It has become my annual tradition to depress myself with just how out of touch I am with the new Football Manager release. Each game is tremendous, a real deep dive into the world of football management and the type of thing I would love when I started playing this series in 1996. I even would have loved it in 2006. But now I sit here, lightly tapping the keys in an attempt to avoid waking up my 3-month-old son. After all, I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to humiliate myself all over again.
Firstly, thanks to the lads for hosting me here. This annual tradition has pretty much had a new home every year. I don’t think it’s anything to do with me but places I have been published previously seem to no longer exist. We can only hope the same doesn’t happen here.
Now, onto business. Last year my Newcastle save had a really positive few months before what was described by the previous host as “the worst run of results I have ever seen.” I think we finished mid-table.
I like to keep things fresh though and it was only a couple of years ago things started so promisingly for me at Notts. County before I was binned off shortly after Christmas. I still maintain I would have turned it round, we were only just outside the playoffs, but the chairman wouldn’t listen to me. Actually, his real life counterpart accidentally sent a picture of his genitals on Twitter so in a roundabout way he got what he deserved.
I spend most of my time blogging about CM9798, a safe haven I can only hope to make a safe return to soon. However, that has influenced my choice this year, as I want to try and bring the good times back to a Premier League side of that era. They reside in League One now but by the time I’m finished with them, that will no longer be true. One way or another.
It’s been almost 20 years since the Sky Blues were relegated from the Premier League and I’ve replaced the extremely popular Mark Robins. I can assure you his popularity will only increase during my time here. To make matters worse, the club is effectively homeless for this season so we’re ground sharing with Birmingham. That’s a pickle.
The media predict we’ll finish 9th but we’ve been producing some useful players in recent years and the club culture centres around continuing to develop that youth. The board also want us to reach the playoffs and the FA Cup 3rd round. I fear I have bitten off more than I can chew here. The squad’s average age is just 23 which influences my choice of setup.
What can young people do? Run. And as they are athletes, I assume they will run quickly. Therefore, we’re going to be a counter attack team, the old rope-a-dope. Attack us and leave all those lovely gaps for my quick children to exploit. It’ll be a 4-3-3, or a 4-1-2-3, or a 4-1-4-1, you know, something along those lines. What can possibly go wrong?
I think it’s time for me to meet the people who will mostly be getting the blame during the rough days ahead. No, not the fans, but rather the staff who I will be trusting with more responsibility than they perhaps bargained for. I hope they like managing friendly matches because I don’t. To be quite fair to the staff, they’re well above average for everything in League One. Except fitness, where I’m reliably told we’re 19th best of 24. Given my earlier speech about having a young team that will run a lot, I best see to that.
The fitness coach is a guy called Andy Young who boasts a massive rating of 9 for fitness coaching. He’s out. A quick search on the replacements brings up Andy Liddell, who I know from the past. He was part of the Barnsley team that were relegated from the Premier League in 1997/98, so he’s used to failure and he’ll fit in nicely. As an aside, his fitness stat is 14 so he can quite literally run rings around Andy Young.
With one in and one out, I actually have room for an extra coach. Those green bars are all relatively high but I’ve opted to offer Simon Cooper a one year contract as his mental stats are great. I will be relying on him to cheer me up, plus he’s good at working with youngsters which will help with our squad.
It turns out our physiotherapy and sports science staff aren’t exactly great either. It’s all a bit of a shambles – the head of sports science has a rating of just 4 for sports science. Adam Hearn, you’re mutually terminated.
We have no transfer budget so at least I don’t have to worry about that. There are free transfers to be had and I might look to bring in the odd player of experience but in order to do that I should really assess what we have first.
As you would expect, the squad is packed with players with a lot of potential. Wesley Jobello, a left winger who likes to cut in and shoot, is given a 4 star rating. All of our wingers seem to want to play on the left though, so maybe I’ll have them swap over during matches. Yes, that’ll do. Jamie Allen looks like a creative central midfielder but he’s out for 4 months, which is why I assume Liam Walsh has been loaned in from Bristol City. Our weakest position seems to be centre forward, where Matt Godden is our best with a 3 star rating but with finishing of 12, I’m not sure he’ll be the goal getter I need. Amadou Bakayoko is a 2.5 star with the potential to get better but at the business end of the pitch, it’s all about the here and now.
With no transfer kitty to speak it’ll be loans and freebies to see us through. Trials are offered to old hands Eduardo (ex-Arsenal), Modibo Maiga (ex-West Ham) and Ross McCormack (ex-stuck behind his garden gates). Funnily enough on the day McCormack rocks up for trial, captain Liam Kelly has come up with a fines structure.
We’ll end a productive first few days with my opening press conference, where I tell everyone I’m here for the ambition and all that stuff. I rather optimistically mention that the fans come in huge numbers to support us, we’ll see if that’s true when they have to make their way to St. Andrew’s every week. Overall though, I didn’t upset anyone and that’s better than my regular life.
The coaches all agree to sign so my team to take over League One is in place. For the most part the changes have been good, though it turns out Andy Liddell isn’t the fitness guru I had hoped. In simple terms, these graphs which I am relying on go quite near the top, and that’s music to my ears.
It’s 10 days until our first friendly, where Motherwell make the trip to Birmingham. Join me next time where we’ll tackle those all important pre-season games and try and work out a formation. Toodles for now!