My first story

[waynethickett]

I only recently purchased the 2014 version of the game when it dropped in price for the World Cup. I have been reading a few of the stories on the site and decided that I may want to try to write one of my own.

I have already begun my save as my beloved Arsenal and whilst people may not see this as an overly ambitious challenge I am out of practice and feel as though a good way to get back into it would be to invest my time in a team I am already invested in so much. I was hoping that I could get some feedback as to what content people look for in these stories. This way I do not waste my time writing content which nobody is interested in.

So people is it stats, match reports, in depth analysis, screenshots, results, league standings, diary style entries?? Any suggestions will be considered.

Until next time.....

 

[coolmcool]

I think you go either two ways with stories, My way is stats and charts and not too much detail but i do power through the seasons and get a lot of updates out or you go the more detailed route but again you have to be committed to them as most take quite a few posts to get going.

 

[waynethickett]

Day 1 at Arsenal and the board tell me they expect me to play attacking football and to use youth and younger players. This is not unreasonable in the slightest and so my first actions were to remove some of the older members of the team:
Sagna to PSG for £4.25M
Arteta to Man Utd for £5.5M
Rosicky to Sampdoria for 625K
Fabianski to Nottingham Forest for £2M

I was a little bit put out that I couldn't make more from these players but with the first three over 30 years of age and Fabianski being reluctant to sign a new contract due to lack of first team football they were all surplus to requirements. Unfortunately I couldn't give Flamini away so he will stay at the club for now as a third choice defensive midfield option behind two new signings.

As with real life I felt that it was important to strengthen the squad as we have a good foundation but lacking in depth with the exception of attacking midfield. So I made four signings:
Stephan Lichtsteiner from Juventus for £8.5M - slightly higher than wanted and not far off 30 years old but I like Jenkinson and feel the two together offer good rotation options.
Blaise Matuidi from PSG for £3.9M - a bargain purchase for a solid defensive midfielder with 18 teamwork and workrate.
Kevin Kampl from FC Red Bull Salzburg for £6.5M - a versatile midfielder with the stupidest haircut ever.
Alexis Sanchez from Barcelona for £15.75M - a good purchase at a reasonable price. Mirrored in reality.

View attachment 360200

Pre-season went fairly well 6 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat - 22 goals for and 8 goals against

I will post again shortly, I apologise for it being heavy in text still figuring stuff out, please bear with me

 

[waynethickett]

So the season begins....

Everton Away

View attachment 360198
A defeat, wasn't the start we were looking for.

Champions League Playoffs Away to Real Sociedad

View attachment 360197
A 1-1 draw and a first goal for Alexis Sanchez in a match we dominated, hopefully the away goal will prove to be important.

Home to Chelsea

View attachment 360196
What a game and what a result, not only did we dominate but two goals for Giroud and a second of the season for Sanchez meant we comfortably beat Mourinho's men. Unfortunately Giroud picked up a substantial injury which would see him miss the next two months or so.

Champions League Playoff second leg

View attachment 360195A Claudio Bravo own goal saw us go ahead and despite what was the most dominant performance of the season so far Sociedad equalised just before half time through Griezmann. Mesut Ozil's first goal in the red of Arsenal saw us qualify for the Champions League proper where we drew Zenit, Tel Aviv and Shakhtar - on paper a relatively easy group.

So that ended the first month of the first season in charge. 3 points in the league from two of the harder fixtures of the season and qualified for the champions league, unfortunately not as well as I had hoped to perform but not as bad as it could have been.