My Mind Has Always Been Red

[Clince121188]

1st JUNE


I couldn't believe this day had finally come, after months of planning.

Here I was in the biggest managerial job in football at last, a dream I had held since leaving the game.

The boss had been preparing me for this moment for the last year or so.

We had drawn up a shortlist of players together, discussed tactics and how to approach man management.

Now that he was gone though, to say that I was nervous would be to bestow upon the word "nervous" its greatest involvement in a sentence ever.

Speaking about this exact moment, the boss had said," Don't worry son, you've got that special swuave about you like Jose and the like".

Admitedly, I have been known to be dramatic throughout my life, in everything I have partaken in, however this was different.

This was more attention focussed on me than I'd ever known before. The retirement of the greatest manager of all time would have been enough
to attract the world's media to this press conference. It was another thing completely however that I would be the man to replace him.

Then, it came over me. I was now in the job, it mattered not what I was feeling right now, I must give the fans the belief in me that they had when I played for them.

The fans of this club love me already. Now they will only be waiting for me to say something, that will inspire them once again.

I approached the table, with the greatest power walk I could put together and said..............

" There will be no questions. Only this willl be said.........

The boss trusts me to do this job. We have been working together behind the scenes for the last 12 months and I am ready.

The fans of this club inspire me, this is why I have returned. I know they will push me on to do wonderful things here again.

I am Cantona, and this is my club. I am back and this........ is the future"

I walked from the building, confident that the fans knew that they are my highest priority and will be put first at all times from now on.
​

 

[Clince121188]

June 2nd

It was a feeling of immense pride and power to wake up this morning as manager of Manchester United F.C. To play for and captain this great club had been the most wonderful experience of my life to date. To lead the club as manager however, would take my love for the club to a new level though, I was sure of that.


The Boss himself had explained that the reponsibility of making every decision at the club would give me many sleepless nights and see me work on tactics and philosophy right up untill the morning without realising it. I felt some comfort however, in having worked so closely with him over the last months.

The public did not yet know it, but the future signings of Steven Defour, Ashley Young and Phil Jones which Sir Alex had organised before his retirement, were in part my doing as well.


I could not wait for these players to arrive and bolster the squad. However, I was also hugely looking forward to adding to the squad on my own.


Today I would be finding out exactly how much cash would be afforded to me for new players and I was extremely anxious to have that discussion with David Gill.

To be honest, I was not extremely impressed with the midfield situation at the club. In my opinion, Roy Keane had never properly been replaced and Paul Scholes was not going to be playing at all regularly this season. Scholesy has been a great servant, but this year he would be there mainly to share his experience with the younger players. I was hoping he could spend a lot of time helping out Defour when he arrived.

Darren Fletcher was a real work horse but other than him we lacked any big players that we could relly on, especially when you think of the talent other clubs had in their midfield. Arsenal for example had Song, Wilshere and Fabregas who played regularly together and could even call on Nasri, Rosicky and Ramsey to come in after that.


Anderson, Carrick and Gibson were just simply not in the same bracket. That means one thing for me, if they are not good enough for arsenal, they are certainly not good enough for this club. Hopefully the addition of Steven Defour would help this problem in some way, yet I still thought we needed an extra midfielder.

Of course the biggest lack of quality in the squad was in the goalkeeping position. Edwin had left a gaping hole in the team and it was up to me to decide who was to fill it. Tomasz and Anders were players that I could never call on to permanently fill that position.


Youth was another area, I felt the club had fallen back on since my time as a player. Sure Rafael, Smalling and Hernandez had undeniable talent but that was all we had really and even at that I wasn't sure yet that Smalling could be relied on consistently. I was not a fan of Macheda in the slightest and Welbeck still had a lot to prove, where as Fabio hadn't nearly developed in the same way as his twin Rafael. Phil Jones was about to be added to our squad though and I was fully sure that in him we had a future star.


It was going to be a real period of transition for the club, but I was also expecting the club to succeed at the same time.


Considering Sir Alex had already spent 29m of the clubs money on transfers, I wasn't expecting to be given an expansive budget at all, so I would not offer too much argument for more money in the meeting with David Gill. Our discussion that day started with Gill stating the boards views on the future at Manchester United," Before Sir Alex left we had some in depth discussions with him about what we as a club should be doing this season. We came to an agreement that although the team performed well enough to win the title this year, there would be problems this season. Mainly because of players ageing and the way in which our competitors have been and will be improving their squads". " Yes David, I too have been thinking this, I know that Sir Alex bought in a few players for this summer but I do think we will perhaps need a couple more".


" Absolutely Eric, that is why we are prepared to spend big yet again when the transfer window opens. Over the past couple of seasons we have made much more money from sales than we've lost from buying, therefore we are prepared to spend about 60million this summer". This hit me like a bomb, I was left speechless for a moment before saying," To be honest David, that's much more than I was expecting, because of the way the club has spent it's money recently, but I do feel we will need a lot of investment this season". " Indeed Eric, you had the backing of Sir Alex and you will have our full backing also".

After the meeting, I just had to get in my car and get home to bed as soon as possible, simply to comtemplate what had just happened. I was amazed with the boards generousity and more excited than ever to start plotting my moves in the window. Numerous players' names ran endlessly through my head and so I opened my laptop and began entering into a shortlist file.


I ended up with the following;



Shortlist

GK

Maarten Stekelenburg
Igor Akinfeev
Hugo Lloris
Marko Amelia

DF

Alex Sandro
Ryan Bertrand
Gabriel Silva

MF

Dario Conca
Van der Vart
Luca Modric
Ganso
Javier Pastore
Marek Hamsik

ATT

Edinson Cavani
Abel Hernandez
Darren Bent
Benzema
Neymar


Tomorrow I would make a start straight away to see who was available and who would fit into the system I would have the team play.​

 

[LiamMurray]

Great start!

 

[samloveitt]

Good start, I will be following.

 

[samloveitt]

Oh and dont sell Anderson he is a beast next season.