Out of the Red into the...

[Yeti01]

Prologue - Part 1



I looked around… I couldn’t believe it…. My Tooting & Mitcham United side had just won the second division of the Isthmian League. There were fans running about like crazy! It had been a hard slog to get here, I stood there and looked back to my playing career, a journeyman lower leaguer, the highest level I had played at was League 2. I had eeked out a living though. I cast my mind back to 7 years previously when, aged 28, I got the offer to do some coaching badges whilst still playing. Then, following that, I got the opportunity to join the youth coaching ranks at Chelsea – it was a no brainer. I was proving to be a far better coach than I ever was player.

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To start with I worked with the under 11’s, prior to that they don’t get a lot of work with tactics, it was my job to begin introducing them to the X’s and O’s. I continued to do so and continued to work my way up the Chelsea coaching tree. Over the space of the next five years I worked with older and older children and before long I was working full time with the under 19’s. There were times I was even given the responsibilities of taking the U19 side during matches and occasionally I got to work with the first team, usually in the film room breaking down tactics.


Coming forward in time this past season I had sensed that in order to take that next step I needed to move out into management. I had good coaching skills to be sure. Chelsea had even paid for me to undertake two continental qualifications so that I now held the 2nd highest possible coaching certificate. Still there weren’t many sides that were willing to take the punt on me. I had some Conference sides tell me that if I could prove I could lead a team they would consider me so I had searched high and low to find this opportunity.


So here I was, at a stadium that seats about 600 people, celebrating what should be my ticket to the next level. Except, I know it’s not. At 35 my managerial career is over. Not for any bad reasons mind you! There, there she is… Vanessa, I had met her at the beginning of the preseason travelling on the train into London. Tooting & Mitcham are based in Morden, Surrey however I lived closer to Wimbeldon and although my living arrangements were most definitely on the modest side this was considered a reasonably affluent area. We had met and got to chatting. I told her about my managerial aspirations and my current role with Tooting and Mitcham and she told me about how she was working as a receptionist at Begbies Trayner, a professional services company.


That began a whirlwind romance. With both of us being the wrong side of 30, me 35 and her 33, we had no interest in wasting time. It wasn’t long before we had moved in together and 6 months after we met we were engaged. I don’t really have any family that I keep in any real kind of touch with but her family were very welcoming. Well, I should say that eventually they were, it turns out her Dad David was a Partner at the Begbies Traynor Paddington office and initially he wasn’t real keen on his daughter becoming a football widow. Once I started explaining that I had actually been a very good student and finished my schooling with 5 A levels and then had gone on to study at University part time externally whilst I was playing, eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Accounting from the University of Kent, well, then we were all good. I think it was the part where I told him that I had actually worked in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Embankment office for a year to supplement my income when I was rehabbing a knee reconstruction early in my career that really sealed his approval though.


I raced over to her and her family. Dave took my hand and shook it vigorously, “well done mate” he said. I gave her mum Gail a quick kiss on the cheek before taking Vanessa in my arms and lifting her around me. “Careful,” she said, “You don’t want to hurt the baby!!” I knelt down and kissed her stomach. She was 12 weeks pregnant. We had only told her family earlier in the week when we had popped over to their beautiful house for dinner. The first thing her Dad did after congratulating me was to take me down into their cellar, he handed me a Cuban cigar and a cutter. “I’ve had these waiting for years for this moment!” He said, he really was larger than life. “Now, tell me, how much do you earn?” I was a little shocked, “what do you mean?” I inquired. “You, you and Vanessa are living in a one bedroom flat still?” He pressed. “Yes, that’s correct.” I admitted. “Now I know exactly what Vanessa earns, what do you earn?” He wasn’t letting up. “250 quid a week.” I said with an air of resignation.


He stood, I wasn’t real sure what was coming next. “Now, when Vanessa has this bub, how are you going to support them? I know you’ve got your eye on a conference gig or two but what will they pay?” He wasn’t mad at all, just inquiring. I was really starting to look at him as the Dad I never had, mine had left when I was barely 7 and although Mum had worked hard to raise me we just didn’t really connect and had drifted out of touch. “Not really enough.” I conceded. “Early on when we had met you said you did some work with PWC correct?” “That’s right.” “Good, if you want it there’s a job at Begbies with your name on it.” He pat me on the back and took a puff of his cigar, held the smoke in his mouth and, with a smile, exhaled. It was a very good night.


After the celebrations began to die down a little I took my leave with Vanessa and we headed over to her parent’s place. As I knocked Gail answered, “You two again, we didn’t think we’d be seeing you again today after the game.” “Yeah I know, actually we’re here to see Dave quickly if he’s around.” I replied. “No problems, I’ll just go get him,” she said and turned to walk up the stairs. Moments later Dave came down the steps, “my two favorite people,” He said gregariously, arms wide open for another hug. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. “Um, well Ness and I have had a chat about your offer,” I half stammered out, “I’ve got to do what is right by the family. I want the job.” I said, straightening up. “Welcome aboard,” He said, extending his hand.


That was 5 years ago…

 

[Yeti01]

Prologue - Part 2


3 days ago.




I stood up and looked around my cubicle. ‘10.30am, time to make a coffee,’ I thought to myself. “Robert, I’ve got some updated financials for the Moden Industries quarterly performance report,” James, one of my 2nd years, said as I walked past holding my empty mug. I had risen to be a Manager at the Begbies Traynor Paddington office and was now tasked with heading up some smaller recoveries. “Great mate, email them through” I said, checking my iPhone. I had received a text from Ness, on it was a picture of her and our now two kids with the caption “hope your day is going well – xoxo!!” and a smiley emoji. The kids, now 1 and 4, were growing up so fast. It seems like only yesterday I walked through those doors, apprehensive at the thought of my new life.


I really didn’t need to be though. I couldn’t work directly under Dave for company policy reasons but I had got a job under Steve Mason, one of Dave’s oldest friends and also a fellow partner at Begbies. He quickly became a mentor for me and my relationships with him and Dave meant I got involved pretty early on in some reasonable sized projects. The great thing was though as soon as I proved myself no one cared that I had become Dave’s son-in-law. Begbies Trayner specialize in corporate rescue and recovery, when companies are insolvent we come in, right the ship, and engineer a sale.


In my time I had worked on the case for a number of businesses but I must admit that I had a special kind of buzz when I was given the opportunity to work on the case for a couple of Football Clubs that had entered administration. Everyone around the office knew of my history in football so when the opportunity came up to work on the Reading and Port Vale cases recently I jumped at the chance. Little did I know I would soon be getting another chance…

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[Yeti01]

8 July 2014.


‘You’re ******** me!!’ I thought to myself as I half glimpsed the back page of the guy in front of me’s copy of Metro. I whipped out my iPhone and began frantically searching, there it was, it was staring me in the face but I could still scarcely believe it!! Roman Abramovich, the Russian Oligarch owner of Chelsea, had apparently had some kind of falling out with Vladimir Putin and now he was being hit with a fine for tax evasion! Scandalous. The club had pulled up the drawbridge and were refusing to answer any questions concerning the future involvement of Abramovich.

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The closest tube stop to our new house was Wimbeldon at the end of the District line so I came into Paddington every day through Fulham Broadway, the nearest station to Stamford Bridge, and the train was typically full of Chelsea fans. This was huge!! My mind was racing, I still held a soft spot for the club having worked there for all those years as a coach and still held some of the junior coaches there amongst friends, as I walked through the Begbies front door I was just about to start texting one of them when I heard Steve. “Bob”, I don’t know why Steve kept calling me Bob, literally everyone else here called me Robert but he had started calling me Bob the day we met and I took it as a sign of inclusion so I never challenged it, “get in here now mate.” I walked into the meeting room and just about fell over. Standing there was Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck and Directors Mariana Granovskaia and Eugene Tenenbaum.


It was Mariana in fact who spoke first, I had heard that she was really Abramovich’s right hand woman but it was something else to see it in the flesh, “It’s not good gentlemen. Roman’s actually been imprisoned when he was home and bail has been set at 1.5 billion pounds. He obviously has a lot of money elsewhere and will draw on that as much as he can but he has advised me to inform the club that he is calling due his 1 billion pounds in loans he has provided to the club. The terms of the loan were that he could call them with 18 months’ notice but given the extenuating circumstances the club has decided to pay up what it can immediately, with the rest due over 18 months. To do so though we will have to put the club into administration.” She stopped, the words hung in the air and nervous glances were shared around the room.


“That’s where you guys come in. We’ve seen the work you guys have done with Port Vale and Reading and we are confident that you can get it sellable.” Steve looked at me and started, “First of all, thanks for this opportunity. Please pass on my best wishes to Mr Abramovich and let him know we will do everything in our power to get a sale.” With that we all shook hands and Steve took them down to his office to sort out the paperwork. Half an hour later my email alert chimed. It was Steve, there was no subject line just the body text saying ‘My office now, bring coffee’. I just about ran down with two full mugs.


“How bad is it?” I half panted as I entered the room. “Really not good,” he said in a typically understated Steve way. “Essentially they want to give as much as possible right now, they are hoping for 750 million and the remaining 250 million due over the next 18 months. I can’t see how they are going to do it. More likely it will be something like 500 million pretty quickly and the other 500 over 18 months.” I looked at him. “That is ridiculous money,” I said, “Port Vale were only a couple of million in debt and Reading 20 odd. Nothing like this,” I said, waving my arms at the mass of papers strewn across the desk in front of me.


“Correct,” Steve said without looking up, “but they didn’t have what Chelsea have, assets”. I knew he was right. I didn’t live all that far from Chelsea’s much vaunted training ground in Cobham and remembered it well from my time there. No doubt it was in the firing line. Also Chelsea Village, the down fall of the Ken Bates era was still there. “Time to get to work then!” I said, handing Steve his coffee.

 

[Yeti01]

Later that day.


We’d been sitting around working out asset values for about an hour when Bruce Buck came back. He was staying on as an advisor for us for all things Chelsea. “That’s the press conference done,” He said with a huge sigh. “How’d it go?” asked Steve. “Pretty well I think, the press seemed to understand the decision that he made.” Bruce replied. “Who made?” I asked quizzically. Buck turned to me, “Robert wasn’t it?” he asked, before I could say anything Steve corrected him, “Bob,” and then went back to his computer. “Bob then, you used to do some coaching they tell me at Chelsea?” Buck continued. “A bit,” I said, “the better part of a decade ago I used to be involved with the youth and then u18’s.” “JT remembered you,” Buck said with a smile. “You serious” I asked, “Yes, he was very complimentary of some of the work you did with the first team back then.”


“So who was it?” I asked, trying to get the conversation back in track. “Jose,” Buck got up off his seat, “Jose has asked for a release and it has been granted. In fact every assistant manager, coach, scout and physio involved with the senior team has been given the same offer. If they want to leave they can. We expect everyone will. We’ve let the media know that we are in administration, the staff have been informed that they are free to seek employment elsewhere. The playing group have been told that a decision will be made shortly concerning their futures.”


“Given the size of this debt we can’t let them walk,” Steve injected, taking his glasses off and putting them on the table. “In due course we will look over the roster and work out who we will sell and who we will keep, we can’t just sell everyone as we need an asset that someone is going to pay for, this is going to be a balancing act. Also, this isn’t going to be a quick sale. First and foremost we need to raise the funds required by Mr Abramovich, then we need to figure out how to get this ship turned around. To do that though we are going to need a manager. How have you been going with that Bruce?”


“At first I thought I was going terribly, literally no one who was available is willing to work for free.” Bruce said. “That’s not good,” replied Steve. “No,” Bruce rolled on, “I was racking my head for someone and then I remembered you telling me about Bob here when we were signing the paperwork earlier. So I went and checked his file. You hold the equivalent of a Continental ‘B’ license don’t you Bob?” “Er I guess it would be something like that,” I said, it had been so long since I even thought of anything like that. “Well congratulations!” Buck said in his thick yankee accent offering his hand, “You’re the new manager of Chelsea Football Club.” I looked at Steve, he just looked up and shrugged.


Later that afternoon we talked more about the assets available. Chelsea Village Hotel has been listed at 200 million dollars and we actually expect a quick sale there. The 280 room hotel in a desirable area of London represents good buying. The training ground at Cobham is also on the block. It is expected to fetch approximately 25 million although we are looking into a sale and lease back arrangement. Taking into account the cash at hand the amount payable to Abramovic already prior to any player sales is already over 300 million.


It was almost 7 o’clock and I decided to start the commute home. Steve was still in the room. “Good work today. Here’s the playing list. Bruce is going through all of Micheal Emanalo’s current reports on the players and working out a market value for them all. Tomorrow we are going to go through and, looking at their respective wages and transfer values, set limits on each and sell anyone who’s fetch us money or is earning too much. Bring more coffee,” he said getting up and packing his things into his briefcase. I packed up my things too and headed out the door. On my way out I checked my phone again – Ness has sent me another picture, this time of the kids playing in the bath. I texted back, ‘Boy have I got some news for you.’


It is only a half hour ride on the tube into work but with the walking it was about 45 minutes later that I unlocked the front door of the house. The smell of spaghetti bolognaise greeted me and I walked in and kicked off my shoes. Ness poked her head round the corner. Eli in the highchair beside her as she cooked was making some funny gurgling noises whilst chewing on a plastic spoon and my eldest Alexia was watching Peppa Pig. “So, tell me what this big news is!” Ness exclaimed with a little hint of sarcasm and a grin. “Well,” I started, “Your looking at the new manager of Chelsea Football Club.”


Next thing I know Dave and Gail have arrived and Dave’s shoving another cigar in my mouth, he never seems to need an excuse. To be fair, I’ve grown a bit fond of them myself.

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[Yeti01]

Time to take a step back and explain what I am doing here. You may not know it from my previous stories seeing as I’ve managed QPR and more recently Tottenham but I actually follow Chelsea. They been my team since the mid-nineties. As a lad, I had been introduced to football by a family friend who had Dutch heritage and was instantly hooked. To start with I began following Ajax and AC Milan who at the time featured Oranje greats Frank Rikaard, Marco Van Basten (I still have my year 3 school project I did on Van Basten) and Ruud Gullit.


As I was entering my teens my obsession with football grew, however being in Australia in the 90’s, my viewing options were limited to the Premier League highlights show on ABC on a Monday night, or the “On the Ball” on SBS that used to air Sunday afternoons. There was almost no live coverage of overseas leagues and limited coverage of the local game. As such I was desperate for a Premier League team to call my own but didn’t want to just follow Liverpool, Arsenal or Manchester United like everyone else I knew.


The answer came in July 1995. Ruud Gullit was bought Chelsea and everything began to click. Around the same time Fox Sports had launched in Australia. I soon convinced my father to invest in “Austar” and began to watch them whenever I could. Fast forward 10 or so years and I had finished high school and graduated from University with a Finance Degree so I packed my things and moved to London to live for a while and make the pilgrimage to my own personal ‘Mecca’. Unfortunately due to financial reasons I didn’t see nearly as much of them as I would have liked but I did get to see 6 games at Stamford Bridge.


By this time they had been taken over by Roman Abramovich. I always scoff at those who try to make fun of Chelsea fans by saying that they bought titles. Every big club in England has had it’s own period where it bought more than everyone else to create success and whatever they are today was built on those successes. I guess its ok when it happened before you were born though…


Anyway one thing that has always been in the back of my mind is what would Chelsea be like today if Abramovich upped and left? If it had happened 5-7 years previously I can’t see how the club would have survived frankly. Now, I think it’s a little different. Recent successes have driven revenue to the point where the club is turning an operating profit, in the background however, is approximately 1 billion pounds, now in the form of interest free loans, that Abramovic has given to Chelsea over the past decade (Abramovich loan to Chelsea company tops one billion pounds - ESPN FC). According to the same story, the loans are repayable at 18 month’s notice.

As it seems like Abramovich has no interest in claiming them any time soon I needed a scenario where it would be necessary, hence the above. Also I wanted an element of immediacy about the need for the money. To recreate this in game I have used the editor to place Chelsea (effectively) in administration. To estimate the value of the Chelsea Village (now called Millenium and Copthorne hotels) hotel I used the following listing I was able to find for a hotel in Bayswater (from memory also a reasonably affluent area of London due to its proximity to Hyde Park - Buy a 4 Star London Hotel business for sale on BusinessesForSale.com) It is listed at 205 million pounds and is a 380 room hotel (so another 100 more than the Millennium and Copthorne hotels) but doesn’t appear to have the other facilities. Also I’m putting a premium on the fact that they are on Fulham rd.


In terms of Training Ground sales there isn’t a lot to go on. There is the Leeds United sale of Thorp Arch in the mid 2000’s. They ‘only’ got 4.3 million for it which seems small and had a repurchase option of approximately 6 million. They were paying to start with 430,000 back as part of their lease back arrangement which is a healthy return of 10%. That figure also rose by 3% each year. According to this article that figure now stands at 600,000 a year (Leeds United: State of the art facility but a luxury Whites cannot afford - Yorkshire Evening Post).


I have used more round numbers. Factoring in inflation and also the difference in locations I have arrived, rightly or wrongly, at a number of 25 million for Cobham. It doesn’t matter too dramatically as I will be applying an 8% p.a. lease back fee (8% represents a decent return on land used for industrial purposes) so whatever the sale price is the lease fee will move up or down accordingly. To recreate this in game I have used how the game applied the fee to Leeds.


To arrive at the cash at hand figure I had taken the starting in game amount of 105 million to arrive a total figure received of 335 million. As such I will be starting the game with a balance deficit of 165 million with the remaining 500 million set up in bank loans with 0% interest due over 18 months.



In my research for this story I realised this is not an entirely new concept. I came across Sam91’s story from 2013 (http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...ories/124740-broken-blues-chelsea-crisis.html) that didn’t really get off the ground and also Tezzz’s Clubs in Administration story - http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...nce-solutions-clubs-administration-story.html. There are likely others too.


I guess the main difference here is that Sam’s story was more about managing a club in administration and Tezzz’s story focused on reporting on what the game appointed administrators did whereas I wanted to create a game where I was the administrator (a BAA if you will) – as such I actually haven’t put the club in administration in the editor as I want to maintain control of the transfers/etc as an administrator would. I have though, obviously, created a scenario (farfetched as it is) where I am also the manager for story line reasons. To recreate the outcomes of administration I have applied the points deduction via the editor and with the way I have structured the loan repayments I actually expect in game to enter administration but I need this as it will force the game to sell Chelsea which wouldn’t happen otherwise.


I actually did a test run with the club set as ‘in administration’ but got so frustrated at some of the decisions being made. Yes other clubs would know that Chelsea is in administration but price is driven by supply and demand. I had listed Courtois and he had 35 clubs interested in him but despite clubs such as PSG/Bayern/Arsenal and Real interested he was sold for 6 million pounds!! In real life Chelsea just paid 8m for Bergovic to be a backup – there’s no way Courtois wouldn’t attract bids of up around 20m from the likes of Real wanting to outbid others. Any administrator would know this and want to get top dollar (within reason) for their asset.


A little bit of background about me – I’ve worked in financial services my entire career after graduating. Although I’ve never worked directly for an advisory firm my work in banking has often been working hand in hand with external auditors, accountants and lawyers so I have a fair background in this world. I’ve tried, wherever possible, to find ‘real world’ examples of any scenarios I am looking at so I have a basis for any decisions and have tried to make this as closely aligned to Chelsea’s actual position as possible.


So ride along whilst I indulge myself for a while – hopefully you also find it entertaining. I don’t expect this to be a long save (in terms of years in-game) so I plan on being more detailed than usual in my updates. The game will essentially be over if either the Manager is fired or the club is sold. There is of course the possibility that I could manage through and somehow come out the other end in the black and if that happens I will decide on what to do at that point.

 

[PatrickLFC]

Fantastic start, great to see you back! Very interesting concept too, looking forward to it!

 

[SeanKeaney]

Very intrigued by this, will be following as a Chelsea fan myself!

 

[Yeti01]

Fantastic start, great to see you back! Very interesting concept too, looking forward to it!

Very intrigued by this, will be following as a Chelsea fan myself!

Cheers guys. As I said I've wanted to find out what would happen if Abramovich had to leave for years but haven't been able to accurately portray it. I think I'm on the right track but it will be interesting to see exactly what happens as the game progresses. It could work out good or it might fizzle out.

 

[Lippo255]

Mate! Just discovered this at work & have been trying to work & catch up (More catching up then work! )

Great start, fantastic idea & beautifully written.

Never has the exciting world of accountancy been so fascinating to me! Cant wait for more!

 

[Yeti01]

Mate! Just discovered this at work & have been trying to work & catch up (More catching up then work! )

Great start, fantastic idea & beautifully written.

Never has the exciting world of accountancy been so fascinating to me! Cant wait for more!

Thanks mate - I want this to be more story driven rather than my usual report style so hopefully I can continue it this way.

 

[Yeti01]

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9 July 2014



This felt weird. I should be hopping on a train and heading into town, not going in the other direction. I’m sure the trip to Cobham each morning will soon feel like normal but for now it is still very alien. Thankfully I can still leave the car garaged each day as the Cobham & Stoke d'Abernon station is right next to the Chelsea training facility and on the South West Trains overland service also from Wimbeldon station.


As I entered the facility I was greeted by Michael Emenalo. Whilst not the tallest human being I have ever seen he still stands an imposing 185cm’s tall and I imagine he would have been a very tough defender in his day. Thankfully he had agreed to my request to stay on the extra day to perform some sort of handover. Really though he only ended up hanging around a couple of hours. First he gave me a tour of the Cobham Training Centre where we took in the pitches both grass and synthetic, along with all of the other mod-cons one has come to expect from a base for a club of this stature. It isn’t surprising, after we put out the word that we were looking into a sale and lease back, that we’ve already engaged in discussions with two city private equity firms about purchasing it.


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After the tour he showed me to my office. It was Jose’s old one. He had packed up pretty much everything and the office was quite bare. Effectively all that remained was the essential furniture. Oh, and the picture of Jose that he had left behind signed with the inscription, “whoever you are new guy remember, be champions.” Classic Jose. I decided to keep the photo up and placed it beside the computer. At that point Emenalo left me to ‘get accustomed to my surroundings’ and abruptly left. He wasn’t gone long though, minutes later he reappeared at the door with an armful of dossiers. He had done one on every player in the first, reserve and under 19 squad. We sat down and went through the reports one by one.


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As we started Steve arrived. He advised that it was looking like we were going to get the money for the hotel and Cobham and with the Cash that had been at hand we were around 165 million short of the 500 million immediate goal. As such we began to set some arbitrary limits. Any player who on Michael’s report had a market value of more than 10 million was immediately transfer listed. Additionally no player earning more than 40k a week could remain on the books as they cost too much.


When we began to apply these rules we saw that there was simply not enough left in the squad to compete. We still needed a product to sell. As such, we began to make some exceptions where necessary. Beyond Courtois and Cech we have no keeper. To overcome this we will list both and as soon as the first keeper is sold we will take the other off the transfer list. In defence we have made the decision to keep Ivanovic. He ‘only’ earns 80k a week and wont fetch much on the open market so he will stick around as a veteran presence in a backline that will feature a number of youngsters.


The last of the established ‘first teamers’ who won’t be leaving is Didier Drogba. Again, whilst he is on a larger then desirable wage at 80k a week, at his age he doesn’t have much value on the market so he will be staying around. All of those players though may be subject to sale depending on our ability to meet the future payments to Abramovich. Unfortunately the entire loan army isn’t able to be sold but as they return, again depending on how we are going meeting our repayment requirements to Roman, then they may find themselves transfer listed.


That meant effectively all of the starting side from last year and the majority of the key backups would be sold. Hazard – gone, Oscar – likewise. Even Terry who won’t fetch anything really from a transfer fee point of view has been listed as his 185k a week wage is too large to carry. If he is happy to renegotiate down to under 80k a week we would be happy to keep him but at that wage he is too expensive.


In terms of staff unsurprisingly most of Mourinho’s main staff had left with him. Rui Faria and Co will likely look to catch on at his next posting. We went through the remaining names. Almost all had expressed a desire to leave. There were a couple who indicated they wanted to remain here but unfortunately their contracts were too large to justify keeping them. In the end there were only a select few who we decided to keep on.


They were all people who had been working with the U/18’s. Staying on as my Assistant Manager is former Chelsea midfielder Jody Morris who actually became the youngest ever premier league player when he debuted for Chelsea in 1996 aged 17 – and they say Chelsea don’t develop youth. He would go on to play 124 times in the League for Chelsea before moving away and bouncing around at a few clubs eventually settling at St Johnstone where he also made over 100 appearances. He had been working with the U/18’s in a management role and his contract was under the 1000 pounds a week limit we set.


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Two other former players are also sticking around as part of my coaching staff. Tore Andre Flo – the Norwegian striker who was capped 76 times and appeared for the Blues over 100 times will stay on as an attacking coach and Jon Harley a former Chelsea Left back will stick around to handle the defensive training.


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Completing the coaching staff are two guys who worked with me guiding the Chelsea youth all those years ago and had also most recently been involved with the under 18’s. ‘Keeper coach Bill Thompson, fitness guru Elliot Axtell and skills man Ed Brand will be helping me mould a playing group that I am expecting will include a number of players who only last season were part of the Under 18’s.

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Filling out the back office staff is physio Stuart Vaughan and scouts Alf Blanford and David Johnson. I feel that, whilst this group is obviously way smaller than ideal for a Premier League club, it should provide us with enough to manage the playing group. We also now don’t have to stress about scratching together a staff from free agent coaches.


As we finished discussing the staff I rocked back in my chair and caught a glimpse of the clock. 6pm already – ****. Steve too noticed it and said, “well that might have to do for today. We know now who were are transfer listing, I’ll fax it all through and get that sorted. We also know the team you’ll be working with. Have a good sleep because the real work starts tomorrow.”

 

[Yeti01]

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10 July 2014




“Tell him he’s dreaming!!” I muttered under my breath as I responded to an email alerting me to the fact that overnight Arsenal had made a sneaky 8 million pound bid for Courtois with only 2.5 million up front. ‘The package has to be 20 mill with half up front or we’re not talking,’ I typed in my reply. Knobs.


Literally a minute later their response flashed up. ’potential 19.75 mill package,5.25 upfront’. Wow, that was fast. I went through their proposal in detail. 5.25 upfront yes, with the remainder in the form of monthly installments and other bonus clauses. Yes, although this didn’t quite have the upfront money I was hoping for, the trail income will be just as useful as we try to meet the loan repayments. I phoned Steve and after talking it through with him replied with our acceptance.


It was only 7.45am so I grabbed my coffee and went out the start setting up the training pitch for the morning’s drills. I figure they can all play so for most of preseason we will focus on fitness and ensuring the young guys coming in are familiar with the tactics we will be using. Starting with a 10 point deficit will be hard enough so I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I will stick with the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 systems that have become synonymous with Jose Mourinho led sides.


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I felt another buzz in my pocket. This time, rather than being the club issued mobile phone, it was my personal mobile. I’m not sure why a progressive club like Chelsea can’t incorporate a BYOD policy but apparently secrecy is paramount around here. It was another MMS from Ness. It was a picture of Eli and Alexia in their Chelsea kits that Ness had gone out and bought for them yesterday – what plastics, only supporting a club because they were born close by and their father is the manager…


I could see the players rolling into the carpark in their sportscars as my Chelsea mobile went off again. I checked to see who the email was from. Zinedine Zidane – are you kidding me? Effing Zizou is emailing me, I still rate his volley to win the 2002 Champions League final against Bayer Leverkusen as one of the greatest strikes I’ve ever seen!! They had got wind of our acceptance of the Arsenal offer and wanted to make one of their own. 28 million total package, 6.75 upfront. Wow, that well and truly trumped the Arsenal offer. Accept.


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So this was interesting. Before I’d even had a chance to welcome him properly to the club I had to go tell Thibault to go talk with his agent and inform Petr he was being taken off the list. Somehow for a Chelsea legend like Cech I don’t think he will have any problem with that decision (me in real life - :'(). Those that had been transfer listed had been notified overnight so there was no need to rehash. The majority seemed resigned to their fate as we began the drills. One though came over to me. Mr Chelsea– John Terry. “Gaf, I want to stay,” he said, I swear I could almost see a tear in his eye. “Mate, we can’t afford you on your current wage. You need to come down to 80k a week to make this work.” I said.


“Look, I honestly don’t know what contract you’ll get elsewhere but why don’t you talk it over with your agent and let me know if you’re willing to renegotiate.” I continued. “Thanks Gaf, I’ve been pretty lucky that Chelsea have looked after me for so long, we might be able to work something out now that Chelsea needs me.” Terry stated, almost as if he was talking more to himself then to me. With that he turned on his heel and sprinted over the group working through some agility poles as part of their warm up. I could hear him start barking instructions geeing up the guys. To see that filled me with hope. Who knows –if we can keep him on to nurture this group maybe we’ve got a chance of staying up!


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[Yeti01]

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15 July 2014




The trip to Cobham felt a little more normal today I must admit. It been good to get out on the paddock over the last few days with the lads – even if a large proportion of them will be moving on soon. You wouldn’t have known it watching them as they really got stuck into training. I could sense a ‘changing of the guard’ attitude around the squad. The more established stars know they are almost certainly moving on but love the club and are spending as much time as possible with their understudies letting them in on the nuances of playing in this system.


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To see the likes of Hazard taking Boga under his wing and Oscar dispensing knowledge that Charly Musounda was soaking up like a sponge was a delight to see. I’ve really been impressed with the culture evident here. As I walked through the doors at Cobham I was greeted by Bruce Buck. “Bob, I need a word. We have had a pre-season tour planned in China for years now and we need to settle on a squad. The trip is expected to cost almost 400,000 pounds though so we could cancel.” “If we did cancel would we be breaking any contracts?” I asked.


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“Yes a couple and they have damages clauses. Could still be a bit expensive,” he replied. “Still it makes sense to go anyway – I expect we’ll make more than 400,000 by going.” I replied. “Sounds good,” Bruce said, “I’ll let our partners know its all still on, can you email me through the squad once you’ve settled on it?” “No worries,” I stated and trundled off to start thinking about that before training started.


Pouring over the list I was torn. Do I use the trip for building rapport among the players who will form my squad this year or do I use it as an opportunity to showcase some players for sale? In the end the latter won out, it was actually Steve who pointed out that the tour’s success really depended on taking the stars and the fact that it gave us the opportunity to put a few in the shop window was just gravy. I informed the team at the morning’s session and then emailed the list through to Buck over lunch.


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After the afternoon’s session had wound up I was still thinking though about the need to give the guys who will be registered for the league some proper game time together so I set about arranging some friendlies that will also hopefully raise some money after the tour. With only an hour to go until I wanted to head home I set my mind to the Jiangsu game – it was only 4 days away now so I needed to focus.


To finish things off today I got an offer from Manchester United for Nemanja Matic. Despite again being somewhat disappointed with their initial offer we negotiated them up to a package worth a potential 35.5 million. Again there was a relatively low initial fee of 7 million but with 17 million coming in over the next 12 months and the remainder in the form of other bonuses we were happy to accept.


Thankfully when I got home and told Vanessa about needing to go away with the tour she was very understanding. In the end she decided that it would be a good opportunity for her to go and spend a few days with her Mum. I resolved though to her a little more warning next time!!

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[PatrickLFC]

You know I think it would be perfectly reasonable to use the editor to give John Terry a lower wage contract. There's no way of simulating how they'd act in real life and I'm sure someone like him who is Chelsea through and through would definitely do that for the good of the club, but it can't happen in game as far as I'm aware

 

[CantGetEnoughOfJelavic]

Really enjoying this. Nice detail and really quite excited to see it continue.

 

[Yeti01]

You know I think it would be perfectly reasonable to use the editor to give John Terry a lower wage contract. There's no way of simulating how they'd act in real life and I'm sure someone like him who is Chelsea through and through would definitely do that for the good of the club, but it can't happen in game as far as I'm aware

Cheers mate I'll have an update up tonight and then I might do a post on the challenges I've faced so far and what I've done to overcome them. This story obviously doesn't fit in the SI 'box' as there's been some interesting goings on that I've had to come up with workarounds or that will affect the narrative. Nothing story-killing yet mind you though.

 

[Yeti01]

Really enjoying this. Nice detail and really quite excited to see it continue.

Thanks mate - I'm excited to see Road to Glory back too!

 

[Yeti01]

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19 July 2014



Prior to our first preseason game I got my first real bit of good news this season. I was sitting in my hotel room pouring over a scouting report Alf Blanford had done after scrounging up what footage he could of our upcoming opponents Jiangsu Sainty. Being a friendly I wasn’t too concerned about them but I at least wanted to have some idea of who we were about to face when there was a knock at the door.


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“You got a minute Gaf?” Terry called through the door. “Sure thing mate,” I replied and got up and opened the door. I motioned to the armchair and he sat down. “I’ve had a chance to talk things with Paul my brother who represents me. Whilst he doesn’t agree with me he is happy for me to sign on at 75k a week if you’ll have me.” Terry said. “Are you kidding mate? Of course I will!” I exclaimed. “Look, I’ve started thinking about leadership for the upcoming year. Prior to right now I was going to ask Didier if he’d take the armband but of course now you’ll keep it. Didier will be vice-captain.” We shook on it and he left.


If that was the good then the unfortunate side of our predicament reared its head shortly after. I had included Thibault Courtois in our squad to go to China but he wouldn’t even make our first training session in Nanjing. Upon landing his agent emailed to tell me that he had accepted the Arsenal offer. Of course I would have preferred if he took the Real one but we are still getting a decent return. I went in and said goodbye as he was packing up his stuff. For a guy who had toiled away on loan for 2 seasons at Atletico you could tell it pained him a little that he had never pulled on the Chelsea jersey – hopefully he doesn’t use that as motivation when we play them…


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The following morning I got word that Nemanja had also agreed terms with Manchester United. I jumped online and saw that the fans were unhappy we had now sold 2 players to Premier League rivals but frankly there isn’t a lot we can do about it at the moment. We have to make some money. Again I went and spoke with Matic before he left. This was now the second time Chelsea had sold him. Who knows, if we can get this financial mess sorted there may even be time for Chelsea to buy him for a 3rd​time.


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After the happenings of the previous few days the game itself seemed to be less important. We produced a solid performance against Jiangsu Sainty. Costa and Drogba got the goals and importantly in the 2nd​ half we got to blood a few of the youngsters who will likely be part of the first team over the coming season.


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Returning to the hotel after the game it also appeared that our plan to showcase some of our stars had worked as well. Real Madrid had come in with a sizable bid for Costa and Barcelona had bid for Hazard. Both contained significant upfront money too which was surprising given that they had both been sniffing around those players in the previous weeks and not been able to meet our asking price. Upon further investigation I saw that Barcelona had moved on Pique and Pedro to fund their Hazard bid and Real had sold Isco and Benzema. Finally we might start seeing some sizeable upfront money to start reducing this mountain of debt...

 

[Yeti01]

Quick update now about some of the challenges I faced thanks to the way FM has handled some situations and also some that I have created for myself. Firstly the sales. I’ve basically been in charge for a bit under a month and struggling to see any sales despite interest in almost every player. A lot of that has to do with after the Matic and Courtois sales that I’ve been trying to get more of the transfer up front. However, due to the starting transfer budgets in FM being smaller than a usual budget as they take into account existing transfers this has been challenging – hence the abundance of offers with lower up-front money at this stage.


Indeed Real and Barcelona both bid for Costa and Hazard respectively before the offers I accepted after negotiating which is why I was surprised when they came back with more up-front money in their subsequent offer which is what prompted me to go check what had meant they could even do that. Looking around (I’m on the 15.3 update) at what I can find regarding starting budgets most starting transfer budgets aren’t even enough to buy Hazard and Costa in 2014! As such I might struggle to sell the remaining players. Oscar has Juve interested, Willian Inter and PSG is sniffing around everyone but I might have to accept that we won’t sell everyone I was hoping in this window and some will go out in Jan.


It sucks a bit because my wage budget will be higher than desirable until they are moved on. I could artificially go in and move players but I’ve been wanting to avoid that if possible – there’s certainly interest in most players without doing that I just won’t get as much unfortunately. After my second preseason game I am going to ‘offer’ out the remaining players at their current value and see if that helps. One area I did though use the in-game editor was to change Terry’s contract. I went to try and re-sign him in-game normally but due to the way I’ve set up the finances I could only offer 100 pounds a week… Despite me trying to take 100k a week off his wages.


Finances is another area where FM has behaved different to what I expected. As I mentioned I haven’t put the club in administration yet so the game is still behaving as if the board is there. As our Bank Balance was about 150 million in the red they went and took a bank loan out for 140 million with the repayments spread out until 2039 – doh! As such I’m going to manually keep track of our actual balance in excel and went we get back in the black on a net basis (if ever) reduce it down. I will also use the in-game editor to (for now) pay back the repayments on that loan so they don’t detract from what money I am bringing in.


So a few hiccups already but to be fair I can understand why the game is behaving this way. If I was playing a normal Chelsea game and ended up deep in the red I would like it if the Board took that action they have here. I’ll get there though – where there’s a will, there’s a way.

 

[Yeti01]

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25 July 2014



It didn’t take long for Hazard to agree to terms with Barcelona. Despite being valued at almost 40 million pounds Barcelona’s first offer weeks ago only included 10 million in up-front fees. Their most recent offer started at 20 million but we quickly negotiated that up to 31.5 million in up-front fees with potentially a staggering additional 27 million in add ons but that is spread out over a significant period.

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Following Hazard's departure we faced Guangzhou Fuli in our 2nd preseason game. We played really well here. Cuardado certainly put himself in the shop window with 2 goals and Costa was showing why Real were desperate to land him. This match was the last of our China tour and I am happy with the progress the squad has made whilst we've been away.

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Real's offer for Costa was less than Hazard’s in terms of the initial fee (25.5) and add ons (15 million potentially) but we managed to slide in a 25% percentage of next sale clause also that we hopefully see some return on in the future as he agreed terms with them shortly after the Guangzhou match. Again Real had initially come with an initial offer incorporating a less than $10 million initial fee but after an improvement in their finances due to sales were able to come back with a much improved offer that we negotiated up.


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Again it was said to see both leave. Costa got to wear the Chelsea jersey for two preseason matches only and he scored 2 goals – the fans unfortunately will forever have to be left thinking 'what if'. Hazard though is irreplaceable. When he is at the top of his game he is in the top 10 players in the world. All we can do is hope that someone steps up and can be a fraction of the player he is.