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[FM10] Starting at Goodison


Big Al 17

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FM Version: 10.3.0

Database Size: Medium with no extra edits

League Loaded: Belgium (Pro League only), England (down to League 1), France (down to Ligue 2), Germany (down to Second Division), Greece (Superleague only), Holland (Eredivisie only), Italy (down to Serie B), Portugal (Liga Sagres only), Russia (Premier Division only), Scotland (SPL only), Spain (down to Liga adelante), Switzerland (Super League only), Turkey (Premier Division only).

Past experience: Automatic

Hi. This is my first thread in this forum so if anyone has any constructive criticism/ideas for this then please say. I decided to load the leagues stated above and then press the randomise button to get a club and Everton were the club that the game chose for me (hence the unoriginal title).

There are no real aims for this career, just take it as it comes – if I want to move clubs I shall, but if I am enjoying my time at a club I will stay. I play at varying paces, sometimes very quickly, sometimes pretty slow and I will be giving monthly updates throughout the season, other than preseason where I will just give an overview of friendlies and transfers. As I said earlier, any ideas to improve this thread would be appreciated. Thanks.

edit: Now doing end of season updates

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The board’s expectations are for continental qualification through the league and have given me £4 million transfer budget and £675k p/w wage budget (currently spending just over £660k p/w). This money will be used mainly to buy backup players to strengthen the squad. I am aiming for a top 6 finish, hopefully a decent run in the domestic cup and to progress from the group stages of the Euro Cup.

Transfer History – The main bits of business are selling Tony Hibbert to Sevilla for £5 million (over 48 months) to get some more funds and brought in Mahamadou Diarra on loan (with option to buy). Also signed two young goalkeepers, Alex Smithies from Huddersfield and Alberto Amor, a 16 year old from Tenerfie, and Marc Albrighton from Villa.

Key Players: In defence Phil Jagielka looks the best defender, although he has a long term injury and won’t be back until roughly February time. In my opinion, the squad’s main strength is in midfield, with Mikel Arteta and Tim Cahill the two best players. However, Arteta is also injured and won’t be returning until February. Up front Louis Saha is likely to be my best option.

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Pre Season results

Everton 3-0 Everton Reserves: Dominated from start to finish as expected. Cahill, Bilyaletdinov and Vaughan got the goals.

Bristol City 0-1 Everton: Not the best performance to be honest, although dominated possession, just failed to create chances. A second half long range strike by Tim Cahill separated the teams.

Plymouth 1-1 Everton: A better performance, unlucky not to win. Another Tim Cahill second half goal gave us the lead, but this was cancelled out by a late Plymouth goal by Ashley Barnes.

Everton 2-0 Loko (Sofia): This was the semi final of a Friendly Cup consisting of us, Loko (Sofia), Valladolid and Rostock, hosted by Valladolid. Completely dominated the game (20 shots compared to 4), a Louis Saha brace gave us a comfortable win.

Valladolid 1-1 Everton: A pretty even game ended all square when Leon Osman equalised in the 77th minute after Diego Costa opened the scoring early in the second half. Valladolid won on penalties after Saha and Osman both missed.

Preston 0-1 Everton: Preston scored early with their only shot on target of the match when Danny Welbeck took advantage of a Philippe Senderos mistake. We dominated possession for the rest of the game but couldn’t create enough chances to win.

Bury 0-3 Everton: We finished off pre season with arguably the easiest game so far. Not much to say, just that we again dominated possession and Senderos, Cahill and Pienaar got the goals.

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August 2009

Everton 1-0 Stoke: First game of the Premier League season was against Stoke. Although I expected to win, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. We had most of the ball, but failed to create chances. It took until the 85th minute to break the deadlock, when 17 year old substitute Jose Baxter scored a well placed finish from a through ball by Joseph Yobo following a corner. A good start to the season.

Everton 1-0 CSKA (Sofia): A qualifier for the Euro Cup which should be relatively straight forward according to the bookies. We started strongly, again dominating possession, and were awarded a penalty when Florentin Petre fouled Tim Cahill in the box. Louis Saha stepped up, but had his spot kick saved. We continued to look for a goal, and it eventually came. Again it was substitute Jose Baxter, this time in the 95th minute, after Tim Cahill played him through. Overall we deserved to win by a much larger margin, but we got the important clean sheet to take into our next match.

West Ham 0-2 Everton: Next opponents were West Ham, a game we should be winning if we want to qualify for Europe, and we did. This was a game of few real chances and the deadlock was eventually broken when, for the third time in a row, substitute Jose Baxter scored in the 77th minute after a nice one-two with Jack Rodwell. Tim Cahill made the game safe in the 88th minute, heading in a cross from man of the match Leighton Baines.

CSKA (Sofia) 0-6 Everton: A slightly different story to the first leg. This time we managed to create, and take, chances along with dominating possession. Tim Cahill opened the scoring in the 9th minute with a header from a James Vaughan cross. Louis Saha grabbed his first of the season in the 22nd minute when Vaughan unselfishly squared the ball for Saha to score in the empty net. Saha doubled his tally 3 minutes later, heading in from a Phil Neville cross. Marouane Fellaini scored another 3 minutes after volleying in from a knock down by Cahill from a Neville cross. Jack Rodwell made it 5-0 on the half hour mark finishing into an empty net after Cahill’s attempt was saved. Saha completed his hatrick on the hour, with the 3rd header of the day from a Leighton Baines cross. Overall, very pleased with the performance, especially the crossing as 4 of my 6 goals came as a result from good crosses into the box. This result means we win 7-0 on aggregate and qualify for the group stages.

Arsenal 1-0 Everton: A trip to the Emirates provided us with our toughest test to date and was our 4th game in 10 days. I wasn’t expecting much from this game and in the end Arsenal deserved their win. As expected Arsenal dominated possession and created more chances, however Tim Howard and Joseph Yobo were in fine form and managed to keep it to 0-0 until the 94th minute when Nicklas Bendtner beat Yobo in the air to head home an Andres Guardado cross. Bit disappointed with the manner of the defeat, but looking at the game overall, Arsenal deserved their win.

On the whole, a pretty good month I think. Won 2 out of 3 league games (putting us in 8th with a game in hand), qualified for Europe and only conceded 1 goal all month. Joseph Yobo was the pick of the players and this was recognised by him coming second in Player of the Month for August, behind Blackburn’s Steven N’Zonzi. Next month Man City and Chelsea both come to visit Goodison and both cup and European football start with Doncaster in the League Cup and Nacional in the Euro Cup (the other teams in my group are PSV and Levski).

If any one has any suggestions so far to layout or details or anything then just say :)

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September 2009

Everton 2-0 Wigan: On paper, this should be an easy game, but Wigan have had a good start to the season and are currently in 4th. A win today would take me ahead of Wigan into 4th. The first half was pretty dull with neither side creating much, possibly due to this being the 5th game in 13 days for us. The breakthrough came at the start of the second half when Steven Pienaar latched onto a through ball by Yakubu to make it 1-0 to the home side. Wigan rarely threatened, half of their 6 shots were from long range, with only one on target which Tim Howard caught easily. Everton secured the win when Tim Cahill scored a penalty in the 82nd minute after he was fouled by Jordi Gomez.

Everton 1-0 Chelsea: Probably my best result so far. Although Chelsea were having a slow start to the season (5 points from 4 games), this was still not going to be easy, even more so with Tim Howard out injured for 3 weeks, giving Alex Smithies his Everton debut. Right from the start Chelsea dominated, with Obasi forcing a good save from debutant Smithies after only 90 seconds. Chelsea had the majority of possession, but the first goal came from Louis Saha on 22 minutes as a result of a Phil Neville cross from the right which John Terry cleared, but only into the back of Tim Cahill. The ball fell nicely for Louis Saha who tucked it away. A scrappy goal, but they all count. At half time the score was 1-0 to Everton, but Chelsea dominating. The second half ran like the first, Chelsea in the ascendance with Drogba hitting the bar around the hour mark, but we still had a few chances as well. Chelsea were getting more frustrated and this was shown by the increased number in long shots. Eventually the full time whistle went, giving us my most pleasing victory so far and lifting us to top of the table after 5 games. The only down side to this game was an injury to the man on form, Joseph Yobo. He will be out for 2-3 weeks.

Everton 0-0 Nacional de Madeira: A match that I was looking to win, especially if I want to qualify for the next round. Not much to report here really, a reasonably boring game with not much of note. Possession was fairly even and there were only 4 shots on target for both teams combined. The only thing of note was Yakubu hitting the bar from 25 yards in the 70th minute. The other result in the group was Levski 1-1 PSV.

Blackburn 1-1 Everton: Blackburn opened the scoring in the 6th minute with a Morten Gamst Pedersen penalty after referee Mike Jones gave a dubious foul by Philippe Senderos. Shortly after Pedersen had a goal correctly ruled out for offside. Tim Cahill equalised with a header in the 26th minute, out jumping ‘keeper Paul Robinson from a Phil Neville cross after a poor clearance by Christopher Samba. Overall the match was pretty even and a draw was a fair result.

Everton 4-0 Doncaster: A relatively easy League Cup 3rd Round tie to start with as Doncaster are currently in the relegation zone in the Championship. Tim Cahill opened the scoring opened the scoring with his 5th of the season in the 22nd minute with a long range effort. The rest of the game belonged to Diniyar Bilyaletdinov who scored a hattrick. His first came when he took the ball past two Doncaster defenders before hitting the ball past Neil Sullivan. Bilyaletdinov’s second came from close range in the 55th minute after Jose Baxter played him through. He completed his hattrick with a penalty after Michael Ball brought down Dan Golsing in the box. Overall a comfortable victory. Derby wait for us in the next round.

Everton 3-1 Man City: Another great result for us. Man City were sitting on the top of the league before kickoff without losing any games. Yakubu opened the scoring in the 9th minute with a stunning 25 yard strike to make it 1-0. In the 24th minute Yakubu made it 2-0 to put Everton in dream land with an even better goal from even further out. Man City pulled one back in the 32nd minute with a Gareth Barry penalty after Phil Neville fouled Emmanuel Adebayor in the box. Just before half time, Marouane Fellaini headed home a cross from Phil Neville to make it 3-1 at the interval. In the second half, the game was fairly even. Man City had slightly more of the ball, but failed to create any opportunities to test Alex Smithies in the Everton goal. Fellaini received his second yellow card on 77 minutes and received his marching orders to leave a tense last quarter of a hour, but we hung on. Overall 3-1 was generous to us; a draw would have been a fairer result. Yakubu’s two stunning strikes take us to 3rd in the table, 1 point behind rivals Liverpool in 1st.

Overall another pleasing month. Two unexpected wins cancelled out the disappointment of two drawn matches I could have won. The only down side is the ever growing injury list. Tim Howard, Dan Gosling, Joseph Yobo, John Hietinga join long term absentees Mikel Arteta, Phil Jagielka and Victor Anichebe. Marouane Fellaini picked up 2nd place in Young Player of the Month for September behind Arsenal’s Nicklas Bendtner. I came 3rd in the Manager of the Month award behind West Ham’s Gianfranco Zola and Tony Pulis from Stoke.

Table

Squad

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October 2009

PSV 1-2 Everton: A pleasing win in probably our hardest game of the group. Yakubu gave us a great start with a well placed finish from a Tim Cahill through ball in the 10th minute. Ola Toivenen equalised for the Dutch side in the 29th minute with a close range volley from a Carlos Salcido cross. At half time the score was 1-1, but we were dominating and should have scored at least once more, but Saha hit a good opportunity straight at Isaksson. The second half was pretty even, although PSV were only threatening from long range. Tim Cahill had an opotunity to make it 2-1 but Isaksson saved well. Eventually we did make it 2-1 to grab a deserved victory through a Leighton Baines freekick in the 83rd minute. The other result was Nacional 0-2 Levski.

Hull 1-2 Everton: On paper an easy game, with Hull struggling in 17th position, but i turned out far from it. Yakubu opened the scoring for the third match in a row in the 35th minute with a well taken goal following a good pass from Steven Pienaar on a swift counter attack. At half time the score was 1-0 and we were looking comfortable. However, Hull equalised in the 51st minute after Amr Zaki headed home a long ball from Boaz Myhill. For the rest of the game Hull were content to defend whilst we pressed. Eventually we took one of our chances to get a deserved 3 points. The winning goal came in the 86th minute via a Louis Saha header from a Steven Pienaar cross. A well earned win takes us to 2nd in the table.

Wolves 2-1 Everton: Awful, just awful. We simply didn’t turn up. In the 33rd minute Nenad Milijas opened the scoring for Wolves with a powerful free kick from just outside the box. Things went from bad to worse 6 minutes later when Kevin Doyle finished a nice Wolves move from just inside the box after being played through by Milijas. At half time bottom placed wolves were beating 2nd placed Everton 2-0. For the 2nd half Wolves hardly left their half. Diniyar Bilyaletdinov scored a consolation goal when he latched onto a Yakubu through ball in the 89th minute.

Levski 0-2 Everton: A good result, matched with an even better performance to bounce back from the disappointment of Wolves. Dominated the whole game and again Yakubu opened the scoring finishing off a good team move after Steven Pienaar played him through. Jose Baxter doubled the lead 10 minutes later after Diniyar Bilyaletdinov found him unmarked in the area. We dominated the rest of the game but failed to score again. Full time result was a comfortable 2-0 victory. The other result was PSV 0-0 Nacional to leave us top by 3 points after 3 games.

Aston Villa 0-1 Everton: Cahill picked up an injury in training between the Levski game and this one and will be out for 4 to 5 weeks. Although Villa have been disappointing so far this season and find themselves in 14th place, this wasn’t going to be easy. The game turned out to be far from a classic, with neither side creating any clear cut chances, possibly due to the torrential rain. Yakubu scored the only goal of the game, smashing home from a tight angle after a deflected Leighton Baines cross fell his way. Overall a poor game, but a win is a win.

Everton 1-0 Derby: Decided to play a mix of youngsters and fringe players/players needing to find some form in this game. Again this match wasn’t the best, although we did play better than we did against Aston Villa. A pretty dull game with not many chances for either side was settled by a stunning 25 yard strike by substitute Yakubu in the 81st minute to progress us to the Quarter Final where we will travel to the Emirates to play Arsenal.

Overall not a bad month results wise (other than the awful game at Molineux) leaves us 4th in the league, however the perfomances haven't been the best. 3 consecutive clean sheets at the end of the month is pleasing and is something to build on. Yakubu has found his shooting boots this month with a very impressive 5 goals in 6 games. Most of the injuries have now cleared, with the exception of Tim Cahill joining Arteta, Jagielka and Anichebe on the physio's table. Leon Osman has been disappointing all season to be honest and I may look to sell him in January.

Table

Squad

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November 2009

Everton 0-0 Bolton: A pretty drab game overall, nothing really of note. Leon Osman should have given us the lead midway through the first half, but his close range effort was saved by Jussi Jaaskelainen. We were the better team, but Osman’s saved shot was the only real opening in the match and the game ended 0-0.

Everton 3-0 Levski: A comfortable victory for us in a mach we dominated. Leon Osman opened the scoring with a 33rd minute penalty after Alexander Velev brought down Marouane Fellaini in the box. Fellaini then doubled the advantage 5 minutes later with a header from a Leighton Baines cross. Philippe Senderos made it 3-0 just before half time with a header from a Bilyaletdinov corner. The second half was pretty much the same, but we failed to add to the scoreline. Levski’s only shot was a long range effort that went sailing into rown Z. The other result in the group was Nacional 0-2 PSV, meaning a draw in our next game against Nacional would qualify us for the knockout round.

Everton 2-1 Portsmouth: Kevin Prince Boateng opened the scoring in the 42nd minute with a stunning long range effort to give Portsmouth the lead in a game which I should be winning. Yakubu equalised on the stroke of half time with a well placed finish from a Joseph Yobo through ball. 1-1 at half time was about fair, although Pompey had only really threatened from long range. Diniyar Bilyaletdinov scored what proved to be the winner with a fine goal in the 69th minute after receiving a Steven Pienaar pass and taking the ball round two defenders before balsting home from 20 yards. Overall a deserved win, as we dominated possession and Portsmouth didn’t create any real chances.

Sunderland 2-4 Everton: Sunderland had been struggling of late and found themselves just outside the relegation zone in 16th place. However, it was the home side that scored first when Benjani finished confidently in the 5th minute after he was played through by Darren Bent. Yakubu equalised less than 10 minutes after with a fantastic banana shot from 25 yards which went in off the post. Sunderland restored their advantage in the 41st minute via a Darren Bent finish after Philippe Senderos failed to intercept a Steed Malbranque pass. Louis Saha made it 2-2 just before the break by heading home a Leighton Baines cross to bring the end to an exciting first half. Steven Pienaar put us ahead within the first ten minutes of the second half when he finished well from just inside the box. Leon Osman made the game safe 15 minutes from time when Jose Baxter played him through on goal. Overall a very entertaining game, which I was pleased to win, especially after being behind twice.

Everton 3-1 Tottenham: Another very pleasing victory against one of my challengers, even though the score line makes it sound much more convincing than it actually was. Philippe Senderos scored with a header in the 10th minute from a corner to give us an important early lead. Leon Osman doubled our advantage in the 25th minute finishing well after a one-two with Louis Saha. Aaron Lennon pulled one back for Spurs just before half time to leave it 2-1 at the break, but a very even game. Yakubu restored the two goal advantage by finishing from close range after a Bilyaletdinov pass. Luka Modric had the chance to make it 3-2 from the spot when Senderos brought down Peter Crouch in the box, but Tim Howard tipped the ball past the post. For the rest of the game Spurs dominated, with Crouch and Jenas both coming close. There were no further goals in the game, and we came away with an important, but arguably undeserved, victory.

A very pleasing month overall, with the only dropped points coming against Bolton, leaves us 2nd in the league, 1 point behind rivals Liverpool. Yakubu came 2nd in the goal of the month competition for his sublime strike against Sunderland and Bilyaletdinov came in 3rd with his goal against Portsmouth. I came 2nd in the manager of the month award, behind Aston Villa’s Martin O’Neill, who won each of his 4 games this month. In Europe, 1 point from our last two games will progress us through to the knockout stages of the Euro Cup. After deciding to potentially sell Leon Osman at the start of the month, he has probably been our star performer this month, with 3 goals in his last 5 games and an average rating of 7.48. James Vaughan is still yet to score this season, although he has been playing well.

Table

Squad

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Ah right, thanks jackripper. Glad to see someone who is following lol. Yeah that's what I was thinking as well, will probably keep it going this season and then maybe move on to end of season reviews at the start of next season.

edit: Actually will just do end of season updates from now

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