Le Aquile - A Palermo Story

[FM_TNSSO]

Juventus's youngsters now play in Serie B after coming up last year as one of the Serie C winners. However, they're struggling at this level and we piled on the pressure by recording an easy win against them here.

The first half of the season has gone exceptionally well so far, and I started to wonder whether a dip in form was just around the corner...I mean, surely we couldn't keep this momentum up all season, especially with such a small squad compared to other teams in the league. I was right to fear a dip and it came as we come to the end of 2023 as we record 5 games without a win.

Despite only taking 3 points from our last available 15, we still managed to retain our place at the top of the division as we move into the Winter break. However, there are now only 9 points separating 1st - 9th and the second half of the season will be ultra competitive!

When we returned from the Winter break, our performance against Pisa was a lot better as a whole and we dominated majority of the game. However, our strikers had a shocker and we couldn't find the back of the net and so kick off the new year with another defeat! Shakur Omar even missed from about 1 yard out with an open goal in the 88th minute when he had the opportunity to salvage a draw!

We needed a big performance against local rivals, Reggina, and I let the lads know it before kick off. They responded to a theatrical team talk and turned in our first win in 7 games! Hopefully, we can build on this to turn our form back around.

It didn't entirely inspire a turnaround in form, although we did get another 4 points from our next 3 games.

Which is enough to keep us 2nd in the table for now. Our next game...as massive one against league leaders, Benevento.

We take a point from the game, but it's gutting not to win. We were the better side, missed a pen and they scored the equaliser from the resulting free kick of our sending off late on! We need to pick ourselves up from this as it will hurt!

And we did pick ourselves up in perfect fashion, carving out a victory at Cosenza. We took advantage of their sending off, changed things to two up front with a more attacking mentality and it paid off as we scored twice to steal the points from them! I love it when a tactical change works a treat...makes me feel special!

We followed that result up with an excellent win against Spezia! We could just about be finding our feet again!

With 10 games to go, we never expected ourselves to be anywhere near the title race at the start of the season. However, that's exactly where we find ourselves...very much in the mix! It's close though and still any one of about 6 or 7 teams could still come through and win this league!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

If we are going to remain competitive right up to the end of the campaign, then we have to beat teams like Vicenza who are struggling at the bottom end of the table! So this was a pleasing result.

What was even more pleasing than the result itself, was the first professional goal for 17 year old prospect Santo Leto on only his 2nd appearance. Leto is one of our brightest young talents coming through and if he continues to develop, he could definitely be a first choice striker for the club one day!

That goal writes his name in the history books too as the club's youngest ever goalscorer.

Unfortunately, we couldn't follow up the win against Vicenza with another. Instead, it was just a draw against Monza, despite having 18 shots at their goal!

These games are going to massive through the back end of the season. It's a top of the table clash which could have massive implecations on the outcome of the title race.

Neither club took the advantage as we played out a 2-2 draw. I'm proud of my lads though who showed great character to twice level the game after going behind in one of our biggest matches of the season.

Off the field, it was that time of year that we all look forward to...youth intake! However, ours was bitterly disappointing for the 2nd season in a row with not a single player looking like they will one day play for the first team!

Back on the pitch, our good form continued as we picked up 10 points from our next 4 games! The win over SPAL who were closing in behind us was significant and we went into the game with 3rd placed Cremonese knowing that if we avoided defeat, we would be in a strong position.

It means that with just 3 games remaining, we are potentially 1 win away from automatic promotion and 2 wins away from potentially winning the title!! It's incredible that we are even in this position after being tipped to struggle this year and we'll take whatever comes now!

Our next game was a potential banana skin though as Ternana had beaten us in our last 2 meetings. But we overcame them with ease with Alessio Rosa on a one man mission to guide us to Serie A!

And guide us he did! Back to back promotions and we'll be playing in the top tier next year! Now for that title!

We had 2 games to win the league...we only needed one!

We signed things off for the season with another win against a Como side that will now compete in a relegation playoff. It means we end up winning the Serie B title by a clear 5 points! Amazing stuff!

 

[leckuno]

Great way to end the season and great to see Palermo back where they belong. Hard work starts now

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Great way to end the season and great to see Palermo back where they belong. Hard work starts now

Cheers mate! Amazing season and after so many attempts at this year's game, I seem to have found 'my team'. Going to be tough to stay in the top tier this year, but even if we don't I should keep my job after back to back promotions

 

[FM_TNSSO]

End of Season 2023/24 Review

Serie B = Champions (promoted to Serie A)
Coppa Italia = First Round (knocked out by Udinese)

Serie A = Juventus
Coppa Italia = Juventus
Serie C/A = Cittadella
Serie C/B = AC Reggiana
Serie C/C = Avellino 1912
Coppa Italia Lega Pro = Ascoli

What a season! A totally unexpected Serie B title ensures we secure back to back promotions and Palermo are back in the big leagues amongst Italy's elite next season! Bring it on!

Looking over my squad, the recruitment last Summer proved to be very fruitful with most of the new arrivals making an impact. We had a small squad, but rotated sensibally throughout the season and managed to keep everyone fresh. We were lucky not to pick up any big injuries along the way and the lads proved more than capable at this level. Brian Oddei and Shakur Omar made the step up to Serie B football without any issues and they both thrived again as they both reach double figures for both goals and assists. I will have a decision to make as to whether I think they can step up again to Serie A and if I can/will try to keep them here for a 3rd loan spell each. Alessio Rosa had a blinder up top and reached 17 league goals which was a great return and his goals were a huge reason for our promotion...again, there is a question to be asked about whether he can do it in the top tier. For the 3rd season straight, my defence again over performed and impressed me immensely.

The best 11...

The Awards...

There was a Manager of the Year award for me, plus Brian Oddei scooped the Young Player of the Year award, and 5 of our players also made the Serie B Team of the Year!!

On top of that, Perrotta and Viviani landed the prize for defender and midfielder of the year too!

Marco Perotta has been a fantastic servant on loan for 3 seasons and has been ultra consistent. However, I will be allowing him to return to Bari next season and won't be renewing his loan deal as I think we can now attract an even better calibre of centre back to the club with Serie A football.

We had some decent money come into the club this year, which was desperately needed as we were paying above the odds on the wages front.

There is £2 million in the bank at the moment, but with Serie A football coming our way, the projection for the future looks very promising!

Plans for the Summer

Well even though I have been handed an £8.5 million budget to improve the squad, it won't go very far I'm sure and we know we'll struggle to compete with the likes of Juventus making £50 million plus signings every season!! We do have an extra £50k per week added to the wage budget, but again this is minimal and we know we will be working off one of the lowest (if not the lowest) wage budget in the top tier next year. So we will have to again look at shrewd signings and loans to build a squad over the Summer and now we will have to compete with the elite in the country to sign Serie A quality players. It's an exciting time for the club but I'm under no illusions that this transfer window will be anything but easy!

For the third season in a row, Brian Oddei and Shakur Omar will remain at the club for another season long loan!

Pablo Garcia had a good campaign for us at left back and will remain with us for another season on loan from Lille too.

I signed another 3 year deal with the club as well!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Francesco De Rose has been with the club for 4 seasons and has been my captain since day 1 when I took over. However, the 36 year old has now decided to hang up his boots and go into the coaching side of the game, although his stats need some significant improvement before we can think about offering him a job. He will be sorely missed in the dressing room though!

17 other players left the club this Summer after their contracts expired, but the most notable was Nicola Valente. I remember stating in my first season that he was my favourite player at the club and to be honest Serie C was definitely his level. He wasn't as proficient in the higher level last year and will likely struggle to get much game time at all in Serie A. I therefore decided to let him go and continue his career playing football elsewhere rather than just warming our bench.

The board release their expectations for the upcoming season and we simply need to do our very best this year with very little expectation of us avoiding relegation after back to back promotions.

Recruitment is going to play a massive part in our bid to stay in the top tier and it's so important I get it right this Summer. My first signing is an experienced head in the form of 32 year old Portuguese centre mid, Joao Oliveira. He joins on a free from Zaglebie Sosnowiec in Poland, where he has been for the past 4 years. For them, he has recorded an average rating of 7.50 across 80 league games which is impressive!

As I continue to bolster that central midfield position, my next signing was Daouda Peeters who comes in from Juventus, again on a free. He wasn't likely to get near their first team squad, but I have given him a chance and he can become an important member of ours.

Another free transfer up next and this time it's a new left back. Filippo Costa played 27 times for Monza last season in Serie B, recording an average rating of 7.14 and getting 8 assists. He's a good addition that strengthens us in that area of the pitch.

Cristiano Lombardi is a winger who can play down the left or right and he joins us on a free from Perugia. He's played the last two seasons in Serie B for them, recording 11 goals and 12 assists. He hasn't set the world alight for sure, but he can play a decent backup role for us and should be able to step in and do a job when required.

The first time I paid out money for a player this Summer was when I forked out just £500k to bring Nils Mortimer to the club from Barcelona. The winger is only 23 and probably has some improvement in him yet, but can immediately play a squad role for us. Plus, if any of that Barca youth pedigree shines through at all, then he'll have turned out to be a bargain!

Next up is my favourite signing of the Summer so far and if he works out, he could be a key centre back for us for years to come! Bright Arrey-Mbi is only 21 and joins us from Bayern Munich for a fee of £1.1 million. He came through the youth system at Norwich before spending 5 years playing for Chelsea's youth sides before his move to Germany.

Alessio Rosa was brilliant for us up front last year on loan, so it made plenty of sense for me to bring him to the club on a permanent deal from Atalanta. I paid £2.3 million for his signature and with him again being only 21 years old, it could turn out to be a steal if he steps up to Serie A level.

Forgot to take screenshot of Rosa!

That leaves the squad in half decent shape for now, although I could still do with another striker, maybe another winger and maybe another centre back.

Only issue is I am now using nearly all of an increased wage budget (moved some of the transfer budget over), so will have to see if I can find a couple of cheap loans if I want to add to the squad further.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

With a focus on the future of the club and the quality of youth we bring through, I encouraged the board to invest in both the junior coaching and youth recruitment!

Our pre season friendlies went will and included a good win against Shakhtar and a ridiculous result over Matera.

During pre season, we did lose Josue Albert for potentially the first 3 months of the season though. I bitter pill to swallow as he was one of the rocks of the back 4 last season!

Our first competitive game of the season would be the first round of the Coppa Italia and the win over Serie B side, Brescia, couldn't have been any easier!

And straight after the game, I signed one of their players. Enrico Baldini was a cheap purchase at just £275k and will give me more options both out wide and up front this season. He hasn't been ultra prolfic for Brescia over the past 2 seasons, but I'm confident he can step in and provide essential cover for our first teamers this year.

With the Serie A season about to kick off, we take a look at the preview and it's no surprise to see the bookies have us as rank outsiders for the title and easy favourites to go down! Juventus are fancied to retain their crown again.

My first taste of Serie A action was a happy one, thanks to Joao Oliveira's wonder strike from outside the box...a beautifully curled effort into the top corner secures us all 3 points against Sampdoria.

And we only went and followed that up with another win away at Lecce! It's the start I could never possibly have dreamed of!

As transfer deadline day comes and goes, it's worth noting that our wage expenditure in this division is less than half of any other team in the division! Genuinely, if we stay up this year it would be nothing short of a miracle!

Our next league game would present us with our biggest challenge to date as we took on Fiorentina...a team spending more than 7 times our wage budget!! We did fall to our first defeat of the season but arguably we were unlucky as it was a stoppage time winner that our opponents managed to steal all the points. A valiant effort from my lads!

We immediately bounce back with the most incredible result though as we go away to Sassuolo and give them a thrashing!!

At this stage, even I can't believe how good our start has been! 3 wins from our opening 4 games and to be fair, we didn't really deserve that defeat to Fiorentina either! You can argue the opening fixture list was slightly kind to us, but still, this is nothing short of awesome!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Although in our next two games we lost to both Inter and Roma, we did ourselves proud in both games and certainly didn't disgrace ourselves against two of the biggest sides in Italian football.

We are making some good money every month now playing in the top tier, so it was time to invest some of that cash back into the club. The board and I are on the same wavelength and upgrades to the training and youth facilities will commence shortly.

Our next league game was going to be another tough one against Torino. But we turned in a very dominant performance and really should have won the game. We'll take a point but it was only some suspect defending on our part that cost us the other 2!

We got back to winning ways against Cagliari who have made a disappointing start with only 1 win now from their opening 8 games. Considering this is one of 3 derbies we play in (Isole Derby), this was a fantastic result for our fans!

Parma came up with us last year and if we are going to stay up this season, then these are games that have to be seen as a must win! So it was a pleasing victory in a game that we were dominant in for long periods. Parma will do well to stay up this year if they don't improve on this and quickly.

Being back in the 'big time' in Italian football gives us the opportunity to once again contest the Due Sicilie Derby against Napoli. Unfortunately, at this time our rivals showed that they are head and shoulders above where we are at...but that's OK for now and we will work hard to close the gap over the next couple of seasons.

Then disaster struck as I lose one of my key players for up to 4 months. Lorenzo Libutti has been our number 1 right back and unfortunately, I don't really have an out and out replacement for him at this time, so we are going to have to make do in this position for the time being and I'll have to see if we can work something in the January transfer window.

With the big Napoli defeat still hurting us, we hadn't licked our wounds by the time we played Bologna and they walked all over us. We most gather ourselves and get our heads back in the game.

We did just that, with a well earned draw away at Atalanta, who have finished in the top 6 in this division for 6 of the last 8 seasons and become a regular in Europe's biggest competitions.

So after 12 games, we have dropped just into the bottom half of the table, but are still closer to the top 6 than the bottom 3! 9 points seperate us from the relegation places at the moment and we will look to keep that sort of gap for as long as possible to avoid becoming embroiled in a relegation battle come the back end of the season!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Hellas Verona are one of the sides currently sitting behind us in the league and these are the sort of games we have to win (especially with home advantage) if we are going to keep away from those relegation places. We had to fight back from a goal down, but we did just that and pick up a valuable 3 points.

The Verona game saw a man of the match performance from central midfielder, Gregorio Luperini, who is having a brilliant season for us in the top tier. He's been with my since my first day in the job and his stats suggest he has gotten better each season as we go up the leagues!

Luperini was again on the scoresheet in our next game against Lazio, but it had very little significance as we were completely humiliated by our opponents from the Capital! Absolutely dreadful performance all round!

After such a terrible result, we could really have done with easier opponents in our next game than AC Milan, and again we were on the wrong end of a relatively big scoreline.

We could have done without coming into the Coppa Italia Second Round having conceded 11 goals in our last two games, but we also knew that Spezia would represent much easier opposition to both Lazio and AC Milan! However, our confidence has taken a serious knock and we weren't anywhere near our best as we crash out of the cup!

Back to league action then, and the last thing we needed right now was an away trip to Juventus!! Proof that this division can be relentless at times and the result won't come as much of a surprise to anyone! Thankfully, we do now have the Winter break to go away and recoup after a really tough run of games!

As we reached the end of the year and awards season, it was Shakur Omar that marked a milestone in his own career as he picked up the European Golden Boy award!

And the transfer window opened which saw a new arrival into the club, although not one for the immediate future. I actually agreed this deal last Summer, but he only just joined from Osasuna. Jose Maria Iribarren cost us £825k but the 16 year old looks very promising and could well become a first team regular for us in the future. Worst case scenario, we will at least recoup the money we paid for him if he doesn't quite make it with us.

We returned from the Winter break in the same form we went into it, losing by a big margin to Udinese! We really are finding life in Serie A tough at the moment and I fear if we don't pick things up soon, we will soon be involved down the bottom end and fighting to stay in the division.

Things didn't get any better against an Empoli side that moved out of the relegation places and within 2 points of us with this result!

And again we were poor against Spezia, although again we make things harder for ourselves with a sending off!

So our next two games would be absolutely massive! We have dropped to 16th in the table and are edging closer and closer to the relegation scrap! Our next two matches...19th placed Sampdoria and 20th placed Lecce!!

And before that, I bring in a much needed right back! Filipe Cruz joins on loan for the remainder of the season from Benfica and hopefully he can be the catalyst to turn our form around!

There was no immediate inspiration as we suffered a worrying defeat to Sampdoria, which heaped plenty more pressure on the Lecce game! Luckily, we rose to secure our first win in 8 games!

It was a much needed victory which slightly eases the mounting pressure of being drawn into the relegation battle and lifts us back up to 14th in the table. We have a 7 point buffer back to Parma in 18th but if we were to go on another 7 game losing streak, I fear we will be in huge trouble.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

The club's financial situation continues to improve month by month and we now have nearly £9 million in the bank as we reached transfer deadline day in the January window.

So I asked the board to increase the transfer and wage budgets to see if I could make any last minute signings that might help us stay up this year. It was a no to the transfer budget, but they have increased the wage budget slightly and given me almost an extra £15k to play with, which might help me get a cheeky loan signing in.

The player I moved for was another of Benfica's talented youngsters. Hugo Felix is a 20 year old central midfielder who adds some real quality to our midfield and gives us a more attacking option (with all my current centre mids being more defensively minded). I'm hoping he can provide those killer balls for the front three and help us find the goals to keep us up this year.

One area we have struggled this season is between the sticks. Neither of my keepers have looked comfortable at this level and we have shipped a lot of goals...more than anyone else in the league in fact!

So for the 3rd time this window, we turn to Benfica, for the loan signing of 20 year old goalkeeper, Andre Gomes. His attributes suggest that he is a marked improvement on both of my other options and hopefully he can make a big difference to our goal difference over the 2nd half of the campaign.

Both the new signings went straight into the starting lineup and helped us to a fantastic point away at Fiorentina! Based on our recent run of results, this really was a great performance from the lads!

It was a good double for Alessio Rosa against Fiorentina, which doubles his tally for the whole season in which so far, he has been pretty disappointing. Hopefully this will give a much needed boost to his confidence and he can string together some goalscoring form for us.

One player that has been impressive for us this year is Daouda Peeters, so he'll be sorely missed over the next few weeks as he picks up a groin injury in training!

We averaged a point a game over our next 5 matches and if we keep that up to the end of the season, we should be safe. Inter and Roma were always going to be tough matches for us, but the victory over a 17th placed Torino was massive!

That led us into the Isole Derby against Cagliari, who sat below us in 16th position...in the battle against relegation, it was huge for both clubs! And it was us that walk away with the 3 points which could prove pivotal in our quest to stay up! It was a really good game where both teams were absolutely giving it everything and you could really see what was on the line for both clubs, but it was us that had a little bit more strength of character on the day!

It was 3 points that took us up to 11th place and now 9 points clear of the relegation places. With 10 games remaining this season, we are not out of trouble just yet though and anyone in the bottom half is still in danger of going down with a few bad results. At the top end of the table, it seems like it will be the two Milan clubs that fight it out for the title whilst Juventus are struggling to even make the Champions League next year!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Taking a break from Italian football for a second, we head over to the English Premier League where it is still Man City and Liverpool contesting for the title, but their managers have swapped places. Neither of them were sacked but just left their respective roles and then took over at each others clubs...it's almost like they came to a mutual decision to play swapsies.

This year's youth intake is better than that of the previous two and there are a couple of players who could potentially 'make it' if they apply themselves correctly.

Central midfielder, Francesco Cordova is the best of the bunch although his determination might hinder him ever reaching his full potential. Only time will tell, but I'll monitor his progress closely.

We are giving our youngsters the best possible chance to fulfill their potential as we continue our investment in youth recruitment and junior coaching.

Back to the action and our next 5 games saw us pick up 7 very valuable points, with the highlight being an excellent win over Atalanta and an impressive draw against rivals Napoli (who thrashed us 5-0 earlier in the season).

So with 5 games of the season remaining, we are up to 11th but now entirely out of danger yet. There are an incredible 11 teams apparently involved in the relegation scrap, although it would take a lot for us to go down from this position...we've probably done just about enough.

We can be really proud of our performance against title chasing AC Milan at the San Siro in our next game. We weren't lucky here either and were good value for our point!

It's a credit to how well our young team has played this season by the fact that 4 of the 5 favourites to win the Young Player of the Year are from Palermo.

I kind of felt like our last 4 games were a formality and an opportunity to pick up points and finish as high up the table as possible, as safety was already all but assured. We ended up picking up another 5 which wasn't the worst end to the season.

And so it was an 11th placed finish for us back in the top tier, which I'm really pleased with in the end. We were predicted rock bottom, we spend half of what anyone else does on wages, and frankly to even stay in the division is a miracle we have achieved.

And we bag a cool £4.7 million for that finish, which increases our bank balance to a very healthy £19 million (or near enough).

 

[FM_TNSSO]

End of Season 2024/25 Review

Serie A = 11th
Coppa Italia = 2nd Round (knocked out by Spezia)

Serie B = Genoa
Serie C Girona A = Pordenone
Serie C Girona B = Virtus Entella
Serie C Girona C = Reggina
Coppa Italia = Juventus
Coppa Italia Lega Pro = Ascoli

As we look over the squad stats for the past season, one player that really stands out to me is Nils Mortimer who had a fantastic first season with us in the top flight bagging 10 goals and 9 assists. Shakur Omar maintained a decent average rating but his goals/assists return was his worst in 3 years at the club and it remains to be seen whether he is going to be a top player at this level or not. Brian Oddei has also spent 3 years here on loan now and he was definitely missed when he was out of the side...it was a lot more noticeable than when Omar was ommitted from the match day squad. Some of the players that came up with us last year definitely struggled to adapt to life in Serie A and some will likely be moved on this Summer in favour of better replacements. The goalkeeper spot was an issue all season and will definitely need rectifying. Alessio Rosa had a slow start but ended up with a very decent return of 16 goals, but will need more competition for his place next year to push him to the next level. Bright Arrey-Mbi turned out to be a decent signing at centre back and will hopefully only improve as he matures, whilst both Filipe Cruz and Hugo Felix proved to be excellent loan recruits from Benfica.

We have a happy squad as we continue to exceed all expectations as a football club!

The Best 11...

The Awards...

Brian Oddei also picked up the Serie A Best Young Player of the Season too!

The commercial summary for this season makes for some pretty d4mn good reading with some serious cash now flowing through the club!

Plans For The Summer

I'm actually slightly disappointed with the transfer budget this Summer and thought the board should have backed me with more. Just over £9 million is what I've been allocated even though we already have more than double that sitting in the bank and likely to bring in some good hard cash again next season as well! On the positive side, they have increased the wage budget by over £100k which gives me an opportunity to pay some decent wages to bring in a couple of players of real quality to improve the squad. I must improve the goalkeeper position this Summer without fail and a couple of defenders would be handy too. If we can afford it then a second striker would be useful.

One thing I have done is renew the loan signings of Hugo Felix and Filipe Cruz from Benfica for another season. They were both impressive over the past season and both became first team regulars for us.

I requested that the board continue their investment into the club's future by again upgrading the training and youth facilities and I'm pleased they have obliged.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

One of our poorest performers last season was goalkeeper Mattijs Branderhorst, so I put him up for sale. I was surprised when Liverpool came in with an offer if I'm honest and he joins them for £230k.

I debated on whether to keep Shakur Omar at the club for a 4th season on loan and in the end made the call to do so. I mean, he did win the European Golden Boy last season so I'd have been mad not to right!

Meanwhile, after 3 seasons here on loan, I made an offer to Atalanta to make Brian Oddei's deal a permanent one. They accepted a bid of £5 million for him (£3 million up front and £2 million in add ons), which seems like an absolute steal for a player who has been nothing short of excellent for us!

Next in was 22 year old central midfielder, Diego Rosa, who joins us from Manchester City in a deal worth just £1.3 million which is another bargain, especially considering City paid £5.5 million for him back in 2021. He's failed to break into the team of one of the best in Europe but he can definitely play a key role for us.

Now for the best signing I've made so far in my whole Palermo career. 19 year old Hungarian winger, Gyorgy Szatmari, was the Eredivisie Young Player of the Year last season playing for Sparta Rotterdam. With a little jiggle around of the budgets, I was able to activate his release clause of just £7 million, which is incredible business as he is immediately worth around £40 million after joining us!! He'll be able to break into our first team this year and challenge for a starting place too!

I released 17 players this Summer, of which most were youngsters. The most notable was centre back Josue Albert, who played 68 league games under my management and won two league titles with us. At 33 years of age, he's just not quite cut out for this level anymore.

Enrico Baldini was absolute rubbish for us last season. I signed him for £275k, he made 19 league appearances and only got 1 assist and no goals. It was time for him to go and somehow I made a profit on him, bagging £500k from Crotone for his signature.

I still desperately needed a goalkeeper and have managed to prize away Bologna's Federico Ravaglia for a fee of just £625k. He played 20 times for them last season conceding just 14 goals and recording an average rating of 7.19.

Next in was a familiar name to English football fans and as an Englishman myself, he becomes my first signing from my native country. Michael Keane signed from West Brom (who have spent the last 3 seasons in the Premier League) for £91k and adds some experience and cover at centre back. I'm convinced he still has something to offer at this level despite being 32 years old now and for such a cheap fee, it was a no brainer.

I had nothing left in the wage or transfer budget at this stage, but still needed a player who could cover left back this season. So I needed a youngster where the parent club wouldn't expect us to pay any monthly fee or wage contribution and the lad I found was 19 year old Manuel Marinelli who joins on a season long loan from AC Milan.

With the squad being so small this year, I opted to only play 4 friendlies before we take on Brescia in the 1st round of the Coppa Italia. Everyone is showing as fully fit so we should be OK and 4 wins from 4 games is decent enough preparation.

This is the squad I'll be kicking the season off with.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

The players might not be too happy with me, but I felt I had no choice but to cut the bonus budgets for the league competition. It allowed me to put £850k back in the transfer budget, which I immediately converted to the wage budget and it will allow me an extra signing on loan for the season to help us out.

Before I would have any time to be looking at more players though, my focus had to be on our first competitive game of the season...a Coppa Italia 1st Round tie with Brescia. We recorded a comfortable win to secure passage to round 2!

So with the league about to kick off, we follow normal pre season routine and have a look at the preview. No surprise to see Juventus up there as favourites to win the title this year, but the bookies still don't give us any credit despite our 11th placed finish last season and predict us for nailed on relegation again...although they do at least admit there is one worse team in the division than us this year!

The fixture list wasn't entirely kind to us and handed us with an away day at Atalanta to kick things off! However, we put in an excellent performance and pulled off an unlikely result as we absolutely thumped them! Alessio Rosa enjoyed his trip back to his old team as he bagged a brace to make them ask why they sold him to us for such a small fee in the first place!

Rosa picked up where he left off as he bagged another brace against Spezia to ensure we start the season with back to back wins! A great start!

Transfer deadline day came around and I was devastated to lose centre back Bright Arrey-Mbi as Tottenham snapped him up after activating his minimum fee release clause of £4.1 million! Gutted is an understatement even though we made good profit on a player I only paid £900k for!

I had to find a replacement with just 6 hours of the window remaining! I did and I'm quite happy with the £2.1 million signing of Eduard Lowen from Mainz. He has played the last 8 seasons in the Bundesliga for Mainz, Hertha Berlin and Bochum so brings a wealth of experience playing in one of Europe's top leagues that will prove valuable to us this year!

And as extra backup in the centre back position, I also managed to add the season long loan signing of 21 year old Callum Doyle from Man City. The youngster is likely to be a future England international and he can play a part for us this season as he continues to learn his trade.

As the window slams shut, we are creeping closer to the rest of the division with regards to our overall wage spend although we still don't even spend a third of what the top 8 all spend!

Back to the action and we battered fierce rivals Cagliari in our next game. Talk about bragging rights for our fans!!

Alessio Rosa has had an amazing start to the season, scoring 6 goals in 3 games, but will now miss the next 5 weeks through injury...just when everything was going so well!!

With Rosa out, the lone striker role fell to Shakur Omar and he got himself on the scoresheet against Empoli as we made it 4 wins from 4 and maintain our 100% start to the season!

After the positive start we had made to the season, I had no real fear going into the match against newly promoted Salernitana. And I was right not to fear them as we make it 5 straight wins in a row, although we did ride our luck with a 1 goal lead for a long time, before smashing home a couple of injury time goals to improve the scoreline.

So a perfect record through our opening 5 games means we top the division at these early stages and already the doubters who had us nailed on for relegation are silenced! Roma and Atalanta have had poor starts by their standards, but will likely improve and start climbing the table pretty quickly.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Our first defeat of the season came at the hands of Sassuolo. It was a tight game which could have gone either way, but they just edged it on the day.

On a more positive note, there will be even further investment into the junior coaching and youth recruitment side of the club! Hopefully, we should start seeing some really talented youngsters coming through the club in the next 2-3 seasons.

We performed well against Roma in our next game, matching them in every department. They just took one extra chance than we did on the day and consign us to our second defeat in a row. Hopefully this wouldn't be the start of a bad run!

I feared the worst for our next two games as well with AC Milan and Juventus coming up! Milan dominated us and we didn't deserve anything from the game!

But the fan's will be talking about our comeback against Juventus for years to come! We were staring defeat in the face before two stoppage time goals saw us ****** all 3 points from the title favourites! What a result!!

To celebrate the Juventus win, the board agree to invest yet another £5 million into the club's youth facilities. With all these upgrades, the club is positioning ourself to compete with the big boys within the next few seasons!

And with the January window coming up in a couple of months, the board have also agreed to give me a couple of million quid to bring another player or two in!

Over our next 4 games, we took 8 points and conceded only 1 goal in the process! We've clearly come a long way from last season but we won't get ahead of ourselves just yet as we're fully aware that we could slip down the division with a run of bad results.

One of the key reasons for that strong defence is Michael Keane! What a signing he is proving to be at 32 years old! I brought him in initially to act as a backup, but he is quickly becoming one of the first names on the team sheet for me!

Alongside Daouda Peeters, he has actually won 100% of the tackles he's attempted!!

We would need Keane to be at his absolute best as we took on Napoli in the Due Sicilie Derby next! He actually had his worst game for a while (scoring a 6.7), but as a team we were fantastic and record a massive win over our rivals! Brian Oddei was the star of the show as he bagged a goal and an assist on route to victory!

And that win leaves us 2nd in the division after 14 games...incredible!!! We have a nice 7 point gap back to 7th place too and even better than that, we are 19 points clear of the relegation places. It seems crazy to talk about the relegation places when you're second in the league, but that is still the original goal to avoid the drop!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

With us flying in the league this year, the board were keen to tie me down to a new deal and I was happy to sign! A 4 year deal which takes my wages into the double figures for the first time as I hit £10k per week!

At the start of the season SPAL were predicted for the drop alongside us...however, this result shows just how big of a gap there is in quality between us right now! We absolutely destroyed them!

In the Coppa Italia, I heavily rotated the team against lower league side, Modena! But we still managed the win and there was even a debut goal for 16 year old striker, Salvatore Grossi!

It makes Grossi the club's youngest ever goalscorer!

Back in the league, we took on a Lazio side that beat us 7-1 at their place last season! Again, this year they proved too strong for us, although the scoreline was more respectable, but we never looked like winning this game! Ciro Immobile may be 35 years old now, but is still proving he is amongst Italy's elite and now has 9 goals in 7 league games!

As part of our continued growth as a football club, it's time for me to start looking at setting up affiliations with other teams from around the world. I'll be targeting sides that have a good standing in their own country and a decent youth setup so that we can use them as feeder teams to bring some of their best young players to Italy. The first affiliation is with 6 time Allsvenskan winners, IF Elfsborg.

As our league action continued, there was a big defeat as we were outclassed by Inter Milan, but we followed it up with back to back wins against two sides that sit inside the top 10! Two very big results that cement our position in the top 3 for now!

But we're out of the Coppa Italia after defeat to our rivals, Napoli. We gave it a good go and matched them on the stats...they simply just managed to bag an extra one than us and home advantage probably carried them through. Unlucky, but not a bad performance from my lads and if we play like this most weeks in the league, we will win.

Then it was time for my only signing of the January window to join the club. Rafael Capitao is an 18 year old Finnish striker who came through the Oxford United academy and has already featured 15 times for them in League One. He looks like a good prospect with some decent dribbling and finishing skills already. He needs to improve some of his mentail attributes but if he can then he has the potential to be a good player! I forked out £425k to bring him here. The plan is to leave him playing for the youth teams for the rest of this year and see how he progresses with our better facilities and coaching team than his previous club.

In and around the transfer deadline day, we strung together another 4 game unbeaten run, picking up another 6 points. The draw against Atalanta was decent and the thrashing of Cagliari gave our fans bragging rights in the Derby. However, it was slightly disappointing to drop points against Spezia and Empoli, but at least we aren't losing games!

AC Milan and Juventus are starting to pull away at the top of the table, but we do remain 3rd and have opened up our own little gap to Napoli back in 4th. With 15 games of the season still remaining, we have already reached almost the same points we got in the whole of last season (45)!

One of the main reasons AC Milan are flying is Portuguese striker, Rafael Leao, who has an incredible 29 goals in 22 Serie A games this season!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Sassuolo came into their game against us in 6th position and pushing hard for a European qualification place this year. And it looked like they were going to walk away with all 3 points when they took a 2-0 lead from the penalty spot in the 76th minute. However, we had other ideas and a change of formation saw us batter their goal for the last 14 minutes and two injury time goals earn us a point! Massive character shown from my lads!

The momentum of that late comeback against Sassuolo carried us into the next game against Roma and we earned a massive win at the Stadio Olimpico! Roma are 7th and were only 5 points behind us at kick off so I can't emphasise just how big a victory this was!

We made hard work of it against 16th placed Salernitana, but just about got the job done!

That made it 9 games unbeaten for us, but we were under no illusions that could quickly come to an end as our next few fixtures saw us take on 3 of the current top 5 in the division!

However, we actually didn't do too bad at all. From the three games, it was actually against the worst team that we lose. I'm happy to take 4 points from these though as they could easily have been 3 defeats in a row and we are actually proving that we can mix it with the best in the league!

And with form like that, how could the board refuse me when I asked to improve the youth recruitment again! We've now achieved exceptional status in this area and it can only bode well for future youth intakes.

Talking of youth intake, it's time for this years. It's being touted as another excellent one, but at this stage I'm not entirely sure.

Although Francesco Lampis looks like he could become a handy little player!

And one of my players has been named in the top 50 wonderkids in world football. Gyorgy Szatmari comes in at 28th on the list!

Back to league action once more and matches against easier opposition in Genoa and Udinese were most welcome after our previous run of fixtures. An easy victory and dominant performance over Genoa was followed up by a draw against Udinese in a game that we really should have won!

With 7 games of the season remaining, incredibly we are still up there and mixing it with the best in Italy. We're 3rd and with a couple more wins, we'll be playing Europa League football next season, but there is still a chance that we could even quality for the big one yet! Yep, we can start dreaming of Champions League football at Palermo and we have a very realistic chance of making it happen...our fate is in our hands.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Napoli are having a bad season by their standards, but still have an outside chance of making the top 6 if they can strong together a few wins and finish the season strongly. They managed to overcome us here in a tight game, although we partly handed them the victory giving away a soft late penalty and costing ourselves a point.

I wanted an immediate reaction from my lads and bottom side SPAL would offer no better opportunity to get back to winning ways right away! And we did just that!

19th placed Hellas Verona were up next and it was important we kept our concentration and chalked up another win against a side we were expected to beat. We had an early scare when our opponents took a shock lead, but we haven't lost to a team in the bottom half of the table all season and weren't ready to start now!

Our next two matches would be crucial and would likely determine whether we finish in the top 4 or not. Inter are a single point ahead of us, whilst Lazio are 8 point behind...the bigger game being Lazio as a win against them would surely eliminate them from our competition for a Champions League qualification place.

BOOOOOM! That stoppage time winner from Shakur Omar might just be the biggest goal we've scored all season!

Especially as it guarantees we'll be playing at least Europa League football next year!

Time for another affiliation to be setup and this time it's Czech side, Banik Ostrava. With excellent youth facilities, they should be able to produce some decent youngsters that we may be able to snap up in the years to come.

Back to league action and only 3 games remained with the first being against Inter Milan. We were up against it right away as they scored in just 23 seconds to take the lead! When Inter doubled their lead on 25 mins, I worried we might be on the end of a hiding. However, what followed was an enthralling game for the fans and the neutral especially...but Inter just pipped us to the 3 points on the day. However, we have nothing to be ashamed of here.

Our penultimate game saw us take on Bologna and give them a right going over. 5 goals scored in a good performance, capped off by an Alessio Rosa double who takes his Serie A tally for the season to 23 goals and he is firmly establishing himself as one of the best strikers in the country! Amazing to think I only paid £2.6 million to bring him to the club and Atalanta must be kicking themselves!

So with just 1 game remaining, Champions League qualification is in our hands! A point will see us finish in the top 4, however if we lose and Fiorentina win, they will overtake us as they have the better head to head record! Our final match would be against 7th placed Torino who are also looking to consolidate their own qualification for European qualification next season!

Job done!!! And Alessio Rosa was again the goalscoring hero who scored both of our goals!! He, along with the rest of the squad, will officially be a Champions League player next season!

There's the confirmation of our 4th placed finish!! Incredible stuff!! We needed that win on the final day as Fiorentina did win their game as well! AC Milan ran away with the title this season and Inter and Juventus will be disappointed they couldn't close that gap...but not us...we're just pleased to be here!!

It's official...I've led the club to their best EVER Serie A finish!!

It almost makes you wonder how I'm not yet a club legend...but instead just favoured personnel for now!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

End of Season 2025/26 Review

Serie A = 4th (qualified for Champions League)
Coppa Italia = 3rd Round (knocked out by Napoli)

Serie A = AC Milan
Coppa Italia = Inter Milan
Serie B = Lecce
Serie C/A = AlbinoLeffe
Serie C/B = AC Reggiana
Serie C/C = Bari
Coppa Italia Lega Pro = Casertana

Our squad stats show that most of the squad had a good season! The two youngsters on loan from Benfica really stood out and were great additions, as was goalkeeper Federico Ravaglia - he was a bargain and made a huge difference between the sticks! Michael Keane was a nice surprise and turned out to be pretty important to us in the end. In attack, Alessio Rosa had an amazing season and was second in the Serie A golden boot, whilst Shakur Omar, Brian Oddei and Hugo Felix also made double figures on goals scored. Oddei and Felix also led the assists chart with 15 a piece, whilst Fillippo Costa had a much improved season at left back and bagged 11 assists along the way. The more defensive central midfield players were all solid enough, with Daouda Peeters standing out as the best of them.

The Best 11...

It's worth taking a look at our overall best 11 now after 5 seasons completed! I have 7 players here that are in the 100 club for games played under my management!

No surprises here as I have a very happy dressing room!

The Awards...

Hugo Felix set a new record in Serie A this season for the most assists with 14! I did everything I could to convince Benfica to let us keep him for another season on loan, but they wouldn't budge even though I offered £150k per month playing fee and to pay all his wages! Gutted!

It became even more gutting for us when he was confirmed as the Serie A Young Player of the Season as well!

Whilst Federico Ravaglia has exceeded all expectations between the sticks and in his first season with us, he is voted Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year.

Ravaglia was also named in the Team of the Year, which was absolutely dominated by AC Milan players!

And after leading a club apparently destined for relegation, to Champions League football, I won the Serie A Manager of the Year!!

The club's finance have continued to improve throughout the last season and a large part of that is down to the increased prize money for our high league finish. Sponsorship continues to improve year on year, although ours is miniscual compared to the big boys of Italian football...Champions League football might bring in quite a lot of new sponsorship though!

Plans For The Summer

Despite having Champions League football next season, the board have still only given me a budget of £8.3 million which is a little disappointing when we know what sort of money the competition brings in! The wage budget was extended to £425k which is a slight increase, but we are still miles off the top clubs in this division! It seems I may need to see some Champions League money hit the bank accounts before I get some of it to spend on new players! Still, we will improve where we can!

Although I couldn't keep Hugo Felix here, I have managed to convince Atalanta to let us keep Shakur Omar for a 5th straight season on loan!

And Benfica, will allow right back Filipe Cruz to spend another season with us on loan as well.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Before any Summer transfer business, there was a surprise invitation from our biggest rivals wanting me to interview for their vacant manager's position! Not a chance in h311!

Turning attentions back to our own club, the board have told me their expectations for the upcoming season! Despite finishing 4th last year, this season's target will once again be just to avoid relegation. In the cups, I'm just expected to be as competitive as we can be, with no real expectation of any level of success.

We released 13 players this Summer, with the most high profile being Moses Odjer. Upon joing the club 5 years ago, he was possibly the best player in my squad and has remained with me as we shot up the leagues. Gradually as we brought in better players, he played less and less, but has been a fantastic servant to the club and done a good if unspectacular job for me.

My first sale of the Summer was Cristiano Lombardi. Not good enough for us and he goes to Virtus Entella for £425k.

My first signing of the Summer was ex Juventus midfielder, Nicolo Fagioli! He moved from Juve to last season for £8 million but only managed 8 appearances for them, so I brought him back to Italy for a slightly cut down price of £7.25 million. He'll play a big part for us and I'm hoping he can fill the void left by Hugo Felix returning to Benfica.

Second up was the free transfer of Takumi Minamino. He will bring some much needed experience to our attack and he's played at the very top level for both Liverpool and has spent the past 4 seasons with Arsenal, before they relieved him of his contract to join us.

Another central attacking midfield player up next in the form of 25 year old Brazilian, Luquinha. He will challenge Fagioli for his spot in the team and joins on a freebie from Hoffenheim. He's spent the past couple of seasons on loan with Serie B clubs Bragantino and Ceara, where he has bagged 19 assists and recorded an average rating of 7.33...there is a question mark over whether he can do it in Serie A, but considering he didn't cost us anything it's worth the punt.

Joshua Quirk is a promising young English striker who has come through the Manchester City youth system. He looks good for 20 years old and I was also lucky enough to snap him up on a free transfer. I've sent him straight back out on loan to Tranmere Rovers for the season and will monitor his progress. Upon his return (depending on how he does in England), I will make a decision whether to give him a chance in my first team or cash in on him and make some money.

We will be giving ourselves the best chance possible to get the best out of our new players with another upgrade to the club's training facilities.

I did have a mini crisis on my hands for now though. I was massively overspending on my wage budget even after adjusting all of my remaining transfer budget into it. So I had no money to spend and no wages available to bring loan players in and I still needed a couple of positions covered this window.

Something had to give and Nils Mortimer was one of our more disappointing players last season, so he has been offloaded. It gets his £20k per week salary off the wage bill and Reading were also willing to stump up a £3.2 million fee for him, which is a good return on our £500k investment two seasons ago.

That piece of business allowed me to bring in ex Brighton centre back, Jan Paul Van Hecke on a season long loan from Crystal Palace. He is a good option for us at centre back and immediately becomes my best tackler and best header of the ball based on attributes. He should slot in nicely and be a key player for us across all competitions this season!

Our pre season friendlies are now over and after a bit of an 'iffy' start, we got on track towards the end once our newbies had all bedded in.