Up with the Hibees

[Hireax]

Before I start writing; although I have written on other forums (which will not be mentioned here(A)), this is my first story on FM-Base. I hope you like my style and story and if you want to see something done differently, or want a screenshot of a certain something. Just ask!

Also, a big shout-out to PatrickLFC, Lippo255 and xJamieWilliams for the inspiration you guys have given me to start a story on here. To other readers, find the stories of these guys on the forums, they are well worth a read!

Up with the Hibees!

So Hibernian is my club of choice. Why? I haven't had a long spell in the Scottish leagues since I started my journey into football manager with the FM10 installment of this wonderful franchise. It is time to change that. You might conclude from this that I am not a local, which is true. I hail from The Netherlands, but have lived in Teesside for roughly a year now. Moreover, the Scottish Championship is pretty interesting now with Hearts, Hibs & Rangers in the same league, so why not give it a shot

Manager Profile:

As mentioned, I'm Dutch, so is my manager. Badges are automatically generated to fit Hibernian, which made me end up with a Continental A licence and a professional past experience.

The Squad:

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Given the players I have available, I've decided that a 4-4-2 would probably be my best bet for now. Alongside that I'll be training a 4-2-3-1 wide, so I can experiment a bit. Looking at the screenie above, you'll notice that there are two departments in which we lack depth. DL & DC.

Hanlon is a natural DL, so that leaves me with 2.5* DCs.. My back-up DL (Stevenson) is a natural left midfielder , so I prefer to utilize him there. Next to that I'd like to bring in an MR to complement our 4-4-2.

Goals for the save:​

• Make Hibs a stable Premiership team that competes for the title ~3-5 seasons
• Focus on advancement in the European cups ~5-10 seasons
• Win the EL, or even better the ECL ~15 seasons
  
  Furthermore I'd like to develop youth, be profitable on the transfer market (every season!) and not sign more than 5 players per season so that squad gelling never becomes an issue.

 

[Lippo255]

Good luck with it mate, will be following keenly!

 

[Hireax]

Thanks Lippo, mate! That's much appreciated.

Up with the Hibees!

I've played through the pre-season. Normally I'm inclined to give you monthly updates, which is what I'll do throughout the season. In this pre-season update I'll cover transfers and friendlies, the latter only briefly.

Transfers

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Right, so six transfers in and four out, although nearly all activity concerns loans. Since our budget concerned a 35k p/w wage budget and a transfer budget of about 70k, I felt it was sensible to scour for loans and freebies. I think I've found me some gems for the season to come.

Aaron Kuhl joins us on loan from Reading. The hot prospect will have time to shine with us this season, as I firmly believe that at 18 he's a massive asset for our side. Despite Kuhl not being on any of my key identified positions for strengthening this is more of a luxury loan.

Brad Smith is a young Aussie left back on loan from Liverpool. Considering the lack of quality we had at LB he'll be an important first team player for me.

Eric Addo I knew of Addo from his days in the Dutch Eredivisie. That said, he's a nice back-up who signs on a free. A one year deal seemed enough as we are unlikely to retain him after the summer. Offers good experience and can tutor youngsters.

Lloyd Jones is another loanee from Liverpool. Considering he looks like a pretty decent CB for our league he should start regularly.

Reece James is the last loan player to join the club. The right back spends the season in Edinburgh coming from Man Utd. I feel he provides solid cover for LB and will get a fair amount of games to shine for us.

note that none of the loans have options to buy. If a player impresses me enough I might make a move during the December window, provided that their respective parent clubs don't ask for massive money.

Tom Gardiner is deemed a very adequate player by my scout and has the potential to grow into a future first team player. Since he's not quite up to that standard yet I've decided to loan him to our new found feeder club Peterhead. Along with several other prospects they can showcase themselves in League 1.

Friendly matches:

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The pre-season was a right mix of positives and negatives. As a Scottish Championship team I expect to win against League 1 sides in England. I was wrong though... A trashing against Oldham and Crawley isn't good for our confidence. Luckily the three wins are their, albeit them being against minnows. We get the chance to prove our worth with our first upcoming game, which against Berwick for the Challenge Cup.

Stay tuned for the August update!

 

[Hireax]

Up with the Hibees - August 2014

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A very busy August has come to a close and all the competitions/cups have kicked off. It resulted in a tough 7 game month, where our players had all the chances they needed to impress me and win a spot in the starting
eleven.

Matches:

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Things got off to a pretty amazing start. We haven't lost a single game and obviously I can only be pleased with that outcome. A relatively easy opener against L2 side Berwick proved a no-contest as we slotted 5 goals past their goalkeeper, only for us to take it slow afterwards.

A double affair with Livingston awaited, with the first of the two games being an absolutely unforgettable one! Not only did we triumph 4-0 in the opening weekend of the league season.. we did so scoring no less than 3 penalties.

The only blip of the month, if one can even speak of such a thing, came against Falkirk. Most of the players we're a little tired, but that can't be an excuse for not creating any good chances. Again a penalty, but this time to save us from a graceless defeat.

League Table:

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10 points sees us sitting at the top of the table, closely followed by the Rangers. This is pretty much the start I had hoped for to kick off our campaign.

Squad & Post's PotMonth

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The squad has done tremendously well. A couple of injuries here and there is something that doesn't seem to matter so far, as we can rotate enough to keep the players happy and field a strong squad.

Jason Cummings
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It won't be a surprise that I name Cummings as my player of the month! The young lad has been a fantastic poacher scoring no less 10 goals in 7 appearances, of which four in the league. An honourable mention goes to Sam Stanton for contributing six assists!

Accolades:

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[Hireax]

Thank you, everyone who takes time to look at my story . 170+ views already is more than I expected .

Up with the Hibees - September 2014

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After the exciting, yet busy month of August Hibs were set for a five game September to try and follow-up on the prosperous start of the season. Those five games are played over three different competitions with the league, the league cup & the challenge cup semi final all featured.

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Firstly, I'm speechless about our result against Hearts. We were absolutely blazing and never took our foot off the gas. It culminated in a 1-6 away victory of a magnitude surely to be felt for a very long time at Tynecastle stadium. The league was equally successful this month with solid wins over Cowdenbeath and Queen of the South. More importantly, however, was the vital early season win over Rangers. Beating them, meant we could go clear of the pack for the matches to come.
Our only loss of the month comes against St. Johnstone for the league cup. 0-2 isn't as bad as it looks, as it was an even game where we failed to have that sweet final touch on the ball. It was a fairly even game though and that gives me confidence for whenever we get promoted.

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So at the end of September we are four points clear with seven games played. A start to the season that I hadn't envisaged based on our pre-season performance. Now it's our duty to keep this up and not slip into a prolonged dip of form. It'd be a nice stunt to pull of a promotion on the first time of trying, but there's a long way to go!

Player of the month:

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This month I award my player of the month title to Reece James. We brought him in in July and he's been performing constantly, hardly ever does a goal against come from his side of the pitch. He's been vital to our defence and helps out in the build-up as well. A splendid young player for our league.

Personal Accolade:

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Picking up back to back manager of the month awards is pretty nice and a compliment to how the team perform. Good stuff!

Thanks for reading

 

[reubomad]

Love the Scottish leagues, good luck; you have started very well so far, so good luck for the rest of the season. I will be following

 

[Lippo255]

Some very good results mate, well done. Keep it up!

 

[CantGetEnoughOfJelavic]

Scottish so enjoy Scottish-based stories. Some big wins, the one against Rangers in the league in particular. They are usually quite poor on FM so should hold that top spot, especially with your additions! Good work thus far.

 

[Hireax]

Love the Scottish leagues, good luck; you have started very well so far, so good luck for the rest of the season. I will be following

Thanks a lot! Here's to hoping we can hold on to our form

Some very good results mate, well done. Keep it up!

Cheers, Lippo!

Scottish so enjoy Scottish-based stories. Some big wins, the one against Rangers in the league in particular. They are usually quite poor on FM so should hold that top spot, especially with your additions! Good work thus far.

Thanks mate, always nice to have a Scotsman on board! Just been there earlier this month (Inverary & Fort William). Lovely places

 

[Hireax]

Up with the Hibees - October 2014

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On the back of September we have another five game month, playing four league games and the challenge cup semi-final. Overall a pretty nice challenge where we blipped only once.

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The month started off with a loss against Raith who, up until that point, hadn't won a single game. We dominated the match, but we were caught on the counter twice and some shady defensive work meant we couldn't come away with a win in a supposedly easy game. The following three games were straight wins. Beating Falkirk means we'll face League 1 side Ayr in the Challenge cup final, so there's a good chance for us to bring in silverware, so early on in the season. Lastly, despite demolishing Hearts last month we weren't as lethal this time around. A meager 1-1 meant we dropped points for the second time this month. It should be noted that we played this month without Cummings who was absent with injury for 3 weeks.

Our lead is still three points, which is surprising, because Rangers are a pretty strong side in my opinion. Maintaining this lead will be our objective until we face Rangers again (December), so that we can hopefully extend it sooner rather than later and have some margin for error.

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The squad is performing nicely, considering a fair number of players average a 7.0 or above. It shows the depth we have, at this level, to maintain our performances and that is absolutely pleasing. So as long as we aren't covered in injuries we should be fine.

Player of the Month

Farid el Alagui comes away with my player of the month award. The Moroccan striker filled in nicely for Cummings in terms of goalscoring. He mainly plays the DLF role in my 4-4-2, but does that magnificently. Fair play to my bald friend.

Many thanks for reading

 

[AldoKemp-1]

Good start so far mate, lets hope you don't bottle it like the real Hibs do!

 

[Hireax]

Good start so far mate, lets hope you don't bottle it like the real Hibs do!

Cheers Aldo! Hope that we can pull away a little (I already know the answer to this tho ).

 

[Hireax]

Up with the Hibees - November 2014

November comes around with yet another five games, of which only three are games played for the Championship. The most important, however, this early in the season is the challenge cup final against Ayr! Here's how things went down.

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We take home the Challenge Cup! After a largely uneventful first half, although we dominated that as well, I gave the lads a spirited team-talk telling them to do it for the fans. It's the least they can expect from a recently relegated team and the team responded magnificently. Cummings made a hattrick within 15 minutes and that saw us through! After the three goals it was time to give Cummings a sub and I instructed the team to take a breather. Ayr pulled one back, but it was too little too late, as we bring home a cup!

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Unfortunately we dropped a precious three points in the battle for promotion. I'm not quite sure why, as we are dominating most of our games. I'll give it another month or so to try and find a root cause, but we might be getting countered out a lot, while we don't generate enough force up front ourselves. Generally we're conceding too much, which is worrying in it's own right. Our struggles shone through against League 1 side, Dunfirmline as they held us to a draw to force a replay.

Fair enough, we still top the table, but only just! We need to improve again soon if we don't want to be overtaken. December will be a vital month and it will have me sort out my tactics in order to get us back in the winning mood, just as we had that at the start of the season.

 

[Hireax]

Up with the Hibees - December 2014

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Getting close to Christmas! A good benchmark for progress and a good evaluation point for the squad, as well as looking at a few players who's contracts run out at the end of the year. All in all a pretty interesting month. Also coming off the back of the tough November we need to find our form again. Firstly, though, something I had not seen before, but is pretty interesting nonetheless:

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Never seen that before, El Sackico! Rough for either manager, but a pretty fun header for a news feed message . Right, onto the more important stuff!

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We start off with two tough games that we managed to turn into a win. Falkirk in the league and Dunfermline in the cup, the latter ensuring we meet the board's target of reaching the fifth round. After that though... we drew with winless Alloa and lost to Raith (again!). I took some time to analyze where things went wrong and saw most of our goals came from counters as I concluded last month. With the Rangers game coming up I decided to sit back and aim to counter myself. At the very least my midfield and defense would be closer together. It paid dividends immediately as we trashed Rangers 6-0!
We were forced back into our own sixteen for the first quarter of the match, but after telling my squad to concentrate and pick out a runner from the counter we caught them on the break several times. All in all a great way to conclude a month that had been rough!

Our win over Rangers ensures we do end the month at the top of the table. We face Hearts on the 3rd of January so I'm adamant to make sure we push on from our big win. Also, we're 12 points clear of 4th, so essentially we've already achieved the board's goals with qualifying for the play-offs.

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The squad is still looking in decent shape and last month Martin Boyle put in a string of impressive performances. So all in all we're still looking decent!

 

[AldoKemp-1]

Don't like the fact you beat Rangers 6-0 ! but well done lol easy promotion.

 

[Hireax]

Up with the Hibees - January 2015

January! The end of the first season is rapidly closing in. It is also the time for transfers, although if you came looking for those you'll be largely disappointed. The only notable thing to say is that I signed a goalkeeper for next year. He'll be a back-up to Cerny, his name is: James Atkinson, a young lad with a ton of potential.

Aside from that we broke ranks with Franck Dja Djedje as he leaves for Liga de Quito in a 500k deal. Moreover we let one of our loanees go. Dylan McGeouh didn't get enough playtime and was allowed to go back to Dundee.

All in all the sale of Franck has boosted our finances slightly, which more or less ensures we'll end up in the black, come the end of the season.

We played some matches as well, of course! We brought our tactic from the Rangers match forward to Hearts and it worked a treat for us again. 4-0! That momentum was short-lived as we had a largely unmotivated squad against Falkirk, which cost us a lot. A shameful loss and the squad heard it in the dressing room. The harsh team talk paid off as we went unbeaten in the following three not even conceding a single goal!

It all means we're top, clear by four and looking very good! With 13 more matches to go we need to keep up these levels of performances and that title could well become ours.

 

[Hireax]

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been away for most of the past two days, but I have two updates lined-up for today!

Up with the Hibees - February 2015

We had a relatively short month. Just four games in it as we face Aberdeen for the Scottish cup, as well as Rangers in the league which still makes it an exciting month!

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Right into the Aberdeen game we were pushed back as it seemed our players were in awe of Aberdeen, somehow playing against a team in a league above them made them more nervous than hungry to pull off an upset. However, we gradually got into the flow of the game and somehow managed to get along with them really well. It all meant that we did actually pulled ahead twice! Unfortunately Aberdeen's luck in front of goal was better and despite the overall game being fairly equal we lost. No worries though as we did what the board asked!

The thrilling game against Rangers soon followed and despite the 0-0 scoreline it had me sitting on the edge of my seat! Shots at both end of the pitch ultimately didn't culminate in a score for the Hibees nor the Gers as we split the points.

The last two games were an opportunity for us to delve back in and get some wins on the board again. Both Dumbarton and Alloa were dispatched off with relative ease, which isn't a given considering our previous encounters with teams placed in 9th and 10th place.

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With 26 games played and 10 left it seems to be down to a two horse race. An upcoming Edinburgh derby could well settle the difference and be the make or break game of the season!

It's been a very good month for Sam Stanton who provided numerous assists from the right wing this season. Add to that his two goals (against Aberdeen and Dumbarton) and he's had a month he'll never forget! It's when these kinds of players step-up, when others have a dip of form, what describes depth across the park.

We've still got a fair amount of players with a rating of over 7.00, so that's particularly pleasing. the only person I'm becoming a little unsure of is Thomas Cerny our goalie. Lately I've been giving Oxley a bit more of a chance, so we'll see how that turns out.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Hireax]

Up with the Hibees - March 2015

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March is a relatively short, but all important month for us. Let me start by saying that I asked for postponement of our Raith game as 4 of our first team players were called up for international duty. With that granted we only play three games, of which one is against rivals Rangers.

What can I say! An unbeaten month and no goals against. Our defending isn't always solid, but boy we came away with some good wins there. Considering our record against Livingston I figured that one would be an automatic win, which is a dangerous assumption I know . A quick hattrick from Jason Cummings sealed the deal, though as we saw out the game looking for the counter. Cowdenbeath and Rangers are battling for 3rd and 4th, so to come up against them in succession was tough, but Cummings and Stanton provided the goals in both games to have us go unbeaten.

Hearts played four games which means we're second for the time being even though we have a match in hand. We play Hearts one last time in April, so if we win that and the game in hand we can go 5 points clear with only few matches remaining. It is the final stretch to bring home promotion!

The board seem pleased with my performance as Hibs manager and that results in me signing a deal for a further two seasons! Great stuff as I'm enjoying life in Edinburgh!

March is also the month in which new youngsters come through the ranks and I'm taking the liberty of introducing to you the three players which I feel have the most potential out of the bunch.

Brett Hampton looks like a good fellow for centre midfield, he's got decent determination, but a lacking work rate. I intend to tutor him come the start of next season, so hopefully that'll be successful as well as train him into a DLF, considering the vision, passing and anticipation that this kid has.

Sam Davidson is perhaps the most promising of the lot. High determination and bravery should help him out in his quest to become a future Hibs 1st team goalkeeper. I hope he progresses at a reasonable rate and having a tutor in the person of Tomas Cerny should hopefully help him out a fair bit.

Lastly, central defender Stephen Davidson has his attributes in the right places and is possibly the player with the highest current ability. Despite my scouts thinking a little less of him than the previously shown youngsters I think that with a couple of seasons on loan at feeder club Peterhead (SL1) he could rapidly improve as he could definitely play for them at that level already.