat going forward than Cissokho. Flanagan is neither a real left back, nor does he have better crossing, dribbling and pace. But what convinced me to burn my wallet was his impressive defending abilities. His marking, tackling and positioning are an immense upgrade on Cissokho at 17, 16, 16. His technique and passing aren't bad at 14, and his mental stats are pretty good. But the biggest factor was he's 22 and homegrown. I'm sure we can work on his crossing and improve it quickly, considering he's going to play almost every game.
I was pretty pleased with signing Flanagan, until one of my scouts in Germany came back with his regular report recommending Marcel Schmelzer. Who was actually somewhat interested in joining Aston Villa. And according to the report, would have cost £5-11mil instead. His wages would also be manageable at £29-59k. But I try to make myself feel better by reminding myself how badly the scout report failed in the De Sciglio case.
My new good pal Sami Hyypia thinks I did well though. Liverpool probably ripped me off some, and yes I am pretty annoyed at them. Hopefully Flanagan comes good. I could always shift him to the right side, then buy Schmelzer in January.
Mark my words, I will get my revenge against Liverpool. I will. (6)
Now Cissokho is a good enough Premier League left back. He has 13 for pace and acceleration, which is decent, and 15 for marking, tackling and positioning, which is pretty good defensively. His anticipation, bravery and concentration are all decent as well. He is also somewhat decent with his jumping and heading. But going forward, his dribbling is an 11 and his crossing 13. Which is okay I guess, but if I'm going to replace him I'm looking for someone with better crossing and dribbling. After all, I do rely on my fullbacks/wingbacks a lot to move up and support the attack. But defending ability is still appreciated.
On to my not-so-shortlist!
List of Names
- Mattia De Sciglio
- Jonathan Silva
- Alex Sandro
- Leighton Baines
- Ricardo Rodriguez
- Luke Shaw
- Daley Blind
- Marcos Rojo
- Lucas Digne
- Alex Telles
- Jon Flanagan
- Domenico Criscito
- Georgy Schennikov
- Fabio Coentrao
- Nicola Murru
- Aaron Cresswell
- Davide Santon
- Joel Ward
- Alberto Moreno
- Gotoku Sakai
- Bryan Oviedo
- Miguel Layun
- Juan Bernat
And I should have known better to trust my 89% scout report. Not that 100% would really make a difference I think. A.C. Milan's opening price was £33mil. That's like twice the amount suggested by my scouts. I negotiated hard, but eventually Milan put forward a non-negotiable £18.5mil or so upfront, plus a bunch of really dumb additional fees, including £4.8mil over 48 months. I accepted the deal, thinking that it would be worth it.
But no. Sometimes it's funny how the game trolls you. But it gets pretty frustrating. De Sciglio demanded £87k wages. Up from the mere £28.5k he is on and nowhere near what my reports indicated. Talks broke down very fast as he felt my £65k wages (the highest I was willing to go) was too far from his demands. I really wanted him, and he was available. But in no way was I going to break my wage structure by handing him such ridiculous wages. The highest wage I'm paying out is £58k (Sergi Roberto), and I'd very much like for it to stay around that region.
So, going back to the now very-shortlist, I was actually seriously considering Ward as a replacement. But I woke up the next day and said to myself "Screw all this, I'm gonna break the bank for a good left back." Like, what's the use of all that money in my transfer budget if I don't spend it?
Now I look to the players who are interested, but their club isn't selling. I'll have to pay much more than their value, but I was probably already on my way to doing that with the De Sciglio deal. In the meantime, I negotiated a very meaty deal for Cissokho.
£7.5mil upfront, £10mil over 48 months. That's a good £17.5mil I'll be getting. And after 20 games for Monaco I should get another £1.6mil, and if they're gonna shell out this much for him, I'm quite certain I'll get that. And for the first ten games he plays I'll get a total of £1mil as well. Lastly, there's a 30% future transfer fee.
Now that that's settled, it's back to narrowing down players. Spent an entire day on this and I've got a list of the pros and cons for most of the players I'm looking at, but I'll skip all that stuff since you'll probably have little interest in it. If you're curious though, feel free to ask and I'll answer your questions.
What you're probably interested in is who I finally signed for £12.5mil upfront and £14mil over 48 months (I think).
- 5 year Contract
- £42k p/w Wages
- £20k Appearance Fee
- £17.61k Shutout Bonus
- £3.01k Unused Substitute Fee
I talked about how I wanted a left back with more threat going forward than Cissokho. Flanagan is neither a real left back, nor does he have better crossing, dribbling and pace. But what convinced me to burn my wallet was his impressive defending abilities. His marking, tackling and positioning are an immense upgrade on Cissokho at 17, 16, 16. His technique and passing aren't bad at 14, and his mental stats are pretty good. But the biggest factor was he's 22 and homegrown. I'm sure we can work on his crossing and improve it quickly, considering he's going to play almost every game.
I was pretty pleased with signing Flanagan, until one of my scouts in Germany came back with his regular report recommending Marcel Schmelzer. Who was actually somewhat interested in joining Aston Villa. And according to the report, would have cost £5-11mil instead. His wages would also be manageable at £29-59k. But I try to make myself feel better by reminding myself how badly the scout report failed in the De Sciglio case.
My new good pal Sami Hyypia thinks I did well though. Liverpool probably ripped me off some, and yes I am pretty annoyed at them. Hopefully Flanagan comes good. I could always shift him to the right side, then buy Schmelzer in January.
Mark my words, I will get my revenge against Liverpool. I will. (6)
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Based on my file as Liverpool, with the right training, Flanagan becomes an incredibly solid option on either full back position, so imo, that's a great piece of business. Second only to ripping Monaco off for Cissohko, how is he worth that much?!
Beats me. XD
He's worth 7.5mil; they came in with a pretty **** offer like 1.8 upfront plus a bunch of additional fees. My original plan wasn't to sell, so I tried to deter them with a 20mil price. Normally clubs would baulk and walk away but they seemed pretty persistent and negotiated. So I thought well, why not. We went back and forth 4 times I think, before they tabled this and I gave up trying for more.
They've got Matteo Darmian as the only other viable left back, though Hinteregger can play there too. No real need for Cissokho imo.
The kicker came when I spoke to Cissokho before accepting the deal. Told him he'd been a fine servant and he'd be welcome back anytime. He lashed out at me, something about not when I'm still the manager.
What have I done wrong.
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Transfer Window Wrap Up
Ah, the transfer window finally comes to a close. It's been a whirlwind the past few months, but we've managed some pretty good business and brought in many new faces who will be integral to the club achieving its goals this season.
Disappointingly, I failed to sell off Tonev, Sylla, Luna and Bennett. That's almost £80k worth of wages I'll have to continue paying, and probably ~£8mil in transfer fees I'm missing out on. Nottingham and Anzhi were looking at Tonev in the last 12 hours of the Transfer Window but the former felt Tonev's 27k wages were too much (I did offer to pay 10k, but still no) while the latter baulked at the asking price of 3.5mil over 48 months, and had to reduce their wage bill (which they failed to do). So I'm stuck with him. Deportivo was hovering around Luna as well for the last few days of the window, but never made a bid. I had zero offers for Bennett and Sylla as well. I'd use them as backups for the backups, but due to my now huge squad, I could only register Tonev and Sylla. I need to step up efforts to get them out on loan at least. Even if I have to pay their wages. I'd like to think I'm not heartless and I care for their careers.
As for the guys without work permits, in particular Tiago Moura, Mour Samb and Patrice Kamga, no loan offers either. It'd be good if they were playing games, though they will still develop okay if they hang around the club now. And anyway going out on loan doesn't mean getting games. I managed to send Xuxa on loan to Tom, he's only had 2 sub appearances. Hopefully more game time comes his way once the season really kicks on.
I've made it a point to tie up my transfers early so aside from Cissokho leaving and Flanagan coming in for a *cough* reasonable *cough* price, there's not much more activity from Villa except one last transfer to bring a Danish regen in.
This guy has aerial ability that would put many other defenders to shame. Looking forward to his development. Cost me £1.3mil to bring in, and there're some future fees, but I'm sure I'll break even on this one. Within hours of his transfer I got a flurry of loan offers (at least 10) from Greek and Danish clubs. He's staying though as I'd like to oversee his development. Unfortunately he's already 18 so there's no chance that he'll be homegrown.
It's a pretty boring end to the bustling transfer window. I still have loads of cash in my wallet, but no one to spend it on. What does one do in my situation then?
You see, I vaguely recall a certain club making me spend more than I have to for a rotation player valued at only £6mil. And after their sale they lack cover at left back with only Alberto Moreno. They're probably going to be looking for a player at left back, and they're probably going to be spending my money.
Except I have an exhaustive list of all the good left backs. :$
In the last hours of the Transfer Window, they go for De Sciglio. They bid £9.25+mil for the Italian. Tottenham were also bidding £9.25+mil. Recall that Milan wouldn't accept anything less than £18mil upfront from me. I gladly hijacked the transfer by outbidding the two, then offering De Sciglio his £80k wages, making him choose Villa. And then I cancel the deal. It's a great feeling.
Tottenham too were with only one left back in Ben Davies, but they're not really my priority. Liverpool went for Ward and Cresswell, and I hijacked both transfers as well. They finally settled for the 29 year old Senad Lulic, who unfortunately wasn't on my watchlist. I learned of the £2.5mil bid from the transfer rumours but was too late to hijack a fourth deal. Tottenham though never managed to sign a second left back.
It's petty yes. But it's a wonderful feeling, foiling others' plans. Indescribable.
Roughly the same kind of feeling when you play Civilization and start off by aiming to win through the space race, but because every other civilization keeps attacking you you decide to use your resources to annihilate them instead.
I think this sort of borders on cheating.
Ah, the transfer window finally comes to a close. It's been a whirlwind the past few months, but we've managed some pretty good business and brought in many new faces who will be integral to the club achieving its goals this season.
Disappointingly, I failed to sell off Tonev, Sylla, Luna and Bennett. That's almost £80k worth of wages I'll have to continue paying, and probably ~£8mil in transfer fees I'm missing out on. Nottingham and Anzhi were looking at Tonev in the last 12 hours of the Transfer Window but the former felt Tonev's 27k wages were too much (I did offer to pay 10k, but still no) while the latter baulked at the asking price of 3.5mil over 48 months, and had to reduce their wage bill (which they failed to do). So I'm stuck with him. Deportivo was hovering around Luna as well for the last few days of the window, but never made a bid. I had zero offers for Bennett and Sylla as well. I'd use them as backups for the backups, but due to my now huge squad, I could only register Tonev and Sylla. I need to step up efforts to get them out on loan at least. Even if I have to pay their wages. I'd like to think I'm not heartless and I care for their careers.
As for the guys without work permits, in particular Tiago Moura, Mour Samb and Patrice Kamga, no loan offers either. It'd be good if they were playing games, though they will still develop okay if they hang around the club now. And anyway going out on loan doesn't mean getting games. I managed to send Xuxa on loan to Tom, he's only had 2 sub appearances. Hopefully more game time comes his way once the season really kicks on.
I've made it a point to tie up my transfers early so aside from Cissokho leaving and Flanagan coming in for a *cough* reasonable *cough* price, there's not much more activity from Villa except one last transfer to bring a Danish regen in.
This guy has aerial ability that would put many other defenders to shame. Looking forward to his development. Cost me £1.3mil to bring in, and there're some future fees, but I'm sure I'll break even on this one. Within hours of his transfer I got a flurry of loan offers (at least 10) from Greek and Danish clubs. He's staying though as I'd like to oversee his development. Unfortunately he's already 18 so there's no chance that he'll be homegrown.
It's a pretty boring end to the bustling transfer window. I still have loads of cash in my wallet, but no one to spend it on. What does one do in my situation then?
Oh hohoho... It's simple.
You see, I vaguely recall a certain club making me spend more than I have to for a rotation player valued at only £6mil. And after their sale they lack cover at left back with only Alberto Moreno. They're probably going to be looking for a player at left back, and they're probably going to be spending my money.
Except I have an exhaustive list of all the good left backs. :$
In the last hours of the Transfer Window, they go for De Sciglio. They bid £9.25+mil for the Italian. Tottenham were also bidding £9.25+mil. Recall that Milan wouldn't accept anything less than £18mil upfront from me. I gladly hijacked the transfer by outbidding the two, then offering De Sciglio his £80k wages, making him choose Villa. And then I cancel the deal. It's a great feeling.
Tottenham too were with only one left back in Ben Davies, but they're not really my priority. Liverpool went for Ward and Cresswell, and I hijacked both transfers as well. They finally settled for the 29 year old Senad Lulic, who unfortunately wasn't on my watchlist. I learned of the £2.5mil bid from the transfer rumours but was too late to hijack a fourth deal. Tottenham though never managed to sign a second left back.
It's petty yes. But it's a wonderful feeling, foiling others' plans. Indescribable.
Roughly the same kind of feeling when you play Civilization and start off by aiming to win through the space race, but because every other civilization keeps attacking you you decide to use your resources to annihilate them instead.
I think this sort of borders on cheating.
Anyway, on to a more serious post. My last friendly of the pre-season was against QPR. It was intended as somewhat of a test against a Premier League opponent, but still an easy match so as not to destroy the morale.
Aston Villa 3-2 Q.P.R.
This was the first Villa match for Flanagan. I also started Bacuna out on the right wing. With all the new faces in the squad he's been pushed down the pecking order a lot but I still need him to get his match fitness up. Backups need to be ready any time, all the time. His 8th minute corner was headed out, but the ball reached Lowton outside the box and his shot beat the keeper and put us 1-0 up. Dorrans then equalized with a shot from the edge of the box into the bottom corner.
Flanagan then won the ball with a well-timed tackle and launched it up the field to Benteke, who held the ball up well before making a diagonal pass to Bacuna out wide and rushing forward to scramble the cross into the net at the near post. Benteke then had a shot from outside the box (yeah, so many long shots in this match), which rebounded off the post. He was charging forward to get onto the end of the rebound but Onuoha (or Caulker, idk) took him down with a tackle that didn't see him win the ball. Inside the box. No penalty. But Bacuna managed to get past the two defenders who were now sprawled on the field to slot home the third Villa goal.
Davis then scored from a free kick to make it 3-2, but we managed to hold on for the win.
Following this friendly was our meeting with Bulgarian side Litex over two legs.
Aston Villa 1-0 Litex
In the first match, I started Clark with Balanta. Vlaar had a terrible showing the previous match against QPR and I'm not short on options in defence. But Clark had spoken to me about more game time a few days before and since I was confident of winning, why not a start. Savitskiy and Grealish started on the wings as Inside Forward and Winger, while Delph continued his run in the first team after kicking up a fuss over game time. I swapped Pereyra out for Ward-Prowse as my chief playmaker though.
Things didn't go very well against Litex and we struggled to put them away despite the many chances we had. Delph had to be taken off in the 17th minute after sustaining an injury, so on comes Pereyra. But still no goals. Eventually I subbed Benteke for Fierro, who netted in a rebound from Grealish's shot. That aside, it was a pretty awful performance. At least we didn't concede.
Litex 3-4 Aston Villa
The second leg was awful, but for different reasons. I fielded the same side, except I played Ward-Prowse on the right wing with Pereyra coming into the centre, and Ron Vlaar replacing Clark. Lowton continues to keep Patric out of the XI with consistently good performances.
Benteke's header from Flanagan's cross gave us the lead. Then Delph's 25 yard shot past the keeper made it 2-0. We conceded a header by Zdravkov (I blame Balanta for not challenging him) but we were 4-1 up after Flanagan headed from a corner and Pereyra running through the centre and slotting home the fourth.
I decided to bring on Barreca since Lowton was exhausted. His mistake in allowing Samuel Lopes to play a pass into the box was capitalized on by Litex and Shopov scored from the middle of the box. 4-2, still ok. Then the defence fails to clear a corner (Barreca again I believe) and again Litex are gifted a goal inside the box. The last moments of the match were a real scramble but we held on to maintain our winning streak. Guzan's run of 3 consecutive clean sheets is broken though.
At least we're through to the group stages and have picked up some of the extra finances along the way.
We got drawn with Athletic Bilbao, Fenerbahce and Ukrainian side Karpaty. Looking to finish second in the group and progress to the next round. I think topping the group will be tough.
Nottingham Forest 1-3 Aston Villa
I think the rest of the Premier League kicked off the season without us. By the time we played our opening match against Nottingham, Stoke were top of the table on 6 pts, with Arsenal and Man Utd close behind on 4 pts.
More or less the same side that played Litex days ago. Pereyra and Ward-Prowse both scored from the edge of the box, before Grealish scored from a rebound. We were 3-0 up by half time and were outclassing Nottingham on the pitch.
Then Lowton had to make an unnecessary and strong tackle to pick up his second yellow and get sent off, marring yet another solid display from him. Almost instantly, Forest's Assombalonga slotted past Guzan to pull one back. But despite losing a player, we maintained control of the game and saw out our lead.
Naturally I wasn't too pleased with Lowton. He performed well, registering a 7.6 rating, up until getting sent off and leaving us a man down. As with all players who get sent off, I issued a standard disciplinary fine. 1 match if it's two yellows. Apparently the bloke didn't take too well to it, insisting that just because he put in a good performance he shouldn't have to face the disciplinary measures. Ridiculous.
Right now he's unhappy about the issue and under the info tab he's supposedly complaining to the rest of the squad. As of now the option isn't available for Vlaar or Guzan, my captains, to speak with him so we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.
In other news, I had a short run with the U21 side, managing them in a few of the U21 league games. I only just realised that there's a rule that no more than 3 players over the age of 21 are allowed. So this is why my players sometimes didn't get game time last season. It's rather annoying though. I thought it used to be a proper reserve league without age limits. At least I think I vaguely recall signing many veteran free agents on trial to bolster my reserve side and win the reserve league.
My tactic seems to work well with the U21s.
I think I can win the U21 league this season.
Aston Villa 3-2 Q.P.R.
This was the first Villa match for Flanagan. I also started Bacuna out on the right wing. With all the new faces in the squad he's been pushed down the pecking order a lot but I still need him to get his match fitness up. Backups need to be ready any time, all the time. His 8th minute corner was headed out, but the ball reached Lowton outside the box and his shot beat the keeper and put us 1-0 up. Dorrans then equalized with a shot from the edge of the box into the bottom corner.
Flanagan then won the ball with a well-timed tackle and launched it up the field to Benteke, who held the ball up well before making a diagonal pass to Bacuna out wide and rushing forward to scramble the cross into the net at the near post. Benteke then had a shot from outside the box (yeah, so many long shots in this match), which rebounded off the post. He was charging forward to get onto the end of the rebound but Onuoha (or Caulker, idk) took him down with a tackle that didn't see him win the ball. Inside the box. No penalty. But Bacuna managed to get past the two defenders who were now sprawled on the field to slot home the third Villa goal.
Davis then scored from a free kick to make it 3-2, but we managed to hold on for the win.
Following this friendly was our meeting with Bulgarian side Litex over two legs.
Aston Villa 1-0 Litex
In the first match, I started Clark with Balanta. Vlaar had a terrible showing the previous match against QPR and I'm not short on options in defence. But Clark had spoken to me about more game time a few days before and since I was confident of winning, why not a start. Savitskiy and Grealish started on the wings as Inside Forward and Winger, while Delph continued his run in the first team after kicking up a fuss over game time. I swapped Pereyra out for Ward-Prowse as my chief playmaker though.
Things didn't go very well against Litex and we struggled to put them away despite the many chances we had. Delph had to be taken off in the 17th minute after sustaining an injury, so on comes Pereyra. But still no goals. Eventually I subbed Benteke for Fierro, who netted in a rebound from Grealish's shot. That aside, it was a pretty awful performance. At least we didn't concede.
Litex 3-4 Aston Villa
The second leg was awful, but for different reasons. I fielded the same side, except I played Ward-Prowse on the right wing with Pereyra coming into the centre, and Ron Vlaar replacing Clark. Lowton continues to keep Patric out of the XI with consistently good performances.
Benteke's header from Flanagan's cross gave us the lead. Then Delph's 25 yard shot past the keeper made it 2-0. We conceded a header by Zdravkov (I blame Balanta for not challenging him) but we were 4-1 up after Flanagan headed from a corner and Pereyra running through the centre and slotting home the fourth.
I decided to bring on Barreca since Lowton was exhausted. His mistake in allowing Samuel Lopes to play a pass into the box was capitalized on by Litex and Shopov scored from the middle of the box. 4-2, still ok. Then the defence fails to clear a corner (Barreca again I believe) and again Litex are gifted a goal inside the box. The last moments of the match were a real scramble but we held on to maintain our winning streak. Guzan's run of 3 consecutive clean sheets is broken though.
At least we're through to the group stages and have picked up some of the extra finances along the way.
We got drawn with Athletic Bilbao, Fenerbahce and Ukrainian side Karpaty. Looking to finish second in the group and progress to the next round. I think topping the group will be tough.
Nottingham Forest 1-3 Aston Villa
I think the rest of the Premier League kicked off the season without us. By the time we played our opening match against Nottingham, Stoke were top of the table on 6 pts, with Arsenal and Man Utd close behind on 4 pts.
More or less the same side that played Litex days ago. Pereyra and Ward-Prowse both scored from the edge of the box, before Grealish scored from a rebound. We were 3-0 up by half time and were outclassing Nottingham on the pitch.
Then Lowton had to make an unnecessary and strong tackle to pick up his second yellow and get sent off, marring yet another solid display from him. Almost instantly, Forest's Assombalonga slotted past Guzan to pull one back. But despite losing a player, we maintained control of the game and saw out our lead.
Naturally I wasn't too pleased with Lowton. He performed well, registering a 7.6 rating, up until getting sent off and leaving us a man down. As with all players who get sent off, I issued a standard disciplinary fine. 1 match if it's two yellows. Apparently the bloke didn't take too well to it, insisting that just because he put in a good performance he shouldn't have to face the disciplinary measures. Ridiculous.
Right now he's unhappy about the issue and under the info tab he's supposedly complaining to the rest of the squad. As of now the option isn't available for Vlaar or Guzan, my captains, to speak with him so we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.
In other news, I had a short run with the U21 side, managing them in a few of the U21 league games. I only just realised that there's a rule that no more than 3 players over the age of 21 are allowed. So this is why my players sometimes didn't get game time last season. It's rather annoying though. I thought it used to be a proper reserve league without age limits. At least I think I vaguely recall signing many veteran free agents on trial to bolster my reserve side and win the reserve league.
My tactic seems to work well with the U21s.
I think I can win the U21 league this season.
I was looking at buying Flanagan on my Southampton save (he was available at a much better price), but decided against it due to his average attacking stats.
Some good results with u21's, takes a lot of patience to go through all that effort, though it will most likely pay off. I find my Under 21 Manager often only selects 1 sub in the match day squad, then plays players I have marked available for 20 minutes, as they have just come back from injury, for the whole game!
Some good results with u21's, takes a lot of patience to go through all that effort, though it will most likely pay off. I find my Under 21 Manager often only selects 1 sub in the match day squad, then plays players I have marked available for 20 minutes, as they have just come back from injury, for the whole game!
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Did De Sciglio get to stay at Milan after?
Yeah he's pretty average at attacking, but defensively very capable. Defending is supposed to be his no. 1 priority anyway. If he isn't a Dani Alves going forward, it doesn't matter much. I rate fullbacks for their defending. Any attacking ability as a bonus.
Baines for all his praise has very average defending ability, on FM and irl.
Managing the U21s is a side job thing. But it's incredibly difficult to get players older than 21 game time with the rules. Steer/Leali will be goalkeeping, that leaves me with only 2 other over 21 players to pick in the match day squad. How do clubs deal with this? Or do they just not have as many over 21 players.
He's still there at Milan. No one on the list other than Flanagan moved.
My methods were pretty dirty heh. I wonder if any club irl ever did the same.
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Managing the U21s is a side job thing. But it's incredibly difficult to get players older than 21 game time with the rules. Steer/Leali will be goalkeeping, that leaves me with only 2 other over 21 players to pick in the match day squad. How do clubs deal with this? Or do they just not have as many over 21 players.
As far as I know the U21's is more for developing the younger players and giving game time to senior players coming back from injury, not for playing all your reserve senior players.
Still think it will benefit the development of the youngsters if you have more control over it.
Yeah still beats seeing Callum Robinson played as a CM.
Got to get Tonev and gang out on loan, they're not going to get anything from the U21 matches.
Zlatan Lumic
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Hmmm... I've seen players handling both the first and "B" when playing in Spain before, but it's the first time I've seen someone handling both the first and the U21 squads at the same time. Interesting, and the youngsters seem to have potential this year around (beating Chelsea U21 4-0? Quite the feat indeed).
Truth to be told I don't know if I show congratulate you for getting almost 18 millions for Cissoko (how the heck did you manage to get so much for him?) or scold you for spending 26,5 millions for a player that is not even a natural left back.
I mean... I know how good how Flannagan can be and all that jazz, but still I consider that you paid way too much for him (at the very least you managed to screw around with them with the whole De Sciglio transfer attempt).
Anyway, things are looking good so far, you made a nice start on Premiership and made it to the Europa League's group stage (even if you cut it a bit too close for comfort against Litex) and call me crazy if you want... But I actually think that this group's first place is relatively within reach (you have a nice squad this year, and Fenerbahce and Bilbao aren't that tough actually).
Keep it up ^^
.P.S.: That Danish youngster looks great, I can't wait to see how he develops (by the way, shouldn't he be able to become homegrown? As far as I can remember a requirement to become homegrown player is spending 3 years in a club as long he's between 15 to 21 years old.
Taking that into consideration he could become a homegrown player...barely, as long as he stays three years in Villa Park).
Truth to be told I don't know if I show congratulate you for getting almost 18 millions for Cissoko (how the heck did you manage to get so much for him?) or scold you for spending 26,5 millions for a player that is not even a natural left back.
I mean... I know how good how Flannagan can be and all that jazz, but still I consider that you paid way too much for him (at the very least you managed to screw around with them with the whole De Sciglio transfer attempt).
Anyway, things are looking good so far, you made a nice start on Premiership and made it to the Europa League's group stage (even if you cut it a bit too close for comfort against Litex) and call me crazy if you want... But I actually think that this group's first place is relatively within reach (you have a nice squad this year, and Fenerbahce and Bilbao aren't that tough actually).
Keep it up ^^
.P.S.: That Danish youngster looks great, I can't wait to see how he develops (by the way, shouldn't he be able to become homegrown? As far as I can remember a requirement to become homegrown player is spending 3 years in a club as long he's between 15 to 21 years old.
Taking that into consideration he could become a homegrown player...barely, as long as he stays three years in Villa Park).
I appreciate your confidence in the squad. I'll definitely try to go out and take as many points as possible, and hopefully it will be enough to see us progress to the next round.
Larsen will turn 21 half a year before he finishes 3 years with us. His birthday is in January. So I doubt he'll get the home grown status. But I'm keeping him here nonetheless. He needs lots of work on his pace and at 18 I think I can bring it up a few points so he'll be at least decent in that area.
And just watch me. I'll train Flanagan so hard he'll forget he ever played on the right.
Though in all seriousness I would use him as a right back if I could land a good enough left back. Lowton is currently unhappy and has demanded to leave following the argument over the fine I issued. Still trying to sort the issue out (don't have the option to get Vlaar to talk to him yet). Might have to sell him eventually if the issue isn't resolved, and I can either use Flanagan at right back and buy a left back, or bring in a right back. We'll see how things go. Would really hate to see Lowton leave. He's very very consistent and his crossing is pretty useful, even if he isn't great overall.
After reaching the group stages of the Europa League I think I had to reschedule 9 or so BPL games. Going to be playing lots of mid-week games now. It'll be tough, but I'm looking for the squad to rise up to the challenge and put in consistent performances both at home and in Europe.
September has passed and the season's kicking into full swing. Here's a recap on what's happened during the past month:
Aston Villa 2-1 Watford
The scoreline suggests it was a close match. Hardly. After Nottingham I thought we'd found our boots and we're starting to dominate matches. Nope.
With Lowton in no mental state to be playing first team matches (unhappy, abysmal) I dropped him for Patric. I also picked Barreca ahead of Falanagan since it was expected to be an easy match. Delph was putting in good 8.0+ games so again he was picked ahead of Roberto. Sanchez gets a nod to start as a Defensive Midfielder ahead of Romero. Okore starts in defence with Vlaar. Trying hard to give enough games to my players. Okore and Sanchez are being overlooked for callups. I play Fierro as a False Nine again with Grealish and Zivkovic as Inside Forwards.
Grealish netted the first goal from Fierro's pass. But afterwards the match was a drab. Watford defended well and we couldn't get ourselves a second goal. Diego Fabbrini equalised for them after our defence failed to clear their corner. I brought on Ward-Prowse and Romero to try and make an impact, and switched Fierro to Poacher, but Watford was determined to hold on for a draw. Until Fierro tapped in a Barreca cross for the winner on 80 minutes. We then switched to defensive as Watford piled on the pressure, but we managed to see out a very laborious win.
Can't seem to get the False Nine + Inside Forwards system to work. Will have to tinker and try something else with Fierro.
Karpaty 1-4 Aston Villa
I swapped Okore out for Bianchetti, and played Sanchez, Roberto and Delph in midfield. Delph had an average game against Watford and if it's another average game against Karpaty, I'll start giving chances to Roberto as the supporting mid. My front three consisted of Ward-Prowse (whom I am consistently using as a winger now), Savitskiy as Inside Forward and Fierro as Trequartista, who can hopefully bring Savitskiy, Ward-Prowse and Roberto the AP into play. Leali was given his first start. I'll probably start him in cup games. He's a decent Premier League keeper, but Guzan is just better right now, especially at positioning.
Fierro receives a throw in and makes a pass to Roberto, who draws the defenders to him, before laying the ball off to Delph. Who decided that it was a good chance to try a shot from the edge of the box. He usually misses but he scored this time. We made it 2-0 when Savitskiy pounced on Barreca's rebounded shot, but intelligently decided to pass to Ward-Prowse for a shot from a better angle. Things were looking comfortable so I decided to bring on Pereyra, Zivkovic and Clark to rotate and share the fun.
Ward-Prowse returns Savitskiy's favour later by making a long through ball for him to run on to and score one on one against the goalkeeper, after we broke on the counter. Then, after Karpaty defenders failed to effectively clear the ball, Sanchez picks it up and passes to Ward-Prowse to score from the edge of the box with a wonderful strike. I think we've been scoring a lot of long shots recently, but a goal is a goal. Being Villa as usual, things are rarely so wonderful and Karpaty managed to score in the 78th minute after poor marking left Borys Taschy free to control a cross and volley it past Leali.
No clean sheet but a good performance and result which sent us to the top of the group after Athletic Bilbao beat Fenerbahce 1-0.
Things seem to be going well. We're on a winning streak, we picked up 3 points in Europe in an emphatic win. What could possibly go wrong?
Right, I tend to forget with the football season comes the injury season. Really annoying that. Bakkali goes out for another 2 weeks with a twisted knee after playing a U21 friendly. That's his 4th injury since joining us (came in with a torn groin muscle, then picked up a groin strain, then a damaged elbow). And just one day before my next match against Swansea, Patric picks up a chest injury while lifting weights. 2 weeks out my Head Physio says.
So I will finish this month without two right backs.
Swansea 1-1 Aston Villa
I think I messed up this match. The opposition report came back, noting that Swansea's best attribute was their height, but worst attribute was their heading. Not sure what I should go with but eventually I decided to pick Fierro to start and go with low crosses, because Benteke was in a poor run of form.
Flanagan comes back into the side, but Patric is out. I brought in Bacuna at right back, but defensively he's awful and shouldn't be playing there. Although he beats Barreca in many other areas, such as mental.
Delph was having a good day in midfield, making things happen with his runs. But in the 28th minute as he was charging into the box, Swansea's Diskerud took him out with a very hard challenge, leaving Delph with broken ribs which would see him out of action for a month. I brought on Sergi Roberto to replace him.
Just moments later Roberto's shot in the six yard box gave us the lead in the 28th minute after Swansea failed to clear the corner.
Swansea were putting in really hard tackles and were very combative under Sami Hyypia. On 37 minutes, Edgar Barreto came sliding into Pereyra as he received the ball. Very very fortunately, Pereyra was left unhurt, but the joke of Barreto got himself injured and had to be taken off (although post-match he was fine; I looked him up).
After that first goal we just couldn't get going. Our opponents played a very narrow 4-1-2-2-1, which means that Bony included they have 6 men clogging up the centre of the pitch, preventing Pereyra and Roberto from doing much. I instructed my team to exploit the flanks from the start but strangely to little success. Their midfield always managed to close down my wingers before they reached the final third.
I switched things up at half time, making Ward-Prowse the Advanced Playmaker out wide, while Pereyra and Roberto were Centre Midfielders on Attack duty to get them going forward and supporting the attack. But Ward-Prowse was having a bad day. Almost every time he received a pass, he'd dwell on the ball (he doesn't have that ppm though) and make himself vulnerable to a sliding challenge from Swansea. I think it's the playmaker role causing him to dwell. Not really sure. Other times, he's just too weak to shrug off the pressing of the Swansea midfielders. Eventually I switched back to a central playmaker, but used Roberto instead of Pereyra. I presume they were marking him (recall Baretto's challenge).
Oddly enough, we finished the match with 17 fouls while they only clocked 5. Most of our fouls came from trips and stuff. I'd like to blame the referee for being biased.
At 58 minutes I subbed the ineffective Carlos Fierro out for Benteke, who would hopefully cause more problems in the air. Didn't work out. At least we were still leading. I intended to bring on Carlos Sanchez to strengthen the defensive side of our game as Swansea was piling on the pressure. Unfortunately, Swansea forced my hand before I could get to it, by injuring Andrija Zivkovic. He twisted his knee and would be out for 2 weeks (i.e. rest of the month). So I brought on Savitskiy and shifted Romero to Anchor Man.
We were holding out against all that Swansea was throwing at us, until Balanta gave away a cheap free kick at the edge of the box after tripping Bony. We cleared Sigurdsson's shot, but he managed to pass it out to Malone. Bacuna didn't close him down fast enough and he had the time and space to put in a cross to Bony (or Michu, they were that close). We had Bacuna, Vlaar, Romero and Flanagan in front of the two. None were marking either. So it was a free shot at goal and Bony took it. In the 89th minute. Gutting.
And after notching up so many shots in the last 30 minutes, Swansea completely dominated us in terms of shots. So on paper they deserved a win and I was attacked with questions at the press conference about Bony's "beautiful goal" (which won the goal on the month?!). Press conferences... Ugh. And every year SI proudly announce that they improved this aspect of the game.
This was a match where my creative players were kept very quiet and we couldn't carve out chances for Fierro or Benteke. Need to figure something out, as I'm pretty sure most teams have marked Pereyra and Ward-Prowse out as our key players. And without a decent right back to overlap our attack is toothless. Swansea are 18th and yet we couldn't beat them.
Tottenham 3-0 Aston Villa
Did I mention we drew Tottenham in the League Cup. In the Third Round. Now that's not very fair to us, judging by the large number of championship teams.
They rested Ben Davies and so had to bring in Danny Rose from the reserves at left back. So it's not entirely accurate when I said they didn't have cover.
With a game against City coming up just a few days later, I rested Vlaar and brought in Bianchetti instead, who has been solid during pre-season. Romero comes into the midfield, while Savitskiy takes his place on the wing since Zivkovic is out. I was looking to play a counterattacking game so I picked Fierro ahead of Benteke as he was the faster of the two, and has good flair so he can make stuff happen.
When you have a plan, chances are things won't go as planned. As I watched the match, I noticed that my players were especially slow to respond to Tottenham. Slow in closing down, not marking properly, slow in challenging for the ball. On the counter we were slow as well.
I rested my players for 2 days after the exhausting Swansea match that left almost everyone at 65%. Most were at least 93% fit so I don't think it's fatigue. But we were completely outplayed in every area of the pitch and there was absolutely no contest here.
Take for example their first goal. They defended well against our free kick and headed it out. Usually the players not attacking the ball in the box would be quick to pick up the ball or close down the opposition and challenge for it. Romero and Sanchez barely moved as the ball rolled out and it was eventually picked up by Chadli, who was in the box. They move up to close him down and it was slow before Romero put in a tackle, but Chadli managed to avoid it. And managed to come out with the ball after Pereyra and Sanchez close him down. Eventually they passed their way to our box with my players missing every interception, before Holtby scored a tap in. Similar case for the second goal as well. Third goal was just a good header by Chadli from a corner.
Not much to discuss here. Bianchetti was absolutely terrible today. Should've stuck with Vlaar. I expected a loss, but a much closer game than this. Bacuna was being exploited on the right and I might have to set him to be more defensive. But that would mean we will lose his ability to get forward, which is the only decent plus he brings as right back.
There goes the unbeaten streak. Hopefully the City game will be better.
Aston Villa 0-1 Manchester City
Not the best match to play after failing to beat Swansea and crashing out of the League Cup. Morale is dipping and this can't do much good. Can it?
Bianchetti was dropped and Vlaar returns to captain the side. Sanchez, Romero and Pereyra make up the midfield trio while Ward-Prowse, Savitskiy and Benteke lead the attack. I picked Benteke since Fierro wasn't that great challenging for the ball against Tottenham.
We conceded an early goal. Sanchez lost possession to Silva in midfield, and the Spaniard made a dazzling run down the flank to cross into the box, but Flanagan was there to block the tackle. Clichy though, managed to evade Ward-Prowse's marking and get on the end of the ball. His cross to Aguero was met with a strong header past Guzan. Vlaar and Balanta failed to mark and challenge him for the ball. But the game registered it as Balanta's mistake, probably because he was nearer to Aguero. In any case it went downhill for him from there, and I had to bring on Bianchetti despite the Tottenham horror show.
We held out well against City; the defending vastly improved and we were making interceptions and challenges as per normal. We just couldn't carve out chances and Pereyra and Ward-Prowse had 6.3 and 6.4 games. I subbed them with Roberto and Grealish, but we couldn't find an equaliser. Still, it was a spirited defeat and I think I can be happy that the defence is on track.
Our next match will be against Bilbao at home. Hopefully we can build on this decent performance to break this run of poor results.
Southampton U21s 2-4 Aston Villa U21s
Managed another U21 match for the lols. Turns out the recent poor form of the first team seems to be rubbing off on them. They went 2-0 up before letting the opponents equalise 2-2. Then some Lowton magic helped us win 4-2 eventually. Yes he's playing reserve matches to keep his match fitness and get his morale up (hopefully). And I don't really intend to play him anytime soon. He's making a fuss over standard disciplinary action and he knows it. I expected him to be more professional than that.
Henry Smith my precious full back newgen got injured with a twisted ankle and will be sitting out for 3-4 weeks. On the topic of injuries, Clark also twisted his knee in training and will be out for 2 weeks as well. I have lots of twisted stuff going around here. The game is trying to troll me.
Aston Villa 2-1 Athletic Bilbao
We went into the match off the back of a run of poor performances. Leali starts as goalkeeper. Barreca comes back into the side, while Flanagan shifts to the right. Vlaar and Balanta start in the centre. Sanchez and Romero start as DMs while Pereyra plays Trequartista with Ward-Prowse and Grealish on the wings behind Benteke. Yes a switch to the backup 4-2-3-1. Perhaps my opponents have caught on to my 4-3-3 so a tactical surprise could be useful.
Pereyra dominated from the advanced position, making direct runs at the defence while playing in others will good passes. He is rewarded with a goal after scoring from a rebound. But Iker Muniain managed to equalise after Barreca failed to clear the ball properly and it rolled to his feet. He made no mistake from just outside the six yard box. Some of our passing was still a little wayward. I'm still pinning this on team cohesion. They're only at the "good understanding" stage. How long more before they reach the "die for each other" level?
We picked up all three points after Barreca put in one of his fine crosses to the far post for Benteke to scramble in. I think it's the 3rd time we've scored something like this with Barreca. Beautiful swerve in and you only just need someone to tap it in.
We now top the group with 6 points. Atheltic has 3, as does Fenerbahce after beating Karpaty 4-1.
So we've broken the poor run of results with a Europa League win. But we'll be facing Chelsea, Sunderland, Fenerbahce, Everton, West Brom and Arsenal in the next month. It'll be an intense run of fixtures and we need to build on this performance and work our way back to winning games comfortably.
September has passed and the season's kicking into full swing. Here's a recap on what's happened during the past month:
Aston Villa 2-1 Watford
The scoreline suggests it was a close match. Hardly. After Nottingham I thought we'd found our boots and we're starting to dominate matches. Nope.
With Lowton in no mental state to be playing first team matches (unhappy, abysmal) I dropped him for Patric. I also picked Barreca ahead of Falanagan since it was expected to be an easy match. Delph was putting in good 8.0+ games so again he was picked ahead of Roberto. Sanchez gets a nod to start as a Defensive Midfielder ahead of Romero. Okore starts in defence with Vlaar. Trying hard to give enough games to my players. Okore and Sanchez are being overlooked for callups. I play Fierro as a False Nine again with Grealish and Zivkovic as Inside Forwards.
Grealish netted the first goal from Fierro's pass. But afterwards the match was a drab. Watford defended well and we couldn't get ourselves a second goal. Diego Fabbrini equalised for them after our defence failed to clear their corner. I brought on Ward-Prowse and Romero to try and make an impact, and switched Fierro to Poacher, but Watford was determined to hold on for a draw. Until Fierro tapped in a Barreca cross for the winner on 80 minutes. We then switched to defensive as Watford piled on the pressure, but we managed to see out a very laborious win.
Can't seem to get the False Nine + Inside Forwards system to work. Will have to tinker and try something else with Fierro.
Karpaty 1-4 Aston Villa
I swapped Okore out for Bianchetti, and played Sanchez, Roberto and Delph in midfield. Delph had an average game against Watford and if it's another average game against Karpaty, I'll start giving chances to Roberto as the supporting mid. My front three consisted of Ward-Prowse (whom I am consistently using as a winger now), Savitskiy as Inside Forward and Fierro as Trequartista, who can hopefully bring Savitskiy, Ward-Prowse and Roberto the AP into play. Leali was given his first start. I'll probably start him in cup games. He's a decent Premier League keeper, but Guzan is just better right now, especially at positioning.
Fierro receives a throw in and makes a pass to Roberto, who draws the defenders to him, before laying the ball off to Delph. Who decided that it was a good chance to try a shot from the edge of the box. He usually misses but he scored this time. We made it 2-0 when Savitskiy pounced on Barreca's rebounded shot, but intelligently decided to pass to Ward-Prowse for a shot from a better angle. Things were looking comfortable so I decided to bring on Pereyra, Zivkovic and Clark to rotate and share the fun.
Ward-Prowse returns Savitskiy's favour later by making a long through ball for him to run on to and score one on one against the goalkeeper, after we broke on the counter. Then, after Karpaty defenders failed to effectively clear the ball, Sanchez picks it up and passes to Ward-Prowse to score from the edge of the box with a wonderful strike. I think we've been scoring a lot of long shots recently, but a goal is a goal. Being Villa as usual, things are rarely so wonderful and Karpaty managed to score in the 78th minute after poor marking left Borys Taschy free to control a cross and volley it past Leali.
No clean sheet but a good performance and result which sent us to the top of the group after Athletic Bilbao beat Fenerbahce 1-0.
Things seem to be going well. We're on a winning streak, we picked up 3 points in Europe in an emphatic win. What could possibly go wrong?
Right, I tend to forget with the football season comes the injury season. Really annoying that. Bakkali goes out for another 2 weeks with a twisted knee after playing a U21 friendly. That's his 4th injury since joining us (came in with a torn groin muscle, then picked up a groin strain, then a damaged elbow). And just one day before my next match against Swansea, Patric picks up a chest injury while lifting weights. 2 weeks out my Head Physio says.
So I will finish this month without two right backs.
Swansea 1-1 Aston Villa
I think I messed up this match. The opposition report came back, noting that Swansea's best attribute was their height, but worst attribute was their heading. Not sure what I should go with but eventually I decided to pick Fierro to start and go with low crosses, because Benteke was in a poor run of form.
Flanagan comes back into the side, but Patric is out. I brought in Bacuna at right back, but defensively he's awful and shouldn't be playing there. Although he beats Barreca in many other areas, such as mental.
Delph was having a good day in midfield, making things happen with his runs. But in the 28th minute as he was charging into the box, Swansea's Diskerud took him out with a very hard challenge, leaving Delph with broken ribs which would see him out of action for a month. I brought on Sergi Roberto to replace him.
Just moments later Roberto's shot in the six yard box gave us the lead in the 28th minute after Swansea failed to clear the corner.
Swansea were putting in really hard tackles and were very combative under Sami Hyypia. On 37 minutes, Edgar Barreto came sliding into Pereyra as he received the ball. Very very fortunately, Pereyra was left unhurt, but the joke of Barreto got himself injured and had to be taken off (although post-match he was fine; I looked him up).
After that first goal we just couldn't get going. Our opponents played a very narrow 4-1-2-2-1, which means that Bony included they have 6 men clogging up the centre of the pitch, preventing Pereyra and Roberto from doing much. I instructed my team to exploit the flanks from the start but strangely to little success. Their midfield always managed to close down my wingers before they reached the final third.
I switched things up at half time, making Ward-Prowse the Advanced Playmaker out wide, while Pereyra and Roberto were Centre Midfielders on Attack duty to get them going forward and supporting the attack. But Ward-Prowse was having a bad day. Almost every time he received a pass, he'd dwell on the ball (he doesn't have that ppm though) and make himself vulnerable to a sliding challenge from Swansea. I think it's the playmaker role causing him to dwell. Not really sure. Other times, he's just too weak to shrug off the pressing of the Swansea midfielders. Eventually I switched back to a central playmaker, but used Roberto instead of Pereyra. I presume they were marking him (recall Baretto's challenge).
Oddly enough, we finished the match with 17 fouls while they only clocked 5. Most of our fouls came from trips and stuff. I'd like to blame the referee for being biased.
At 58 minutes I subbed the ineffective Carlos Fierro out for Benteke, who would hopefully cause more problems in the air. Didn't work out. At least we were still leading. I intended to bring on Carlos Sanchez to strengthen the defensive side of our game as Swansea was piling on the pressure. Unfortunately, Swansea forced my hand before I could get to it, by injuring Andrija Zivkovic. He twisted his knee and would be out for 2 weeks (i.e. rest of the month). So I brought on Savitskiy and shifted Romero to Anchor Man.
We were holding out against all that Swansea was throwing at us, until Balanta gave away a cheap free kick at the edge of the box after tripping Bony. We cleared Sigurdsson's shot, but he managed to pass it out to Malone. Bacuna didn't close him down fast enough and he had the time and space to put in a cross to Bony (or Michu, they were that close). We had Bacuna, Vlaar, Romero and Flanagan in front of the two. None were marking either. So it was a free shot at goal and Bony took it. In the 89th minute. Gutting.
And after notching up so many shots in the last 30 minutes, Swansea completely dominated us in terms of shots. So on paper they deserved a win and I was attacked with questions at the press conference about Bony's "beautiful goal" (which won the goal on the month?!). Press conferences... Ugh. And every year SI proudly announce that they improved this aspect of the game.
This was a match where my creative players were kept very quiet and we couldn't carve out chances for Fierro or Benteke. Need to figure something out, as I'm pretty sure most teams have marked Pereyra and Ward-Prowse out as our key players. And without a decent right back to overlap our attack is toothless. Swansea are 18th and yet we couldn't beat them.
Tottenham 3-0 Aston Villa
Did I mention we drew Tottenham in the League Cup. In the Third Round. Now that's not very fair to us, judging by the large number of championship teams.
They rested Ben Davies and so had to bring in Danny Rose from the reserves at left back. So it's not entirely accurate when I said they didn't have cover.
With a game against City coming up just a few days later, I rested Vlaar and brought in Bianchetti instead, who has been solid during pre-season. Romero comes into the midfield, while Savitskiy takes his place on the wing since Zivkovic is out. I was looking to play a counterattacking game so I picked Fierro ahead of Benteke as he was the faster of the two, and has good flair so he can make stuff happen.
When you have a plan, chances are things won't go as planned. As I watched the match, I noticed that my players were especially slow to respond to Tottenham. Slow in closing down, not marking properly, slow in challenging for the ball. On the counter we were slow as well.
I rested my players for 2 days after the exhausting Swansea match that left almost everyone at 65%. Most were at least 93% fit so I don't think it's fatigue. But we were completely outplayed in every area of the pitch and there was absolutely no contest here.
Take for example their first goal. They defended well against our free kick and headed it out. Usually the players not attacking the ball in the box would be quick to pick up the ball or close down the opposition and challenge for it. Romero and Sanchez barely moved as the ball rolled out and it was eventually picked up by Chadli, who was in the box. They move up to close him down and it was slow before Romero put in a tackle, but Chadli managed to avoid it. And managed to come out with the ball after Pereyra and Sanchez close him down. Eventually they passed their way to our box with my players missing every interception, before Holtby scored a tap in. Similar case for the second goal as well. Third goal was just a good header by Chadli from a corner.
Not much to discuss here. Bianchetti was absolutely terrible today. Should've stuck with Vlaar. I expected a loss, but a much closer game than this. Bacuna was being exploited on the right and I might have to set him to be more defensive. But that would mean we will lose his ability to get forward, which is the only decent plus he brings as right back.
There goes the unbeaten streak. Hopefully the City game will be better.
Aston Villa 0-1 Manchester City
Not the best match to play after failing to beat Swansea and crashing out of the League Cup. Morale is dipping and this can't do much good. Can it?
Bianchetti was dropped and Vlaar returns to captain the side. Sanchez, Romero and Pereyra make up the midfield trio while Ward-Prowse, Savitskiy and Benteke lead the attack. I picked Benteke since Fierro wasn't that great challenging for the ball against Tottenham.
We conceded an early goal. Sanchez lost possession to Silva in midfield, and the Spaniard made a dazzling run down the flank to cross into the box, but Flanagan was there to block the tackle. Clichy though, managed to evade Ward-Prowse's marking and get on the end of the ball. His cross to Aguero was met with a strong header past Guzan. Vlaar and Balanta failed to mark and challenge him for the ball. But the game registered it as Balanta's mistake, probably because he was nearer to Aguero. In any case it went downhill for him from there, and I had to bring on Bianchetti despite the Tottenham horror show.
We held out well against City; the defending vastly improved and we were making interceptions and challenges as per normal. We just couldn't carve out chances and Pereyra and Ward-Prowse had 6.3 and 6.4 games. I subbed them with Roberto and Grealish, but we couldn't find an equaliser. Still, it was a spirited defeat and I think I can be happy that the defence is on track.
Our next match will be against Bilbao at home. Hopefully we can build on this decent performance to break this run of poor results.
Southampton U21s 2-4 Aston Villa U21s
Managed another U21 match for the lols. Turns out the recent poor form of the first team seems to be rubbing off on them. They went 2-0 up before letting the opponents equalise 2-2. Then some Lowton magic helped us win 4-2 eventually. Yes he's playing reserve matches to keep his match fitness and get his morale up (hopefully). And I don't really intend to play him anytime soon. He's making a fuss over standard disciplinary action and he knows it. I expected him to be more professional than that.
Henry Smith my precious full back newgen got injured with a twisted ankle and will be sitting out for 3-4 weeks. On the topic of injuries, Clark also twisted his knee in training and will be out for 2 weeks as well. I have lots of twisted stuff going around here. The game is trying to troll me.
Aston Villa 2-1 Athletic Bilbao
We went into the match off the back of a run of poor performances. Leali starts as goalkeeper. Barreca comes back into the side, while Flanagan shifts to the right. Vlaar and Balanta start in the centre. Sanchez and Romero start as DMs while Pereyra plays Trequartista with Ward-Prowse and Grealish on the wings behind Benteke. Yes a switch to the backup 4-2-3-1. Perhaps my opponents have caught on to my 4-3-3 so a tactical surprise could be useful.
Pereyra dominated from the advanced position, making direct runs at the defence while playing in others will good passes. He is rewarded with a goal after scoring from a rebound. But Iker Muniain managed to equalise after Barreca failed to clear the ball properly and it rolled to his feet. He made no mistake from just outside the six yard box. Some of our passing was still a little wayward. I'm still pinning this on team cohesion. They're only at the "good understanding" stage. How long more before they reach the "die for each other" level?
We picked up all three points after Barreca put in one of his fine crosses to the far post for Benteke to scramble in. I think it's the 3rd time we've scored something like this with Barreca. Beautiful swerve in and you only just need someone to tap it in.
We now top the group with 6 points. Atheltic has 3, as does Fenerbahce after beating Karpaty 4-1.
So we've broken the poor run of results with a Europa League win. But we'll be facing Chelsea, Sunderland, Fenerbahce, Everton, West Brom and Arsenal in the next month. It'll be an intense run of fixtures and we need to build on this performance and work our way back to winning games comfortably.
Average Joe
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****** **** mate you put some effort in to these reports!
Doing well!
Doing well!
ForGreatJustice
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Nice story/save! Regarding U21 league, if you want, you could arrange for more friendlies so you can try to get more game time for the youth until you can get them loaned out. Poor substitute to real matches, but its better than just having the kids sit around and play once a week.
What role are you playing Benteke? I started using him as a DLF, after terrible performances as a TM. He slowly started playing better, then one game bagged a hat-trick and assist before getting injured in 86th minute. Now he's out for 5 weeks again!
Zlatan Lumic
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Things are going great in Europe (great away victory against Karpaty Lviv and I told you that you could do great againt Ath.Bilbao, that's a nice win that could easily grant you a ticket for the next round ^^ ), but are going so-so in England... City and Tottenham are really tough nuts to crack (it's a shame to be out of the Carling so soon, but oh well... it couldn't be helped) but the Swansea match shocks me though, your Villa and Swansea should be at similar levels in terms of squad yet the difference shown in the stats is brutal... they swept you completely, heck you were lucky to get a draw against them.
Next month is going to be even more difficult (Everton, Chelsea and Arsenal) but at least you can raise some morale by beating West Brom (and that traitorous adder known as Agbonlahor while you're at it).
Keep it up. it's time to dye both England and Europe in claret and blue ^^
.P.S.: The U21s are still doing a terrific job, that's a relief.
Next month is going to be even more difficult (Everton, Chelsea and Arsenal) but at least you can raise some morale by beating West Brom (and that traitorous adder known as Agbonlahor while you're at it).
Keep it up. it's time to dye both England and Europe in claret and blue ^^
.P.S.: The U21s are still doing a terrific job, that's a relief.