Newcastle Utd Season 2010-2011

They say the second thing to go with old age is your memory (I can't remember what the first one is!). Contrary to what I wrote in my 1st post I actually took over Newcastle in the summer of 2010.

Having played FM for many years, one thing I have 'learned' from experience is that whilst you can do a lot in your first season, getting in great players at affordable prices isn't one (unless you're one of those FM players who goes on the forums and asks for lists of the best players in the game or looks into the data editior, which to me defeats the whole point). So that's a lesson I have learned and should know to stick to. However in the previous edition of the game (FM 2010) I managed Drogheda Utd in the Irish Premier League, for seven years (took them into the Champions league in my final season and was voted best Irish manager of all time, thanks for asking). Anyway, playing in that league you get used to sensible salaries. The average salary was about £700 per week, with key players on about £1000 per week.

So I start FM 2011 and am just horrified at some of my frankly mediocre players who are on £30,000 or similar per week. My head screamed, "swallow your pride, pay them the wages and offload them when you can get good replacements in", but my heart yelled..."get rid of the big wage earners and bring in equally mediocre but cheaper players, aim for 17th and rebuild next year".

Reader, I listened to my heart, and began a fire sale of some of the regulars who were in my starting 11. Before the August transer window was over, out had gone Shola Ameobi, Ryan Taylor, Steve Harper, Jonas (on loan) Nile Ranger, and Kazenga Lua Lua bringing in £11 million pounds. The board gave me a transfer budget of £20 million to bring in the talent to keep us up, so I had a war chest of £30 million....

Here's where I made my next mistake.  As previously mentioned, in the first transfer window, all the decent free transfers have gone, and your scouts have had no time to find anybody. So the players I brought in to keep me up were a mixture of journeymen, promising youngsters and loanees. If you aren't an FM addict you may wish to skip the next paragraph

I brought in:
Karin Benzema (on loan from Real Madrid) Jo (on loan from Man City) Mikael Forsell (loan) the aging Mario Yepes (Loan)
Keiran Westwood for £1.1 million, Javad Nekounama (£1.8m)
Martin Montoya (for the future) a right back for £1.4 million
Roy Caroll on a free
Pedro lopez (right back) on loan
Steve Finnan (free)
Oriel Romeu (young DM) £1.1 million
Grimi (back up left back)  £275k
Rasmus Lindgren (MC) on loan for 350k
Daniel Agyei (young DM) ln for 220k with future fee.

Looking back at the list now, although some players turned out to be very poor in the game (eg Jo has never had more than a 7.0 avg no matter where he's gone,,same with Montoya, Lopez, Romeu and Grimi), I have brought in enough quality there (Benzema, Westwood) and had retained enough of my starting 11 (Barton, Nolan, Enrique, Ben Afra, Coloccini) to have been able to have stayed up.  Total expenditure there was £8.5 million, and the wage budget was slashed too, so on paper it should have been the perfect 'holding' season. Yet soon we would be stuck in a downward sprial and headed for the Championship. So what went wrong...

(to be continued)

Newcastle United...the motion picture

Welcome to the first post on my Football Manager Blog.

In an almost inevitably doomed attempt to make the blog more interesting to those who are perhaps less obsessed with FM than I (99.5% of the population), I am going to try and reimagine my FM 2011 career as a Hollywood movie. To this end, we'll start with the present and then flashback to seasons gone by, where dramatic events will unfold before your eyes.

If it helps you can imagine me in this Hollywood movie, as being played by a young Matt Damon (is he considered good looking and/or modern? I'm so out of touch.) I was going to say a young Justin Bieber but that would essentially be an embryo.

If you don't like Hollywood films and prefer things a little more realistic then I would be played by a young Woody Allen or even Rick Moranis. I'd prefer Mr Allen, but it's your mind'e eye.My long suffering wife who will be mentioned in despatches, will be played by Jaime Murray (before all her plastic surgery).

Anyway, to Football Manager.

It is January 2014. Newcastle United stand on the cusp of their greatest ever achievement, qualification for the Champions League. Currently 3rd in the Premier League, and stunning critics, the question on everyone's lips is 'can they possibly keep this momentum going', and stay ahead of Man City, Chelsea, liverpool, tottenham et al, and really make it into the big leagues? Especially when just two years ago they were playing in the Championship...the Championship...the Championship..(screen blurs and fades, and the caption 2011 appears)

2011

Newcastle appoint 47th manager in past 10 years (slight exaggeration, as allowed in Hollywood). FootyMgr Aiden is placed in charge and promises fans a long andsuccessful reign. Given his legendary work at Drogheda Utd in FM 2010, what could possibly go wrong??