[FM22] Arsenal F.C. - Trusting the process?

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

I'm undecided.

I always liked Bellerin and I think he could provide something different to Tomiyasu but his contract situation is very difficult; expiring at the end of the second season and out-of-whack with the wage structure of the rest of the team.

@Carmi88 did you renew his contract in order to see him on later?

Guendouzi is the opposite; I also don't like him  but his attribute profile is exactly what I am looking for. He also seems 'programmed' to hate the club; immediately pushing for a transfer and considering his options at the end of his contract within a week of returning.

Am wondering to what extent it can be mediated with solid playing time, in a system which suits him and an otherwise very stable squad. Just thinking out-loud really 

[Carmi88]

31 minutes ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

I'm undecided.

I always liked Bellerin and I think he could provide something different to Tomiyasu but his contract situation is very difficult; expiring at the end of the second season and out-of-whack with the wage structure of the rest of the team.

@Carmi88 did you renew his contract in order to see him on later?

Guendouzi is the opposite; I also don't like him  but his attribute profile is exactly what I am looking for. He also seems 'programmed' to hate the club; immediately pushing for a transfer and considering his options at the end of his contract within a week of returning.

Am wondering to what extent it can be mediated with solid playing time, in a system which suits him and an otherwise very stable squad. Just thinking out-loud really 

yep, gave Bellerin an extension and then when Leeds bid for him I let him decide to stay or go.

 

Guendouzi is classed as a world class midfielder in my game, but i don't want him at Arsenal IRL so defo not staying in game

[hasdgfas]

I tried with Guendouzi! I played him that second season and he played pretty well, but wanted way too much money for his ability, so I eventually let him go for free to Benfica. They sold him to Inter for 32.5M two years later, but he wasn't great there, and is now at Monaco as a 30-year old.

[ajw10]

On 06/03/2022 at 23:19, ajw10 said:

First season with the new update. Pretty successful.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Holding went to Real Madrid! in January. Sold Lacazette for £4.5m, bought Giroud for £3m. Sarr came in on loan to replace Holding, Bennacer during January to replace Elneny.

I always turn the first window off with Arsenal. Got Kessie coming in on a free, just need to work out what to do with the striker situation

Finally finished season two. Had a busier than expected summer window as you can see

Gabriel wanted £200k to sign a new deal so I decided to cash in and bring in Lacroix instead. Abraham ended up being my number one target after a while of looking for forwards. Rice was a late reactive signing after I noticed he was kicking off at West Ham.

As you can see, it led to a succesful season

Expecting a quiet summer. Xhaka and Pepe will probably go. Might sell the loaned out Sambi too as I have Patino to bring through. Tavares moans all the time so I'm open to selling him, just need to find the right LB.

Southampton have been relegated so Livramento might have to be this summer's Rice. 

[WillyBroadband]

On 20/03/2022 at 11:05, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

I always liked Bellerin

Oh me too man, but I've sold him in every save I've had as he doesn't fit in with my wage structure. Funnily enough, I drove past him last week in North London, he was in a brand new Tesla! 

 

On 20/03/2022 at 11:05, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

I also don't like him

Haha, same! I always get rid as soon as I can, though - I don't care about his attributes fitting (because I nearly always play with a Box to Box) he's just a wally. 

On my most recent save, Daniel Ballard was the only one I kept at the club out of all the players out on loan in the first season. Including Saliba, who I loaned to a second division side in Spain - was surpised no one in the Prem wanted him, really. 

[WillyBroadband]

On 21/03/2022 at 15:11, ajw10 said:

just need to find the right LB

I can recommend Tyrick Mitchell at Palace, was super solid and never moaned about being backup to KT. 

I got rid of Tavares, not keen on his mental stats really. He went to CSKA Moscow. 

I'm impressed with how much you got for Lucas Torreira & Eddie Nketiah, mate. How did you manage that? I sold Eddie for £11M to Leeds & Torreira to Real Sociedad for about £9M with a wage contribution of about £6K a week. Had no other takers! 

[KingLara]

Arsenal Season 2 – Pre-Season / August

 

Having had a successful first season, winning the league (just) and the Carabao Cup and finishing runners up in the Fa Cup to Liverpool I began piecing more of the squad I want for the second season.

That of course began with the staff. The Under 23s and 18s underwent radical changes but the first team mostly stayed the same. I wanted to get rid of Jungheim (assistant manager) and replace him with a ridiculous regen coach named Thijs Faber but the board wouldn’t sanction the £5 million it would take to terminate his contract so he has stayed for now.

Both Youth teams have new managers. I found a new head of youth development but he ended up staying at Lyon so Mertesacker is still surviving for the moment.

The Transfer window was busy. Quite a few of the scouted came in but we made three significant signings. Vlahovic, Gravenberch and Asensio. The first two were very much planned while Asensio was available for such a low price close to deadline day and injuries to Pepe and Bale meant I took the deal.

Both keepers nearly left with Newcastle after them. Ramsdale accepted a bumper new contract to stay while Leno rejected Newcastle to remain mostly sitting on the bench. Holding did make the trip to St James Park though but I was happy with the money. I wanted rid of  Maitland-Niles and Nketiah so both left for lower amounts than possibly needed. I decided to keep Guendouzi as I didn’t want Marseille to have him for such a low price. However I will probably let him go at the end of the season.

TRANFERS IN

Dusan Vlahovic (40M)

Ryan Gravenberch (37M)

Marco Asensio (16M)

 

TRANSFERS OUT

Rob Holding (Newcastle) 40M

Eddie Nketiah (Ajax) 13.25M

Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Borussia Monchengladbach) 15m

Konstantinos Mavropanos (Stuttgart) 2.6M

Jordi Osei-Tutu (Fulham) 1.9M

 

Henry-Francis, Monlouis, Taylor-Hart and Alebiosu all left for peanuts.

Lokonga, Rekik, Patino and Hutchinson are just some of the young players who have gone out on loan.

 

SQUAD

Currently I am playing 4-2-3-1 with Aubameyang sometimes playing on the left.
 

GK – Ramsdale – Leno

DL – Tierney – Tavares

DR – Tomiyasu – Bellerin

DC – White - Saliba

DC – Gabriel – Ballard

CDM – Partey – Torreira – Guendouzi

CM – Xhaka – Gravenberch

CAM – Odegaard – Asensio – S-Rowe

ML – Saka – Bale – Martinelli

MR – Pepe – Nelson

ST – Aubameyang – Vlahovic – Balogun

 

PRE SEASON

Pre-season saw us travel to the USA far earlier than usual to due the World Cup.

I forgot to take into account players returning from loan so only a couple made appearances during the three game run. Overall we played ok in the games with all members of the 44 man party playing at least 30 minutes of a game. Vlahovic making a belated scoring debut against Colarado in the final game.

After we came back to London for the Emirates Cup. We entertained Rangers, Leipzig and Porto. Two comfortable 2-0 wins were enough to win the trophy.

Our final two games saw us play Salzburg and Celtic. Salzburg was a tricky affair but Celtic were a stroll.

Overall I was happy with what I saw and trying out a more attacking tactic.

 

Cincinnati – 5-2 – Nketiah 3 Bale Martinelli

Dallas – 1-1 – McEneff

Colorado – 1-0 – Vlahovic

Rangers – 2-0 – Vlahovic Balogun

RB Leipzig – 2-0 – Bale Lokonga

RB Salzburg – 2-1 – Nelson Aubameyang

Celtic – 4-0 – Saka, o.g Pepe Vlahovic.

 

COMMUNITY SHIELD

LIVERPOOL 2 – Mane 78 Salah 90

ARSENAL 1 – Vlahovic 57

 

Liverpool started their new signing Declan Rice in midfield (I was tempted to get him). I left Aubameyang on the bench deciding to go with Vlahovic from the start. Despite taking the lead we weren’t at our best and although the Salah goal was the last kick of the game Liverpool deserved the win.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

WEST BROM  - 1 Grant 28 Rondon s/o 15

ARSENAL – 3 – Aubameyang 5, 71, 81

 

Chelsea and Liverpool opened the season with a pulsating 3-3 draw at Stamford Bridge. The fixture computer gave us a tricky start but we began at newly promoted West Brom. Ramsdale suffered a thigh injury in training so would miss the first month of the season. We started the game well with Aubameyang giving us an early lead. That was helped by Karlan Grant producing a shocking strikers tackle on Tierney and being sent off ten minutes later. However the baggies equalised and then it took us until the 71^st minute to finally get the second goal. Aubameyang completing his hat-trick for a good but a bit insipid opening win.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL – 3 – Vlahovic 20 51 75(pen)

MAN CITY  - 1 Dias 63

 

There was nothing wrong with our bite for the second game at home to Man City. We put in a commanding performance. City were run ragged and committed 23 fouls but only one was deemed a yellow card while we had 2 yellows from just 5 fouls. An XG of over 3 and possession over 60%. A shame not to keep a clean sheet. Dias thumping in a header from a corner.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL – 5 – Aubameyang 4 17(pen) 45 Odegaard 74 Saka 90

LEEDS  - 1 - Rodrigo 68

 

Aubameyang made it 3 hat-tricks in a row in another exhibition of attacking football at the Emirates. An XG of 4.23 and a 94 pass accuracy very pleasing.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

LEICESTER CITY  - 2 – Xhaka o.g 2 Ihenacho 90

ARSENAL – 1 – Odegaard 20

Four hat-tricks in a row? No. I always seem to lose an early season game and this was no different. We lost Bale to another training injury and he would miss around three months. Xhaka with a terrible own goal after 2 minutes before Ihenacho curled past Leno in the 93rd minute. Both Aubameyang and Vlahovic scoring just 6.2 ratings. I still think we deserved a draw though.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL – 3 – Smith-Rowe 10 Partey 58 Saka 69 – Aubameyang miss/pen 20

CHELSEA  - 2 – Lukaku 85 90(pen)

Before the final game of the month Odegaard asked for a new contract which I offered but when I refused to pay the 10 million signing on fee he got unhappy. All this meant I left him out of the Chelsea game as well as his minions Martinelli, Saliba and Guendouzi who agreed with him. Smith-Rowe paid me back for his first start of the season with the opening goal. We cruised in the game although two late goals for Lukaku nearly put a sting in the tail. Pepe dislocated his shoulder and would be out for around three months. Still no clean sheets this season.

 

League Table

Liverpool are the only unbeaten team but have two draws at Chelsea (3-3) and Man City (0-0).

1.      Arsenal P4 P12 GD8

2.      Man Utd  P4 P12 GD7

3.      Newcastle  P4 P12 GD7

4.      Aston Villa P4 P12 GD4

5.      Liverpool P4 P11 GD11

 

Global Transfers

The biggest deal of the summer was always going to be Kylian Mbappe. I did have talks with him but having just signed Vlahovic and with his astronomical demands I decided to leave it. He ended up at Bayern.

Domestically all the big clubs spent money. Chelsea signed Nianzou and Zabarnyi. Liverpool got Declan Rice for 59 million and also brought in Bernat. Man City spent nearly 97 million pounds on Dendoncker and Nuno Mendez while their neighbours United signed Weigl, Tete and Barbosa. Spurs only significant signing was Normand. Newcastle had an arsenal reunion with Martinez joining Holding at St James Park and West Ham spent 42 million on Belgium midfielder De Ketelaere

The largest financial deal of the summer was Sergej Milinkovic-Savic going to PSG for 68million. PSG also signed Ndidi, Phillip Max and Renan Lodi for big fees while Dybala, Jesus Corona and Sergi Roberto  came in on free transfers..

Bayern were also busy. Having signed Mbappe they  brought in Nunes from Sporting. They also got Martial and Akanji. Dortmund kept Haaland.

Things were quieter in Spain with Real Madrid only bringing in Romagnoli. Barcelona also only made one major deal bringing in Mykolenko. Atletico Madrid signed Singo and Kluivert.

In Italy Inter were the biggest spenders signing Alex Sandro, Joaquin Correa and Gundogan.

 

Draws

WORLD CUP

England drew Chile Jamaica and Senegal in the world cup draw. Argentina and Portugal were paired together as were Holland and Spain and Germany and Italy. Croatia play Congo in the opening game.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE/ EUROPA LEAGUE/CONFERENCE

Arsenal Leipzig Benfica Besiktas

Not the easiest draw but we should qualify. None of the English teams were given easy rides. Man City have Real Madrid, Sporting and Monaco. United drew Barcelona and AC Milan as well as Ferencvaros while Liverpool got PSG Bayer Leverkusen and the team I wanted WSG Tirol.

Brentfords foray into European football sees them play Kyiv Kobenhavn and Trabzonspor. Meanwhile Leeds have Inter, Utrecht and Galatasaray.

Chelsea are the only English representative in the Conference League. They play Rapid, Brondby and MPT. An Israeli team apparently.

CARABAO CUP

Arsenal vs Liverpool

I haven’t been very lucky with draws so far this season. I am yet to beat Liverpool in four matches.

Man United vs Leicester the only other real stand out tie.

 

September/October fixtures

Nice and busy. 

Carabao Cup – Liverpool (H)

Prem – Newcastle (A)

CL MD1 – Benfica (H)

Prem – Tottenham (H)

CL MD2 Leipzig (H)

Prem - West Ham (A)

CL MD3 – Besiktas (A)

Prem – Fulham (H)

Prem - Man U (H)

Prem – Everton (A)

Prem – Southampton (H)

Prem – Brentford (A)

CL MD4 – Besiktas (H)

Prem – Liverpool (H)

CL MD5 – Benfica (A)

Prem  - Norwich (A)

[Harper]

10 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

I can recommend Tyrick Mitchell at Palace, was super solid and never moaned about being backup to KT. 

I got rid of Tavares, not keen on his mental stats really. He went to CSKA Moscow. 

I'm impressed with how much you got for Lucas Torreira & Eddie Nketiah, mate. How did you manage that? I sold Eddie for £11M to Leeds & Torreira to Real Sociedad for about £9M with a wage contribution of about £6K a week. Had no other takers! 

I brought Mitchell in from CP too. Fortunate to because Tierney has been injury plagued. Captain’s curse! Have loaned out Tavares to Villa for the second half of 2022/2023 season.

[BrickCommo23]

I can very much recommend Malacia as a back up LB.

I am in Season 4 and it took him a little while to develop but he's great now.

I just found Tavares to be rubbish, sadly.

[ajw10]

[Harper]

January 2023

We end the month in first place, one point ahead of Manchester United. Unfortunately, we lost our leading goal scorer for three months to a broken foot. Disrupted the plan to send Šeško on loan, but the game time will be beneficial for the young striker. The matches against Wigan and Southampton are big disappointments. Wigan gave a stiff fight, and we were luck to win despite going down to nine men (one red, one injury). Southampton battled back from 3-1 to tie after Tierney gave away a penalty in the closing minutes.

Looking ahead to February, we face third place Liverpool (trailing by 3 points), in a title race six pointer.

Arsenal Fixtures

Spoiler

Newcastle (A)

Wigan (A)

Leicester (H)

Watford (H)

Sheffield United (A)

Southampton (H)

 

League Table (Game Week 21)

January Awards

Player	Award	Place
Harper	Premier League Manager of the Month	1st
Noni Madueke	Premier League Young Player of the Month	1st
Khayon Edwards	League 2 Young Player of the Month	1st
Khayon Edwards	League 2 Player of the Month	2nd

Loan Watch

Spoiler

 

Contracts

Talks with Martin Ødegaard over an extension broke down in November. Ødegaard’s salary demands were too high for our liking, with the player demanding £245k per week, a substantial rise on his £115k p/w wage. Towards the end of January, we reopened negotiations. This time, the player demanding £225k p/w. We were able to negotiate the player down to £200k p/w with the addition of a few performance bonuses. The contract extends the Norwegian’s contract from 2025 to 2027, and increases his wages by £85k p/w.

Edu negotiated a new deal with Emile Smith Rowe. The new deal increases his wages from £48k p/w to £79k p/w and extends his stay to 2027.

Recruitment and Transfers

Having wrapped up deals for Noni Madueke and Mikkel Damsgaard before the window started, my transfer business shifted to departures.

Rob Holding was the first exit, joining Porto for £22.5m.

Kieran Tierney’s injury delayed, but did not prohibit, Nuno Tavares’ loan away for the remainder of the season. He joins Aston Villa for the remainder of the season. The agreement will see Villa pay £750k for the remainder of the season. There is no option to buy.

On deadline day, having been supplanted by Noni Madueke, Reiss Nelson was allowed to leave permanently, joining Fulham for £15m. There is a 50% sell-on fee for any profit Fulham generate from future sales.

World Transfers
 

Manchester United brought in some reenforcements in the form of DM Vitinha and CB Joško Gvardiol. The biggest surprise move was Dani Olmo from Leipzig to Shakhtar

Spoiler

Sorted by date

Bold: England; Italics: Shortlisted; Red: Arsenal; Fee Gradient: £10M - £54M, Light-Dark

Staff

With the U23s under performing (9-2-8), I opted to sack the majority of the U23 coaching staff. Spared in the clear out were the recently hired Allan Russel (Coach) and Thomas Schlieck (GK). Allan Russell takes over management of the U23 team while we evaluate options and transform the academy to first team pipeline.

In	Out
Fred Manhães (Physio)	-
Oliver Morgan (U23 Sports Scientist)	-
Kit Symons (U23 Coach)	Ken Gillard (U23 Coach)
-	Kevin Betsy (U23 Manager
-	Mehmet Ali (U23 Assistant)
-	Padraig Roche (U23 Fitness Coach

 

Finances

Edited March 24, 2022 by Harper

[WillyBroadband]

10 hours ago, BrickCommo23 said:

I can very much recommend Malacia as a back up LB.

Yeah man, I had him on FM21 and he was very solid. Good shout. 

[WillyBroadband]

10 hours ago, ajw10 said:

Nice one man! I've always wanted to sign Tammy, he has Arsenal as a favoured club too, I think. How much did you sign him for?

[WillyBroadband]

11 hours ago, Harper said:

The wage expenditure table is one I love being further down. Could be seen as a trophy like a top 4 finish, haha 

[ajw10]

11 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

Nice one man! I've always wanted to sign Tammy, he has Arsenal as a favoured club too, I think. How much did you sign him for?

£50m after one season. He's been great, but he wanted a ridiculous contract and now he hates me. He's still performing but not as well as he used to.

I turned down £100m in installments after the first season but I'm considering cashing in and getting in Mbappe as I think he's interested

[hasdgfas]

Probably my highest ever number of players called up to the World Cup:

[WillyBroadband]

7 hours ago, hasdgfas said:

Probably my highest ever number of players called up to the World Cup:

I've been meaning to ask before dude, what are the Y codes you have in brackets after some players? 

[Harper]

6 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

The wage expenditure table is one I love being further down. Could be seen as a trophy like a top 4 finish, haha 

I like having some sort of wage structure and keeping it low. From a base wage, I try to keep something like this.

[WillyBroadband]

1 hour ago, Harper said:

I like having some sort of wage structure and keeping it low. From a base wage, I try to keep something like this.

This is very similar to what I do as well, mate. On my last save I had a kind of tiered system - IE Saka & ESR on the same wage, Gabriel, White & Tomi on same etc. 

I always have a lower base salary with hefty bonuses. 

[warlock]

7 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

I've been meaning to ask before dude, what are the Y codes

Usually the year they came through the youth intake - common among dedicated youth developers.

[hasdgfas]

On 25/03/2022 at 05:57, WillyBroadband said:

I've been meaning to ask before dude, what are the Y codes you have in brackets after some players?

Yeah, Warlock is correct. It's the year they come through the youth intake. I do it for two main reasons.

1) At clubs who have a lot of money, I tend to use the Chelsea approach of buying a bunch of young players and then loaning them out. I would absolutely forget which ones were academy players if I didn't do this, and I have a bias towards using academy players if they're comparable to players I've brought in from elsewhere.

2) It gives me an easy way of keeping up with them if they don't make it at my club. I can do a Y-whatever search in the player search and see if some of my academy players developed particularly well elsewhere. Really fun to keep an eye on them, and sometimes they still make it further than I expected when they get more dedicated attention.

[hasdgfas]

2029/30 Season Review

A mixed season. Disappointing in the League, but won the Champions League and the League Cup. Man City was just too good this season.

A lot of great performances. Ignacio Suarez is finally starting to take over for Ramsdale, after threatening to for a bit. 3 youth players in the main squad, with a few more about to reach it within a season or two. 

I'm also hitting the point of rarely buying new players, because all my young players are starting to develop well enough to play. One of my favorite points in a save, particularly since I'm the England manager and can call them up.

However, I do have one coming in, who I've had my eye on for a while, after watching him tear it up against me and the Premier League for multiple seasons...

He's been Everton's star man for a couple seasons. Almost single-handedly bringing them back into Europe. Vlahovic is still performing pretty well, but is significantly more inconsistent now that he's reached 30 than he has been for a bit, and Kunrath will be starting to take over at the slightest hint of Vlahovic falling off.

[ajw10]

The most surprising and impressive result of the save so far

[BrickCommo23]

3 hours ago, hasdgfas said:

Yeah, Warlock is correct. It's the year they come through the youth intake. I do it for two main reasons.

1) At clubs who have a lot of money, I tend to use the Chelsea approach of buying a bunch of young players and then loaning them out. I would absolutely forget which ones were academy players if I didn't do this, and I have a bias towards using academy players if they're comparable to players I've brought in from elsewhere.

2) It gives me an easy way of keeping up with them if they don't make it at my club. I can do a Y-whatever search in the player search and see if some of my academy players developed particularly well elsewhere. Really fun to keep an eye on them, and sometimes they still make it further than I expected when they get more dedicated attention.

Great idea.

[ajw10]

Winning the league at WHL is it?

[ajw10]

Won the treble. Loanee Bamford and Martinelli massively stepped up when it counted after Abraham picked up a season ending injury in the Liverpool defeat.

Plan is to cash in on Abraham as he has two years left and isn't interested in signing a new deal. Unsure what to do up front but I am tempted to just use Martinelli there

[ajw10]

Have had a strange window so far. Abraham went to City for £86m as he only had 2 years left on his deal and wouldn't sign a new one. Balogun also went for £34m which is incredible as he hasn't developed at all.

Netz comes in to challenge Tierney, the other 3 are regens.

Looked at a lot of forwards, currently Martinelli is being used as my striker. As you can see we've had a fantastic start to the season.

I'm looking for a forward that can play multiple positions, like Martinelli. Was looking at Felix but I'm unsure on his lack of pace and Atletico are tricky to deal with. Money isn't an issue but finding the right player is. Other options explored have been Musiala and Chiesa. Neither are natural strikers but could play there for sure

[ajw10]

Nevermind, I've got the perfect solution

 

[ajw10]

I've seen worse full debuts

[Telegram Sam]

2027/28 - Part 2

August 2027

Our title defence got off to the perfect start with four 4-0 victories coming in succession, including a comprehensive victory at Old Trafford:

The 5-2-2-1 was working wonders as we dominated each game we played and found the net with ease. Winning in Manchester was an undoubted highlight, but putting Newcastle to the sword on their own turf was also incredibly pleasing given the money they had spent on their own squad. I had thought that these two tough away games could see us drop points early on but we really hit the ground running in the league after securing wins in the Community Shield and Super Cup.

September 2027

September saw our fine form continue as we won every match we played in, although as the month wore on we relied on late winners to pick up victories:

A routine home win over West Ham was followed by a 6-0 demolition of Atalanta in our opening Champions League fixture, in which Matthijs de Ligt scored his first goal for the club with a headed finish from a corner. The following game against Leeds was a struggle, and in the end we were fortunate to come out of the game with all three points as they created more and had a higher xG than we did. Nonetheless, we left Elland Road with the win and maintained our perfect start to the season to sit top of the table after five matches:

We found ourselves a goal down at Craven Cottage at half-time in our Carabao Cup tie against Fulham, and were eventually able to turn things around in the second half to secure a passage into the next round. Last season we had gone out in the third round in a similar fixture away at West Brom, and with the board now demanding we win a domestic cup this season I was pleased that we didn't suffer the same fate this season as well.

In our final two games of the month, we again had to dig ourselves out of a hole with late winners. Norwich took a surprise lead at the Emirates in the first half before they had a man sent off five minutes into the second, and eventually our pressure told as Gabriel Martinelli scored a close-range header to continue his fine goalscoring form this season and draw us level. I was expecting us to drop our first points of the season before Jude Bellingham fired a strike beyond the Norwich goalkeeper to give us a dramatic late victory in front of our own fans.

Similar scenes occurred against Leverkusen, as they too were reduced to ten men with Palacios picking up two yellow cards in the first half. Ryan Gravenberch scored to give us the lead but we were unable to kill the game off in the second half, and that looked like it may cost us as Leverkusen drew level in the 86th minute with what was their first attack of the game. The equaliser seemed to kick us into action, with Martinelli again scoring an important goal as he fired home two minutes later and secured the win. It wasn't pretty but our perfect start to the season was in tact.

October 2027

The following month would have tougher challenges as we embarked on away trips to Liverpool and Chelsea in the league, Manchester City in the Carabao Cup, and FC Porto in the Champions League. Mixed results were to follow:

Brentford were easily dispatched in our first game of October—we were 4-0 to the good before our concentration waned, allowing the Bees to grab two late consolation goals—before we travelled to Anfield for a Friday night fixture under the lights. As always, it was a tight game against Liverpool, with neither side being able to make the breakthrough before Dušan Vlahović fired us into the lead thanks to a missed header from the Liverpool defender with twenty minutes to go. It was looking like we'd secure a fantastic victory on the road against one of our title rivals until the 88th minute, where we lost possession in our own half and allowed Liverpool to fire home a goal of their own through Lorenzo Pellegrini. A point at Anfield is rarely a disappointment but given that we had the lead late in the game, it was frustrating to see us lose two points at the death.

Disappointment was to follow in Portugal as we lost our perfect start in the Champions League as well, conceding a 94th minute goal from the man we had sold to Porto in January, Heung-min Son. It was a low-quality game but we had the better of it, and some poor defending late in the game allowed the Korean to fire home an equaliser in sickening fashion. We got back on track with a routine victory against Huddersfield at home, with two of our goals coming from our Brazilian newgen striker Valtecir. 

In the League Cup, we navigated the daunting task of facing Manchester City at the Etihad, coming from behind to win by two goals to one. City had rotated their squad heavily for the game whereas ours was relatively strong, but they still managed to take the lead after Kang-In Lee waltzed up the pitch and fired home from range past a flailing Wojciech Szczęsny. However, the game turned around again thanks to a red card for the opposition, with City's young midfielder Claiton receiving his marching orders for a two-footed challenge in the 30th minute. We got back in the game early in the second half thanks to a towering header from Jude Bellingham, before then taking the lead thanks to a screamer from Jamal Musiala:

Luck had gone our away but we've navigated the tie well, knocking out a key contender in the process. With Chelsea also being knocked out in a shock defeat to Colchester, and Liverpool and Manchester United both having lost in the third round, we were now clear favourites to win the cup as we advanced to the quarter-finals.

The month concluded with our first defeat of the season as we fell to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in rather unfortunate fashion:

We created tons of chances for ourselves but struggled to capitalize, and Chelsea ultimately put us to the sword thanks to two fantastic goals from outside of the box coming from Julián Álvarez. It wasn't a game we deserved to lose but ultimately we didn't take our chances and we paid for it.

The Blues had really fallen away in recent years, rarely qualifying for the Champions League and without a title challenge of note during my time in charge, but this season they looked to be improving and beating us would certainly have given them belief that they could finally mount a title challenge. Our loss at Stamford Bridge was our tenth game of the season, and it saw us relinquish top spot in the table for the first time this campaign:

November 2027

I was disappointed to have lost at Chelsea and see us fall into second place, but we were nevertheless in a fantastic position given that we'd already travelled to Old Trafford, Anfield, and Stamford Bridge with only ten games played. November was a chance for us to get back into winning ways and we did just that:

We avenged the late equaliser Porto grabbed in the first game in Portugal by firing four goals past them at home without reply in front of our own fans. All four goals came in the first half as we enjoyed total domination, with Porto only managing two shots of their own, neither of which were on target. The win meant we were guaranteed to qualify from the group before we faced off against Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen on the road.

Things were even better against Brighton as we dominated the game to such an extent that the home side didn't even manage a single shot, on target or otherwise. The result was made all the more pleasing with Frenkie de Jong scoring his first goal for Arsenal with a great free-kick from the edge of the box.

Leicester were swiftly dispatched at home with another 4-0 victory, with first league goals for the club coming from both Charlie Patino and our young Bosnian winger Benjamin Badić. We played some fantastic football throughout the game as our great form continued, with the best goal undoubtedly being Bellingham's glorious chipped finish to round off a beautiful passing move:

Another 4-0 win secured us top spot in our Champions League group, with Atalanta losing heavily to us again. We then face up against our local rivals Tottenham in another potentially difficult away game, but we ran out comfortable winners in a 2-0 victory thanks to a goal from Emile Smith Rowe from the penalty spot and a fantastic volley from Gabriel Martinelli. We actually received two penalties in this game, with Smith Rowe scoring the first before missing the second, so it wasn't until Martinelli fired home with just over ten minutes to go that the win was secured.

While earning the three points was of course the most important part of the win, it did also extend our incredible record over Spurs since I took over:

I have played through December already, but given the length of this update, I'll include our results leading into the New Year in my next post.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Telegram Sam

[KingLara]

Arsenal Season 2 –September/October

A very good two months.

 

CARABAO CUP 3RD ROUND

ARSENAL 1 – Torreira 42

LIVERPOOL  0

Our Carabao Cup defence started against a Liverpool side we had yet to beat in four previous matches under my management. Two 1-1 draws in the league and two defeats in the FA Cup Final and Community Shield. I opted for a strong team with Gabriel and Vlahovic starting. Liverpool went weaker and were missing Mane, Salah, A-Arnold, Rice, Robertson and a few others but did play Van Dijk and that nuisance Jota.  Overall we outplayed them. Double the amount of passes and a perfect 16/16 on tackles won. Torreira the unlikely matchwinner sliding under Kellerer from a sublime Martinelli through ball. Asensio made his debut late on. Our first clean sheet of the season at the seventh attempt.

Elsewhere Man United were the biggest casualties. Harvey Barnes striking an 88^th minute winner at Old Trafford. Bournemouth survived the whole of extra time against Norwich with 9 men only to lose on penalties. We would play Ipswich at the Emirates in the 4^th Round. Spurs were at home to West Ham.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

NEWCASTLE 2 – Wilson 13 31

ARSENAL 0

Newcastle had started the season well with four wins from five and on paper a much better team that they had previously got. It showed too as we followed up a poor defeat at Leicester in our previous away game with an even worse one at St James Park.  Possibly with the Champions league starting the players were distracted but we produced very little.

 

CHAMPIONS LREAGUE GROUP C MATCHDAY 1

ARSENAL 2 – Aubameyang 52 Asensio 82

BENFICA 1 – Ramos 83

After a long wait we were finally back in the Champions League. With two home games to start with it was important to try and win both of them to set down a marker. Benfica came for a 0-0 and we struggled at times but eventually got the goal through Aubameyang. Asensio got his first for the club close to the end. Benfica scored a  fifa style kick off goal (not the last of those) but we easily managed it from there and got the job done.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 4 – Odegaard 18 Aubameyang 53 67 88

TOTTENHAM 0

Spurs had endured a dreadful start to the season and visited the Emirates missing Harry Kane. They started Zaha who completely slipped under my radar and only signed for 4 million. Spurs to their credit played quite well but we were just more clinical. Aubameyang netting his third hat-trick of the season midway through September.

 

CHAMPIONS LREAGUE GROUP C MATCHDAY 2

ARSENAL 2 – Aubameyang 24 Odegaard 48

RB LEIPZIG 0

The same scorers were on target again four days later and we made it a comfortable two wins from two in Group C. A very routine win.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

WEST HAM 2 – Yarmolenko 76, 83

ARSENAL 2 – Odegaard 30 Aubameyang 74

The Premier League schedulers did us no favours giving us a 12:30 Saturday kick off after a late Champions League game on the Wednesday (nothing changes there for us Gooners) again it was the same scorers in a game for 76 minutes despite not making many changes we controlled. However another kick off goal got it back to 2-1 and then Yamolenko hammered in his second for 2-2. He even had the audacity to score again in the fifth minute of stoppage time but luckily he had strayed just offside and it was disallowed. Always frustrating to blow a 2-0 lead but we were still playing well. Saka laying off both goals.

 

CHAMPIONS LREAGUE GROUP C MATCHDAY 3

BESIKTAS 0

ARSENAL 3 – Gabriel 1 Nelson 47 Aubameyang 85(pen)

The first big test of the champions league saw us head to the cauldron of Turkey and Besiktas. However we were excellent from the first minute where Gabriel thumped in a header from a Xhaka corner. Aubameyang had put the ball in the net again just three minutes later but VAR ruled it out. Nelson has slowly been improving and scored just after half time to give us a nice cushion before Aubameyang slotted in a penalty for three wins from three and almost certainly confirming qualification.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 4 – Aubameyang 3, 21 Saka 7 Odegaard 10

FULHAM 2 – Carvalho 62 Olise 83

Our first game of October saw us take on Fulham who had lost six of their eight league games as well as a league cup tie to our next opponents Ipswich. Aubameyang gave us an early lead and from there we tore them apart with a 21-minute four goal blitz. They did pull a couple of goals back in the second half due to our sloppiness but an easy win. Olise another player who slipped under my radar being an 11 million pound signing in the summer.

 

CARABAO CUP 4^th ROUND

ARSENAL 4 – Vlahovic 11 Balogun 15 38 45

IPSWICH 1 – El Mizouni 44

With the luxury of playing Ipswich at home I was able to rest most of the first teamers after a tough run of 8 games in 24 days. Flores, Norton-Cuffy and Azeez all made their debuts. I also had Cirjan, Matthew Smith, John-Jules and Kalantari a 17 year old Iranian regen I got from Southampton on the bench. I opted for a 4-4-2 pairing Vlahovic and Balogun together and it was the latter netting us our fifth (not last) hat-trick of the season in a good win.

Both Spurs and Chelsea joined Man United and Liverpool in the exit lounge. Sours lost 3-1 at home to an inspired West Ham while Chelsea were knocked out at Huddersfield 3-4 on penalties. Forrest Green caused a stir by winning at Southampton. We travel to them for the quarter-finals in January. The other ties are Leicester vs Huddersfield, Man City vs Leeds and West Ham vs Burton

 

PREMEIR LEAGUE

EVERTON 0

ARSENAL 1 – Aubameyang 32

Having scored four in the first half of both our last two matches we had to grind out a tough 1-0 win at Everton. All of the defence playing well although our attack still created plenty of chances just without the finishing on this occasion.

 

PREMEIR LEAGUE

ARSENAL 5 – Xhaka 15 Vlahovic 32, 49, 71, 77

SOUTHAMPTON 0

Southampton were having a decent season and had already secured draw to Liverpool and a stalemate at Man City. However we put in our best attacking performance of the season. Four goals and an assist for Vlahovic and a goal and two assists for Xhaka. 31 shots on goal and a 4.63xg. Vlahovic with a perfect 10 score.

 

PREMEIR LEAGUE

BRENTFORD 1 – Toney 51(pen)

ARSENAL 2 – Tavares 63 Odegaard 85 – Aubameyang miss/pen 6

Having been brilliant against Southampton  we were very lethargic against 19^th place Brentford. Aubameyang missed an early penalty and we were far too relaxed allowing Brentford more possession than most teams against us have (47%). Toney then opened the scoring and it looked like another poor away loss but Tavares scored a very odd (buggy) goal to get it to 1-1. Having a pop shot from 40 yards only for the possessed goalkeeper to stumble, flinch and dive the wrong way. Nothing strange about Odegaards winner. A 1-2 with Martinelli from a freekick and smashing past the newly signed Nick Pope.

 

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP C MATCHDAY 4

ARSENAL 2 – Guendouzi 45 Nelson 80 - Asensio miss/pen 18

BESIKTAS 0

We made it four wins from four with a very dominant performance with the second string. It could have been a lot more but Ersin in the Besiktas goal was outstanding earning a well deserved man of the match. They failed to have a single attempt on target from their paltry two shots. A point from one of the last two games will be easily enough to top the group.

 

PREMEIR LEAGUE

ARSENAL 1 – Martinelli 90

LIVERPOOL 0

Liverpool were flying at this stage last season but this campaign it has been a bit of a different story. They travelled to the Emirates in sixth place having drawn six of their eleven games. We added to their indifferent form and inflicted their first defeat of the season with a last gasp winner. Vlahovic had scored just a couple of minutes earlier but it has been ruled out for offside.   Both attacks in the game were a bit stale but the subs made a difference and our defence was better, especially Ben White. Tierney returned from injury after a month out.

 

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP C MATCHDAY 5

BENFICA 1 – Fernandes 33

ARSENAL 1 – Vlahovic 44

We travelled to Benfica on an eight game winning streak but that was ended with a rather lifeless display. I played a strong side but neither parts of our game were very impressive. Still a draw put us through top of the group so not too many complaints.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

NORWICH 0

ARSENAL 4 – Xhaka 7 Saka 29 Aubameyang 65 Martinelli 74

The final game of the  month saw is travel to Norwich who were bottom of the league with just two wins and a draw from their first thirteen league fixtures. Unfortunately for them with my intention to play the kids in the champions league on the Tuesday I could play my strongest team. We were clinical and Norwich were made to just hack at us to get the ball. 29 fouls in total but only one yellow card. Two assists for the outstanding Tierney.

 

League Table

Liverpool are sixth, three points behind City having played one more game. Spurs and Chelsea have both struggled and are 12 and 13^th. West Ham are 15^th.

 

1.      Arsenal P14 P34 GD24

2.      Everton P16 P33 GD12

3.      Man Utd  P13 P32 GD21

4.      Newcastle  P15 P31 GD12

5.      Man City P12 P27 GD15

 

Premier League Top scorers

Aubameyang 14 Salah 11 Lukaku, C-Lewin 10 Ings 9

Premier League Top Assists

De Bruyne 9 Odegaard 7 B.Fernandes Weigl 6 Rafinha 5

Premier League Av Rating

De Bruyne 7.82 Odegaard 7.75 Robertson 7.66 Rodri 7.65 Rashford 7.55

Premier League Motm

De Bruyne Aubameyang C-Lewin 5 , Pulisic 4 Iheanacho 3

 

Arsenal stats (1^st team)

Appearances (Av rating)

18 - Xhaka (7.25) Odegaard (7.62) Tomiyasu (7.18) White (7.17) Gabriel (7.27)

17(+1) - Aubameyang (7.45)

16 - Partey (7.22)

15(+2)- Vlahovic (7.27)

15 - Ramsdale (7.17)

13 (+5) - Saka (7.08)

13 - Tierney - (7.04)

8(+5) - Tavares (7.10)

7 - Leno (6.90)

6 (+3) - Guendouzi (7.04)

6(+2) - Saliba (7.33)

5 (+5) - Nelson (7.04)

5 - Pepe (6.86)

4(+9) - Martinelli (7.09)

4(+7)  - Gravenberch (7.16) Smith Rowe (6.78)

3(+8) – Asensio (7.08)

3(+1) - Bellerin (7.23)

2(+2) – Balogun (7.47)

2 – Ballard (7.70)

1(+8) – Torreira (7.09)

1(+1) – Bale (6.65)

1 - N-Cuffy (6.30) Lopez (6.80)

0 (+1) – Azeez (6.50)

 

Goals

Aubameyang 17

Vlahovic 10

Odegaard 7

Saka 4

Balogun 3

Xhaka Nelson Martinelli 2

Tavares Asensio Partey Guendouzi Torreira S-Rowe Gabriel 1

 

Assists

Odegaard 9

Saka 6

Xhaka, Martinelli 4

Asensio Vlahovic Tierney 3

Pepe Partey Tomiyasu Gravenberch 2

Tavares Guendozi Torreira Aubameyang Nelson 1

 

Man of Match

Aubameyang 5

Vlahovic 2

Tierney, Odegaard, Torreira, White, Balogun, Gabriel 1

 

Europe round up

With one game to go there isn’t a lot to play for. Man City are the only English club in danger of missing out in the knock out stages. They must avoid defeat in Lisbon or they are out. Atletico are the only really major surprise with Zenit taking their place in the last 16.

In the Europa League both Brentford and Leeds have qualified while in the Conference League Chelsea have five wins from five.

 

European Domestic Round up

In France PSG are running away with it. 8 point lead with a game in hand. Bayern also have an 8 point advantage in Germany. Juventus have a five point lead over Milan in Italy while Ream Madrid have won 14 of their first 15 matches and lead La Liga by 5 points.

 

November/December Fixtures

Only three games due to the World Cup. 

CL MD 6- Leipzig (A)

PL - Wolves (A)

PL - Aston Villa (H)

Edited March 28, 2022 by KingLara

[hasdgfas]

These are basically my dream transfers. Obviously sucks to lose him, but anyone's replaceable.

[Telegram Sam]

44 minutes ago, hasdgfas said:

These are basically my dream transfers. Obviously sucks to lose him, but anyone's replaceable.

This was basically the situation I had with Dominik Szoboszlai. Bayern courted him for a year and I eventually sold up when it was clear the player wanted the move, but I made sure to get as much money out of them as I could. 

[ajw10]

Mbappe is terrible. Misses too many chances. Always tries to chip the keeper. Abraham is genuinely better

[dido53]

Finshed my first season as champion.Rotated heavıly on cup games so got elımınated.The most ınterestıng part of the season gabriel became my main scorer with 19 martinelli was 18.Team really annoyed me wıth unable to convert chances ı used 4231 and 433 then got better scores with 433 but second part of the season used a new 4231 and scored more and start playıng much better.İt is very hard and confusıng about the transfer window because arsenal have very good young players but u need to ımprove the team for the next season ı sıgned kamara from marseılle and kessie from milan with their contracts runnıng out.

[ajw10]

On 28/03/2022 at 21:01, ajw10 said:

Mbappe is terrible. Misses too many chances. Always tries to chip the keeper. Abraham is genuinely better

I'd like to apologise to Mbappe

 

[WillyBroadband]

10 hours ago, ajw10 said:

I'd like to apologise to Mbappe

 

Haha, how many chances did he miss?! 

[ajw10]

9 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

Haha, how many chances did he miss?! 

To begin with, a lot. Then it clicked and he was scoring at will. He's great for a long rang curler too

[ajw10]

4th season done. Bit of a mixed season as we lost in the FA Cup for the first time as well as losing a final for the first time.

The CL Final was a disgrace of a performance by Tomiaysu who has definitely played his last game for the club. A 6.0 rating, at fault for two goals and subbed off after 30 minutes.

It's a huge summer as a lot of my players enter the last two years of their deal and I'm not sure some of them are worth the big pay increase.

[ajw10]

Erm...

 

[ajw10]

[WillyBroadband]

11 hours ago, ajw10 said:

4th season done. Bit of a mixed season as we lost in the FA Cup for the first time as well as losing a final for the first time.

The CL Final was a disgrace of a performance by Tomiaysu who has definitely played his last game for the club. A 6.0 rating, at fault for two goals and subbed off after 30 minutes.

It's a huge summer as a lot of my players enter the last two years of their deal and I'm not sure some of them are worth the big pay increase.

Hello mate, where did you get those different competition colours from? Is it a skin? Looks great. 

[WillyBroadband]

12 hours ago, ajw10 said:

Tomiaysu who has definitely played his last game for the club

Ahh man, that's a shame, he has been a king of consistency for me. One of my faourite players at the club, IRL, too. I guess with TAA coming in, you'll be alright, haha

[WillyBroadband]

12 hours ago, ajw10 said:

Erm...

 

Wow man, what a successful reign! How is Ødegaard getting on as captain? He has quite a low leadership rating doesn't he? I always go for Tierney as my captain. I think he should be IRL next season, too. 

[WillyBroadband]

On 29/03/2022 at 23:50, ajw10 said:

Mbappe

What wages is he on, mate? On 22.3 I tried to get him on a free and he wanted about £600K a week and I couldn't get near to his demands, even with crazy bonuses.  

[ajw10]

13 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

Hello mate, where did you get those different competition colours from? Is it a skin? Looks great. 

The Zealand Skin

11 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

What wages is he on, mate? On 22.3 I tried to get him on a free and he wanted about £600K a week and I couldn't get near to his demands, even with crazy bonuses.  

He's on a lot when you include bonuses. 

11 hours ago, WillyBroadband said:

Wow man, what a successful reign! How is Ødegaard getting on as captain? He has quite a low leadership rating doesn't he? I always go for Tierney as my captain. I think he should be IRL next season, too. 

Odegaard has 11 leadership. Rice is my vice captain. I picked Odegaard because he's the one I think should be captain irl, that's the only reason.

[Telegram Sam]

2027/28 - Part 3

A busy December got underway with a narrow home victory against Wolves, with the 2-1 win ending up being more challenging than it needed to be after our young German centre-back Jörg Granatowski getting himself sent off for a two-footed challenge just before the hour mark. Thankfully, we had already established the lead thanks to goals from Martinelli and Vlahović and our ten men were able to hold out until the end. Things were a bit more straightforward against Everton as we ended up 3-1 winners with strikes coming from Saka, Martinelli, and de Ligt in the first half. An 85th-minute goal from Cristian Pavón proved to nothing more than a consolation for the visitors.

We travelled to Germany for our final Champions League group game with top spot already secured to face Bayer Leverkusen, who themselves were needing a victory to have any chance to qualify ahead of FC Porto in second place. We fell behind twice before levelling the game through Jude Bellingham with roughly fifteen minutes left to pay, before Granatowski managed to get himself sent off for the second time in three matches in the 88th minute. We sat back with ten men to try and see out the point, but in the fifth minute of injury time a superb ball from Yusuf Demir played Dušan Vlahović through on goal and the Serb rounded the goalkeeper to slot home his second goal of the game to earn us a dramatic 3-2 victory. The win didn't really count for anything but it was great to see us battle back through adversity again to end the group stage on a high:

The draw for the first knockout round was relatively kind to us as we managed to avoid the likes of PSG and Real Madrid with both having finished second in their groups, as we instead found ourselves up against Real Sociedad:

The good times kept rolling in the league as we notched up three more victories against Aston Villa (A, 2-0), Southampton (H, 4-1), and Sheffield United (A, 3-2). This meant we had now won eight consecutive games since our 2-1 defeat to Stamford Bridge and we had regained our spot at the top of the Premier League table. However, the busy Christmas schedule meant we now had the unenviable task of travelling to the Etihad to face Manchester City on Boxing Day before then hosting Liverpool at the Emirates two days later to round off 2027. Before then, we had to navigate a tricky away tie against West Ham in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals, and the game ended up going to penalties after neither side was able to score despite our dominance. In the end we managed to secure passage through to the semi-finals in a 4-3 penalty shootout win, with Huddersfield Town waiting for us in the semi-finals.

We made the trip up to Manchester and got away with a point thanks to a header from Vyacheslav Spirin, which was cancelled out by a second-half equaliser from Raheem Sterling. City probably deserved the win based on the number of chances created so I was more than happy with the draw, even if it ended our eight-game winning run. Chelsea and City had both dropped points in the weeks prior and the draw meant we now sat seven points clear at the top of the Premier League at the halfway stage of the season:

With a point earned against City, a win against Liverpool would now really help secure our position at the top of the table. It was a nervy start to the game and we nearly fell behind after Erling Haaland hit the post from close range, but we managed to wrestle control of the game thanks to first half goals from Yusuf Demir and Jamal Musiala. Demir then struck again shortly after half-time with a fantastic free-kick from the edge of the box, which effectively wrapped up the win. A final goal in injury time from substitute Benjamin Badić helped us round up the game and 2027 as a whole in style, with 4-0 being the final result. I'll also point out the superb contribution in this game from Charlie Patino, who ended the game with two fantastic assists. He had become a great squad player for the team and was now comfortable playing at the base of the midfield in the 4-3-3 formation I was now using pretty regularly.

The turn of the year also meant awards season, and the announcement of the best players in the world. Given that we ended 2027 as reigning Premier League and European champions, we had a hugely impressive nine entrants into the Goal 50:

I felt this was mostly fair, although Vlahovic and Musiala should probably have been a tad higher with Rice and Livramento being given placings I thought were rather generous. Both de Ligt and de Jong had been very good since they signed for us, although perhaps not particularly spectacular, but I was nonetheless happy to see them ranked so highly. We also had four starters in the FIFPRO World XI for the year, along with three more players on the bench:

Back to the football and we started the New Year with a comfortable 3-0 victory on the road against Southampton, with Vlahović's bagging a hat-trick and continuing his fine vein of form. We then had three cup games in succession, with a 2-0 away win against Preston in the FA Cup Third Round being sandwiched in between our two Carabao Cup semi-final ties against Huddersfield, which we won 2-0 and 3-1 respectively. Newcastle had overcome Derby County in the other semi-final 4-1 on aggregate so we'd be facing the Magpies at Wembley in a repeat of the 2025 final, which we won 2-0. Despite their riches, they still hadn't won a major trophy since their takeover and were languishing in mid-table this season, although were still involved in the Europa Conference League.

With progress in the cups secured, we had another huge game at home with Chelsea visiting the Emirates. They had inflicted our only defeat in the league thus far and we were very much interested in exacting our revenge, which we did emphatically:

After hammering Chelsea 9-0 in the 2024/25 season, in which Vlahović scored a record-breaking six goals, we inflicted another massive defeat upon our London rivals yet again to reaffirm our status as the best club in the capital and probably the country. The game started in a hectic manner with Vlahović bagging the opener from the spot after Spirin was hauled to the ground in the first minute, before Pulisic equalised for the visitors from kick-off. The game settled into a calmer rhythm before some beautiful football allowed Jamal Musiala some space in the box to curl in a fantastic strike to help us regain the lead:

From there, we never looked back. Vyacheslav Spirin, our star academy product who I had re-trained to play as a left inside forward, scored two headed goals at the back post to give us a 4-1 lead going into half-time. We were in no mood to slow down in the second half as Musiala headed home his second goal of the game before Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe both came off the bench to make the scoreline even more emphatic. Despite not being amongst the goals himself, Jude Bellingham finished the game as man of the match with an incredible three assists to his name in what was so far a fantastic campaign from him.

With Chelsea having been our closest challengers up to this point, this victory gave us a 10-point lead at the top of the Premier League:

The win over Chelsea had clearly whetted our appetite for goals as we faced off against Huddersfield for the third time in a month and trounced them 5-1 in their own stadium, with the highlight undoubtedly being an incredible four-goal haul from Vyacheslav Spirin. After scoring from a corner in the opening minutes, this superb volley gave us a 2-0 lead at half-time:

Former Gunner Eddie Nketiah made it 2-1 early in the second half to make things a bit nervy, but Spirin sealed his hat-trick with a superb finish following a quick counter from a Huddersfield corner before then adding a fourth goal with a header while unmarked at the back post. Emile Smith Rowe scored from the penalty spot late in the game to make it twelve goals scored in two league games for Arsenal.

The big games kept coming as Manchester City rolled into town following our draw at the Etihad a few weeks prior. It's worth noting at this point that we had probably the worst injury crisis I'd experienced during my time at the club, compounded by the fact we had players away on international duty for much of January. Our young newgens Mauro Guerrero, Renan Renato and Valtecir were all off playing for their U23 sides in South America, while Livramento, Granatowski, Tierney, Ødegaard, and Martinelli were all ruled out for a few weeks due to injury. We were particularly hit hard in defence and I was forced to play Declan Rice at right-back with Livramento, Guerrero and Tierney all unavailable, with Frenkie de Jong playing alongside de Ligt at the back with Rice moved out wide and Renato and Granatowski not around for selection.

I was concerned that we may suffer with these absences and my concerns seemed to be realised when Victor Osimhen struck for the hosts within four minutes. However, we rallied in style as Jamal Musiala followed his brace against Chelsea with a fantastic goal from the edge of the area to draw us level within minutes:

Musiala had suffered for form at times this season but had really picked up his game during this period with lots of games, and had made big contributions when it mattered most. That said, the hero of the day would ultimately be Yusuf Demir as the Austrian playmaker bagging himself a sensational hat-trick to send us on our way to a 5-1 win against City, with Spirin grabbing the other goal. Demir had given us the lead minutes after Musiala had equalised, and he made it 3-1 with half an hour played with a beautiful chip over Ederson. Spirin's goal had come after he received a long pass from Aaron Ramsdale behind the City defence, and he fired home a fourth before half-time with his shot rebounding off the post. Demir finished off his hat-trick with a powerful drive from outside the box in the second half and this secured another sensational home win against one of our title rivals. 

These three high-scoring wins in January had put us 10 points ahead of Chelsea, 13 ahead of Liverpool and 14 ahead of City with 24 games played, with the second consecutive defence of our title now looking imminent. We did finally slip up during this tough period, drawing 2-2 away at Southampton, but it very much felt like a point earned after two superb goals from Dusan Vlahović in the 82nd and 88th minutes completed a fantastic comeback for us. We had been poor for much of the game but with us having battled back to gain something from the match, I notched up our disappointing display to fatigue and injuries more than anything.

We'd played 8 matches in January up to this point and I've still not mentioned our transfer window; it was a relatively quiet one, but we did sign two young players with a view to the future. The first deal was for Aleska Smiljanić, a Serbain defender-come-midfielder who I'd had my eye on for a while:

My scout in Serbia found him when he was 16, although for the past two years he didn't want to make the move to a major club just yet. I spoke with his agent in late December and it became clear his openness to a move had changed, so we decided to activate the £7.25m release clause he had in his contract with Partizan Belgrade.

While we have the likes of Frenkie de Jong, Charlie Patino and Declan Rice as great defensive-midfield options, the former pair's strengths lie in their playmaking rather than their defensive nous and Rice has mainly be deployed as a centre-back for us this season. I'm certainly expecting it to be a few years until Smiljanić becomes a first-team regular, but with his superb marking, tackling, positions, decisions, and strength attributes, I see him already as a good defensive option from the bench to help us close out games. 

The injury issues we had in January meant he gained first-team experience earlier than expected, making his debut against Huddersfield from the bench in the first leg of the semi-final before then starting in the second. I gave him his first league start against Southampton at centre-back due to the increasingly severe injury issues we had and he did relatively well, ending the game with a fine assist from deep to Vlahović to help us grab a point.

This led me to starting him in the final game of the month, which was at home against Newcastle. This time he featured in midfield as I reverted to our old 3-3-3-1 Total Football formation with no full-backs of note to call upon, and I deployed him as the left Carrilero alongside Jude Bellingham. We fell behind after a poor start thanks to a header from Talles Magno, but Smiljanić helped rescue the day with this fine chip over the goalkeeper to level things at 1-1:

Things got even better for the Serb as he yet again assisted his compatriot Vlahović, who fired us into a 2-1 lead on the brink of half-time. Talles Magno equalised for the visitors with his second goal of the game in the second half, making a second consecutive game where we dropped points looking likely, but a curled effort from the edge of the box from Emile Smith Rowe put us back in control before Vlahović second strike of the night rounded off a 4-2 victory.

This rounded off a great January for us and in the remaining days of the window, I made one final signing before the window slammed shut:

The Italian midfielder Saverio Bartoli has the profile of a certain Andrea Pirlo, although has a long way to go before those comparisons can be made with any real conviction. He joined us from Verona for an initial £3m and will spend the first six months with the U23's before I decide how best to develop him in the summer. With de Jong and Patino at the top of their games I don't see a place for him in my squad for a while yet but I'm optimistic about his potential.

We didn't sell anyone in the January window, although we did receive this unexpected loan bid from Inter for Ryan Gravenberch:

If a serious bid had come in the summer I may have considered it, but Gravenberch has largely been great for us even if he's unlikely to ever unseat Jude Bellingham as first-choice option for the number eight role we have in the midfield. I paid £70m for him in 2025 and would want a fair bit more for him if I did decide to sell, so I never really considered Inter's bid. In the summer though I imagine he'll either sign a new deal—his current contract will only have two years left to run—or I'll let him go if we receive an offer of some serious money from a major club on the continent.

As we head into the final months of the season, we face another away trip to West Ham in the FA Cup Fourth Round along with our double-header against Real Sociedad as our Champions League defence really gets going. We also have a Carabao Cup final against Newcastle to look forward to along with what I hope will be a relatively comfortable stroll to the title. We're looking pretty with 12 games left to play:

The only other thing of note is that rumours of another takeover have started filtering through from my press officer...

Edited April 1, 2022 by Telegram Sam

[WillyBroadband]

6 hours ago, Telegram Sam said:

2027/28 - Part 3

A busy December got underway with a narrow home victory against Wolves, with the 2-1 win ending up being more challenging than it needed to be after our young German centre-back Jörg Granatowski getting himself sent off for a two-footed challenge just before the hour mark. Thankfully, we had already established the lead thanks to goals from Martinelli and Vlahović and our ten men were able to hold out until the end. Things were a bit more straightforward against Everton as we ended up 3-1 winners with strikes coming from Saka, Martinelli, and de Ligt in the first half. An 85th-minute goal from Cristian Pavón proved to nothing more than a consolation for the visitors.

We travelled to Germany for our final Champions League group game with top spot already secured to face Bayer Leverkusen, who themselves were needing a victory to have any chance to qualify ahead of FC Porto in second place. We fell behind twice before levelling the game through Jude Bellingham with roughly fifteen minutes left to pay, before Granatowski managed to get himself sent off for the second time in three matches in the 88th minute. We sat back with ten men to try and see out the point, but in the fifth minute of injury time a superb ball from Yusuf Demir played Dušan Vlahović through on goal and the Serb rounded the goalkeeper to slot home his second goal of the game to earn us a dramatic 3-2 victory. The win didn't really count for anything but it was great to see us battle back through adversity again to end the group stage on a high:

The draw for the first knockout round was relatively kind to us as we managed to avoid the likes of PSG and Real Madrid with both having finished second in their groups, as we instead found ourselves up against Real Sociedad:

The good times kept rolling in the league as we notched up three more victories against Aston Villa (A, 2-0), Southampton (H, 4-1), and Sheffield United (A, 3-2). This meant we had now won eight consecutive games since our 2-1 defeat to Stamford Bridge and we had regained our spot at the top of the Premier League table. However, the busy Christmas schedule meant we now had the unenviable task of travelling to the Etihad to face Manchester City on Boxing Day before then hosting Liverpool at the Emirates two days later to round off 2027. Before then, we had to navigate a tricky away tie against West Ham in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals, and the game ended up going to penalties after neither side was able to score despite our dominance. In the end we managed to secure passage through to the semi-finals in a 4-3 penalty shootout win, with Huddersfield Town waiting for us in the semi-finals.

We made the trip up to Manchester and got away with a point thanks to a header from Vyacheslav Spirin, which was cancelled out by a second-half equaliser from Raheem Sterling. City probably deserved the win based on the number of chances created so I was more than happy with the draw, even if it ended our eight-game winning run. Chelsea and City had both dropped points in the weeks prior and the draw meant we now sat seven points clear at the top of the Premier League at the halfway stage of the season:

With a point earned against City, a win against Liverpool would now really help secure our position at the top of the table. It was a nervy start to the game and we nearly fell behind after Erling Haaland hit the post from close range, but we managed to wrestle control of the game thanks to first half goals from Yusuf Demir and Jamal Musiala. Demir then struck again shortly after half-time with a fantastic free-kick from the edge of the box, which effectively wrapped up the win. A final goal in injury time from substitute Benjamin Badić helped us round up the game and 2027 as a whole in style, with 4-0 being the final result. I'll also point out the superb contribution in this game from Charlie Patino, who ended the game with two fantastic assists. He had become a great squad player for the team and was now comfortable playing at the base of the midfield in the 4-3-3 formation I was now using pretty regularly.

The turn of the year also meant awards season, and the announcement of the best players in the world. Given that we ended 2027 as reigning Premier League and European champions, we had a hugely impressive nine entrants into the Goal 50:

I felt this was mostly fair, although Vlahovic and Musiala should probably have been a tad higher with Rice and Livramento being given placings I thought were rather generous. Both de Ligt and de Jong had been very good since they signed for us, although perhaps not particularly spectacular, but I was nonetheless happy to see them ranked so highly. We also had four starters in the FIFPRO World XI for the year, along with three more players on the bench:

Back to the football and we started the New Year with a comfortable 3-0 victory on the road against Southampton, with Vlahović's bagging a hat-trick and continuing his fine vein of form. We then had three cup games in succession, with a 2-0 away win against Preston in the FA Cup Third Round being sandwiched in between our two Carabao Cup semi-final ties against Huddersfield, which we won 2-0 and 3-1 respectively. Newcastle had overcome Derby County in the other semi-final 4-1 on aggregate so we'd be facing the Magpies at Wembley in a repeat of the 2025 final, which we won 2-0. Despite their riches, they still hadn't won a major trophy since their takeover and were languishing in mid-table this season, although were still involved in the Europa Conference League.

With progress in the cups secured, we had another huge game at home with Chelsea visiting the Emirates. They had inflicted our only defeat in the league thus far and we were very much interested in exacting our revenge, which we did emphatically:

After hammering Chelsea 9-0 in the 2024/25 season, in which Vlahović scored a record-breaking six goals, we inflicted another massive defeat upon our London rivals yet again to reaffirm our status as the best club in the capital and probably the country. The game started in a hectic manner with Vlahović bagging the opener from the spot after Spirin was hauled to the ground in the first minute, before Pulisic equalised for the visitors from kick-off. The game settled into a calmer rhythm before some beautiful football allowed Jamal Musiala some space in the box to curl in a fantastic strike to help us regain the lead:

From there, we never looked back. Vyacheslav Spirin, our star academy product who I had re-trained to play as a left inside forward, scored two headed goals at the back post to give us a 4-1 lead going into half-time. We were in no mood to slow down in the second half as Musiala headed home his second goal of the game before Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe both came off the bench to make the scoreline even more emphatic. Despite not being amongst the goals himself, Jude Bellingham finished the game as man of the match with an incredible three assists to his name in what was so far a fantastic campaign from him.

With Chelsea having been our closest challengers up to this point, this victory gave us a 10-point lead at the top of the Premier League:

The win over Chelsea had clearly whetted our appetite for goals as we faced off against Huddersfield for the third time in a month and trounced them 5-1 in their own stadium, with the highlight undoubtedly being an incredible four-goal haul from Vyacheslav Spirin. After scoring from a corner in the opening minutes, this superb volley gave us a 2-0 lead at half-time:

Former Gunner Eddie Nketiah made it 2-1 early in the second half to make things a bit nervy, but Spirin sealed his hat-trick with a superb finish following a quick counter from a Huddersfield corner before then adding a fourth goal with a header while unmarked at the back post. Emile Smith Rowe scored from the penalty spot late in the game to make it twelve goals scored in two league games for Arsenal.

The big games kept coming as Manchester City rolled into town following our draw at the Etihad a few weeks prior. It's worth noting at this point that we had probably the worst injury crisis I'd experienced during my time at the club, compounded by the fact we had players away on international duty for much of January. Our young newgens Mauro Guerrero, Renan Renato and Valtecir were all off playing for their U23 sides in South America, while Livramento, Granatowski, Tierney, Ødegaard, and Martinelli were all ruled out for a few weeks due to injury. We were particularly hit hard in defence and I was forced to play Declan Rice at right-back with Livramento, Guerrero and Tierney all unavailable, with Frenkie de Jong playing alongside de Ligt at the back with Rice moved out wide and Renato and Granatowski not around for selection.

I was concerned that we may suffer with these absences and my concerns seemed to be realised when Victor Osimhen struck for the hosts within four minutes. However, we rallied in style as Jamal Musiala followed his brace against Chelsea with a fantastic goal from the edge of the area to draw us level within minutes:

Musiala had suffered for form at times this season but had really picked up his game during this period with lots of games, and had made big contributions when it mattered most. That said, the hero of the day would ultimately be Yusuf Demir as the Austrian playmaker bagging himself a sensational hat-trick to send us on our way to a 5-1 win against City, with Spirin grabbing the other goal. Demir had given us the lead minutes after Musiala had equalised, and he made it 3-1 with half an hour played with a beautiful chip over Ederson. Spirin's goal had come after he received a long pass from Aaron Ramsdale behind the City defence, and he fired home a fourth before half-time with his shot rebounding off the post. Demir finished off his hat-trick with a powerful drive from outside the box in the second half and this secured another sensational home win against one of our title rivals. 

These three high-scoring wins in January had put us 10 points ahead of Chelsea, 13 ahead of Liverpool and 14 ahead of City with 24 games played, with the second consecutive defence of our title now looking imminent. We did finally slip up during this tough period, drawing 2-2 away at Southampton, but it very much felt like a point earned after two superb goals from Dusan Vlahović in the 82nd and 88th minutes completed a fantastic comeback for us. We had been poor for much of the game but with us having battled back to gain something from the match, I notched up our disappointing display to fatigue and injuries more than anything.

We'd played 8 matches in January up to this point and I've still not mentioned our transfer window; it was a relatively quiet one, but we did sign two young players with a view to the future. The first deal was for Aleska Smiljanić, a Serbain defender-come-midfielder who I'd had my eye on for a while:

My scout in Serbia found him when he was 16, although for the past two years he didn't want to make the move to a major club just yet. I spoke with his agent in late December and it became clear his openness to a move had changed, so we decided to activate the £7.25m release clause he had in his contract with Partizan Belgrade.

While we have the likes of Frenkie de Jong, Charlie Patino and Declan Rice as great defensive-midfield options, the former pair's strengths lie in their playmaking rather than their defensive nous and Rice has mainly be deployed as a centre-back for us this season. I'm certainly expecting it to be a few years until Smiljanić becomes a first-team regular, but with his superb marking, tackling, positions, decisions, and strength attributes, I see him already as a good defensive option from the bench to help us close out games. 

The injury issues we had in January meant he gained first-team experience earlier than expected, making his debut against Huddersfield from the bench in the first leg of the semi-final before then starting in the second. I gave him his first league start against Southampton at centre-back due to the increasingly severe injury issues we had and he did relatively well, ending the game with a fine assist from deep to Vlahović to help us grab a point.

This led me to starting him in the final game of the month, which was at home against Newcastle. This time he featured in midfield as I reverted to our old 3-3-3-1 Total Football formation with no full-backs of note to call upon, and I deployed him as the left Carrilero alongside Jude Bellingham. We fell behind after a poor start thanks to a header from Talles Magno, but Smiljanić helped rescue the day with this fine chip over the goalkeeper to level things at 1-1:

Things got even better for the Serb as he yet again assisted his compatriot Vlahović, who fired us into a 2-1 lead on the brink of half-time. Talles Magno equalised for the visitors with his second goal of the game in the second half, making a second consecutive game where we dropped points looking likely, but a curled effort from the edge of the box from Emile Smith Rowe put us back in control before Vlahović second strike of the night rounded off a 4-2 victory.

This rounded off a great January for us and in the remaining days of the window, I made one final signing before the window slammed shut:

The Italian midfielder Saverio Bartoli has the profile of a certain Andrea Pirlo, although has a long way to go before those comparisons can be made with any real conviction. He joined us from Verona for an initial £3m and will spend the first six months with the U23's before I decide how best to develop him in the summer. With de Jong and Patino at the top of their games I don't see a place for him in my squad for a while yet but I'm optimistic about his potential.

We didn't sell anyone in the January window, although we did receive this unexpected loan bid from Inter for Ryan Gravenberch:

If a serious bid had come in the summer I may have considered it, but Gravenberch has largely been great for us even if he's unlikely to ever unseat Jude Bellingham as first-choice option for the number eight role we have in the midfield. I paid £70m for him in 2025 and would want a fair bit more for him if I did decide to sell, so I never really considered Inter's bid. In the summer though I imagine he'll either sign a new deal—his current contract will only have two years left to run—or I'll let him go if we receive an offer of some serious money from a major club on the continent.

As we head into the final months of the season, we face another away trip to West Ham in the FA Cup Fourth Round along with our double-header against Real Sociedad as our Champions League defence really gets going. We also have a Carabao Cup final against Newcastle to look forward to along with what I hope will be a relatively comfortable stroll to the title. We're looking pretty with 12 games left to play:

The only other thing of note is that rumours of another takeover have started filtering through from my press officer...

Loving your updates dude. 

[chroniclesofal]

Really loving everybody's updates this year, lots of interesting saves going on and I always enjoy the more realistic ones as that's how I like to play as well. I've been playing vicariously through your saves for a while, but now I've got Covid it was the perfect time to give FM another crack. I downloaded a database that started with the real results at the end of March and here's how it's gone so far. I wasn't taking screenshots throughout so this will probably be text-heavy, with a focus on squad building and transfers as that's the side that interests me the most, trying to keep things as realistic as possible.

I drew my first three games in charge (2-2 at Palace, 0-0 at Brighton and at home to Chelsea) before four wins in a row (2-0 vs United, 4-5 vs Southampton in a crazy game, 1-3 vs West Ham and 1-3 vs Newcastle) put us in pole position for fourth. We were able to afford dropping points at home to Leeds (2-2 coming from 0-2 down) as well as losing away to Tottenham 2-1 as fourth was already as good as sewn up, and we rounded out the season with a 1-0 home win against Everton. We actually ended up sneaking into third as Chelsea had really fallen off in the stretch.

My system was an assymetric 4-2-3-1 trying to replicate the more 4-3-3 shape Arteta has used this season. Partey as DM (D) at DMC, Xhaka as DLP (S) at CML, and Odegaard as AP (S) at AMCR. Saka or Pepe at AMR as IW (A), Martinelli or ESR at AML as IW (A or S respectively). Lacazette up top as CF (S) to get him involved in link play (he also missed penalties in two of our three opening draws which didn't endear him to me). I used Tomiyasu as a FB (S) and Tierney as a WB (S) to get the more lop-sided aspect to our back-line.

Here was my squad:

GK: Ramsdale, Leno, [Turner] - With Matt Turner coming in, I knew it would be the right time to cash in on Leno. Not much else to do here as I had other priorities.

RB: Tomiyasu, Cedric - I could have put up with Cedric for another year, but I liked the idea of a young, attacking alternative to rotate with Tomiyasu. Think Livramento but on a budget.

CB: White, Holding - Holding is a fine fourth choice, HG, a good leader, but only three options here is obviously too thin when we'll be competing in Europe. The returning William Saliba is the obvious solution, so he enters the rotation as our third CB, competing/sharing game-time with Gabriel and White.

CB: Gabriel, Holding - see above

LB: Tierney, Tavares - perfect for now

DM: Partey, Elneny - I decided to extend Elneny as I like his experience, and I already had one senior player bookmarked to leave in midfield. I see Lokonga as the long-term successor to Partey in this pivot role, but I don't quite trust him there yet and so I prefer to have the ultimate pro Elneny backing up this role. Ideal to back up a key player who will play the majority of matches as he almost never complains. Almost...

CM: Xhaka, Lokonga - While Lokonga develops into a more mature, reliable midfielder, I want to use him as a rotational option in the more box to box role which also has a lot of responsibilities but isn't so crucial defensively. Xhaka has taken on this role well in real life and did fine for me, but he's not really an 8 and so this was one of my top priorities. I decided I would move Xhaka on as I wanted to give Lokonga game time here and I didn't think the Swiss would like being a back-up. This was also the ideal time to cash in, with Newcastle hovering and two years left on his contract at 29.

AM: Odegaard, ESR - Pretty good for now, but with ESR also playing a lot of games at LW I was mindful that a proper back-up to Odegaard wouldn't go amiss

RW: Saka, Pepe - I've completely given up on Pepe in real life and his performances here, despite the winner against Southampton, didn't change my mind. I wanted to find a back-up to Saka who could also fill in at AM, allowing us to occasionally rest two key players while giving enough game-time to the potential new signing

CF: Lacazette, Nketiah - I toyed with extending Nketiah to be able to cash in on him properly this summer, but his demands were a bit much and I decided it wouldn't be realistic anyway. I extended Lacazette as I didn't want to have to sign two players in one position (my nightmare) and felt he would be a fine back-up to a new number 9, as well as allowing us to kick the captaincy issue down the road for a year while the long-term candidates stepped up.

LW: Martinelli, ESR - In theory this position has the ideal depth, two quality options who also offer something slightly different. I've struggled to get a tune out of ESR on FM22 though

So my priorities were as follows: upgrade on Lacazette; upgrade on Xhaka; back-up for Tomiyasu; back-up for Saka/Odegaard.

For my new number nine, I had my scouts look at the usual names (Isak, Nunez, DCL) but the only one who was convincing and affordable was Tammy Abraham, and I wondered if Roma would accept Xhaka or Pepe in a part exchange deal. They wouldn't. So I moved quickly to bring him in for £45M rising to £50M.

I looked at a lot of players for my Xhaka replacement, including Matheus Nunes, Fabian Ruiz, Youri Tielemans and Ruben Neves. The last three were prohibitively expensive at the start of the window and I wanted to get this sorted quickly. So I went for someone many others have bought too in Declan Rice. My scouts said I could have him for between £60M and £80M, but West Ham managed to get me up to £75M. I was just happy for someone other than Pepe to be our record signing.

As I said, I'd considered keeping Cedric around for another year as I looked for a quick, attacking Tomiyasu alternative. But when a few bids came in for Cedric I decided to take it as a sign and accelerated my search. There weren't too many realistic candidates though, and I had to bide my time to get my target as he had just extended going into the summer so at first wasn't interested in negotiating. Chelsea were hovering though so I moved as quickly as I could to get Calegari in for his release clause of £11M.

That was my first three priorities taken care of, and my next step was to take care of (get rid of) the players returning from loan. Off went the handsome Pablo Mari to Stuttgart (£20.5M), my sweet prince Hector Bellerin to Dynamo Kyiv for £19.75M, Maitland-Niles to Freiburg for £19.25M, and Lucas Torreira to Newcastle for £24.5M. And there I thought he didn't like the weather in England...

I also moved Bernd Leno on to Freiburg for £8.25M, Nicolas Pepe to Mainz for £17M, Granit Xhaka to Milan for £29M and the afore-mentioned Cedric to Marseille for £7.75M. These fees felt a lot more realistic than the bizarrely inflated fees for those loan players I was desperate to get rid of but there you go. We also picked up £3M from a tribunal when Eddie Nketiah chose Aston Villa over foreign shores.

All of these departures left me with plenty of cash burning a hole in my pocket, and I couldn't help looking down at that pocket when my scouts told me they thought Harvey Barnes, a real life favourite of mine, was gettable for between £40-50M. I'd struggled to find a RW/AM who could back up for Saka and Odegaard, and I'd decided to bring back Reiss Nelson to cover for Saka when needed (rarely). So I could bring Barnes in to rotate with Martinelli (I felt we lacked directness when ESR and Saka were the wide players, so it would be good to have two direct options at LW). Leicester got me up to £49.5M but I got my man. His old number 15 had just been made vacant and it felt perfect.

At this point my squad was settled and we started the season well with a 4-0 home victory over Aston Villa, with debutant Tammy Abraham scoring the first two goals on his first appearance. Sadly that fast start was curtailed in our following game away to Leeds: in a nightmare start, we had Thomas Partey sent off after three minutes at the same time as Abraham went down with torn knee ligaments and he would be out for three months. I considered relying on Lacazette with Martinelli taking some minutes at CF, but I wasn't taken with that idea as I don't think Martinelli is ready to play up top on his own, and I couldn't countenance the idea of Lacazette week in week out.

So it was back to the transfer window for an impulsive signing, and I didn't really have the time to wait for my scouts to examine any of my potential targets. I considered Gianluca Scamacca and surprisingly Neal Maupay, but I went for a player I like in real life in Ivan Toney. He was overly expensive and my scouts weren't keen, but I think he has something and I liked that he would give us a different option off the bench when Abraham was back. He was brought in for a steep £38.5M with a week or two left in the window, and our business was concluded.

We had an excellent start to the season, making it all the way to October having conceded just one goal, though without Abraham and with Lacazette slogging away up top we were struggling for goals, and luckily Harvey "Harvard" Barnes really hit the ground running and contributed well in his first months. We had a very winnable CL group with Milan, RB Salzburg and Galatasaray but the dropped points in Austria were frustrating.

Unfortunately our first defeat was just around the corner, and we went down 2-1 at Anfield, but I was very happy with the performance, as I usually get battered there, and we did well to stay in the game at 2-0 down and really pushed for a comeback. It took us a while after to get our goalscoring mojo back, and a 4-0 defeat in Milan brought back bad memories, but I took that as us getting all the goals conceded out of our system in one go and I was okay with that. Our defensive record had been incredible but Aaron Ramsdale had bailed us out countless times saving a ridiculous number of one-on-ones while our "no goals conceded" record was still intact, so I couldn't complain much. 

The match following our Milan humiliation was an away match to Tottenham, one of the trickiest fixtures of the season, so when Oliver Skipp was sent off after three minutes I could hardly believe my luck. But we struggled to break them down and Harry Kane scored from distance to give us a lead to reverse. We threw everything at them and eventually Bukayo Saka equalised on 77 minutes, before Emile Smith Rowe stepped up with a welcome contribution, firing in off the bar from 20 yards to win the game (basically a carbon copy of his shot that hit the bar against Tottenham at home last season, except it went in). The win got us back on track and we went on a good run that culminated in a 6-1 domination of Fulham which took us into the break for the World Cup. I hadn't managed to get much out of Ivan Toney though, so the return of Tammy Abraham some time after the restart would be welcome.

During the break we had three fairly uninteresting friendlies, and also two fairly interesting proposals: a few weeks before the window opened, unsolicited bids came in for Rob Holding and Mohamed Elneny. Both players had complained about a lack of playing time, and I didn't think I'd get better offers (both in the region of £14M) in the summer, which is when I had planned on replacing them. So again I decided to accelerate my plans and had a look to see who I could get.

I had been looking at Ryan Gravenberch as a new more technical midfield option, and put in an enquiry before I realised the Toney splurge had left me quite short money-wise (usually Arsenal have so much money I don't really think too much about the budget) and I could only afford cheaper options. I scouted Mahmoud Dahoud and considered him at £13M, but eventually went for former Dortmund midfielder Julian Weigl who also had a release clause, a little more expensive at £17M. Barcelona and Inter (or someone like that) were circling around him so I moved quickly to get him.

Replacing Holding was a bit more of a head scratcher and I scoured the transfer list to see who I could get. I found Max Kilman listed as surplus to requirements at Wolves, and also found Nico Elvedi available (though unlisted) at Gladbach. I agreed deals for both at around £12M, with Kilman cheaper in terms of wages and also HG, though I was leaning towards the pedigree of Elvedi, when I was informed that Liverpool had transfer listed Ibrahima Konate. My scouts decided to leave his report on 93% and not to bother finding out if he was injury prone (an absolute deal-breaker for me) but eventually I decided to just green light the deal and reload the game to go for Kilman or Elvedi if Konate turned out to be injury prone as I suspected he might. Luckily he wasn't, so I didn't have to do any sneaky reloading (blame my scouts), though I did have to do some careful arrangement of the transfer fee as we were really stretching it budget wise to bring him in at around £20M. It felt steep compared to the other two options but I felt he had the potential to become a genuine option rather than just a back-up.

We got back underway with a frustrating 2-2 draw at Wolves, going 2-1 down having led and needing an equaliser from the returning Abraham to salvage a point, and I was concerned that the break had seen us lose that defensive solidity that had served us so well in the first half of the campaign. Luckily we had another "get it out of your system game" in the cup away to West Ham, which didn't really concern me too much, and this was sandwiched between two 2-0 league wins and a 4-0 League Cup victory to serve. Julian Weigl made his debut in that West Ham defeat, and then had his ankle broken to leave him out for three months. So much for cover.

We went to Man City hoping to hold them off, as at this point we were top and they were our closest challengers at seven points behind or so. Unfortunately this plan lasted as long as 30 seconds. We kicked off, and when a Partey pass to Odegaard didn't quite reach its target, Haaland decided to just go ahead and lob the keeper. From 50 yards, with City's first touch of the game... I was a bit lost for words at that, and City went on to dominate us and go 2-0 up (they also have Mbappe, fun times). Like away at Anfield we bravely stayed in it and fought back to 2-1, but City's obscene quality told and Haaland sealed the game before De Bruyne booted in a free kick to put the admittedly deserved gloss on the victory. I wasn't too concerned at losing in the League Cup semis to Liverpool, and was much more focused on the league, so I was delighted to get a last-minute winner in a goal-fest at St Mary's in a near carbon copy of last season's chaotic match to round out the month.

I also had to entertain a derisory bid from Real Madrid for Saka: they'd been chasing him publicly for months, but rather than offering the reported £92M, the offer was a mere £65M. I rejected it and had a bit of a showdown with the kid, and he was really pushing for a move, but when he agreed that £122M would be a fair asking price I breathed a sigh of relief, and Madrid have been sent packing.

Two things stand out in February: firstly, the monstrous week of three home games against Liverpool, City and Madrid that could decide our season. Liverpool (who had just added Raphinha to their squad having signed Lewandowski and Lautaro Martinez in the summer, and were currently tapping up Victor Osimhen) battered us in the first 25 minutes, and though our adjustments helped, we couldn't break them down and lost key points to the other rival in the emergent three-horse race. We tried to learn our lessons and take them into the City game, and it really felt like it had worked: we went 2-0 up thanks to Harvard "Troy" Barnes and Gabriel, but De Bruyne reduced the arrears at 77 minutes and then Thomas Partey gave away a soft penalty from a corner with five minutes left and Haaland punished us again, from closer range this time. We went 1-0 up against Madrid but after they wrestled back control of the game and the score we had to be content with a late Harvard equaliser and had to go to Spain needing to avoid defeat to have a chance.

The other highlight of this month were the two absolute batterings we handed out to relegation fodder Sheffield United (we smashed them, I can call them that) and early season surprise package Leeds, both at home. City and Liverpool had far superior goal difference to ours (little wonder when you see their attacking signings) so these two routs were very welcome.

March, sadly, was a struggle. We beat Aston Villa with a perfect away performance, before getting well and truly FM'd by Bournemouth, you all know the deal. We went down 2-1 in Madrid despite a brave effort, and our confidence at this point was sufficiently damaged for us to have to be grateful for a late equaliser at Brighton. After a two week break we came back refreshed and put bottom side Wolves to the sword, but with Liverpool and City both dropping points were then unable to take advantage by beating Everton. We also lost Gabriel to a ligament injury: he'll join Odegaard, Toney and Saka on the treatment table (must be a big table), with Odegaard tearing his hamstring on international duty, Toney tearing an abdominal muscle in training and Saka done for the season with a broken ankle of his own. We're nearly down to the bare bones in attack, with Martinelli, ESR and Barnes behind Abraham and only Lacazette and Nelson, who have spent most of the season with the U23s, available off the bench.

So this is where you join me, with eight games left and us only four points off Liverpool with City standing to go between us if they win their game in hand. They've got the advantage on goal difference but luckily we won't be playing either of them again... our run-in isn't too bad, with the only "big" teams visiting us at home in Chelsea, United and Tottenham. It's probably going to be a stretch too far, which is a shame as we led the league until February/March, but eventually injuries have kicked in with a broken ankle or two, our form has faltered and the more expensive deeper squads are telling. Hmm, that sounds familiarly traumatic...

I've also been looking into a Saka alternative as I basically never rotated him and don't like Martinelli or Barnes at RW and have rarely used Nelson. I had my eyes on Jarrod Bowen with West Ham in danger of relegation, but my scouts told me I could get Porto's Fabio Vieira, younger at 22, for cheaper at around £28M, which is what I've done and that's arranged for the summer. I'll also be looking to get better competition for Aaron Ramsdale (Jose Sa is on my list, with Wolves as good as down).

Lacazette will be moved on in the summer and we'll see who steps up as a leader in his absence - I made Rice my vice-captain when he arrived, as he was instantly a Team Leader on joining, and Ramsdale is also a convincing option after I persisted with some leadership courses (less luck for White and Odegaard). Abraham was initially a Team Leader (I wasn't keen on that) but his injury saw him drop out, and Tierney swapped between Leader and Highly Influential depending on his playing time. He's now been usurped by Odegaard as the third member of that leadership triumvirate, and I can't say we're getting on very well. He complained about a lack of game time when I was rotating him and Tavares, but honestly he should have been grateful I didn't drop him completely given his underwhelming performances. I've been a bit frustrated with his technical limitations in real life and that frustration has been mirrored in the game, and I've been looking at upgrades for a few months. I've got Nuno Mendes, Owen Wijndal, Marc Cucurella and Rayan Ait-Nouri on my shortlist.

I've also finally started getting a tune out of Declan Rice, after an equally underwhelming first few months for him. I thought he was perfect for the RPM role, but that didn't really work, nor did the BWM role in its various forms. I've often struggled to get the 'third man' in a midfield three to work, and as a lone BBM he wasn't doing much either. I decided to shift things a bit and have more of a midfield two, which I think Rice is more suited to, so I moved Partey up to RCM and I think that's helped a lot, with Rice finally getting his average above 7 and having more influence on games. I've also been very pleasantly surprised by Konate, who has now ousted Ben White as the first choice partner for the excellent Gabriel, who Bayern have been following for some time. Calegari has been another highlight and I trust him in a lot more games than I would have at the start of the season. Tomiyasu remains the go-to option in big games and tough away trips.

I think that's everything I wanted to write about (I had a good CM come through in the youth intake but I basically don't care about the academy) so I'll maybe update at the end of the season or at the start of the next.

Edited April 2, 2022 by chroniclesofal

[chroniclesofal]

Oh, and this is what I'm competing with...

Edited April 2, 2022 by chroniclesofal