Rovers return

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toddzy

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Hello and welcome to my story on Football Manager 2016!

What better way to try and finally get back into FM Base than taking a team from the Championship back to the blistering heights of the Premier League and who knows, hopefully Europe. To make that even better, why not take one of the handful of clubs who have actually one the Premier League back to that mantle?

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Blackburn Rovers - as soon as I read it I think Premier League years on Sky Sports seeing that partnership of Chris Sutton and Alan Shearer setting the league alight. That season for the club is without doubt their greatest achievement since the were founded in 1875.

But trickier times have fallen on the club since the rocky takeover of the Venkys in 2010. 6 coaches, including current manager Paul Lambert, has seen them fallen to the Championship. Currently on football manager they have a media expectation of 14th placed in the league.

With no transfer budget and £131million worth of debt I'm really curious to see how the first season will go. It'll likely depend on the success of Tony Watt who will need to fill the rather large shoes of Jordan Rhodes.

I plan to play a defensive 4-4-2 and attempt to replicate the way Diego Simeone's At.Madrid play. Getting into everyones face and allowing no time, staying as a unit before breaking swiftly. I'm not great at tactics so you'll see below what I have so far. If anyone could advise a tweak I'd really appreciate that as I am very reluctant to use a tactic from the site for this save.

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Fingers crossed you all enjoy, I'll be doing a monthly update with a POM, scores from the games & board confidence. If anything interesting happens such as transfers they'll get their own update. I toyed with trying to write as a former player like Pablo Aimar but the upkeep is slightly difficult. Fingers crossed this way we can all keep interested.

So sit back and watch Rovers return under Craig Todd...



 
The first move I make as manager is get a better Chief Scout in and give him the role of setting up our scouting assignments. Thankfully, we are rated 2nd best in the Championship for our Scouting and Transfers team so no more changes will be made to the team for at least a season.

The new man is Joe McLaughlin who has a fast array of playing experience in Scotland for clubs such as Hibs whilst also making some appearances for Chelsea.

With only 1 scouting role so far under his belt it could be a bit risky, but I think his mental stats speak for themselves. Lets hope the team can improve the team with their finds.


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What a coup it is to bring in Carlos to the club. Previously employers include 10-time European Champions Real Madrid and also Chelsea. Furthermore his excellent reputation speak volumes whilst he will improve what could be considered as a very young fitness team.

No more staff additions will be made whilst it is unlikely that any transfers will be made at this time too - I feel the squad should be good enough for this season.

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August review


It’s been a good start to what is undoubtedly going to be an increasingly more difficult season in the Championship. Despite only being on the receiving end of one defeat I cannot help but feel we should have won more games and I am slightly worried by the lack of goals – a tweak in tactics for September likely to be required.


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As you can see below, we played 7, winning 3, drawing 3 and losing only the 1 to Cardiff. The latter was a bitter pill to swallow especially with us completely dominating the game as you will find further down in the update.

The positives of the games were we’ve already managed to meet our minimum expectations of getting to the 3rd​ round of the Capital One cup with victories over York and Dagenham & Redbridge. We rested a few players for the game against York and nearly paid the cruel price of an embarrassing early exit.

We concede late against Huddersfield which is frustrating whilst we also dominate the game against Wolves despite not being able to make the breakthrough. As mentioned earlier, the Charlton game was a real kick.

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Complete domination but the age old saying of you have to take your chances. It’s unfortunate but we have to move on…

Player of the month was a bit easy to be honest – Hope Akpam the Nigerian CM dominated for us throughout and only missed 1 game as we rested the core players. An overall rating of 7.57 was very impressive and I am happy, a pass completion ratio of 84% was excellent.

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The board seem relatively happy too and agree with Hope’s role in the previous month. Although, from looking at the club finances there’s obviously an apparent gap between our income and expenditure, £600K to be exact. With around £5.8million in the bank we shouldn’t be too alarmed just yet but I may look to move some high paid fringe players out in January.

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With it only being September at time of writing I am not too concerened about our position of 18th​ as we are only 6 points of top spot – we can dream!

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Finally, we have some tough fixtures this month, playing only once at home. Furthermore, the away trip to WBA would appear somewhat daunting. With a bit of luck we will pull through.


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Our first signing in the bag - albeit just a loan. I think that having only Craig Conway with no real adequate cover for the left side of midfield was something that I may regret. So, with that being said we've added Alexander Kacaniklic to our squad for 3 months. All being well he'll add some good competition and when the deal is up we can look to bring in a LM on a free transfer.

Alan Irvine, my assistant, rates him highly so I'll be looking for him to hopefully supply some dangerous crosses for Tony Watt and Danny Graham.


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September review


Overall, probably you have to say a bad month. We cause one of the cup upsets agains WBA but when you take into account we didn't win a league game it sort of brings you back down to reality a little.

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The two defeats to Fulham and QPR (team I have stupidly covered) see us concede goals in the dying minutes of the game and both coming from the left wing. With Ben Marshall occupying the position for most of August & September I think it's time for a change due to the majority of the goals I concede coming from this flank. Tommy Spurr will drop into LB as Adam Henley will occupy RB. This allows Ben Marshall to challenge Elliot Bennett and Craig Conway for RM position.

Unfortunately, after this month it leaves us one place above the relegation zone. However, like last month I am not too concerned. The league is still so tight a run of a couple of games will see us jump up the league. We really need Tony Watt and Danny Graham to start finding the net. They've been off the boil and can see Nathan Delfouneso getting a few starts.

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With Hope Akpam being injured too it didn't help our cause. Jordi Gomez has now made a full recovery from injury as we look to build up his match fitness level.

Moving onto my POM it has the be the new boy, Alexander Kacaniklic. He's been good so far during his 4 appearances, notably against WBA were he set up 1 of the goals for Elliot Bennett. He's keeping Craig Conway out the side at the moment, a player I really like, so as expected from my last update he's posing good competition.


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From POM to Board Confidence which is at the moment slightly above average, something I cannot grumble with due to no league wins in 5. But, I think the win against WBA has certainly helped whilst it has set up a home tie against Crystal Palace for a place in the QF.


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The next round of fixtures look a bit better and I hope that we can push on and grab 3 wins from the month of October. 1 win in 9 games so far in the league is appalling and if we are being realistic about being mid-table-pushing playoffs I'd like to try and get there before the end of November.

With a home tie against the Trotters first it could pave the way to kickstart our season.


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Had a bit of a rough patch there, good luck with those October fixtures mate! Will be following for sure ;)
 
Blackburn sign Niang

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When you're looking for a backup striker to try and help out then for a team like Blackburn to pick up former Senegal captain Mamadou Niang you could consider it quite the coup. Albeit he is now 35-years of age but he still more than capable of playing as an AF at this level.

He only signs a 9 month deal but fingers crossed they are beneficial before his imminent retirement. No clauses for extensions based on games played etc. Hoping now that Tony Watt can hopefully be tutored by Niang and improve his game too. With the permanent transfer of Tony already agreed I am keen for him to push on.


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Folks - pleased to announce I finished my first season and finished 19th without being sacked. Sorry for the lack of updates but I needed to test how committed I was, and the results are good.

I've now been handed a good budget, enjoyed a good pre-season and improved our tactics and training.

A summary of last year and August of this will follow shortly for those still interested.
 
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