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FM20 - Travelling slowly on Lorient Express


Jogo Bonito
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Fair enough but you do know that player development is far more accelerated when playing at a higher level plus training with better coaches and mentoring possibilities. As a rule of thumb I keep players in the u19 until they are 18, then either promote to first team, send out on loan or let go of them if they aren't progressing. The b / reserve team I pretty much ignore as I've not seen any player progressing in that setup. 

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You're right about the development being helped the higher up they are, but I control those groups quite carefully and ensure we appoint good coaches with suitable skills including working with youngsters. I fully intended Lihadji to be in the 2nd team, knocking on the door of the first team squad, but the registration issues forced my hand and he didn't moan about it. If I find somebody else, I will promote him. I find the 2nd Team a good halfway house, and have no concern about what I can bring through from that group, I couldn't imagine ignoring them :lol:

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Fair enough! If you can get all 3 squads working well that would be very beneficial indeed. 

BTW I just had the chance to sign Lihadji again on my new save for a free but turned it down in the interest of not signing the same players. 

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28 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Fair enough! If you can get all 3 squads working well that would be very beneficial indeed. 

BTW I just had the chance to sign Lihadji again on my new save for a free but turned it down in the interest of not signing the same players. 

It must be fun working for Ronaldo, but I agree on finding different players to keep things fresh and new at each club.

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1713341672_LorientinLigue1.png.12181c424590e03d39ad11a8f3fd29ed.png

FC Lorient - Season 2020/21

Following our promotion, it must be said that we entered the new season with some sense of fear

Would our lack of transfer activity be a masterstroke or stupid management error?

Well, we decided to stick to our 4231 from last season, and hope for the best

The season opener at home to Nantes didn't set the bar very high, we were poor and our powder-puff performance was deserving of the 1-0 loss that came our way

Next up was PSG, and unsurprisingly the trip to the capital (of France, not Qatar) ended in a second defeat

However, we edged out Amiens SC in the third game, and a 2-1 win got us our first points on the board

Even better was our 3-1 win at Dijon as away wins were not expected to come along very often this season

That didn't stabilise us for long though, as OL came to the Tango Arena and waltzed off happy with a crushing 3-0 win over our shell-shocked boys

We did back up our previous win on the road with victory at Strasbourg, but it started to indicate we were better away from our own stadium

That became even clearer when it took a 90th minute equaliser to snatch a point from the visit of OGC Nice, before beating AS Saint-Etienne at their place 

The sense of grey at the Tango Arena was threatening to overshadow the orange though, and that wasn't right for our fans at all

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So now we took a brave decision, and it really could not have worked out any better (even if it was the tiniest of adjustments) 

With home woes concerning us, we decided to change our approach from balanced to positive ahead of the home game with Lille (5th at the time) on 4th October

The balanced mindset seemed to work on the road, but we didn't seem to be taking the game to any opponents visiting the Brittany coast

It's incredible that such a minor tweak could transform a season, but even though the same 4231 set-up remained in tact, we crushed them 8-0 

It was an unbelievable result against a strong side, and the first thought was that this kind of display might be a one-off

But since this mental adjustment (positive at home, and staying balanced away) we have chalked up seven straight victories in Ligue 1 to shoot up the table

The defence has improved considerably as a result, and we are now effective in our style in both home and away games

The run has seen us go from likely-relegation battlers to 3rd in the table, and it's now eight consecutive wins by the end of November (and 10 games unbeaten)

We have endured injuries and we have rotated the squad, but we have definitely evolved from an inconsistent side in the early weeks to a very reliable outfit

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We are delighted (and genuinely surprised) to be sat in 3rd after the first 15 games, but aren't going to be losing our cool if we go on a downturn in the coming months

The key performers so far have been Wissa on the left flank, Hamel as central striker, Le Fee in central midfield, centre-back Tchamba and full-backs Le Goff and Mendes 

Hamel won Ligue 1 player of the month in November (he won the Ligue 2 award in February, March and April last season too)

The core of the first team is the original group inherited, with only Tchamba, Ouattara and Camara (when not injured) regular starters from outside that hub

The performance graph below shows how we have improved, but it's the first part of the graph that we were expecting to be normal for us this season

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Anything else?

We've added another four staff members since the new season kicked off, and said goodbye to Patrick Mboma with a heavy heart

The two physios came in as we had none specifically for the youth sides, and ex-Brentford coach Jover returned to France to take on management of the 2nd Team

That came about because we renewed the HOYD contract of Regis Le Bris, but removed his additional responsibilities for running the 2nd Team 

The decision to re-hire our ex-Assistant Manager in a lesser role that made use of his working with youngsters ability saw the mutual termination of the popular Mboma's contract

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Is the future bright and orange?

Lorient 2 have been doing OK, but not quite as strong as last season's title winners

Tapsoba has only scored 3 goals in 12 games, but central defenders Voisine and Mouanga have settled in well, and central midfielder Guel continues to impress

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The Under 19 group continues to flourish, and the goal difference generated by the 15-0-1 record is stunning

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Here are the key performers in the youth squad so far, sorted by appearances

The front three of Toure, Lihadji and Bourles has been electric in attack, with N'Guessan prompting effectively from midfield

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We have been less impressed by the form of striker Zehi on loan at AC Ajaccio, but that may be more down to the quality of his team-mates there

On the whole, we are pleased with how the additional squads are developing at the club

604571980_orangefuture.thumb.png.e3ed422651b4e5ad3363063e5f1e65ad.png

Edited by Jogo Bonito
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I have been playing with Positive mentality home and away. Since we are suppose to control possession it isn't that much of a problem even against stronger sides. What happens is people press us more if they are a stronger side which opens them up eventually, but if the are a stacked team with world class players we have no chance. 

I change to Defensive with 10 men or against PSG. Everyone else is fair game for Positive mentality.

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21 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

I have been playing with Positive mentality home and away. Since we are suppose to control possession it isn't that much of a problem even against stronger sides. What happens is people press us more if they are a stronger side which opens them up eventually, but if the are a stacked team with world class players we have no chance. 

I change to Defensive with 10 men or against PSG. Everyone else is fair game for Positive mentality.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I'll keep positive home and balanced away until it stops working!

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29 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Really, really  good results after u changed your tactic.  can u show us your tactics screen?

 

Thanks. Here it is, exactly the same tactic as last season except for home games I switch balanced to positive (no other changes). If Diakite plays on the right wing he is inverted winger because of his left-foot, but if Camara is fit on the right he plays as a traditional winger (attack). Some may be surprised to see low crosses to a target man, but it works for me.

787638876_FCLorienttactics2.1.thumb.png.54ac64de3ee186cce2897b53c7e4996b.png

 

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5 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Great going! What an upturn in form. Here's hoping you can keep it up :thup:

Cheers, I hope so but not concerned if we don't maintain this form all the way through as that would be asking too much. Avoiding relegation was the only mission this year, quite stunned how it is going after the initial stages.

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Just stumbled across this thread @Jogo Bonito and enjoyed reading about how you’ve been doing. I can tell by the pace you are going at you are liking this save! 
 

Although a long-term visitor of the forum I’ve never really ventured much into the Career Updates section. Your thread has made me think I might like to give it a go, I think I’d enjoy posting more detailed updates.

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1 minute ago, Dong21 said:

Just stumbled across this thread @Jogo Bonito and enjoyed reading about how you’ve been doing. I can tell by the pace you are going at you are liking this save! 
 

Although a long-term visitor of the forum I’ve never really ventured much into the Career Updates section. Your thread has made me think I might like to give it a go, I think I’d enjoy posting more detailed updates.

Thanks very much, yes I found a bit of a reason to become attached to FC Lorient, and the theme of the 'bright orange future' kept me motivated.

I only ever made one post in here before (Gent) but it was literally an intro and never got off the ground. You don't tend to get many comments in the FMCU threads compared to GPTG ones, but you obviously have more freedom to do much more detailed posts. It's great if people catch on and enjoy the story enough to read and comment, but it's also good just to be able to look back on your own progress easily too.

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1 hour ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Thanks very much, yes I found a bit of a reason to become attached to FC Lorient, and the theme of the 'bright orange future' kept me motivated.

I only ever made one post in here before (Gent) but it was literally an intro and never got off the ground. You don't tend to get many comments in the FMCU threads compared to GPTG ones, but you obviously have more freedom to do much more detailed posts. It's great if people catch on and enjoy the story enough to read and comment, but it's also good just to be able to look back on your own progress easily too.

Agreed I do enjoy posting in here and really have also been enjoying the other stories too. It's incredible how many facets people have found to this game. 

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6 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Agreed I do enjoy posting in here and really have also been enjoying the other stories too. It's incredible how many facets people have found to this game. 

I agree. So many different and enjoyable concepts, layouts, graphics, ideas etc. 

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17 minutes ago, 10Sammo10 said:

What a great turnaround Jogo. That Lille result is :eek:. Nice to see Wissa doing well! Future does look bright. 

Cheers, yes I was stunned by the Lille game, and the general upturn.

Things haven't been quite so good since then. It's the old style FM thing where you close the game, go to sleep, and next day it's like your players have amnesia or have never played the game. Still, all part of the journey :lol:

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7 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Cheers, yes I was stunned by the Lille game, and the general upturn.

Things haven't been quite so good since then. It's the old style FM thing where you close the game, go to sleep, and next day it's like your players have amnesia or have never played the game. Still, all part of the journey :lol:

Very true that's why when you're on a good run you need to keep playing on through the wee hours of the morning :lol:

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1701701637_LorientinLigue1.png.a678c1c3dce75e745437c8979ed778a3.png

FC Lorient - Season 2020/21

As December came, we were riding on the crest of a wave, having won our last eight games (unbeaten in 10) and sat in 3rd place after a very slow start

However, mid-table Brest ended the run, and we followed it up with a disappointing home defeat to Bordeaux

These set-backs were a reality check, but we bounced back with a fine 3-1 win away to AS Monaco and scraped past Nimes at home to end the month positively

Unfortunately, we were missing Tchamba and Ouattara for the month of January as they were on AFCON duty for Cameroon & Ivory Coast respectively

The absence of our left-centre back prompted me to promote Robin Voisine to the first team squad and he made some starts

That coincided with a really tough start to the New Year, and we couldn't find answers to those early January challenges

We bemoaned being paired with Rennes in the French Cup, and exited at the first hurdle after an unlucky extra-time defeat to a decent side

PSG were up next and clearly nobody's choice of opponent when form is wobbling a bit

Unsurprisingly it was another loss, and we were lucky to only go down to a score of 2-0 against the Qatari side

The most disappointing result of our three consecutive defeats was to follow though, as a very ordinary Amiens side also took three points against us

We then scrambled past Dijon, and looked back to our best with a fine away win at a strong Lyon side who sat in 2nd place at the time

But the consistency we had a few months earlier was harder to find, and a 0-0 draw at home to Strasbourg saw us unable to build on those two wins

And then we travelled to the French Riviera to take on OGC Nice, with our side experiencing some severe injury and fitness issues (although Tchamba did return)

With neither of our wingers available we deployed a 4312 formation for this one, but it fooled us more than them and we got thumped 4-1 

The up and down form hadn't convinced for a while even with some victories in there, so we felt it was time to make another tactical change

We'd reaped the rewards of our first tweak (beating Lille 8-0) but the second effort had now delivered a 4-1 defeat, so we had no idea how this next one would go

The visit of mid-table AS Saint-Etienne was a good opponent for us at this time though, and our new 433 worked like magic as we hammered them 5-0

It's only one game of course, so far too early to tell if this would be a new phase for us or just a good day at the office

And it means we did have to leave out our advanced play-maker Ouattara, which we wouldn't want to be doing every week if we could help it

But this win takes us in to March in a better frame of mind, and still sat in a lofty 5th position in the table

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Anything else?

On 6th January, we received the terrible news that promising Under 19 midfielder Kilian Liri had signed a pre-contract deal with relegated Toulouse

We had made him a good contract offer which has agent had rejected, and he was unwilling to re-star talks leaving us powerless to keep him at the club

774317538_KilianLirideparts06_01_20.thumb.png.929479e4f372e7bed6dfa9743b6a6097.png

Teenage midfielder Matar Sarr arrived for a fee of £66,000 from Generation Foot in Senegal on 1st January to replace him

143782271_MatanSarr66000.thumb.png.554fb8f406a5496c1df6c9f01cd6f6b1.png

Slightly better news on 20th January when we received an £8.86 million windfall from a transfer clause on Raphael Guerreiro that we had been patiently waiting to benefit from

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Despite the strong financial position, we only made one transfer move in the January transfer window, which actually ended in failure

Our HOYD starts talks with quite a few unsuitable young players, and we usually put a stop on those signings before contracts are sealed

However, when we heard he had a £550,00 move agreed for Lille's young striker Ibrahim Mandefu we took a closer look at the player

He had scored 14 goals in 31 games for their 2nd Team, but we realised his contract was expiring in the summer

Noticing that no compensation would be due to Lille, we re-negotiated for a pre-contract deal that the player's agent accepted

Momentarily we were delighted that we had a good prospect coming in for free, and we had saved £550,00 in to the bargain

But that feeling of elation soon disappeared when we discovered that we had been played by his agent and he had signed a new agreement with Lille instead

1094291854_IbrahimMandefu.thumb.png.872700c3ab429d315ffe7863694112c6.png

We did recall Fabrice Zehi from his unsuccessful loan at AC Ajaccio, and the striker goes back in to the Under 19 group for more development

Franck Haise returned to the club as an Under 19 coach a few days ago, he had previously been a member of staff here from 2103-2017

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Is the future bright and orange?

Lorient 2 are edging Rennes and PSG at the top of National 2 - B

There have been some encouraging performances, but highly-rated striker Tapsoba has slightly disappointed with only 7 goals in 19 (1) appearances to date

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And the Under 19 team is doing even better, streets ahead of Nantes who are well-known for having a great youth set-up themselves

There have been incredible goal returns in competitive and non-competitive fixtures of 39 for striker Toure and 38 for winger Lihadji so far

2089817717_FrenchUnder19National-GroupC2.2.thumb.png.d0658c8e4451042fc923e545ee9e0c16.png

We have made a handful of youth signings ahead of the next season, just to keep this team fully populated

Overall, we are very satisfied that the future is in good hands

161211529_orangefuture.thumb.png.18a4fc5b25dee4ca11f9753bbba60efb.png

Edited by Jogo Bonito
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6 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

Franck Haise is Manager of RC Lens in my save. He has been there for 4 years. Good Under 19's coach obviously.

Yes, just added an image of him. Looks to be a good fit for Under 19 coach and has Lorient connections.

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4 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Some interesting anecdotes from the winter transfer window there! Good luck for the rest of the season 

Cheers, activity was minimal so I thought a different tale wouldn't go amiss.

4 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

How do you do this? 

Appoint youth coaches? Find with Lorient connections? I think you mean how do you capture this style of image :lol:

It's orange magic my friend.

Oh OK, just hover over the 'i' on the player or staff member and this is the view that pops up. Keep the cursor on top of the profile of the person, press 'alt + s' and voila (you can then crop it to suit if you want to).

Bon chance!

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Nice update Jogo. That start was always going to be impossible to continue, but still picked up some great results. Fingers crossed you can hold out and get some European football. 
 

And a lovely bonus on the guerreiro front. Very useful. Sarr looks like he could become a handy player.

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49 minutes ago, 10Sammo10 said:

Nice update Jogo. That start was always going to be impossible to continue, but still picked up some great results. Fingers crossed you can hold out and get some European football. 
 

And a lovely bonus on the guerreiro front. Very useful. Sarr looks like he could become a handy player.

Cheers. Ironically Sarr was one I was going to add to my youth team from the outset but I felt I didn't need him. Of course, I had no idea that Liri would do this to me! I'm quite disappointed by the Liri situation as he was coming along very well and we put lots of effort in to developing him. His agent ruined it for all of us (Toulouse were relegated in the first season).

The Guerreiro clause was a bonus, there were a few occasions when we could have cashed it in for around £6 million, but we didn't really need to and it's better to have it end naturally like this.

I guess if we end up in Europe we may have to travel by train in order to maintain the theme of the story. Can you imagine a Russian away trip for a Thursday night game by that mode of transport :stop::herman:

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9 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

I guess if we end up in Europe we may have to travel by train in order to maintain the theme of the story. Can you imagine a Russian away trip for a Thursday night game by that mode of transport

Maybe your team would have to travel in a sealed train...especially if playing Zenit.

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18 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

Maybe your team would have to travel in a sealed train...especially if playing Zenit.

I thought I would be completing my season tonight, but a two-hour Skype call to my mother has changed the agenda :lol:

I'll give the train travel arrangements more thought if we make it :)

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Maybe this evening my friend :lol:

It's that time of year when you start to check your shortlist of targets, out of contract options etc. Apart from boosting the youth side and possibly the 2nd Team there are decisions being made on who to release, who to promote (some Under 19 players in to the 2nd Team, some 2nd Team in to the main squad). First team transfers will be minimal, perhaps two at the most and they probably won't be big deals. Last season was just the one first team signing, and even he was a development signing really at £900k and no experience in the top two tiers before I moved for him. I also had about 15 or so staff contracts to work through.

Oh, I forgot to add, there are still a number of league games left to go, about eight of them I think.

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43 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

All I know is he better look good in Orange...

and hopefully it isn't one of the usual wonderkids everyone gets...

Everybody has to look good in orange, its in the contract :lol:

Anybody that follows my progress will be very clear I don't do wonderkids or popular players unless I found them myself without knowing they were recommended players. This guy, like last season's signing of Ndiaye, is a good player IRL but I don't think I have seen his name mentioned in any of our bundle of French saves recently. If I'm wrong, that would be purely coincidental :thup:

A bit of a clue for the new player. He actually has the same first name and surname as one of my existing players (not one in the first team squad). Spelt differently, slightly, but the same if speaking it...

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Enjoyed reading through all of this. Really appreciate the attention to detail with the transfers and squad building.

Do you have much hope to be bringing through youth players from your academy? Integrating them through your three teams at each level?

Fascinating stuff, keep it up!

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28 minutes ago, WillHoward42 said:

Enjoyed reading through all of this. Really appreciate the attention to detail with the transfers and squad building.

Do you have much hope to be bringing through youth players from your academy? Integrating them through your three teams at each level?

Fascinating stuff, keep it up!

Thanks very much, really appreciated! Yes I am looking to push a few through per year, Under 19 players that are down there just because of age will be promoted to the 2nd Team, the better young prospects from the 2nd Team will get pushed in to the First Team squad. Lorient did have quite a few young players in and around the first team squad at the start, some of them are now major players in the main group. Hopefully as contracts come up for renewal on the older players and they get released, the pathway through for the younger ones will escalate as my self-imposed maximum age for signing players is 23.

I'm not really a newgen fan, but each year will take two or three on to boost the youth team numbers. As the 2nd season is just ending, all of the transfers bar one have been for the Under 19 and 2nd Team. Gaps in the first team squad will mainly be replenished by promoting a younger player from the levels. Especially as the experiment with the lower league French signings didn't work out. That batch are good young players (Krasso, Dawa, Abbas, Zabou, Caddy etc.) but wont' be rated well enough in game to make significant progress at my club. It doesn't surprise me that they didn't progress so much as FM always has the difficult task of playing catch up on young players progressing. Remember the names for FM21 though!

As an Arsenal fan, you may be disappointed that I had to get rid of Milan Gendouzi last year (after I re-signed him) because of the issue with the age limit in the Under 19 rules,. At 5'5" he didn't really have the frame to succeed here, and he wasn't good enough for the 2nd Team by that time so had to go. He's the spitting image of his older Arsenal brother 

Just looking for a few missing images for some of the original youth players that I still have in the Under 19 squad and saw this. I should have added it to my post when I got promoted!

 

Edited by Jogo Bonito
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757459991_LorientinLigue1.png.28e24e45edb15bcc6dfbb8d2f6fb4652.png

Season 2020/21

As we entered March, we were 5th after 26 games and with a game in hand (against Lille) on those just above us

Despite a heavy loss away to Angers SCO, the month was generally a good one as we garnered three wins out of four 

April was more of a struggle, and although four more games passed without defeat, three of them had been draws

In fact, the narrow win over Brest could not have come at a better time as we appeared to be stumbling towards the finishing line

We had gone from looking upwards to looking over our shoulders, and with four games to play we might run out of steam

May didn't start well either, and we never laid a glove on Bordeaux as we fell to a sorry 2-0 defeat in our first outing 

We then hosted AS Monaco, who we had been battling for the higher spots but had now forged clear along with OL and Rennes

We actually played really well against them but a 0-0 draw was not reflective of the bombardment on their goal

We saw enough in that game to feel confident we could go to Nimes and come home with three points, but another 0-0 result left us flat

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So after 37 games, we were left 5th in the table, three points ahead of FC Nantes with a goal difference four better than theirs

The fixture computer had thrown up a corker though, as we travelled to face that very same Nantes side in the last fixture of our season

A loss of two goals would have put them level on points, equal on goal difference, and ahead of us on head-to-head (they beat us on the opening day too)

The reason 5th was so important was that it would mean European football (or not) next season, and we felt that would be a massive boost to the club

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A significant attendance of 35,276 was packed in to the Nantes stadium to watch it unfold, with only 1,777 of our own fans there to witness the match

We held our own reasonably well in the first half, before conceding right on the stroke of half time

Right winger Sidick Camara calmed our nerves just after the hour with an equaliser, but we went 2-1 down after 85 minutes to make it a nervy finish

Luckily the boys kept their focus and saw the job through, and rarely could we have been celebrating a league defeat in quite the same way

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Here is the performance graph and club summary plus the all-important final Ligue 1 table

PSG won by an absolute country mile, but there was quite a battle to the end for OL, Rennes and AS Monaco who kept changing places regularly

Promoted AJ Auxerre did just enough to survive, but Montpellier had a stinker and were well adrift of everybody else

FC Metz couldn't repeat last season's relegation play-off escape, and went down after Reims beat them in this year's version of the showdown

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And below is the confirmation that we have qualified for the Play-Off stages of the grandly named EURO Cup II competition next year

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A quick review of the season by Voetbalzone is below, who bizarrely claim that the 8-0 home win over Lille was not a better result than a 3-1 win at Dijon

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Below are the player stats for all players across all competitions

We didn't have a prolific scorer this season, but you can see who did most to get us to where we finished

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21 year old central midfielder Enzo Le Fee has been at the club since joining as a boy in 2008, and was player of the season by a considerable distance

The signing of the season is an interesting one as we only signed one player for the first team, and that was Ousseynou Ndiaye

We'll observe this as meaning that ex-Angers SCO centre-back Kevin Mouanga might deserve promotion from the 2nd Team though

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Anything else?

We have already made one first team player signing ahead of next season (plus some youth & development deals are agreed)

The new arrival is AS Monaco central midfielder Youssouf Fofana who had an estimated value of £4.6 million on the open market

However, he was deemed surplus to requirements there despite being under contract to 2024, and we took advantage of that situation

A bargain fee of just £1.9 million was negotiated to land our top target, and the Paris (IDF) native joins us on a modest wage of £6,000 per week until 2025

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The board are obviously pleased that we have not really dipped in to our budget for two years

For next season, we will have just over £16 million to spend in the transfer market should we wish to do so

We also have around £100,000 per week unspent wage allowance, despite renewing quite a few contracts during the season

There are still a few more players to try and tie down on new contracts, but we are doing our utmost to keep the maximum wage at a sensible level 

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We have been given this somewhat vague promise to build a new stadium

It's a decision the board took off their own back, but there doesn't seem to be any fixed timescale or budget put in place at this stage

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There hasn't been much change on the backroom team, but we took the decision to replace our Chief Data Analyst Mickael Le Foll on 10th April 2021

Taking on that role is Sebastien Roi, who had previously been Assistant Manager and coach at Strasbourg for some years

We saw that he had qualities more suitable to an analytical role, and fortunately he was willing to agree to our suggestions

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And we let hearts rule heads in picking Dakar, Senegal as the venue for our summer training camp over some much more suitable locations

We hope our following there may be boosted by the visit, but hope that the awful surfaces in Senegal don't do serious injury to any of our valuable assets

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Is the future bright and orange?

Lorient 2 couldn't repeat their table-topping exploits of last year, but only missed out by a whisker to strong PSG and Rennes sides

However, the Under 19 squad were virtually unstoppable again and had another fantastic season as they finished top of the tree like last year

In the next post will talk in more detail about Lorient 2 and the Under 19 squad, as we review their seasonal progress

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Edited by Jogo Bonito
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1380037806_Lorientheader.jpg.3499b3ee138b6368cb7094c1a0a90ffb.jpg

The final part of the season 2020/21 review takes a quick look at the players who could be expected to make the future bright for the club

Lorient 2 review

As referenced in the end of season report earlier, our 2nd Team had a good season but could not quite win the league this time

The best performer was central defender Voisine, who did enough to get promoted to the first team squad in January (so is not in the image below)

Mara, Guel and Mouanga were probably the pick of the bunch (image below shows in appearance order so a few are missing)

Tapsoba was slightly disappointing as we expected more at this level, and last season's top scorer Burban couldn't do much in a campaign that saw him absent for a long time

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Under 19 review

As referenced in the end of season report earlier, our 19 team had another incredibly good season and stormed the league just like last year

The best performers were winger Lihadji and again striker Toure (34 goals the year before) as you can see from their incredible goal returns across all competitions

Central midfielders Liri (sadly moving to Toulouse) and N'Guessan were also in fine form, as was winger Bourles

Fournier and Dariba (and Assumani who isn't in the image) were in last year's youth intake and are developing very well

This year we have taken on another three from our intake (Carre, Benzarti and Soler) but the image below shows in appearance order so a few are missing

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Ahead of the third season we will naturally lose a handful of players from each of these squads

But serious effort has been put in to improving both the Under 19 group and 2nd Team, and they will be expected to kick on again next term

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Edited by Jogo Bonito
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Just now, OlivierL said:

You seem to have a lot potential in your u19 squad, can u show the best prospects ?

I've paid a lot of attention to that squad for the last two years, I spend a long time trying to get the right players to start there and push on through the age groups.

I'll probably do a squad review of all three teams this summer ahead of the new season. 

Only six of them are youth intake (three in first year and three new ones just taken on).

 

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158058465_Lorientheader.jpg.5fdddc301bfb91b489cf6525b055f54a.jpg

Club News & Transfer Summary - Summer 2021

Here is out transfer activity ahead of the third season at FC Lorient

Of the new arrivals, only central midfielder Youssouf Fofana goes in to the first team squad after his bargain £1.9 million switch from AS Monaco

Arnaud Kalimuendo (PSG striker), Malcolm Viltard (Sochaux central midfielder) and Datro Fofana (winger plucked from AFAD in Ivory Coast) go in to the Lorient 2 squad

Of this trio the latter is the most exciting, and is a really talented prospect according to extensive video analysis (the other two probably shouldn't have been signed)

Kouakou (newgen), Kouadio, Ashu (newgen), Oulare and N'Goran (newgen) join the Under 19 squad to bulk that group out

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Here is the initial profile of our new first team squad member, who gets a warm welcome but must work hard to fight off fierce competition for a starting spot 

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Additional departures not shown in the 'out' section were those players released on a free transfer

Saunier was one our original centre-back options, but due to his age, wage and limited ability, he was no longer worth keeping around

Bellon was a young midfielder who was the club from the start, but had not significantly improved and there were better talents available

The remaining five players were all signings made due to our scouting & networking partnerships, but had not really progressed in two years

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But the biggest deal of the summer was the sale of winger Isaac Lihadji to FC Porto

After arriving on a free transfer from OM last summer, he racked up 50 goals and 26 assists for our Under 19 side last year

He was going to be promoted to the first team this season, but already stated he was unwilling to extend his contract that was expiring in June 2022

So when an offer of £17.25 million (potentially rising to £20.5 million) and with 40% of future transfer profit came in, it was an absolute no-brainer to accept

That's a handsome profit in one season for a player that had never made a senior appearance for the club and had other wingers ahead of him in the pecking order

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Lorient Senior Squad

At the time of the opening fixture we have this 23-man squad available to us

The transfer window is still open though, and three or four of these (Kamissoko, Gueye, Laura and maybe Diakite) might be allowed to leave

If any of them do depart, players from the 2nd Team will be promoted (and if the seniors don't go, some more 2nd Team players will head out on loan or be sold)

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Lorient 2 Squad

The 2nd Team is over-populated at the moment, and we will actively try to reduce the size before the transfer window closes

Some are just waiting for a chance to be promoted upwards, but others may go out on loan or be sold

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Lorient 2 - out on loan

We currently have four players from the 2nd Team out on loan, with Abdoul Tapsoba the pick of them

We would have had him on the edge of the first team squad this season, but he moaned all last year and his goal return of 10 in 30 at this level has been unconvincing so far

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Lorient Under 19 Squad

As always, we spend a long time bulking out this squad, and it gets harder season by season

Other than Kouadio, Oulare, Camele, N'Guessan, Freitas, Bourles, Sadjo and Girard the rest are all newgen players

Freitas, Bourles, Sadjo and Girard were all original youth players at the club (N'Guessan was added at the start of the first season)

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Staff Changes

The three departing men all refused contracts after demanding increases above what we were prepared to pay 

Our backroom team is strong in all departments and squads anyway, so we just added ex-Monaco goalkeeping coach Andre Amitrano to the staff

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2021/22 Pre-Season Results & Board Expectations

We enjoyed our training camp in Senegal, and survived some dodgy surfaces and food with no ill-effects

The opposition was not able to compete, but we hope to have gained some extra fans in the country as a result of our visit

The only 'tough' fixture was the Lazio game, but we surprisingly (and comfortably) beat them 4-2

And now, on the day we are ready to begin the 2021/22 season, the board have reminded us all of our objectives for the third year

Our European adventure probably isn't going to last long though, as we have been paired with Spanish side Villarreal in our Euro Cup II Best Placed 4th Qualifying Round tie

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Edited by Jogo Bonito
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17 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Good stuff, of course sad to see Lihadji go but you made a tidy little profit on him! 

Any of the new-gens look special?

Decent for the level they're at. Split in to three categories, these are the nine we have (forgive me for not cropping the images)

Season 1 (3)

Ndriba.thumb.png.940c7a6aa00f1faed4c914cdc906b53a.png

Fournier.thumb.png.4f874590905e25200778860e6fec6c5c.png

Assumani.thumb.png.e537c58c06a37d8d8e27f30cc6258bd2.png

Season 2 (3)

Benzarti.thumb.png.e519e7ac11eb03410058b214be8b1d9f.png

Soler.thumb.png.29d958380e3d6c854d3c2dee9def4a44.png

Carre.thumb.png.cf9eb4c16a4fb60d45015770d1029758.png

Signed from elsewhere ahead of season 3 (3)

Kouakou.thumb.png.3a300f5730820ee3226f32dbde656c3b.png

Ashu.thumb.png.84e691b042821d893e9021b905ff946c.png

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Edited by Jogo Bonito
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