Improving Ireland with Sligo Rovers

TheNotSoSpecialOne said:
Absolutely gutting that result against Basel!!!
Click to expand...

Yeti01 said:
**** - I am frustrated by the Basel result and this isn't even my save!! Here's hoping you can do the business against Steaua.
Click to expand...

It was a hard result to take, still can't find out the best role for the striker in the tactic or else I'm sure we would've won that comfortably!
 
Europa League Group Stage Quest

Two games against Steaua Bucharest were between the Europa League Group Stage and us. The first leg was away from home and a goal 7 minutes into injury time put us in the driving seat.

View attachment 20473

And in the second leg, we actually took our chances!

View attachment 20472

Which means finally, after 4 seasons, we have got the group stages of a European competition!

It’s done no harm to the bank balance and the board have finally agreed to upgrade the scouting range!

View attachment 20471

View attachment 20470

It means we can scout amazing prospects from South America but they won’t join us because of our reputation. Great.

For the Europa League Group Stage draw we were seeded 4th ​and we have an interesting group.

View attachment 20469

Ludogorets are a team I think we can overcome, the other two I’m not so sure about but we’ll have to wait and see.

As for the league, we can't stop winning matches and it’s only a matter of time until we’ll be champions.

View attachment 20468

However we’ve not prepared in the best way for our first Europa League group stage match, which is away against Ludogorets. We somehow lost to Cork in the FAI Cup.

View attachment 20467

We had 45 shots and 2 goals compared to Cork scoring 4 times from 5 shots!

View attachment 20466

We’re the best team in Ireland but still haven’t won the cup yet! Hopefully we’re better at converting chances in the Europa League.​
 
Europa League Proper

In our first ever group stage match in European competition I wanted to get off to a good start against Ludogorets. And by good start I mean not conceding after 25 seconds.

View attachment 19994

And it would’ve been nice if we didn't concede an equaliser 5 minutes into the 4-minute injury time.

View attachment 19993

I don’t know who Claudiu Keşeru is but apparently he’s the best free kick taker in the world cause he scored two 30 yarders against us.

View attachment 19992

View attachment 19991

That slightly strange start to the Europa League group stage was followed up by us winning the League of Ireland cup.

View attachment 19990

We actually took our chances this time! It’s the second time in 3 years we’ve won the competition.

View attachment 19989

Zenit St Petersburg were our first opponents at home in the Europa League group stage and for some reason the game took place at Cork’s ground.

After going in behind it turned out that calmly telling the players that they have been unlucky was the way to go about things.

View attachment 19988

It was an immense second half comeback and £500k for a win isn’t bad going!

View attachment 19987

And literally two days after that game we had a league match, which confirmed our second league title in a row.

View attachment 19986

View attachment 19985

The board have set stupid (stupid as in good) budgets for next year but I’m honestly not sure that we’ll be able to persuade good enough players to join us.

View attachment 19984

Anyway before worrying about transfers we have 4 Europa League games left. The knockout stages are starting to look realistic!

View attachment 19983​
 
Great result against Zenit mate! Fingers crossed you can get through the the knockouts!
 
Europa League Fun

With £5m in the bank and counting, it was about time we got some facility upgrades.

View attachment 19691

We’ve improved the junior coaching, youth and training facilities

View attachment 19690

View attachment 19689

View attachment 19688

We’ve only had one good player emerge so far from the Sligo academy and that was in this year’s intake. Striker Steve Keady recently became Sligo’s youngest ever player.

View attachment 19687

View attachment 19686

Next up for us was our third Europa League Group Stage match away against Feyenoord.

View attachment 19685

A 1-1 draw was a good result but we actually should’ve won and it left the group very close after 3 matches.

View attachment 19684

Because of our Europa League run our last 4 league games were in the space of 6 days!

View attachment 19683

Of course we won them all, meaning we finished with 99 points and a 92+ goal difference in the league…

View attachment 19682

Our final league match of the season was our 60th​ of the campaign!

The amount of cup games we play each year is ridiculous but at least now we could solely focus on getting to the Europa League knockout rounds.

View attachment 19681

That task was made easier when we absolutely smashed Feyenoord at home. I’m not saying Ryan Cassidy is the best player in the world… but he sort of is.

View attachment 19680

He has 6 assists in the Europa League… and also has 6 assists in the Champions League.

So, currently, Ryan Cassidy has the most assists in the Champions League and Europa League!

View attachment 19679 View attachment 19678

However that win against Feyenoord made things easy and why would we want things to be easy?

View attachment 19677

We lost our 5th​ group stage game to Ludogorets meaning that going into the final match against Zenit any two teams from the group could still go through to the last 32.

View attachment 19676

Anyone else nervous?​
 
End of Season 2021


Our final Europa League Group Stage Match was away to Zenit St Petersburg. All we needed to do was draw in order to get through to the last 32 of the competition, however defeat would mean we would be knocked out.

It was a goalless first half but straight after half time Artem Dzyuba scored for Zenit.

View attachment 19489

I thought the name seemed familiar and turns out he was the big lump who started up front for Russia in last year’s World Cup.

Things were not looking good so I made two changes, one of those being Northern Irish midfielder Shane Dunne who we signed for £10,000 as a 16 year old.

View attachment 19488

And ten minutes later he scored a worldie.

View attachment 19487

With that, we shut up shop and hoped for the best.

View attachment 19486

And it worked, Shane Dunne’s goal took us to the last 32 of the Europa League!

View attachment 19485

View attachment 19484

Dortmund, Porto, Arsenal and Roma were all in the draw but we will face AEK Athens who finished top of Group L with 14 points

View attachment 19483

View attachment 19482

If we can beat Feyenoord and Zenit then we can beat them!

-

The Zenit match was our last of a very long season. We played 64 games in total! 64!

Airtricity Premier League: Winners
FAI Cup: Lost in QF to Cork
League of Ireland Cup: Winners
Irish President’s Cup: Winners
Champions League: Lost to Basel in 3rd​ Qualifiying Round
Europa League: Finished 2nd​ in Group Stage

Despite walking the league, only 4 Sligo players were in the team of the year.

View attachment 19481

View attachment 19480

I’m not even going to count how many goals we scored in our 64 games but it was a lot! Matty Willock scored 21 goals from central midfield and was named player of the year in Ireland.

View attachment 19479

However it’s clear our team revolves around Ryan Cassidy. He’s just signed a new contract and it’s imperative we keep him at the club if we want to progress.

View attachment 19478

As mentioned before, we’ve got a £3m budget but we’ll have to wait and see what work we can do with it.

View attachment 19477

Until then we’ve got a 2 month wait until next season, where our first game of the campaign will be at home to AEK Athens in the Europa League 1st ​Knockout Round!

Irish Football Summary – 2021

National Team Ranking: 60th (was 58th​ in 2020)
Nation Coefficient Ranking: 32nd (was 35th in 2020)
Irish Teams in Europe: Shamrock Rovers and St Pats Europa League 2nd​ Qualifying Round, Cabinteely Europa 1st Round.​
 
Cassidy looks like a gun. Where are you using him mainly?
 
The Worst Pre-Season Ever

We’ll start our 2022 season preview with the announcement that two Sligo icons have left. Rhys McCabe and David Cawley have both been released.

View attachment 19082 View attachment 19081

It was a tough decision but we can’t keep players here because of sentiment and neither were trained in Ireland so did not help with European registration rules.

As for the transfers in, we obliterated our transfer record by signing Eoin Sheridan from Shamrock Rovers for £925,000.

View attachment 19080

He scored the winner in the 2019 FAI Cup against us and I’ve been following him since.

View attachment 19079

It might seem like a risk but we need to think about registration rules for European competition and he’s one of the best Irish players at his age.

We also signed young centre back Paul Douglas from Cork for £425,000.

View attachment 19078

Again a young, talented Irish player is a must buy when they’re available.

It all went downhill from there though.

Firstly, the Europa League knockout game against AEK Athens is our first match of the season and it’s very difficult to get players back to full match fitness before then. But that’s okay we’ll deal with that over time.

Then we received the news that first choice right back Alpha Dionkou was injured.

View attachment 19077

Annoying but we have adequate backup at right back. Then it got worse.

View attachment 19076

Our best player Ryan Cassidy is injured for our most important games as Sligo manager. Typical.

The only way it could get worse would be if one of my best players had a release clause that I forgot about…

View attachment 19075

… And Sheffield United trigged that release clause.

View attachment 19074

Yep, Dylan Levitt has gone.

What made it worse was that I offered him a new contract as soon as the bid came in, which he accepted, so it gave me some hope that he’d stay.

Them shoddy transfer dealings leave us light in midfield and wide areas but I don’t want to sign players for the sake of it. We also have a lot of talented youngsters (all regens) on loan so I need to think of their futures too.

View attachment 19073

But we’ll have to worry about squad depth later, for now we have to focus on beating AEK Athens over two legs.

View attachment 19072

With no Levitt or Cassidy it would be a miracle. Stranger things have happened though…​
 
Madness Against AEK

It turns out the injury madness had not stopped before our game against AEK. Literally the day before the game Alan Judge picked up a 6 week injury

View attachment 18901

My patience was truly getting tested.

The injury crisis meant that new signing Eoin Sheridan’s first game for Sligo would be in the Europa League knockout round.

View attachment 18900

But the injuries were forgotten 7 minutes into the game.

View attachment 18899

Shayne Lavery opened the scoring for us and it remained 1-0 until the 78th​ minute…

View attachment 18898

Until Raul Uche made it 2-0! Moments later we were in dreamland.

View attachment 18897

Conor Masterson scored from a corner to put us 3-0 up against AEK. He has been on loan at Sligo ever since I started the save and has constantly been our first choice centre back.

View attachment 18896

After the third I immediately went to the tactics screen and aimed to shut up shop. The only problem was that I forgot to pause the game and all of a sudden AEK scored.

View attachment 18895

So with that, I decided to not go defensive and keep things exactly as they had been all game. Bad idea.

View attachment 18893

Brilliant. 3-0 up with a depleted squad with 2 minutes left and we manage to concede 2 late goals. Only at Sligo can we make a win feel like a defeat.

View attachment 18894

That left us needing a minimum of a draw in the away leg.

So it was nice of Eoin Sheridan to score his first Sligo goal in our most important game of the save.

View attachment 18892

Suddenly we began to believe that we were actually going to get through. But then AEK scored their obligatory 30 yard screamer, assisted by Nathan Redmond who is for some reason living the life in Greece.

View attachment 18891

All we needed was for the score to stay the same and we would be through to the last 16 of the Europa League. And you know what? It did!

View attachment 18890

View attachment 18889

How jammy are we? Somehow we’ve got through despite having what seemed like half of our squad injured.

We were rewarded with a tasty tie in the next round.

View attachment 18888

View attachment 18887

What a draw that is!

We’re probably going to get smashed but who cares, Celtic await us in the Europa League Second Knockout Round!​
 
Celtic Double Header

So Celtic Park was the latest venue in our Europa League journey. Celtic were 4-6 favourites and had a lot of very good players.

View attachment 18740

And those players made the difference in class very apparent. Marko Pjaca is very good at football.

View attachment 18739

We weren’t even that bad, it’s just they were too good for us. Although our centre back John Mahon played a 5.3, I didn’t even know it was possible to have such a low rating!

View attachment 18738

One of our key players Adam Lewis picked up a bad injury in the game, standard practice nowadays.

View attachment 18737

The second leg was not as one-sided but the damage had been done at Celtic Park

View attachment 18736

We won 2-1 but there was a lot more to it.

Celtic went down to 10 men after 23 minutes when we were already 1-0 up. I honestly started believing that we could win 4-0 at that point. But the game fizzled out and it was not to be

Still, our Europa League exploits ended with a win against Celtic and we got a nice £1m just for losing.

View attachment 18735

Attention now turns to playing the bulk of our league games. From now until the summer break at the end of May we pretty much have two games a week.

View attachment 18734

We’ll be scouting all over to see if we can get players when their contracts expire at the end of June, I’m hoping to make some new additions to the squad going into the European campaign in July.​
 
At least you won the second leg. To make it that far though shows how far you've brought them already and can only help in making the club more attractive for transfers
 
Celtic is a tough assignment mate - unlucky. Hopefully next year the draw is much kinder.
 
leckuno said:
At least you won the second leg. To make it that far though shows how far you've brought them already and can only help in making the club more attractive for transfers
Click to expand...

We're up to 108th for the European club coefficient rankings so I hope it helps out with transfers!

Yeti01 said:
Celtic is a tough assignment mate - unlucky. Hopefully next year the draw is much kinder.
Click to expand...

Didn't really mind as we were never expected to get past the group stage anyway, the prize money from the knockout rounds was a bonus!
 
Irish Invincibles

We have now played 20 league games this season… and won all 20

View attachment 18572

We’re far too good for the other Irish teams now. We’ve conceded 6 goals all season in the league and Mitchell Beeney already has 14 clean sheets.

View attachment 18571

The top 7 players in the league are all at Sligo and significantly 4 of them are aged 20 or under.

View attachment 18570

Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers continue to disappoint, so much so that Mick McCarthy has been sacked by Dundalk and Nestor El Maestro has took the job at Shamrock

View attachment 18569

View attachment 18568

Meanwhile Celtic beat Everton in the Europa League final so it wasn’t at all embarrassing to get thrashed by them in the last 16.

View attachment 18567

One of the players to impress for us is Steve Keady. He’s still only 16 yet has 6 goals and 3 assists in 12 league games.

View attachment 18566

We’ve also managed to change his personality from a mercenary to fairly professional so he could have a long and successful career at Sligo.

Another young Irish striker on our books is Alan McCabe. I signed him at the start of the season and loaned him back to Dundalk. He hasn’t impressed much there but picked up his first cap for Ireland in March!

View attachment 18565

As we enter the start of June we’re going to have a prolonged battle to keep Adam Lewis and Ryan Cassidy at the club. Both are wanted by a number of Championship and Premier League clubs.

View attachment 18564 View attachment 18563

I also hope to permanently sign Alpha Dionkou and Conor Masterson when their contracts expire next month. Both are currently demanding huge wages though.

View attachment 18562 View attachment 18561

I’m hoping we can improve the squad in time for our Champions League qualifiers. We will play the champions of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first qualifying round.

View attachment 18560

It depends on if we bring in new faces in the summer but reaching the group stage of the Champions League has to be the aim this time round.​
 
Second Job

Only a few weeks have passed since the last post but we’ve been busy. Firstly Adam Lewis and Ryan Cassidy have signed new contracts to stop clubs from being interested in them… yet Cassidy is still wanted by Sporting Kansas City.

View attachment 18216 View attachment 18215

We also took the plunge and offered Conor Masterson and Alpha Dionkou big money contracts to sign them permanently.

View attachment 18214 View attachment 18213

Yet the main transfer news is that we’ve signed 2 Uruguayans on free transfers, left back Enrique Pintos and midfielder Gustavo Ferreira.

View attachment 18212

View attachment 18211

They represent a huge turning point in the save in that we are starting to attract quality regens from abroad. Hopefully there are a lot more to come!

There’s just one more thing to report…

View attachment 18210

View attachment 18209

Hopefully we’ll have a second job soon.​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

FMBase

Beta

Resources

Top