Season 1 Summary
Season 1 Summary:
The first thing i do, as i'm sure you all do when you load up a new save is to assess the quality of the current squad, i quickly discovered that i had plenty of squad depth in most positions, but only real quality in a few. These were my initial thoughts:
Goalkeepers:
No need to panic here, LIoris is one of the best keepers in the world and Friedel will provide decent enough cover for at least 1 season. Gomes is taking up a fair bit of the weekly wage budget but i will keep him this season as third choice and sell him at the end of the year.
Defenders:
Kaboul and Vertonghen will be a good solid first choice centre back partnership for the coming season with Dawson coming in as rotation, Chiriches has decent potential and will provide adequate cover. As far as full backs go, Kyle Walker looks good and will suit my wing back style perfectly, as far as the left back position go's i wasn't too keen on Danny Rose, so thought this is where i would need to look at investing some of my transfer budget. Kyle Naughton should provide good cover for both full back positions.
Midfield:
Clearly blessed with 2 class defensive midfielders in Sandro and Paulino, along with Erikson or Dembele offering more attacking options from the centre, i'm more than happy with that. The width will be provided by a still rather raw and under-developed Andros Townsend and a quality looking Erik Lamela, cover to be provided by Lennon, Sigurdson and Chadli. An abundance of great, young midfield riches to pick from, delighted with the look of these.
Attack:
Soldado's stats looked good, so he will spear-head my attack with Adebayor providing the necessary cover. What with Defoe now in the MLS we are a bit short on numbers though, so may look to loan a striker for the season if possible.
These were the ins and outs for the first season, as you can see I let the future stars like Harry Kane and Bantaleb go out on loan to gain first team football and brought in Jose Enrique of Liverpool to slot in at left back. I had no luck finding a suitable striker so decided to risk registering the squad with just 2 recognised strikers.
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With regards to formation, i settled on a 4-2-3-1. Now because i'm posting this retrospectively and the player roles that i am using now are different, i cannot post the formation screenshot from this season i'm afraid, i can however remember the ins and outs; I had LIoris as a sweeper keeper, he is brilliant at rushing out and smothering through balls and provided the defence with a bit of extra confidence behind them should they miss anything. I had Kyle Walker and Jose Enrique as complete wing backs, in hindsight this was a mistake as they were caught too far forward a lots and cost us too many goals, Walker got a few assists but Enrique was awful throughout and would eventually be sold on quickly. I had both Vertonghen and Kaboul as ball playing defenders, again this was another mistake, too many goals came through them not just tackling and clearing the ball. I played with Sandro as an anchor man, and given his stats i probably wasn't using his technical abilities enough to be honest, i think he should have had a more 'free' role. Paulinho played as a deep lying playmaker and was solid if not spectacular - overall i was disappointed with these two to be honest, given their abilities on paper i was hoping for a bit more from them. Eriksen, and at times Sigurdsen (when Eriksen was injured for a few months) both played pretty well to be fair in the advanced playmaker position, they provided countless through balls to the stikers and barring some lacklustre finishing throughout the season would have secured a good 7-12 assists each. I started the season with Andros Townsend on the left as an attacking winger but Lennon and Chadli both ended up playing more games due to the fact that they had a bit more quality with their final ball and in the case of Chadli actually weighed in with 7 or 8 goals during the season. My star man of the season was Erik Lamela who occupied the Inside Forward role on the right hand side, always a threat he scored 13 goals and got 15 assists during the season, my best player that year by a mile! And finally the loan striker position was occupied an equal amount of the time by either Soldado or Adebayor, both were terrible, had no composure in front of goal and didn't score anywhere near enough for my liking, this was an area i was adamant that i would be changing at the end of the season! My team instructions were to use the pace of the team and to 'run at defence' use the technical ability of the central players by 'passing shorter' and use my wing backs to 'exloit the flanks' - I felt these workes as well as they could to be fair, along with a Standard but fluid team mentality we dominated possession in most matches, apart from against the likes of Chelsea and Man City away from home.
So how did we do in competition?
Premier League:
We finished 3rd which i was happy with, my board aim was to get a minimum of Europa League qualification but i wanted Champions League. As you can see Chelsea won the lag by 6 points from Arsenal and Man Utd didn't qualify for the Champions League, which given the quality of their squad in the game was a surprise. No real shocks as to the teams that went down.
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Capital One Cup:
Lost in the Quarter Final to Man Utd 3-1, disappointing seeing as i went 1-0 up but they were the better team throughout to be honest and they deservedly progressed.
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FA Cup:
My only real chance of first season silverware in the end, and it wasn't to be; Ben Arfa ripped me apart and his free kick 13 minutes from time won it for the Toon Army. A shame seeing as we spanked Norwich 6-2 in the Semis.
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Europa League:
We messed this up BIG TIME, we progressed top of our group which contained Rosenborg, Vitesse and St Etienne and got a kind draw against Red Bull Salzburg, we beat them 2-0 home and away and all was dandy. We drew Stuttgart in the Second knockout round and after winning the first leg at home 2-1 i was 100% confident that we were going to qualify, even more so when we went 1-0 ahead in the away leg, only to find that they peg us back and we find ourselves 2-1 behind at FT taking the tie into extra time. They score early on and hold out to knock us out, this was a body blow because I really did fancy winning the Europa League!
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So there it was, season 1 in a nutshell, disappointed not to win any silverware but i would have taken no trophies and 3rd place in Season 1 if offered it at the beginning of the year, so no complaints really on that front. I firmly believe that with a better striker heading up my front line that we would have won either the Europa League or certainly the FA Cup final. As you will see from my season 2 update that i will be posting tomorrow, I addressed this pre-season to devastating effect.
Stay tuned for the season 2 summary guys, it's worth it trust me
Cheers for reading, any comments/questions welcomed
Pete