Fulham FC - Rise to GLORY!!

[SlapDashFluky]

Season 1 ---- 2011/2012


I thought I'd stick my attempted rise to glory with Fulham on here! I'm starting off having told my board I'll qualify for europe this year (bit risky, I know). I made it so I'm an ex-international footballer, I'm hoping to play attractive and entertaining football with the basic 4-4-2 with two flying wingers on each side. I've got a transfer budget of 11million, and so it begins.......

Transfers:
I decided to bring in the quality I needed, I had to get rid of all my fringe players and anyone I felt wasn't worthy of a place in my team. Luckily Fulham already have a great number of quality attackers and attacking midfielders. So I only had to concentrate mainly on bringing in a solid defence.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Out:
- Andy Johnson to Rangers - 2m
- Damien Duff to Aston Villa - 3m
- Phillipe Senderos to Espanyol - 2m
- Aaron Hughes to West Ham - 2.5m
- Rafik Halliche to Birmingham 500k

--- I loaned out alot of the clubs youth/fringe players aswell. Promising talent such as Matthew Briggs, Kerim Frei and Marcello Trotta all moving to my feeder club Charlton ---


In:
- Robert Pires on a free
- Leighton Baines from Everton (DL) - 2.5m upfront with a further 5m for 30 appearances and 5m for 10 international appearances
- Gary Cahill from Bolton (CB) - 4m upfront with a further 5m for 30 appearances and 5m for 10 international appearances
- Jan Vertoghen from Ajax (CB/DL) - 2m upfront with a further 7.5m after 40 appearances
- Kwadwo Asamoah from Udinese (CDM/CM) 3m upfront with a further 10m after 40 appearances
- Lewis Holtby from Schalke (CM/CAM) - 6m upfront with 10m after 10 goals and 10m after 30 appearances and 5m after 10 international appearnaces
- Stevan Jovetic from Fiorentina (CAM/ST) - 4m upfront with 15m after 20 goals and 10m after 30 appearances

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those seven players cleared me out completely and are a big risk with how much they'll cost overall in the end, but I believe they are what is needed to push Fulham up the Premier League and to continually qualify for europe.

-Robert Pires is a perfect back-up and super-sub for the season, I believe.

-Admittedly, I have John-Arne Riise and LB but he's getting on so I decided to go for Leighton Baines aswell as his great defensive ability he has the Free-kicks and overall play to go with.

-After I made the decision to sell Senderos and Aaron Hughes (which was a hard decision). I had to bring in a quality CB and Gary fits the bill.

-After a few knocks in the early europa league qualifiers to my defenders, I realised I didn't have sufficient cover back there so I got Jan Vertoghen in as mainly back-up but really a rotation option as he is a quality player.

-I also decided to shore up my central midfield after a few sales and wanted a defensive midfielder to partner my Lewis Holtby. My scout picked up Kwadwo Asamoah and as soon as I read the report I knew I'd need him in the centre, as the Alex Song type player.

-I realised I needed a quality central midfielder and found Lewis Holtby after doing random searches. I noticed he'd been loaned out the two previous seasons and made the move as soon as I could, I was extremely glad when I got him as other clubs were interested and I can tell he'll be a real important player even if he is only 20.

-I knew I had to concentrate on defence, but when I saw Stevan Jovetic's report I had to make an offer at least, I made a few and after a while negiotating I finally struck a deal. He is a young lad but I can tell he has everything needed to be my main strike assest for a long time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In terms of everyone I sold, well simply put they weren't in my plans or good enough. Although, I am hoping Briggs, Frei and Trotta have a good season with Charlton as they could very well be in my plans.
I am very happy with the players who came in, I made sure I took long enough to check everything out before signing them and hope they'll all gel to make a great team. Most of them are young, Lewis Holtby being 20, Jovetic is 21 and Asamoah 22.

 

[Winters]

Nice start but I would add some images/screenshots in.

 

[Mike]

Jesus, you're going to be in so much debt - you have £87.5m of clauses from 6 transfers. Bad move. Good luck.

 

[SlapDashFluky]

Yeah, I started with a loan debt too. I went with the big risk in the hope that we'll qualify for the champions league solidly for a few years and maybe more. If we fail those expectations, I may have completely screwed this club over! :/

Also, screenshots are coming!

 

[SlapDashFluky]

Squad

[/URL][/IMG]
Here is my squad, this screenshot is taken after 8 games into the season as I only decided to stick this career up on this forum then. My key players this season would be Hangeland, Murphy and Zamora. I'd be hoping they could stay fit and help my new players all fit in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pre- Season Results:

My season started early, as we had to play the europa league qualifiers. They were a breeze but I used them as pre-season friendlies, to get match fitness for my first team players and also to work out who I wanted and who I didn't.

Europa League 1st Qualifying Round:
-Fulham 3-0 Glentoran -- Had already won this game before I even started my file.
-Glentoran 1-0 Fulham -- My first game was a 1-0 loss, with no-one impressing.

Friendly:
-Southend 1-0 Fulham -- Things aren't looking too good, as I've played pretty much full-strength teams and lost both times.

Europa League 2nd Qualifying Round:
-Fulham 2-0 Gagra -- Finally, a win.With Bobby Zamora and Pajtim Kasami both scoring. Kasami is already looking like one for the future.
-Gagra 2-3 Fulham -- This game was better than the score looks, only thanks to a comical Mark Schwarzer own goal on the 88th min does it look better for Gagra. Zamora, Dempsey and Hangeland scoring for us, though Briggs picked up an injury.

Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round:
-Fulham 3-0 Buducnost -- Dempsey, Zamora and Murphy all scoring to make it an easy victory. Gary Cahill and Leighton Baines mark their debuts with a clean sheet. Also Lewis Holtby makes his debut, though it is a quiet one.
-Buducnost 1-0 Fulham -- We appear to be awful away from home even at this stage in europe, as a goal in extra time gives Buducnost the win. Jovetic makes an un-convincing debut.


---- Overall a decent pre-season/qualifying campaign, we played easy teams and beat them all and I'd like to think we gradually improved as we went along. The team are getting used to my tactics now and we can only improve really. Though unluckily for us Manchester Utd are first up in the Premiership ----


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here we go! The season begins:

Our first game is scheduled for TV, so a nice little bit of income!



PREMIER LEAGUE -- Fulham 3-0 Manchester United -- An amazing start to the season!.....Though it looks better than it truthfully was, Lewis Holtby put us in the lead with a wonderful strike in the 16th minute. We played well, though Manchester Utd had many chances. Luckily for us on the 79th minute Vidic was sent off and we managed to bang in two more goals, with a Holtby penalty and Dempsey header.Next up was the last of the Europa League Qualifiers, the 4th round. We had Flora, an Estonian team. Though they were virtually un-heard of I decided to play a full strength team in the 1st leg so I could rest players later on.

EUROPA LEAGUE 4TH QUALIFYING ROUND -- Flora 0-4 Fulham -- The decision paid off with goals from Jovetic, Zamora, Kasami and Hangeland. Nice to see I could rest a few in the 2nd leg and to see Jovetic get off the mark. Next up, back to the Premier League and rivals QPR.

PREMIER LEAGUE -- QPR 0-2 Fulham -- A good away win against the local rivals. Jovetic and Zamora both scoring, which is always good when both your strikers score. Also a solid debut from Kwadwo Asamoah in central midfield, linking up well with Holtby and Vertoghen coming off the bench for his debut also. The next game was the 2nd leg of the Europa League Qualifier against the mighty Flora!

EUROPA LEAGUE 4TH QUALIFYING ROUND -- Fulham 3-1 Flora -- A good solid 7-1 win on aggregate (goals from Dembele, Zamora and Riise in this match), but its at this game where I realise I really don't have strength in depth as I meant to completely change my eleven players. I can only swap a few around and alternatively rest others as I just simply don't have enough players of quality. I'll have to hope for luck with no injuries this season.

PREMIER LEAGUE -- Aston Villa 1-2 Fulham -- Another away win, although this one was more hard fought. A Zamora penalty in the 50th minute put us ahead before Darren Bent, who was offisde as per usual, put Villa back on terms. Asamoah didn't help by getting sent off for a challenge that really should of put him in prison, somehow Stephen Ireland wasn't injured. Then on the 92nd minute Clint Dempsey scores a header. Wahey!

PREMIER LEAGUE -- Fulham 4-0 Everton -- Very solid home win with goals from Dembele, Murphy, Zamora and Kasami. Although double bad news before the game, Jovetic is injured away on international duty and is out with damaged cruciate ligament for up to 8 months. Which is completely gutting as he's just started to come good, the other bad news is Asamoah is banned for a further 2 games, though that should of been expected.

EUROPA LEAGUE - GROUP DRAW -- Muhaha, we got lucky. Ended up being drawn with Club Brugge, PAOK and Helsingborgs.

EUROPA LEAGUE -- Fulham 2-1 Club Brugge -- Good start to the group stage, with goals from Dembele and Zamora. Though just as Dembele has come into the team and is scoring regularly, he is injured too. Out for 3weeks.

PREMIER LEAGUE -- Arsenal 3-4 Fulham -- Epic game. Gervinho's goal after 50seconds made me think the worst. Though Hangleand then scored only 8minutes later. Bryan Ruiz put us in the lead with an awesome volley before they pegged us back to 2-2. Then on the 78th minutes Ruiz scored again with Zamora sticking us 4-2 ahead only two minutes later. Though Chamakh scored on the 96th minute, which is an amazing feat considering there was only 3minutes of extra time given.

Thats, the first part of my season, hope you enjoyed, theres more to come! Here's a screenshot of that epic Arsenal game:

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[mervmeister]

I personally prefer to take a gradual approach when improving the squad, but each to their own.
Pressure is massively on for you here as you have spent mega money, good luck tho