10th August 2028
Busy Transfer Window
Going up to the Premier League is always a challenge despite of the team who gets promoted.
We do have an unfair advantage over those teams though: the money.
If you remember correctly, we had more than 200m available in our transfer budget and after getting promoted the board gave us a budget of 290m€ for us to spend. Obviously, we had to make some moves in order to survive this season. Let's take a look.
Transfers Out
Firstly here you can see how many players we loaned out this year, basically our entire U21 team is out on loan getting 1st team football. In this list you can also see Somto Boniface and Tomas Galvez, 2 LB's who wouldn't get much game time this season. I tried selling Galvez but no one wanted to pick him up.
You can also see some other players who got sold for peanuts. They just were not good at all.
Now let's take a look at the big name sellings.
First off, Alex Robertson left the club for a whopping 50m€ after Al-Nassr came in with a 30m+20m bid which I could not refuse.
Does this look like a 50m worth player? Of course not, but Saudi will always be Saudi I guess.
Another player who joined a Saudi Club for way over his actual value was Micah Hamilton, who was sold for 30m paid upfront to Al-Ahli.
In fact, let's be honest, none of the players sold to Saudi clubs are worth the money we got. McGuiness was also sold for 30m (he cost us 7m last season), Susoho was not a Premier League player as he lacked the physical attributes to be a good DM.
I won't name every single player we sold because there's no point, but I have to thank Alex Robertson, Hamilton, Oscar Bobb, Kaiky, Susoho, O'Reilly and Dickson for helping the club in the last 5 years after we got relegated from the Vanarama. They all sticked with us from the start and specially Robertson, Bobb and Kaiky will always be club heroes in my eyes due to the fact that they were first team players for 4 consecutive years.
With all this sales we made an extra 168m to spend in transfers.
Safe to say we spent it (and this is not all).
Transfers In
Kim Rossil - 1.5m
Good looking youngster from Denmark to develop in your youth teams and eventually reach the 1st team or be sold for profit.
Martin Byrne - 475k
Another youngster for our youth teams and this one looks really good. He's already 20 but I'm hoping he still has more to grow.
Reo Hatate - 275k
The first signing for our 1st team was the Japanese Hatate from Leicester. He's an upgarde from Brownhill in the B2B role but it would be nice to get a younger option since they are both past 30.
Moritz Schaffer - Free
Opportunistic signing as he was free in the transfer window and he looks phenomenal. Could be a bit quicker but I will never complain for getting a player like this on a free transfer.
Bart Verbruggen - 6.75m
In order to survive the Premier League we needed an upgrade in our GK position. Verbruggen was cheap and knows the league so he comes in to be our main guy.
Marvin Akahomen - 23M
I must say I didn't know this player but when I saw him I didn't think twice in pkacing a bid for him, specially because Fulham was asking for way less than his value since they got relegated. He's on a big payroll, but I think he's worth every penny.
Rafael Maurício - 205k
This one right here came to be our 1st team LB, but he didn't get a work permit. I know we have some slots available for players without a work permit but I didn't know I had to appeal for it first so... he was loaned out.
Rayan Ait-Nouri - 9m
With Mauricio's situation I still wanted a better LB and found one in Ait-Nouri who was transfer listed after Woves got relegated. Not the best by any means but he is a big step up from Maatson so I'm very happy with this signing.
Sedan Koral - Free
Free youngster for free to develop and sell later for a profit. Nothing much to say about this one.
Marcel Ruiz - Free
Another free transfer and this time it's a playmaker. Way better than Robertson and already played Premier League football. Amazing signing for our team.
Iván Fresneda - 51m
Most expensive signing of the summer and I have no regrets.
Ibrahim Sangaré - Free
Another amazing free signing for our midfield who can be either a playmaker or a game destruicter.
Julien Duranville - 45m
Another amazing signing for our wing. A bit on the pricey side but I think he's worth it.
Yannis Issoufou - 22m
Another winger joins the club. Different winger when compared to Duranville. Duranville will be an arrow to play to amd Issoufou seems more like a creative winger.
Nelson Weiper - 45m
Our new starting striker comes from Germany and I think he's a very known name around the FM community. He didn't develop as much as I previously saw but he still looks good.
Andreas Hanche-Olsen - 7.25m
Another signing from the German league, this time for our defense. The 31 year old Norwegian comes as the replacement of McGuinness.
Tyler Morton - 30.5m
The last signing we made so far was the English midfielder from Wolves. Another player transfer listed due to his last club being relegated.
Not as physical as Sangaré but he's a better playmaker so we will alternate between them along the season.
This is our final squad.
There's still time to make more signings but I also don't want to spend everyting we have even though we still have 193m in the transfer budget.
Preseason
Not a lenghty preseason but it did the job.
We are predicted to finish our first season in the 10th place and our board only wants us to avoid relegation.
Can this team do it? Let's wait and see.
Premier League
Gameday 1
Aston Villa is expected to finish 3rd in the Premier League and let me tell you they might really be up for it.
They have a very good squad overall and we couldn't get more than one past them.
Their first goal was a mistake by McGuinness that basically sealed it for me. He passed the ball to Ramsey and he just ran to the goal and scored. Our keeper also had time to defend a penalty. But not everything was bad in this game. We dominated the 2nd half and only didn't score because Aston Villa was lucky.
I'm optimistic for the upcoming season but if we can't avoid relegation we may be sacked from the job so I really need my team to play well in the league.
Next Fixtures
This is a good month for our team to gather some points in the league as we go against some of the weaker sides.
We also have the first game of the Carabao against Wigan in between league matches but I'm not too concerned about cup competitions right now.
The main focus is survival!
