The Saints are coming - A Southampton Story

[Gersguy95]

Hello and welcome to my first football manager story that I’ve actually taken the time to write about. Firstly, let’s just get this out the way, I play FM Touch on the iPad so if that’s going to put people off than ciao! Also, I am 6 games into the season but I will go back and cover the transfer window and first 6 games so don’t worry. I’ve played football manager on and off for roughly 15 years now but have recently got very engrossed with it, so I thought now is a good time to do a story.

Hope you enjoy!

So, I’ve decided to go a team I’ve never tried, Southampton. A few reasons lent me towards this choice especially the young talented (but thin) squad as well as superb youth and training facilities.

The aim is to build on Southampton’s mid table status and push them up the league, qualifying for Europe within 3 seasons then just take it from there. With a starting budget of £10million and not much in the wages I won’t be ringing the changes first season anyway.


I made 3 signings:

Jordan Amavi from Marseille - £7.5million – will provide competition at left back for Bertrand.

Nemanja Radonjic from Marseille - £5million – young backup winger

Lewis Baker from Chelsea - £3.3million – hit or miss player on FM but hoping to get the best out of him


Outgoing:

Shane Long to Shanghai Shenua - £8million – past his best and not required when I have Che Adams and Danny Ings

I'm still a bit short in the middle of the park so once I have money to spend again a new holding midfielder is top of the list!


Strongest 11:

I’m not tweaking the pre-set tactics too much to start with until I am comfortable with how the players are getting on with the tactis first. My main tactic to start with will be a 4-3-3 Gegenpress.

I will also use a 4-2-3-1 Control Possession and 4-3-3 Direct Counter Attack.


Key Players:

James Ward-Prowse – the captain, the engine, the set piece specialist

Nathan Redmond – hoping for big things from him

Danny Ings – potential 20+ goal a season striker if I can get the best out of him

On a side note and for a laugh really, I’ve went and appointed Roy Keane as my assistant manager!


Thanks for reading part 1! Part 2 will cover the first 6 league games of the season as well as the Carabao Cup 2nd & 3rd Round matches (yes that is a small spoiler)

 

[Gersguy95]

Welcome back to my Southampton story. I know I previously said I part 2 would cover the first 6 games however I have decided it will be easier to make each part a month on the game instead and cover the season that way, so here is what happend in August.......

AUGUST:

Southampton 0-2 Wolves

Poor start to the season, didn’t play well and Wolves the much better side. Could be they were more match fit with playing previous European qualifiers before this game.


Everton 2-2 Southampton (Baker, Ings)

Was heading the same way as the opening game had it not been for super-subs Baker and Ings coming off the bench to grab a goal each and pick up our first point of the campaign.


Norwich 1-4 Southampton (Hojberg, Boufal, Redmond, Ings)

Brilliant way to get our first win of the season. Dominated from start to finish and never gave Norwich a chance.

Carabao Cup 2nd Round
Stevenage 0-3 Southampton (Armstrong, Boufal, Ward-Prowse)

Routine victory over League Two side Stevenage, never threatened us and we were treated to a great goal by fellow scot Stuart Armstrong.


Southampton 1-0 Aston Villa (Ings)

First home game for a while but same kinda result, this time Ings scores the winner and sends us into the top 6 to end the month.


Coming up in Part 3, we look at how Southampton got on during September. (Apologies for lack of photos in this post will be more in next post)

 

[Gersguy95]

Part 3

Welcome back to Part 3 of my Southampton story. This part will focus on our run of games throughout September and October. Can we keep up our good start to the season? Let's find out!

SEPTEMBER:

The month began how August ended, with another premier league victory, this time against a poor Watford side. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit actually, we were great and with Nathan Redmond and Danny Ings scoring goals already, we are in for a treat.

Another victory and I'm sitting here thinking, could we do it? could we win the title? Wishful thinking haha. Anyway another great result with Djenepo grabbing his 2nd of the season.


Next up was the Carabao Cup 3rd Round and we were up against Nottingham Forest.

Through to the 4th Round we go and will be up against fellow premier league side Sheffield United.

The final game of the month saw a drab 0-0 with Palace, Hojberg getting himself sent off did not help my central midfield woes.


So with September ending this is how the table looks, sitting pretty I must say.

On to October we go....


OCTOBER:

With games against Arsenal (away), Tottenham (home) and Burnley (away) the aim was to try and get 4 points out of those tough fixtures. We'd finish the month with our clash against Sheffield United in the cup.

Heartbreaking stuff but what a game! Just a shame Ozil of all people had to ruin it and Arsenal took the 3 points and our unbeaten run was over. Promising stuff from Redmond and Ings though, definitely pulling their weight in this squad.

I dunno how we pulled this off but I will take it! Great result and shockingly Dan N'Lundulu scored a double at the end of the game to give us the 3 points, the boy was only on the bench due to injuries!!!

So I got the 4 points I set out to get but I certainly thought I'd be more likely to get a win over Burnley and a draw with either Spurs or Arsenal to do it! Boring draw with not much happening, next....

Out the cup, worst performance of the season so far, enough said.


So at the end of October, this is how the Premier League table looked. 18 points from 10 games has exceeded my expectations for sure, be interesting to see how far we can go this season.

Next up is a tricky looking November where we face Chelsea (home), Newcastle (away), Leicester (home) and Man City (away). These games will be covered as well as a mega December in Part 4!

 

[Gersguy95]

Part 4 - November, December and January

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Hello and welcome back to my Southampton story. With a good start to the season , can we continue this on for November, December and January. *Spoiler Alert* LOTS OF TRANSFER ACTIVITY IN JANUARY!!!

Ok so we start of November with a huge game at home to Chelsea:

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This is how the teams lined up, Jordan Amavi has really taken well to the team and plays over Bertrand now. Baker is also back from injury just in time to face his former club.

Pretty decent game for a 0-0 draw but I'll not complain. We matched up with Chelsea and kept them at bay apart from 1 or 2 decent chances. We also had our chances but didn't take them.


Next up we played Newcastle and Leicester:

Strong victories over 2 sides quite similar level to ourselves (ok maybe not Newcastle but we are just as good as Leicester no question.) Redmond scored in both games with Ings and N'Lundulu also getting on the scoresheets.

The final game of the month came away to Man City in what I'm sure will be one of the most difficult games of the season.

No real surprise there, well beaten and just shows the gulf in class between ourselves and City. Anyway still 5th and going strong!


DECEMBER:

Just going to start by saying we did not have a good December and here is why:

Again outclassed by a far superior team so not overly concerned by 2 back to back defeats against the 2 best sides in England.

2 disappointing draws followed but 1 positive is Radonjic has settled into the squad now and has grabbed his first 2 goals in as many games. Redmond is still our key player out wide but its good to know I can rely on Radonjic too.


Next up was another set of back to back defeats

Sheffield United are becoming my bogey team and the rut continues with a poor display at Old Trafford against Man United. We slip down to 9th and I'm very glad we are approaching January (we need reinforcements)

Finally! A victory and first victory of the month, just a shame it was the last game haha. Jack Stephens bagged his first goal of the season in a hard fought but satisfying win.


So at the end of the year this is how the Premier League table looked:

9th Place with 30 points is still a great first half to the season and with some reinforcements coming in January hopefully we can push on and maybe grab a European spot?

Juts a quick note to say I have sold a couple of clauses to bring some transfer budget into the club ahead of the transfer window. I don't usually sell the clauses however I sold the 10% percentages on Callum Chambers as he aint getting sold for a profit anyway and same with Van Dijk's sell on clause, I don't see him going anywhere for more than Liverpool paid for him. Raised £16 million by doing this and will be selling a couple of players too. Busy looking January ahead.


JANUARY:

First I'll cover all ins and outs of the club throughout January.
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Outs:

• Bertrand - was not first choice LB anymore and could still command a good fee so seemed logical to move him on​
• Romeu - not good enough for the starting 11 in my eyes and again a decent fee could be had by selling him​
• Vestegaard - not playing and was my 4th choice CB so happy to move on​
• Boufal - a brilliant sell for £19 million, has been inconsistent and seems to be quite injury prone​
• 3 loans all youngsters looking to gain some first team experience​

Ins:

• Sasa Lukic - should become a key player in my squad and was the most expensive signing we made. The advanced playmaker should really improve the midfield.
• Ozan Tufan - was brought in as Romeu's replacement for half the cost. Good all round midfielder who best roles are BBM and DLP.
• Ghislain Konan - again brought in this time as Bertrand's replacement for the half the cost. Much younger than Bertrand too.
• Niko Katic - comes straight into the starting 11 to partner Stephens. Strong commanding defender who is dangerous from set pieces.
• Kenny Tete - replaces Walker-Peters whose loan from Spurs I cut short as he wasn't performing well. Expecting big things from this boy.
• Everton Ribeiro - mega signing here! May be 30 years old now but can still play and gives us extra quality on the wing.
• Martin Braithwaite - brought in on loan with an option to buy for £9 million. Was on the fence with this one but with wages of just 20k a week I thought why not see what happens. Cant be any worse than the way Che Adams has performed so far.

I dont usually tend to have such a busy January window but these were deals I wanted to get in and get in early to push on for the remainder of the season. I am most excited about Lukic and Everton Ribeiro as I feel they bring extra quality to this side.

Now on to the fixtures for January:

And just like the FA Cup run is over before it could even start. Disappointing result against Championship opposition and now just leaves us with league games to contest.

Then we somehow pulled this result out of the bag! Redmond, Ings and Armstrong all played well and scored. Sasa Lukic made his debut and was the man of the match.

Back to back defeats followed and we are really struggling for consistency at the moment, hopefully this will change once the new players are used to the way the team sets up. On a positive Lukic was again the best player for us in both these games. Exciting player.

Ended the month with a home defeat against Man United, losing 2-1

My images didn't work for that game for some reason neither did the image of the league table at the end of January. We are now in 9th Place with 33 points, a massive 10 points off Arsenal in 6th place so European dreams beginning to fade. However I have not lost hope yet and with 14 games still to play anything could happen.


The next part will conclude the season, covering the games in March, April and May followed by an end of season review.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Gersguy95]

Part 5 - Feb, March, April & May

Welcome back to the final instalment of my first season with Southampton where we will find out how the final few months shaped up and where we finished.

February:

What a win! Redmond the key man with his opening goal inside 2 minutes and his winner with almost the last kick of the ball. Much needed win to regain some confidence following a tough run.

Once again Wolves beat us like they did on the opening day. We did atleast pull a goal back through Amavi this time around. Too make matters worse, Amavi then picked up an injury in training which has ruled him out for 4 weeks, great……


Once again Sheffield United defeat us. I just don’t get it we absolutely dominated them! The loss means we drop to 10th place. They won 3-0.

Great comeback and once again it’s Redmond with the late winner – he really is a game changer and we go back up to 9th in the league and edge towards our first milestone, 40 points.

MARCH:

3 games in March to navigate against Brighton (home), Liverpool (away) and Leicester (away). If we can get 4 points from these games then I will be delighted. Let’s see how we got on….

Just before the Brighton game this happened!!! No!!!!

To make matters worse it’s another dull draw against Brighton with Hojberg going off injured. A bad spell indeed but we have reached the magic 40 points with 9 games to spare, hooray.


Next up its Liverpool away and I am not looking forward to this at all, here’s the line-ups:

We’ve set up more defensively than usual in the hope of keeping the score down, lol.

We actually played relatively well all things considered. Annoyingly the injury list gets bigger as Kenny Tete was injured during the game and will miss 4 weeks now. That’s Tete, Hojberg, Tufan and Redmond all out injured. Redmond is due back first in 2 weeks’ time which will be just in time to face Man City at home. At least Amavi will be fit to return against Leicester ?

Poor result AGAIN. Nice of Amavi to get sent off on his return from injury......


So here’s the league table at the end of March. Didn’t hit the 4 points target and instead had to settle for 1 point all month.

Next up in April will be Man City (home), Chelsea (away), Newcastle (home) and Aston Villa (away). The way I’m looking at this is win the last 2 games which would take me onto 46 points with 3 games left which are winnable so the aim is to get over 50 points and a top half finish in the league and I’d say that would be a success.


APRIL:

Started the month at home to Man City, let’s see how we got on.

Fair play to the lads they’ve done me proud, never looked threatening but neither did City apart from the all important winner which Stones drilled home from a corner. Gutted to not hold on for a point but such is life and we move on.



Next up we were defeated by Chelsea which was expected but what I didn’t expect was how crazy the game went, it had a bit of everything. 4 goals, plenty shots, a missed penalty, a sending off and a first goal in over 10 games for Danny Ings! We are falling down the table so we really need to get some decent results if we want a top half finish.

Next up was a 0-0 draw with Newcastle.

A decent enough away win against strugglers Aston Villa. Jordan Amavi makes up for his sending off a couple of weeks back with a nice finish.

So with 3 games left we sit 12th with 44 points. The target is still 50 points as we are more than capable of getting 6 points out of playing these games:

MAY:

2 losses.... wonderful. Let's just hope we can finish the season with a win.

And win we did! Lovely performance to finish the campaign.


So our final position in the league was 12th with 47 points. (sorry i have no photo)

What is worrying is we picked up 30 points pre-January and just 17 points after. Was definitely a season of 2 halves.

END OF SEASON AWARDS & STATS

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Jordan Amavi was Player of the Year. Personally I'd have given it to Nathan Redmond but Amavi did have a good debut season so fair enough.

Dan the man takes home Young Player of the Year. Was surprised with his efforts and now the question is, does he stay in first team next season once I've made improvements or do I send him out on loan to gain more first team experience?

With only 1 regular player getting over a 7 average it confirms our inconsistency throughout the season. Everton Ribeiro and Martin Braithwaite ended up being woeful signings and maybe a sign that I shouldn't splash out in January for the sake of it. Also dissapointed with Bednarek and Tete's performances so hoepful of improvements from them next campaign.

Quite a good crop of players in my youth intake. This was one of my main reasons for trying Southampton was knowing how good their youth set-up was. Everyone apart from Heredia and Pearson will signed up on youth contracts.

9 players are off to Euro 2020 but surprisingly only 6 of the 9 are currently at the club with Forster (wtf), Elyounussi and Obafemi on loan at the moment.

Budget for next season looks good and we have so many high value players on loan I think the summer is gonna be an interesting 1 with plenty money to spend, now it's about getting the right players in and avoiding another Braithwaite type signing.


Thank you for reading and I'll be back in a couple of days to cover the summer transfer window, August and September of Season 2.

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[Gersguy95]

Part 6 – Season 2 begins​

Welcome back to my Southampton Story, I hope you all enjoyed Season 1.

So just a quick recap in my first season with the Saints I finished 12th in the league, got into 4th Round of Carabao Cup and 4th Round of FA Cup. The season itself was very hit or miss so the focus this campaign is consistency.

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Exciting times in the transfer window so let’s have a look first at who departed Southampton:

Mario Lemina – was going to keep him around following his loan spell last season but £26.5million for a player who wasn’t even with the club last season is a great piece of business

Jan Bednarek – fell out of favour in the 2nd half of last season and could still command a good fee

Mo Elyounoussi – not good enough for the first and £20million is again, great money for him

Stuart Armstrong – was a tough decision to let him go but you will see why once you see the players I’ve brought in

Alex McCarthy – not convinced he is a solid enough keeper so felt this area needed upgraded

Che Adams – Awful season last year so getting punted, can’t see him improving

Fraser Forster – was going to keep him and make him No.1 but again I found someone of better quality to sign instead

Guido Carrillo – probably could’ve went for more but was just happy to get shot of him

Harrison Reed – another player who was out on loan last season and just not good enough to be in the first team

Stuart Hughes and Callum Hayde both left when Chelsea and Fulham snapped them up on youth contracts

Yoshida and Cedric left on free transfers to Asia which helped bring the wages down

6 players out on loan including N’Lundulu and Radonjic who were in the first team last season. Their loans will give them an opportunity at more first team opportunities than they would get with me.


Now for the INCOMINGS!!!! This is MEGA:

Sebastiano Esposito – can I just start by saying £21million for him is an absolute steal! Becomes one of the best strikers on the game so extremely happy with this signing

Abdoulaye Doucoure – I really rate him as a midfield powerhouse and with Watford going down I got him pretty cheap all things considered

Jonathan David – another player I am very excited about. Can player across the attack so gives me a young, versatile option with plenty potential

Joe Rodon – makes the step up from the Championship but I’m confident he will do well, even if I did spend slightly more on him than I would’ve liked

Nick Pope – new no.1 keeper and England international with plenty of his prime years ahead of him

Oxlade-Chamberlain – brought back to the club he began at, big statement signing and hopefully we can keep him fit and in his best form. Option to buy for £35million should everything go well during his loan spell

Saint-Maximin – most expensive transfer of the summer for us coming in from relegated Newcastle for £40million

Very happy indeed with our summer business and this is how I now expect the strongest 11 to look:

This is what the board expect us to achieve this season:

My personal aim will be a top half finish and a decent cup run. So let’s get started!

So we began the 2020/21 season with defeat at Nottingham Forest and look who scored what turned out to be the winner, oops.

Great way to pick up the first points of the season after a disappointing opening day defeat. Esposito makes it 3 goals in 2 games.

Draw is a fair result to be honest, so I’ll take the point. Esposito scores again and makes it 4 in 3 games, what a start.

Saint-Maximin scored the only goal of the game as we progressed through to round 3 and will take on….

Defeat was not the most surprising thing here its more that Chelsea have re-signed Higuain and he scored both goals to hand us our 2nd league defeat in 4 games.


So, at the end of August this is how the league table looks.

SEPTEMBER:

Comfortable victories over Villa as Esposito scores again, meanwhile Ings hasn’t even scored this season yet.

Out of the cup at the hands of Arsenal. Ah well still have the FA Cup in January to look forward to.

Exciting game which ended in a draw with Ings and Redmond opening their scoring accounts for the season.


The result leaves us in 8th Place with 11 points. I’d say a pretty decent start to the season and now we push on from here.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be back with Part 7 which will cover October, November and December.

 

[Gersguy95]

Part 7 – October, November & December
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Hello and welcome back to season 2 of my Southampton story. This part covers October, November & December.

So, after a reasonable start to the season my hope is to crack on and have a decent run up to the end of the year.


OCTOBER:

Nice home victory for us as we pick up 3 points and climb up the table.

To get a point against Sheffield United is totally fine with me considering they beat us 3 times last season.

First time 1 of our players have made the team of the week and it’s the captain and heartbeat of the team who gets included.

Not much to write home about here, bad result and didn’t show much fight.

Not the worst month ever, picking up 4 out of 9 points as we sit 8th.


NOVEMBER:

So hard done by not to hold on to a draw here, Pepe scoring in the 91st minute was a sickening blow.

1 good result, 1 bad result and shows how up and down our team can be. Best performance of the season against Norwich with Esposito getting back in amongst the goals. Bad performance against Burnley and ultimately deserved to lose.

For a keeper who has been doing so well to end up doing the above is so frustrating. 3 points gifted to Everton as we end a difficult month in 9th place. Funny note, FM must be having a laugh with that commentary line - Nick Pope certainly did not read the play expertly at all.

DECEMBER:

Well done, brilliant scheduling sees us play Spurs, Man United and Man City in the space of 10 days……

Well let’s see how we got on:

Ok so these games were not as horrendous as I thought they might be, I mean I still only picked up a point but I was expecting none so it’s a bonus. Man United game in particular was crazy, 3-0 down at 90 minutes then pull 2 back in 2 minutes and almost equalised through Ings with the last kick. Man City deservedly trounced us 5-1.

2 of the promoted sides were up next and a win and a draw I shall take. Good win over Leeds and so unlucky not to beat West Brom too.

Once again beaten by better opposition. Long hard day for the boys in this one anyway.

At the end of 2020 we sit in 11th place, 7 points worse off than at this stage last season so some improvements needed when 2021 comes around. Although we are only 6 points clear of the relegation zone, we are also only 6 points off 7th place so real cause for concern yet other than some consistency.


Thanks for reading and I’ll return with more Southampton action as I cover the transfer window (not as hectic as last season's), January’s games as well as February and March.