[FM22] Girona FC - Analysis, tactics & soccernomics

[Matt_1979]

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
INTRO Part F

Meet the Gironistas

We know the formation we want to play, and how we want to play it..... and we know the player profiles we're looking for to drive the team forward and into La Liga. Now it's time to get an introduction to the players we have at our disposal.

Goalkeepers

Juan Carlos (Sweeper Keeper) Our 33-year-old shot stopper should be amongst the best in the division. A good all-rounder with excellent reflexes and a good command of the area - which is what’s needed in our system. He only has an aggression rating of 2, however, so I’ll need to pay close attention to if that’s stopping him coming out and claiming crosses. His passing and throwing are both rated at 13 so he should be able to fulfil his sweeper keeper duties and find open players for some quick transitions.

Backup – Adrian Ortola, 28, is a solid back up. He’s not the type of keeper we want in our system but should be able to step in when needed and should do a steady job.

Central defenders

Here’s where the fun could start - and we’ll have to pray the injury bug doesn’t hit until at least the January transfer window – as we'll play with three central defenders and only actually have five… and the two backups aren’t very good…

After reading the tactics post you’ll know that first and foremost we’re looking for players in these positions who are strong, good in the air and quite aggressive as we want them to go and meet crosses and get the ball clear so we can look to launch a counterattack.

Juanpe (Ball playing defender) At 30 years old, Juanpe is a cultured and technical defender. Good in the air (15) and with the ball at his feet (passing 13, technique 12). He’ll fill the ball playing defender role well as he likes to try long range passes.

Bernardo (Stopper) Filling the stopper role is the 32-year-old Columbian, Bernardo. Very strong (17) and excellent in the air (16) and nice and aggressive (14). His good reading of the game (14) should let him move forward when needed to cut out any balls played into the space left by his attacking wingback.

Bueno (Central defender) At just 22, the Columbian will be looking for the leadership and experience of his two defensive team mates to guide him through the season. He’s no slouch though and has a good spread of attributes which makes him able to fill any of the back three roles if he develops well: heading 13, passing 11, marking 14, aggression 14, pace 13, strength 13.

Backups - Loic Williams (19) and Arnau Martinez (18) are capable of stepping in and covering for a game here and there but I wouldn’t like to have to rely on either for a long period of time. Williams, our only left footed centre back has all the physical attributes, he just needs to develop his technical side of the game. Martinez is more of a wingback but back play in the centre. Poor in the air for a CB though (11) but very comfortable on the ball. Two for the future.

Wingbacks

Very important players if our system is going to work. We have one excellent player on the left in Junca, a 27-year-old with good speed (14) and excellent crossing (16) to help fulfil his attacking duties. He’s also got good stamina levels (13) which should let him get up and down the flank all game. He can be quite injury prone, however, so I’ll need to manage him carefully.

On the right, Calavera is a lovely player, but possibly more of a luxury than I need. He hasn’t got the engine that we need (stamina 11) he’ll need for his support duty, nor the crossing (11) but he is a good passer so we might set him to play more direct, riskier passes to get and get some killer through balls for the strikers.

Backups - As our left wingback is injury prone and our right wingback doesn’t have great stamina it’s important that we have good options off the bench. Whilst Jairo is an excellent attacking wingback, he lacked both the physical profile and the mentals in Gates One & Two. He’s more than a good enough option for season 1 though. On the right, our backup should be Valery but again, he failed both Gates miserably so instead we’ll be using Arnau Martinez, as if we can develop his crossing and pace a little he’ll be a good player for us.
 

Midfield

Garcia (Deep lying playmaker) The creative hub of the team with a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Perfect for the playmaker role as he likes to switch play and try killer balls often and has the attributes to back it up (passing 14, vision, 15, decisions 13). Where he does lack for the role in this system is the on defensive side (marking 7, tackling 9), although he has good positioning (12) which I hope will offset that. He’d also fill either of the other midfield roles perfectly too so there’s definitely a future with the team….. but he’s only 24 so if he can just develop his defensive game…

Terrats (Central midfielder) At only 20, Terrats has a bright future ahead of him. He’s a determined, very well-rounded midfielder who can pass (12), tackle (13) and is very good technically (15). We just need to improve his strength and stamina, which means in tough games, or ones against possession hungry teams he may be replaced by the more physical Kebe.

Saiz (Attacking midfielder) The 30-year-old Spaniard should be very good at driving the team forward either with the ball at his feet (dribbling 15) or by getting into space (off the ball – 15) in advanced areas and making room for others. A very technical and creative player he’ll be expected to be racking up the assists and generally making life hell for the opposition. If he can notch up a few goals by arriving late into the area, that'd help too.

Backups - Our backup options for the central midfielder role are important and they’ll be getting lots of game time due to A) Terrats being our backup DLP, and B) Terrats lacking in strength and stamina so may not be the fit option for physical games. Two players who can step in: Kebe, the 20-year-old Malian is a battering ram with excellent physicals and stamina and Baena, on loan from Villareal who is naturally a winger but can play in the centre of midfield. He’ll also be the main back up to Saiz at the attacking midfielder but the two of them together could be good for unlocking stubborn defences.

We then have two loan players in Dario Sarmiento, on loan from Man City, and Pol Lozano from Espanyol. Sarmiento doesn’t really fit into the team anywhere as we don’t play with wingers, but he almost has the tools to play in the attacking central midfielder role so if he gets any game time this season it’ll be there, unless we’re forced into our emergency 4-2-3-1 formations to change things up against a tough opponent, and even then meaningful minutes would be limited. Lozano is liked much more by the coaching staff, who rate him as a 3 star player, than he is by me. BUT, at 42 games long, a La Liga 2 season is longer than most so you never know. 

STRIKERS

We want two things from our two strikers: One who can drop off, draw defenders out of the security of their line and create chances, and one who is a goal scorer who will harass defenders and look to get onto through balls. Luckily, both our starters can fulfil both roles, in different ways.

Stuani is our main man and can score in a variety of ways (finishing 16, heading 15) but at 35-year-old he’s not quick. His pace is 11 and I’m expecting it to decline rapidly over the next couple of seasons. Not only is he a really good attacking forward but also has the strength and technique to play as a target man.

Bustos is on loan from Man City and makes up for Stuani’s lack of pace and agility. He’s no slouch in front of goal either. We can use him as an attacking forward or as a deep lying forward where he can drop into space and run at defenders.

Backups - Borja Garcia, as you’ll know, failed at both Gates of the team ethos we’re looking to build. He is, however, experienced and creative so could be a good option off the bench. Pablo Moreno, on loan from Man City, is naturally a winger but would make a decent bench option for either of the striker roles and has a bright future ahead of him. Our 19-year-old Spaniard Pau Victor is an excellent finisher (14) and has good pace (14) but is just lacking in a few areas so but if I can get him some game time this season I’m confident he’ll develop well, especially with some mentoring.

 

There we have the squad locked in who will start the season and guide us into 2022. Remember, the first transfer window has been disabled so no new players will arrive until January 2022.

 

You can read this, and other content here: https://asymmetric-football.com/

Edited November 6, 2021 by Matt_1979

[SteinkelssonFM]

I enjoyed reading this piece, a nice light-hearted read to introduce the team and also keep the anticipation of full release building! Well done Sir!

[Matt_1979]

1 hour ago, MattyLewis11 said:

I enjoyed reading this piece, a nice light-hearted read to introduce the team and also keep the anticipation of full release building! Well done Sir!

Thanks mate. Learned from the best! 

The 9th needs to hurry up!

[Chris_ANZFM]

18 hours ago, Matt_1979 said:

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
INTRO Part F

Meet the Gironistas

We know the formation we want to play, and how we want to play it..... and we know the player profiles we're looking for to drive the team forward and into La Liga. Now it's time to get an introduction to the players we have at our disposal.

Goalkeepers

Juan Carlos (Sweeper Keeper) Our 33-year-old shot stopper should be amongst the best in the division. A good all-rounder with excellent reflexes and a good command of the area - which is what’s needed in our system. He only has an aggression rating of 2, however, so I’ll need to pay close attention to if that’s stopping him coming out and claiming crosses. His passing and throwing are both rated at 13 so he should be able to fulfil his sweeper keeper duties and find open players for some quick transitions.

Backup – Adrian Ortola, 28, is a solid back up. He’s not the type of keeper we want in our system but should be able to step in when needed and should do a steady job.

Central defenders

Here’s where the fun could start - and we’ll have to pray the injury bug doesn’t hit until at least the January transfer window – as we'll play with three central defenders and only actually have five… and the two backups aren’t very good…

After reading the tactics post you’ll know that first and foremost we’re looking for players in these positions who are strong, good in the air and quite aggressive as we want them to go and meet crosses and get the ball clear so we can look to launch a counterattack.

Juanpe (Ball playing defender) At 30 years old, Juanpe is a cultured and technical defender. Good in the air (15) and with the ball at his feet (passing 13, technique 12). He’ll fill the ball playing defender role well as he likes to try long range passes.

Bernardo (Stopper) Filling the stopper role is the 32-year-old Columbian, Bernardo. Very strong (17) and excellent in the air (16) and nice and aggressive (14). His good reading of the game (14) should let him move forward when needed to cut out any balls played into the space left by his attacking wingback.

Bueno (Central defender) At just 22, the Columbian will be looking for the leadership and experience of his two defensive team mates to guide him through the season. He’s no slouch though and has a good spread of attributes which makes him able to fill any of the back three roles if he develops well: heading 13, passing 11, marking 14, aggression 14, pace 13, strength 13.

Backups - Loic Williams (19) and Arnau Martinez (18) are capable of stepping in and covering for a game here and there but I wouldn’t like to have to rely on either for a long period of time. Williams, our only left footed centre back has all the physical attributes, he just needs to develop his technical side of the game. Martinez is more of a wingback but back play in the centre. Poor in the air for a CB though (11) but very comfortable on the ball. Two for the future.

Wingbacks

Very important players if our system is going to work. We have one excellent player on the left in Junca, a 27-year-old with good speed (14) and excellent crossing (16) to help fulfil his attacking duties. He’s also got good stamina levels (13) which should let him get up and down the flank all game. He can be quite injury prone, however, so I’ll need to manage him carefully.

On the right, Calavera is a lovely player, but possibly more of a luxury than I need. He hasn’t got the engine that we need (stamina 11) he’ll need for his support duty, nor the crossing (11) but he is a good passer so we might set him to play more direct, riskier passes to get and get some killer through balls for the strikers.

Backups - As our left wingback is injury prone and our right wingback doesn’t have great stamina it’s important that we have good options off the bench. Whilst Jairo is an excellent attacking wingback, he lacked both the physical profile and the mentals in Gates One & Two. He’s more than a good enough option for season 1 though. On the right, our backup should be Valery but again, he failed both Gates miserably so instead we’ll be using Arnau Martinez, as if we can develop his crossing and pace a little he’ll be a good player for us.
 

Midfield

Garcia (Deep lying playmaker) The creative hub of the team with a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Perfect for the playmaker role as he likes to switch play and try killer balls often and has the attributes to back it up (passing 14, vision, 15, decisions 13). Where he does lack for the role in this system is the on defensive side (marking 7, tackling 9), although he has good positioning (12) which I hope will offset that. He’d also fill either of the other midfield roles perfectly too so there’s definitely a future with the team….. but he’s only 24 so if he can just develop his defensive game…

Terrats (Central midfielder) At only 20, Terrats has a bright future ahead of him. He’s a determined, very well-rounded midfielder who can pass (12), tackle (13) and is very good technically (15). We just need to improve his strength and stamina, which means in tough games, or ones against possession hungry teams he may be replaced by the more physical Kebe.

Saiz (Attacking midfielder) The 30-year-old Spaniard should be very good at driving the team forward either with the ball at his feet (dribbling 15) or by getting into space (off the ball – 15) in advanced areas and making room for others. A very technical and creative player he’ll be expected to be racking up the assists and generally making life hell for the opposition. If he can notch up a few goals by arriving late into the area, that'd help too.

Backups - Our backup options for the central midfielder role are important and they’ll be getting lots of game time due to A) Terrats being our backup DLP, and B) Terrats lacking in strength and stamina so may not be the fit option for physical games. Two players who can step in: Kebe, the 20-year-old Malian is a battering ram with excellent physicals and stamina and Baena, on loan from Villareal who is naturally a winger but can play in the centre of midfield. He’ll also be the main back up to Saiz at the attacking midfielder but the two of them together could be good for unlocking stubborn defences.

We then have two loan players in Dario Sarmiento, on loan from Man City, and Pol Lozano from Espanyol. Sarmiento doesn’t really fit into the team anywhere as we don’t play with wingers, but he almost has the tools to play in the attacking central midfielder role so if he gets any game time this season it’ll be there, unless we’re forced into our emergency 4-2-3-1 formations to change things up against a tough opponent, and even then meaningful minutes would be limited. Lozano is liked much more by the coaching staff, who rate him as a 3 star player, than he is by me. BUT, at 42 games long, a La Liga 2 season is longer than most so you never know. 

STRIKERS

We want two things from our two strikers: One who can drop off, draw defenders out of the security of their line and create chances, and one who is a goal scorer who will harass defenders and look to get onto through balls. Luckily, both our starters can fulfil both roles, in different ways.

Stuani is our main man and can score in a variety of ways (finishing 16, heading 15) but at 35-year-old he’s not quick. His pace is 11 and I’m expecting it to decline rapidly over the next couple of seasons. Not only is he a really good attacking forward but also has the strength and technique to play as a target man.

Bustos is on loan from Man City and makes up for Stuani’s lack of pace and agility. He’s no slouch in front of goal either. We can use him as an attacking forward or as a deep lying forward where he can drop into space and run at defenders.

Backups - Borja Garcia, as you’ll know, failed at both Gates of the team ethos we’re looking to build. He is, however, experienced and creative so could be a good option off the bench. Pablo Moreno, on loan from Man City, is naturally a winger but would make a decent bench option for either of the striker roles and has a bright future ahead of him. Our 19-year-old Spaniard Pau Victor is an excellent finisher (14) and has good pace (14) but is just lacking in a few areas so but if I can get him some game time this season I’m confident he’ll develop well, especially with some mentoring.

 

There we have the squad locked in who will start the season and guide us into 2022. Remember, the first transfer window has been disabled so no new players will arrive until January 2022.

As the legend himself said, a fun way to introduce the squad! Special mention for those player images, lovely little touch. 

On 03/11/2021 at 11:00, Matt_1979 said:

Thanks mate. As people have said, it’s something most people would have had in their minds at some point but that (loooooong) article rest got the cogs turning. 

Thanks mate. Means a lot. Obviously I’m using your Schalke save as inspiration. 
 

 

Likewise, thank you. Really appreciate it.

[Matt_1979]

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
INTRO Part E

Finances, wage structure and recruitment policy

Quick financial overview

You might remember from the first post in this series that there's no money tree in Girona, but in case you don't, here's the team's transfer dealings since being relegated back to La Liga 2:

With a net player trading amount of over £28m you’d think there’d be plenty of money in the bank, however that’s not the case. We have a starting balance of £5 million but are predicted make a loss of £12 million this season and to be £34 million in the red by the end of the 2023/24 season.

The predictions don't look too good

Where do the problems lie?

I’m no expert in finances, especially when it comes to football clubs, but I imagine this is due to:

• some high wage, high bonus contracts remaining from the La Liga days,
• paying off the contracts of the three managers who’ve been sacked since Machin’s departure,
• The small capacity of the Montilivi stadium (11,200)

How to we turn this around?

Luckily, we have no loans so there's no debt to pay off which means all money we generate goes straight back into the club.

Clearly, the main way to make a lot of money is to get promoted to La Liga and take part in European competition. The problem is that playing in La Liga is a minimum of 12 months away, and European football is at least 24 months away (and more realistically at least 36 months away) so what can we do in the meantime?

• Increase the commercial revenue of the club
• Not overspend on staff
• Implement a player wage structure

Let’s look through these three in order.

We can try to increase the commercial value of the club by winning games and playing attractive football to increase gate receipts and sponsorship. We can also make a point of signing high profile players and staff and if possible, signing players from East Asia.

Signing an East Asian player can have financial benefits

Not overspending on staff is easier said than done. We all want the best coaches, physios, and scouts but to achieve that we often need to terminate the contracts of those already in place which can be costly. I'm sure we've all cleared out our coaching and scouting teams without realising we've probably spent over £1 million in doing so. We’ll have to be more patient when it comes to building our backroom staff and be very selective over who we get rid of.

Our U19 squad only consists of THREE players at the start of the game so I can keep staff down there at a bare minimum for the first season.

Implementing a wage structure

This is the area I'm most excited about. Although wage structures aren’t part of the game there’s nothing stopping us implementing our own and it ties in very nicely with my previous post about assigning role values.

I've been doing this, when needed, for a few years now after reading an article on guidetofm but it's something that really helps when money is tight.

By taking our weekly wage budget and breaking it down into a 30%/30%/30%/10% split we can assign a total wage budget for each of the areas which make up our squad:

Star/important players, Regular starters, Backups/squad players and Youth.

I try to stick to a squad of 22 players – that should be enough to get us through the season and allow for plenty of rotation. In the name of good squad harmony and balance, I don’t think ANY team needs more than 4 (or 5 in special circumstances) star players. This then leaves the rest of the squad made up of 8 or 9 regular starters, and around 10 squad players & breakthrough prospects.

We now have the following:

Breaking the wage budget into four sections we can now see the maximum
wage players in each group can earn, per week.

Goalkeepers & Defenders

We only have one player here earning more that they should, which is our best central defender, Juanpe. He only has 12 months left on his contract and I expect he'll want to be considered a star player - which he is. I'm hoping that because he's now 30-years-old he'll not be as demanding with his wage requirements and I'll be able to lock him up for a couple of years within the wage structure.

We also have a slight issue as Bernardo is listed as a Star Player, when realistically I don’t quite see him as that. Luckily, the season hasn’t started yet and I’m not planning on upsetting people so early, so he can stay as a Star and see how the season plays out. He’s 32 and when I come to renegotiate his contract at the end of this season, I imagine he’ll be willing to reduce his playing time and wage requirements.

Midfield & attack

Here’s where we have proper issues and as you can see, lots of players earning more money than they should be and we’ll need to control the situation carefully.

Bustos immediately jumps out. He's on £25k per week which is a staggering £16,750k more a week than he should be, as a regular starter (£8,250). That’s over £800k a year more than our wage structure says he should earn. Luckily, he’s on loan from Man City so if he doesn’t impress in his role as a starter I’ll try to terminate his loan in January, and if he does particularly well he can stay until the end of the season and I can try to get him back on loan on more agreeable terms.

We’ve already discussed Juanpe, so next up is Saiz. His role as the attacking midfielder in our system says he should be a star player so I’m not concerned by his salary as it’s still under the Star player cap, which means I can amend his status when the time is right.

Moving on to Stuani is where I glance over at our Director of Football Quique Carcel (more on him later) and shake my head.

Don’t get me wrong, Stuani has been a great striker for Girona – 79 goals in 126 games – but firstly, who’d give a four-year contract to a 34-year-old, and secondly at £27,500 per year when you’ve spent the last couple of seasons in La Liga 2?

Out of respect for the Uruguayan, and because I think he’s going to be a 15-20 goal striker for us - which could get us promoted - I’m going to let his contract ride for this season but will have a difficult decision to make at the end of the season (when his attributes have started to decline).

Sarmiento and Moreno are both loan players, neither of which will get much playing time so Moreno will be one I’m looking to terminate as soon as possible if the loan agreement allows. £22.5k per week for a squad player is craziness.

Jairo we already know will not have his contract renewed as he failed both Gates of the team ethos. I’m still looking forward to seeing him play when he gets an opportunity though as he’s a player I like in real life…. But business is business.

Unless your finances are in a dire state it's not worth forcing your team into a wage structure immediately. In this case I've got a plan of which players already in the squad I need to pay attention do and it can happen organically.

New recruits, however, will have to fit within the structure.

Which brings us nicely to...

The recruitment policy

Meet the Director of Football

Anyone who’s watched the first series of the excellent Prime Video series, Six Dreams, will remember Quique well. The likeable DoF who had the job of trying to persuade Pablo Machin to renew his contract as Manager, despite them both knowing Girona couldn’t offer him anywhere near what the larger clubs could, who were showing an interest.

Director of Football since 2014

Being at the club since 2014, the 47-year-old clearly lives and breathes Girona FC so, although his attributes aren’t quite as high as we’d want, we’re going to stick with him and give him another chance at his La Liga dream.

Any Six Dreams fans would also remember that he was the man in charge of signing players who'd been identified as targets by Pablo Machin. So, that's exactly how we're going to do things (which is another first for me, and to be honest I'm terrified!).

I’ll identify players who meet our team ethos and put them in a priority list, per position, with a maximum transfer fee for Quique to go out and pursue. Most importantly, I can set the agreed playing time and maximum wage, so no matter if Quique manages to sign our first, second or third priority we know it’ll be within our wage structure.

How our recruitment will (hopefully) work

Due to the limitations of FM, however, I can’t control the details of the contract, so I’ll have to trust him not to add in ridiculous clauses and bonuses. I think I’ll set up the option to finalise any deals as I’m getting mild heart palpitations just thinking about it!

Speaking of transfers, we currently only have enough scouting budget to look at players in Spain, but looking at where Girona lies geographically, you’ll notice that other than the other Catalan teams, Barcelona and Espanyol, the nearest teams are actually in France, with Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseille and even Bordeaux all being closer than a majority of La Liga teams. Therefore, we’ll be paying a keen interest in French players and hoping we can persuade some to make the short trip south of the border.

So there we have it, a long post (apologies) which covers the current financial status of the team, how we're going to implement a wage structure to keep the finances in check and finally, how we're going to use our analysts, scouts and the Director of Football to ensure we sign the players we want on wages within our wage structure.

Hope you've enjoyed this post as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Give me a follow on twitter (@fm_throwing) and let me know what you think.

[SteinkelssonFM]

Love this piece mate, the wage budget really provides some perspective in terms of where the club have made mistakes in terms of overpaying to bring individuals in. 

Take Bustos for example, you'd have thought City would have done you a favour, not try and cripple the club FFS! 

[Matt_1979]

1 hour ago, MattyLewis11 said:

Love this piece mate, the wage budget really provides some perspective in terms of where the club have made mistakes in terms of overpaying to bring individuals in. 

Take Bustos for example, you'd have thought City would have done you a favour, not try and cripple the club FFS! 

Yeah, I thought that was strange. You’d think they’d be helping us out as we’re doing them a favour by getting their young players used to European football etc….

I’m very excited about the DoF thing…. Could be a disaster though and might not end very long 😂

[Chris_ANZFM]

Bravo mate! What a bloody piece that was! I get so much enjoyment watching you putting all these blocks into place. It’s really right in my wheelhouse. Looking forward to the next one. 

[Hootieleece]

You have really though about the Wage budget and structure beyond just staying under budget.

I might have to do the same in Kaliningrad.

[KeegBCFC]

Will be closely following this as you've already got me hooked.

[Matt_1979]

12 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

You have really though about the Wage budget and structure beyond just staying under budget.

I might have to do the same in Kaliningrad.

I have definitely thought about it… whether it works only not is a different matter entirely 😂

[Matt_1979]

41 minutes ago, KeegBCFC said:

Will be closely following this as you've already got me hooked.

That’s great to hear. Thanks. 

[JackJCFC]

Awesome idea, great read so far. Look forward to seeing how it goes once the season starts!

[SteinkelssonFM]

9 minutes ago, JackJCFC said:

Awesome idea, great read so far. Look forward to seeing how it goes once the season starts!

I think we are all eagerly anticipating the start of the season! Going to be a good journey. 

[Matt_1979]

3 hours ago, JackJCFC said:

Awesome idea, great read so far. Look forward to seeing how it goes once the season starts!

 

3 hours ago, MattyLewis11 said:

I think we are all eagerly anticipating the start of the season! Going to be a good journey. 

Thanks gents!

Should be an interesting ride.

[Matt_1979]

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
Pre-season

 

Before discussing pre-season I wanted to give a quick overview of the season ahead with a look at the top teams in La Liga 2.

The end of the 2020-21 La Liga season saw Real Valladolid, Huesca and Eibar relegated. After 7 years in the top division you have to commend the owners and management of Eibar for what an amazing job they did staying there for so long on such limited resources.

You’ll probably not be surprised to see both Eibar and Valladolid in the top three favourites for promotion before a ball’s even been kicked.

Eibar have used the off-season to make a lot of changes to their playing personnel, with 12 new players coming in on permanent deals. However, they’ve been sensible and only paid out a total of £4.14m on 5 of the players (due to poaching other La Liga 2 players with low release clauses) with the rest coming in on free transfers.

Despite only made £450k on their outgoing players, their wage bill will be drastically reduced as they’ve shipped out 9 of their 11 starters from last season; one of whom, Aleix Garcia, is now in our ranks and will be a key players this season.

Real Valladolid took the opposite approach to Eibar, bringing in only 2 players on permanent deals whereas 7 players left the club – with 6 going for no fee and Brazilian forward Marcos Andre joining Valencia for £7.65 million. To assist with their promotion hopes they also have by far the largest wage budget in the division so I’ll expect them to make moves in the transfer market if things aren’t going their way come January.

The favourites to win La Liga 2, however, are the Saudi sugar-daddy owned Almeria (who I had a great save with in FM21). They’ve certainly outlined their intentions, spending £10.67m strengthening the spine of their team on two central midfielders and a defender and adding 6 more players on free transfers. Ten players left the team for a total of £5.85m, with 3 commanding fees whilst 7 left on a free transfer – interestingly three of the departing players joined Eibar.

The Almeria team was already strong, with striker Umar Saqid and attacking midfielder Lucas Robertone set to terrorise defences again this coming season, so these recent additions should make them a very formidable opponent.

Leganes, who narrowly missed out on promotion last season, have managed to maintain a strong squad with very little transfer activity so should be in and around the playoff places, whilst we also have to be wary of “historic giants” Real Sporting, Real Zaragoza and Malaga. Island teams Las Palmas and Tenerife will also be strong competition for every club in the division.

You’ll also have noticed that we’re predicted to finish 5th – which would be fine by me. Although, the media don’t think we’ll be quite that good:

Pre-season Part 1 – The Backroom Boys

Usually when selecting coaching staff I find the ones with the highest attributes and fling a contract offer their way without a second thought.

It would be odd though to take such a slap-dash approach in a save in which we’re trying to build great things based on careful planning and having the right people in the right roles. Why shouldn’t we treat our staff recruitment the same as we treat our player recruitment?

We want coaches who know the system they’re coaching to the players, who act as role models (especially to the younger players) and technically good enough to teach all aspects of their designated role.

Ideally, we want coaches know the 352/532 system, who have good adaptability, tactical knowledge, technical coaching ability and importantly a good personality. We’re building a “team of coaches” who all have similar beliefs and styles, not a random collection of coaches. As per with the players, it’s not about getting the BEST coaches but its about getting the RIGHT coaches. (You can read FM Athlete’s inspirational blog on this topic).

We start the save with 6 coaches and one free coaching slot to fill. However, for some reason we have FOUR fitness coaches – and only one of them any good. So much for not wasting money on terminating contracts! The Assistant Manager was awful so he had to go along with three of the fitness coaches and a scout which cost us £465,000 – not what I wanted to do but sometimes you have no choice.

I created a filter in the staff search screen to identify all staff who have a variation of a 3 or 5 man defence as their primary or secondary preferred tactic. If they then also have good tactical knowledge and adaptability they should have no issues coaching whichever 3/5 man tactic I evolve into over the course of the save. We then added in the criteria which makes up our coaching ethos.

Notice that a little earlier I said ideally – one of the negative elements about being a La Liga 2 side is that we can only offer £1.4k per week to prospective coaching staff, so filling all the criteria wasn’t easy… compromises had to be made. We still managed to bring some good people in though, however, I had to heavily incentivise their contracts.

Pre-Season Part 2 – The Friendlies

 

As this save already contains couple of “firsts” I thought I’d add a new way of approaching pre-season.

Usually, my pre-seasons consist of lots of physical work to get the players fitness level up, along with around 5 friendly matches. However, this approach always seems to cause quite a few early injuries and we still end up with players not fully match fit when the season starts.

So, this time I’ve flipped pre-season on its head.

After one week of bootcamp (the first week back) I then phased out the fitness training and started introducing some tactically periodised technical and tactical style training. Tactical periodisation has been around for a while now, but for anyone not familiar, it states that training sessions should cover game-relevant situations. These mainly come in the form of:

Defensive structure
Transition from defence to offence
Offensive structure
Transition from offence to defence.

Implementing this style of training should mean the players get more time with a ball at their feet, rather than endless physical work, and it should also boost their tactical awareness and technical skills.

To help with the fitness levels I arranged a lot more friendly games that usual – eleven in fact – which took place on the following schedule:

Fridays – first team players versus a stronger team.
Mondays – backups against a weaker team.

This gives two benefits:

1 – Everyone gets lots of game time and a chance to show what they can do.

2 – The games against the bigger teams are money spinners. In fact, from these friendly games, we’ve made just under £520k – which covers the money we spent terminating the contracts of the terrible staff we inherited.

We had some really interesting performances: despite the 3-3 result, our starters ripped apart Atletico Madrid on numerous occasions, hitting the woodwork 5 times(!) and then shortly afterwards our backups beat a full-strength Lille 3-2. The highlight, obviously, was beating Real Madrid 4-0.

Did the change help avoid the usual pre-season injuries? Kinda.

We only had two “serious” injuries, with were both sprained ankles to Bernardo and Jairo, both out for 4-6 weeks and both will miss the start of the season. BUT we hardly had any of the usual niggling injuries which put players out for 2-4 days at a time and disrupts their pre-season fitness.

All the players in our squad are fully match fit, however, so the plan worked, and the tactical familiarity is the highest I think I’ve ever gone into a season with.

Our eleven pre-season friendlies

Squad updates

As we’re starting the save with the first transfer window disabled there’s no transfer news to report. We have had one player leave us though as I cancelled the (wage structure busting) £25k per week loan of Pablo Moreno from Man City, which takes us back under the wage budget and gives us some wiggle room to offer new contracts to players who have less that a year left on their current contracts.

So we’re now ready to step into the 2021-22 season. Here’s our squad who’ll take us up to the January transfer window.

The 2021-22 Girona FC squad.

The players are fit and raring to go (mostly), the scouts have their assignments, the recruitment analysts are busy beavering away…. Let’s get started.

 

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Looking forward to seeing how you fair. Good luck - very tidy posts in the build-up to the season.

[13th Man]

Like to see you doing a more realistic coaching hiring as well. I’ve decided to do the same and while I have no idea if it’ll change anything, it’s the details that make this game for me. I worried more about style than shape.

Either way, looking forward to seeing how your shape works in competitive games.

[_Ben_]

Quietly reading and taking in all of this and it’s a wonderful read! Good luck for the start of the season. 

[Matt_1979]

On 13/11/2021 at 16:03, DefinitelyTaylor said:

Looking forward to seeing how you fair. Good luck - very tidy posts in the build-up to the season.

Thanks. Glad you’re liking it. 

 

13 hours ago, 13th Man said:

Like to see you doing a more realistic coaching hiring as well. I’ve decided to do the same and while I have no idea if it’ll change anything, it’s the details that make this game for me. I worried more about style than shape.

Either way, looking forward to seeing how your shape works in competitive games.

Same here, don’t know if it will help, but it would be a nice touch from SI if it did…

 

3 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

Quietly reading and taking in all of this and it’s a wonderful read! Good luck for the start of the season. 

Cheers Ben! Season going ok so far. Think I’m going to play till the end of October and then do an update so I’ve got plenty of data to go off. 

[13th Man]

18 hours ago, Matt_1979 said:

Same here, don’t know if it will help, but it would be a nice touch from SI if it did…

While coaches could still be effective no matter what, it'd be nice if they were somehow extra effective if the tactic/style met their own.  It's such a small detail, but that's what a lot of us are here for, right?

[Matt_1979]

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
Season so far & Pressing

August to November: the season so far.

As you can see, we’ve had a very impressive start to the season, picking up 10 wins, 2 draws and being yet to taste defeat. On the way we’ve scored 27 goals and allowed only 7, with only Tenerife conceding less.

HOWEVER, I feel I need to state we’ve had a very favourable opening three months with most of our opponents occupying the bottom half of the table and having an average combined current standing of 16^th! I expect things to be much tougher in the run up to the end of 2021, especially as we face Eibar, Tenerife and Real Valladolid consecutively next month.

League favourites, Almeria, are languishing in 12^th whilst only Huesca of the relegated teams are within the playoff positions – it’s still early days though and the La Liga 2 season is a very long one.

Is our early success down to our new pre-season regime? Could be. Remember we went into the season with every squad member showing as fully match fit and the tactical familiarity very high, and since the start of the season we’ve had only four minor injuries to players in the first team squad, for an average of 4 days each, so we’ve had very little disruption to the starting line-up.

In terms of player stats we have both strikers, Bustos (9) and Stuani (6), leading the team in scoring, whilst Aleix Garcia (5) sits in between wingbacks Junca (6) and Calavera (4) for assists. As both Junca and Garcia are on corners I'm more impressed by Calavera's number.

Junca is also leading the team in terms of average rating, with a massive 7.73, with veteran centreback Bernardo in second place with 7.30.

The tactics

The Machin-inspired gameplan is working exactly how I hoped it would. We can recap the aims of the tactic and then look at each element, which I promise won’t turn into death by data hub!

• Wingbacks marauding up and down the flanks, whipping in crosses and passes for the attacking players.
• A compact middle, forcing opponents wide, where our aerially dominant centrebacks can deal with any crosses.
• Hitting teams with lightning-fast counter attacks when the opportunity arises.

Wingbacks – David Junca is clearly a standout player and it’ll be no surprise to hear he’s been named in the team of the week on numerous occasions. His numbers are helped by being on corners from the right-hand side and having three centrebacks to aim at, but he’s been fantastic in his general role as a wingback. Calavera and Martinez share duties at right wingback and are both performing well, although neither are as dynamic as Junca. Their passing stats are all around 88% which is fine given that we don’t play a short passing game and they’re expected to take risks.

Compact middle & Centrebacks – Our possession gained chart looks great to me, and the commentary backs it up. Over two-thirds our possession is won between our 18-yard line and half way, which tells me our aims of a compact centre which is difficult to play through is working well and not many teams are making it into our box, and when they do breach our final third, our three CB’s (Juanpe, Bernardo and Buena) are negating a majority of the aerial threats.

Counter attacking – I can’t yet provide any real evidence, as we’ve not really been under the cosh enough to warrant needing to rely on a counter attack.

In terms of our general play, here's a few images which show our compact midfield, how narrowly we defend when the opposition has the ball centrally, and then how much we expand the field of play when we have the ball.

  

A pressing matter

The idea of measuring how effective our players are at pressing the opponent was something I first explored back in FM20 with my Almeria save, which I posted on the SI Forums. The only issue was that we weren't a pressing team as we were in La Liga at the time and didn't have players the right kind of players at our disposal.

What attributes are the best for effective pressing? To counter-press well as a team it seems the general consensus is players need good ratings in the following attributes:

Aggression, anticipation, decisions, determination, teamwork, work rate, acceleration and stamina.

With the new pressing system being based more on pressing-triggers, I'd suggest that the mental attributes of anticipation and decision are even more important in FM22.

We aren't an aggressive pressing team; we have standard lines and our pressing slider is set to "more often" than "much more often" because, as you've read, we're more about being more compact...however, we still do try to press with six players when the opportunity arises: both strikers, both central midfielders and both wingbacks.

Let's see how the Girona players, who've played meaningful minutes in these roles, match up to the above pressing attributes:

As you can see, we aren't perfect for pressing but the players have enough about them to be able to do the job being asked of them in our system.

How do we measure pressing effectiveness? The simple answer is "not easily". However, you'll probably know that team pressing is measured in "passes per defensive actions" which counts the average amount of passes a team allows the opposition to make before they are pressed with a "defensive action".

What are defensive actions? I class the following as defensive actions:
- interceptions
- tackles attempted
- fouls

I know a couple of these may raise eyebrows but I'll explain my thought process: An attempted tackle would still be enough to disrupt an opponents build up play and potentially force them into an errant pass or mistake. A foul definitely counts as a defensive action in my eyes, as it clearly stop opponents from progressing the ball downfield, allowing our team to regroup and set up in our defensive shape.

As we don't get the amount of tackles attempted in FM22, we have to do some reverse engineering using the tackles and tackles won ratio. Once we have all the above we can add them all together and work out a per 90 stats using the minutes played.

We then get the following:

I can see immediately that our two main strikers, Bustos and Stuani, aren't pressing as much as I'd expect. This could be down to the low work rate of Bustos and the lack of pace from Stuani.

Of our central midfielders, Kebe is clearly a beast - he's mainly bought in against possession hungry teams as a BWM which would certainly help achieve his 7.4 defensive actions per game. Saiz also has good stats (as the CM-A, he's asked to press more) whereas Baena, who rotates in the same role, has much less with only 2.4.

The wingbacks will obviously benefit from the pressing work of their more advances colleagues, and I believe their excellent interception stats show this. This also backs up what I was saying about Junca, earlier on, as not only is he very good going forward but he's also got the most defensive actions if we remove Jairo who hasn't played too much, so could be an outlier.

A good sign that a team pressing is effective is poor passes by the opposition which are then easily mopped up by your defenders. We already know our wingbacks have a good amount of interceptions, and and looking at our three centrebacks the theme is the same: Bernardo has 43, Juanpe 33 and Bueno 29, so I'm happy that our counter-pressing is having a good effect.

I'd be delighted to hear other people's opinions on this, and I'll be interested to see how these figures change when I do the same again in January.

Team admin

Now the good stuff is out of the way there’s some team admin to cover off. After terminating the loan of Pablo Moreno from Man City it put us back under the wage budget and meant we were able to offer some new contracts to players who had less than 12 months left. As some key players were included in this group it was vital that we got business done at the first opportunity.

Here’s how it panned out:

As you can see, I’ve managed to secure the services of four starters and one youngster who is getting plenty of playing time for just an extra £2,700 a week.

During the negotiations I also managed to make their appearance fees as small as possible whilst upping their incentive clauses by the same amount, so if they want to earn extra then we need to be seeing goals, assists and clean sheets!

Some of these players have moved around the designated group within the wage structure but I'm not concerned at the moment as it's still early and we're under the cap. I'll look at performances in January and make any changes deemed necessary.

Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this you can get me on Twitter as @fm_throwing

[SteinkelssonFM]

An excellent start to the season, the tactical analysis you have provided highlights why you have such an emphatic goal difference. 

A big fan of the pressing effectiveness, it really is a shame that the game doesn't automatically compile PPDA as this is a statistic which is frequently used in mainstream outlets. 

Looking forward to you mid-season analysis 

Keep up the good work! 

[SixPointer]

4 hours ago, Matt_1979 said:

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
Season so far & Pressing

 

August to November: the season so far.

 

As you can see, we’ve had a very impressive start to the season, picking up 10 wins, 2 draws and being yet to taste defeat. On the way we’ve scored 27 goals and allowed only 7, with only Tenerife conceding less.

 

HOWEVER, I feel I need to state we’ve had a very favourable opening three months with most of our opponents occupying the bottom half of the table and having an average combined current standing of 16^th! I expect things to be much tougher in the run up to the end of 2021, especially as we face Eibar, Tenerife and Real Valladolid consecutively next month.

 

League favourites, Almeria, are languishing in 12^th whilst only Huesca of the relegated teams are within the playoff positions – it’s still early days though and the La Liga 2 season is a very long one.

 

Is our early success down to our new pre-season regime? Could be. Remember we went into the season with every squad member showing as fully match fit and the tactical familiarity very high, and since the start of the season we’ve had only four minor injuries to players in the first team squad, for an average of 4 days each, so we’ve had very little disruption to the starting line-up.

 

 

In terms of player stats we have both strikers, Bustos (9) and Stuani (6), leading the team in scoring, whilst Aleix Garcia (5) sits in between wingbacks Junca (6) and Calavera (4) for assists. As both Junca and Garcia are on corners I'm more impressed by Calavera's number.

Junca is also leading the team in terms of average rating, with a massive 7.73, with veteran centreback Bernardo in second place with 7.30.

The tactics

The Machin-inspired gameplan is working exactly how I hoped it would. We can recap the aims of the tactic and then look at each element, which I promise won’t turn into death by data hub!

• Wingbacks marauding up and down the flanks, whipping in crosses and passes for the attacking players.
• A compact middle, forcing opponents wide, where our aerially dominant centrebacks can deal with any crosses.
• Hitting teams with lightning-fast counter attacks when the opportunity arises.

Wingbacks – David Junca is clearly a standout player and it’ll be no surprise to hear he’s been named in the team of the week on numerous occasions. His numbers are helped by being on corners from the right-hand side and having three centrebacks to aim at, but he’s been fantastic in his general role as a wingback. Calavera and Martinez share duties at right wingback and are both performing well, although neither are as dynamic as Junca. Their passing stats are all around 88% which is fine given that we don’t play a short passing game and they’re expected to take risks.

 

 

Compact middle & Centrebacks – Our possession gained chart looks great to me, and the commentary backs it up. Over two-thirds our possession is won between our 18-yard line and half way, which tells me our aims of a compact centre which is difficult to play through is working well and not many teams are making it into our box, and when they do breach our final third, our three CB’s (Juanpe, Bernardo and Buena) are negating a majority of the aerial threats.

 

 

Counter attacking – I can’t yet provide any real evidence, as we’ve not really been under the cosh enough to warrant needing to rely on a counter attack.

In terms of our general play, here's a few images which show our compact midfield, how narrowly we defend when the opposition has the ball centrally, and then how much we expand the field of play when we have the ball.

  

A pressing matter

The idea of measuring how effective our players are at pressing the opponent was something I first explored back in FM20 with my Almeria save, which I posted on the SI Forums. The only issue was that we weren't a pressing team as we were in La Liga at the time and didn't have players the right kind of players at our disposal.

What attributes are the best for effective pressing? To counter-press well as a team it seems the general consensus is players need good ratings in the following attributes:

Aggression, anticipation, decisions, determination, teamwork, work rate, acceleration and stamina.

With the new pressing system being based more on pressing-triggers, I'd suggest that the mental attributes of anticipation and decision are even more important in FM22.

We aren't an aggressive pressing team; we have standard lines and our pressing slider is set to "more often" than "much more often" because, as you've read, we're more about being more compact...however, we still do try to press with six players when the opportunity arises: both strikers, both central midfielders and both wingbacks.

Let's see how the Girona players, who've played meaningful minutes in these roles, match up to the above pressing attributes:

 

As you can see, we aren't perfect for pressing but the players have enough about them to be able to do the job being asked of them in our system.

How do we measure pressing effectiveness? The simple answer is "not easily". However, you'll probably know that team pressing is measured in "passes per defensive actions" which counts the average amount of passes a team allows the opposition to make before they are pressed with a "defensive action".

What are defensive actions? I class the following as defensive actions:
- interceptions
- tackles attempted
- fouls

I know a couple of these may raise eyebrows but I'll explain my thought process: An attempted tackle would still be enough to disrupt an opponents build up play and potentially force them into an errant pass or mistake. A foul definitely counts as a defensive action in my eyes, as it clearly stop opponents from progressing the ball downfield, allowing our team to regroup and set up in our defensive shape.

As we don't get the amount of tackles attempted in FM22, we have to do some reverse engineering using the tackles and tackles won ratio. Once we have all the above we can add them all together and work out a per 90 stats using the minutes played.

We then get the following:

 

 

I can see immediately that our two main strikers, Bustos and Stuani, aren't pressing as much as I'd expect. This could be down to the low work rate of Bustos and the lack of pace from Stuani.

Of our central midfielders, Kebe is clearly a beast - he's mainly bought in against possession hungry teams as a BWM which would certainly help achieve his 7.4 defensive actions per game. Saiz also has good stats (as the CM-A, he's asked to press more) whereas Baena, who rotates in the same role, has much less with only 2.4.

The wingbacks will obviously benefit from the pressing work of their more advances colleagues, and I believe their excellent interception stats show this. This also backs up what I was saying about Junca, earlier on, as not only is he very good going forward but he's also got the most defensive actions if we remove Jairo who hasn't played too much, so could be an outlier.

A good sign that a team pressing is effective is poor passes by the opposition which are then easily mopped up by your defenders. We already know our wingbacks have a good amount of interceptions, and and looking at our three centrebacks the theme is the same: Bernardo has 43, Juanpe 33 and Bueno 29, so I'm happy that our counter-pressing is having a good effect.

I'd be delighted to hear other people's opinions on this, and I'll be interested to see how these figures change when I do the same again in January.

Team admin

Now the good stuff is out of the way there’s some team admin to cover off. After terminating the loan of Pablo Moreno from Man City it put us back under the wage budget and meant we were able to offer some new contracts to players who had less than 12 months left. As some key players were included in this group it was vital that we got business done at the first opportunity.

Here’s how it panned out:

 

As you can see, I’ve managed to secure the services of four starters and one youngster who is getting plenty of playing time for just an extra £2,700 a week.

During the negotiations I also managed to make their appearance fees as small as possible whilst upping their incentive clauses by the same amount, so if they want to earn extra then we need to be seeing goals, assists and clean sheets!

Some of these players have moved around the designated group within the wage structure but I'm not concerned at the moment as it's still early and we're under the cap. I'll look at performances in January and make any changes deemed necessary.

Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this you can get me on Twitter as @fm_throwing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sublime write up love the depth off sharing how your tactic are playing out. 
 

great start to the season, and all with your desired style 

[_Ben_]

6 hours ago, Matt_1979 said:

As we don't get the amount of tackles attempted in FM22, we have to do some reverse engineering using the tackles and tackles won ratio. Once we have all the above we can add them all together and work out a per 90 stats using the minutes played.

We then get the following:

 

 

 

Amazing update and a really strong start.

Glad I’m not the only one digging into PPDA - although I looked at it from a team perspective earlier in my season as I wanted to press more and see if we could evade the press better. 

[Hootieleece]

Great Job with the write up. Why such short contracts for Key Players? Why about a much longer contract (5-Years) for Kebe? If for nothing else than inflate his value.

[CynicalApex]

Love the detail you've put into this. Really well written and allows us to understand what you're looking for with this squad, 

[Matt_1979]

41 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

Great Job with the write up. Why such short contracts for Key Players? Why about a much longer contract (5-Years) for Kebe? If for nothing else than inflate his value.

Great question. Well, some of them are getting on a bit… and others I don’t know how they’ll do when/if we get promoted to La Liga. If Kebe keeps on developing like I hope I’ll tie him down long term asap.  

[Matt_1979]

41 minutes ago, CynicalApex said:

Love the detail you've put into this. Really well written and allows us to understand what you're looking for with this squad, 

Awesome. Glad you like it. 

[Matt_1979]

2 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

Amazing update and a really strong start.

Glad I’m not the only one digging into PPDA - although I looked at it from a team perspective earlier in my season as I wanted to press more and see if we could evade the press better. 

Thanks Ben. I’ll check your post out and have a read of that section. PPDA would be a great addition… 

[Tommo_]

Amazing work so far, enjoyable style of updates. Topic followed!

[Matt_1979]

8 hours ago, Tommo_ said:

Amazing work so far, enjoyable style of updates. Topic followed!

Cheers Tommo!

[Continum]

Excellent stuff! I like how you set up the recruitement policy and the wage structure. And I love the graphics. Adds a nice little touch. Following this one for sure.

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Tremendous post mate. As I've said in @MattyLewis11's thread, one thing I probably ought to do more is analyse the data more thoroughly. I love the insight you bring to the forefront of your posts.

[13th Man]

Really nice analysis.

That’s a crazy difference between your defensive and attacking width. Those flanks look wide open - you had anyone attack those areas, or are they to busy worrying about your side going forward? And/or are you able to shift and cover with your midfield?

[Matt_1979]

12 hours ago, 13th Man said:

Really nice analysis.

That’s a crazy difference between your defensive and attacking width. Those flanks look wide open - you had anyone attack those areas, or are they to busy worrying about your side going forward? And/or are you able to shift and cover with your midfield?

That’s the idea… teams are less dangerous if they’re out wide so we stay narrow and force them wide. We have 3 centre backs who are good in the air and at marking so should do well in dealing with any crosses, and we have a GK who is ok at claiming crosses…. 
 

If opposition score against us that way then fair play to them. Seems to be working well so far. We’ve certainly conceded goals that way but from memory I can count them on one hand. 

[13th Man]

20 minutes ago, Matt_1979 said:

We’ve certainly conceded goals that way but from memory I can count them on one hand. 

Good times, glad to hear it. In my previous narrow 3atb system it was the Achilles heel - but only against top sides. In Serie B and C it wasnt an issue, but against the best Serie A teams and the CL, sides with excellent crossing and off the ball movement caused a lot of trouble. Pusilic scored twice in one game with headers from pinpoint crosses. 
 

[crossmankj]

Excellent read. Love stats based saves. Will be following intently

[Matt_1979]

15 minutes ago, 13th Man said:

Good times, glad to hear it. In my previous narrow 3atb system it was the Achilles heel - but only against top sides. In Serie B and C it wasnt an issue, but against the best Serie A teams and the CL, sides with excellent crossing and off the ball movement caused a lot of trouble. Pusilic scored twice in one game with headers from pinpoint crosses. 
 

Oh yes. I’m expecting La Liga to be a whole different situation. Not looking forward to it 😂

[MadCatPT]

Really nice analysis.

 

Did the size dimensions were also considered? And why?

[Matt_1979]

15 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

Really nice analysis.

 

Did the size dimensions were also considered? And why?

The pitch size?

[MadCatPT]

1 minute ago, Matt_1979 said:

The pitch size?

Yes.

[Matt_1979]

15 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

Yes.

I left it at the default. I might make changes in La Liga. 

[Matt_1979]

GIRONA FC - FM22 Analysis, tactics & soccernomics
Season so far & Pressing

In the last update we covered our impressive start to the season, where after 12 games we sat top of La Liga 2 with 10 wins and 2 draws.

That good start was potentially down to a favourable run of fixtures. November, however, would be different: we’d get to test our mettle against recently relegated Eibar and Real Valladolid as well as face the league’s best defence: 3rd placed Tenerife.

But before that, we have a signing!

A new Gironista!

The problem with disabling the first transfer window is that when there’s a nice free agent you need, you can’t sign him!

When carrying out my squad review I mentioned we play with 3 central defenders and only have 3 realistic options. Of the two backups, Williams is nowhere near ready and the other, Martinez, I see more as our left wingback of the future. Naturally then, when I saw Joris Gnagnon was without a club I kept everything crossed that he’d still be available when the summer transfer window closed.

Luckily he was, so I immediately tried to tempt him to Catalonia, but obviously, he wasn’t interested. Why would he be? Anyone who knows him is aware he’s clearly a La Liga standard player. Persistence is key. Every week I tried and every week he said no. Every week the list of clubs way bigger than us interested in him grew and my hopes of signing him shrunk. Finally, near the end of October he agreed to enter into contract negotiations. A few days later, the ex-Sevilla man was in front of the press in the red and white stripes of Girona FC.

Welcome to Girona

Naturally, things didn’t go that smoothly – we had no registration slots free and had to wait until the end of December, when a free slot came available, before he could play his first game.

Back to the season…
How did we get on in November, our first real test of the season, where we’d face 2nd and 3rd favourites to win the division, Eibar and Real Valladolid, and current 3rd placed Tenerife?

Following a much tougher than expected game against Xabi Alonso’s Real Sociedad B, we failed to pick up any wins in what was a very frustrating 3 games.

Eibar played very defensively and we just couldn’t break them down, fair play to them.

It’s never a good idea to concede an early goal against the best defensive team in the division, and that’s what happened against Tenerife – luckily, we managed to pull one back just before half time but despite easily winning the xG battle, we were unable to get the win.
 

What annoyed me the most is that we let a team come to Estadi Montilivi and dominate possession to an extent that they completed more passes than we even attempted!

The trip to Valladolid started badly, with deep lying playmaker Aleix Garcia getting stretchered off after just 2 minutes. We hammered them all game and their ‘keeper made some amazing saves, but we had to settle for another draw.

December, January, Injuries.

After getting back to winning ways we finally tasted defeat against 3rd placed Real Sporting. It is what it is. Despite injuries forcing us into a change of formation, we were dominating until Samu Saiz was sent off after 56 minutes and shortly after, Stuani pulled a calf muscle and had to be replaced. We held on until the 92nd minute but ended up losing 1-0.

The Huesca result was annoying though. We were dreadful. Again, we went into the game with a different formation and we looked sloppy and lethargic. They took the lead when our goalkeeper, Juan Carlos, kicked a clearance against their attacker, who said “mucho gracias” and tapped into an open goal, and their second goal went in off the post. We pulled one back in injury time but it was just a mere consolation.

My post-game “rocket up the backside” clearly worked as we hammered divisional rivals Las Palmas in the 2nd round of the Cope del Rey and 8th placed Burgos.

We’re now exactly halfway through the season. Injured players are coming back and we have boosted our defence with Gnagnon. I’ve tried to free up some wage budget by sending out some players on loan, in an attempt to try and add depth with a free transfer signing in January, but it’s not looking hopeful.

 

Reviewing the role values

If you haven’t read my post on Role Values, I would recommend having a quick look, otherwise this next part might be confusing.

In this instalment I’m going to look at the roles I assigned as the most important ones to make our tactic and game plan work as effectively as possible; the Key Roles, and decide if they are indeed the roles we should be spending the most money on.

Are the positions of Ball Playing Defender, Deep Lying Playmaker, Attacking Midfielder and Advanced Forward still Key Roles?

Ball Playing Defender – I’m going to start with a cop out… I don’t feel I can properly evaluate the Ball Playing Defender position yet because we’re not able to play in the way I intended when both setting up this tactic and evaluating the roles. Instead of being “under the cosh” for a lot of games (like we would be in La Liga), and able to use a BPD to launch defence splitting passes against more aggressive teams, we’ve found ourselves as the aggressor with teams happy to sit back and defend deep against us. Therefore, I’m leave this one as “to be confirmed”.

Deep Lying Playmaker – Although I intended this role to be similar to that of the BPD, we still have a lot we can judge this role on. Instead of being the key to an aggressive counter attacking game plan, he’s having to carefully probe against deep defences, using precision passes, rather than more direct long balls.

So far, we’ve been using the talented Aleix Garcia as a DLP on defend. In the league so far, he’s played 15 games and notched up 1 goal and 7 assists. Of these 7 assists, 5 have come from open play. He has an 88% pass completion rate, which I’m happy with as we aren’t set up to be a possession-based team and his instruction is to try riskier passes.

It’s easy to see the impact that Garcia is having on the team; he’s amongst the best in the division in terms of key passes and assists, as well as completing 88% of his tackles.

Let’s look at him compared to players sound him on the above charts and who play in a similar role for their respective teams and also their attributes average for the DLP on defend role:

Conclusion: He’s performing well in the role but it’s too early to say just yet. I need to get more players to compare him against who play in a similar 3-man set up… (but man, my scouts are slooooooow!)

Attacking Midfielder – Playing in the centre of midfield, this player needs to defend with the team and then burst forward – either with or without the ball – when the opportunity arises and support the attack and with a key role, should certainly be chipping in with goals and assists.

We’ve been using 30-year-old Samu Saiz here, who has all the right players traits to carry out this role to a high level (gets into opposition area, moves into channels, gets forward whenever possible).

So far this season he’s played 15 league games and has notched up 1 goal and 6 assists. However, his xG is 3.56 so he’s either been unlucky or isn’t finishing as well as he should be. It’ll be interesting to see if he catches up with his xG over the rest of the season (and could determine his future in the team!). Of his 6 assists, only 2 have come from open play (although they were both lovely passes).

When looking at the data hub though you can see Saiz is in a league of his own when it comes to creating chances for his teammates – so it’s a surprise that he only has 2 open play assists. If we look at the “Shots on Target ratio” for our two strikers, Bustos has 52% and Stuani is at 48%, so whilst neither are great, I’d still expect Saiz to have more assists. The scoring chart shows how much he’s under performing in terms of his goal contributions, with teammate Alex Baena, who often shares the CM(A) role, showing him how it’s done. Baena is on loan from Villareal and has 3 goals and 1 assist in the league against an xG of 2.08.

Conclusion – Comparing Saiz and Baena to other people doing well on the data hub charts, we can see his goal scoring frailties, but also that he’s top on 3 of the 5 metrics selected. There’s also only one player scoring higher for the role average. Therefore we’re currently sticking with the theory that for this role we definitely need a top players and it’s worth allocating more money to. Whether that play is Saiz or not though… he’s got 21 games to convince me.

Advanced Striker – Here it’s clear what we want and I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say we need a very good player in this slot. As the most advanced of the two strikers their job is to score goals. If they can assist too that’s great – this should be pretty simple…

We’ve been using Nathuel Bustos in this role. On loan from Man City, he’s on a massive £25k per week wages but I’ve got no depth to let him go. He’s valued around £16m so I’ve got no chance of affording him, so we’ll likely be scouting for his replacement in this exercise.

Comparing goal scorers is always fun and interesting:

We can see both Bustos, and his Target Man partner Stuani, are doing pretty well in terms of Goals per 90 and Expected Goals per 90.

However, when comparing them with other players from that chart and the more prolific strikers from the division so far we can see it’s not quite as clear cut:

 

From this table we can see that everyone is out performing their xG… apart from Bustos (we’ll wait to see how this continues for a while longer). You’ll also notice he’s quite a way behind when it comes to goals per 90. Again, we’ll keep an eye on all these players.

I know, I know… strikers are never this cut and dry as there’s lots of variables. “I WANT MORE CONTEXT” I hear you screaming – or at least that’s what Matty Lewis said when I shared this with him.

“What’s their shots per goal ratio”?
“Are they lone strikers”?

Ok, let’s take those factors into consideration. And we’ll take away penalties whilst we’re at it:

Now we get an even more intriguing picture.

Only one player from the list has has more shots and his shots to goal ratio is 8.7 – which is quite a lot in comparison. BUT he’s the only one from the list who isn’t a lone striker, which obviously effects things as he’s got someone else taking away goal scoring opportunities from him.

So let’s take a look at how Bustos and Stuani stack up alongside eachother:

So now we can work out that Bustos could potentially have had 151 non-penalty shots which, at his current shots per goal ratio, would give him 17 goals. Although, Stuani is a Target Man and we aim crossed at him so let’s say half of his shots are headers, that would be 87 shots for Bustos, add 32 of Stuani’s, at 8.7 shots per goal would give the Manchester City loanee 14 goals this season.

Anyway, back to the point of this exercise, he’s got the lowest average attribute score for the role of Advanced Forward, and he’s under performing against his peers in the division.

Conclusion – for a more efficient goal scorer we definitely need someone on a much higher average role attribute score, which will cost us money. Bustos definitely isn’t worth his £25k per week so far. Jon Bautista, on loan to Leganes from Real Sociedad looks like a good option, and Franco Soldano, on loan at Fuenlabrada from Olympiacos will be worth keeping an eye on as he’s currently smashing his xG.

I’ll obviously review this again, along with other players in future blogs but I’m keen to see what everyone else thinks about this. I’m also pondering changing the CM-A role to a Mezzala on Attack duty to see how this effects the role and output.

We’ll also have the January transfer window to deal with.

In the meantime…

Edited November 22, 2021 by Matt_1979

[SteinkelssonFM]

Appreciate the shout out and thoroughly enjoyed the chat we had covering your striker dilemma. My opinion is still the same, for me Bustos isn't justifying his £25k per week when comparing his outputs to the others even when we did the jiggery-pokery to attempt to see what his figures would look like if he lead the line on his one's. 

BTW that in-take...

[Matt_1979]

28 minutes ago, MattyLewis11 said:

Appreciate the shout out and thoroughly enjoyed the chat we had covering your striker dilemma. My opinion is still the same, for me Bustos isn't justifying his £25k per week when comparing his outputs to the others even when we did the jiggery-pokery to attempt to see what his figures would look like if he lead the line on his one's. 

BTW that in-take...

Oh yes, so far he’s not justifying his whopping wage. In fairness, neither is Stuani who is also on £20+k a week. 🤦‍♂️

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Great post and a great intake! 

[13th Man]

Nice way of breaking down things by focusing on the “key roles”, that’s a nice way of organizing things. My current set up isn’t about key roles, but I often used them in the past and will in the future so I’ll totally steal this idea if/when I do…

[Matt_1979]

16 minutes ago, DefinitelyTaylor said:

Great post and a great intake! 

Thanks. I’m terrible at developing youth so it won’t go well. 

[john1]

Fantastic depth into your tactic and players