Nurnberg - Tale of the Underdogs

[WeArePalace]

Introduction
Hello and welcome to my latest Football Manager 2019 series, where I'll be taking over at the Bundesliga's current bottom club, 1 FC Nurnberg. I would first like to say apologies for an inactivity period for a while on my Reading save and also on Western Super-Mare. I've been a little busy lately and my Reading save is having problems as well in terms of saving, they will be updated as soon as possible.
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25-year-old manager Cristian Ferri takes over at Nurnberg and has big aspirations for the club, which he lists below.
Objectives
Season 1 - Avoid Relegation (16th)
Season 2 - Finish Mid Table (10th)
Season 3 - Push for Europa League (5th)
Season 4 - Finish top 3 (3rd)
Season 5 - Win the Bundesliga (1st)
Season 6 - Compete in the Champions League (Round of 16)
Season 7 - Win the Champions League (Final winners)
I'm not sure whether I'm being optimistic with this or not, but I hope the squad can live up to this and get me some silverware in 5 seasons!
Squad Overview
Currently, the team actually doesn't look that bad. Overall, the team is really young, our oldest player throughout the team is a few 29-year-olds. We have a few young prospects as well, but we have quite a few key players on loan so our transfer budget will need to be efficient next season.
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Our key employees, with Hanno Behrens dominating this section of the team. Kevin Goden looks a pretty decent Bundesliga talent, who can develop into our starting RB once Robert Bauer's loan ends.
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Behrens is a standout player for the team in midfield and in likely our weakest area of the squad, he will be an extremely key player in that area.
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Our key CB is Eduard Lowen, a 21 year old with the ability to develop well. Our defence looks rather decent, young and should be able to play pretty well against opposition attackers.
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Our key attacker is another young talent, on loan from Sporting, Matheus Pereira will be key to our success with his skill, pace and flair. Hopefully him and Yuya Kubo can form a promising attack as this squad needs goals.
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This is how the entire squad looks at the moment, as stated earlier, young and promising but at the moment probably at a leading Bundesliga 2 level, not quite at Bundesliga standard. Keeping this teams heads about water will be a real test.
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So this is how the squad will line-up for the 2018-19 season in a positive attempt to stay up this season. We're taking a big risk playing Klopp'
s Gegenpress with a side like this, but the defence looks decent, so we need to try hard to get goals by going out for games.
Transfer Preview
Transfer wise we can't do anything much with a budget of 625,000. A signing of two of promise may be all we can muster.

 

[WeArePalace]

Pre-Season Preview + Transfer Update
Pre-Season doesn't look too bad and if we can get some decent results I'll be happy. Will be rotating through strikers to see who'll do best.
In the window, everything went better than expected. We managed to scrape some funds, thanks to a bit of generosity to the board and lowering squad bonuses, to get together about a budget of 5 million.
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Antonio Marin is a very decent piece of business. He's a real prospect who is already decent for the team as a substitute and hopefully he can be a really good asset at the club.
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Patson Daka is the new man up top for us! He will go straight into the starting line-up ahead of Kubo as he looks like someone very good already whose only getting better. Really excited over this one!
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Our final signing is central midfielder Jean Manuel-Mbom, with an eye to a future deal. He looks like an exciting prospect and hopefully will be good cover for the first team.
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Pre-Season did end up going pretty well. We progressed in the German Cup as well, although not as well as I'd have liked. The squad looks pretty solid and Daka looks more and more perfect each match.
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So after pre-season there aren't any new injuries to report which is good to see.
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So the odds don't look good at all. Hopefully we can finish a couple of positions higher and avoid relegation.
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And the lowest wage expenditure in the league goes to.....us of course! Barely any funds to be fair and this will need to improve soon!

 

[WeArePalace]

Monthly Preview
So our first month doesn't actually look that bad - aside from Borussia Dortmund. We face fellow relegation candidates Hannover and Fortuna Dusseldorf. So hopefully we can pick up a few points here.
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So we opened our account with a decent draw against Hertha. They can be a top half team so this is a good result. Great to see Daka scoring on his debut as the new signings combined with Marin claiming the assist.
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And we follow it up with a win against Mainz!!! Great stuff from the lads to get our first win of the season after just 2 games!
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This was really disappointing as the side played really well at times, but we threw away the lead to concede in the last minute and lose the match.
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And we do a very similar thing against Hannover. We throw away another lead and this could be a big loss even if it is so early.
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No more than expected although we did put up a decent fight for a while in the match. Sancho was our undoing as his pace and trickery tore apart our defence.
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But we finish off on a positive with a win! We edge past fellow relegation candidates Fortuna Dusseldorf and manage our first clean sheet of the season.
Monthly Round-Up
So overall not bad so far. If we'd held on against Werder and at least drawn to Hannover as well it'd be great but I'll take it so far. Coming up though is a nearly impossible month with Leipzig, Hoffenheim and Frankfurt, all top 6 sides.
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So, yeah, not bad results yet for a team like us. Hopefully we can push on and get some positive results. A point over the next month would be good for me. The player of the month was on loan winger Matheus Pereira who hit some wonderful goals and been a creative force so far,
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[jimijuice]

I think your targets are a little low, I started a game unemployed and Nurnberg was my first job. I finished in the Europa league spots, £13m season 2 budget. My advice is don't ignore Ishak - he finished on 14 goals in my setup which isn't a million miles away from yours.

Best of luck.

 

[WeArePalace]

I think your targets are a little low, I started a game unemployed and Nurnberg was my first job. I finished in the Europa league spots, £13m season 2 budget. My advice is don't ignore Ishak - he finished on 14 goals in my setup which isn't a million miles away from yours.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the advice mate, an amazing finish in your first season at the club. I think I'll give Ishak a go in the next few matches and see how he pans out. Planning to continue this as soon as possible.