mr_whitey Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Welcome to the Official Cambridge United Thread For Football Manager 2011. Club History and Information Cambridge United Football Club is a professional football club from Cambridge, England. They are currently playing in the Blue Square Bet Premier, the fifth tier of the English league system, where they have competed since 2005 following their relegation from the Football League after 35 years. Cambridge United have been one of the more successful clubs in English football, having had three spells in the league's second tier and reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Cup twice and Football League Cup once. Although the club has traditionally worn amber and black at home, it has experimented with a number of designs of shirts including plain amber with black trim, amber and black squares, stripes and, amber with a black sash. The early 1990s was the U's most successful period. Managed by John Beck the club won the first ever play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Dion Dublin scored the only goal in a game against Chesterfield. Under Beck United gained promotion from the Fourth Division before reaching two successive FA Cup quarter finals in 1990 and 1991 and winning the Third Division in 1991. United reached the play-offs in 1992, after finishing 5th in Division Two, but failed in their bid to become founder members of the Premier League. This was the club's highest final league placing to date. In 2005, after 35 years in the Football League, Cambridge United were relegated into the Football Conference. This brought with it financial difficulties and the club filed for administration on 29 April. On 22 July 2005 the club came out of administration with a deal being struck with HM Revenue and Customs at the eleventh hour after the intervention of then sports minister Richard Caborn. Cambridge had sold their Abbey Stadium home earlier in the season for £1.9 million in order to keep the club afloat. They were also forced to close their youth set-up leaving many young players without a club. On the eve of the 2006–07 season, it was announced that former Norwich City striker Lee Power would be the club's new chairman taking over from Brian Attmore's caretaking reign. Johnny Hon was also to rejoin the board as vice-chairman after John Howard's resignation on conflict of interests. Jimmy Quinn was appointed manager soon after Power took charge and, after a difficult settling-in period which included a humiliating 5–0 loss to local rivals Histon, he guided Cambridge United away from another possible relegation by achieving five wins from their last seven games of the season. After signing several respected and experienced players at the non-league level in the following close season Quinn led Cambridge to their longest ever unbeaten start to a season (2007–08), which stretched to twelve games. Off the field, United reported several major sponsorship deals which seem to point towards increased financial security. Halfway through the season the chairman, Lee Power, resigned. He was replaced by Philip Law. United finished the season in 2nd place, qualifying for the play-offs. They beat Burton Albion in the semi-final, 4–3 on aggregate, but lost 1–0 to Exeter City in the final, played at Wembley Stadium. Following the play-off defeat many players left the club, culminating in the departure of manager Jimmy Quinn, apparently over issues concerning Quinn's relocation to Cambridge from his Cheshire home. Quinn was succeeded by former Southport manager Gary Brabin, who appointed Paul Carden as player-assistant manager. United finished the 2008–09 season again 2nd in the league, and also again reached the play-off final, overturning a 3–1 deficit to beat Stevenage Borough 4–3 on aggregate in the semi-final; however, they were beaten again at Wembley Stadium, 2–0 by Torquay United. Brabin was named as the Conference's Manager of the Season, but was sacked in the close-season. He was replaced by Martin Ling, who resigned just eight days into the job, before the start of the 2009–10 season and was followed days later by chairman George Rolls. The new board re-appointed Ling as manager the following week. However, Cambridge finished the season in 10th place – not enough for a playoff place Why Choose Cambridge United? As you can see from the history above (taken straight from Wiki, but i think this gives a good overview of things) Cambridge Utd have fallen from grace, from 90mins away from being a founder member of the Premier league to a mid table Blue Square Bet Premier side. After 2 straight play-off final apperances at Wembely (both ending in defeat to Exeter and Torquay) Cambridge have gone backwards slightly and now look like going 2 stright seasons as a mid table team a fair way off a play-off spot. The squad has a few bright spots, in Robbie Willmott and Josh Coulson you have 2 players who are currently being scouted by league clubs and in Robbies case teams in The Championship. Unfortunatly in Football Manager 11 these players potential is not reconised and you are left with a pretty average squad, which will need improvements if you are too achive promotion in the 1st season. There are a few players left however which you can build your team around, these include Brian Saah who is also a good choice as your captain and could play at League 2 level and Adam Miller who was playing league football last season. You also have Daryl Clare who has scored goals everywhere he has been at this level, if you can get him playing well he should be able to get you 15-20 goals a season. If you choose to take the challenge of getting Cambridge back in the football league you will at least have no pressure from your board, the expectation is a top half finish, so season 1 gives you a chance to build the team up with no expectaion of a finish in the play-off's or above. Having no pressure is good as one of the main issues you are faced with when you take over is you have no transfer budget and the wage budget is at the max with no movement possible, this means that if you want to improve the squad by bringing in some more, better players you will need to move some of the original squad out. The issue there is alot of the 1st team squad are not wanted by other teams either when you start out. You could of cause go over your wage budget by a few thousand a week but you will run the risk of loosing more money per month, and you will already do that even keeping to the budget allocated. So why would you take on Cambridge Utd? Can you get them back into the football league with a limited budget and squad in a league which has teams with much stronger squads and bigger budgets? Potential targets There is already a thread dedicated to players for the Blue Square Premier and below so i wont go too much into the players avalible as they are in this thread: [thread=233196]Ble Square Players[/thread] Here are a few players though that i have signed or am intersted in signing on my game currently: Danny Murphy (DL) - Avalible on a free and stats wise much better than any player in the Cambridge United squad, has played for QPR, Cork City and Motherwell. A must sign in my opinion. Gauthier Mahoto (MC) - An 18 year old French midfielder who is yet to play a senior game having been release from AEK, was with Portsmouth before that. Again much better than Cambridge have and at 18 could make you a bit of money should he reach his potential. Cherno Samba (ST) - At 24 Cherno has had a fair few clubs, a Gambian international with 4 caps who was highly thought of when a youngster coming through the Millwall youth system but things havent worked out, he is very quick and should cause alot alot of problems for slow Blue Square defences. I tip i will also give is that you should take a look at the reserve teams from all clubs from the Championship down to league 2 looking at transfer listed players. Alot will come and are good enough for the Blue Square, and with alot of them clubs will accept a bid of £0. Handy when you have no transfer budget. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_whitey Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 Pre-Season - Season One As i said in the opening post, i knew i was going to have to make changes to make Cambridge United competitive in the 1st season. So in my 1st day in the office i offered mutual termination of contract to Paul Carden (Player/Assistant Manager) and Martin Davies (Player/Youth Coach). Carden was the highest wage earner and not a great Assistant Manager, but it was a hard decision as with the original squad he would have been a starter in Centre Midfield, however I felt that after looking around at players available and taking his age into account i thought this was the best decision. I offered John Schofield the promotion to assistant manager as his stats are good for this job. Major changes are not something i like to do on Football Manager, I’m not one of these players who manage a club, replace the whole team regardless of budget or who they are, I try to play the game as close to real life as i can. I especially don’t like major change when I’m managing the club i support, but with Cambridge on FM11, change is defiantly needed, in this case i have made 8 signings, 3 of them loan signings, here are the details Cheno Samba has looked good in pre-season with 4 goals in 4, 3 assists and 3 MoM awards, I’m hoping he can get 15-20 goals this year. I'm also glad to have picked up St.Louis-Hamilton to play in goal as its a real weak spot in the team, so much so both Simon Brown and Danny Naisbitt are on the list, but nobody interested at the moment. The wage budget is 1,345 over at the moment, which i am looking to get down, will be trying to loan out a few of the youngsters while hoping the listed players attact interest as the season goes on. I have offered Saah and Willmott extensions to there contracts in the hope that i can keep some of the original faces around, both should be able to play in League 2, Saah especially. The season is just a few days away, i start with an away game at Fleetwood. With games to follow agaisnt Tamworth(H), Forest Green(A) and Bath (H). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thandui Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Got them promoted all the way from the Blue Square Premier to the Premiership on FM10, may try again this time, its good playing as my local team as well Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_whitey Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share Posted January 26, 2011 Got them promoted all the way from the Blue Square Premier to the Premiership on FM10, may try again this time, its good playing as my local team as well I managed to have a good game with the u's on FM10 too. Got them to the Championship and was doing really well, think i would have got them to the Premiership had i continued with it. The challenge this year is so much harder than on FM10 though. Normally when i start out at smaller clubs, especially one i support i like to keep as many of the current players as possible, but on FM11 with Cambridge Utd this is just not possible if you want to challenge the top teams in the BS Premier in season 1, the players just arnt good enough. Some rightly so but some like Willmott are too under rated. I have finished pre-season so will update this thread at some point today with what i've done. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_whitey Posted February 2, 2011 Author Share Posted February 2, 2011 January Update - Season One I'll post a bit more of a detailed update later when i have FM infront of me but will just give a quick update on my progress so far.. Things are going very well, much better than expected i sit top of the Blue Square Premier, 4 points infront of Luton Town. League table after 30 games Cambridge Utd 65pts ------------------------------- Luton 61pts Grimsby 53pts Mansfield 52pts Newport Co 51pts ------------------------------- Gateshead 50pts As you can see its pretty tight at the top between me and Luton and then there is a big gap to the rest, i would say its between me and Luton for the title now. Luton have a very strong squad and signed at least 3 players in January that i saw, 3 games ago they beat me 4-0 to complete a double over me. It's going to be very hard for me to keep my form going and stop Luton passing me but i just have to hope that they drop points in the run-in. Either way i should be in good shape for the play-off's but like always once you play those games form goes out the window a bit. Either way i'm way above expectations at the moment and really enjoying it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CUFCKai Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 What tactics do you play? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_whitey Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 I'm just playing a pretty simple 4-4-2 formation at the moment, roles change depending on the personel avalible but the shape of the team stays as a straght flat 4-4-2. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_whitey Posted February 7, 2011 Author Share Posted February 7, 2011 End of Season One Managed to win the Blue Square Bet Premier and the FA Trophy, a very sucessfull season. It wasnt easy, Luton pushed me all the way and Grimsby came on strong towards the end of the season too, those 2 teams played out the Play-off final with Luton winning and i played Grimsby in the FA Trophy final. I think that final took too much out of there players and maybe cost them in the play-off final. Here is how the league table looked at the end of the season Lucky for me Luton matched my poor run of form in the last 5 games, both of us only wining 2 of the last 5 games, loosing the other 3. Pretty much all of my signings came in and played well, Mahoto was excellent, scoring multiple stunning goals from outside the box. Cherno Samba along with Darryl Clare worked well and scored over 40 goals between them. Josh coulson was the biggest suprise performer, winning the fans player of the year after forcing himself into the team after a string of brilliant performances along side Brian Saah. Looking forward to season 2 in league 2. Should be good, i think with small improvements i can stay in the league. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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