FM14: Newcastle United - Vive La Revolution

[Geordieboy52]

Roy, there are plenty of better, younger and cheaper options out there so if you can make a swift buck look at getting rid. My personal favourite is Allione from Velez - BEAST.

[oi_oi_ginger_roy]

Roy, there are plenty of better, younger and cheaper options out there so if you can make a swift buck look at getting rid. My personal favourite is Allione from Velez - BEAST.

Cheers mate - i'll take a look.

If i can get £20m+ for him then i'll be [reluctant but] happy. I just love how he can change games, twisting full backs inside-out.

When the season is over i'll post up some screenshots for you all to see but really enjoying this save and have developed a soft spot for the Toon in real life (despite my hatred for Pardew after what he did to us [Reading])

[NLH]

If Norwich have been relegated, try and get Nathan Redmond

[james_wilko]

I'm halfway through my 3rd season and Adam Campbell still hasn't developed as well as a few of the ones on here, i was wondering how you did it.

This is him for me so far. any help would be appreciated.

Dedicated training. Set him to something like advanced forward, set it to heavy and give him games. Nothing complicated about it, games and training will have him improving.

[NLH]

he has been playing 25+ games a season that's why I was wondering if I done something wrong

[james_wilko]

He does have a random PA in the spoiler below, maybe you`re unlucky and he got the bottom end of it?

-9

[NLH]

Not so sure with that as my coach reports say that he has another 3 stars to grow :confused:

[james_wilko]

Reckon you'll just have to stick with him and hope he'll develop further. Took a little while on my long term save before he kicked on, but by the time he had he is basically unplayable.

Don't be afraid to talk to him, if you don't think he's performing or developing well enough try having private chat with him.

[DandyDon]

Some tutoring early on seems to help as well, even by Remy or Cisse in the first season can help a bit. He responded pretty well to be tutored by Rickie Lambert in second season on my save as well as a pretty heavy training workload.

[NLH]

Finished my 3rd season, overall it wasn't a bad season. Finishing 2nd in the league, Knocked out of the Champions League in the playoffs by Galatasaray. Which got me placed in an Europa League group with Sporting Lisbon, Bulgarian side Levski Sofia and NK Maribor. Finished the Group in 1st place in style with a 3-0 win against then leaders Sporting Lisbon, my Euro trip ended losing on away goals to Ajax (0-0 away & 1-1 Home). Domestically we didn't progress any further than the 3rd round in the Capital One cup after being paired with Spurs who put 3 past me in the second game of the season so i wasn't really expecting anything from this. The FA cup run ended in the 5th round against Arsenal who then went on to win it.

Transfer wise we brought in 14 players and some of the most notable to leave were Angel Correa (to Bayern) on a free and Sissoko, Ruben Garcia and Lucas Romero all joined Shaktar for 32.5m

League Table

Current Squad and Stats

Also got Micheal Carrick & Thiago (Bayern) coming in for next season

[Stu_UBJ]

Winter Transfers & End of Season 2018-2019

We left off last time with a so far unbeaten season, along with a terrific Club World Cup win. Could we possibly go on to win it all?

Just one signing in the winter market, and was promptly loaned out. Serbian forward Njegos Tomic.

PREMIER LEAGUE 1 - PREMIER LEAGUE 2

After a stunning start, we continued the form. So close to an unbeaten season in the league, but a terrible performance at Spurs ended that.*

A convincing league win. 18 points clear at the end, a points total of 95! +59 Goal Difference is remarkable, the top scoring team by quite a stretch, and a pretty sturdy defence too.

FA CUP - CAPITAL ONE CUP

A semi-final exit in the Capital One Cup to Arsenal, followed by a 6th Round exit to Liverpool.*

Eder Alvarez Balanta continues to be a star for the club in defence.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP - CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP RESULTS - KNOCKOUT ROUND

We sailed through the group stages without incident. A tricky win over Schalke next, with a late Campbell goal making sure it didn't go to extra time. Lost the 1st leg against Juve, but pulled a stunner out of the bag, after forcing extra time, we annihilated them. Again, lost the first leg, this time against Barcelona. We clawed a narrow win in the second leg, scraping through on away goals. In the final we met big-spending PSG...

A great performance, holding back some of the finest attacking players in the game. The Ox gave us the lead in the first half. Timo Werner equalized late in the game, only for local superstar Adam Campbell to snatch the winner just a minute later with a thumping effort from the edge of the area. That makes it three straight CL Final appearances, and two straight wins.

PLAYERS

After such a great season, it's no surprise that so many players have had really excellent seasons. Five players hitting double figures for goals, almost all regular players finding the net. Five hitting double figures in the assists column too, along with only four failing to provide a goal.

Key Players

Eder Alvarez Balanta - Ben Davies - Christian Ulmer - Andy Montgomery - Adam Campbell

Balanta by far the top player in defence, his crazy interception rate and general super defensive displays helped a huge amount. Ben Davies has been a unsung hero since joining all those seasons ago, and really is a integral player. Ulmer has progressed brilliantly, becoming Balanta's partner in defence, ousting the ever impressive Yanga-Mbiwa, along with covering in DM and MC. Andy Montgomery has come from the academy, and made the AML slot his own, stepping up his game to become a world class winger, adding goals to his game too. I don't need to say much about Campbell, 44 goals, great performances leading the line. If he can up his shot accuracy, there is a 50-goal season on the horizon.

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Aims for Next Season

Continue where we left off. I don't need to make any transfers as such either, a luxury I am enjoying somewhat, despite seeing numerous talents dangled in front of me. There could be some sales however, with certain players now not getting the game time(Zapata, Sergi Roberto), along with a few loans too(Angel, Brank possibly). I have already signed Zapata's replacement striker, who also happens to be a Colombian! I would love to keep hold of Zapata, but he isn't getting past Campbell any time soon, and his £43k wages are not warranting his place on the bench, and despite being a club legend, there is no longer any need for him.

Expect to see more from young stars such as Charalabos Vlachos, Jim Gonzales, Adam Jones, Dean Antrobus, and maybe Victor David Moreno in the coming season. All but Vlachos and Jones are Academy graduates, and may well be given a chance in the first team this season. All but Vlachos spent the season on loan elsewhere, which has helped them grow as players.

[oi_oi_ginger_roy]

Have just won the Capital One Cup (2-1 AET vs Arsenal)

Currently sitting in 3rd with 8 games to go (6pts ahead of Man City in 5th - level with Arsenal in 4th). Am in to the FA Cup semi final vs Stoke.......

A superb season so far, BUT Ben Arfa has stunned me by saying he wants to move to a bigger club, I've managed to stall him by saying I'll sign some players to match his ambition but I don't think this is going to happen

What to do?

Here is the current league table, with 5 games to go...

My next league fixture............Man City away eeeek

[NLH]

Ouch, have you got any of the other top 6 left to play as well?

[oi_oi_ginger_roy]

Nope. After that its something like Southampton, Hull, West Brom and West Ham

Does anyone know if I qualify for the CL if Ashley will increase the transfer budget? Or is it a case of sell before you buy?

[james_wilko]

You have to be making a decent wedge of money before you get large amounts in the transfer window. Generally winning things gets you more money.

Will be restarting my save once the transfer window, as a test before the official update so I can update the opening posts.

[Stu_UBJ]

You have to be making a decent wedge of money before you get large amounts in the transfer window. Generally winning things gets you more money.

Will be restarting my save once the transfer window, as a test before the official update so I can update the opening posts.

Yeah, I'm looking for a re-start after transfer window is closed, see what I can do without Cabs

Plan to upload screens of my squad this evening. Actually will get around to it this time

[james_wilko]

Depends who we bring in (as I'll be turning off transfers) as to how I'll be playing. It sounds like we're likely to get De Jong, and no rumours of anyone else so if he's it I'll be going 4-3-3.

-------------Krul

Debuchy MYM Colo Santon

-------------Tiote

----------Sissoko Anita

HBA------------------- Remy

-------------LDJ

Or 4-2-4 with Remy & LDJ up top and HBA/Gouffran out wide.

[Stu_UBJ]

Depends who we bring in (as I'll be turning off transfers) as to how I'll be playing. It sounds like we're likely to get De Jong, and no rumours of anyone else so if he's it I'll be going 4-3-3.

-------------Krul

Debuchy MYM Colo Santon

-------------Tiote

----------Sissoko Anita

HBA------------------- Remy

-------------LDJ

Or 4-2-4 with Remy & LDJ up top and HBA/Gouffran out wide.

Only thing is that De Jong looks like another Cisse on FM for me. Here's to hoping we get Grenier in, he is a beast for France in 2019

--------

Here is a squad profile, so you can all see the stars of the save;

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GKs; Tim Krul - Stipe Miletic

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DRs; Mathieu Debuchy - Hassan Ali

DLs; Ben Davies - Charalabos Vlachos

DCs; Eder Alvarez Balanta - Christian Ulmer - Martin Kelly - Mapou Yanga Mbiwa

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Midfielders(DM/MC);

Jorge Guzman - Raymundo Flores - James Ward-Prowse - Mario Pugliese

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AMCs; Will Hughes - Marko Pavlovski

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AMRs; Alexander Fraysse - Hatem Ben Arfa

AMLs; Andy Montgomery - Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

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STs; Adam Campbell - Johnathan Perilla - Bryan Brank

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And, the tactics I plan on using this season;

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[NLH]

They look brilliant, how many of them came through your acadamy?

[Stu_UBJ]

They look brilliant, how many of them came through your acadamy?

Campbell, Montgomery are the academy kids Also got six or seven out on loan to PL clubs that are not quite ready for the team as well. Miletic(16), Vlachos(15), Brank(17) will also become club HG by the time they are 21(age when signed in brackets)

[WizardOfOzil]

Hi guys, fairly new to the forums but played the game for around 5 years. I've got a problem with scoring goals or having a prolific goalscorer in this years game. I am into my 4th season with Newcastle and over the 38 games in the season, my league goals have been 64, 68, 65.

I feel like my strikers aren't scoring enough or consistently enough; as in my first season, my striker was Papise Cisse who scored 14 league goals, second season I got Benteke and he scored 15 league goals and 3rd season I signed Kevin Volland for a whopping £41.5 million and he only scored 7 league goals - I've changed the roles around a bit from Deep lying forward to Advanced forward to Complete forward but they score far too inconsistently. Any help would be useful.

Most the time I've been using this formation

and these team instructions with no player instructions as I just let the player roles do their role.

[Geordieboy52]

Just looking at your instructions, whilst they encourage a lot of ball retention they don't really shout out goals. You are retaining possession and working the ball into the box, both of which are going to result in a crowded final third. I would perhaps suggest you remove the 'work ball in to the box' and add 'hit early crosses', the addition is not imperative but the removal would be in my opinion. It is hard to be expressive when all you can do it keep the ball. Have a look at specific player instructions too; I often play with one inside forward and one winger, it just helps balance things out - set your better passers to play more through balls/risky passes. Hope that helps mate.

[Geordieboy52]

Just out of interest, hows the game running on Mac, about the buy the one with quad core i5 2.9 and wondered how quick the game ran.

[WizardOfOzil]

Just out of interest, hows the game running on Mac, about the buy the one with quad core i5 2.9 and wondered how quick the game ran.

Cheers for your input, I'll try out your suggestions! and the game runs really smoothly on Macs! I can imagine it being even better on a quad core processor.

[Stu_UBJ]

WizardofOzil - I would also look at changing your full-back roles from Automatic to Support or Attack. Also, I would go for BBM(S), DLP(D), CM(S), CM(D)[listed in preference] in the MCR position, as you already have a Anchor man in there who will cover your defence adequately. This will give you an extra more forward thinking player in there. I use a BBM in my 451, who helps both defensively and attacking. Plus the fact you have Sissoko and Cabaye who can take that role easily.

Also would look at removing the "More Expressive" instruction. It makes player more likely to roam out of position, and without it you can form much better attacks. Also I found even in possession-based tactics, playing more direct still does a very effective jobs.

[WizardOfOzil]

WizardofOzil - I would also look at changing your full-back roles from Automatic to Support or Attack. Also, I would go for BBM(S), DLP(D), CM(S), CM(D)[listed in preference] in the MCR position, as you already have a Anchor man in there who will cover your defence adequately. This will give you an extra more forward thinking player in there. I use a BBM in my 451, who helps both defensively and attacking. Plus the fact you have Sissoko and Cabaye who can take that role easily.

Also would look at removing the "More Expressive" instruction. It makes player more likely to roam out of position, and without it you can form much better attacks. Also I found even in possession-based tactics, playing more direct still does a very effective jobs.

I've tried to change things around but my lone striker still isn't scoring many goals.

[james_wilko]

Try one of your cms in the cam position, I've found lone strikers work best with an AM supporting them.

[DandyDon]

Season 4 - 2016/17 - Pre-season and Transfer Window

My 4th season is underway after a very hectic summer in the transfer market. We had a major reshuffle in terms of the backroom team with 8 new coaching staff coming in, plus a new Chief Scout and a couple of others. With Graham Carr retiring I've poached Pierluigi Casiraghi from Inter Milan to replace him, but also added Frank Arnesen to the scouting team. Rene Meulensteen and Sir Les of Ferdinand were the most notable additions to the coaching staff.

Players Out

In terms of players I didn't make any major sales until almost the very end of the window. Darren Fletcher, Haris Vuckic, Steven Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini were among those who left on free transfers at the start of July, Colo refusing to sign a new deal despite several attempts. Alvaro Morata and several of the youngsters left on loan deals throughout July and August but we didn't actually sell anyone until the 30th of August.

First Tim Krul headed off to PSG for a fee that will rise to £15 million. He'd asked for a move halfway through the season before saying that he felt he'd done all he could at Newcastle and he piped up again during the summer, so I felt I might as well move him on, Ruddy had taken the 1st team spot at this point anyway in terms of form.

I'd originally decided that I was going to hang on to Vurnon Anita, despite all his moaning about not being allowed to move to Man City or PSG last season, but then he ticked me off by refusing to tutor either of the younger players I asked him to. When Real Madrid expressed their interest in signing him he was valued at £26.5 million, so I offered him out at £45mill to see who'd bite. Madrid eventally came back with an offer of £38 million which I accepted, but Anita took his time mulling over their contract offer and transfer deadline day was half over before the deal was completed.

Man City made several attempts to sign Will Hughes on the last day, but they kept coming back with the same offer of £32.5 million and having just gotten the £38 mill for Anita, I decided their offer wasn't good enough.

Players In

I'd already secured Adnan Januzaj and Ross Barkley right at the start of the transfer window and after that I only really needed to bring in a defender to replace Colo to be happy with the transfer window. I was able to go back to Man Utd and sign transfer listed Chris Smalling for £2.6 million. A deal I was pretty happy with as he was happy to be a rotation player, his wage demands were pretty reasonable and provided another english player to the squad.

That probably would have been the only other signing made if I hadn't then sold Krul and Anita, but with Krul gone I needed at least one keeper as back up to Ruddy. I ended up signing 2 with Jason Steele arriving from Everton for £6.75 mill to be the main back up, then I added a highly rated young English regen keeper from Southampton for £1.7 million.

I also chose to use the cash from Anita's sale to buy Nathaniel Chalobah from Chelsea for £7.5 million. Another young English talent who didn't seem to be getting much game time at his club under the AI, I brought him in to give the long term option of having an all English central midfield and having Chalobah be the ball winner in there.

My final deal of the window, just before it closed was to snap up Xabi Alonso from Real Madrid who was on the transfer list for a rather paltry £275,000. He might be 34 and seriously slow by this point, but I feel a couple of seasons with him tutoring the likes of Chalobah, Ward-Prowse and a couple of our more talented youth players will be a huge benefit.

Results so Far

We've gotten off to a great start so far, only dropping 2 points in the league during a rather bizarre match against West Brom here despite having 30 shots on goal and 60% of possession we had to come from 1-0 down, then 3-1 down to grab a draw. That draw means we're currently sitting second in the league behind Man Utd who've spent almost £100 million during the summer and have a 100% record so far.

I decided that despite his struggles and poor form last season that Adam Campbell would start off as my first choice striker and that I'd give him a good run of 15 to 20 games with our newly tweaked tactics to see if he could kick on. So far it's paid off, he's scored 12 goals in 11 games and is looking far more clinical when put through on goal (last season he constantly fluffed one-on-one's with opposition keepers), also his pass completion rating is far better. Seems to have developed a nice understanding with a couple of the new signings too, linking up several times with Januzaj and Barkley.

Adnan Januzaj has helped himself to 5 goals and 3 assists in 6 appearances, while Ross Barkley has been pretty impressive too with 3 goal and 7 assists from 10 appearnces (6 starts and 4 as a sub) mostly playing at the AMR position. Smalling and Chalobah have made slightly fewer appearances so far, but both have done well when called on, Smalling managing to grab himself a couple of goals from set piece deliveries.

Of the original squad, Cabaye and Debuchy are now my wise old heads and still playing well. Haidara started this season in fantastic form but strained knee ligaments against Hull and will be out for the next 9 weeks or so. Fortunately Santon has just recovered from his own injury in time to reclaim the left back spot. Sissoko and Ben Arfa were struggling toward the end of last season and again this to get into the squad due to the form of other players and Ben Arfa has finally stated that he may need to move if things don't change so I may cash in on him in the January window if the likes of Hughes, Barkley and young Marc Gascoigne continue impressing.

EDIT: First international break of the season and I've had 9 players called up to the full England squad and 3 for the under 21s, pretty happy with the core of english players in the squad now.

[DBurns]

Just going to start a Newcastle save as we speak mainly due to the updates from Stu_UBJ and of course DandyDon with his usual fantastic updates. Will be using an updated database as of February 2nd so no Cabaye

Plan is to have a good English/British core to the squad within a few seasons

@DandyDon looks like you have what I'm looking for with the English core. How's the squad looking?

[DandyDon]

@DBurns

Very happy with the squad overall. I've got the homegrown core I wanted in the long run when I started this save and they're mostly young players with plenty years at the top level ahead of them. Plenty of options in most positions too.

The Squad

Adam Campbell

He's not quite as fully developed on my save as on some of the other folks, but he's really starting to look the part with his form this season and I think he still has some potential to fulfill.

Marc Gascoigne

This is the lad I'm hoping to develop into our other local star. In the long term the idea is to have this little fella playing behind Campbell with Januzaj and Barkley either side of him and then Ward-Prowse (or Hughes) and Chalobah behind them in central midfield (assuming we stick with the 4-2-3-1 formation I'm playing at the moment). I've been giving him a few games at the start of the season while we have a relatively easy fixture list and he's managed 3 assists so far. I'm hoping to work mainly on his pace and dribbling in training to help him get away from defenders. (At 5'3" he's certainly not going to be holding them off or muscling past them any time soon)

[DBurns]

@DandyDon

Sounds pretty close to the ideal long term English midfield. Seeing as you have JWP, any chance of getting Luke Shaw after a few seasons?

Gascoigne looks quality as does Campbell. I can never develop him well, my save on FM13 he was never more than third choice.

Great squad you have there and as you say, most of them are coming into their prime.

Think season 1 will be all about getting rid of the deadwood, reducing the wage bill and bringing in a few youngsters so I'll be happy with a top half finish I think.

[DandyDon]

@DBurns

Sadly missed out on Luke Shaw as man City jumped in with a £22 million offer for him halfway through the summer window. I was still waiting for any concrete bids for Anita at that point and just didn't have the funds available to match them. Gutted as I would have loved to pick him up and been able to field an all English back line sometimes

Reckon you'll have to do a bit of pruning to free up some cash for a Cabaye replacement too in the first season, any thoughts on who you might sign, go with real life possible in Grenier or look elsewhere?

[DBurns]

@DandyDon

£22 million would have been a fair price for him but as you say to be able to afford to splash out big money on a player, at Newcastle you have a sell a player for big money first. Although it wouldn't be the first time on FM14 that a player has gone to Man City for big money and not played much and then been transfer listed soon after.

Not too sure yet as to who to go for, thinking about maybe going for an Anita-Sissoko-Tiote midfield with HBA and two from Remy. Gouffran, Cisse and de Jong as a front three. Then again, there's not much creativity in there so might have to look at bringing someone in, possibly Will Hughes. Any ideas of anyone that has turned out well a few seasons in that could possibly replace Cabaye?

[james_wilko]

Tielemans can get there, takes a bit of work though but he is cheap (the Ashley special).

Ibrahim Affelay from Barcelona if he's transfer listed, think he sells for around 5 or 6 mil, if you're planning to use a CAM anyway.

Mind I reckon having HBA you've got a very creative option, use a 4-2-3-1 with HBA as the CAM and use two of Remy, Gouffran or Marveaux on the wings and then Cisse or LDJ up front.

[DBurns]

@james_wilko

Tielemans was an option but unfortunately he was not interested.

Also enquired about Affelay but Barca were looking £8 million which I thought was too much.

I did however bring in Will Hughes and a few others as well as selling a few players which will be revealed in my update soon.

Season has started off alright, Adam Campbell has netted his first goal for the club as well as another new signing being among the goals also.

[james_wilko]

Never used Hughes but he looks close to good enough to start in the prem and in games where he's been AI developed he always looks like a quality option. Normally put off by Derby wanting 8-10mil for him which I can usually not afford with Newcastle.

I'm doing a dummy run with an updated database to see how well LDJ will get on, will be updating the second post with info on him and potential new formations (thought I doubt they'll change) when SI releases the proper version. Reckon I'll be using Sissoko as the CAM though and wide options of Marveaux, Gouffran and Remy.

[DBurns]

@james_wilko

Any game I start with an English club, I try to sign him ASAP. Can play a variety of roles and positions, on my FM13 save with Chelsea I even played at CB some games although we had so much of the ball he played more like a deep lying playmaker than a centre back.

I've been using de Jong as an Inside Forward or Wide Target Man from AML in my 4-5-1. 7 appearances and no goals so might have to look at changing that. Sissoko is my box-to-box man and the heartbeat of the team.

[Double0Seven]

How do you guys develope your players. I red Anita was worth 25m+ and my anita is just 5 m(3.5 stars and 25 y/o). Campbell is 3.5 stars potential and 20 y/o. I loaned him one year and now he is a starter second season. For example his pace is just +1 in 2 years and +1 finishing in 2 years... Already dropped to 3.5 stars potential...

[DandyDon]

I had them both on heavy training for their positions and sometimes focused on attributes where they were weak, also quite a bi of tutoring for Campbell in the first couple of seasons.. Anita benefited from getting a lot of regular 1st team action right from the start on my save as I sold Tiote pretty early on. Also I believe Campbell's potential is fairly random, you might have been unlucky and got the lower end of his spectrum

[DBurns]

Season 1 - 2013/14 - Halfway Stage

Transfers

My first course of action was to recall Jonas, Vuckic, Tavernier and Good from their respective loans to beef the squad a bit more. Jonas will probably be sold, Vuckic will get some game time, mostly in the cups and Tavernier and Good add some more depth to the defence for the time being.

Next I terminated the contract of Joe Kinnear and replaced Joe Joyce as Head of Youth Development with Dave Parnaby from Middlesbrough.

Leaving the club were a few overpaid players who didn’t fit into my plans. Firstly Gabriel Obertan left for Germany to join Wolfsburg for £3.5 million. Jonas was next to go, after being recalled from his loan I offered him and PSV offered £2.5 million which I accepted. I would’ve liked more but was glad to get rid of his £45k per week wages. Sylvain Marveaux left for Southampton after they enquired about him and I made the cheeky proposal of getting Luke Shaw in exchange which they rejected and came back with a £4m offer which I accepted. The big name departure was Papiss Cisse for £12m as I’d be using a lone striker and he doesn’t really fit in. Surprisingly though, he chose Arsenal over Juventus. I also terminated Loic Remy’s loan deal as didn’t want to be paying £80k per week to someone who wasn’t guaranteed to be a regular starter.

Coming into the club was a youngster from Scotland, Ryan Gauld from Dundee United for the price of £2.2 million. We missed out on his John Souttar to Chelsea. Joining him was forum favourite, Will Hughes for £7 million, a lot for an 18 year old but I’m sure it’ll turn out to be a bargain. Next were two loanees joining to beef up the squad, firstly promising left back Lucas Digne joined from PSG before being joined by Javi Garcia from Man City. The big money signing was next, our new no.9 – Jordan Rhodes came in for £10.5 million, this will be the first time I’ve managed him but he always seems to score goals on any save so hopefully I can get him scoring. Perhaps the biggest coup of the window was bringing in Phil Jones on loan for the season beating off competition from most of Europe, hopefully I can build up a good enough relationship with him in order to try and get him to Newcastle on a permanent basis sometime in the future.

Results

Some fantastic results - most notably the 2-0 win away at Spurs and the 3-0 win at St. James Park over Chelsea after 3 tough games against Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal. Although these good results were soured with some extremely poor results such as losing 3-1 at Reading and 2-0 at Cardiff.

Our form has been patchy enough with possibly already too many draws. These results have left the league table looking like this at the turn of the year:

Player stats

My stars of the season have mainly been Captain Colo and Yanga Mbiwa at the back along with Tiote in midfield.

Jordan Rhodes might well be our top scorer but he's been poor as has de Jong while Ben Arfa has suffered through a few niggly injuries.

What's Next

With the January transfer window looming, we have a budget of £600k with £100k per week excess wages. With those budgets I don't see there many too much activity unless we receive an offer we can't refuse for one of our star players. Long term plans are as stated before - bring through as many players as possible either through the academy or at least home grown players.

Thanks for taking the time to read, all feedback and suggestions are welcome.

[Double0Seven]

I have the same problems. Win from AS Roma and Liverpool and Chelsea. Lose 6-1 to Wigan and 5-1 to Aston Villa.

Also try to sell HBA if he is really doing bad. He ruined so much chances for me and had a total of 8 months injury and was pretty useless most of the time. I brought in Gaitan and he is really doing good so far.

Also has the game already updated ? I see you have de Jong

[DandyDon]

@DBurns

Some interesting transfer activity there, couple surprising moves but I can see your reasoning cancelling the Remy loan and selling Cisse. Some very good loan deals you've organised there with Digne, Garcia and Jones. Shame you missed out on Souttar as he looks very good in my game. Only 4 points behind Arsenal too, so there's a chance of grabbing a Champion's League spot (assuming I haven't just jinxed you ). Looking at De Jong's form I'd be inclined to send him back to his club too, maybe try and bring in Salvio or Gaitan from Benfica if they're loan listed or maybe Welbeck at Man Utd (often seems to end up loan or transfer listed on my saves)

I wonder if when you had the enquiry from Southampton you should have made an offer to get Rickie Lambert in exchange. I'd recommend putting a cheeky wee offer in for him to anyone about to start a new save. He often seems to be sold for peanuts at the end of the first season, so might be worth a bid in that first window. He's no spring chicken, but you should get a couple decent years out of him and he was fantastic leading the line for me as a target man in the second season. (Pretty reliable penalty taker too)

[Double0Seven]

I went into my fianacies and although I'm not exceeding wage budget and doing fine in Premier League. Won capital one cup and half finals euro league. My wage budget is going down per year according to the prediction. What is this?

[DBurns]

@DandyDon

Yea interesting alright but with Remy being on £80k per week, that's a lot of money for our current financial situation. And Cisse, well he is a bit too one dimensional for me tbh. Yea the loan deals were good for strengthening the squad while I look for players to fill these positions on a permanent basis in the near future. Yea agreed with Souttar, always turns out quality although hopefully it'll turn out to be a blessing in disguise and I can fully develop Kevin Mbabu, Lubomir Satka and especially Remie Streete who has played 5 games already with an average rating of 7.42. Well since that update we’ve had a disappointing 0-0 draw at home to Villa followed up with two disappointing away league defeats to Swansea and Man City while progressing to the fifth round of the FA Cup beating Crystal Palace and then Stoke before bouncing back to winning ways in the league with a terrific 3-0 win over Fulham. I had thought about cancelling his loan but no one was available on my minimal transfer budget unfortunately so I will have to make do with him although he did score twice in our defeat to Swansea and once in the win over Fulham.

Hmm that might have been an option although I never really thought of it. Just enquired about him, Southampton want £10m! Long term target is still Luke Shaw.

[mattowls]

I've been keeping upto date with this thread and thought I'd share a bit of my success after just finishing my first season in charge of Newscastle.

After having a good save with Southampton, then getting the sack after a terrible start to my second season I was looking for a new team to start afresh. Newcastle was a top choice after I won the league in my first season! I had seen a few people say they had done this as well but never thought it was actually possible!

I also won the carling cup after falling VERY lucky with fixtures, beating Bolton 3-1 in the final!

In terms of signings and sales, I got rid of a lot of the usual players mentioned on here (jonas, marveaux, obertan, cisse) and also took the decision to cancel Remys loan, mainly to save the wage! I brought in a handful of players to boost my chances, mainly upfront having only Gouffran left as my striker. Rescaldani came in for little more than 2million along with Cerri for around 4, definitely looking to the future there. I got Dier to cover in defence and Tom Ince to boost my midfield options. My best signing was definitely the young right winger Allione, he scored 2 in my first league fixture against Sunderland and subsequently won player of the season. My only other signings were Fierro on loan and Timo Horn as back up goalkeeper.

I won tthe league with 76 points and generally played very well thought the full season, even though many results were 1-0 scraps, I'll take them any day of the week!

Just wanted to share my success as it's one of my favourite ever saves and I'm looking forward to the future!

[DBurns]

After a run of form, we are now back to 5th and only 2 points off Arsenal in 4th but there is going to some end to the season with the scrap for European places as if Fulham and Man City win their games in hand, there'll only be 8 points separating 3rd from 8th:

[DBurns]

After beating Man City in the FA Cup Quarter final, surely it’s our FA Cup to lose?

[DBurns]

Season 1 - 2013/14 – End of Season Review

Transfers

Already spoke about my summer signings in my previous. In the January transfer window I added a bit of experience to our young squad. Firstly I brought in transfer listed Thomas Sorensen from Stoke for £28k who will provide experienced backup to Tim Krul as well as being a fantastic tutor to our young keepers with his ‘Professional’ personality, already he has tutored Alnwick’s personality to ‘Professional’. We also brought in free agent Giandomenico Mesto who is very versatile and also has a ‘Professional’ personality making him a great tutor too. He also contributed greatly in the second half of the season playing 11 games, scoring twice as well as three assists – not bad for a free agent brought in mainly for tutoring purposes.

No one left the club during this window; thankfully we were able to hold onto Sissoko despite interest from Barcelona, Chelsea and Bayern Munich. I also decided not to loan any of the younger players out as I felt a further 5/6 months of tutoring and training would be more beneficial long term than a loan.

Results

Since my mid-season update, we have been on a great run of form losing only twice in 25 games including a run of 9 consecutive wins as well as facing four of the biggest teams in the league in successive games and still maintaining our unbeaten run. There were some terrific performances; most notably the 4-1 win over Liverpool and the 5-1 win over Hull where we were simply unplayable. Some disappointing performances as well however, games were the lack of a regular goalscorer were missed, especially the Everton game where we did everything but score a second goal. I can’t complain really as we had a tough second half of the season and came through it with flying colours.

League table

To finish second in my first season in charge is a terrific achievement even if we were 15 points behind champions Man United. At one stage with 7 games to go, things were very tight in the fight for Champions League places before we had the run of games that defined our season.

Domestic cups

In the Capital One Cup, I decided to take the chance to rest our senior players and give some game time to the backup players as well as some of the younger players. We progressed past Bristol City 3-0 thanks to a goal from Shola Ameobi and a double from Steven Taylor. However, we were outclassed in the next round by a full strength Reading side, our only consolation came through a late Phil Jones goal.

In the FA Cup however, I played a stronger side but still not full strength as I wanted to concentrate on the league so I still rotated a fair bit. We defeated Premiership opposition in the Third and Fourth round, beating both Crystal Palace and Stoke 1-0 thanks to goals in both games from Yoan Gouffran. We then had another 1-0 victory in the Fifth round, this time a great goal from Luuk de Jong seen of West Brom. Next up was our biggest challenge so far as we were drawn against Man City; however we won 2-0 against a pretty strong Man City side with goals from Sammy Ameobi and Cheick Tiote. After defeating Premiership opposition in every round so far, we were drawn against Championship side Doncaster in the Semi-final with an easy 3-1 win pitting us through to the Final, goals coming from Ben Arfa, Mesto and de Jong however I was disappointed to concede a late goal – the first we had conceded in the competition. In the Final, we faced a decent Fulham side but goals from de Jong and my Player of the Year Yanga Mbiwa seen off Fulham to bring the first of what I hope will be many trophies to St. James in my managerial reign.

Player stats

The stars of the season were the central defensive partnership of Yanga Mbiwa and Coloccini as well as our three defensive loan signings – Jones excelled as a utility man all over the pitch even playing as a Wide Target Man and a Defensive Winger at times, Garcia was brilliant sitting in front of the defence while Digne defied his young age with a terrific season. Honourable mentions also to Santon who played at both full back positions equally well and also Cheick Tiote who got forward to score four goals as well as countless tackles and interceptions.

However some players were not as impressive, including some of our ‘big’ players, most disappointing was Hatem Ben Arfa who was so inconsistent and infuriating and managed only 7 assists all season. If a big bid comes in for him, I would definitely consider it. Also disappointing was Jordan Rhodes who was also inconsistent in terms of goal scoring but I’m willing to put that that down to his first season at the club.

What's Next

With 4 players returning to their parent club upon the expiration of their loan deals and an upcoming Champions League campaign; I will have to strengthen the team and squad considerably. As mentioned I was disappointed with the performances of Hatem Ben Arfa last season and would consider bids for him if it meant the money could rebuild the squad for the upcoming season. Steven Taylor and Mike Williamson have both requested a transfer due to their lack of playing time however they are both English and I’d like to keep an English core to the side but I just can’t justify dropping Coloccini or Yanga-Mbiwa and I want to give Streete as much game time as I can so I think I will have to let them go.

As regards incoming players, Gareth Barry looks like he’ll be a free agent so would be a decent addition to the squad as well as a good tutor. Also according to my scouts, Sami Khedira could be available for £6m who would be a fantastic addition however I’m trying to stick to a wage limit of £60k per week to maintain financial stability long term which may mean I can’t afford Khedira. Elsewhere, as I’ve mentioned before I want to buy a few more English players so I’ll be looking at a centre back or two as well as maybe a replacement for Ben Arfa.

Thanks for taking the time to read, all feedback and suggestions are welcome.

[Stu_UBJ]

@DBurns - had any offers for Santon yet? I managed to sell him in 2nd season for £31m, bringing in Ben Davies to replace him. Also, Haidara can become a really good DL too, he was an absolute beast.

[Double0Seven]

I brought in Jonathan Silva. Great left back and you can learn him flat long bullet throws. Its awesome to have him.