Before we move on, a
quick review of 2013/2014 via the ‘Best 11’ .
As discussed, Arshavin had a great season, far exceeding
expectations.
Straqualursi’s 6 goals came from 15 starts, and Paolschi’s
11 goals from just 16 starts.
Andy Carroll had 14 goals but even more impressively 11
assists in his 36 starts (not sure why it says 74 games, that’s a mistake).
So, how to build for the future?
Well, it was in this off-season that the first symptoms of
my main weakness in FM began to show.
I can’t resist a perceived ‘bargain’ and I hate paying full
price for anything. This applies in real life too!
In FM, I will constantly try and snap up bargains (either
promising youngsters, or transfer listed good players) to then sell on for a
profit to help fund purchases.
To a degree this makes sense, as the board is still refusing
me to expand our £27,000 capacity stadium, so attendance is never going to
bring in the revenue to enable us to compete with the big boys. However, I do it to excess. I end up spending
all my money on promising youngsters, and end up bloating the wage bill that
way. Rather than one world class player on £1000,000p/w, I’ll end up with 7
players, on lower salaries, none of whom are as good.
Ex of Panathinaikos Simao Mate Junior arrived on a free
To this point it’s been easy to improve the squad, but now
with a quality base, I would need to spend big money, either on wages or
salaries, and that’s where I balk.
The first seeds of this weakness were sown in this transfer
window.
I won’t bore you with the details, but I acquired 11 (yes eleven)
promising youngsters, spending a total of 5.5 million on them. Each one has his
own loyalty bonus, agents fee and of course weekly wages. How many do I think
will become world class and really help us compete at the highest level. 2 or 3
maybe.
Now that FM is much more realistic with agents fees and
loyalty bonuses, it only really makes sense to aquire talent that you think
will become world class. A lot of the players above are only 16-18, and it’ll
take 3 years of wages and development before they’re good enough to either sell
or utilize. However though I know this in principle, old habits die hard.
I then sold DM Tettey
for 2.5 million to Championship Blackburn and replaced him with Simao, who I
aquired on a free. You’ll remember Benrnardello had also arrived as a DM on a
free, so I had plenty of cover in that area.
David Beckham left on a free, and I sold back up central
midfielder Jacob Butterfield to West Ham for 2 million, so I needed a new
central midfielder. I wanted someone with creativity and good passing ability
and settled on Charlie Adam. I paid
stoke £2.6 million, but also had to give him a salary of £42,000 which wasn’t
ideal.
Ronaldinho left on a free and Arshavin finished his loan.
His contract with Arsenal expired but initially he wanted silly money, so I
loaned Jonathan Viera again (though he had been fairly unimpressive in his 6
month loan) and also Ivan Perisic from PSG.
Again, though some of these loan signings were great,
they’re not the ‘freebies’ they may appear.
Perisic, for example, cost £850,000 to loan for the year, plus 50% of
his wages of £40,000 p/w.
My tendency to overstock the squad was coming into full
effect. For some reason I loaned DM
Jonathan dos Santos from Barcelona ,
giving me 3 DMs.
Of course we would be playing in Europe
meaning we would need more strength in depth but I was like a child in a sweet
shop, and now lots of good players wanted to join us, I couldn’t resist them.
As Garrido had finished his loan without impressing, I did
need another left back, and given I played without wingers, I needed fullbacks
who could dribble and cross and shoot. So in came John Arne Riise. He cost
£950,000 (plus some add-ons I knew would never be reached) and asked for
sensible wages. He at least was a sensible signing.
I was now moving to having (at least) 2 v good players for
each position. This insured against injury crises but was bumping up the wage
bill something rotten. It also can lead
to disgruntled players but more of that later.
As you’ll recall I’d bought Aboubakar and Lacina Traore on
‘contract expirys’ in January, so they arrived to join Kweuke, Adelmilson and
Straqualursi giving 5 v good strikers.
Then Carroll became available for loan again and after his performance
last season I dived in and snapped him up, giving us 6 strikers!!!
Arriving on contract expiry was attacking left winger
Brahimi from Stade Rennais. I acquired
him as he was free ‘in case I decide to play with wingers’. When would the
madness end!
Brahimi. A winger signs for the wingless wonders
Not yet..in on loan came the exciting central midfielder
Iwan Somei from Ajax .
Cudicini retired and so I picked up aging Robert Green on a
free. I needed a decent back up goalie, and he had ‘home grown’ status, so he
ticked 2 boxes for me.
Bassong, Bennett and Ayala were all staying but I brought in
Chelsea defender Jeffrey Bruma on
loan and feeling that 6 strikers might not be enough (!) and having been
impressed with him last season, re-acquired Paloschi on loan as our SEVENTH
striker. I actually tried to buy him but had run out of money!
In the couple of weeks between the start of the season and
end of the transfer window Arshavin dropped his wage demands to a very fair
£14,500 p/w so I brought him back in, and finally on deadline day Chelsea
listed Gail Kakuta for a giveaway £180k. I couldn’t resist this promising
youngster, and told myself if we did decide to play with wingers he could play
as an AMR. Or I could sell him on for a profit.
Including loan fees, I’d spent about 10 million overall on
players, and a fortune on wages.
The only other exits were Stephen Whittaker for 1.2 million
to Cardiff and Joshua King for 575k
to Ipswich . In
total I’d brought in about 6.5 million.
So as the season started I had an extremely large squad.
No-one was on more than 45,000 p/w but the sheer volume of players meant the
wage bill was much higher, and I wasn’t sure I’d made a single purchase that
would immediately improve the team. Only
time would tell.
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