Saving Scottish Football 2021

[Jedd95]

Really enjoyed reading this through - great save to follow mate, keep it up!

 

[Mr_Grieves]

April


Fixtures

The way this post was presented all depended on the Celtic game. We didn't win so i consider the league challenge over. We saw off Hearts and Hamilton with little effort while Rangers beat Celtic so nothing is secure going into the final 2 matches.

SPL Table

Celtic are 4 clear and still massive favorites. Aberdeen and Rangers will knock one or both of the contenders out in match 37 which will probably decide who gets the champions league spot for 2nd place. Falkirk looks to have secured at least a playoff spot. Miracle job by **** Campbell.


Europa League Quarter Finals
Aberdeen 3-4 Marseilles

We ran them close in the first leg losing 3-2 and were the better team on paper but the more skillful team end up going through. If that red card happened earlier what could have been!​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Season 3 Review


Aberdeen Squad

​

In goals, Matej Kovaf came in on loan and made the no1 spot his own. He made such an impression in fact we signed him on a pre-contract agreement.
At center back, Arrey-Mbi surprised me by regressing in his first full season. Pankov came in and has been our best defender since day 1. Lots of brilliant youth prospects coming through the whole back up we start with next season could be youth prospects. Wing backs we have Calvin Ramsey probably expecting more bids, i'll be willing to listen to offers near his minimum value of £15m with Pina joining in January. The left-back role is strange. Poundje has come in and done decent but is too old for the long term. Cougo is more of an attacking option but this spot is a lot of waits and see with the u19 graduate Mike Slater not looking to be a top drawer youth prospect and Cameron Harper not developing.
The engine room is absolutely stacked! McCrorie, Fuchs, and Campaz are amongst the best the league can offer. They will probably push Lewis Ferguson out of the club as like in FM20 he doesn't develop. The killer blow will be the regen stars Jordan McGeouch & Glenn Allison are better than him and one will be the 4th MC the other will go on loan. Patrick Roberts took over the MR spot from Harvey Elliot not long after the winter break with Elliot's stamina issues. Quinones, another January freebie didn't start great but has the potential to be a good starter. Ryan Duncan is the alternative option but has not developed. He has got another season to try and develop.
Upfront there will be changes. We have a fantastic young Spanish player joining so he is guaranteed to start. After that who knows. Mayorga has the most upside, Hanratty scored the most goals last season and Shankland is rated the best so that's the 4. All this leaves Griffiths without a job. He was a nonfactor after twisting his ankle and pulling his hammy. I never saw this coming but at 32 and even more, youngsters coming through his time is up. Donis Avdijaj was already on the way out. We just need a sucker to pay up for him.


My Player of the Year
Kevin Hanratty and Patrick Roberts tie

I couldn't pick a winner. Both started the year on the bench and both bullied their way into the starting 11 and stared.


SPL Table

I didn't see the point in a May update for two games with the league how it was but we beat Rangers at Ibrox 2-1 then the u19s drew with Motherwell on the final day.
Celtic scored 98 points which are far beyond what any team has managed in the Save we finished on 92 points that would have won either of the past two seasons. Rangers right behind in 3rd suggest we could be in for another titanic battle for the title next season. Motherwell and Rangers drop to the Europa League and will be joined by Hearts after Celtic won the Scottish Cup. We had the league's top two scorers and top two assisters but none of them broke the old firm's hold on the best average ratings. Livingston finished bottom and will be replaced by our rivals Dundee Utd.

Play-Off
Falkirk 4-3 St Johnstone

The Bairns survive to round off a brilliant season defying the odds and mainly I thought they were set to go down.


Rankings

Scotland is into the top 10 and you know what that means! Automatic Group stage place for the league winner next season.
​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Aberdeen Season 4
Pre Season 2023/24


Season Targets
SPL - Title Challenge
Scottish Cup - Win a trophy
League Cup - ^
Champions League - Europe after Christmas

No Changes to our targets for the new season. We are a far stronger squad so i expect us to finally add a cup challenge to our other relative successes in Europe and the league where winning a trophy is a far harder mission.


New Stadium

We finally move into Kingsford stadium. 1,000 less than Pittodrie. What's even the point?


Pre Season Prices

Defending champions Celtic are locked on favorites. We are into 14/1. You can all still win back the money lost over the last 2 seasons!


Transfer Window

Imagine telling us pre-seasons that we would make the two biggest purchases of this window and Celtic don't even replace James Forrest.


Aberdeen Transfers

European money and a cleanout of the squad players enabled us to make big upgrades on the South American gems.

In

Gaston Castillo - MR

Our biggest deal was for the Argentine u20 star. Roberts was good on the right but prefers the left which to be honest was an afterthought once i got Racing Club to drop their asking price. Has already made an impact as you'll see in my Champions League post.

Bruno Langoni - MC

Every great team in red needs a world-class Bruno in the middle and this guy could go on to be as amazing and the Fernades im referring to. Even with MC being by far my most stacked position now and in the future i could not help myself but bid on this ridiculous prospect. I put enquires in on 100s of players so when one of the top 5 comes back under £10m and can be negotiated down to under £5m it's a great investment of the last of mu Liam Morrison cash.

Alon Bokovza - MC

Remember what you read above and stick it in here for Alon. Same position, slightly less potential hence the cheaper price.

Juan Selles - ATT

I had Griffiths replacement lines up months before the summer. Villarreal had him sitting with a £500k minimum fee. Always spend your time looking through all the top-flight Spanish teams, most won't get a work permit but on the other end of your efforts is this top striker for half a million pounds.

Matej Kovar - GK
He did enough on loan last year to secure a return to the club permanently this summer. He's not a lockdown No1 but is more likely to be sold off when i get me one.

I expect more loans and maybe more transfer activity depending on who we can sell. Probably Ramsey or Mbi who i could afford to lose less but selling Ramsey is sacrilegious.


Out
As i said at the end of the season post Leigh Griffiths was likely out. We only got back £425k for a man that hit 49 goals less than a year ago but his injuries clear took a lot out of him and his wages are too high for being the 4th striker. Mason Rodgers somehow got attention from Roma. Makes me think I've missed something but then again Scott Wright went to Udinese and nothing so maybe the Italians just want my scrap? Our biggest sale of the summer was Donis Avdijaj. He was even further away from stating than Griffiths but somehow we got £1m out of Hibs for him. Hibs also bought my 93rd choice LB Cameron Harper. He just never developed. Lewis Ferguson was our final notable sale. Already well down the pecking order before the best of South America's youth arrived.


Aberdeen Squad

My goodness, how we have improved in the past 12 months with the top 7 players in the squad all arriving in that time.

Youths

Our worst youth team so far? Only Chicken was a good prospect and my desire to get a trophy sooner rather than later pushed me to spend every penny on the first team.


Champions League
Aberdeen 7-3 Trabzonspor

We destroyed the Turks in our first competitive match at our new stadium. Krasnodar will be a tougher team to beat in the 3rd round but we've done well against them in friendlies so all is not lost.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

August


Fixtures

A 6 pointer at Ibrox to start the season and the Rangers won comfortably with both goals from Kemar Roofe. They sold him so he won't be doing that again, in the SPL at least. We then beat Dundee Utd & Ross County in the league and Hearts all comfortably and all while rotating players.

SPL Table

All of the top 3 drop points in the first 3 games while 6 teams are yet to win a game!


Transfer Window
Carlos Fernandez - GK

I loan in a keeper i hope to buy permanently next summer.

Champion League

Round 3
Aberdeen 5-2 Krasnodar

We have no problems seeing off the Russians to set up a playoff tie with Ajax

Play-Off
Aberdeen 2-2 Ajax

Ajax win on away goals

We actually went to Holland and won 1-0 and except for 8 first-half minutes we led the tie all the way to the last kick of the game when Justin Kluivert robbed us of a spot in the group stages. Losing on away goals was a kick below the belt, but losing on the final kick of the 180 minutes is just not right. Europa League again then!


Europa League Group Draw

The top 2 will be tough to overcome again!
​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

September


Fixtures

We played Motherwell before the international break and put out my best 11 and as the score suggests they are quite good! Or so i thought they plummeted right back to earth with a 0-0 draw at home to St Mirren. Explain that if you can. Routine wins against Hamilton and Falkirk in the league and Dundee in the LEague cup see us get a cakewalk semi-final draw against Queens Park. This year surely were finally going to lift a cup!

Hamiltons win looks routine but what i failed to mention is finished with 8 men and still somehow won! Campaz & Hanratty were sent off after Castillo went off after half an hour and Mayorga's injury had us down to 9 with for the final 10 minutes.

SPL Table

Celtic won the old firm derby but was not immune to dropping points themselves which sets up this tasty-looking table after 7 games. St Mirren looks like this year's volunteers to hang around the top 3 till Christmas.


Europa League

Our Europa League campaign started off with a pair of stunning upsets. We thrashed Sevilla in Spain while Omonoia beat Leverkusen to leave the underdogs clear at the top.


Scotland

Albania lost ot us 4-0 once again but 90 minutes of 10 men against Holland proved a step too far for our little country. Were not totally done for yet but need Holland to beat Spain in the next round of games then we need to get a win against them too. So yeah were screwed.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

October


Fixtures

A plus 16 goal difference from 3 games. It's been like play San Marino month. Celtic and Rangers in November however so we'll see just how far we have come. If at all!

SPL Table

As we were imperious Rangers and Celtic both drew games to drop point. St Mirren starting to slip away in 4th.


Europa League

Two more wins see us go 3/3 and 6 points clear of the three-way tie well below us. Omonoia was not much of a shock but going to Germany and beating league leaders Bayern Leverkusen was!


Scotland

We win our dead rubber games so we now have to get a result from the Spain game. We could still win the group but really it's 2nd we are hunting.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

November


Fixtures

The biggest ups, beating Celtic, the biggest downs. Losing to Rangers. Sorry for getting thumped by Rangers at home. I have no idea what is going on with the Old Firm games i just cant gauge where I'm going wrong. Fewer worries in the League cup where we beat Queens Park although we had to come from behind to do so and Ross County was a no contest.


SPL Table

Rangers are back on top


Europa League

Aberdeen score 1p against Leverkusen. I have no idea how or why. The Dons also beat Sevilla to secure the top spot with a game to spare.


Scotland
The real excitement was with the national team in November

As expected with Scotland we lost the do or die game to Spain after taking the lead they outclassed us but we then comfortably beat Holland in a pointless game. I keep my job since the SFA realize we had no chance of getting through.

One man that will not be back is our best player. Andy Robertson calls it a career with Scotland. I will be at him every transfer window to reconsider. Scott McTomany gets the armband. 6 Players are now over 30 so there will be some changes before the next world cup qualifiers

Before that, we have another crack at the Euro. We get Austria first in the playoffs.

 

[Mr_Grieves]

2023 Scottish League Cup Final

Rangers 0-3 Aberdeen

We finally win a trophy!
Rangers gave us the chance to take the lead and Lawrence Shankland took the chance giving us a half-time lead. In the second half, both midfielders added a goal each to make the win comfortable and finally after well over 200 games and 40 months at the club we have a trophy.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

December


Fixtures

Amongst that cup win, we destroyed the 7 SPL teams we came up against in December. The settled strikeforce of Selles & Mayorga doing most of the damage.

SPL Table

Rangers lose to St Mirren and Celtic to give us a chance to settle on the top of the table.

Celtic finished 4th in their Champions League group once again. Sympathy to them this time though.

Europa League

We go 6/6 in the Europa League to win our group at a canter. Rangers also won their group so we both get byes to the last 16.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

January


Fixtures

We're back from the winter break with 3 top 6 games including both sides of the old firm. Before that, we beat Partick with a backup team and Hearts very comfortably. We were held to a draw at Celtic Park after losing the lead was a shame but was more than made up for 3 days later at Ibrox where we thrashed our closest rivals.


SPL Table

Despite the draw, at Celtic Park, we actually extend the lead at the top and the goal difference is now almost double Rangers. St Mirren more clear as the 4th best team outside of the top 3. The bottom 3 are starting to fall adrift.


SPL Transfer Window

Celtic buy half a squad after Chinese teams spend big time on 3 of their best players including Callum McGregor to Arsenal.


Aberdeen Transfers

We pick up 2 new strikers, another MC, back up DC, and sign Carlos Fernandez on a permanent deal for £130k!!

In

Pedro Dominguez - ATT

A first foreign striker that looks the business, except for his finishing but a bargain of a price for someone we can put out wide if he cants score.

Nikola Tasic - ATT

^

Allan - MC

It seemed like we were going to lose Campaz to a Chinese team but he chose Aberdeen over multi-millions. So now i have too many MCs.

Sepp Van Den Berg - DC

A good youth prospect. Again bought with the anticipation i was going to lose. Again he did not leave.


Out
Three players did leave from our first team. The main one is my no1 of the last 18 months Matej Kovar. He asked for a move, was playing worse than Fernandez and the offers were close to his £15m release clause. No way i was turning that down. Stuart Findlay moves to Queens Park. Not sure where they found £600k but money for a player heading for a free is always nice. Finally, on deadline day Chelsea stumped up the £7.5m & future fees for Leider Mayorga. He had been my find of the season this term but with two better players joining at least one of my current strikers had to go and it was my most valuable. More may follow.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

February


Fixtures

A month of bottom half teams & St Mirren should have been straightforward but we started with a loss at Ross County playing almost our best 11. One of those FM days where the shots on target were 2-14. We regrouped with a win over Dundee Utd before drawing with them in the cup! Was it too many youngsters? Nope, we played even more at Tannadice for the 2nd leg where we won 6-0 for the third time in the month. We get a great draw with Greenock Morton in the Scottish Cup and Rangers put out Celtic so that's one less Old Firm rival to worry about.


SPL Table

Not a disaster of a month since Rangers and Celtic drew their Old Firm match and another game.


Europa League Last 16
Athletic Bilbao vs Aberdeen

Yikes. No such thing as an easy game in the last 16 but this seems rough.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

March


Fixtures

More big wins as we run over Kilmarnock, Falkirk, Hibs & Celtic are all cast aside with total ease. Non more than Morton in the cup who let in 8 goals to our back up and reserves.


SPL Table

Results go ur way as we almost get to the break and were now 12 points clear and 50 goals clear.


Europa League Last 16
Aberdeen 2-3 Atletico

A sad end to the first leg where Bilbao scored a 94th-minute penalty to equalize in Spain. Back in Aberdeen, we had the game & tie level for less than a minute when Cordoba scored his second to end our European run in the same place again.

Scotland
Euro 2024 Playoffs
Austria 4-2 Scotland

This was a farse. Everything was totally in hand we were 2 goals clear and cruising to the Final qualifier when John McGinn somehow got his second yellow card in the 37th minute. I hoped we could get to halftime and regroup but that like our hopes of getting to the final were in tatters after the red car. World Cup 2026 is our next target i guess.

Andy Robertson's exile lasted 0 games as he's back for the qualifiers

 

[Mr_Grieves]

April


Fixtures

A much harder than i expected Semi-Final win over Falkirk in the cup and Two wins over the capital sides. Was this enough to tie up our first title since 1984?

It was

SPL Table

The title's in the bag. Rangers and Celtic will fight for the 2nd Champions League spot. St Mirren & Hibs should get the European places unless Ross County can storm to 5th in the last 4 games. At the bottom, Hamilton might finally go down. Falkirk and Dundee Utd are the only other sides in contention.
​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Scottish Cup 2024
Rangers 2-0 Aberdeen

We won our first League title then added our first League Cup but a first Scottish cup and a first treble was taken out of our hands by Rangers. We were by far the better team and dominated the game before Aribo scored two goals in about 10 second-half minutes made sure one trophy stayed in Glasgow. After scoring 144 goals in the league our failure to get one in our final match of the season was sad but heartbreaking that it cost USA cup and treble.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Season 4 Review


Aberdeen Squad

My hopes were that Carlos Fernandez would develop into my no1 and it happened soon than i thought once Kovar's minimum fee was hit in January. With a better rating, there was no clear reason to no be happy when i agreed a deal for the summer and only had to pay £135k to make it happen now.
The Defense is trash except for the right-back where my best two defenders being right-backs Ramsey and Pina. Radovan Pankov is the stand-out player at the center back but Mbi will hopefully be sold i can buy a better CB to work with Pankov. Ven den Berg look like the back up he was bought to be while the youngster on loan or on the bench do not look as special as they did last summer. Fuchs is a great all-round player for the bench but no starter. Upgrades needed here too.
Patrick Roberts was stunning on the left-wing. McLaughlin makes an issue with Gaston Castillo being a signing that was full of goals and assists, but nothing like my homegrown lads 22! The middle is also teeming with skill that will have to see movement in the summer to keep the money rolling in. Except for Campaz their performances didn't match the ratings we have for Bokovza & Langoni sadly.
Up top Selles is the best thing since Griffiths beating his goal a game record from 2 seasons ago. Dominguez and Tasic are all too good for us so every day is a bonus with Shankland looking at being down to no4 striker after being a starter on an opening day.


My Player of the Year
Juan Selles

I almost gave it to Patrick Roberts who contributed to 38 goals and had the season of his life in the prime of his career but i could not help show off the Spanish wonder kid i got for pennies on a minimum fee last summer.


SPL Table

Aberdeen became a goalscoring machine and that was the difference between us and the Old Firm who had up till now been sharing SPL titles, is ay up till now its been the case since 1984! Draws cost Celtic while Rangers only really showed up in the Scottish cup final against us this season. 20+ points back St Mirren & Hibs secured the Europa League spots. At the bottom, Hamilton finally gets dropped out of the SPL. St Johnstone won the Championship comfortably


Play-Off
Dundee Utd 5-1 Raith Rovers

Two sides i'd like to see in the top flight but keeping the New Firm Derby is the most important thing here.


Rankings

Turkey has two brilliant seasons and jumps us dropping us to 10th. We still have an automatic place in the groups at least.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Aberdeen Season 5
Pre Season 2024/25


Euro 2024

Italy wins the Euros after an own goal from Eric Garcia. Greece was the best underdogs while Norway's golden generation has their breakthrough tournament.


New Rangers manager

We'll they haven't got one yet but Mark Hughes has moved on to take the national job with Belgium.


Season Targets
SPL - Title
Scottish Cup - Win
League Cup - Challenge
Champions League - Europe after Christmas

After winning the title for the first time we much defended it! The only domestic trophy left to win is the Scottish Cup we must take that this season! League cups an afterthought and a top 3 finish in the Champions League group and stay in Europe past Christmas.



Pre Season Prices

The Old firm are still favorites but we are right up there on the odds helped by having 4 players in the SPL all-stars


Transfer Window

Rangers, Aberdeen, and Celtic all lost several players to continental teams. Celtic made some recovery buys but will any of us be any better this season?


Aberdeen Transfers

A Far busier summer of players leaving than joining but I'm happier with the 25 this season than 12 months ago.


In
Freebies to bulk up the squad and i bought the 4th or 5th inline CB from Argentina. Our hit rate is still worse than 1/5 of players joining after being offered a contract. The bigger European leagues is still blowing us out the water but a higher quality player is now willing to listen to us.

Lautaro Valenti - DC

I targeted several other center backs but still feel like Valenti is an upgrade on Mbi as my starting CB

The other 3 signings are backups signed on a free that will probably be sold in the next 24 months if youths come through.

Two youths for the u18s

Out
5 Players from the first team move on. Mbi had been stropping for a transfer the past year and then i offer him to clubs and he gets upset? He turned down Man City and PSG to go to Koln. My two back up strikers Hanratty & Shankland moves out for a profit of £12m for two former youth players. the money coming in for non-regular players was too much to turn down. Quinones and Cougo have pushed down the starting order so they were moved on for solid profits.

Aberdeen Squad

My top 7 players are all attacking players.Valenti has a lot to do with the improvements we'll need to move to the next level.


Youths

Only some minor tinkering to the youth team but it's far better than last season.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

August


Rangers new manager

After almost a decade at CSKA Moscow Rangers don't go for any of the high profile names that were linked with the former league winner


Fixtures

We don't play anyone challenging but we thrash everyone with no European distractions.


SPL Table

Two big takeaways here. Rangers have 2 points and no wins from 3 games under new management. And who is this 18-year-old scoring 6 goals in 4 games at Dundee Utd?


Transfer Window

Rangers make the most recognizable signing in the save perhaps in Mohamed Ihattaren while both Old Firm sides make profits. Rangers £300k, Celtic £30m


Champion League Group Draw

We're 4th seeds and we got the easiest group by a mile.

​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

September


Fixtures

The return from international duty was a near upset at Tynecastle where Heart sheld s 2-0 lead and a man advantage but we fought back to at least rescue a point. We stumbled past St Johnstone on our final game after beating Celtic 3-0 in our best League performance of the season and 4 days later a team with 8 changes put 8 goals passed new firm rivals Dundee Utd in the league cup. Rangers await in the Semi's


SPL Table

Aberdeen and Celtic lead the way, were still 3 points clear thanks to beating our closest rivals. Rangers win all 3 games to get their season underway a month later than the rest of us.


Champions League

Imagine being told Aberdeens first ever Champions League game would be in Rome and we would have 4 goal lead right after halftime. Not a chance. Imagine following that up by having Roma striker Mohamed Daramy scoring 4 goals just over 20 minutes to tie the game up. Impossible right? Well, how about a cherry on top. Midfielder Alon Bokovza scoring the winner in the 93rd minute to give us 3 points and a £2.7m bonus for winning the match!


Scotland

A new look Scotland with a similar first 11 but 6 new faces on the bench win their first two games in the nations league with little stress. This group actually looks quite winnable.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

October


Fixtures

3 routine wins in the SPL before Rangers came to town. Shots on target 14-2 but much like the recent Old Firm game where Rangers won with 0 shots on target they sneaked a point from Kingsford.

SPL Table

Rangers also won the first old firm game of the season that only helps us pull further clear at the top.

Champions League

Out otherworldly start to the Europes biggest competition goes on as we put 9 past Porto as if they were Dundee Utd. Bit of a spoil having ridiculous results like this. Our second game of the month wasn't much better for sane outcomes. We spent 85 minutes down to 10 men but somehow fought from 2 down to lead 2-3 into the last 10 minutes when Monchengladbach got their deserved point. So we're top at the halfway stage but I've no idea how this group going to pan out.

Scotland

We won an utter thriller against Bosnia with Rangers forward Graham scoring all 4. We then threw away our chance of 4/4 throwing away a 3-0 half time lead. Romania is right on our tails and we go there is a likely final day group decider.


Player Review
I'm to have a look through the squad we have and we'll see how the players have turned from reasonable SPL players to champions league players

Carlos Fernandez

One of if not the bargain of the saves. Atletico had him transfer listed for £6m but we got him on loan for his final season on his Atletico deal. In January we offered him a contract and amazingly he was desperate to join us to be the no1. I have nobody of great potential coming through so no plans to move him on.​