Marseille - Building a Dynasty

After bouncing around a couple of saves trying to find something i could commit to, I was offered the Marseille job and thought that could actually be a good one to start off with, decent facilities and team, but plenty of room to improve.

These first posts will also kind of be a team guide for anyone else who's interested in taking on the sleeping giant.

I created the database with England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Argentina., Brazil and Portugal on View Only, and France as the only playable league for the moment.

Initial Transfer Budget was around 4m (I'm in 2nd season now so running from memory here) and there was a reasonable excess wage budget that could bump the transfer kitty up to 5m.

Stadium: Stade Velodrome (67,354) Note: easily get the highest average attendance in the league and does well for keeping secure finances

Training Facilities: Impressive

Youth Facilities: Great

Junior Coaching: Average

Youth Recruitment: Above Average

Season Expectations: Finish in a Euro Cup Qualification spot, 9th round of French Cup, Semi Final of Coupe de Ligue

All in all, reasonable expectations, 4th place will be sufficient which is what you should be achieving really.

The Squad

The most important part of taking over a new team is analysing the squad for weaknesses. With Marseille, there are no glaring positions that need reinforcements but as always, improvements can be made.

Goalkeepers

Steve Mandanda - Quality keeper, first choice by a mile, contract expires at the end of the season. I'd definitely renew even if you sell him at a later date.

Yohann Pele - Solid enough back up keeper I imagine, I never actually had to use him which is good. Keep around and loan out the younger keeper or sell, it's a personal choice.

Left Back

Benjamin Mendy - Decent left back, has a fair bit of potential to improve and become a top player for you. Great pace and acceleration

Paolo de Ceglie - Starts on loan, decent enough back up, good enough to cover if Mendy gets injured. Personal recomendation, don't buy him at the end of the loan, you can more than likely find someone better

Centre Back

Nicolas Nkoulou - First choice centre back without a doubt, has a few clubs sniffing around him but with the limited budget it'll be tough to replace him. Another one whose contract expires at the summer, needless to say get him to sign.

Rolando - Good enough to play alongside Nkoulou for now, not really a long term option as he's past his peak. Could be moved on, but he's good enough for a couple more seasons yet.

Karim Rekik - Former potential world class centre back, still got an impressive potential to be a replacement for Rolando in the next season or two, his development can shape your transfer dealings in the season to come.

Stephane Sparagna - Perfectly good enough to be a back up centreback, nothing more than that. Keep around for now, but should probably be eyeing up replacements.

Right Back

Brice Dja Djedje -Similar to Mendy, he's got a good potential to improve and be a part of the lineup for years to come, still young. Great pace and acceleration.

Javi Manquillo - Similar to De Ceglie, a solid enough back up with the ability to do a good job when called upon. Again I would recommend not signing him at the end of the loan, better options out there for less money.

Mauricio Isla - Versatile back up, can play right back, defensive midfield or centre midfield, right midfield. Useful in that way. Ability wise not so.

Defensive Midfielders

Lass Diarra - Absolutely brilliant player, performed wonderfully throughout the season everytime he played. Which wasn't as often as I would've liked. Might have been the role i played him in but 28 yellow cards in 36 appearances is slightly worrying. Note that in the French league, you get a one game ban for recieving 3 yellow cards in your past ten games. Age wise, he is getting on a bit but definitely worth keeping around, top player for this season.

Alaixys Romao - The only casualty of my first season. Once I'd decided the tactics I looked at who was going to be first choice etc, and changed their squad status accordingly. Romao was always going to be a solid backup to Lass. Once October hit, he started kicking up a fuss so I tried to rotate him in even more to keep things harmonious. In 5 games he managed 3 red cards. So I told him to pack his bags. Managed to get 250k from Kobenahven in January. so not too bad. I would have liked to have kept him around but he wasn't happy. If you do manage to keep him, don't for long he's only a short term option anyway.

Central Midfielder

Abou Diaby - The worldwide phenomenon of glass body Diaby. Perfectly good ability to be a solid central midfielder, but you need to get a more reliable option.

Lucas Silva - On loan from Real, the Brazilian wonderkid can slot straight into your central midfield. Was never an option on my save but if you can convince them to sell for a decent price, I'd take it. Has the potential to dominate your midfield for years to come.

Attacking Midfielder

Remy Cabella - Solid ability to be a first team attacking midfielder, can certainly do the business and a transfer clasue for 5.75m in the loan contract. I actually do recommend taking up that clause because you could do a lot worse for that money.

Abdelaziz Barrada - Slightly too good to be a back up but not quite enough to make it worth sending Cabella home. Could be sold to get a bit more money in, I chose to keep him and he actually played pretty well.

Left Wing

Romain Allesandrini - Another perfectly good first teamer, plays very well on the left, would be even better if he was a year or two younger but certainly not anything to worry about. Someone you can build your attacking midfield around.

Georges-Kevin Nkoudou - Young left wing talent, good enough to be a great back up player, worth throwing on as a sub wherever possible to aid that development. Could easily be the future of that left wing

Right Wing

Florian Thauvin - An interesting transfer situation with him. Can be a starter with ease, still young enough to build team around him should you choose to bring him in permanently. That decision is one of choice simply.

Lucas Ocampos - One of my favourite players ever since he led my Inter to 7 years of straight titles back on Fm12 or something. Could be a first teamer though not quite as good as Thauvin, but has the potential to improve and make that position his own.

Strikers

Michy Batshuayi - The Belgian centre forward is a solid enough starter, doesnt look like he's going to tear apart the league but my my did he do the business. Good enough to be a loan striker or part of a two man force.

Steven Fletcher Good striker as a partner or backup to Batshuayi. Got injured in pre season for 7 months so terminated his loan. Shame really.

As we can see, there are no overbearing weaknesses at the start, although Fletchers injury did cause a slight headache for me.

Notable youth players:

My understanding is that certain players ahve fixed PAs and others have a varying PA. I'm not sure which applies to these guys but in my save, they were the pick of the crop.

Maxime Lopez: Injuries to Cabella and Barrada in pre season meant I had to draft the 17 year old up from the reserves and he never looked back. Dubbed the next Michel Platini, he kept Cabella out of the starting line up till early November when tiredness set in but was one of the players of the season without a doubt. 4 goals and 8 asissts from 26 appearances, inclduing an impressive 6 MOTM awards marked a fantastic breakthrough season for attacking midfielder. Potential to be the next big thing.

Jeremie Porsan-Clemente - Fletchers injury and an ability to find anyone I liked the look of in the transfer market meant Porsan Clemente was drafted in as the next best striker to Batshuayi. Played as a back up and did reasonably well with 11 goals from 14 appearances. Will attract big interest from Real Madrid and Arsenal and suchlike, I stronly advise rejecting all offers and tieing him down to a long term contract, as he threw a hissyfit halfway through the season for rejecting a 1.1m bid for him. Easily got the potential to outshine Batshuayi.

Bilal Boutobba - Right winger, could be changed to left depending on your preference. Had a little run of appearances during the winter months due to a few injuries. His contract expires at the end of the first season, a definite must sign as early as possible. Could probably do with going on loan first season to get first team football. Has the potential to be a part of the first team from second season.

Tom Bondon - A defensive midfielder who was brought up for a few games as cover, only made a couple of substitute appearances but has the potential to be your best defensive midfielder by far. I brought him into the squad when Romao left as back up for Lass, and then Tom decided it would be fun to damage his cruciate ligaments. End of his season. Would suggest getting him out on loan first season unless you're a beleiver in his talent as he's not quite there in back up quality yet.

Aslame Saindou Ahamada - Slightly cheating here, my head of youth development signed him in the first couple of days from Sochaux for 125k. Left back, again, if you're brave you could replace De Ceglie with him though I'd probably advise getting him out on loan. Potential to be a good back up player to Mendy in the future.

I could go on and on, the youth squads at Marseille have an abundance of good young players which makes for a great project in bringing them through.

The Tactics

After analysing the squad, I decided the most suitable tactic would be a 4-2-3-1 formation. After a bit of tinkering it ended up looking like this.

I set the mentality to Standard or sometimes as Counter when going up against tough opponents.

The instructions were:

• Higher Tempo
  
• Balanced Width
  
• Normal Defneisve Line
  
• Closing Down More
  
• Tighter Marking
  
• Clear Ball to Flanks
  
• More Direct Passing
  
• Be More Expressive
  
• 
  

I would be very interested to hear if other people enjoy the same successes with this formation as it worked really well for me.

I then decided my likely first team and second team, although rotation and injuries meant it rarely went as well as that.

*After Lopez's breakthrough, I decided to shuffle Barrada back into the DLP role in centre midfield, covering silva. Once Romao left, centre midfield became a rotation of Diarra, Silva and Barrada

Season summary

During pre season, Fletcher picked up a long term injury so he was sent back to Sunderland. I also decided to terminate Mauricio Isla's loan as I did not see him figuring in my plans. The only signing was the 125k acquisition of Aslame Saindou Ahamada by my Head of Youth Development.

I bought in Claude Fichaux, Laurent Bonadel, Mohammed Regragul to the coaching team, Bojan Krkic, Sergio Rojas, Mustapha Hedna, Erik Larsen and Jorge Rodrgiuez de Cozar to the scouting team, and Alain Ratat and Jacques Muller to the physio department. This helped to shore up a lot of weaknesses in my backroom department for the season ahead.

We were drawn in the Euro Cup agaisnt Red Bull Salzberg, Trabzonspor and Tigru Mures and we qualified from the group in first place ahead of Salzburg.

In Novemberish time, the board decided to invest an extra 9m into the transfer budget, giving me around 12m to spend in the January window. By that point I'd gotten a feel for the squad and had made a few observations.

- Too many loan players in the squad, having De Ceglie, Manquillo, Silva, Cabella, Thauvin all playing a role in the squad is not healthy for a club of Marseille's size, I needed to size up some permanent signings for these guys else we would really struggle next season.

-Cabella was not performing, Lopez had kept him out the side for months and the poor guy just couldn't get in to his stride.

-Ocampos was more than good enough to be first choice, but Thauvin was peforming equally well.

-Allesandrini, Ocampos and Thauvin were scoring ridiculously well for wingers, and Batshuayi was loving the amount of crosses coming in.

-Rolando was the weak point in our defence and was exposing us too often.

-Romao was a watse of space and needed to be sold

With that in mind, I started scouting for potential signings, and came up with a decent shortlist.

Ludwig Augustinsson - Swedish 21 year old left back, had potential to be either back up or better than Mendy and available for a couple of million.

Eder Albarez Balanta - The Colombian rock wasn't quite ready to be first team but had the potential to get there soon. Available for around 5m.

Kevin Wimmer - It hadn't worked out at Spurs for the Austrian, highly recommended by scouts and would slot straight into the first team, but would cost a pricey 12m.

Adriano - Barca's back up full back had finally had enough and wanted out. Top quality, but wanted 80k in wages which is steep for my budget.

Talisca - Quality attacking midfielder who was in great form for Benfica, available for 4-6m for some strange unknown reason.

Timo Horn - Solid young German keeper who has the potential to go far in the game. Contract has a release clause for just 6.5m which was highly tempting.

The domestic cup draws came, and gave us a 9th round French Cup tie at PSg, just wonderful, and after dispatching Ea Guingamp in the 4th round of the Coupe de Ligue, we drew agaisnt PSG again in the quarter finals, much delight. We lost against the Parisians in the French Cup but a superb second half performance saw us win 3-2 in the Coupe de Ligue. That result gave us a semi final tie agaisnt SM Caen who we strolled to victory against setting up a mouthwatering final clash against rivals Lyon.

In the transfer window, we were reasonably busy, singing Talisca early on for 4m before sending him back on loan to Benfica for the rest of the season to continue his development. Weeks of negotiations took place with Tottenham over bringing Kevin Wimmer to France, we tried a loan with buy option, and eventually settled on a 3m initial fee and 9m spread over 48 months, which thankfully didn't shatter my budget too much, although PSG were bidding also so it was a miracle that we managed to sign him.

Abou Diaby left for Emploi for 1.1m (which was 1.1m more than I though I'd get), Rolando to Bournemouth for 1m which I was happy to take following Wimmer's signing, and Alaixys Romao went to Kobenhavn for 250k to end that miserable affair. Our only other business was my Head of Youth Development singing 16 year old centre back Ibrahima Konate from Sochaux for 100k.

As the season progressed, we drew Villareal in the Euro Cup and a disappointing 1-1 draw away from home meant we weren't in the strongest of positions for the second elg but we shone through with a 2-0 victory in front of our fans to secure a 2nd round tie agaisnt Dynamo Kiev. Oh sugar. In a vastly entertaining first leg we drew 3-3 at home in a game where no-one dominated. This however meant we had to win in Kyiv. It wasn't to be with a 1-0 defeat sending us out. Bearing in mind we were expected to reach the group stages, I still believe that was a fairly good showing in the Euro Cup, and shows promise for next season.

In the league we had a worrying dip where we were languishing in 10th at one point before a stern team meeting pulled us in the right direction as we powered up to 4th, and were knocking on the door of the exclusive champions league places. PSG and Monaco were well ahead for the top two but it was between us and Lyon for that final spot. Both of us ended up with bad spells which set up for a nervy finish where at one point Rennes over took both of us but in a last day miracle we clinched 3rd and the Champions League was our next adventure.

There was also a big ish game in April against Lyon where we faced off for the Coupe De Ligue trophy. We hand't managed to beat Lyon this season so hopes weren't high but somehow a 93rd minute strike from Lucas Ocampos saw us take home the trophy.

End of Season review:

League: 3rd

French Cup: 9th round v PSG

Coupe De Ligue: Winners

Euro Cup: 2nd round v Dynamo Kiev

A succesful finish saw us awarded a 16m budget for the end of the season and there was a flurry of activity as we immediately brought in 3 signings.

Lucas Romero - A player I'd been tracking for the majority of the second half of the season after coming to terms with just how often Lass Diarra was going to get suspended, the Argentinian 22 year old midfielder will come in to fight Diarra for a place in the starting line up. Cost - 5.5m

Remy Cabella - Surprising given his pre January form, but the turn of the year saw a turn of fortune and he finished the season in style and convinced me that 5.75m was worth shelling out for his services. Cost 5.75m

Bingourou Kamara - My Head of Youth Development kept banging on about the Tours FC keeper and finally with a bit of money floating around I decided to sign him as one for the future. Cost 3.5m

My loans returned and a lot of players were let go to keep the reserves and youth squads tight for development purposes. Saber Khalifa left for 750k in one of the more high profile departures. Doria jumped back in to the first team and gave me a slight issue of too many centre backs, but Sparagna decided he wanted to go so it was all okay.

After the start of the new season, the baord bumped the budget up AGAIN to 22m so out came the check book once more.

Aksel Aktas and Bruno Serrano - the Head of Youth Development struck gold again bringing in two talented 16 year olds for a combined fee of jsut 2.5m. Aktas is a highly promising right winger and Bruno Serrano could even force his way into my plans as a back up left back for the new season.

Timothée Kolodziejczak - with the Champions League on the horizon, I decided a bit of experience in Europe would serve well and the Sevilla defender was transfer lsited for the criminal fee of 2.8m so I snapped him as cover for Benjamin Mendy.

Dimitri Foulquier - Granada's full back had endured a difficult season in Spain and I made a risky decision to bring him in given his poor form. However, 4m for a 23 year old who can be a first teamer was too good to resist.

Timo Horn - this was the most difficult transfer decision I've made in a while. Still available at 6.5m and able to take Mandanda's spot, but could I bear to let Mandanda go. I decided to go for it, and sent him out on loan for the season to Real Oviedo to continue developing into a top level keeper.

Florian Roi, Jean-Marc Mercier, Laurent Carlier and Mohamed Belarbi were all signed for the youth teams, all showing potential to be high quality first team players.

The new season and additions to the squad saw a chance for me to re-evaluate my line ups. Due to the successes of the formation I decided to stick with that for the moment.

Wimmer and Nkoulou got the nod for preferred centre back partnership because of the half a season played together already, and Doria is on international duty past the start of the season.

Romero and Diarrra will rotate as Diarra is still plenty good enough to be a starter, and I'm cautious of Romero having problems settling in to the new country.

Bilal Boutobba comes up from the youth academy as a back up to Ocampos after Newcastle refused to entertain an offer for Thauvin.

I will of course look to bring in more youth academy products throughout the season and hopefully uncover the next French superstar

August

The Champions League playoffs pitted us against Besiktas in what was sure to be a tough tie. League games agasint Bordeuax, Montpellier and SM Caen looked to be a relatively simple start to the season in which we should be looking to take maximum points.

Girondins Bordeaux 1 - 5 Olympique Marseille

A brace for Michy Batshuayi, along with goals for Romain Alesandrini and Lucas Ocampos and an own goal from Lamine Sane ensured a perfect start to the Ligue 1 campaign. Gregory Sertic scored a late consolation in one mild black spot on the performance.

Besiktas 0 - 5 Olympique Marseille

In what was billed as a close encounter with Besiktas being very slight favourites, we romped to victory. Romain Alesandrini grabbed a brace, and Lucas Romero scored his first goal for the club. Jeremie Porsan-Clemente came off the bench to grab two goals to finish the rout, but should've had a hattrick. A very pleasing perfomance which will allow me to rest our first team for the return leg.

Olympique Marseille 3 - 0 Montpellier HSC

In a tight first half, it took centre back Kevin Wimmer of all people to break the deadlock and from then on, it was all Marseille. Cabella added a second 8 minutes later, and Michy Batshuayi grabbed his 3rd of the season on the hour mark. 13 goals in 3 games gives me a lot of hope for the season and our performances have been excellent.

Olympique Marseille 0 - 0 Besiktas

With Bilal Boutobba getting his first senior start, and a number of other debut appearances, it was a chance for our second team to strut their stuff. The 0-0 draw was slightly disappointing but given the dominating perfomance of the first leg, I didn't feel the need to criticise.

SM Caen 1 - 1 Olympique Marseille

An early Gabriel Obertan goal gave me the feeling we were going to see a shock result before Romain Alesandrini equalised in the 10th minute. A lacklustre performance followed and a half time grilling did nothing to improve the match. A disappointing result where we really should have picked up 3 points.

Romain Alesandrini is the top scorer with 4 goals this month, and Remy Cabella's performances earned him the Player of the Month Award

A beautiful Champions Cup draw sees us in a group with Real Madrid, Napoli and PSV in the group of death.. Such fun

Got a bit carried away over the weekend, now in January. Update time

League

A dissapointing couple of months in which we drew most of our games agaisnt teams we should easily be beating. In a lot of games we had so many opportunities but the shots were fizzing past the posts. It was tough to watch as there was nothing really going wrong, we just couldn't score a winner to save our lives. Form picked up in November slightly, as we started to string a few wins together and finished the year quite strongly, with a 3-0 win over Lyon. We lost to Monaco and PSG though so our record against the big boys is still worrying.

We're currently in 4th, a point behind Monaco. Surprise package Nice are 2nd on 41 points and PSG top the table with 45 points after 19 matches played. Montpellier, St Ettiene and Rennes are close behind us. I only noticed this when writing this but somehow, Lyon are in 19th with only 2 wins so far. That takes skill..

Cups

In the Coupe de Ligue 4th round we were drawn against high flying Nice and we laboured to a 2-1 win which set up a quarter final against Ligue 2 side Evian TG. The French Cup pits us against Montpellier in what will be our next game.

Champions League

In what I considered the group of death, our first match was agaisnt Real Madrid. We won 1-0 courtesy of a Lucas Ocampos penalty in a agme where we vastly outplayed and the win was largely down to Mandanda's excellent performance. Nevertheless, a fantastic result. Our next match was agaisnt PSV, probably the weakest of a strong bunch, and we put in a solid performance to come away 3-0 winners. After expecting a very tough group, we were sitting on top with 6 points after 2 games, a win against Napoli would put us in within touching distance of qualifications for the next round. The Italian side were our toughest opponents, our tactical setup proved effective against Madrid but Napoli's style of play was too good for us. Somehow, we managed to win 3-0, with all goals coming from corners in a match where we were dominated. The return match was a completely different affair where we outran them and were extremely unlucky to only win 3-0, Jeremie Porsan-Clemente missing a couple of sitters. Amazingly, we'd managed to secure qualification with 2 games to go, and a point against Madrid would all but secure first place. However, it wasn't to be with Madrid thrashing us 3-1. I hadn't realised until now but when level on points, head to head record is more important than goal difference. This meant that we had to beat PSV, and hope that Napoli could take something away from their game in Madrid. Needless to say we grabbed another 3-0 win (a bit of a habit in Europe it seems) and secured a very respectable 15 points. And thanks to Robin Quaison, in the 83rd minute, Madrid drew meaning we took top spot. So much for the gorup of death.

The draw for the first round sees us return to Madrid to take on Diego Simeone's Atletico. Not the best of draws but we've proved that we're better than I thought so anything could happen.

Remy Cabella won French Player of the Year and Jeremy Porsan-Clemente took the Ligue 1 Revelation of the Year award.

Youth breakthrough

Florian Roi was poached in the summer and is already knocking on the door of the first team. At the moment, I see him as a replacement for Lass Diarra as he's starting to show old age. The 16 year old has 1.5 stars CA and 4+ PA so could easily be one of our best youth products if his development goes to plan. I bought him up to first team squad in November and am looking to give him a few substitute appearances during the season.

Bruno Serrano was one of the Sochaux prospects snapped up by my Head of Youth Development last season and with Kolo (can never remember how to spell his name so he is Kolo now ) getting grumpy about only being a back up, I figured it might be time to look at the abundance of left back prospects I have. Another 16 year old with 1 star CA, and 3.5+ PA, he could well be a part of the squad soon.

Christopher Rocchia is an actual player who's come solely from our youth academy and he's been improivng steadily. The 18 year old centre back is entering a defining age for his career and it would be the perfect time for him to make the step up. Karim Rekik's progression has been a bit of a mess, and with Doria, Kevin Wimmer and Nicolas Nkoulou all being good enough to play week in week out, having a centre back with room to develop could be ideal. With 1.5 CA and 3.5+ PA he could grow to be a strong potential replacement for Nkoulou in a couple of years.

This is my first ever attempt at doing this kind of thing and I would greatly appreciate any feedback you guys have and ways to improve. I will update again soon

Transfers Update

With Rocchia's impressive progress and Rekik not being the youngster I was looking foir, I had contemplating maybe offering Rekik out during this window. However, before I had a chance to do anything, Crystal Palace came in with a 5.5m bid (3.4m up front and 2.1m over 12 months) which was promising considering his value is only 4m. I saw the potential to get a few more pennies out of them and negotiated to 6.5m (4m up front and 2.5m over 12 months) which they accepted! 6.5m for a back up player with a replacement already at the club is a solid piece of business in my eyes.

Juventus offered 8m (4.5m and 1.6m over 12 months plus bonuses) and Barcelona offered 7.75m (4.5m and 1.7m plus bonuses) for Benjamin Mendy, which I swiftly rejected as he's been solid this season, and even getting a few assists in there too. He's now in a frump over wanting to move to a bigger club so we'll have to handle that one carefully. The squad wanted a meeting to share their concerns but after pointing out the obvious that we'd be considerably weaker without him and they were happy with that reasoning.

Bilal Bouttoba was the subject of a derisory 2.9m bid from Porto (600k and 105k over 12 months + bonuses) which was obviously rejected and he got a bit frumpy but after having a chat over a pint he was okay with staying. He then went to the papers to complain *sigh*

Rest of Season 2 update

League

We picked up a few more wins in the second half of the season, but threw away far too many points against sides that we should be beating. I think next season I might need to develop the formation further to offer a more attacking focus. PSG were on a ridiculous 50 odd match unbeaten run in the league (show offs) but in the last but one game of the season we finally beat them!! Talisca was the hero of that game. We finished the season in 2nd place, some 11 points behind PSG, but 7 points clear of 3rd placed Nice so progress has been made on last season. Monaco fell away and finsihed in 5th as part of the chasing pack.

Cups

PSG knocked us out of the Coupe De Ligue in the Quarter Finals in a very close fought game. In the French Cup, we got a nice tie against Bordeaux in the Semi Finals but didn't turn up at all and lost 2-0 in a thoroughly disappointing result. Next season, winning a domestic cup is a must.

Europe

In the first leg against Atletico, we were 3-0 down by half time and I feared it was all over already. Lucas Ocampos pulled 2 vital away goals back in the last ten minutes to give us a fighting chance in the second leg. We set up much more defensively in the second leg, and Ocampos snatched a second half winner to send us through agaisnt the odds on away goals.

The next round pitted us against high flying Tottenham, and it was a repeat of the previous round. 3-0 down by half time, Ocampos pulled 1 away goal back. We managed to get another 2 in the second leg, but Tottenham scored in the 70th minute meaning we needed to score to take it to extra time, and in an effort to grab that goal, we opened up defensively and Spurs stole a second to take the victory overall. Frumpfrumpfrump.

Youth Intake

Got yet another high potential centre midfielder and striker this year. Seems to be an abundance of them at the moment. For the start of season 3, Florian Roi, Jean-Marc Mercier, Elrik Haugan, Johan Martel, Hassim Hadji, Aksel Aktas, Hassan Zakouani and Laurent Carlier all were moved up into the senior squad with the aim of blooding them in over the season.

Transfers

Kolo kept complaining all season so I'd decided it wasn't going to work out and sold him to Stoke for £4.5m. Abdelaziz Barrada was declining in ability compared to the rest of the midfield so I offered him out for £4.5m which Palace stumped up. It's a shame Maxime Lopez is so good he stole his place. With Timo Horn returning from loan to take up themantle of first choice keeper, Steve Mandanda wouldn't negotiate a contract with a lower squad status, so to avoid unsettling the captain, I let him leave for 2.5m to Juventus. The same Juventus returned a week later trying to buy Horn. Clearly not worried about player complaints.

My Head of Youth Development was busy bringing in a few new faces to the youth academy over the summer, and we now are in the position where we have a high potential prospect for each position. Happy Days

This is my current squad, 4 games into the 3rd season

We've reached January 2018 and it's been a mixed bag for OM this season.

The Champions Cup pitted us agaisnt Porto and Shakhtar, two very tough opponents, and FC Kobenhaven who we really should be beating. A poor first match agaisnt the Danish, and a scrappy draw against Porto saw us needing to take 3 points from the Ukranians. We were completely outplayed and they deservedly won both matches. That knocked us out of the competition, and then we started winning naturally. We finished 3rd and qualify for the Euro Cup, where we will face Viktoria Plezn, with the chance to face Villareal or Hoffenheim. After the disappointment of being knocked out of the Champions Cup, we should be looking to reach the latter stages of the Euro Cup to aid our reputation.

In the league we had a few blips, agaisnt the likes of SM Caen, FC Metz, but it was the appaling defeat to St Ettienne which was our worst result, getting smashed 4-0 by our rivals. However, we sit 2nd in the league and are stealing away from the rest of the pack, hoping to close in on PSG as the season goes on

I was offered the Holland job in October which I accepted to provide a bit of a different challenge but I was in for a surprise. An injury crisis afflicted six of our senior midfielders and we barely scraped draws against Romania and Venezuela. They had failed to reach the World Cup before I was given the reins so my focus is on Euro 2020..

Transfers

Lucas Hernandez was someone I'd been keeping an eye on from the start, knwoing his potential to be a star centre back. Atletico were prepared to let him leave for around 4m which tempted me but then they transfer listed him for a measly 2.1m. Needless to say, I slapped a bid in straight away and he chose to join us over Valencia!

With both Brice Dja Djedje and Dmitri Foulquier's development slowing somewhat, I had half an eye on a right back who could take us to the next level. Come January, Wolfsburg put in a bid for Foulquier and he vowed to never play for the club again after I rejected it. Nelson was on the transfer list at Chelsea and for the first time in who knows how long, the board have actually agreed to buy a player for me! 18m was the price for the Portugese star and he looks to be worth every penny.

Our star signing of the January window, a world class centre back who has been linked with giants such as Man Utd and Chelsea, he was one of the best players available who would sign for me. For a club record fee of 25m, I present .... JOHN STONES!!!!

After growing tired at Everton and wanting to move to a bigger club, I swooped in and after weeks of negotiations we agreed a 25m deal to bring the England international to France. Hopefully, this signing is the start of the step up to truly challenging PSG for the Ligue 1 title.

Good stuff there !

Keep it up!

You're in love with CB or what? ?

Hope you'll get the title this year!

Agreed, a very enjoyable read. Good luck trying to topple PSG!

As someone who writes a thread and understands the work that goes in please don't be put off by the lack of comments, I hardly get any on mine but just know people are reading, good start mate

Good stuff there !

Keep it up!

You're in love with CB or what?

Hope you'll get the title this year!

Haha, might need to sell one or two but not quite sure whether to sell Nkoulou as he's my weakest, on highest wage, oldest, but he's captain. Decisions decisions

Agreed, a very enjoyable read. Good luck trying to topple PSG!

As someone who writes a thread and understands the work that goes in please don't be put off by the lack of comments, I hardly get any on mine but just know people are reading, good start mate

Cheers for the support guys

Thomas, please let me know what you think of my updates;

'The Journals of Humpus Widgren' about a third of the way down on the updates section

Hi Thomas, excellent work so far! Looking at your tactics overview in one of your first Posts, there are 2 playmaker positions (DLP & AP), right? How do they go together? In my current main save with Köln I have a squad that asks for this, too, if I only look at preferred positions. But I thought that 2 playmakers are one too many. Any thoughts/ experiences from your side? Thanks and KUTGW! Oh, and by the way, when following a thread I always appreciate Pictures or lists instead of plain text. I just won't take the time to read it all when it's just text, I admit. So great that you started to include pics of schedule and table.

Took me ages to figure out screenshots and posting the links but we're there now

With the two playmakers, I've found it works really well for me. Cabella (AP) is often in or around the box at the final point of attacks, so takes focus away from the striker. Talisca (DLP) is usually around 30 yards out and picks up a lot of stray clearances from the opposition and puts them out wide to the wingers (clear ball to flanks instruction).

For your Koln side, it depends on how many strikers you wish to play with, I think if you're the same as me and have a lone striker, having the AP really helps take the pressure off him. Feel free to steal the tactic and see how it works for you. It relies a lot on the solidity of the centre backs, and having good supply in to the attacking areas. Depending on how effective crossing is, I either tend to have hit early crosses or work ball into box.

Final Koln tip; give Horn a new contract without that ridiculously cheap release clause in it

After a bit of to and fro my best results were with a flat 4-4-2 with TM+T or TM+F9, i.e. Modeste+Osako. For central midfield I have Jojic (and a pretty talented M. Eggestein) favoring AP and Yannick Gerhard favouring CLP. My solution so far was to have them both in the starting 11 playing Gerhard as CM (De or Su) and Jojic in the CM Position but as AP (At or Su). I feel that's a bit of wasting Gerhard's potential though. Still I usually prefer this over having only one striker as Modeste then seemed pretty lonely and powerless.

Playing two playmakers now becomes an option for me again, whenever a 4-4-1-1 Situation Comes up (i.e. playing a Team that is clearly better than us or (and that's a pretty usual Scenario) Osako gets injured for months and months)... Thanks for the tip.

I just started the third season with Köln. One of the first things in the first year was to prelong Horn's contract. But at first he wouldn't talk about this at all. But after a good run in year 2 he did and now Horn and Hector are on Long-term contracts for ok release clauses (>20m). *phew*

Cabella, Talisca, Porsan Clemente and Nkoudou all picked up injuries during a crucial month which has seen our form gone downhill quicker than a cheese on that hill race thing

Absolutely fuming with some of the performances..

End of Season 3

Tough to say how I feel about this season, in some respects we've done well and in others we should have done better...

Results

A lack of consistency was our worst enemy this season, injuries to a few players really disrupted our rhythm and February/March saw an alarming drop in form. Bear in mind that going into the match against Nancy, we were 4 points off PSG, by the end of the Nantes match in April we were 19 points behind, and only 4 points clear of 3rd place. Some subtle changes may need to be made if we are to really challenge PSG.

On the other hand, our cup runs were incredible. In the French Cup, Stade Lavallois and Stade de Reims were the only teams who you could say were 'easy' opponents. Spectacular games against Monaco and St Ettiene were some of the best performances of a bleak period of form. In the Coupe de Ligue, we had a slightly easier team and perhaps the final against PSG was a saving point. We had our backs to the wall for most of the games and deservedly took them all the way to penalties where we managed to steal the trophy from our main rivals.

On the European front, it was a very mixed affair. The games agaisnt Viktoria Plzen were awful, the fact that they were able to take us to penalties was appaling and I only wish there was a 'hairdryer treatment' option in the teamtalk. Hoffenheim saw an improvement definitely but it was the games against Chelsea where we shone. We put in a solid performance to come away from Stamford Bridge with a 1-1 draw and in front of our fans we carved them open like scissors through tissue paper, how we only scored 2 was beyond me. Unfortunately Liverpool was a step too far and they were too strong for us.

Season Summary

It was looking promising until our dramatic fall in form, but theres hope for next season, another season of battling on four fronts will hopefully see us take a step closer to PSG

In a notable mention, Lyon were 1 point off coming back up at the first attempt which is good and a shame at the same time

Squad Stats

Reached that stafe of the save where the transfer market has become frustrating because I can't find many players that would actually be a significant improvement, and the few that I can find are ridiculously expensive (>50m). Typical for the first year where I've been given a decent sized budjet that in previous seasons could have overhauled the squad with quality players.

Says it all about how much overtime I'm doing when it's taken me 2 weeks to get from June to January

There were no major first team signings over the summer, just couldn't find the right players. As usual, I was very busy bringing in youth players and the youth teams are really starting to look impressive. Nkoudou left on loan as he wanted first team football and hopefully that will be the final push in his development. Edy Pechart was brought up from the reserve squad to take his place.

Season Progress

Porsan-Clemente has been in superb form this season. The only youth breakthroughs really have been Jean-Marc Mercier fully displacing Lass Diarra to become Romero's successor. Edy Pechart has also put in some brilliant performances and even saved us with vital goals. Laurent Carlier has put in a few good performances and with Batshuayi getting narked about being back up to Porsan-Clemente, it might be time to move the Belgian on and let Carlier step up to the plate.

January Transfers

Brought in 8 youth players and I think it might be time to stop soon as the youth squads are getting a wee bit full

This is my reserve squad

and my U19 squad

One of my new signings looks exceedingly promising

Dan Faur (a 18 year old Romanian CB/RB) and Edy Pechart (a 18 year old French AML/AMC) have been the subject of strong interest from the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Bayern and Juventus but nothing overly sensational to make me want to accept. Pechart threw a majow wobbly about rejecting the bids and is back down with the U19s whilst he calms down, and Faur has been slightly dissapointed but nothing to worry about with him.

Lass Diarra will be leaving the club either in this window or on a free in the summer, and it looks like Brice Dja Djedje will be following with him refusing to enter contract negotiations and Roma already offering him a contract

Great read so far! Keep up the good work!

The first signing of the summer is sealed!!!

Great read - would love to see some of your most exciting prospects that have come through your Academy the past couple of years.

Great read - would love to see some of your most exciting prospects that have come through your Academy the past couple of years.

BY come through the academy do you mean from the youth candidates team, or just a closer look at some of the best prospects I have?

Another top signing!!!

Will post the end of season review tomorrow

Season Summary

Definitely our best season so far, that is until we hit April..

This is the first season where there has been a very realistic chance that we could actually take top spot. I can't remember the exact time but there was a point where we were level with PSG on points, and we were only a few points behind them for the majority of the latter half of the season. Unfortunately, a few badly timed injuries derailed our push in April and we finished 5 points behind the giants. I think our undoing is that our back up young players haven't been of the quality to cover for long term injuries in the first team.

Slightly dissapointing cup performances, the final against Monaco was especially tough to take as it was one of those games where we absolutely dominated from start to finish, but couldn't hit the target to save our lives. In the French Cup semi final against PSG we matched them evenly, it could even be said we deserved to win but the lottery of penalties went against us again.

Our Champions League run was fantastic, although it threw up something of concern. In the knockout stages, we performed significantly better at home than away, never more evident than the Arsenal games. At the Emirates, we were completely outplayed, and yet at home we were unstoppable and should have scored more. Real Madrid in the semi finals were ultimately a step too far though and they went on to win the trophy.

Player Performances

Jeremie Porsan-Clemente scored 30 goals this season and has really stepped his game up. Maxime Lopez broke a Ligue 1 record for highest average match rating in his first season as undisputed starter in the attacking midfielder position. Summer signing Leonardo Carreras (19 year old attacking midfielder) stepped in during an injury crisis and made some impressive performances which earned him an end of season award (Best young player). Laurent Carlier rose to the role of back up striker in the latter months after Michy Batshuayi finally agreed to join someone, and hopefully with a full season next year he will really kick on. Florian Roi and Jean-Marc Mercier formed a strong partnership for the future as back up central midfielders, though Mercier's yellow card collection is a slight worry. Edy Pechart continued to impress and weighed in with vital goals in the latter half of the season. Hamadi Hadji had a good solid season supporting Benjamin Mendy in the left back role.With Brice Dje Djedje joining Roma at the end of his contract, I decided to promote from within and brought Peter Perrin up from the reserves to get him some game time and Dan Faur also came up and made appearances during a defensive injury crisis with both youngsters impressing enough to earn themselves a place in the squad for the next season. Kelechi Ibrahim and Jose Luis also made a couple of appearances as cover for injuries.

One thing that is mildly annoying is that I have finished 2nd now in the past 3 seasons, and 3rd in our first attempt, yet there hasn't been a Marseille player in the Ligue 1 team of the year at all in the past 4 seasons Maxime Lopez has the best average rating but not in the best team

Transfers

With the signings of Ruben Neves and Goncalo Guedes wrapped up before the start of the transfer window, I was able to have a good evaluation of the squad and for the first time, we saw some big sales.

Romain Alesandrini -> Everton 10m

Talisca -> Lazio 35m

Kevin Wimmer -> Roma 7.25m

Michy Batshuayi -> Wolves 5m

Bilal Boutobba -> Leicester 5m

Georges-Kevin Nkoudou -> Watford 3.8m

Young players Zakouani, Gambor, Haugan, Konate, Rocchia and Bembo-Leta all left the club in minor deals.

The Current Squad

Jose Luis, Joshua Crompton, Peter Perrin and Dan Faur all make the move up to the main squad, with Pechart going down to the reserves after picking a long term injury on international duty.

It seems that PSG had an incredible run last season Thomas, you did not drop a lot of points and only finished 2nd unfortunately, next year will be the good one to lift the trophy, your team is really tough now !

I m also in trouble in my 3rd season, might be a bad year!

Is Monaco performing well? Still crap in my save

Good job, keep going ?

It seems that PSG had an incredible run last season Thomas, you did not drop a lot of points and only finished 2nd unfortunately, next year will be the good one to lift the trophy, your team is really tough now !

I m also in trouble in my 3rd season, might be a bad year!

Is Monaco performing well? Still crap in my save

Good job, keep going

Monaco were 10 points behind me so I think they were on around 77 points at the end of it all, plus the Coupe De Ligue win means its their best season so far. Seem to be following their real life action of developing young and selling high, some of their youth regens would do nicely for my team

May have lost the save Keeps reverting back to the same date even though I know I've saved it after that point

Mendy, Cabella, Perrin, Roi, Lucas and Ocampos all picked up injuries within a week or so don't think this is going to be my season

Decided to do a whole season update as I got a bit carried away

League

After an appaling start to the season where we in 15th place at one point, we had a few unsuccesful team talks before a slight change of tactic seemed to do the trick and after New Year we went on an incredible unbeaten run, and smashed our club record for consecutive clean sheets! We took PSG to the very last match in the title race but we need Rennes to beat them and that was always going to be asking a lot, never the less a strong showing and encouraging signs for next season.

We now play more of a controlled possesion based style of football, and it's working out how to strike that balance between controlling the match whilst being slightly more offensibvely succesful aswell if we are to clinch the title next season.

Coupe De Ligue

A fairly routine cup run, helped by PSG being kncoked out in their first game to Ligue 2 side Valenciennes. This trophy took me into the Hall of Fame for managers in France.

French Cup

Another fairly simple run to the final, where we met PSG for the annual end of season game, and it took extra time for us to finally beat them after throwing the kitchen sink at them for the last 15 minutes.

Champions Cup

The Board expected me to reach the First knockout round which I felt was easily achievable as we'd always gone further. The group stage draw pitted us against Porto, Dynamo Kiev and FC Midtjyland so I felt we should be progressing from the group with relative ease barring any disasters. Our league form and European form were like chalk and cheese with us winning every group match with ease, with the highlights being a 6-0 demolition of Dynamo kiev (they did have two players sent off I'll give them that) and a 4-0 smashing of Porto (they had no excuses).

That set up a first round tie against Red Bull Salzburg which were one of the nicer teams we could have got. A nervy first leg saw us draw 0-0 away and we scrambled to a 1-0 win in front of our own to make the Quarter Finals where we would face Italian champions Juventus. a 2-0 win at home set us up for what should have been a comfortable 2nd leg but it took two goals in the last ten minutes to salvage a 2-2 draw in Italy to send us through to the semis! In the semis we would be facing Liverpool, who knocked us out of the Euro League Semi Finals a few years back so there was revenge on the cards here. A 1-1 draw at Anfield in a game where Liverpool absolutely dominated was a great start but as usual we saved our best performance for our own fans where we strolled to a 3-1 victory. This set up my first Champions Cup Final appearance against... PSG.. All this way to face them again!

It was a fiery encounter at Signal Iduna Park with both teams getting a player sent off (Matuidi for PSG and Romero for Marseille) and a total of 11 yellow cards (6 for PSG and 5 for us). Adrien Rabiot gave the Parisians the lead after just 2 minutes and we never got started after that. Angel Di Maria poked home a second just before half time, and at that point I decided to throw caution to the wind and went highly attacking, figuring we had nothing to lose. We did look much better in the second half and Jeremie Porsan-Clemente scored in the 69th minute to offer us a glimmer of hope. Jose Luis, starting in place of the suspended Goncalo Guedes then volleyed home a Lucas Ocampos cross to draw us level just a minute later and set the game up for an exciting final 20 minutes. However, PSG chickened out and decided to drop deeper and try and hit us on the counter, menaing we had to defend more and the game went to extra time. Despite Gabriel Barbosa's best efforts, Horn wasn't going to let PSG score again and the trophy would be decided on the horrendous penalties. At this point I walked out the room and told the missus to tell me when it was over because I hate watching them. And as it happens, we managed to win! 5-4 on penalties meant that agaisnt the odds, Olympique Marseille were the Champions of Europe!! I was delighted, the boys were delighted, the board were delighted, the fans were delighted and Laurent Blanc even said I was a half decent manager afterwards.

Transfers

I bought in a number of African youngsters from their youth intake, and a couple more Czech guys for good measure(about 6 players now with 3+ stars potential, they could have an insane team soon), and young goalkeeper Suan Besic was the only departure for 85k. Steve Mandanda rejoined for 500k in a player/goalkeeping coach role. Got the feeling my main squad is fairly sorted now and barring Pogba being transferlisted, I don't envisage there being much transfer activity for a few years. He says.

Squad Summary

An outstanding season for Ocampos, and while Porsan-Clemente didn't hit the heights of last season he did reasonable well. Goncalo Guedes has had a solid debut season aswell and hopeuflly he gets even better over the next few years. Maxime Lopez has really flourished as the main man behind Porsan-Clemente this season. Our youngsters have all performed well too, giving hope for the future.

Mandanda decided he would be retiring at the end of the season, but the game says he's not retiring until 2024 (the end of his contract) so that was a comical news story. Timo Horn has peaked, and I might look at how youngster Mohammed Belarbi is progressing before deciding on his squad status next season.

Peter Perrin has had a solid season as back up to Nelson Semedo and we're looking for him to kick on with his development next season. Hamadi Hadji has flourished at left back this season and Mendy has some real competition now. Dan Faur has had a good year alongside stalwart Nkoulou and Lucas has also put in some strong performances.

Florian Roi and Jean Marc Mercier have been the success stories this season, with both now capable of pushing for a first team role. Unfortunately for them, Romero and Neves continue to perform at the highest level so happiness will need careful management there. Maxime Lopez is clearly the main attacking midfielder, but Cabella has season after season put in consistently good performances, so much so that I don't want to bring in Carreras as I'll have no place for Cabella Guedes and Ocampos have run riot on the wingers, but Jose Luis and Josh Crompton have surprised many with their strong performances, Crompton scoring some vital winning goals early in the season.

Jeremie Porsan-Clemente and Laurent Carlier look untouchable as the strikers, but I am looking for a better output from Carlier if he wants to be the first choice.

France

Phillipe Montanier was sacked in January after France failed to seal automatic qualification for the 2020 European Championship, and I'd always planned to manage the national team at some point, although not quite this soon. However, when they offered me the job, I found it hard to refuse and returned to international management. We faced Slovenia and then Czech Republic in two straightforward play off games and we qualified for a group alongside Portugal, Norway and Iceland, which gives us a reasonable chance of reaching the latter stages.

Our Div. A group draw however pitted us against Italy and Spain, can't get much tougher than those two

More to come after the summer!