One Man and His Canary - A Norwich City Story

[FM Lect]

Hi Guys,

I've wanted to do a story for a while now but have never really got round to doing one. As I am just starting a new game with Norwich I thought that now would be the perfect time to start. Ideally, I'd like to mix this story with YouTube by uploading the goals from each game onto YouTube and posting a link to the video next to each result. You don't have to watch the goal highlights aswell as read the story; all of the results and goalscorers will be included in the updates. I'll probably do updates every 2 months or so and i'll try my best to make them as detailed as possible. If you have any suggestions or opinions on the YouTube idea please let me know. Thanks!

 

[FM Lect]

Pre-Season


My main aim in pre-season was to solidify the squad in key areas and develop a solid, effective tactic. We we given a relatively small transfer budget at the start of the game with the expectation of avoiding relegation. Consequently, I had to raise some money through transfers so that I could splash the cash on one or two decent, Premier League players. In the end, our efforts to raise money were quite unsuccessful only managing to bring in a total of £1.2 million through the selling of 2 notable players. We were also unable to sell Jacob Butterfield, who eventually managed to negotiate a loan deal with Swansea until the end of the season. The only other loan was Jed Steer, who went out to our new feeder club Stevenage, to gain some much needed first team experience.

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As you can see, we only managed to bring one player in. Ciaran Clarke came to the club for £4.4 million adding yet more depth to the defense and midfield. And, at the age of just 23, he can develop further to become a very good defender in the future. With 4 good central defenders already at the club, Clarke sparked the idea of using a formation that would play to our defensive strengths effectively.

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The 3-1-4-2 will allow us to sit back and soak up any pressure before breaking effectively and with numbers. With this tactic, we won't have a lot of possession, but should be able to create good opportunities with the amount of the ball we get. We won't be using any shouts and the only player instructions is that all players are set to long shots - rarely.

Results


Halle 1-1 Norwich - Holt
Halle 1-1 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

King's Lynn 0-5 Norwich - Holt (2), Howson, Jackson, Pilkington
King's Lynn 0-5 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

Lowestoft 0-1 Norwich - Jackson
Lowestoft 0-1 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

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[NorthanMonkee]

very nice story so far - interested to see how you do and I think Ciaran Clark is a very good addition.

One thing I might add is you may want to make the you tube links clickable - cant imagine many people will go to the lengths of copy and pasting.

 

[FM Lect]

very nice story so far - interested to see how you do and I think Ciaran Clark is a very good addition.

One thing I might add is you may want to make the you tube links clickable - cant imagine many people will go to the lengths of copy and pasting.

Thanks. Didn't realise that the links didn't actually work lol.

 

[FM Lect]

3 Month Update



As you can see from the title, I got a little carried away playing this save and ended up playing a month more than I was supposed to. It's understandable considering the good start we've made to the season due to a mixture of luck and some gutsy performances. The counter attacking style worked very well at the start of the season giving us some good away results, despite our lack of possession.

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One disappointing result however is our penalty defeat to Coventry in the Capital One Cup. I put out a reasonably weak side for the game expecting a win but in the end, we couldn't take our chances despite Coventry being down to ten men for half of the game. I'm not too disappointing because our main aim is always going to be a successful league campaign.

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After 5 premier league games we were lying 2nd in the league, but a recent slump in form has seen us without a win in 4. I'm considering changing to a more traditional tactic such as the 4-5-1 as this will give us more consistency and will allow us to utilize all of the players at our disposal. Players such as left back Marc Tierney are beginning to get unhappy due to lack of game time, simply because there is no room for them in the current formation.

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Finances are also looking okay at the minute. The purchase of Ciaran Clarke has left us over £400k into the red however our projected balance for the end of the season is over £2 million. I also plan to sell one or two players such as Marc Tierney who are not being played, so we should end the season comfortably in profit.

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So, after the first 3 months of fixtures we lie 7th in the table. I'm reasonably happy with our start to the season, but our recent form is concerning. The target is to get to 40 points as soon as possible and if we pick our selves up, then we should get there pretty comfortably.

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Results

Norwich 2-1 Sunderland - Holt, Hoolahan
Norwich 2-1 Sunderland - Match Highlights - YouTube

Everton 0-1 Norwich - Jackson
Everton 0-1 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

Norwich 0-0 Coventry (5-6 pens)

Norwich 0-1 Man City
Norwich 0-1 Man City - Match Highlights - YouTube

West Brom 0-1 Norwich - Snodgrass
West Brom 0-1 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

Wigan 0-2 Norwich - Snodgrass, Bassong
Wigan 0-2 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

Norwich 1-3 Fulham - Holt
Norwich 1-3 Fulham - Match Highlights - YouTube

Norwich 2-2 Southampton - Holt, Jackson
Norwich 2-2 Southampton - Match Highlights - YouTube

Arsenal 3-1 Norwich - Pilkington
Arsenal 3-1 Norwich - Match Highlights - YouTube

Newcastle 0-0 Norwich


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