Ready to go? Ready or not, here we go, the first transfers I made in Football Manager 2010 for my Notts County. First I have to say that I let go no less than 20 players but around 10 of them were worthless youngsters from the under 18 team. I told them to try another career, they seemed totally unprepared to play football, at any level! I hoped to get some money from selling a few players but it wasn’t to be, nobody wanted to pay a cent for them. So I decided to let them go for free, at least we won’t pay their wages anymore. As for the incoming transfers, I signed a grand total of 9 players, two of them on loan.
As I told you in the previous post I desperately needed at least one left back, there were no viable solutions in the squad for that role. I signed two of them after all, the first being Adam Eckersley, an English left back that started his career with Manchester United as a promising youngster and finally arrived in Denmark, at a small club. I bought him for 35,000 euro to give him another chance to prove his worth in England.
The other left back that I signed is experienced French player Olivier Bernard, he was out of contract after being released by Newcastle. I hope that his experience could help the team.
I also needed a backup right winger and I chose to sign a free player, Godwin Antwi. He was one of Liverpool‘s promising youngsters but they finally decided to let him go after loaning him out for a few seasons.
For the left and right winger positions I chose two Romanian players, also on free transfers. My new left winger will be former Romanian wonderkid Nicolae Mitea. He was one of the best prospects in Romanian football a few years ago, he was bought by Ajax Amsterdam in 2003 but after a good start he had a few nasty injuries that pushed him away from the first team squad. He even played a few games for the Romanian national team, I remember he scored a superb double in an away game in Macedonia a few years ago. He still is a great talent and I hope that I will manage to get the best out of him.
My choice for the right winger role was pretty much influenced by my sentimentalism, I couldn’t help it. His name is Marius Sava and he’s not young anymore. But I remember watching him play a few years ago… I watched a lot of football games and a lot of players but this guy’s talent was absolutely huge. He got a chance to play in Italy, for Genoa, but he blew it and since then he’s been traveling from one team to another. I guess he is the biggest talent that I saw going to waste. He always was a troublemaker but I hope that I will manage to motivate him, it’s the last chance for him to achieve something important in football.
I desperately needed a solid centre back and although I might have picked a cheaper solution I chose to sign Shelton Martis from West Brom for 575K. He is way better than any centre back in League Two and I hope that it will show in our results.
And now the crazy signing. I didn’t really need another striker, but when I saw that Sabrin Sburlea was interested in joining the team I decided to spend all I had left in the transfer budget to get him. I might regret this choice sooner or later but I felt that it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. He is one of the best young prospects in Romanian football right now, a strong hard working striker with huge potential. And he can also play as a right winger. I hope that he won’t let me down.
With no money left I had to go for loan players for the central midfielder positions and I was lucky to persuade Manchester United to let Sam Hewson and Corry Evans come to Notts County for now fee and also no wage contribution!
I am still looking for free transfers to add to the squad but overall I think that we are pretty well balanced. We played 9 friendly games, I wanted to test the players and different tactical setups. The good thing is that we won all of them and my expensive striker, Sabrin Sburlea, scored 6 goals in 6 appearances!
The tactic that I’m going to use is a balanced 4-4-2 system that I’m still tweaking to get the best results. I promise to make a separate post about the tactic soon enough and also make it available to download.
As I told you in the previous post I desperately needed at least one left back, there were no viable solutions in the squad for that role. I signed two of them after all, the first being Adam Eckersley, an English left back that started his career with Manchester United as a promising youngster and finally arrived in Denmark, at a small club. I bought him for 35,000 euro to give him another chance to prove his worth in England.
The other left back that I signed is experienced French player Olivier Bernard, he was out of contract after being released by Newcastle. I hope that his experience could help the team.
I also needed a backup right winger and I chose to sign a free player, Godwin Antwi. He was one of Liverpool‘s promising youngsters but they finally decided to let him go after loaning him out for a few seasons.
For the left and right winger positions I chose two Romanian players, also on free transfers. My new left winger will be former Romanian wonderkid Nicolae Mitea. He was one of the best prospects in Romanian football a few years ago, he was bought by Ajax Amsterdam in 2003 but after a good start he had a few nasty injuries that pushed him away from the first team squad. He even played a few games for the Romanian national team, I remember he scored a superb double in an away game in Macedonia a few years ago. He still is a great talent and I hope that I will manage to get the best out of him.
My choice for the right winger role was pretty much influenced by my sentimentalism, I couldn’t help it. His name is Marius Sava and he’s not young anymore. But I remember watching him play a few years ago… I watched a lot of football games and a lot of players but this guy’s talent was absolutely huge. He got a chance to play in Italy, for Genoa, but he blew it and since then he’s been traveling from one team to another. I guess he is the biggest talent that I saw going to waste. He always was a troublemaker but I hope that I will manage to motivate him, it’s the last chance for him to achieve something important in football.
I desperately needed a solid centre back and although I might have picked a cheaper solution I chose to sign Shelton Martis from West Brom for 575K. He is way better than any centre back in League Two and I hope that it will show in our results.
And now the crazy signing. I didn’t really need another striker, but when I saw that Sabrin Sburlea was interested in joining the team I decided to spend all I had left in the transfer budget to get him. I might regret this choice sooner or later but I felt that it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. He is one of the best young prospects in Romanian football right now, a strong hard working striker with huge potential. And he can also play as a right winger. I hope that he won’t let me down.
With no money left I had to go for loan players for the central midfielder positions and I was lucky to persuade Manchester United to let Sam Hewson and Corry Evans come to Notts County for now fee and also no wage contribution!
I am still looking for free transfers to add to the squad but overall I think that we are pretty well balanced. We played 9 friendly games, I wanted to test the players and different tactical setups. The good thing is that we won all of them and my expensive striker, Sabrin Sburlea, scored 6 goals in 6 appearances!
The tactic that I’m going to use is a balanced 4-4-2 system that I’m still tweaking to get the best results. I promise to make a separate post about the tactic soon enough and also make it available to download.