Revival of the Frauds: The Sir Alex "Fraud" Ferguson FMCU Community Challenge

[smp20]

Fingers crossed this isn't a lie!

[smp20]

As expected, the players are wondering who the feck I am.

[Hootieleece]

Well we made it.....to next Season!

Highlights

The good play in the cups gave me confidence that this wasn't an impossible challenge.

I haven't really looked at the Youth Teams but this does augur well for the future!

A big win over your Biggest Rivals in the Penultimate match of the season is always a good thing! @smp20!

Had a bit of a letdown in the Final match against relegated Everton. Ben Godfrey was untouchable, and the Ref hated us!

Also didn't finish in the table above Southhampton! Something to work on next season!

The team doesn't like trips to Northwest England.....Liverpool and Man City are definitely "Evil Empires"

This was the tactic I used!

I will probably change to a 4-2-4 after I get some better players and am not always in Relegation fights!

 

 

 

[Deisler26]

The Emirates FA Cup Semi Final
22 Apr 2023
15:00

Crystal Palace  1-0  Brentford
Eduard 68

Wooooo! FA Cup Final, baybeeeee. We sacrificed some league points to keep the squad fresh for this one and it paid off as Odsonne Edouard netted the winner midway through the second half

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Deisler26

[Deisler26]

[Deisler26]

SURVIVAL! Well, a poor end to the season was good enough to keep us up. We put three of our academy graduates in against Liverpool and reaped the...er...benefits??

Edited February 14, 2023 by Deisler26

[Deisler26]

 

The Emirates FA Cup Final
3 Jun 2023
15:00

Crystal Palace  1-0  Aston Villa
Waldschmidt 67

 

[Kubson]

I'm re-doing this challenge because I realised that I forgot to disable a custom database on my Watford save and now we're here, over at Brentford. I'd say that this will be around the same level of difficulty as Watford.

Not to mention, the history of both of these clubs is very similar, as netiher have ever won any major trophies so there's a cabinet waiting to be filled! Those facilities need a lot of work though, on the flip side the transfer budget is higher than it was at Watford, but I have a feeling that our lower reputation will not be helpful to start with.

The board expects us to play attacking, entertaining, possesion based brand of football while we're a newly promoted side, now that's a recipe for a disaster if I've ever seen one lol I will do a squad overview once the winter transfer window is up.

 

The league standings are as follows, 19th place and 2 points off safety, not the worst position to find ourselves in but out first two fixtures are up against Spurs away and Man Utd at home, not great.

And here is the manager profile, again it closely follows the main points in the manager profile section.

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Kubson

[noikeee]

Starting the 2nd season. Transfer deals:

 

The new faces:

A new club record signing that arrives due to his potential and versatility. If all goes to plan, should hold down a place in the squad for a decade.

 

 

Poborsky was not a success for Utd but Hlozek should have everything to be one. More of a goalscoring winger whereas Poborsky was more of a classic winger, Hlozek can cover both wings and also play upfront.

 

 

Was already here last year on loan, I bought him. To compare to Ronny Johnsen who was more of a defender than a DM is a stretch, but Normann is more of a defensive player than an attacking one, although he can do quite a bit of everything in midfield, we've been using him as DLP. However, he'll have competition...

 

 

Sir Alex Ferguson's skill in identifying quality Brazilian players was not great, but much like Poborsky, Anderson did shine in the Portuguese league. Danilo has everything to surpass Anderson's achievements in the Premier League, as a superb all-round midfielder, albeit he's best suited for the DM DLP role we use.

 

 

Sir Alex only bought Brazilians for the fullback and midfield positions, and that's what we're doing here. Abner is not quite a superstar player but covers in a much needed position as Brendon Williams' loan ran out.

 

Was a no-brainer as he arrived on a free transfer. For now I will retain Tim Krul as starter because Krul had such a great season last year, but my staff already think Sam is better.

 

Start to the season:

 

Okay given the tricky calendar. Liverpool are Liverpool and Chelsea have just bough Mbappé, who scored twice.

 

 

The Champions League group seems fun. Norwich in the Champions League just sounds wrong.  

 

 

Current squad:

 

Winger/midfielder Todd Cantwell and goalkeeper Aston Oxborough return from loans to increase the total of academy players in the squad from 2 to 4.

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by noikeee

[noikeee]

Keeping the Sir Alex theme, I swear this happened entirely by accident as I'm leaving staff signings to the AI:

[noikeee]

 

Uhh, this is not what I expected at all. Safe to say this beginning of the season isn't going to plan, our players' legs are struggling with the sheer amount of fixtures (this is the Qatar WC year, plus the addition of European football) and our defence looks as if it's made out of paper.

 

[smp20]

Welcome aboard @Kubson! Your biggest challenge will be building up Brentford's academy from nothing!

@Deisler26 - congrats on the FA Cup win and survival 

@noikeee - you're building an attractive, attacking Norwich side there, I'm sure the results will soon follow.

[smp20]

Decided to go down the job centre route to find a right hand man, and thankfully we found a decent one.

Formerly Mourinho's No. 2, Sacremento bring tactical expertise alongside discipline and determination. He's also young despite his decent experience and has a style that meshes with my own.

[wynter]

So in the end, I just got off of Dafuge and had no interest in being back to England. Luckily while Forest had opened up, Torino are actually one of my favorite teams irl and I haven't been in Italy for a long time so we ran to it. Same goals as the Alex Ferguson save, I'm just running it in Italy vs England.

 

 

We've made a few transfers out, basically got rid of some deadwood and used the funds to bring in two young Italian prospects to build the team up. Meanwhile Ballo-Toure is actually one of my favorite Left Backs in the game over the last few editions. Gaetano is a quality Attacking Midfielder and Bove will be taking over as our destroyer in midfield over the next year and a bit as we build his experience.

Since taking over we've done well. Pushing into the second half of the season and we're putting together some good results. 

With 16 games left, I''m just aiming to finish in the Top 10, maybe have an outside shot at pushing for 7th/8th but I find it unlikely.

Develop youth, scout some cheap prospects and begin building a competitive team to fully launch at the Serie A next season.

[Kubson]

NOVEMBER 2021-FEBRUARY 2022

We've been on a pretty good run in the league I'd say, 6 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses is an exceptional result for a newly promoted sides, with us almost only losing the games where you'd expect us to get battered, though that defeat against West Ham was annoying, but beating Spurs in the first match more than makes up for it! 

I was hoping that we'd be able to go on a cup run in the FA Cup and perhaps grab that trophy right off the bat in season 1, but all of my hope and optimism was gone when the draw announced that we'd be travelling to take on Manchester United at Old Trafford. To be fair, we did put up a fight but we were never going to win that match.

These results leave us in a healthy 13th spot, 7 points above the drop zone and if the magic 40 points tally is to be believed then we only need 13 points in the remaining 15 matches to stay up, I'm optimistic about out chances but one bad run of form could see us in serious danger again. Also Newcastle in the drop zone 

With the winter transfer window behind us there were bound to be a few changes and I did make 3 new transfers. Brentford made 4 new signings in the summer but out of all of them I really only rate Bouna Sarr, Taider is already gone and Soares, as well as Valdez are merely rotational options. We did loan out a few of our youngsters and sell one of them, as well as giving one of them in exchange to Norwich, but none of them had Premier League potential so I was happy to let them go.

On the ins we signed Joe Worrall from Nottingham Forest, Ben Brereton Diaz from Blackburn and Jacob Sorensen from Norwich, none of the players are above the age of 25, all come in with decent experience, at decent cost and I feel like those are exactly the type of signings that fit Brentford's real-life transfer policy.

Worrall has all the key attributes to compete in the Premier League and indeed the coaches rate him as a decent Premier Division player, for just 5,25 milion we picked up a quality home-grown talent to bolster our defense.

Brereton Diaz was needed as aside from the brilliant Ivan Toney our attack looked weak, with Wissa and Mbeumo not living up to the expectations. He looks decent enough and will be able to provide competition in all attacking areas, I plan to start him as an Inverted Winger on the left, hopefully he provides the spark that Wissa has lacked.

Sorensen was the last of my signings, coming in on the transfer deadline day. I needed a good squad player and he will be exactly that, with decent passing and defensive stats and the versatility he provides (being able to play as a CM, DM, CB, RB and LB) I feel like this is a good pick-up, especially with the transfer fee not being large. Not to mention he's Danish and Brentford love their Danes 

This leaves our squad looking like this and I'm pretty happy with it, Toney, Raya and Ajer have been the main stand-out players so far and with Canos and Eriksen coming back things are looking up. Also, Balcombe is there to resolve the academy issue, Alvaro didn't play anyway, with Raya being the clear number 1 so I recalled Balcombe and made him the number two for this season.

Also talking about Brentford's academy (or lack of) I've actually managed to convince the board to give us academy coaching, I'm not expecting anything in the first few seasons but at least that's a start, hopefully I can convince the chairman to give us more upgrades in the future. Not sure if it will come into play this season though, as we had no intake preview in December.

[Deisler26]

UEFA Europa League Draw

Sexy! Can see a second or third place here.

[Helginho]

Say hello to Bert Fraudmann, the Manchester City legend in his home country of Germany:

 

 

 

[Kubson]

END OF 2021/22 SEASON

Our results to end the season were mixed, as you'd expect. On one hand we had a terrible time between the Everton and the Chelsea game, losing 4 of our 6 games, only beating Norwich, but on the other we later went on and finished the campaign with only one loss in our last 8 matches. The highlights included draws against Man City, Liverpool and Man Utd (at Old Trafford!), a double against Spurs and a 4-0 battering of Aston Villa.

This enabled us to finish in a lofty 10th place! Surprsing, considering we only managed to gather 47 points and if you take a look it was a close affair, only 6 points separated 15th place Leicester and 9th place Aston Villa. Undoubtedly, this was down to our good defense, only the top 7 and Tottenham conceded less goals than us, that is something we must use as a platfrom in the next season.

All in all, a great season and if we can get 10th again next year I'll be happy. I'd also love a cup run, as we exited the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup (Not my fault) in the rounds we started in this season, which is not ideal.

Interestingly, both Brighton and Leeds ended up in European spots, while Tottenham had an abysmal season, but not quite as bad as Newcastle who got relegated on the final day 

Here is the squad overview. David Raya was the key figure, keeping 10 clean sheets in 31 matches and averaging a 7,14 average rating, the amount of times he kept us in the game is insane. I'd love to keep him but Real Madrid (!) is interested so we'll have to find out. Jansson, Ajer and Janelt were solid parts of the team and Ivan Toney was the top scorer. Brereton Diaz didn't start badly, but we will need to sign more capable forwards.

The expectation for the 2022/23 season is to avoid relegation. I feel like this is something we can accomplish, the main question is can we improve upon this season? It will be hard as the transfer budget we've been given is only 10 milion pounds, so we'll need to sell before we can bring in the necessary quality.

Last thing I'd like to touch upon are our facilities, which are abysmal for a Premier League club, but we are slowly working on them, the training facilities will be improved soon and I will ask the board for more upgrades for sure. I didn't even know this before starting, Brentford had no youth recruitment when I arrived so we have to start working from the absolute bottom lol We did get up to Youth Level 4, but I'm not expecting to get any quality youngsters for the first few years.

As evidenced by the first intake, which is abysmal, no two ways about it lol Interestingly our best youngster to come through is from The Faroe Islands, but I'm not expecting much from him sadly, espeically with that personality. Still I will keep him around the squad for the noveltiy of having a Faroese player lol I mean he DOES have 15 finishing...

In other competitons, the FA Cup was won by Liverpool, Chelsea won the Carabao Cup, Manchester City claimed their first Champions League title, Juventus won the Europa League after being knocked out of the CL and Tottenham won the Conference League, securing them Europa League football despite their abysmal campaign.

[noikeee]

Well,

 

 

Any other season this would've been fine for Norwich but the board are expecting more after 3rd in the league last year. I just need to hope for a good one against Villa...

[noikeee]

Oof.

Somehow I survived the board meeting after this result, but this attempt at the challenge might be about to end soon...

Edited February 15, 2023 by noikeee

[noikeee]

Ok, enough FM for today.

 

 

 

I don't have any idea of

a) how do I still have a job

b) why has manager performance on the board tab IMPROVED from D to C-

 

Also I think this is a bug. We were poor in the Champions League, but the playoff is before the group stage.

[smp20]

Welcome aboard @Helginho and @wynter too taking up the challenge taking on the challenge across foreign borders. Good luck!

@Kubson good finish with Brentford - it will certainly take a while to get that academy up to scratch.

[smp20]

End of January Season 1

Transfers In

Campbell --- Reed --- Diangana --- Okoh

As per the transfer restrictions I outlined before, I am limiting myself to one U19, one U23, one 23-28 and 1 academy-grown player per transfer window. We desperately needed some left foot players (1 in the whole first team!) so Campbell (U23) and Diangana (O23) were signed to give us more balance down the left side of our team, on the wing and up top. Reed comes in as our academy-grown player and he'll add depth to defensive midfield as well as covering right back and right wing. Youngster Okoh was the last one in to fill our U19 signing slot after some rigorous scouting for youngsters. He is completely two footed, he's quick and he's solid in all areas so hopefully he develops well into a first choice centre back. 

Transfers Out

Most of the players out the door were ones that came to me wanting to leave. Cabaellero wanted to return to Argentina, Elyounoussi couldn't handle a lack of game time, Long wanted a new challenge and I had a big bust up with Armstrong who was originally made our vice-captain. He'll be joining Lazio for £19m in the summer at the end of his loan spell there.

Results

An average start with two draws against lower table opposition was put into despair by a West Ham defeat. Some morale was gained by beating Charlton in the cup, followed by crushing Spurs with new signing Campbell on fire. He hit the back of the net again against Wolves, but also missed an injury time penalty. Our home loss against Brentford was the most disappointing result so far. 1 win, 3 draws, 2 losses so far in the PL, hardly the kind of form that will keep us up!

League Table

Thanks to Watford also being crap, we're gaining on the places above, we've just got to hope we pick up more points than Watford, Palace and Norwich in the season run in.

[smp20]

Well and truly in the thick of it and we have some tough fixtures ahead. The home game against Burnley is crucial.

Dumped out of the FA Cup by a rampant City meant just the league to focus on. I didn't expect anything from Utd away, but the loss at home to Norwich was woeful. An incredible 6-1 thumping against south-coast rivals Brighton gave us a glimmer of hope, as did the win against Palace which has kept me in a job. Luckily the board were more lenient than the media anticipated after a late loss to Liverpool.

Enough of the bad news, onto some good. We've got a generational talent! It'll mean nothing though if we get relegated.... 

[smp20]

Missed opportunity to gain three points

12 games, 1 goal, 1 assist, 6.55 average rating. Grady has not been the best signing....

[smp20]

It all rests on the final game of the season. We need one of Palace or Wolves to lose, or Burnley to earn no more than a point and, of course, we need to WIN!

[smp20]

It all rests on the final game of the season. We need one of Palace or Wolves to lose, or Burnley to earn no more than a point and, of course, we need to WIN!

[smp20]

We've bloody done it!

[smp20]

End of 2021-22 Season

Results

We had some real stinker runs of form but just about managed to pick up enough wins to stop the board from getting rid of me, while the ending of the season with a draw against Arsenal and beating Leicester and Villa meant that we rose out of the relegation spots and kept our place as a Premier League Team for 2022-23!

Premier League Table

Not too many surprises this season apart from perhaps Leeds getting into Europe. In fact the 3 teams that went down in real life, went down in this save. Liverpool pipped City to the title in a two-horse race.

Squad

In all honesty, it's not a great squad and we will need to use our transfer slots wisely this summer and in January too. Campbell, however, has been a revelation since signing and his goals are what have kept us up! JWP is far-and-away our best player and he's our academy-grown captain, hopefully we can keep him for the whole of his career.

While a lot of players were indifferent or sceptical of my management, some had an active hatred against me and I had to try to nip that in the bud. Stuart Armstrong was shipped off on loan to Lazio with a mandatory fee of just under £20m, while Romeu and Bednarek were launched into the reserves after their vendetta's against me and were offered out to any potential suiters.

Summer targets - DL, DC and ST

Club Development

We were able to make a few upgrades as well as bringing in some 10% profit buyouts from previous stars.

[smp20]

Our first signing is bringing Matty Targett back to his hometown club. Left Back position sorted!

[Kubson]

2022 World Cup Break

Mixed result as a whole. We've had a fantastic start gaining 7 points from the first 3 matches, including a 5-1 win over Brighton, to then go winless in our 9 matches, though we did have tough fixtures along the way (Man City, Tottenham, Liverpool). Thankfully 3 victories in our last 4 encounters saw us go into the break in good spirits.

We're also having a nice cup run, into the quaterfinals of The Carabao Cup and our next opponent is Championship side Sheffield United at home.

We find ourselves safely in 11th after the first 15 games, 7 points above the drop zone and only 4 points off 7th, with great form coming into the World Cup break. Could we actually make a push for Europe?

In other news Brighton build onto their good finish last year (7th) and find themselves in 5th, 2 points off Champions League spots, Wolves are also impressing.

Man Utd having a terrible season so far, stuck all the way down in 12th. Leicester seem to be stuck in a relegation battle, though 3 wins in their last 5 matches suggests recovery is on the way.

Transfers

We've made 6 signings in the summer transfer window. Thankfully it was easier to operate in the market with the board giving me 32 milion in the end. Rennes actually finished bottom of Ligue 1 and we were able to fully take advantage of it by signing Terrier and Aguerd for just above 10 milion, I have especially high hopes for Terrier and Aguerd will be a useful option at CB.

Cucho Hernandez was signed from relegated Watford for a bargain price of 17 milion up-front, he was one of Watford's better performers last season. Jayden Bogle is our long term option at right-back, the fact that Sheffield United failed to get promoted certainly helped.

We brought back SPFL's star Ryan Kent to the Premier League, paying a bargain 13 milion pounds total to Rangers. Harry Winks was transfer listed by Tottenham on the last day of the transfer window and we took full advantage of that, signing a key player for our midfield for a cut price.

Squad:

The key event of the summer was us managing to tie down Christian Eriksen to a new deal and he has performed well thus far as a creative midfielder. Ryan Kent and Jaden Bogle have proved great additions to the squad. Bryan Mbuemo and Ivan Toney continue their good form from last season. Terrier failed to impress thus far but he did have a couple of injuries so I can excuse that.

[Hootieleece]

Bournemouth Offseason and Preseason

It was a successful season for Bournemouth!

The Liverpool team outdid their IRL counterparts by a wide margin.

That success led to Guardiola deciding to leave Manchester City.

and was replaced by Simeone.....who will look to grind out results!

We had a great preseason and played some decent teams. Still using the 4-4-2 gegen press.

2023-2024 Season Preview

All the usual suspects for these two lists.

The Bookies and Media are still expecting Bournemouth to be relegated, but I think we can replicate last season's midtable performance. I am targeting Year Three for European Football.

 

 

 

 

[Helginho]

So season 1 is in the books and our friend Bert Fraudmann has survived his first six months in management after pulling off some kind of a Great Escape with Bochum who very close to sack Bertie after just 9 games in charge. A dramatic charge towards the end of the season saved Bochum from relegation and Bertie from the sack. Onwards and upwards now in the upcoming transfer window, though there will be only little to spend.

We are safe going into the final game of the season at home against Leverkusen, our three relegation-battling teams have some tasks ahead of them (Dortmund - Mainz, Cologne - Bayern and Gladbach - Augsburg).

Next update will be the transfer window.

 

 

EDIT: We lose our final game against Leverkusen (0-2) and finish in 15th. Both Mainz and Cologne lose their games and are relegated, Augsburg survive in the relegation playoff against Bielefeld by winning both games 3-0 each. Gladbach have won the DFB-Pokal.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Helginho

[Kubson]

Well, I certainly didn't expect that to happen!

After beating Sheffield United in the quaterfinals of the Carabao Cup we were drawn against Chelsea in the semifinal where I thought our journey would end, but as it turns out the semi-finals this season were a singular match at a neutral venue, rather than an aggregate like in most seasons and we took full advantage of that by beating Chelsea for the first time in this save to reach our first ever final.

Aston Villa awaits at Wembley and we're one match away from winning Brenford's first ever major piece of silverware and with Europe on the line stakes couldn't be higher. I'm hopeful that we can pull through as we had beaten them before. 

[Deisler26]

2024 Youth Preview

This is looking good. Another young keeper and some gap-pluggers

[Deisler26]

2023/24 UEFA Europa League - Group Stage

[Deisler26]

Carabao Cup Quarter Final
20 Dec 2023
15:00

Tottenham Hotspur 1-3  Crystal Palace
Skipp 5...................................................................Hughes 14
................................................................................Edouard 69, 77

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Deisler26

[Deisler26]

Premier League
23 Dec 2023
15:00

Manchester City 5-0  Crystal Palace
Haaland 19, 23, 54
Marco Asencio 49, 84

This was coming. We put the first team on the bench, as I used them for the cup game, so the backups got monstered.

[Hootieleece]

Bournemouth August 2023

Transfers

Fernando Pacheco-GK

Taiwo Awoniyi-TF-S (provisional replacement for Solanke)

Ryan Yates-BWM-D (replacement for Jefferson Lerma)

Tom Holmes-DRC- (backup Right Back. cover for CB )

Sean Longstaff- (CM-BWM-D/MR-W-S) (exchanged for Neto and $28.5M)

Ben Cabango CB (Cover for CB)

A relatively talented squad of journeymen players. GK-Mark Travers is the Academy Grad in the Gameday Squad. He will become #1 keeper next season most likely.

Schedule

Crushing Southhampton on Opening Day was a highlight!

League Table

Great Month and I come in 3rd place......

[Deisler26]

2023/24 Half-Season Review

It's not been the best season for us, but we've been running the second XI in the Prem this season, so that we can advance in the cups. 

Data Hub

Our Passing and Passing Dynamics is so sexy.Our Scoring? Noooot so much....

Finally, some good news in the awards section

[Kubson]

CARABAO CUP FINAL 2023

Against all odds Brentford find themselves in a final up against Aston Villa. Both teams pulled off an upset in the semi-finals, Brentford defeated Chelsea, while Aston Villa run out winners against Arsenal.

Brentford have the opportunity to win their first Carabao Cup title, as well as their first major domestic trohpy, while Aston Villa have a shot at finally winning the competiton for the first time since 1996. With a Conference League spot on the line as well, both sides will be determined to win the competiton.

THE MATCH

Despite most of the predictions expecting this match to be a closely fought contest, Brentford were on another level in-front of the goal, as they took all of their chances, esentially winning the final in the first half alone. Aston Villa were able to grab one back through Buendia but it wasn't nearly enough as the London side take their first Carabao Cup title! 

We were truly the surprise package of the tournament, I would have predicted us to reach the semi-finals at best, but I didn't think we were capable of going all the way this early! A first trophy in just the second season is fantastic, even if it isn't one of the required ones.

Of course the main prize of winning the Carabao Cup is a European spot, no matter what happens we will enter the Conference League, but so far we still have a chance of snatching a Europa League spot. Still it is nice to be assured of European competitions coming to us in the 2023/24 season and the Conference League is a competition we could realistically win.

As I said previously, the Carabao Cup is significant to us. Brentford have finally won a trophy and hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

Don't ask me how the game thinks the Championship is more important though 

[smp20]

@Kubson congrats on the League Cup win!

@Deisler26 you seem to have become a draw specialist in the PL 

@Hootieleece nice start to the season there!

[Helginho]

Season 2 Part 1 - Bert Fraudmann - VfL Bochum (Bundesliga)

Oh boy, what have I got myself into?  After avoiding relegation, I was given 5 million quid in order to strengthen the squad, I probably wasn't too successful with it. We signed a new starting goalkeeper with Dietsch as our old boy Manuel Riemann joined Bayern Munich for 1,500,000 - adding the squad with Jensen from Augsburg and our new record signing Bendegúz Bolla from Wolves. Pieringer's been a waste of time so far and Bamba Dieng, our new main striker has barely found the net, a few reasons why we're in familiar territory on Christmas.

 

 

I'm honest, we'll be up against it this season, having been unable to win our home games against the likes of Hannover, Schalke, Frankfurt and Bremen - giving away a late late penalty at Darmstadt didn't help us either.

 

 

 

The good thing is we're still in the DFB-Pokal, having won against lower league opposition Alzenau and 2. Bundesliga side Holstein Kiel at home after extra time thanks to a Takuma Asano goal seconds away from penalties. It will be another home game against another 2. Bundesliga opposition, who knows what can be possible?

 

 

I can't see being successful with this challenge tbf, but I will give it a proper shot with good ol' Bochum. 

[smp20]

August 2022 Update

Transfers In

Targett (HG) --- Zabarnyi (U23) --- Mitrovic (U28) --- Hugill (U19)

Transfers Out

Results

 

[Helginho]

Lady luck is smiling at us after an emphatic 3-0 win against Cologne in the cup, we're through to the quarter finals with a winnable draw away to Hannover we beat recently 2-1!

[Hootieleece]

Bournemouth September 2023

Bournemouth came into the month of September in the rarified air of near the top of the table.

Made it to the top (by alphabetical order) 

Schedule

League Table

Player of the Month

Analyst Report

We are scoring well above expectation and our defense as well. Our Goalie and Player of the Month Fernando Pacheco is most of the reason for the difference between XG Against and Goals against!

and because of this success Alex "Frauddy" Ferguson was given a Two-Year Extenstion thru 2026!

 

 

[smp20]

2022-23 Season Review

Transfers In

Oxlade-Chamberlain --- Stiller --- Sesko

I posted up our summer transfers earlier but didn't go through them. Targett was the first one in to become our first choice left back. Zabarnyi is good enough to be a starter and has potential to be a world star. Mitrovic in to give us a different type of striker while Hugill is a youngster of a similar mould. In January we picked up academy-grown AOC to be our new first choice right winger as well as versatility to cover ML, ST and DM too. Next in was young player Stiller, a creative left-footed DM to give us another type of option alongside JWP. Sesko was a deadline day signing after our goalkeeper signing fell through - a wonderkid that everyone knows well from the FM series! We didn't bring in an U18 signing in January as I forgot to set the scouting focus and by the end of Jan it was either take a punt on a lack of info, or go without. This time I chose the latter.

Transfers Out

The dissenters were gone, as were several players that were never going to feature regularly. Stephens would have been kept around as cover but he refused to acknowledge his poor performance in training and was shown the door!

PL Results Pre-WC

We started the season 13 games unbeaten and it wasn't until we faced City and Liverpool away that we tasted defeat. An excellent start to the season!

PL Results Post-WC

A couple of bad results here and there but we've performed well above what was expected .

Cup Results

The cups were a huge disappointment. Leeds scored two injury time goals to take the EFL Cup fixture to extra time and put us out on pens, while we were drawn away to City in the FA Cup and couldn't provide a cupset.

Premier League Table

3rd place, the clubs best finish since 2nd place in 1984, and a record points tally for the top flight. Meanwhile Spurs, Chelsea and Man Utd were all well below par.

Player Stats

Campbell was yet again a great goalscorer for us, while captain JWP was crucial in all phases of play. Overall our defence was pretty impressive too!

Youth Intake

Jermaine Newman

A good intake, Newman will requite some re-training to striker but he could become very good if he lives up to his potential.

Club Development

A massive Stadium expansion is on the cards!

[Helginho]

 

All out attack! 

[Kubson]

END OF 2022/23 SEASON

Since the restart of the Premier League after the World Cup break up until the Manchester United game we were superb, 9 wins in 16 matches with only 2 defeats along the way were an indicator that we'd be in a charge for European spots. This period was topped off with our first ever Carabao Cup win, but it was disappointing to fail in the FA Cup early once again, especially as Leeds at home should have been a winnable encounter.

Since the Bournemouth match, with the exception of the Tottenham game (in which we were superb) we seemed to have ran out of steam, even the Fulham win was not a good performance from us, though we did have a hard end to the season with Man City and Arsenal. 

The poor end to the season did not cost us however, as we just about sneaked into 6th with 59 points, securing ourselves Europa League football for the next season. I've got to thank Leeds for beating Manchester United on the final day, as they would have overtaken us with a win!

Aside from Brentford in 6th, there were no real surprises at the top of the table, all of the usual suspects secured themselves European Football in one form or another. Crystal Palace and Burnley were both relegated after having surprisingly poor seasons.

This is how we lined up and performed as a whole. Brereton Diaz came up clutch in the Carabao Cup, being the main contributor to the success. Ivan Toney, Rico Henry, Bryan Mbuemo, Christian Eriksen, David Raya and Kristoffer Ajer all continued their good form from last season. Cucho Hernandez, Jayden Bogle and Ryan Kent all proved to be smart signings as well. Dissapointed with Winks, but I'm sure he'll come around next season.

Our finances look very healthy at 70 milion and as a result of this and our success we've been rewarded with a 79 (!) milion pounds transfer budget for the next season. We'll need squad depth for the next season, as well as upgrades to our midfield and defense so all of this cash will come in handy for sure.

The expectations of our play style and signing policy haven't changed much and I'm confident I'll be able to meet these targets. The board expects us to finish Mid-table in the Premiership and reach the second knock-out round of the Europa League, both are realistic aims and I'm sure I'll be able to do better than that with good transfers.

Our facilities are coming up nicely, Great training facilities and Good youth facilites, I suspect we will able to be max these out soon enough. Sadly, the board is very stubborn in regards to out Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment, so our intakes continue to suffer.

Elsewhere, Manchester City defend their Champions League title to become the Champions of Europe for the second time in a row, Manchester United make up for their poor season by winning the Europa League (after they were grouped in the CL) to secure themselves Champions League football. Barcelona (!) had a terrible campaign last season, finishing in 6th and were ultimately forced to settle for the Conference League after Sociedad won Copa Del Rey. They made the most of it, by winning the cup and becoming the first ever side to have all of the European competitions (CL, EL, CWC and now EC2).

In the Championship Norwich and Watford are both able to bounce staight back up, while Newcastle bottled the play-offs against Blackburn, who later went on to win promotion! The Saudi plan is not going accordingly.

[Deisler26]

Carabao Cup Semi Final, Second Leg
17 Jan 2023
15:00

Crystal Palace (3) 2-1  (2) Chelsea
Hughes 55..........................................................Lukaku 32
Edouard 82

Once again, a late Edouard goal gave us the win and put us into another cup final! 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Deisler26