[FMT 21] - Following in the footsteps of Guy Roux

[Muttley84]

Objectives:
v - Turn the club professional - June 2022
v - Promote to Ligue 2 - May 2022
x - Promote to Ligue 1 - WIP
x - Squad of regional and youth players - WIP
x - Qualify for UEFA competition - WIP
x - Win 4 Coupe de France trophies - WIP
x - Win 1 Ligue 1 trophy - WIP
x - Player with > 351 league apps - WIP
x - Player with > 94 league goals - WIP
x - Academy product in France NT - WIP
x - Player sold > 27.3M Euro - WIP

[Muttley84]

So much for our cup run this year. We were not a match for a top flying Monaco squad, we even played in their stadium and they won 3-0 even if they did not use their best available players. Guess now we can focus on our Ligue 2 relegation battle.

[Muttley84]

A lot of fuss for nothing lol. The takeover collapsed in the end, nothing new happened at the club and we managed to transfer in two players on loans in the last week of the transfer window. 

[Muttley84]

We continue our poor run of results in January, not winning any matches this month. As shown before we were eliminated from the cup, and only managed two draws in the league (Dijon and Orleans). We lost the other 4 games, and as a consequence we dropped into 18th, which is the play-out places. We still have a small cushion towards direct relegation, but we need to recover fast if we want to remain in the league. Still 11 more games to play, so plenty of time to turn this around. 

[Muttley84]

One of the explanation of our performances - an injury prone goalkeeper - with all of his injuries coming in training sessions. Well, this is not good on the long term, lucky for him we don't have much more better options available for us.

Another explanation of our position in the league - the worse disciplinary record. To be honest I have no idea where this is coming from, we are not playing any aggressive instructions but I guess it's just the players being indiscipline and not following directions. We have almost twice as many cards as the second team, and around a quarter of these came from protest, time-wasting and other aspects. 

 

[Muttley84]

A long way till the 351 appearances we have set ourselves as objective, but still, 136 league appearances is a nice record, and good to have these types of players who are connected for a long term with the city and club.

[Muttley84]

We extend the unwanted run of not winning a league game to three months. Silver lining we only lost one game in February, away at Clermont. The three draws from the other games (Valenciennes, Toulouse and Guingamp) are enough at the moment to keep our play-out place, but now just 3 points ahead of direct relegation. A huge match coming up against Niort, which is the club on the first safe position above us, and only 2 points separating us. 

[Muttley84]

This is beyond poor. Probably not a single one of these players will end up playing official games for us, but given our reserve squad status I am going to be signing them for that one. We already have almost the best HoYD our reputation can attract. So until our reputation grows or the board decides to invest in the youth facilities this is pretty much what we are expecting to get.

[Muttley84]

Whenever we feel like we cannot beat anyone we can count on our neighbors Niort to change that. Just a joke, but we did beat them 2-1 to jump over them in the table into a safe spot. Five more games to go and I am optimistic, mainly due to our schedule which is easy at this season end, only meeting teams from the second part of the table.

[DaneBramage]

Good time to find a win.

Squeaky bum time now, fingers crossed for a couple more to finish the job.

[Muttley84]

Despite what happened so far we had a superb end of the season. The easy schedule payed off as we won all the games in April, 3 out of the 4 games being with clubs in the relegation battle (Ajaccio, Chateauroux) or already relegated (Chambly). Therefore we managed to secure survival for another season of Ligue 2 football. 

[Muttley84]

This season we overachieved by finishing 15th in the final Ligue 2 table (i put all the youngsters to play in the last game of the season). Toulouse, Sochaux and Guingamp won promotion to Ligue 1 from the league. A downside is that we only had 46% of our stadium full (1.200 spectators on average) so I do wonder besides the league regulation forcing us to, for whom are we building the new 8000+ place stadium due this summer? Our reputation has remained at regional with 1.5 stars, affecting our capacity of attracting higher caliber players even though we had the money. The finances were stable, but stable at a low level (20k from merchandising, 50k from matchday). The highest part of the budget came from the TV revenues (4.5M). 

If we speak about the performance of our players, the best 11 is below in the already classical 4-3-3 tactic. You can quickly notice that no one had an average rating over 7, which is to be expected in a relegation battler. The top goal scorer was Kevin Rocheteau with just 12 (he should be, we are paying him the highest salary at the club) - but somehow he didn't featured in the best eleven below selected by... (actually dunno, who selects the best 11 and how?). It is noticed that he missed a few matches also, getting two red cards and 9 yellow cards - talk about discipline. Most assists came form Victor Elissalt (with 11) who was also the fan's player of the season. Our goalkeeper Gregoir Coudert was signing of the season. Oh well, on to the next season of suffering then.  

[Muttley84]

We were all set to go into preparing the new season - we received news about our budget going into the new season (2.5M for wages and 1M for transfers) and we already had the meeting about the club visions and expectations. Which are pretty decent about our performances - fight bravely against relegation and work within wage budget, but have added requirements about our club culture - defensive solid, direct, counter-attacking. And just when I started checking out players with contracts expiring this summer and sending my scout to give me reports the news came in that we are under transfer embargo due to the possible takeover of the club. Oh well, just hoping for a quick resolution to this.

[Muttley84]

At least it was a fast resolution to our transfer embargo. We have a new owner and he pumped 1.3 in the budget of the club. He also cut down the links with Bordeaux. The downsize is that he submitted bids for two players (which I have checked and are not eligible from our region), just hoping I can cancel the transfers and they will not go ahead without me (at the moment I cannot cancel the offers being made by the chair). 

[Muttley84]

So in the end I managed to cancel the transfer deals when they came for confirmation. Is no that they were bad players, but they did not aligned with our regional policies. Now we can focus on building the rooster and strengthening with better players in order not to shiver for relegation next season. I dont think given our budgets and reputation anything else is reasonable, but I would love a mid-table safe position. 

[Muttley84]

We finally got to move into our new stadium, with over 8000 spectators. Just curious to see how much it can boost our attendances, considering we didn't even filled the old smaller stadium.

[Hootieleece]

The loan is going to hurt the finances for a while.

Definitely need to stay in Ligue2 or get promoted to make it work.

 

[Muttley84]

4 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

The loan is going to hurt the finances for a while.

Definitely need to stay in Ligue2 or get promoted to make it work.

 

Yes, we are not by any chance promotion material, both our reputation and finances are below par. We need to grind more years in Ligue 2, hope for some nice cup runs and increased attendances, cash in those broadcast revenues and slowly build from there. Also each year I will be trying to transfer in (even by paying) young players with the hope we get lucky with one and sell him for big money.

The two worrying things at the moment: the board didnt approved any of my requests for upgrading facilities and the attendances didnt grow that much after promotion to Ligue 2. Probably coming next another season of battling relegation ahead...

[Muttley84]

Not much to pick from the friendlies ahead of the season. We met with lower league clubs, rotated a lot and haven't lost any games. We cannot even speak about integrating the new players, as this summer proved to be much more quiet on the transfer market than the previous one, and all the new transfers were here before the friendlies started. So probably not relevant for how our Ligue 2 campaign will go, but I am not that optimistic about it.

[Muttley84]

Only six new players were Transferred in this summer, most of them on free transfers. Although we had some more money in the wage budget, we cannot simply attract players who will improve our squad. Those who are willing to come to us are no better than what we already have at the club, and those who would be significant upgrades won't even talk to us. It's not that they ask to much money, they are not opening contract talks. We desperately need a reputation boost this season (was still 1.5* regional) in order to improve. So this is the squad we are going into the next season. Anything more than fighting relegation again would be a overachievement. 

[Muttley84]

A large attendance came today to see the inauguration of Bergerac Stadium. It was not sold-out, but still having 7.5k spectators it is a new feature for us. Happy that we were able to reward them with a nice performance winning the game against Paris FC with 4-1. Hoping that this will continue into the season and increased attendances will boost our finances. 

[Muttley84]

Despite the win against Paris FC in the stadium inauguration match, not a lot of positives in the beginning of the season. This includes both the 3 defeats without marking goal and receiving an average of 3, but also that in the second home game of the season we returned to having a little under 2000 spectators. 

[Muttley84]

The same pattern applied in September. We lost two games clearly, at Troyes and with Caen at home, before winning (totally undeserved) at Amiens and drawing at home to Le Mans (in a game we should have been winning). So after 8 gams in the league we are exactly were we predicted, 15th in the table with 7 points, 2 above the relegation play-out spot.

[Muttley84]

Just the usual pattern of a mediocre team at best - one win, one draw, two loses. But at least we are giving the spectators a show as most of the games are high scoring ones this month. 16th in the table with a three points safety margin. Allez les bleus!  

[Carambau]

All it needs now is a small run of wins to improve the morale and then its going to be all right  

[Muttley84]

I call this the greatest victory of the season so far - the first improvement of our facilities. Sure, it is only going to take our youth facilities from Poor to Basic, but at least its a step forward. And most important it did not came from my request, but the board decided on this at their own. Fingers crossed to many more coming.

P.S. Sometimes FM is so stupid haha. What transfer revenues, we dont even manage to sell players for 0 euro haha. And 17.5M for a small Ligue 2 club? Yeah, you can keep dreaming you chairman. And it will change to 0%? What the fudge does that even mean?

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Muttley84

[Muttley84]

Sure, all we need is a good run of results, but November was not the month for that, as we only draw twice and managed to lose 3-0 to Niort. The battle for relegation is getting harder for us.

1 hour ago, Carambau said:

All it needs now is a small run of wins to improve the morale and then its going to be all right  

[Muttley84]

We received the youth intake preview, but does not look good at all. I did not had high expectations about it anyways, but still would be nice to have at least some rotational prospects in the club. 

[Muttley84]

It seems that I've been playing for much more, but it's actually just 100 games in management of Bergerac. To put that into perspective Guy Roux has around 890 just in Ligue 1 and around 2000 in his entire career, but that looks almost impossible to achieve by me.

[Muttley84]

A decent month in December as we enter the cup but barely make it with a rotated squad against lower league opposition. We had a balanced performance, winning 2, drawing 2 and losing 2 to keep us 15th in the table as we pass into the second part of the season with a decent 5 points margin to safety. 

[Muttley84]

Our journey in the Cup was not long, as we exit in the 9th round when faced with a bigger Ligue 1 club - Montpellier. Silver lining is that after that we bounced back with two wins against teams from the upper part of the table - Lens and Troyes. We ended the month with two loses with 3-0, at Caen and with Amiens at home. We are still sitting in 15th, but now have extended the safety margin to 10 points ahead of the relegation play-out spot.

[Muttley84]

Our finances are looking decent. We have an overall balance of over 1M and a financial status of OK. This is despite the low incomes from merchandising and match experience. 

[Carambau]

Nice to see you winning some more! Keep this up  

[Muttley84]

We only won one game in February, against Rodez, but draw another three with Le Mans, Clermont and Valenciennes. Still 15th in the table, still 10 points to the safety margin. But just 8 games left in the league, so I guess it's pretty safe to say that unless the world is collapsing we are surviving in Ligue 2 for another season.

[Muttley84]

We don't need this at the moment. Just sort it out guys...

[Muttley84]

Just as expected a poor youth intake, probably other than Oulouguem no one will ever smell the bench of the first team squad. Oh well, I guess it's to be expected given our facilities and recruitment level, and some years are going to pass (hopefully with me still at the club) till we get some advances in this sector.

[Muttley84]

We are coming closer to the season end with nothing spectacular happening other than us consolidating our place into Ligue 2 for the next season also. We are pretty much guaranteed we escaped relegation for another season. Think we will use the remaining matches for giving more time to some youth prospects and see how helpful they can be for us in the next season.

[Muttley84]

On the one hand I am happy as this is the first facilities upgrade in almost three years. On the other we have such a long road ahead of us, as we at the moment are at Basic training facilities, youth facilities and youth recruitment and fairly basic academy coaching. Silver lining - the only way is up from here.

[Muttley84]

Of course we couldn't bring on the young players and still win games, but we are mathematically saved from relegation so actually does not matter than much. 

[Muttley84]

In the end we finished 14th in the table with 43 points (our best performance so far in Ligue 2). Despite the new stadium we only had a little under 2000 spectators on average, which is roughly a quarter of the full capacity. The top scorer was Martin Ros with 14 (going to try to extend his loan with us) and he also had the most assists with 7. Fan's players of the season was Coudert our GK while signing of the season was the young defender Kevin Boma. Ducros has reached 172 league apps with us (still a long way for the required record) but his quality is declining and he only got 1-2 seasons at best for us. We need to find 5-6 players of better quality than what we already have in order to make the jump to the upper part of the table.

A good news also, while our reputation is still set as Regional, it increased from 1.5* to 2*, so maybe that would help in attracting better players. And the other good news the board have decided on their own to increase the youth development budget - after this we should be on just slightly better level. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Muttley84

[Muttley84]

The dream of Qatari French football finally realized as PSG win their first Champions League. In the 3 seasons since I've been at Bergerac they won Ligue 1 with 15-20 points advance each year, and spend on average 200M on players. That s a big monster for us to overtake, and probably we will never get there.

[Muttley84]

We are beginning the final clear-out of the squad. Starting from this summer we will only have in the first squad players born in the Nouvelle Aquitane region or produced at our club. We already released six players at season end and the rest have been put on the transfer list and moved to the second team. It's a bold move, partly because most likely no one would want to buy them and we gonna pay them salaries for nothing, but hoping to offload some of them at least, and on the other part we have no guarantee we will be able to bring suitable replacements. Either way I feel like we need to make this step to ignite the fire a bit on what seems to be another boring season in Ligue 2.

[Muttley84]

A lot more Transfer activity this season than the previous one. A slight increase in our wage and transfer budget from the board, together with a number of contracts expiring this summer meant we have a little more room to play. And we extensively searched around the transfer market, mostly for free transfers and loans. The transfer window has not ended and most likely we will be looking to bring couple of more players at the club - we desperately need some left defender, maybe a rotation option in the central midfield and we will see what other offer we can find. But not making any rush moves, the players coming from now own need to be clearly better than what we already have. We have saved enough transfer and wage money for bringing quality in, question is if they want to join us. For the first time we have a squad entirely fulfilling the regional limits we set for ourselves. Hopefully this upgrade on our squad allows us to move in the upper part of the table.

[Muttley84]

We only had three friendlies arranged by the assistant manager this summer. We won the two against lower league opposition and to our surprise managed a draw with a Portuguese first league club. In the first match of the new season we surprisingly won away at Sochaux, 2-0. Hopefully this is the sign of a better season. 

[Muttley84]

I don't know why this is happening - we have the wage budget well bellow the limit, we still have some money in the overall balance and the season is just beginning (so not a lot of expenses pilling in), but the board needed to provide some cash for the running costs of the club. Hopefully when the official matches start we will generate enough revenues for healthy finances. Before the transfer window shuts down we brought some new players at the club for our last money in the coffers: Lorenz Maso (DC/DR) on free loan from Le Havre, Lorick Cots (DCL) from Nancy, Lois Diony from Orleans (AMR/ST) and Lenny Pirringuel from Bordeaux (MC). 

[Muttley84]

This is a much better start of the season that we expected, after 5 official leagues games we are undefeated and have 9 points. This month we won with Nancy and draw with Paris FC, Dunkerque and Nimes. I am still puzzled by the low number of spectators coming to our games, which is even small than last season when we averaged around 1900 - this season start we had 1600 in our two home games. This surely supposed to grown as season pass and we improve our league positions and reputation shouldn't it?

[Muttley84]

We continue our good run of results in September, getting six points out of the three games. This includes also a 6-1 win against Laval and 4-0 win against Grenoble. Between those game we lost 0-1 at Caen. After 8 stages from the league we are sitting in an unbelievable 5th place. Damn its nice to be battling in the upper part of the league. Chances are we won't be able to sustain this battle with much larger clubs as Nimes, Lens, Auxerre or Guingamp, but still provides us with a nice motivation to keep playing.

[Muttley84]

Our finances are Insecure at the moment, but as long as our performances on the pitch keep being good I am not to worried about this.

[Muttley84]

Return to a more normal month in October, but we still got 5 points out of the four league games (including a 3-0 win in a regional derby with Pau). The single defeat was a heavy one, 4-1 away at Rodez (but they are high flying in the table). I decided this season to arrange friendlies each time we have a weekend off (due to international breaks or other reasons) just to give the players who do not feature that much in the first 11 some more game time. After 12 games we are 10th in the table, but we are closer to the play-off places (3 points) than the play-out place (11 points). Just wish more people would come to see us playing...

[Muttley84]

This is the first time we are faced with this situation, and I take it as a sign of our squad improvements, we have 3 players away on international duty.