FM17 Youth Academy Challenge - IFK Trelleborg

[mjaferrie]

Pre Season and Cup group stage Round Up!

Well, we're out of the cup for another year but this is definitely progress on our last appearance in the group stage when we scored only 1 goal and conceded 12 as we crashed and burned at the bottom of the table.  This time out we've scored twice, conceded only 4 goals and we even got a point!  We also had a record attendance of 812 in the game against Hammarby IF which smashed our previous record of 343 (which if I remember correctly was also in the group stage of the cup) resulting in a record gate intake of £9000, up from £4000.





There's been plenty of interest in Nyberg (YP3a) as well, with 12 Supettan and Allsvenskan teams looking at him.  He won't sign a new contract and he can leave for free at the end of the season, but given the money from Wihlborg basically got us nowhere and results plummeted without him, I'm going to hang on to Nyberg in the hope that we can clinch promotion and get him to sign at the end of the season.



Preseason was pretty awful this year Started off with a good result against lower league opposition and then into some less than flattering results in exchange for some gate receipts.  The media still have us down as finishing bottom of the table in 14th place despite our 4th, 4th and 7th finishes in the last 3 seasons.  I think it could be a good thing for us though, to have no expectations, and with our significant improvement in the cup I have a good feeling about this season.  Famous last words though, which definitely came back to bite us last year, and given our awful performance in preseason this could just be wishful thinking.  @MadCatPT I decided in the end against going for a balanced training regime for the preseason but I lowered the intensity instead from high to average and that doesn't seem to have worked as we still go into the season with 8 injuries.  Balanced it is next year!



Another departure as well as former top goalscorer Fisnik Shala has his contract terminated.  He went out on loan last season as he wasn't getting any games and he was eating up wage budget I don't have.  Here's how the squad looks going into the season:

[deltablue]

Well done on pulling off such a fantastic run last season. 

[mjaferrie]

35 minutes ago, deltablue said:

Well done on pulling off such a fantastic run last season. 

Hairdryer treatment and some tactical tweaks made a big difference.  We've only got 2 straight up central midfielders in the squad (Nyberg is playing mostly there this season actually) so I thought the 4-4-2 diamond, 4-2-3-1, and 4-3-2-1s I've been using mostly over the last couple of years were probably part of the problem as when you get injuries you end up having no one available to play the 4 or 5 central positions.

So I opted for a 5-2-2-1.  Sounds pretty conventional, 5 across the back, a couple of DMs/CMs, a couple of CMs/ACMs and a striker?

Nay!  LM, RM, RW, LW and a striker  Why play anyone in the middle of the park if naeb'dy can?  Believe it or not, that got us half way through the unbeaten run before Nyberg started showing progress in a CM position and I could move back to some more conventional tactics.  

[noikeee]

Good thread. I'm amazed at Wihlborg and his feats already, I've had some good youth players over the years but none remotely that good with lower level teams. Quite remarkable that you picked up a player like him so early in the career.

I recognise Fisnik Shala's name as I managed him sometime in Sweden in FM12, but don't recall him being particularly great!

[mjaferrie]

Serbia, Montenegro and Albania all join the EU as Britain leaves.  I wonder if this will have any impact on the youth intake, as any 2nd nationality players that come through are all Balkan.  Probably no change, but just an observation.  

[mjaferrie]

Mid Season Review

Jings!  That's mair like it!





After last season's disastrous beginnings, it's safe to say we're on course for a much better finish this time round.  Two away losses and a home draw are the only blemishes on our amazing form this year so far - with Kristofer Bergh (YP1b) a surprising early standout performer.  After featuring making only 1 start and 6 substitute appearances in the last 2 years and spending a season on loan in the 3rd division, Bergh has made 15 appearances and scored 6 goals.  With an average rating of 7.15, he's definitely stepped up to the mark this season.  Unfortunately, he's still an Unambitious personality despite tutoring attempts, so I doubt he is in it for the long haul.



We've been drawn against 2nd division team Högaborgs BK in the first round of the cup - it's probably the first time we've had a cup game that I feel pretty that we'll get an easy win, but you never know.  We've had mixed results against them in the past (W2, D1, L3) though, so you never know.

[mjaferrie]

Here's some stats and an idea of how the squad's doing mid-season:

[Ceching You Out]

@mjaferrie, feel free to tell us to pipe down and move along if we're hijacking your thread .

 

18 hours ago, LPQR said:

Of course, it's just an opinion  and, of course, everybody's responsible for the conclusions they make for themselves. The article (in my opinion) shows a correlation between stats like JPA, JCA, W/w/Y and personality and the effects they should have on the game according to what the game tells you itself, that's the basic idea. I appreciate you've put a lot of effort in figuring out the maths/mechanics of the game when it comes to these things, and it's actually very interesting reading your perspective. My question is are we supposed to get that deep into pretty much how the game is coded just to make sense of and enjoy this game? Plus, I find it natural and more realistic that there's no clear pattern when it comes to youth recruitment, however I have to say, playing for a few years now, and especially in FM16 and from what I've seen so far in FM17 too, there's a clear equation: the better the HOYD(in his highlighted roles) -  the better the players coming through the intakes. It's not entirely defined by the HOYD, of course, but it makes a big difference, again, from my experience.

You're completely right that everyone has a limit in how deeply they'll dive into game mechanics versus just playing the game. There's a wide audience that never reaches these type of forums; they likely care the least about digging deeper because why spoil the fun? Then there are the people interested in common knowledge, but aren't worried too much about the meat of the analysis so long as they can use it. And then you have the poindexters who ponder everything .

To @Jimbokav1971's point -- most of the FM websites fall into category #2. People share the common knowledge they've found with like-minded people, then that gets repeated elsewhere as solid truth. Wash, rinse, repeat. On the whole those sites aren't bad and are generally useful, but if you spend enough time with those no-fun category #3 people you'll notice that a decent slice of conventional wisdom isn't necessarily as cut-and-dry as it's made out to be.

Which isn't to say everyone should spend their day reading screeds about the minutiae of youth development if they'd rather just enjoy the game at whatever level appeals to them. FM is great on quite a few levels, hence it's popularity. Just approach the popular articles on youth development as you would reading Wikipedia articles to learn history; they're probably generally accurate but if you're interested in finer points there's probably more depth to be learned from historians (amateur as they may or may not be).

[Bedese]

From the research I did while playing my San Giovanni save last year:

 

HOYD personality is fairly irrelevant. I can post my results here if people would like (although I'm wary of hikjacking this thread like @Ceching You Out), but essentially there was very little difference between the personalities that came through in youth intakes, regardless of the HOYDs personality.

The HOYD possibly has an impact on the amount of players that come through at each position per intake, but I'm sceptical about that, too. While some HOYDs did tend to produce a heck of a lot of strikers for me, that seemed to just be a natural pattern, rather than specific to one individual HOYD. There was also no logical reason to that - those HOYDs hadn't been strikers in their playing days, and often, their preferred formations were something like 4-5-1 - but they'd produce a huge amount more strikers than CMs.

Coaching styles/playing styles also had no impact, as far as I could work out. Certainly no logical one, anyway.

Lastly, HOYDs didn't seem to produce better players at a certain position - the quality of the players seemed to be very much random.

 

Remember, this is just research that I carried out on one save last year, but it was over ~40 years or so (I think), so it's a decent-ish sample size to investigate patterns from. I didn't investigate how important having a good HOYD stats wise actually was, and the research I did do could be untrue, but I figure that it's worth sharing these findings, anyway.

[mjaferrie]

@Jupjamie  @Ceching You Out No worries about hijacking  No problem for me as long as we stay on topic, and as far as I'm concerned embracing our inner nerds over Youth Development in a youth only save is gold 

There surely has to be a black and white answer though, I mean it's coded into the game... But yeah I think it is a bit more random than the HOYD's stats would suggest.  Mine has a preferred formation of 4-2-2-2 DM - at the moment I have no DMs, no ACMs, and a total of 7 CMs from 5 intakes.  Anyone I have in those positions is a retrained striker, winger or CB.  

EDIT: Unless his interpretation of a 4-2-2-2 is similar to my interpretation of a 5-2-2-1, which would explain our over-saturation on the wings...

Anyway, a small update on the save before this goes completely in another direction Nyberg has signed a pre-contract agreement with Åtvidaberg and will leave for free at the end of the season.  I'm now deep into the second half of the season, and still have only the 2 losses to show for it so I think hanging on to him this time round was the right decision - and if we get promoted this year the increase in revenue will hopefully make up for that.



Bit of sad news though in that Wihlborg has yet to make an appearance for Juventus and has been lumped into the U20s.  Hopefully we'll see him make his debut for them next season.

[mjaferrie]

Youth Intake Day

It seems like our honeymoon period is well and truly over in this youth save - this intake is awful!  I've only bothered naming two of them, can't see the rest getting any game time and I doubt any of this lot will at all actually.  One thing I forgot to do in the run up to this was move all of my U19s into the U21s - one bad intake isn't enough to prove this decisive but I'm still kicking myself!

[Jimbokav1971]

@mjaferriecorrect decision made with regards to Nyburg. 

Poor Youth Intake I know, but I think thats just the way it goes rather than anything else. For what it's worth though, as soon as a player turns 17 and signs a pro or a part-time contract, I move them to a Senior squad but make them available for tbe U18's. That way they get the best if bith worlds. Their training time is increased, yet they are still playing at the same level as previously.

I never have a single player over 17 in my Youth squad ever, even though they play games.

[mjaferrie]

40 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

@mjaferriecorrect decision made with regards to Nyburg. 

Poor Youth Intake I know, but I think thats just the way it goes rather than anything else. For what it's worth though, as soon as a player turns 17 and signs a pro or a part-time contract, I move them to a Senior squad but make them available for tbe U18's. That way they get the best if bith worlds. Their training time is increased, yet they are still playing at the same level as previously.

I never have a single player over 17 in my Youth squad ever, even though they play games.

Interesting!  I usually move people who are likely to get game-time immediately straight into the first team, soon to be first team into the U21s, and never likely to get game time I just keep in the U19s.  I've also had a couple of saves (most notably with Frigg in Norway in FM16) where the youth facilities and youth coaching I had were just so much better than for the first team, so I tended to keep players in the U19s for longer there too.  

[MadCatPT]

I always have everyone on the first team and make available for each U23 or U18 as needed, it saves on coaches wages, and most players will get some game time.

[mjaferrie]

We're within touching distance!  3 games of the season to go and we're 3 points clear of Ängelholms FF.  Our next match?  Away to Ängelholms FF!  Squeaky bum time.

[Alkkari]

Always nice to see career updates from the Nordic countries, keep up the good work!

Are there any media comparisons on Wihlborg such as the "next Mellberg" (Juventus connection there!)?

[mjaferrie]

Season Review!

WE DID IT!  We're up after a season of incredible form, only losing 3 and drawing 5 to win the title by an incredible 8 points.  We were so close to that only being 2 losses though - we were 3-1 up against FC Höllviken before completely throwing it away, conceding 3 goals in the last 4 minutes.





Unfortunately though a 3-0 loss to Premier Division side Djurgården (those Wihlborg thieves... ) sees us crash out of the cup at the 2nd round.  It would be nice to see a system where Premier Division teams qualify straight for the group stage, allowing more lower division teams the chance to qualify, but anyway it's not to be this time round.  I'm a bit worried about this to be honest - 3 competitive games in the cup group stage set us up this season for an awesome year in the league, but last time when we didn't have group stage football, we had our worst performing season...  I've gone for a short and sweet preseason this year of only 4 weeks, so I'm going to set up some higher league opposition games and hope we can pull survive next year.  

Nyberg has almost moved on to Åtvidaberg and we're about to have a bit of an overhaul at the club.  I've already shifted all but YP6a from this seasons intake, as after a few games they dropped down to 1* PA and were really not going anywhere.  The biggest departures so far are Jovanovic (another early save big scorer!) and Martin Persson (YP1a).  Jovanovic wasn't getting any game time the last couple of seasons and Persson, while having a lot of potential, just wasn't getting game time due to the ever presence of Marko Lukic in goal, and YP4e is scratching around looking for a place in the upcoming years.  We also have 4-5 players with contracts up at the end of the year which I'm not going to renew, apart from our Assistant Manager and Captain Dennis Melander, who has provisionally signed a new contract that sees him finish his career and move into our backroom team.

Our best performer this year was, unsurprisingly, Nyberg and the top goalscorer was Anders Persson (YP4a) with 10 goals. Kristofer Bergh tailed off after his special mention mid-season, and didn't manage to score a single goal in the 2nd half off the year, but still managed 20 appearances with an av. rating of 7.10.  Nyberg is in the middle of a 3-4 month injury layoff by the way, hence the decline in stats, but this usefully gave me a chance to bed in some replacements.

1 hour ago, Alkkari said:

Always nice to see career updates from the Nordic countries, keep up the good work!

Are there any media comparisons on Wihlborg such as the "next Mellberg" (Juventus connection there!)?

No media comparisons for Wihlborg surprisingly, but the update there is that he's moved on loan to Torku Konyaspor in the Turkish Süper Lig where he's made 6 appearances so far.

What to expect next year?
I expect we're going to get absolutely hammered, so if we don't come straight back crashing down I'll be very, very happy.  With another end-of-year clear out, our squad is almost exclusively made up of our youth academy players, and some of them are developing really nicely.  I'd like to bed some more of them in and get through to the group stage of the cup again for some elusive moneys.  This is actually the first season we've made a profit which is incredible, but most of that came from the board ploughing money in to cover debt and the sell on fee from Wihlborg.  Next season might be a bit tougher financially but the increase in TV money and more players coming through our gates should help.  The joys of starting with a 10,000 seater stadium eh!  Average attendance this year was 212, so there's a long way to go before we need to think about expansion Unfortunately we still haven't had any improvements to our Youth or Training facilities, so hopefully a cup run or just playing in a better league will improve our financial situation and we'll be better off for it on the pitch too.

 

[wynter]

Nice work on the promotion and best of luck in the league next year! 

 

Props for running a Youth Save as well by the way, I lack the willpower not to hoard youngsters from other clubs when I see ones I like

Will be following. 

[MadCatPT]

Congrats.

[mjaferrie]

20 minutes ago, wynter said:

Nice work on the promotion and best of luck in the league next year! 

 

Props for running a Youth Save as well by the way, I lack the willpower not to hoard youngsters from other clubs when I see ones I like

Will be following. 

 

15 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

Congrats.

Thanks guys!  2nd tier here we come

[MadCatPT]

Hope to get your missing luck on the youth candidates.

If I get some 5* Swedish guys I'll post it here. 

[Crispypaul]

Great read - didn't know the Swedish Cup had a group stage

[Gerd545]

Anyone have the link for the Excel Spreadsheet?

Just so I don't have to create it myself...

[mjaferrie]

2 hours ago, Gerd545 said:

Anyone have the link for the Excel Spreadsheet?

Just so I don't have to create it myself...

I just had a look at what others were doing and made a table in Word of what was interesting for me to keep track of, just takes a minute!  By the way of there's anything folk would like to see as well give me a shout! 

[mjaferrie]

More reasons to celebrate in Trelleborg!  We've finally gone professional



And this was also a pretty good surprise! 

[clarkehwbu]

5 minutes ago, mjaferrie said:

More reasons to celebrate in Trelleborg!  We've finally gone professional



And this was also a pretty good surprise! 

Great progress, congrats on professional!

[mjaferrie]

Cheers man!  Oh and apparently we actually had an average attendance of 274 last season - does that number include the cup games then?  In the league stats it said our average attendance was 212 but then I got a notification saying our average attendance was a club record of 274...

[MadCatPT]

Professional, more staff, more money.

Living the dream! 

[Ceching You Out]

18 minutes ago, mjaferrie said:

Cheers man!  Oh and apparently we actually had an average attendance of 274 last season - does that number include the cup games then?  In the league stats it said our average attendance was 212 but then I got a notification saying our average attendance was a club record of 274...

Spot on. Average attendance includes all competitive games. If you're ever looking for the overall average again, you can find it under the History --> Records section if you select "Average Attendance" or something like that.

And a big congratulations on the promotion and going pro! That's usually where the fun starts, especially if you can survive your first season in the top flight. I would've ran out Wihlborg's contract, but looks like you made the right decision. That's almost a million now? 

[Keano16]

Congrats on promotion and going pro!

[mjaferrie]

22 minutes ago, Ceching You Out said:

Spot on. Average attendance includes all competitive games. If you're ever looking for the overall average again, you can find it under the History --> Records section if you select "Average Attendance" or something like that.

And a big congratulations on the promotion and going pro! That's usually where the fun starts, especially if you can survive your first season in the top flight. I would've ran out Wihlborg's contract, but looks like you made the right decision. That's almost a million now? 

Good stuff!  Aye man something like that, there was the original £200k, then £195k just there, plus the 50% sell on fee when he joined Juve which was £250k plus £155k wasn't it?  So I make that £800k in total.  I don't know if there are any other clauses like the international caps one, because they don't show in your transfer clauses when it's between two other teams... Could maybe be something when he gets 10 caps or a certain number of appearances for Juventus.  Fingers crossed!

[Bedese]

Promotion and professionalism? You work fast  

[Jimbokav1971]

Promotion? No biggy. 

Turning Pro? BIGGY. 

[mjaferrie]

2 hours ago, MadCatPT said:

Professional, more staff, more money.

Living the dream! 

 

1 hour ago, Keano16 said:

Congrats on promotion and going pro!

 

55 minutes ago, Jupjamie said:

Promotion and professionalism? You work fast  

 

12 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Promotion? No biggy. 

Turning Pro? BIGGY. 

These kids are going places!  I reckon it'll take us a good 10 seasons before we're challenging for promotion to the Allsvenskan but if we can survive next season and become a regular mid-table team I'll be more than happy.  Going pro as well means we can get people on longer contracts which is good news, can you believe I almost missed it?!  I only noticed because one of my youth players all of a sudden had a full time contract that my HOYD had offered him.  Searched in the notifications and sure enough, I jumped right over it.  Numpty!
 

5 hours ago, Crispypaul said:

Great read - didn't know the Swedish Cup had a group stage

Aye man, there's 2 knockout rounds and then a group stage, from which 8 teams qualify for the Quarter Final.  I'm not really sure what the point is to be honest - I mean in Scotland the group stage in the League Cup basically gives smaller teams a guaranteed 4 games, when they might have got knocked out after one game before, while also giving the bigger sides a by straight into the last 16 and means it's finished by November, so easing fixture congestion.  Here the big teams are in the first couple of rounds too, so I'm not really seeing what it's trying to achieve

[abulezz]

Congratulations on the promotion! So far, so good - I wouldn't worry about the most recent Intake, you have got quite a bit of young talent in your squad from the previous ones!

[MadCatPT]

3 hours ago, mjaferrie said:

 

 

 

These kids are going places!  I reckon it'll take us a good 10 seasons before we're challenging for promotion to the Allsvenskan but if we can survive next season and become a regular mid-table team I'll be more than happy.  Going pro as well means we can get people on longer contracts which is good news, can you believe I almost missed it?!  I only noticed because one of my youth players all of a sudden had a full time contract that my HOYD had offered him.  Searched in the notifications and sure enough, I jumped right over it.  Numpty!
 

Aye man, there's 2 knockout rounds and then a group stage, from which 8 teams qualify for the Quarter Final.  I'm not really sure what the point is to be honest - I mean in Scotland the group stage in the League Cup basically gives smaller teams a guaranteed 4 games, when they might have got knocked out after one game before, while also giving the bigger sides a by straight into the last 16 and means it's finished by November, so easing fixture congestion.  Here the big teams are in the first couple of rounds too, so I'm not really seeing what it's trying to achieve

Trying to achieve that only big teams go through?

Or more likelly have more games between big teams for tv/gate purposes.

[deltablue]

Nice. I had to go up to the Premier Division to achieve fully professional status.

[mjaferrie]

11 hours ago, MadCatPT said:

Trying to achieve that only big teams go through?

Or more likelly have more games between big teams for tv/gate purposes.

According to Wikipedia: "Compared to cups in many other countries, Svenska Cupen attracts considerably less public interest and even the cup final is rarely sold out. Consequently, the Swedish Football Association has experimented with the format in order to raise the profile of the cup." So it seems like trying to generate interest by having more games between higher reputation teams could be the thing. 

Well, we're into the new year with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation!  The club has gone full time and we're playing in the Superettan, where it seems our biggest challenge will be Kalmar FF who only 2 seasons ago were Allsvenskan champions.  Their title defence ended in dramatic style, finishing 15th and being relegated to Superettan, before coming 4th last season.  Other notable teams are Östersunds FK, who have spent the last few seasons yo-yoing between the top 2 divisions; AFC United who have spent the last 6 seasons in the Allsvenskan; and, while only having a media prediction of finishing 13th, Åtvidaberg FF who are best known to this save as the Nyberg-snatchers.  It will be interesting to come up against one of our own this season just a few months after he left us for free! (which the board and fans are furious about by the way).  Unfortunately there won't be a Trelleborg derby this year, as our promotion to the Superettan was partnered with Trelleborgs FF's relegation to Division 1 Södra.  So we're the biggest team in town!  Needless to say though, the media have us down as finishing rock bottom of the table with odds of 100-1.  So a title win wouldn't be quite Leicester City style drama, but a fairly unrealistic expectation for probably a decade.

Pre Season Round Up! 

As previously mentioned, I went for a short but sweet preseason this year with 7 games in 4 weeks running up to the beginning of the season.  We've got 4 more league games to worry about this year so I thought toning down the number of games at the beginning of the season might give us a chance to ease into it a bit, no logic or stats or anything like that to back this up at all, just being easy on some computer generated tired legs out there  2 of the games were cancelled so we ended up just playing 5 games, but interestingly with some positive results our odds in the league have actually shortened to 95-1.  



I also made the tough decision to let Kristofer Bergh go out on loan this year.  After his form last year it was a big question mark, but with him only having 1.5* CA and 2.5* PA, I felt we'd be better served giving the game time to some of our 10 other strikers, most of whom have considerably more ability and potential.  I'm amazed Bergh got as much game time as he did last year, but with his consistent performances for the team I just couldn't drop him.



And finally - This year's Wihlborg/Nyberg style saga is probably going to be centred around new club captain and go-to C/RB Rasmus Olausson (YP3f), who has featured in every single league game for the last 2 years and only missed 4 the year before that.  I rejected one offer for him which lead to his agent requesting a new deal - I was happy to oblige, he's been an inimitable force in our backline, but he "isn't currently interested in entering contract negotiations".  So he's now unhappy that I won't offer him a new deal... Are you having a laugh mate?!  He's expecting a new deal to be offered this month but won't even enter negotiations... So I can see him leaving for a free at the end of this year as well.  Interest in him from other clubs has cooled, so we'll see...!

[mjaferrie]

Updates are going to be pretty slow from here I'm afraid, I'm back in uni on Monday and then with the release of the game proper next week I'll be spending most of my 'game time' in the editor.  But I'll be keeping this file ticking over, so check back! 

So far, not so good in the Superettan with 3 losses in 3 games.  We're not bottom of the table though!  Amazingly IFK Värnamo, who we've come up against in Division 1 in recent years, are behind us on goal difference.  Hopefully we can pick it up a bit in the next few games, and a kind draw in the cup might give us a much needed confidence boost.

[MadCatPT]

You should post the agent demands new contract and player doesn't enter negotiations in the bug forum.

[mjaferrie]

55 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

You should post the agent demands new contract and player doesn't enter negotiations in the bug forum.

Hmm, I'm not sure.  This has been a problem for me in various versions of the game so I'm not entirely sure it's a specific 'bug' as such, just an irritation that comes up now and again.  Would be interesting to hear if others have this problem though.

Mid Season Report

Well, it's not exactly going swimmingly down here on the south coast.  We're currently 1 point above the drop zone, and if things continue as they are we'll end up in the relegation playoffs.  Not such a bad result, because I'm confident we could survive against a Division 1 team after last season's exploits.  We need to pick up a bit of form though as we're currently 6 games without a win.  Meanwhile, it looks like we're going to lose our two best players Anders Persson YP4a and Rasmus Olausson YP3f to free transfers in the summer window as neither will sign a new deal, which means I'm going to have to take them out of the team because we need to bed in replacements for next year or we're going to continue to struggle.  Our top scorer so far has been Pontus Lindahl YP3d with 10 goals from 13 games, amazing considering the position we're in, including 2 in our first win of the season - a 4-3 victory over Örgryte IS where we came from behind 3 times before Lindahl scored the decisive goal.  Lindahl is just coming back from a 3 week injury, hence the decline in stats, so I'm looking to kick on (pun intentional) now we have our top scorer back. 

This season we're also straight into the 2nd round of the cup, so hopefully we get a kind draw and the group stage to look forward to next year.

[mjaferrie]

Ola Wihlborg has completed his loan at Torku Konyaspor where he made 27 appearances with an average rating of 6.70.  He now has a value of £3.2 million and looks set to spend next season on loan at Villareal.

[mjaferrie]

Rasmus Olausson (YP3f) will be moving to Allsvenskan side Hammarby IF at the end of the season on a free transfer.  Unfortunately that means he's going to drop out of being an automatic pick for our side as I need to give the replacements minutes on the field.



In other news:

[mjaferrie]

Youth Intake Day

Much happier with this than last season's intake - we're in dire need of a central midfielder so I can see Rosenberg going straight into the team, and Narin getting a fair bit of game time himself.  We've a habit of producing quality wide men (no, not that kind ) so there's no surprise to see YP7 b, c and f here but I can't see them getting near the first team any time soon.  We're currently heavily overstocked in those positions.  

With Olausson's departure confirmed at the end of the season we're actually going to be a bit short in central defence next year, a new challenge for us given how we've been spoilt over the years with the likes of Wihlborg, Nyberg, Olausson and currently Lindell (YP4b).  I was hoping for something in the way of a replacement this year but I don't think these lads are going to cut it.

We're through to the Group Stage!... 
... after a 5-1 hammering of Umeå FC, with the aforementioned Lindell helping himself to a brace from central defence.  Unfortunately that match put Pontus Lindahl out for another couple of games through injury.

[mjaferrie]

Season Review!
Or, well, not quite.  After a hard, hard first season in the 2nd tier of Swedish football, we have finished in 14th place meaning we qualify for the relegation playoffs.  We have been drawn away against IF Brommapojkarna on the 8th of November, before the return leg on the 11th.  Interestingly, the other playoff sees our rivals Trelleborgs FF take on Degerfors IF, so we could come up against them in a competitive game for the first time next season (either in the Superettan, or Division 1...).



Well, our form has been pretty diabolical this year but I guess that's only to be expected.  I'd started to get a bit settled in the safety of Division 1, so this season was a good challenge.





Our best player this season so far has been Lindell in the heart of defence - which bodes well for next season as we lose Olausson to Hammarby IF - with an average rating of 7.20 from 26 games.  



And our top scorer, no surprises here, Pontus Lindahl.  He couldn't keep up his early season form, which saw him score 10 goals in 13 games, however and he only managed another 3 in the next 14.  



Playoffs here we come!

[MadCatPT]

You got to fight, for your right to Superettan! 

[mjaferrie]

By the skin of our teeth, we've stayed up!  



Two really tight games against Brommapojkarna sees us edge through on aggregate and a goal from Rasmus Olausson in his last game for the club - how romantic  We'll also be coming up against our local rivals, with whom we share a stadium, in the Superettan next year!  Exciting times.  We've also had our junior coaching upgraded and it's now at an excellent level.

I thought it would be interesting at this stage to have a look at the players who have left us over the years, and what they are doing now.  Since I've taken the reins at IFK Trelleborg 56 players have been released or left on a free transfer with only Ola Wihlborg moving for a fee, originally £200k but now risen to £800k.  In that time 4 players have also retired, meaning a total of 61 players have left the club in my 7 years in charge. 



These 14 players are the only ones still in game, the other 47 have all retired.

EDIT: An update on this as the end of the season sees 6 more players leave the club.  Anders Persson YP4a wouldn't renew his contract but there is zero interest in him from other clubs... He was one of our best players so it's a bit annoying to see him leave for nothing with nowhere to go.  27 year olds Christoffer Jacobsson and Mirza Dubicanac leave at the end of their contracts as they just don't cut it at this level and despite both being central midfielders, their places have been taken in the team by players retrained from other positions who, even though it's not their best position, do a much better job.  20 year olds Mattias Sundberg YP3k, Patrik Götesson YP3e and Tony Björk (from the same intake but unlabelled) also leave the club at the end of contracts as they don't have a future here.  

[mjaferrie]

Pre Season and Cup Round Up, and Season Preview

Haha, well... given our wealth in strikers I tried switching to a 4-3-3 with LM, CM, RM in midfield and we got absolutely found out against every single team.  





We kicked off the cup group stage with an encouraging, given the previous friendlies' results, 3-2 loss against Allsvenskan side Örebro SK and another tight game against Djurgården IF where we were edged out 2-1.  We were well beaten 3-0 the last time we faced Djurgården competitively, also in the cup, so progress is being made!  The game also brought in record gate receipts of £12,000.  Nevertheless, the two losses rendered our 3rd game against Östersunds FK a dead rubber - I decided to give game time to our best prospects and the match again was only decided by 1 goal with Östersunds nicking a 1-0 victory in the second half.  Still to find our first points in the group stage, but we are definitely making progress there - we're losing better anyway!  

What to expect this year?  I'll be looking out for newly promoted teams IK Sirius, who we have never met in a competitive fixture; Ängelholms FF who you'll remember as our title challengers in our promotion season; and Trelleborgs FF who we'll face off against twice in our shared stadium.
We also have games against GIF Sundsvall, Östers IF and Gefle IF to look forward to as they all begin a new life in the Superettan after relegation from the Allsvenskan last season.  We faced off against Sundsvall in the Svenska Cupen 4 years ago which resulted in a creditable 2-1 against a team at that time 2 divisions above us.  The last time they played in the 2nd tier was 10 years ago.  We've never met Östers or Gefle in a competitive fixture so we have some interesting trips ahead of us with 4 teams we've never come up against.

Losing our best two players in Olausson and Persson in the off-season has not helped our cause at all and, aside from my tactical bombscare, I feel that the preseason results reflect that as well.  I think the best we can hope for this season is avoiding automatic relegation again and hopefully we'll get through the playoffs a bit more convincingly.  I can't really see us finishing above 13th in the safety zone, and playoffs are always fun/terrifying anyway  Yet again the media expect us to finish bottom of the table - at least something's consistent eh!

[deltablue]

You'll win again, don't know where, don't know when...

[mjaferrie]

1 minute ago, deltablue said:

You'll win again, don't know where, don't know when...

Hahaha, hopefully before the board come at me with "Let's say goodbye with a smile, dear, just for a while dear, we must part."