When Eagles Dare: Crystal Palace F.C.

leckuno

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Club Information


Year Founded: 1905

Stadium: Selhurst Park

Capacity: 26, 297

Rivals: Brighton (A23 Derby), Millwall

Training Facilities: Good

Youth Facilities: Good

Media Predication: 13th

So why have I picked Crystal Palace

Well who doesn't love a sports documentary (name of the story on Amazon Prime) but it got me motivated to start a new save after a few weeks away from fm. The club have also never won a major trophy so a major part of this save will be to turn their fortunes around and bring some proper silverware into the club to fill the empty trophy cabinet. The final reason is that Crystal Palace have one of the oldest if not the oldest squad in the league so rebuild is going to be needed over the next few seasons to revitalize the squad to compete in competitions.​
 
As a lifetime Crystal Palace fan myself, I am excited to see where this goes. Good luck!
 
The Squad

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Well where do I start. As mentioned above we have one of the oldest squads in the league with a staggering 11 players aged 30 or over in the first team, with a further 6 at 29. 2nd thing to notice is that we will start the season with 6 players out injured for the whole of preseason as well which won't help matters.

Goal Keepers

I'm not sure why we need 4 goal keepers in the first team. Guaita will be first choice as he is the best of the lot with Buckland playing back up so I will be looking to move the other 2 on.

Full backs

Again we have a large number of players who can play down both sides, the starting players once fit will be Clyne down the right and Van Aanholt down the left. I will look to move a couple of the older players on to free up transfer money along with wages.

Center Backs

so 7 people who can play here but we start out with 4 of them injured which isn't great, especially since Nathan Ferguson will be out for 5 months and I am keen to play younger players. The older players we have here bring a lot of experience which is key but we need some younger blood as well if we want to chase down the ball. My two to start once fit are Sakho and Ferguson.

Central Midfielders

Straight away I'm not happy with only Milvojevic being a player I plan on playing so bringing in another 2 midfielders is going to be key for our season ahead.

Wingers

Well its no surprise that we will be playing two best players down the wings as they will be our two key players this season and we will look to build the team around them.

Mr Crystal Palace will be our main player this season as we look to get the most of him cutting in off the right wing and causing defences some problems with his trickery.

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Down the left we will have the New Boy who again we will have running at the defence to try and cause problems with his darting runs.

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Strikers

Now this is somewhere we really need to improve as our two best strikers are in on loan and will be leaving us at the end of the season. So its vital we make the most of them and then start scouting their replacements as Benteke and Wickman will be sold if anybody will have them or be released as soon as their contracts expire.

Formation

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I will be going with an old school 4-4-2 this season as I want to get the best out of our wingers and strikers but also with holding our shape and being defensively sound at the back.

We'll get stuck into preseason now and see who we can get to leave the club and bring in while striking a balance.​
 
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Looking forward to seeing the transfer business for this one, although I'm guessing the budget isn't big?
 
Preseason

Transfers Out


Well its been a busy transfer window for players leaving the club as we try and shift people whose contracts expire at the end of the season along with the dead wood at the club.

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The big players to leave the club are Jeffrey Scclupp who has been a big player over the years but he just doesn't fit into my tactic so when the offer from Lyon came in it was far too good to turn down with the revamps that are needed at the club. James McArthur, Wayne Hennesey, Andros Townsend, Joel Ward and Scott Dann all leave for a combined £13.6 million along with all of the freed up wages mean things are looking good to throw some cash around. The only disappointing thing from this window is that we weren't able to shift Benteke or McCarthy but hopefully that will come since Benteke turned down 2 moves to China so far.

Transfers In

So there were 4 area's we needed to look at strengthen and I feel we have done that as we needed a new CB, some central midfielders a but more cover on the wings and hopefully a striker.

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We've been busy bringing in a total of 8 players for £27.5million. Jedvaj and Ahmedhodzic come straight into our starting 11 to add a bit of youth to our defence along with a bit of well needed pace.

Next we bring in 2 new midfielders in Aribo and Chalobah. Aribo will go straight into the starting XI while Chalobah will be his backup. Both are experienced players and have international caps for Nigeria and England. We also bring in Baro on loan as well just to make up the numbers to make sure we have the cover for injuries.

Next we being in 2 attack minded players in Almada who gives us another option going forward as he will allow us to play with an AMC but he is also very versatile and can play down either wing as well. We also bring in Coman to cover the LW if Eze gets injured and if all else fails we should hopefully make a profit off him in the future.

Finally we were in the market for a new striker we managed to snap up Sturridge on a free transfer who still has a bit to give even if its only for this season until we can sign some strikers next season.

With that I feel we are now ready to take the league on and avoid a relegation battle which is normally for the club and is the expectation set by the board.

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September

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An ok start to the season with nothing too difficult to start with.



 
Looking forward to seeing the transfer business for this one, although I'm guessing the budget isn't big?
We started off with £10million to spend before player sales.
 
September

Crystal Palace v Aston Villa


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A true game for 2 teams that are expected in a relegation battle as we battle it out to secure a goalless draw.

Caraboa Cup 2nd Round
Crystal Palace v Swindon Town


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It gave us the opportunity go out and show our fans what sort of football we are looking to play as we go attacking from the off and we put in an excellent performance which see's Eze put in a man of the match performance along with Sturridge scoring on his return to English football.

Southampton v Crystal Palace

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A scrappy first half which saw Aribo score two excellent goals from just outside the box to get us our first 3 points of the season.

Caraboa Cup 3rd Round
Crystal Palace v Tottenham


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Mitchell went from hero to villain in this match and I didn't expect us to be 2-0 up within the opening 10 minutes before Spurs make the most of playing against 10 men but we somehow hang on and sneak the win thanks to a penalty. The only downside to this win was that Zaha picked up and injury and will now be missing for the next 3 months

Crystal Palace v Burnley

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This was a really hard result to take, we were the better team for 92 minutes and then get undone by 2 very late goals to throw it all away thanks to two defensive errors.

Caraboa Cup 4th Round
Crystal Palace v West Ham


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We needed a reaction to the last result and a cup run is always good to have and we put in a strong performance as Mateta scores his first goal for the club to see us into the quarter final.

League

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A solid start to the season as we would take mid-table come the end of the season.

October

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A much tougher month as we face 3 of the top 6 one after another this month.
 
October

Crystal Palace v West Brom


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This was a game that we needed to win and we had a great first half before not being able to take our chances in the 2nd half.

Tottenham v Crystal Palace

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Sadly we weren't able to put in a repeat performance of when we beat them in the cup but we got very lucky and managed to score a last minute winner to walk away with a huge point for us.

Chelsea v Crystal Palace

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2-0 down after 7 minutes it was never going to be our game but when Benteke got it back to 2-2 I really thought we might have got a draw but sadly they were just to strong for us.

Crystal Palace v Liverpool

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What an opening 3 minutes with the fans seeing 2 goals and the rest of the game didn't disappoint either with the goals the were scored but our fans get the bragging rights as we walk away very lucky winners.

League

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Just creep into the European places but there is a long way to go

November

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Our tough run of games continue as we start the month with trip to Old Trafford before the games get a bit easier.
 
November

Man Utd v Crystal Palace


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To be honest I'm actually happy with this result as it was a surprise we managed to hold on for as long as we did with 10 men and still only lost 1-0.

Newcastle v Crystal Palace

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What a turnaround after being 2 down within the opening 35 minutes but Batshuayi has been key for us so far this season and he turns it around with an excellent hat-trick

Crystal Palace v Leicester

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A much better performance from the team as we keep our first clean sheet in the league since the opening game of the season.

League

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I would bite your hand off right now to finish this high up the table come the end of the season.

December

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A much busier month this month and it will be a proper test to see if our squad can cope with it​
 
December

Crystal Palace v Leeds


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We've done well to get the draw here after taking the lead but it shows that we can keep fighting back which can only be a good trait to have.

Brighton v Crystal Palace

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This was a poor result and I'm disappointed to lose my first derby game as well.

West Ham v Crystal Palace

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A game for the neutrals here with lots of goals. I thought we'd managed to through the win away twice here but its the big Belgian that gets the two late goals to get us an important 3 points.

Crystal Palace v Arsenal

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What a game as we fight back again from falling behind twice to walk away with a very big point against Arsenal.

Carabao Cup Quarter Final
Leicester v Crystal Palace


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A poor result here as I feel we should have won this game but just couldn't take our chances but I guess the good thing is its 2 less matches now that we won't have the semi final.

Wolves v Crystal Palace

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We seem to be making a habit of taking the lead and then throwing it away, but when you see Wolves squad then they should be beating us.

Crystal Palace v Fulham

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A much needed 2nd win this month as we put in a very good performance and run out well deserved winners.

League

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We drop down the table a wee bit but we are far away from the expected relegation battle and we expect to stay in this half of the table now.

January

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Some big games for us again this month but at least we have the transfer window where we will be looking to make some more additions to strengthen the squad.​
 
January

Transfers Out


We've been busy shipping out some players this window (some for less than we would of liked) but we also managed to get some cash in for players who's contracts were going to expire at the end of the season

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The piece of outgoing business I'm happiest with is getting just under £5million for Benteke even if we are paying half his wages for the remainder of the season.

Transfers In

I was mainly happy with the squad but this window and the cash along with some extra the board decided to give us let me dive into the market to purchase some players. As mentioned at the start I was worried about our two main strikers leaving in the summer and it was brought on even more when I realised that if Mateta played 15 games for the club we would of been forced to pay £13.3m for him and that wasn't in my plans so he's now been dropped to the reserves after 13 games. But we did sign two new strikers in this window.

First is Mexican Jose Juan Macias who we signed from Deportivo Guadalajara for a costly £16m but he will be a starting striker from now on.

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Next we signed Kaio Jorge from Santos for £5m and again will be our other new starting striker

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These two players will hopefully be our main strikers for the next couple of seasons now.

Finally the last permanent player I signed is goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic from Dinamo Zagreb for £14m and he will replace Guaita who turned 24 in this window so was never going to be a long term solution

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The only problem now though is that the club is now £20m in the red so hopefully that doesn't impact us too much come the end of the season.

Everton v Crystal Palace

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We did well here to get back into the game twice but sadly it wasn't enough.

FA Cup 3rd Round
Crystal Palace v Burnley


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We managed to throw away another 2-0 lead to force the game into extra time but it seems I made my subs at the right time as it meant we had fresh legs in attacking positions and it paid off as Jorge and Macias got debut goals for the club.

Crystal Palace v Man City

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What a game, I expected to lose this going into it but we held onto our 1-0 lead for so long and then Macias got a header with the final touch of the game to win it for us.

Sheffield United v Crystal Palace

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These were the games I thought I would need to win to avoid relegation but its just become part of the parcel now as we score from 2 set pieces and a clean sheet debut for Livakovic.

FA Cup 4th Round
Crystal Palace v Southampton

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Zaha finds some form in this game with a great goal cutting in off the wing. It also turns out its a lot better on the players to win in 90 minutes as we now travel to Fulham in the 5th round.

Aston Villa v Crystal Palace

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We've reached the halfway mark of the season now and we looked good value after taking the lead after only 2 minutes but two pretty much identical goals from Watkins where he lobbed the keeper within 10 minutes got Villa the win.

Crystal Palace v Southampton

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A much harder game that the FA cup tie a couple of games ago as we fell behind but Jorge seems to have adapted well to English football as scores the first and then set up Van Aanholt for the winner.

League

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We still sit in the European spots and we're nearly at the 40 point mark as first and foremost is securing Premier League football next season

February

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3 big games this month in the league but the Tottenham and Chelsea games are even bigger for us as they both sit below us in the league at the moment.​
 
February

Burnley v Crystal Palace


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A poor result but it was Burnley's first game after appointing a new manager and their players were right up for it and got them their first win of the season.

Crystal Palace v Tottenham

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The sending off took its toll on us eventually as they got a quick fire double before going down to 10 men as well all in 2 minutes but our legs were gone by that point after playing against 11 men for so long.

FA Cup 5th Round
Fulham v Crystal Palace


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We had to rotate the squad here a bit due to fitness levels and it was a lot more difficult than I would of liked with only Zaha being brought down in the box to make the difference.

Crystal Palace v Chelsea

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I've not been overly impressed by Zaha at times this season but every so often he does pop up with a display of pure brilliance like taking it past 3 players to slot it home at the near post to get a huge 3 points for us.

West Brom v Crystal Palace

We needed to make sure we beat the whipping boys of the league here and Macias got his first Hat-trick in English football after going over 10 hours of football without scoring

Liverpool v Crystal Palace

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We looked good for getting something from this game but Liverpool's extra quality showed as they were just able to keep us out for a 2nd goal.

League

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We have hit the elusive 40 point mark so now the aim is to finish the season as high as possible.

March

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A nice short month but who cares about the game as next month is Youth Intake month​
 
March

Crystal Palace v Manchester Untied


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Nothing like a sending off which we really need to stop happening soon as it really going to cost us in big games and it was by pure luck and a defensive error that we managed to grab a late goal and walk away with a point.

Crystal Palace v Newcastle

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We really didn't deserve the win here as we got lucky with the penalty and it was one of a handful of shots on goal from both sides as we see out a pretty boring match.

FA Cup Quarter Final
Crystal Palace v Watford


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It really wasn't looking good after the opening 14 minutes but a terrible back pass gave us our way back into the game and managed to be drawing at half time. Zaha was a late sub and had only been on the pitch for 5 minutes and being played as a striker as he managed to grab the winner and see us into the Semi-Final to face Liverpool

League

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We're just hanging onto 7th on goal difference but we have a game in hand as well so hopefully we can make that count.

April

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A lot of games this month where we will be looking to get something from to continue our push for European football next season.


Youth Intake

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Its everybody's favourite time of the season as we welcome the latest bunch of academy players to see who will make the cut and it looks like we have 1 player who could go on and make a name for himself at the club and he has the fantastic name of Edward Edwards

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His stats look decent so hopefully he can continue to grow and become the next player to come through the ranks.





 
April

Leeds United v Crystal Palace


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A well fought win with the only downside to the game being the sending off right at the end for our best defender.

Crystal Palace v West Ham

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A pretty boring game with the only excitement being the penalty which was enough to get us the 3 points.

FA Cup Semi-Final
Liverpool v Crystal Palace


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Going down early here I thought we were going out but I'm not sure if it was their run of fames or they thought we were going to be pushovers but they didn't have a full strength team out and that really showed as we ran riot in the final 15 minutes to get to the final where we will face Wolves of all teams.

Crystal Palace v Brighton

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I was disappointed to concede with 3 minutes to go and that means we go through the season not getting a win in the derby so we need to do better next season to keep the fans happy.

Arsenal v Crystal Palace

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What a final 5 minutes of added time to the match as I though we had lost it, to then getting a draw to then losing it with the final kick of the ball but it was probably a fair result.

League

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We go into the final set of games sitting in 8th knowing that with the FA cup going ourselves or wolves then we really need to finish in the top 6 now for European football next season.

May

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Its going to be a busy month and squad rotations is going to be key as we play our final 5 games across 12 days and the FA Cup final will be our biggest game of the season.​
 
May

Crystal Palace v Wolves


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A nice warm up for the FA Cup final and we make light work of them them which gives us confidence for the final.

Fulham v Crystal Palace

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Its a much harder game than I would of liked especially after the red card but we went as defensive as we could with trying to attack on the counter and it paid off as we attacked after a Fulham corner and got the important win.

Crystal Palace v Everton

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We were struggling to see out the game until the Everton sending off but after that we were able to make the extra man count and really attack them as we got 2 late goals.

FA Cup Final
Wolves v Crystal Palace


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Our biggest game of the season has come in amongst a busy period and the game was pretty dull for most of it but Zaha cut inside and made it into the box where he was brought down and it was enough for a penalty which got us underway. Milivojevic then scored a screamer from 30 yards out to ensure we couldn't be caught and secure the clubs first ever FA Cup win. The 2nd goal made it seem like a proper win rather than only a penalty being the difference.

Crystal Palace v Sheffield Untied

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We had just 1 day off in-between this game and the FA Cup meaning that we had to rotate the squad which did show our lack of depth in some positions but we still managed a very credible point.

Leicester v Crystal Palace


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It really was a game of two halves here, 3 down at half time I went mental at the players and it seemed to pay off as we got it back to 3-2 and I thought we had a shot but their 4th goal just put them too far ahead of us.

Man City v Crystal Palace

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Man City were just far too strong for us as they proper went for it as if they won and Liverpool lost then they could of won the league on the final day.

League Table

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Well we managed to finish well above expectations in 7th position. The big challenge will be replicating it next season with the added complication of European Football

Budgets

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We have a decent budget for next season with the addition of players that we sell we should have a nice amount to spend.

We are going to need strengthen the team quite a bit with new defenders, new midfields and an additional striker being needed.
 
Season 2

Transfers Out


Its been another busy transfer window as we shipped out players who were 30 or over along with people who just weren't going to fit with what I had planned for the seasons ahead. The good thing is I cut the wage budget right down with shipping these players out as well.

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Transfers In

We bring in a total of 10 players so far over the course of the window. We had a number of area's I wanted to strengthen and then there were also just players who were transfer listed that I just couldn't turndown as every player I signed was either a free transfer or was transfer listed.

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Dwight McNeil is not a player I could turn down for that amount after Burnley's relegation and we also snapped up Tarkowski as well to bolster our defensive options. It was a no brainer to bring our top goal scorer back from Chelsea for under £10 million either as we can easily sell him again for a big profit. Marcus Edwards wasn't a player I was looking at initially but he popped up on the transfer list and was the top scorer in Portugal last season along with winning the best player so he gives us another option down the right.

Tomiyasu can be a big player for us in defence over the coming season's and he will also boost the shirt sales for us in Japan as well which can only be a good thing. I'm hoping Carter-Vickers will also do the same in the USA for us but he will be a back up and not get much first team football. Tonali is the future of our midfield now as well and will link up play brilliantly for us going forward. Mustafi should add some experience to our squad as its starting to look pretty young now.

Finally Joan Pedro is a player who I was monitoring since I started as he's always been better than playing for Watford. Its taken me nearly the who season but I finally managed to unsettle him enough to request a transfer and we had to amend the wage budget to give us enough to spend but we finally got our man and if he develops like I know he can then he's going to be huge for us in the seasons to come.

The line up

I'll be sticking with the 442 this season as we did well with it last season. I may tweak the players but I'm hoping this will be my starting XI come the start of the season.

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Expectations

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Nothing to difficult expected by the board and I'm confident in meeting all their requirements

August

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Not the worst start to the season but also not the best but we will do our best and hopefully can get off to a strong start
 
Season 2

Transfers Out


Its been another busy transfer window as we shipped out players who were 30 or over along with people who just weren't going to fit with what I had planned for the seasons ahead. The good thing is I cut the wage budget right down with shipping these players out as well.

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Transfers In

We bring in a total of 10 players so far over the course of the window. We had a number of area's I wanted to strengthen and then there were also just players who were transfer listed that I just couldn't turndown as every player I signed was either a free transfer or was transfer listed.

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Dwight McNeil is not a player I could turn down for that amount after Burnley's relegation and we also snapped up Tarkowski as well to bolster our defensive options. It was a no brainer to bring our top goal scorer back from Chelsea for under £10 million either as we can easily sell him again for a big profit. Marcus Edwards wasn't a player I was looking at initially but he popped up on the transfer list and was the top scorer in Portugal last season along with winning the best player so he gives us another option down the right.

Tomiyasu can be a big player for us in defence over the coming season's and he will also boost the shirt sales for us in Japan as well which can only be a good thing. I'm hoping Carter-Vickers will also do the same in the USA for us but he will be a back up and not get much first team football. Tonali is the future of our midfield now as well and will link up play brilliantly for us going forward. Mustafi should add some experience to our squad as its starting to look pretty young now.

Finally Joan Pedro is a player who I was monitoring since I started as he's always been better than playing for Watford. Its taken me nearly the who season but I finally managed to unsettle him enough to request a transfer and we had to amend the wage budget to give us enough to spend but we finally got our man and if he develops like I know he can then he's going to be huge for us in the seasons to come.

The line up

I'll be sticking with the 442 this season as we did well with it last season. I may tweak the players but I'm hoping this will be my starting XI come the start of the season.

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Expectations

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Nothing to difficult expected by the board and I'm confident in meeting all their requirements

August

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Not the worst start to the season but also not the best but we will do our best and hopefully can get off to a strong start
wow this is so easy from you my dude did match engine got refixing in fm 21 or just tactic selection got refixing
 
wow this is so easy from you my dude did match engine got refixing in fm 21 or just tactic selection got refixing

I wouldn't say it was easy or else we would of been higher up in the league. We also had a pretty easy ride in the FA cup as well. Its all about bringing in the right players and getting the tactic right.
 
August

Community Shield
Crystal Palace v Liverpool


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What a special way to start the season. It may be a diddy cup but everything counts when you have bare trophy cabinet but we performed very well and looked like we had it in the bag until the end but managed to sneak a goal straight afterwards.

Tottenham v Crystal Palace

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2-0 down at half time but our fighting spirit comes through with the help of a couple of tactical subs at half time is enough to get us a point.

Crystal Palace v Liverpool

It seems that we are going to be conceding a few goals this season but at least we are able to score as well and again we walk away with a very big point.

Leeds United v Crystal Palace

We finally put in a worthy performance as we walk away big winners and Batshuayi is now 4 goals from 3 games in the league to show he was well worth bringing back to the club.

Crystal Palace v Norwich

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Norwich made it very difficult here and we struggled to break them down but our extra quality was able to come through to get the winning goal.

League

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We sit in 4th place after 4 games, its just a shame we have another 34 to go.

Europa League Group

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We have a very strong chance of finishing top of this group and Sporting should hopefully be the only real challenge.

September

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Its just going to get busier now as we bring European football to the mix.

Transfers

We had 2 pieces of business on deadline day. The first was young Mexican Jose Juan Macias leaving to join Hoffenheim for £23million which means we made a £7million profit on him over the 6months he was at the club. It wasn't a deal I really wanted to do but we needed to balance the books.

The final piece was signing his replacement and that was Patrick Schick from Bayer Leverkusen for £4.5million as he was again transfer listed.

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Looks like a decent transfer window that - but no outgoings to Chinese teams? Almost all of the interest in my players comes from China!
 
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