*End of Season Update Added* Exeter City Story
After reading other stories I thought I would tell you mine....
**Used my database with link in signature for download
It was the 8th July and Exeter City had announced Tom Walker as new manager of Exeter City for their League One Campaign, it would be a very hard and tough challenge for the inexperienced Walker with Exeter exceeding expectations and being promoted from League Two; Walker remembers only a couple years ago going to watch Burton VS Exeter in the Conference Premier so Exeter’s rise is quite remarkable.
Exeter are certainly not a big club in League one (stature and budget) however money was available through the sales of a few key players to further that talent (Moxey, Gill etc…) the board and the bookies thought that it would be hard for Exeter to avoid relegation so the Board wasn’t that optimistic but Walker was and knew with talent like Dunne, Archibald – Henville and Fleetwood that they could be real dark horses in this league so he aimed for a top – half finish the board would help as much as they could and offered Walker a transfer budget of £1 Million to bolster this top half claim, most of this money coming from player sales and with no debt the budget could easily be adjusted to boost wages or even the transfer budget even more.
Walker was very busy on his first day in charge and made dramatic changes, and showed that he was going to run things his way with all the staff leaving except for one physio and 20 players released fans starting to question Walkers tactics as the Reserves were virtually extinct now and will be made up of the under 18 squad – however the fans still had faith and were still excited over last years promotion. 5 days later Walker had brought in the majority of his staff except for an Assistant, this was worrying with the first pre-season game only two days away now against feeder team Tiverton and especially with 5 more releases from his first day one of these including veteran forward Marcus Stewart, however at 5PM Exeter’s first signing was announced it was the signing of former Newcastle fullback Olivier Bernard, who has lost his way a little bit after being released from the Championship side but hoped to get back on his feet with the Grecians.
A day later was very quiet for Walker the only note of interest was the signing of Ahmet Brkovic on a 4 week trial, fans were still nervy with less than 6 weeks to the start of the League One campaign but expected big news in the next fortnight. Another day passed and an Assistant was announced it wasn’t what the fans expected it was an inexperienced coach that came from Walker’s hometown of Burton; Tony Hemmings that came from Gresley FC as a player/Assistant but his playing days are well and truly passed him as a 40-year old there were also rumours spreading that Walker may take another Gresley FC player in Paul Edwards. Today was the first pre-season game with Walker not attending as he had a lot of work that needed to be done in getting players into the club, it was a comprehensive 3-1 win over amateur Tiverton with young prospect James Dunne named man of the match, 40-year old Tony Hemmings even got a run out in this game and getting on the scoresheet, Walker got reports from his coaches praising the performances of Richard Duffy, Olivier Bernard, James Dunne and trialist Ahmet Brkovic however the performance of on loan Stuart Fleetwood was worrying, it was obvious that things needed to be done before the next pre season game against League One rivals Southampton (only 6days away) who kept a strong team after relegation from the Championship.
The next 3 days were quiet but on the fourth Walker showed his optimism by a double signing one being Ma Kalambay on a bargain 28K deal from Hibs and the other being versatile left-sided Evan Horwood for 35K, new also came out that Walker had made an approach for Burton’s Michael Simpson who was on non-contract terms at Burton so was therefore a free agent – rumours circulated that they were many teams competing for the signature of Simpson many being League 2 but also some League 1 teams vying for the veterans signature but the on the 20th July it was announced that Exeter had beaten of competition to sign the veteran 34-year old who was eager to show that after retirement from League football he could come back and do a job at this standard.
The next upcoming days Walker didn’t take to the byline and decided to carry on looking at potential signatures and confirming signatures before the first game against Promotion contenders Colchester we lost 1-0 to a late goal but it was promising and I saw that my defensive tactic could definitely work.
I decided to choose a defensive tactic with the defence sitting deep and a slow tempo with quite a bit of time wasting because of my defensive capabilities with James Dunne names captain and Ma Kalambay and Stride filling in the Vice-Captain role. After 15 games and an inconsistent start, with some very good performances then some disappointing performances against Leeds and Norwich we currently sit 12th I’ve noticed that my team go through patches of losing or not getting wins or unbeaten streaks at the moment im on a three game unbeaten streak in the league but our last two performances were in the cup which were disappointing 5-0 Loss to Charlton and only a 2-1 win against Chester.
It’s obvious that my team has potential and is going the right way but a lack of goals is worrying with Tim Sills being my top goal scorer with other players squandering chances but with all of my budget used 675K then adjusted for my wage budget (500 under now) then they will be pretty much no action in the Window, I may look to dip into the loan market though however my efforts here have been disappointing with many not having the attributes to improve my squad and others not willing to join a newly promoted league One team.
After reading other stories I thought I would tell you mine....
**Used my database with link in signature for download
It was the 8th July and Exeter City had announced Tom Walker as new manager of Exeter City for their League One Campaign, it would be a very hard and tough challenge for the inexperienced Walker with Exeter exceeding expectations and being promoted from League Two; Walker remembers only a couple years ago going to watch Burton VS Exeter in the Conference Premier so Exeter’s rise is quite remarkable.
Exeter are certainly not a big club in League one (stature and budget) however money was available through the sales of a few key players to further that talent (Moxey, Gill etc…) the board and the bookies thought that it would be hard for Exeter to avoid relegation so the Board wasn’t that optimistic but Walker was and knew with talent like Dunne, Archibald – Henville and Fleetwood that they could be real dark horses in this league so he aimed for a top – half finish the board would help as much as they could and offered Walker a transfer budget of £1 Million to bolster this top half claim, most of this money coming from player sales and with no debt the budget could easily be adjusted to boost wages or even the transfer budget even more.
Walker was very busy on his first day in charge and made dramatic changes, and showed that he was going to run things his way with all the staff leaving except for one physio and 20 players released fans starting to question Walkers tactics as the Reserves were virtually extinct now and will be made up of the under 18 squad – however the fans still had faith and were still excited over last years promotion. 5 days later Walker had brought in the majority of his staff except for an Assistant, this was worrying with the first pre-season game only two days away now against feeder team Tiverton and especially with 5 more releases from his first day one of these including veteran forward Marcus Stewart, however at 5PM Exeter’s first signing was announced it was the signing of former Newcastle fullback Olivier Bernard, who has lost his way a little bit after being released from the Championship side but hoped to get back on his feet with the Grecians.
A day later was very quiet for Walker the only note of interest was the signing of Ahmet Brkovic on a 4 week trial, fans were still nervy with less than 6 weeks to the start of the League One campaign but expected big news in the next fortnight. Another day passed and an Assistant was announced it wasn’t what the fans expected it was an inexperienced coach that came from Walker’s hometown of Burton; Tony Hemmings that came from Gresley FC as a player/Assistant but his playing days are well and truly passed him as a 40-year old there were also rumours spreading that Walker may take another Gresley FC player in Paul Edwards. Today was the first pre-season game with Walker not attending as he had a lot of work that needed to be done in getting players into the club, it was a comprehensive 3-1 win over amateur Tiverton with young prospect James Dunne named man of the match, 40-year old Tony Hemmings even got a run out in this game and getting on the scoresheet, Walker got reports from his coaches praising the performances of Richard Duffy, Olivier Bernard, James Dunne and trialist Ahmet Brkovic however the performance of on loan Stuart Fleetwood was worrying, it was obvious that things needed to be done before the next pre season game against League One rivals Southampton (only 6days away) who kept a strong team after relegation from the Championship.
The next 3 days were quiet but on the fourth Walker showed his optimism by a double signing one being Ma Kalambay on a bargain 28K deal from Hibs and the other being versatile left-sided Evan Horwood for 35K, new also came out that Walker had made an approach for Burton’s Michael Simpson who was on non-contract terms at Burton so was therefore a free agent – rumours circulated that they were many teams competing for the signature of Simpson many being League 2 but also some League 1 teams vying for the veterans signature but the on the 20th July it was announced that Exeter had beaten of competition to sign the veteran 34-year old who was eager to show that after retirement from League football he could come back and do a job at this standard.
The next upcoming days Walker didn’t take to the byline and decided to carry on looking at potential signatures and confirming signatures before the first game against Promotion contenders Colchester we lost 1-0 to a late goal but it was promising and I saw that my defensive tactic could definitely work.
I decided to choose a defensive tactic with the defence sitting deep and a slow tempo with quite a bit of time wasting because of my defensive capabilities with James Dunne names captain and Ma Kalambay and Stride filling in the Vice-Captain role. After 15 games and an inconsistent start, with some very good performances then some disappointing performances against Leeds and Norwich we currently sit 12th I’ve noticed that my team go through patches of losing or not getting wins or unbeaten streaks at the moment im on a three game unbeaten streak in the league but our last two performances were in the cup which were disappointing 5-0 Loss to Charlton and only a 2-1 win against Chester.
It’s obvious that my team has potential and is going the right way but a lack of goals is worrying with Tim Sills being my top goal scorer with other players squandering chances but with all of my budget used 675K then adjusted for my wage budget (500 under now) then they will be pretty much no action in the Window, I may look to dip into the loan market though however my efforts here have been disappointing with many not having the attributes to improve my squad and others not willing to join a newly promoted league One team.
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but yeah will be touch Leon Knight is rubbish at least he was free might release him already after one game with 16 pace thought he would have one chance but no didn't even get on the ball in the highlights