FM10: Official Stoke City Thread - The Loudest fans in the Premiership

The History

Stoke were founded in 1863 and are currently the second oldest football league club in the country. They were one of the leagues founding members and originally played at the Victoria ground, for 119 years which is a record currently shared with Wolves. Despite having a long history Stoke haven't accumulated a great number of trophies, league cup winners in 1972 as well as runners up in 1964 and the Autoglass windscreen trophy twice in 1992 and 2000.

The best period in Stoke's history was in the 1960's and 1970's under Tony Waddington. A manager who bought ageing players to the club, getting the final great performances out of them. In the early days of his reign he persuaded the legendary Sir Stanley Matthews to rejoin the club at the age of 46. The man who 5 years earlier at 41 won the first Ballon D'or award which he won during his tenure at Blackpool. Matthews was the first of many, who would come in and Stoke returned to the top flight of English football where they would remain under Waddington for many years. Stoke were ultimately home to some of England's great players, alongside Matthews who remains the oldest player to play for England and top flight footballer, Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton, Geoff Hurst, John Ritchie and George Eastham - with more recent players like Lee Dixon, Sammy McIlroy, Steve Bould and Garth Crooks.

With signings like Pejic, Hudson and Greenhoff Stoke were regarded as being one of the better playing sides in the league. Culminating in an eventual top 5 finish in the old division 1. Stoke won their only real major trophy against Chelsea in 1972; a game in which they were considered underdogs in despite having one of the worlds best goalkeepers by the name of Gordon Banks.

The 70's will always be looked on as a time when Stoke should have won more than they did, some spectacular results against the big teams of the day such as a 3-0 drubbing of Leeds the first game of the season after they won the 73/74 division one title just one of many good results - and the FA cup semi-final defeats against an "overly physical" and "dirty" Arsenal side even by the 70's standards as many newspapers would report the day after... How times have changed if Arsene Wenger was to be believed last season. Had a tragic car accident never befallen Gordon Banks and had he still been between the sticks in the 73/74 season some fans feel we could have won the league, but the rather lax attitude of Shilton at the time was ultimately undoing for us as during his time with Stoke he was certainly far from his best.

The clubs fortunes ultimately suffered in 1976, the Butler Street stand roof was blown off by strong winds and the stand wasn't insured. Waddington left when the club were relegated in the 76/77 season after the club had to sell off their best players. Stoke were back in the top flight for a while during the 80's but by the mid-80's Stoke were relegated in what was known as "the holocaust" amongst fans, with a record low for points which would remain intact until Sunderland came along many years later.

The last few years...

The clubs ascent to the premiership began really with the plans to build the Britannia Stadium, the year the stadium was completed however we found ourselves cycling through 4 managers in a single season and after a somewhat promising start we were relegated to Division Two. In came the Icelandic owners and it was the saving of Stoke, our debts were taken away, we bought exciting players like Peter Hoekstra but still year after year we were unable to get promoted. Eventually Gudjon Thordarson got it right, and we went up via the play-offs but it was far too late as the fans and board agreed for the resources he had and he was sacked within days of promotion.

Whilst none of us realised at the time, and whilst many fans still have a disliking of his negative tactics Stoke got Tony Pulis in as manager after Burley turned down the chance at the very last minute. During his first tenure under the Icelandic owners, he consolidated the side, and got us to mid-table positions but some began to dub us "Binary City" because it was rare for a game at Stoke to have results more than 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1.

The Icelandics eventually sacked him for "failure to exploit the foreign markets" and in came a crazy 12 months under Johan Boskamp, a man who fell out with the director of football over a note-passing incident between backroom staff members. Tactically he was naive, but other times we played some nice football, we couldn't get any consistency and whilst chalking up some nice wins there were also some shocking losses. We also signed Sambegou Bangoura and after impressing initially when the african nations came he disappeared for a rather prolonged period with no explanation why. Again at the start of the next season he did the same, and he was soon sent packing.

Failure to reach the playoffs led the Icelandics to say the club was up for sale once more, they made it public knowledge we had debts and in stepped former Chairman Peter Coates to buy the club back. At the time he was practically universally hated at Stoke, he had always been seen as the man who made so many terrible decisions from when he took over. Most of us were also unaware at just how much wealth he had amassed during his time away from the club with betting company Bet365. Coming back he announced the unpopular decision that he wanted Pulis back as manager, but it was the right decision and over the next 2 seasons Stoke quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the championship off the back of Pulis' wheeling and dealing and use of the loan market.

Pulis called us the "battersea dogs home" of football, taking players who were down on their luck or had fallen out of favour at their current clubs, Lee Hendrie, Andy Griffin, Liam Lawrence, Rory Delap, Ricardo Fuller, Danny Higgibotham... the list went on. He was able to get good performances out of these in the championship and with others in the premiership.

2008/09 marked our first foray into the premiership since its rebranding, and the first time in the top flight for 23 years. Had Scott Carson not been so greedy in asking for more money we may have been far worse off, but thanks to him, we opted for Thomas Sorensen instead, and because of Newcastle's decision to buy Coloccini Stoke got Abdoulaye Faye for just £2.25m, other signings like Beattie and Etherington proved to be instrumental in the clubs success and various tests began to show we were the loudest fans in the premiership and perhaps one of the chants that silenced the whole of anfield early last season shows what we're all about.

Despite the kops taunts of "you've never won **** all" Stoke burst out in a rendition of "We won it 2 times" referring to the autowindscreen trophy we won during those dark midweek nights of now League 1 football - the Anfield atmosphere had clearly already been over-exaggerated and they were fairly subdued all game from that point on. Another example was when we welcomed Man City to the Britannia and their Chairman (not owner) Rory Delap got sent off for a challenge on Wright Philips was rightly a red card, but the ref had missed Wright Philips own little kicking on a player just before. Anyone who hasn't seen that really should watch it for the sense of just how hostile the crowd can be as it is kept up for a huge proportion of the game whilst seeming tame at times in other games the crowd needs only something small to spark it off and once the siege mentality has been started amongst the fans it can be truly impressive.

We ultimately finished 12th in the league, and looked by far the best of the three promoted sides. West Brom had gone straight back down (again) and Hull had practically imploded and had it not been for the bigger Geordie implosion probably would have gone down as well.

Initial Expectations

Avoid Relegation: £6.5m | £525k

Mid-table: £8m | £550k

Top-half: £8.75m | £575k

European spots: £9.5m | £575k

Title Challenger: £10.5m | £575k

Winner: £11.25m | £600k

Finances

The club start the season with around £14m in the bank, and the club seems to operate at around a loss of £1 - £2m per month during the season. This means when it comes to spending there is some need to be prudent and favour deals with more clauses in. With the ability to stretch a deal over 48 months, these are the kind of deals needed to make sure the club avoids any financial difficulties later on in the season.

You will be able to rely on the income of around £8m in season tickets revenue, and about £2.5 - £3m income per month given the gate receipts, merchandising, TV revenue and Match day income.

However, this doesn't really offset the clubs losses as mentioned above. The wages are about £2m a month, and staff wages of around £200k a month. Between non-football costs, bonuses, ground maintenance, tax, other and match day expenses you're looking at collectively around £2 - £2.5m a month.

The Team

[b] Keepers [/b]
Thomas Sorensen
Steve Simonsen

[b] Fullbacks [/b]
Andy Griffin
Danny Higginbotham
Danny Collins
Andy Wilkinson

[b] Centrebacks [/b]
Abdoulaye Faye
Ryan Shawcross
Leon Cort
Robert Huth
Ryan Shotton
Ibrahima Sonko (on loan at Hull)

[b] Centremids [/b]
Dean Whitehead
Rory Delap
Danny Pugh
Amdy Faye
Michael Tonge
Diego Arismendi
Salif Diao
Nathaniel Wedderburn
Glenn Whelan

[b] Widemen [/b]
Liam Lawrence
Matthew Etherington
Tuncay
Tom Soares

[b] Strikers [/b]
Ricardo Fuller
Dave Kitson
James Beattie
Mamady Sidibe

Keepers:

Stoke have got experienced Danish international Thomas Sorensen as number 1, and whilst the second choice keeper Steve Simonsen is a good shot stopper he isn't really up to the testing nature of the premiership. He is a good back-up, but a bad injury to the first choice will see you really struggling with Stoke. As such it would be worthwhile buying back-up.

Recommended Signings:

Vincent Enyeama

German Lux

Tim Krul

Fullbacks:

The fullbacks at Stoke aren't built for getting forward, but rather to be used to get narrow and prevent the opposition from cutting in as well as being tall and strong to keep other teams from getting the better of them in the air. Whilst this is good for the first season, you will need to look to address this if you wish to get Stoke to push on and become a more attacking side.

Recommended Signings:

Radek Sirl (loan)

Philipp Degen (loan or permanent)

Justin Hoyte

Jan Vertonghen

Centrebacks

Stoke have a good selection of centrebacks, with Wilkinson, Higginbotham and Collins also able to step into the central roles - it means that this position is quite well catered for and with Sonko out on loan they also have another central defender returning in the summer it means that if you do plan on replacing then you will be ideally need to clear out some of those you intend to replace.

Centre Mids

Whilst Stoke have an abundance of defensive minded central midfielders, and have a potential wonderkid in Diego Arisemendi (if his hype is anything to go by) but there is no real creative force in midfield. As such, if you plan on playing truly attacking football then you will need to go out and acquire some players. For the way Stoke play however, the current set-up is quite good because it allows your midfielders to sit infront of the defenders and help soak up pressure.

Recommended Signings:

David Beckham - can be approached and signed on 40k a week wages.

Kevin Thomson

Andres D'Alessandro

Juan Angel Albin

Andranik

Papa Bouba Diop

Wide Men

Stoke have wide men who are quite good passers and crossers but do not have an abundance of pace. You have Tom Soares who is fairly quick and is also quite young and can step in some games in the place of Liam Lawrence comfortably as well as be a good impact sub when you need someone to come in the latter stages of the game. Tuncay can play across the middle anywhere, as well as upfront and is fairly pacey meaning him on the bench will cover an injury to the likely first choice players in Etherington and Lawrence. Albin and D'Alessandro also fit the recommendations for the flanks at Stoke.

Forwards

Fuller is the only striker with any type of pace at Stoke, and it is an essential addition to the side to survive in the premiership. In Sidibe, Beattie and Sidibe you have targetmen like forwards with a lot of effort and decent finishing but not a huge amount of quality to get at teams. Long balls and set pieces are what these forwards will mainly feed off of, so you either need to focus on this or get in some additions.

Recommendations:

Ronaldo (available quite cheaply from Brazil)

Javier Portillo

Alexandr Kerzakhov

Matthew Amoah

Rafael Sobis

David N'gog (loan)

Team Assesment

Stoke have a strong team, but it is a relatively ageing side without a lot of pace. To survive on FM some pace will need injecting into the side because it will be pivotal in some games, but by becoming defensive and making the most of stokes strength, the long throw and targetmen like forwards with a bit of guile you could be reasonably looking at pushing on to the top 10.

--- Reserving this post for other content like possibly keeping track of players performance ---

Thinking of something a bit like the table below, maybe with a total value of players bought and sold to show how each is performing and stuff for those who update here.

 
    [b]User     |   Season    |   Position    | Major Trophies  |  Minor Trophies   |[/b]
  Santy001   |   08/09     |     14 th     |        0        |       0           |

Here's my update after 10 league games into the season:

Starting with my transfers I immediately began looking around for a midfielder and forward, confident in Stoke's strong defence and content with the keepers I immediately noticed Ronaldo at Corinthians interested in a move to Stoke. Checking him out he seemed fairly decent and I proceeded to sign him for 2.5m (500k up front, 2m over 48 months). He was complimented with the signing from Rangers of Kevin Thomson (500k upfront, 1m over 30 months) and the following day was asked by the clubs press manager if I wanted to call a press conference to announce the signings. It was great to see how the media picked up on Ronaldo's status and what it meant for the club signing him, as well as the fact that I had given a 32 year old a 3 year contract and possible implications as well as his injury proneness in the latter stages of his career.

The interview focused pretty much entirely on Ronaldo, but it was a nice twist. A few days after this came a low profile signing of David N'gog on loan from Liverpool for the season. Still not content I knew in addition to Thomson I needed another midfielder to add a bit of creativity to the side and approached David Beckham on a free. He wanted 20k a week more than I was able to offer, but upped his signing on fee and upped his bonuses and to my delight he agreed to sign at the end of his contract meaning come January I will have Beckham pulling on a Stoke shirt and hopefully another press-conference to deal with the growing profile of Stoke.

The pre-season was a complete train-wreck however, even with the signings in and ready there were no convincing performances in the few games we did win as my tactical tweaking continued. First week of the season arrived and it was against Burnley at home. Ronaldo gave us the lead but Burnley equalised late on, despite having controlled the match being too cautious in the second half cost me the game. Next up came Bolton away, I took my team to the Reebok set up to play a counter-attacking style of direct football, hoping to catch Bolton out but the game was mainly competed in the middle with my adjustments to tactics being costly conceding to Gary Cahill in the first and Andy O'Brien in the second half. Then a trip to Villa away, and my team were comfortably dispatched of when trying to play counter attacking football once more. This time a Shawcross own goal and Carew header put my side down without any real fight, and at this stage it was beginning to look a bit grim, because we hadn't competed at all in the last 2 games.

Chelsea at home looked incredibly daunting, and in the build up to the match I began looking at it thinking "what have I got to lose" I sent my team out with the immediate instructions of: Overload, Pump Balls into Box, Get Stuck in, Take Risks, Shoot on sight, Clear to flanks and a few other really attacking options. Fifteen minutes in and I'm 2-0 down, being slaughtered and it looks like I've thrown my team to the hounds. My side somehow made it to half time still only 2-0 down, Chelsea had 2 more disallowed and had a penalty claim turned down in the first half but I gave my team encouragement and Ricardo Fuller scored in the 49th minute. However, the joy was short lived as John Terry scored his second in the 63rd minute and my only real threat in Fuller had been taken off injured and replaced by David N'gog in the 58th minute. N'gog scored in the 76th and 84th minutes and salvaged a point for my side - we were on the right tracks.

The next game was against Man City again at home, and after taking the lead Man City equalised late on, but morale was on the mend and improving steadily, again taking the game to them worked well.

Then came a third consecutive home match against Sunderland, they took a lead in the 4th minute before I knew what had happened, but in the 60th minute came the substitution of Fuller for Ronaldo and he slotted in 2 goals in 3 minutes (68 & 71) to give us the lead which was then held on to.

This was followed up with a 3-0 win over wolves and 2-0 win over wigan. Then holding Arsenal to a 2-2 draw meant I was fairly confident going into my next game against Everton, and decided to play an attacking style, but unfortunately it was horrendously misjudged and misfortune stopped Stoke from equalising just before half time, with everton making it 3-1 with the very next act in play. The game ended up 6-1 to Everton, and Stoke were royally thumped by the toffees without a whimper.

Here's my update until the point the demo cuts off:

Come January 2nd my Stoke side are sat comfortably in 14th on 23 points. Currently 7 points ahead of Fulham in 18th and 15 points ahead of bottom team Burnley. The Everton game caused a bit of disruption as Stoke then lost 3-0 against Blackburn and 4-0 against Fulham.

There were no real surprising results from games 10 - 21, picked up 3 wins 1 draw and 7 defeats. The final game was an FA cup game against Accrington where Beckham made his Stoke City debut after a free transfer from LA galaxy. He only made it through 45 minutes due to the fact he's "severly lacking match fitness" so its going to be a matter of getting him back fit and hoping there's a few good years to come from him and Ronaldo now.

Hey I've just started at Stoke and I like what I see but there is a distinct lack of creative quality. I've tried to get rid of a lot of the deadwood lying around and bring in some pace and youth. However after seeing some of the players that wanted to come, youth kind of went out of the window.

Here are my transfers in and out.

Transfers In:

Kevin Thomson - £1.5 million

German Lux - £1.4 million

Ronaldo (the fat one) - £2.5 million

Jorge Andrade - Free

Lauren - Free

Cosmin Contra - £500k

Javier Garrido - £2.1 million

Alex Smithies - £550k

Robert Pires - £1.1

Transfers Out

Davies - £2 million

Pugh - £2.1 million

Simonsen - £550k

Griffin - £1.8 million

Fuller - £4.4 million

Faye - £975k

As this is only the demo I thought I'd would just buy and sell a lot to see who wants to come. I'm also getting Beckham in January but obviously won't be able to play him. Just to see if i could!!

I've gone for a pretty balanced 4-4-2, not that creative and just working hard all over the pitch.

Squad (first choice from left to right)

GK: Sorensen/Lux/Smithies

RB: Contra/Lauren/Wilkinson

LB: Garrido/Higginbotham

CB: Ab Faye/Collins/Andrade

CB: Huth/Shawcross

RM: Lawrence/Pires

LM: Tuncay/Etherington

CM: Whelan/Whitehead/Delap

CM: Thomson/Arismendi/Soares

ST: Ronaldo/Kitson

ST: Beattie/Sidibe

I'm still undecided about who to partner Ab Faye at the back, both Huth and Shawcross look pretty similair.

Played my first game of the season against Burnley and won 2-1. We won a lot of corners but couldn't find a way through. Burnley scored first after 2 minutes after my defence just decided to run away. We dominated throughout and managed to grab two second half goals thanks to Ronaldo and Beattie. Pretty happy with the performance as we dominated but thought that with the ability of Ronaldo, Beattie, Tuncay and Pires we should have scored more.

I think that I could do with a young striker coming through as with Sidibe out and also Kitson is injured, I'm down to Ronaldo and Beattie.

Any suggestions are welcome. I'l update when I continue further

I didn't sign too many players, nor did I sell any so I retrained Huth to play RB and it has worked out quite well. I play quite defensively so my 2 CM's tend to be Arismendi who is already improving nicely, and Thomson when I can get him fit.

I'd suggest trying to loan David N'gog in. He isn't too bad, nor too great but has 17 for pace, and has been great for me bringing him on in the last 30 minutes or so.

I kept Fuller because he is quite pacey and causes problems Beattie has struggled to get in as has Kitson because of the good form of Ronaldo, Fuller and N'gog. With Beckham coming in I will have a good ball player in midfield to allow the side to be a bit more creative upfront. Collins has been a nightmare player for me, played 6/7 games given away more than 1 penalty a game - including 3 against Hull.

My main starting line-up has been:

GK - Sorensen

RB - Huth

LB - Higginbotham

CB - Shawcross

CB - Faye

MR - Liam Lawrence

ML - Matthew Etherington/Tuncay

MC - Diego Arismendi/Thomson

MC - Glenn Whelan

FC - Ricardo Fuller/David N'gog

FC - Ronaldo

My goalscorers are:

Fuller - 16(3) games 8 goals

David N'gog - 7(11) games 8 goals

Ronaldo - 18(2) games 6 goals

Then there's a few players who have each scored 1 goal. How much are you paying Beckham? His wages here for me are £42,000 a week, £8,500 goal & appearance bonus as well as a relegation release clause of 2.5m. You've also got Cresswell in the reserves to play upfront, Louis Moult is the clubs best striking propsect.

Rafael Sobis could be a good purchase if you can get him, only others I can think of are Miralem Sulejmani and Samaras from Celtic. Neither are really young, but you will get a good few years out of them.

I think all of you Stoke fans will fancy this > http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5516/astonvilla17stoke.jpg

Definitely nice to se, wouldn't have minded my side doing that. How did that happen anyway, are you Villa and had a terrible game or Stoke and got some immense tactics for it? lol

No, I play with Man Utd. And when I saw the result I was stunned!

Odd, irl Pulis would never favour such an attacking approach that would get 3/4 against villa never mind 7! Wonder how many came from Delap's throw-ins lol.

Excellent thread santy, some good analysis in there

Thanks Arsenal, as I said in one of the threads sorting out who was doing what, and no offence to Joe I felt this year a Stoke fan had to do it because whilst it was good what he did, he didn't know enough of our history to really be able include information in the right means.

It's still a work in progress, adjusting and adding information and adjusting the presentation to try and make it a fair bit tidier than it initially was.

Haven't got going on the demo yet. I've done pre-season, bought one player (Kevin Thomson, MC 1.5m, Rangers), sold Leon Cort for a million. Currently P5 W3 D1 L1. Last match played was Bolton knocking me out of the league cup on penalties in the 4th round (7-6).

I've been playing either 4-4-2 or 4-1-4-1 depending on how I feel we're matched to the opposition. Most common lineup is something like:

GK - Sorensen

RB - Wilko

LB - Collins

CB - Shawcross

CB - Faye

MR - Lenny

ML - Ethers

MC - Thomson

MC - The Tunc.

FC - Fuller

FC - Kitson/Beattie

Collins seems to just shade Higgy out for LB for me. Wilko has been terrific at RB.

When I go 4-1-4-1:

GK - Sorensen

RB - Wilko

LB - Collins

CB - Shawcross

CB - Huth

DMC - Faye

MC - The Tunc.

MC - Thomson

MR - Lenny

ML - Ethers

FC - Fuller

Whitehead and Whelan have had some game time too and have done ok. Fuller has been brilliant so far.

Thomson does seem to be a fairly good signing for Stoke, I just haven't been able to keep him fit and injury-free. Interesting to see an American who's also a Stoke fan and knows a fair bit about the team. English born and moved or are you one of our followers thanks to Austin Aztex, or just come across us somewhere down the line lol.

I found retraining Robert Huth to RB was pretty effective, as Wilkinson isn't rated too highly on the game and then can retain the Shawcross - Faye partnership in the middle.

Thomson does seem to be a fairly good signing for Stoke, I just haven't been able to keep him fit and injury-free. Interesting to see an American who's also a Stoke fan and knows a fair bit about the team. English born and moved or are you one of our followers thanks to Austin Aztex, or just come across us somewhere down the line lol.

I found retraining Robert Huth to RB was pretty effective, as Wilkinson isn't rated too highly on the game and then can retain the Shawcross - Faye partnership in the middle.

I'm from Stoke, moved out here 8 years ago. I've considered putting Huth out right, but he wasn't all that good in pre-season and got a 4.7 away against Bolton, conceding a penalty in the process. Been alright in the 4-1-4-1 games, but I don't trust him yet. Wilko has been solid if unspectacular:

Has pulled some pretty decent ratings, the one thing you may want to do in January is bring in another striker. If N'gog hasn't gone out on loan I would recommend him since he can really help turn the tide late on in games. Subbed him on against Chelsea in the 70th minute and he scored 2 because his pace wreaks havoc on teams in the second half. It's the one thing Stoke really lack along with a good passing central midfielder, but if you can keep Thomson fit he should do fine.

I really would recommend playing Arismendi - he could turn out to be really great depending upon what his potential is he's played a few games for me and he's probably my best CM at the moment just after Beckham:

Played a few more games last night. Drew 1-1 with Sunderland, but I was lucky with that, they were tearing us apart. Bent is incredibly difficult to contain. Came back from 2-1 down at the Molineux to win 3-2, Beattie grabbed a brace. Won by the same scoreline against Wigan with Beattie again scoring two! Got Arsenal next so......

Arismendi has been injured on my game since very early in the season, otherwise he might have got more time on the pitch than he has - he does look like he could handle it, and might get plenty better.

Are you planning on carrying on your save once the full game comes out? I think I might be tempted to just finish out this season, then restart with more leagues.

I'm tempted to, because I'm doing quite well, only in 14th mind but thats partly been down to my suicidal tactics in a few games. After getting draws with Chelsea and Arsenal after throwing everything at them, I decided to do the same against a couple other sides like Everton and Blackburn and got a bit of a beating lol.

I've signed the Brazilian Ronaldo and got him performing well, as well as just bringing Beckham in so it's an interesting save. I don't move outside of England despite having a lot of leagues active usually, I'll just have to see how it pans out.

As for Bent, I put hard tackling on him in my match with sunderland, he scored in like the 5th minute and I thought it wasn't going to work but it kept him quiet for the rest of the game.

I've took over at Stoke and I decided if I get a sizeable offer for a player i'll accept. A week into the job and i've sold 4 players, got £25,500,000 in the process.

Liam Lawrence --> Sunderland --> £7,000,000

Glenn Whelan --> Sunderland --> £5,700,000

Ricardo Fuller -->Q.P.R --> £6,500,000

Abdoulaye Faye --> Tottenham Hotspur --> £6,000,000

Nice bit of dealing there, Tom Soares could quite cheaply step into the void out on the right. Kevin Thomson would be a good, cheap signing to get into Whelans position, you could put Huth and Shawcross together so the only place you really need to spend is up front now. Fuller was your only striker with any notable pace, and even then not too much, so you will ideally need to fill the void up front to stand a chance of staying up.

Good transfer business, especially given that the club operates at quite a loss during the first season. I would advice spending what you want to soon as well before the money evaporates lol.

I had a bunch of offers for Abdy at the start of the season AND he got shirty with me for not accepting, but.... it's Abdy, can't sell him. Good business for Whelan. Wouldn't have sold Fuller or Lenny, but that's cause I'm biased.

Anyway, on the side note, I don't think my lot are doing too badly finance wise - we ARE losing money, yes, but not really that fast. I'll have to have a proper look later and post a screenie or something.

In January I've got just under £5m in the bank, this is without spending excessively or anything. Never sure with how fickle club finances can be on the demo, so I don't want to go overboard and risk any potential point deductions lol. But still, I like to air on the side of caution with club finances after last year I nearly took Stoke into administration with spending the full £40m I had in the summer, and fortunately a finish in the european spots just about balanced the books as well as the sales of a few key players.

Here yer go. Not really conclusive, since I'm only 3 months in, but not really bleeding money.

Finances

Awwww yeah...

At home with the gooners

Goooarrrrrrrrrnnnn Ginger Ninja!

Same result as what I got against them, my goals came from Fuller and N'gog though. Perhaps my signing of Ronaldo on high wages and high bonuses has been a bit more of a drain on my resources. Good to see we're both achieving similar things so far, although if you have continued your early season progress you're probably doing better than my 14th place finish.

Gah! Lost 1-0 away at Blackburn.

Bright side - Beattie won Player of the Month for October, with Kitson 2nd!

Oh yeah, forgot this one - Fuller won Goal of the Month for September as well!

I've started using a slightly different lineup which has brought dividends in the final two games I played last night (Fulham, 1-0 away and B'ham 2-0 home):

GK - Sorensen

RB - Wilko (FB, Defend)

LB - Higgy (FB, Defend)

CB - Huth/Shawcross (CB, Stopper)

CB - Faye (CB, Cover)

MC - Thomson (Deep Playmaker, Defend)

MR - Lenny (Winger, Support)

ML - Ethers (Winger, Support)

AMC - Tuncay (Inside Forward, Attack)

FC - Fuller (Advanced Forward, Attack)

FC - Kitson/Beattie (Deep Forward, Attack)

Overall team mentality is decided on opposition - eg, Fulham away was counter/defensive, B'ham home was control and passing is set to shorter. I only switched tactics cause I felt I wasn't getting enough out of Tuncay in any of the regular midfield positions. He's been much better since pushing him up (not surprising since AMC is his "natural" position). Thomson is VERY consistent in midfield - wins the ball and passes well. Huth took his chance when Ryan got injured and has been excellent in the last two games. Kitson is now top scorer with 5, but everyone's pitching in with one or two.

Beating the Brum took us up to 3rd in the table with 24pts after 12. Man City are 2nd, Liverpool are top. Next match is Man Utd at Old Trafford. They will overtake us if they win.

You're definitely doing better than me, I finished in January with 23 points and sitting in 14th. I have been experimenting and adjusting tactics for the opposition as well, sometimes with terrible consequences but its all part of the fun learning I suppose. I have found contain works quite well against similar abled teams.

Still my plan is just to survive for the first two seasons, as I get my tactics sorted and balanced, next season Hull, Everton and Blackburn certainly won't hit me for high scores lol.

I do feel like it's all about to go pear-shaped any minute, but at least when it does I'll have a comfort zone. I really need to go out and get a alternate keeper in the Jan window just in case Mr Sorenson gets a knock. Wish I'd done it in August. Simmo's a top bloke, but he's not Prem class.

Bit worried about this Man Utd match too. Wish the "Fierce rivals" listing did not contain Man U (or Arsenal for that matter), it'd make my life easier. So much expectation on this, it's unrealistic. In real life, your average Stokie would love it, LOVE it, to go to Old Trafford and win, but realistically, it's unlikely, right? But in the game - they're already planning the parties for when we win! Yoiks!

There is more of a burden than there should be on those games, but there is no real consequence for not winning them. Just understate your chances in the press, and just give it a shot. I'll be taking my risk on Sorensen for this season and most probably next season, bolstering my attack options I like to build mainly from the front and create a great strike force before tightening up the backline.

Do Stoke have any feeder clubs in the game? I looked where the Affiliates button is supposed to be, but there's no button.

BTW, lost 2-0 to Man Utd, then lost 1-0 at home to Liverpool and only managed a draw away against Hull. Got a bit better with a 3-0 win against Portsmouth though. Now 8th in the league. Fuller is top scorer again with 7, Beats and Kits are on 5 each.

Aside - Spurs 0 Stoke 1. GET IN!

Today was a good result, and it seems you are making good progress. If I had done terribly in the demo I'd definitely be starting a new game when the full game comes out, but its looking like we'll both have pretty decent games to continue with when it starts. Just have to hope we get a few people in who were playing as stoke last season.

Finished the demo this evening. I hadn't realised it, but I only had one game left to play, Burnley away in the FA cup. Managed a 2-1 win, Kitson and Fuller on target. Wilko gave away a silly penalty which Blake knocked in.

Fell away in the league a little bit towards the end. Sandwiched between drawing at Hull and beating Portsmouth, I managed to throw away a 2 goal lead at White Hart Lane to let Spurs beat us 3-2. Disappointing.

Lost to Everton 4-2 and Bolton 1-0 (at home! the shame!). Burnley were trounced 3-0 in the league with a Fuller hat-trick, West Ham was a spurs-esque smash and grab performance from us, winning 1-0, their strike force spurning chance after chance. Demo end position of 7th with 34 points. Fuller is current top scorer on an amazing 14, Kitson has 6 and Beattie 5. Huth is the leading scorer amongst non-strikers with 3.

Couple of posts up I mentioned affiliated teams, and that I couldn't find the "Affilated clubs" button in the info screen. Well, I requested a feeder club and got offered Stockport (ugh), Wrexham or Chesterfield. Chose Wrexham (Mickey Thomas and Denis Smith!). As if by magic, the button appeared. Question answered.

Finances - just under £9.75m in the bank. Had a mini-heart attack earlier when I looked at the "Season to date" total instead by accident and thought we were on £2.7m.

Tuncay is disappointing me. I don't know quite where to play him (perhaps a quandary that the real life boss is having??!). His average rating is the worst of all the players with more than 10 games under their belts (6.85). I persevere, I think, out of optimism, that he is so versatile and his condition seems to recover to 90+% even after 1 days rest. I just want him to be good!

Interestingly, since I had mentioned them earlier in my posts, Higgy and Collins have played 14 and 17 games respectively and have ratings of 6.91 and 6.92. They have been getting about equal game time lately - in fact, for the Burnley FA Cup match, I switched them from LB to CB for a half each (Huth injured, Faye suspended).

Anyway, according to ratings overall:

Best Striker: Fuller (7.26)

Best Midfielder: Etherington (6.98)

Best defender: AD Faye (7.15)

Looking forward to finishing the season now!

The problem with Tuncay is he's at Stoke with the rating Middlesbrough left him with, and it's not that great at the moment. Come January I think he'll be a better all-round player, but his versatility does seem to be causing the problems because he also doesn't excel in any area making it hard to play him. He has worked quite well on the left for me covering for Etherington.

When I picked up an affiliate club I know I went for the league 1 side, because any talented youngsters I do get I would prefer at league 1 than league 2, obviously the plan would be to have league 2, 1 and championship feeders for the loaning of players like I have on 09.

I'm going to start a fresh game with Stoke today, I'll know already to sign a few decent players like Thomson and Beckham, but with a much bigger database there should be a few more out there worth picking up.

Had a few hours after midnight GMT to play a little last night. Terrible, wish I hadn't bothered. Lost to Chelsea 1-0, lost to Aston Villa 3-1 at home, then lost to Man City 1-0 away. Worst one was the City game, cause it was an own goal by Tommy S, knocked it in off his post from a corner. The only slightly bright point was beating Sheff Utd 2-0 in the FA Cup, which gets us Millwall in the next round.

Got Everton at home next.

Just got to the end of August after a hellacious opening month, Man Utd, Arsenal, Burnley and Liverpool were my first 4 fixtures.

Conceded a late goal against Burnley and drew, but also squeezed out another draw with Arsenal - this time only 1-1; lost to both Man Utd and Liverpool, quite convincingly it will take time to learn how to deal with the extra threats the top 4 come with it seems.

Transfers in:

Ronaldo (Brazilian) - £2m

Beckham - £1m

Gregory van der Wiel - £3.5m

David N'gog - £550k loan fee

Nicola Ventola - free

Marco Verratti - £300k

I'm still tweaking my 4-4-2 trying to get something of a good blend, its hard at the moment as I'm generally conceding goals in the last 20 minutes and ending up with draws when I should win.

Made some progress but not managed a win after 8 games, in all 5 games I've drawn I was leading until around the 80th minute then a goal would be put past me and I was robbed again lol.

Managed a draw with Arsenal, and it was even the same there. But Man Utd and Liverpool massacred me when I went up against them, and having not picked up all the points in the games against Burnley, Wolves and Hull I'm struggling at the wrong end at the moment.

I survived my first season in the premiership, not by much but managed to score an impressive 63 goals, which was the highest apart from the top 6, but conceded 95 which was by far the worst in the league.

I added Deco to the squad in January for £1m, and he's been pretty good so far, took a bit of time to get him fully match fit and firing on all cylinders, so far this season I've signed Saha and Silvestre on frees, Serhat Koc for £500k who may turn out to be a good prospect up front and then signed Ricardo Oliviera for £18.5m over 48 months.

The one concern I have really is how much I'm spending on wages, Saha, Silvestre, Deco, Beckham, Ronaldo and Oliviera are all on relatively high wages (30 - 60k per player) so it's eating up a lot of my money and I think I need a midtable finish this season to avoid being in debt.

Here's my update as I've just passed January:

Currently sat 14th, 9 points above the relegation zone and added Tomas Rosicky to the squad. Deco has become greedy and wanted a wage increase of 20k this summer, so I've dropped him and the youngster Verratti who I signed at the beginning of last season is now in his place, and performing exceptionally.

Beckham has dropped to the bench to make way for Tuncay on the right who plays amazingly well there, Lawrence can't get a game anymore which is a shame really, and its the same for Etherington as I have Urby Emanuelson and Rosicky for the left slot on midfield.

Arismendi has become my holding midfielder, and he does it exceptionally well, I do think my side are underperforming though, for the quality of players in the team they aren't producing consistently enough, we can really take a game to the likes of Arsenal and Man City, with my tactics set to control and it works, and we dominate them but then put me up against Hull and no matter what I try they run rampant.

10 games in and sat in 3rd! Nice win over Man U and away draw with Liverpool. Only 3 signings in and 1 out.

Salvador Cabanas from America (Mex) for £3.8million plays great as a complete forward. 11 League games 11 league goals, paired up front usually with Beattie, both as complete forward attack. He usually gets on the end of Delap throws.

Ruben Yttergard Jensson from Tromso £900k adding some passing quality and youth, play him or Arismendi beside Delap in a 442.

Christian Ansaldi from Rubin for £3.6million, awesome full back on either flank, play him as right back. Was a toss up between him and Michael Chretian on who to sign as right back.

Cort sold off for 1.5million.

thinking of starting a stoke game ..with a possible minor increase in stats to tuncay as even though he's two footed , he's got awful stats imo

wanna bring in andrew driver from hearts for lw .. much better then etherington and cheap too

il be needing a decent dmc to mop everything up and am thinking about annan..

also need a bit of pace upfront so will need to add someone there...

i think stoke are pretty damn strong elsewhere..

shawcross and faye in defence is an immense partnership and with huth a worthy backup too, will need some decent fullbacks though..

lawrence, arismendi and tuncay can do an excellent job too..

and obviously beattie and sidibe are excellent upfront

outs ? well we'll see when i start i guess

A good attacking midfielder, if you're willing to give him a few games in the first couple of seasons is Verratti. Can be signed for a rather small amount, and at 18 is pushing Deco and Rosicky for their spot in the team. Wilkinson performs surprisingly well at RB when needed, and Arismendi becomes a great holding midfielder.

Tuncay despite his poor stats, performs incredibly well. Either flank, especially the left and as a supporting striker such as defensive forward. After the first season, there should be some good players available, I've signed Kompany and Santa Cruz from Man City this summer (start of the 3rd season) for £2m.

Fuller will probably be your top goalscorer, he is just a better forward because of his pace, signing Ronaldo (brazilian) is also helpful, as far as I'm aware - he's the only striker with 20 finishing, 20 composure, 20 off the ball on the game. Means he gets into great positions often enough to score, even when his pace was down to 8 for me he still was scoring over 20 in the season.

What tactics is everyone using with stoke? im playin a 442 and are currently 9th after 8 games.

I play a diamond 4-4-2 at the moment, it works well for me with Verratti at the spearhead and Arismendi in the holding role.

I'm in my 4th season, and coming up to January sit 3rd in the table. Last season I finished 8th just missing out on a European spot, but it wasn't too disappointing as my team isn't up to the challenge of a prolonged campaign at this stage I feel. Made some good revenue from sales, my team are building well just haven't had a great deal of time to invest in the game at the moment.

Started a save with Stoke. I've gone towards the older aged players by bringing in Ronaldo, Beckham and Riquelme. I've won my first game 1-0 away at Burnley thanks to a goal from Ronaldo.

I'll post a full list of transfers tommorow.

Nice start for you then, Ronaldo is the only player to start with who will score like 99/100 one on ones, which makes him a great acquisition he scored 50 in 2 seasons for me - if only he was 15 years younger lol.

Hopefully can get a bit more life in this thread soon, I won the premiership and league cup last season with Stoke, and sold Keirrison to Juventus for a massive amount of money bringing in Balotelli to replace him.

I started a season as Stoke earlier, will post my transfers tomorrow

I beat Blackburn 2-1 first game, then took the lead against Man Utd but went on to lose 6-2

Ins

Nicky Shorey               3.7m
Alexander Kacanikilic      100k
Mark Wilson                675k
Ronaldo                    2.2m
Carlos Lazaro              650k
Steven Cherundolo          550k
Marco Cassetti             1.4m

Total 9.25m

Outs

Leon Cort              2m
Richard Cresswell      600k
Danny Pugh             2.2m
Michael Tongue         1.9m
Andy Wilkinson         2.4m
Danny Higginbotham     2m
Amdy Faye              750k

Total 11.75m