Portsmouth - Back to the Big Time!!!

[darnho]

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Portsmouth

Year Founded: 1898
Nickname: Pompey
Stadium: Fratton Park
Capacity: 18,931
Rivals: Southampton, Brighton, Bournemouth, Reading

Honours:
English Premier Division: 1949, 1950
English FA Cup: 1939, 2008
Sky Bet Championship: 2003
Sky Bet League One: 1962, 1983
English Community Shield: 1949
English Southern League Premier Division: 1902, 1920
English Western League Premier Division: 1901, 1902, 1903
English Third Division South: 1924
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This is my first time posting a manager story, have always been a fan of these and taught it would be good to finally try my own. The end goal of this save will be to bring Pompey back to the big time, to the Premier League, back to the glory days of Harry Redknapp, Kanu, Yakubu, Sol Campbell and many more....
Will it be easy? No.... will it be fun? Absolutely!!!

Career Honours:

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2016/17 - Football League Two: 1st (100pts)
EFL Cup - First Round
FA Cup - Third Round
Checkatrade Trophy - Group Stage

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2017/18 - Football League One: 1st (86pts)
EFL Cup - First Round
FA Cup - Fourth Round
Checkatrade Trophy - Second Round

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[darnho]

Ok, so heres the expectations for the year....

They are high expectations, but for a team of thisquality you would be expecting that. If the team can play the way they can thenwe should be in with a very good chance of gaining promotion, the first stepback to the BIG TIME!!

 

[darnho]

Having a look for our transfers in so far this season, there’s not that much to look at... David Forde from Millwall and Dominic Hyam from Reading, Forde will be a decent keeper for League Two and will bring good experience to the team.
The first problem I've encountered is a bad one, INJURIES! My team must be like a bunch of Daniel Sturridge's.... I have 4 defenders injured and of course its not like they just broke a nail, oh no!, I got players out for 3 or 4 months due to ligament damage.

Looks like I’ll have to sign a central defender, maybe on loan to plug the hole that injuries have caused…

 

[Sam91]

Best of luck mate!!

 

[darnho]

Best of luck mate!!

Cheers mate!

 

[darnho]

Onto the first game of the season, the usual game against your clubs U23's, this is a good opportunity to have a look at both teams, especially the 23's. There are a couple of decent looking players who could make the leap up to the first team this season or maybe next....

So onto my tactics... I like to play a 4-2-3-1 Wide in most of my saves and it seems to suit the players we have at Portsmouth. Baker, Roberts and Lalkovic suit the system well, the only problem that I find is that Michael Smith & Noel Hunt are our best strikers, which isn't great. Conor Chaplin looks like he could be a player in the near future but with the £150,000 transfer budget, a striker could be top of the list.

For the game here is my line-up, I've given the team instructions of retain possession and pass into space which will hopefully get the wide players on the ball as much as possible.

 

[darnho]

Well....we made that much harder than we needed to....

We made a good start and in the 22nd minute Roberts did well down the right hand side, put a whipped low cross into the box and Carl Baker was there to tuck home into the bottom right hand corner. But only 7 minutes later, the only shot that David Forde had to deal with all game went in.... typical. We were the only team in it for the entire game and when I threw on most of my subs in the 67th minute I hoped someone would step up and win us the game.... cue Conor Chaplin.... 25 yards out and he hit a thunderb*****d of a strike into the back of the net. Noel Hunt had a shocker, so Conor will get a starting place for the next game.

 

[darnho]

Didn't want to bore you all with each game of pre-season, so heres the summary of how it went...

I don't think the pre-season could of went any better, the only game we didn't win was against Walsall and to be honest... we should of, we were the better team but just could't take the couple of chances that came our way. There was a battle between my strikers to see who would be starting the first game of League Two. I taught Michael Smith was going to be my first choice, but when he got injured 15 minutes into the game against Havant & Waterlooville, Conor Chaplin had the chance to make a claim for the starting spot and my god did he. A 9 minute first half hat-trick was his response and with Smith out for a couple of weeks, young Chaplin will be the man up top.

Also, just before the game against Havant & Waterlooville, I signed Alex Garcia from Man City on loan after we became affiliates. This partnership should help us in the future, with us being able to take some youngsters on loan for nothing.

 

[darnho]

August

I don't think our first month could of gone any better, had 7 games during the month, 5 in the league and 1 each in the EFL Cup and Checkatrade Trophy.
Our only loss cam against Brighton in the EFL Cup, now looking at 3-0 you would think it was an easy game for Brighton and they kicked us off the park. Well, you would be wrong, we had the same amount of shots as they did, more on target, more clear cut chances, we made more passes in the game, we controlled the game for the majority of time.... but this game.... this game.... it lulls you into this false sense of security and then kicks you right in the balls.
After my balls had time to heal, we got back into the league and got some well needed wins. Swapping Chaplin & Smith from game to game seems to be working as both are scoring goals and keeping it near impossible for me to pick one to be a continuous starter.

At the end of August the transfer window slammed shut and we didn't do too much business. We let a couple of players leave on loan and brought in Aleix Garcia from Man City, Ovie Ejaria from Liverpool (both on loan) and picked up free agent Jamie O'Hara, fresh from his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother.

 

[darnho]

September

Our first loss in the league this season came against Crawley, we played terribly so we deserved to lose. Thankfully, the rest of the month went quite well, wins against Wycombe, Accrington and Blackpool and a draw versus Barnet rounded up the rest of the month. These wins shot us upto 2nd place in the league, level on points with Leyton Orient.

Unfortunately, as I am new to FM Base and ranked as an ''Amateur'' I am limited to 1 link per post, hopefully his will change soon and I can give an in-depth look into how my season is going..... I will post the league table in the next post.

 

[darnho]

The league table at the end of September...

 

[darnho]

October

Moving into October, we are in a good position in the league, we just need to keep our performance levels up.

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We start off with a commanding win at home to Doncaster, our loanee Ejaria has been brilliant for us so far this season and I will be looking to have him back on loan next season if a permanent deal can't be agreed. Michael Smith & Conor Chaplin have both been in brilliant form and it has made it very hard to choose one of them to be my no. 1 striker, so instead I have moved Chaplin back in the attacking midfielder position with Smith up top.

With the loss against Swindon, it makes my last game of the Checkatrade Trophy against Swansea U-23s a must win in order to progress into the secon round...

Our next game was a top of the table clash against Leyton Orient and we couldnt of started musch better, as inside 13 minutes we were 2-0 up thanks to the Michael's, Doyle & Smith. The rest of the game had me biting my nails as Orient pulled a goal back but we managed to get over the line in order to move into 1st place in the league on our own.

A draw against Plymouth and victories over Notts Co & Cambridge saw the end of October come around with Portsmouth in a fantastic position at the top of League Two.... League table to follow....

 

[darnho]

League table at the end of October....

 

[darnho]

November

At the start of November, a little business was taken care of in the way of Samed Yesil being signed as a free agent. The ex-Liverpool man has plenty of potential and with stats of 14 Finishing, 13 Composure & 12 Flair he looks like a great signing for League Two.

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This month started off with a good win in the FA Cup against Hartlepool, but sadly we have been dumped out of the Checkatrade Trophy at the hands of Swansea U-23s. I am a little disappointed as I taught that was our best way of Silverware in our first season but hey lets just concentrate on the league....

This month has really shown what a fantastic eye I have for talent.... (as some people say ''self praise is no praise'' haha, anyway our loan signings Garcia & Ejaria really showed how good they could be in the future with some great performances throughout the month and Yesil has repaid my faith in him straight away with a couple of goals against Cheltenham.

 

[darnho]

League table at the end of November....

 

[darnho]

Now that I have moved up to trainee (claps himself on the back) I can now attach more than one link to each post so a more in-depth look can be shown in each of my posts.

To start of here are a quick look at the signings I made throughout the season so far...

So far this season all of the above have been central to my season and I feel the permanent signings of O'Hara & Yesil have been important as either or even both of them could be playing 1 if not 2 leagues above this.

 

[darnho]

Here is a quick look at the tactics I have been using so far this season...

I have set the team instructions in most games to Control as with the team we have we should be taking each game by the scruff of the neck and controlling the tempo of the games. I like to tell my teams to Pass into Space and Be More Expressive in order to get the ball to the creative players who have managed to find themselves a small pocket of space on the pitch.

 

[darnho]

December

This month has gone very well, an unbeaten month and only dropping points with a draw against Newport Co., which in fairness we should of won that game as they are bottom of the table, but we just played awfully.

The game against Yeovil was vital due to it being a top of the table clash, once again Chaplin was on the score sheet. What a player he is already turning out to be for me.

Our next game against Luton could be huge to our season, if we win we have one hand on the title in my opinion (please god that sentence dosen't come back to bit me in my hole) but if we lose the league is blown back wide open.

 

[darnho]

January 2017

So this month has probably been our worst month of the season... It started with 1st place versus 2nd place against Luton. Unfortunately, we could not come away with a win but we still had a slight lead at the top of the table. Our next game was in the FA Cup 3rd Round against Newcastle, I taught if we could be tight we might be able to nick a victory, but how wrong I was. Newcastle kicked us round the park for 90 minutes and it probably should of been more like 3 or 4-0.

We got back on track in the next 3 games with victories against, Doncaster, Leyton Orient and Crawley. The last game of the month was the real kick in the genitals.... this game can be fantastic to play most of the time but good god it can also be infuriating. The game against Exeter was exactly that, frustrating, we had 22 shots compared to there 4, we had 65% possession, had twice as many passes in the game and the end result.... we lost 1-0. You don't know whether to laugh or cry at a result like that, but thankfully my mates were going the pub so it was the perfect time to drown my sorrows! haha

 

[darnho]

This game.... this god **** game.... When Chaplin scored in the 13th minute I taught, good start now lets push on and get a couple more and put this game to sleep... we had many opportunities to score again but sadly, we could not take them. But then, in the 85th minute, Morecambe have there 5th shot of the game and of course it goes in. It was at that moment I closed the game and taught to myself, why do I like this game so much?