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[FM17]Bradford City - An Irishman in West Yorkshire 2


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1 hour ago, Wavelberry said:

You Arsenaled Bayern. Top work.

Look at Will Keane's smiley face too. 

The amazing thing was, we could do that to Bayern, but still lose the League Cup final to a relegation battling Leicester.

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Season Review!

Consistent progress, if slow league wise. 3rd place and guaranteed group CL football is more than I expected, but am delighted with. We're not the biggest surprise in the league either, check out who finished 18th!!!!
We hit our objectives in the cups, but have to be disappointed to lose the League Cup final to Leicester. In Europe, we give the big boys a surprise but rattling Bayern, but a 6-2 demolishing in Madrid smashed us firmly back to earth, much work ahead!
That said, we have lots of quality, youth, and the prospect to keep improving as as squad.

Potentially two players incoming, and plenty of options. Where do we need improving, I guess left wing, despite Harrop being a stalwart servant to us, is one, especially as the academy is light there. Zelalem's contract is expiring too, and is another position that could do with work. We could sign him up again, but it'd be more sensible to pick up a player who could take us to the next level, until some of our young starlets kick on.
I'm comfortable enough with continuing to use our young keepers as backups now, they're ticking along nicely.

Isco, Will Hughes(both at Chelsea), Lewis Cook(Bournemouth), and Joshua Onomah(Spurs) are all potential targets.

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Zelalem is highly rated by the fans, but I don't agree, play flows through him as a playmaker(lots of passes giving good average ratings), but 3 assists all season isn't much to write home about. Hendrick, playing a non playmaking role beside him had 12.

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0-0, in injury time against bitter rivals? No problem for Southam...

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This thread had me scrambling to look for some of the players you had found/loaned while in the lower leagues. What an achievement to get consecutive promotions and even win a cup final while in league 1!

Out of interest, what are the three roles that your midfield three and two flank players are assigned? I seldom get much input from the lone striker up front in a similar formation, no matter what role I play him in. 

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24 minutes ago, john1 said:

What the hell happened to Chelsea? With them relegated?! :eek: 

The season before, they started really badly, but after a few months hauled out of it. This season was a pure disaster, stared badly, picked up and then imploded.

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Season Preview!

Board are getting more demanding, but nothing mad yet, they want us to finish in the Europa spots, a couple of wins in the FA Cup, happy with anything in Europe, and couldn't care less about the League Cup. The u-23 side has been placed in the Checkatrade Trophy, would have liked to manage those games myself.
Chelsea's shock relegation helped us quite a bit as we took both senior signings off them. Man City done their best to disrupt us, unsettling many players. Most I worked around, but 3rd choice CB Alexis Bonneau is in a strop after a deadline day bit was rejected out of hand.

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Two big signings, and a few reserves sold.

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Our two weakest positions are now our strongest. Looking now, Hughes is a bit of a bad omen, last three seasons, relegated with different clubs, I'm sure we'll buck that trend, mind!

Promotions.

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I haven't done it yet, but Powell is moving to the senior side, temporarily as a backup CM, long term, we'll see...

39 of our ex-youth grads are now playing about the leagues, I won't screencap that many, but the most notable are at Stevenage, Cardiff and Bolton.

Chelsea!

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We nipped in first, and they were utterly raided. Don't cry for them, though, Coutrois, Romagnoli, Isco, Aurier, Giroud, Diogo Jota, that loanee from Man Utd is a monster.... and a world class academy, they'll be just fine. Currently destroying the Championship, with a +12 goal difference after 5 games.

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Much nastier group this time around.

EDIT:

Also, we finally moved into the new stadium, and the first ever game there was a bit of a cracker.

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Been having a cracking season on pitch, but then things like this happen.

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Short term it's especially brutal, as Hogg is also out, so that's both our box to box players.

That's also Harrops third hernia of 2021, becoming a real problem.... Have a few u-23 and u-18's converting to AML.

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Midseason Update.

Flying high in the league! Currently top, even, but just because Man Utd have a few games in hand, after the Club World Cup. Still, looking good for an automatic CL place, which I'll be more than happy with.
In Europe, we done the business handily enough, I was surprised we had a harder battle with Napoli than Dortmund. Knocked out in the QF of the League Cup against Spurs, but I'd been using it to give minutes to backups and young players, a few u-18's even played against Spurs.

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Not expecting any business in January, but there may be sales and promotions.

EDIT: Ideally, I'd like to see Burnley survive, but they're getting battered, it's most important that Leeds and Huddersfield stay in the league though, it's fun to have some bitter rivals about.

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Youth Intake Day.

No one player that looks like a bona fide worldie in the making, but there's a group of players that all look potentially very good.

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Some with quite high PA, and the three rated highest are all local Bradford lads, I also hope that Aaron Kelly comes along well, would be nice to see a Kerryman in the senior squad.

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Candasamy looks like a quality winger in the making, but we don't use wingers. He should become a handy inside forward, regardless. Bond, Matt Bond. Personality needs lots of work, but could become a mean playmaker. Not entirely sure about Holloway-Dix, but for now I'll train him at DM.

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Winfarrah has the look of a real tidy inside forward, but his PA may not be enough to become it. Kelly is quite a limited player, but could be come a quick and neat passer.

Past Intake watch.

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Sanchez has become a real dangerous striker, but despite being rated for consistency, goes on droughts. Beadle is a star, and key to what we do. Donnelly, well, just look! A real monster and becoming very complete, even his passing has almost reached a level that he could be used as a defensive playmaker, I certainly never expected his vision to hit that level.

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Powell is becoming a very well rounded forward, despite almost entirely playing as a CM, Tucker hasn't had many opportunities yet, but is still becoming a good playmaker.

Also had a surprise, hadn't been keeping an eye on most of the random lads, and one lad from year 3 who at the time I didn't think much of....

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Possibly too much CA being eaten up by pace attributes, but he's looking like he could definitely become a senior player. Even if no more than a backup, that's an absolute win.

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Season Review!

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Boom!

Man Utd were rampant most of the season, and looked lock-in's for the title once they played their games in hand and went seven points clear of us. In mid April though, they had a massive dip, drawing two games in a row, then losing two more, dropping eight points and giving us the lead by a point with five games left. Still it ran to the final day, and in an odd moment, Man Utd required rivals Man City to hold us off if they were to have a chance, whilst should we lose we needed United to slip up, away at our rivals, Leeds! Man Utd won, but so did we.

Mings missed the title decider, due to international call ups, a second season missing our most important game. Need to relegate him to backup and bring in a new starter, as he just can't be counted on.

A few days later we took them on in the FA Cup final, picked 'em off, and picked up our third in six years.

Europe was a disappointment, despite hitting our targets, should have beat Marseille, but then, in the next round they beat Arsenal 5-1...

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Moyes almost took Sunderland to the Champions League, only losing out on the final day!
Most interesting was in League One, where Birmingham have just suffered back to back relegations.

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Memphis has been an absolute force of nature, Spurs tried to pinch him in January, and look to attempt again this summer.

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15 hours ago, The_Gato_In_Goal said:

Nice job on winning against a Man U side like that! Racking up trophies at an alarming rate.

Cheers, the FA Cups especially are starting to rack up!

11 hours ago, john1 said:

Congrats on winning the title :cool: 

Cheers, been a while but got there in the end.

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Season Preview!

Board expectations are fairly mixed, Europa qualification in the league is more reasonable than I expected. A semi-final appearance in the FA Cup, and first knockout in the CL, but other than that, whatever.
 

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After years of sterling service, where he performed far beyond what his CA should have allowed him to, Rory McArdle calls it quits at 35. He instantly moves into the backroom staff, as the u-23's assistant manager.

Senior signings.

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Martin is our new first choice LB, not as fast or as good in the air as Mings, but otherwise better. Reece Burke has been at Bradford before(obviously, looking at the image of him in a Bradford shirt...), on loan from West Ham, and IIRC he won player of the season that year, but West Ham wouldn't loan them to him a second year. Joins now to provide depth at CB after McArdle's exit.

Promotions.

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Viv here was a pure striker when I signed him, but retrained as a winger with our lacklustre depth there in the academy. Really angry too, as when promoted I offered him a new contract, unrequested, which he signed. The moment he did though, he professionalism took a massive hit. Massive, ages of tutoring down the drain. Will Keane is looking after him again..... Load of.......

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Dortmund are tough, but we've handled them before.

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Unusual to see a promoted side picked as one of the best sides in the league already. Not started well, again! Picking up just 2 of the first 9 points available.

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Found this guy at Olympiacos, and he's quite interesting.

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A very good young holding mid, with apparently still bags of potential to fill in, Olympiacos recently paid Chatearoux 4.4m for him. Where it gets interesting is Lille, who ditched him to the lower league Chatearoux for the princely sum of 21k. Ouch.

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Mid-ish-season Update!

Kinda screwed up here, forgot to do the update going into January, so we're a month further on,
Nothing happened in the market, and we're flying at the top of the league, still alive in all cups and Europe.

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Man Utd have a few games in hand to chase us down, but look at Liverpool! This is more ridiculous than Chelsea! They recently picked up Zidane as manager, but he's so far failing to stop the rot.

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Youth Intake Day!

Here we are, and... uh! Not the best, still some potentially useful lads.

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Wetherall likes Fred, Devonshire looks a handy mid too and Towers could be useful if he grows a lot.

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Past Intake Watch.

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Sanchez seems to have hit his level, nit a bad thing when he's that good! Beadle has turned into a physical monster despite being one size to Tyrion Lannister. Donnelly is one of the best regens I've ever had on any save.

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Powell's starting to look like he's becoming the English Messi, if he was built like Adriano! The only reason he's not playing so much is because he's in a huff wanting to join Man Utd. Tucker has had some games and he's playing well, on the way to being a cracking playmaker. Candasamy hasn't had a crack of the whip yet, but he's slowly becoming a useful wideman.

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