Rien102 Posted August 26, 2018 Share Posted August 26, 2018 After finishing my previous save with that lady manager, I stopped playing it and played other saves. During summer, I found some time, despite work, holidays and a sick dad, to go to FM Touch and continue playing and testing ideas. I wanted to work more on the tactical side of things, reread stuff like pair combinations and, as it was, trying to find a style that would suit me. During those saves, there still was the random thought popping that would often take the form of: “What would she do in that situation?” or even “I wonder how she is at the moment?” It really was, bizarre, to say the least. Then, on my first day of “holiday”, I fired up her save and looked at her career; I clearly had done what I had never done before… I then went back to my file of the story and spent a quiet evening reading it, with a few glasses of rosé. I must say that I felt a little pride at what I had done, in the save itself by overachieving to a point I never thought possible but, mostly, by the fact that I had “written a work fiction” as a sideshow with the save. The next morning, I fired up her save again; that electro-magnetically existing woman was calling me by name! I then started a 30 months holiday. She officially still was a West Brom tactical coach, as the previous story had ended, and I wanted to get back into saddle but this time, through an interview process. I had no idea where I would end up, honestly, but I knew I would want a challenge into uncharted territories for me: play in higher echelons. I was happy to see that once the holidaying was over, she got “offers for interviews” from teams that were as high as Championship; it would be uncharted territories indeed. On Wednesday the 6th of March 2024, at half past five, on the dot, the alarm clock woke Penny Stiles and Mark, her husband. She went directly to the bathroom while the husband would go wake their daughter, Britanny, and then start the coffee maker. When her morning mechanics were done, she proceeded to the kitchen, where she knew the coffee would be ready by now. «Did you sleep well sweetie?» she asked her daughter. No response. She didn’t push, gave a quick kiss on her head and went to give a small kiss to her husband, which was getting ready to go do his own morning mechanics. She poured herself a cup of coffee while taking a long look at Britanny. The eleven years old usually would give the kiss back; she wasn’t in a good mood today... She then put her crutch to lie on the wall, took the tablet, while sipping her coffee, and went to check last night’s results in the league. She already knew that the Baggies had won yesterday night but she was curious about the other teams. She quickly saw that both Ipswich and Fulham had won their own matches too. This meant that West Brom still was in 6th place, right in front of Ipswich but Fulham would now be in 2nd position, stealing Brantford’s spot that was now in 3rd. The battle was fierce in Championship this year, under Cardiff of course. The Bluebirds had taken the top spot since the second week of the season and have never slipped since then. The battle really was for a spot in the play-offs and there was six clubs that were fighting for their chance for promotion with, from the second to the seventh spot, only five points separating the spots 2 to 7. She then opened her job laptop to check her emails. She quickly saw that all the scouts had sent their links to the videos of their respective games that were now stored on the team’s server. She saw that the one of the Baggies match was accompanied by a rather long text. She didn’t even bother to read it; she wanted to watch it first before reading any comment on it. As she was closing the laptop’s cover, she sighed, ever so slightly. The season wasn’t a good one for the Baggies. Again, seven days ago, the team’s manager had been fired. Since she had signed her contract with West Bromwich Albion as a tactical coach, she was looking at a fourth manager in only 34 months! The one, who had approached her, Javier Aguirre, had been dismissed right after the signing of her contract, at the beginning of April 2021. She had started at the end of her season with the Hereford Bulls, at the end of May. When she arrived at the club, Fran Escribà was now at the helm and the club was going to be relegated to Championship. Under his reign, the club flew over everybody in the league the year after, easily gaining promotion by winning the race seven points above their closest opponent. He would then leave the club to go manage the U23 English National team in mid-July, halfway through the pre-season. Sean Dyche then took over and started the Premier Division season with an impressive record of 6-2-1, putting the team in 4th place on the table. In the interval, he had secured wins in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rounds of the Carabao Cup. Then, an infernal sequence happened; eleven straight losses in the league calendar and another one in quarter finals of the Cup. Sean lost the dressing room and wore the patience of the Board; he got fired! With those managers, she had developed great relationships. She had learned a lot, had pursued Coach Qualification badges and had contributed to the best of her abilities. Sean had strongly suggested she should apply for the position at the same time he was on the verge of getting fired, if it would happen. She had thought hard about it, when he was actually dismissed, but had decided that, as long as Britanny wanted a very close relationship with her mum, she wouldn’t try to go back on the side lines of a team. In her last year at Hereford, her daughter had had Leukemia and came close to dying. She was eight years old at the time. Since day one of the diagnostic, Penny never could convince her inner self that the sickness wasn’t a cry for more time with her mum. Rationally, medically, it was sheer idiocy, she knew it, but her inner feelings never accepted the rational argument. She then resigned from the Bulls, securing another promotion for the team to League 2 in the interval. Afterward, following the offer made by then manager of the Baggies, Javier Aguirre, she had accepted a position that would make her work on regular office hours, with no obligations to go to games, home or away. She had then spent all her time, outside of work, to be as close to her daughter as possible. The most important ritual that took place, between the daughter and the mother, was to read a story together, just before going to bed. It was that exact ritual that made Penny to not apply for the West Brom manager job; as long as the daughter would ask for it, she wouldn’t take a job that would interfere with the ritual. In the last months though, the daughter started to ask to skip the bedtime story. The “I’m not a baby anymore” comment had surfaced, here and there in the mouth of the, now, eleven years old. Penny was seeing her little girl becoming a teen, with all that usually comes with it. The shadow of the cancer was still looming though; it barely was twenty-eight months since she had been cleared of all Leukemia cells; not before five years without them would she be called cured. As the daughter started to put, a little, distance between her and Penny, the mum had started to gaze more and more at the side lines of the football pitches at the Baggies training complex. Penny knew it wasn’t only because of the daughter’s desire to change some rituals; it was also because she never was able to develop an excellent relationship with Mike Garrity, the man who had replaced Sean as manager of the team. He had evaluated that it would be less costly to keep her until the end of her contract, which was ending only on June the 30th, 2025. Coming from Liverpool, where he had been a coach for their U23 squad for nine years, he was a master tactician. He had changed Penny’s overall job only a little, but not in the part where she grew so much. Unlike the other, he didn’t want someone to help prepare the pre-matches briefings; he wanted a sounding board on his own interpretation of the last games and the way to approach the next ones. He had a very offensive mind-set, she learned a lot with him. It was challenging, yes, but it wasn’t as fulfilling as with the others. In the last months though, as Britanny was asking less stories, she felt that she was more uncomfortable where she was. When Mike got fired, a week ago, she asked herself if it maybe wouldn’t be the time to make a move and apply for the position; she had an excellent relationship with the big brass at the Hawthorns. She finally didn’t do it. She wouldn’t want to give the impression that she was lurking in the shadows, waiting for her chance to take the manager’s position. Not to mention that she felt like that surely one or two out there, if not inside the club itself, would asked out loud if the bad results weren’t the end game of some foul play by “Penny Stiles who happened to take on the position now”! She always had a tendency to be loyal and, if she still was at West Brom, it was because each manager, knowing part of her personal situation, had told her not to resign if they were dismissed; it had been hard for her. As she started to watch the results in the Premier League, her mind and eyes were shuffling from the tablet to her daughter, who was still eating and watching some cartoons on the telly, to the tablet again. Britanny was becoming, more and more, of the silent type in the morning but this morning was a bit more than that. Penny had to smile at that… After all, she was of that type too. Distractively, Penny’s eyes ran across the Premier Division results of last night. Some teams, like Newcastle for example, had lost, again. She also saw multiple headlines calling that X or Y manager was in danger here and there. One thing for sure, there was a lot of opportunities for becoming a manager in England. So far, in Championship and Premier League only, she could think of about nine teams who had already dismissed their managers; one of them even giving the boot to two of them this season alone! In the Premier Division alone, five managers had been fired so far too! As in League 1 and 2, she could easily think of over ten managers that have been shown the door... As Mark was arriving in the kitchen, his morning mechanics done and smiling at her, her mind was weighting things: Was she ready to go through a fourth period of uncertainty, as a coach, or did she needed a change of setting? She responded to Mark’s smile with one of her own. By his stare, he knew there was more to it… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 «If you are sure about this, I have no problem with it whatsoever babe». It wasn’t a surprising response from her husband that night, when she had spent the day thinking about the idea of going back on the side lines, in the spotlights, instead of staying in the shadows. Once Britanny was in her bed, refusing another bedtime story in the process, Penny went to join her husband in the living room. - «I still don’t know where to, though. - Do you have an idea of the level you want to go? - Not as much of the level but more around the line of what I want. Not to mention the salary too… - So, I guess no Conference level? - We need to live and you know how much our savings had gone down during Britanny’s bout with Leukemia. We need to get back at it, both to refill what we took and to get back on track on the retirement plan. - Penny, why are you worrying about that? You know we have enough». The comment made Penny flinch a little. - «Mark, I just don’t want scraping at it like we did before… Besides, I’m still worth something you know? Two promotions in two years, getting the Manager of the Year awards in both instances. Not to mention my qualifications now». Her husband made a devious smile. - «You starting to tell me you want to cash in?» He knew how she would react! - «NO!» she shot back, with a louder and higher tone of voice. Mark laughed! She instantly knew he had baited her and that she had fell for it…. She calmed down and continued, «I think I just couldn’t go through the feeling of being somewhere and be stuck at counting every single pound just to know if I’ll have enough to buy new footballs! - I can understand that… Do you have an idea of where you want to go? Is the manager position still available at West Brom? - Not West Brom, that’s for sure!» Mark knowingly nodded at the answer. «I don’t want anybody saying I worked in the shadows to undermine someone’s performance just to go for his job. As for the where, not really, no. I know there are two openings in League 2, two others in League 1 and except the West Brom position; two are still free to apply in Championship. - Do you think you could apply for a Championship club? - With my Continental B Qualification? Yes, for sure. When I look at the market, I think I may even have a shot for lower Premiere Division teams. - Really? Premiere Division? - Well, I don’t think I would even be considered for jobs in teams like Chelsea or Manchester United but, if I look at the teams in the bottom third of the table? I think so, yes… well… maybe… - Are you referring to newly promoted teams like Swansea? - Better than that … maybe…». Mark gapped at the comment. - «You’re serious?» Penny’s demeanour changed a little, she was a bit uncomfortable, and it showed. - «Last year, Sean ... You remember Sean? - He’s the guy that got booted after the bang up start, right? - Yes.» She didn’t like the words; it showed, but moved on anyway, not wanting to start some kind of scene. «Well, Sean once implied that, most certainly, the West Brom big brass would probably jumped on my application if I would have giving it to them. Anyway, I gave him a call this afternoon; he’s with Fran at the U23 National team now. He thinks that clubs like Newcastle, which fired Hütter, their manager, three days ago, would probably take me, at the very least, for an interview». Mark gapped again. - «Newcastle? You’re serious? - Well, he thinks that, yes, they would certainly bring me in for an interview. I personally have a lot of doubts about that by the way… Anyway, they are in some financial troubles though, taking two loans in 4 years and, someone who likes to bring young players for the main squad, like I did at Hereford, would certainly be something interesting for them. - Are you considering sending your résumé?» Penny shook her head a little while taking a sip of tea. - «Huh huh! I told you, the idea of scraping for every pound just to get new footballs for training is not something I want to go into… The point is that, some Premiere Division teams would certainly, at least, bring me in for an interview if I would apply for a job there. - Are there other jobs? Other than Newcastle I mean? - At the moment, in the Premiere Division, no. Brighton has a new manager for about three weeks now. Swansea made their change in January…» She fell into a pensive mood. Mark passed an arm over her head to rest it on his wife’s shoulder and smiled. - «I know the papers are talking a lot about Liverpool…» He smiled as he was saying it! Penny couldn’t resist and laughed a little. - «I think it’s too big a chunk for me, honestly, even if they are in 12th place at the moment. I heard quite a few stories about Burton Albion though…. - Burton Albion? Like… forty minutes away by car to Burton upon Trent Burton Albion FC? - Yes. They weren’t called for high heavens by anybody but, they still are in the red zone and been there for about six weeks now. I saw some stats about the team and they have shown a decrease in crowds. - But this means that financially, it wouldn’t be that good, no? - Yes and no, they have no debt… You can add to that the senior squad they have is not impressive, to be honest, and, looking at some scouting reports, their reserve and youth teams aren’t well furbished either». Mark was looking at his wife with a light smile on his face. He was looking at a woman he hadn’t seen in a long time! - «Do I detect that you’ve made a “choice” of where you want to go?» He didn’t smile as much as he offered a smirk. She offered him a stern look in return. - «I haven’t made any choice. Besides, last I check, Jamie McAllister is still the manager there. I could give you a similar analysis of League 1 teams you know! - I bet you can!» He loved to see her fired up like this… He brought her close for a kiss. She returned it easily… The embrace lasted for long seconds. She felt warm and comfortable, sinking into her husband’s arms… It was at that precise moment that her inner feeling of guilt started to bang up on the walls of her hearth... Mark, well attuned to his wife after so many years, stopped the kiss and sought her eyes. «You still believe that Britanny got sick because of you taking a real pro manager's job, isn’t it?» Her eyes, evading his, instantly got cloudy with her pain. Her breathing became shallow and choppy… «Honey, listen to me, ok? Britanny didn’t became sick because you had a big job and you weren’t home every night.» Her eyes started to water a little… - «But…» Mark interrupted her. - «Britanny is becoming a teenager now; she is eleven, doing her stuff by herself. And I say it again, just Like Dr. Crawford did: Your job had nothing to do with her getting sick, period!» Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted August 30, 2018 Author Share Posted August 30, 2018 For one of the very few times since she was with West Brom, Penny was present on match day. On Saturday, March the 16th, all the coaches were gathered in the main meeting room at the training grounds at 9h00 to meet with the new manager: Ivan Galad. Coming straight from the Czech Republic, he was fresh out of Slavia Prague, a team from the Czech First Division Championship. He’d resigned to come take the reins of the Baggies. The number of coaches was pretty thin since Mike had been fired; quite a few had quit basically, because they had come on-board with Mike or because they got tired of the revolving doors at the top of the team. The first contact with him went well; he seemed like a nice bloke alright! She was the last in the line of coaches to be presented and he offered, what seemed to be, a genuine smile. After making a small speech, he asked Craig Shakespeare, the Assistant Manager, to present the match plan to him since the game against Leeds barely was six hours away. At Craig’s request, Penny presented today’s formation and strategy, the reasoning behind it and all the trimmings that came with it. The mood was a bit muffled. All thought that today’s game would be managed by Craig and that the new manager would only arrive on Monday but late last night, all had received a phone call telling them that a new manager had been designated and that he would be on the side lines for tomorrow’s game. During the presentation, Ivan asked about some options, situational contingencies mainly, and that was it, really. At the end, he asked at what the time the players were scheduled to arrive, 10h30 to leave for the Hawthorne at 13h00, and then retreated to his office with Craig in tow. The rest of the coaches were looking at each other; no one knew what to do next, especially Penny since she never was present for games… After a few instants of lull, she started to talk with Carl Blakemore, the Data Analyst with whom she was working the most, to discuss about some requirements for the next game’s analysis. About twenty minutes later, she saw Craig enters the room, making signs for her to follow him. As both were walking, Craig told her: «Ivan wants me to convey to you that he thought the presentation was very well put, extremely detailed and full of insights. - May I ask where we are going?» she asked Craig. - «Ivan wants some complementary information on Leeds…» he said, turning his head toward her. Her face must have said more than she wanted because, after taking a quick look at her, Craig added, «…he wants to have a detailed description of your work too, your methods and, he also wants some more info on your schedule…» She stopped walking. Craig, surprised by her action, stopped too. - «I’m sorry to say this but… you know about all those things, you could have said them yourself… - I tried, honestly, but he doesn’t understand the nature of your work because of your schedule. I told him a brief history of your presence here, how all the managers had leaned on you and your analysis but he still wants to talk with you. - You are basically telling me he is evaluating if he wants to give me the boot or not before the end of the week. - No!» he said, with a rather stern tone. «For what I get, he doesn’t grasp the fact that you are not present to the games with all of us. He said, many times, that he found your way of putting things very incisive and that he liked that. For him, it’s the fact that he can’t have your counsel during the game that is bugging him, I think…» Penny was surprised. - «Isn’t that your purpose? At best, I would say something to you and you would convey the observation. No? Besides, you very well know the reasons for my schedule and that it is in my contract. I came here, today, because… well… it’s his first day, you know? - Look Penny, I already told him that. Has I said, he still wants to have a talk with you». As he ended his phrase, he turned around and started to walk again. The remaining 30 meters to Ivan’s office were rapidly travelled, in silence. Craig and Penny entered directly since the door was opened. Ivan was behind his desk with today’s tactics on his tablet, he clearly was concentrating on it because it took him a few seconds to react but as soon as he realized they were there, he stood and came to Penny and offered his hand. «I like the strategy you have put together Penny. May I call you Penny?» he said to her, smiling, while waving her to one of the chair. «Craig, could you get us some water bottles please? - Sure» Craig answered. He then turned and went out of the office to go get them. - «I particularly liked the way you have put the report together and the fact that you also have put in the reasons why you would suggest an option instead of another. I found it very informative. - Thank you sir». Penny felt very uncomfortable on her chair. She never liked compliments in the first place but the situation was adding to it. - «Craig told me about your schedule, and the way you’ve been working. Apparently you usually watch the match afterward, before talking to anyone who was there, why is that? - I prefer coming to it without any predispositions or expectations. - Would you tell me…» Ivan got up, went to the door, closed it and then came back to his chair as he continued to talk, «…why do you think the team didn’t got more success since you came in?» Penny was taken aback by the question. - «I’m not sure I understand the question sir. - Well, from what Craig told me, you have developed excellent relations with the managers since you arrived with the team, I am wondering, if the understanding was so good, how could the team could have failed? - Are you saying or implying the results are my own doing sir?» Penny asked, being defensive now. - «I haven’t said that. - Sir, I’ll answer this way, to your question: I am not the one taking the decisions during the games. - But your game plans, you always gave them with the same kind of details, no? - Yes and no sir. Today, I gave extra infos because since I assumed you didn’t know the Leeds roster yet, just like ours, you would have found it useful. What I always gave to the managers, were analysis of the games, the way I saw them. I offered pointers that might be of interest, contingencies that could be interesting, but I never gave a fully formed game plan sir; I offered a raw tactical review with some options for the next one using our last performances as much as the opponent’s. With two of the managers, I did help on the game plans but not with the other. The game plan’s execution, they all were their own doing sir. - But the tactical exercises, you designed them, no? They were planned in view of the games, weren’t they? - For Fran and Sean, yes, but they had the final say on them, always. The decisions during the games were based on assessments out of the action sir, with the pressure inherent to a match being played. Sometimes, I could say that they clearly were in line with the work I had produced and presented but other times, they were not». She was starting to feel pushed into a corner… Luckily, or maybe because he had sensed it; he changed the course of the discussion. - «Ok. I understand that you’ve made something special today, by being here on a Saturday for a match, is that correct? - My contract says that my schedule is during regular office hours. I never shy away from working more when the situation asks for it but yes, I don’t come in or away on games. Naturally, if we would have a game like today and another on the very next Monday, I’d come in to make the analysis on Sunday but I would already have done a preliminary work for the second match during the week. The extra work would have been to see how it went in the last match to make the necessary modifications like a change because of an injury for example. - If I would ask you to stay today, would you? - Today sir? Yes. - Good. Now, would you talk to me, in more details, about that winger... I forgot his name… Well, that winger that tends to hug the side line on the right flank?» When the talk was over and that she was getting out of his office, she knew he had seen her crutch closely but have not asked any question about it; she was pleased with that. Not to mention the fact of her gender… She still didn’t like what she felt with some assumptions on his part though… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 An hour after the match against Leeds, a 3-2 win, Penny went home. She hadn’t heard anything from Ivan, if he wanted to talk with her or not so, she left. In the car, she had a nagging feeling of discomfort within herself. The team had won, with a late goal on the 88th minute and had kept the lead despite a ridiculous six minutes of injury time added by the referee. She had seen during the game that her analysis had been spot on in a most areas. It was some bad adjustments, on Leeds part, at the end of the game that made them lose the draw. During the match, she saw that Ivan had taken some suggestions of contingencies she had offered, others, he didn’t. It wasn’t something new; she was used to that but, that second Leeds goal? It clearly was a case scenario she had included, and that was building up for about ten minutes, that lead to it. He had just decided not to act it the way she had suggested. She knew it wouldn’t have meant the goal would never had happen but, nonetheless, the scenario was in the report and three possible contingencies had been included to foil that exact situation… When she arrived home, Mark had begun to prepare dinner; his parents were coming tonight. Britanny was in the backyard, doing some balance exercises. Penny went straight to the bathroom, to take a quick shower and change clothes. When all was done, she went to lend Mark a hand to chop vegetables. He was smiling when she arrived close to him: “Congrats on the win, babe!” he said. She just smiled at him. At that precise moment, she realized that she knew her decision was made; she then gave her husband a slightly bigger smile, put the knife back on the board, and went to get her work bag so she could get her laptop out. She took out the machine, put it on a little free space on the counter top so that Mark could see the screen and she fired up her email client. As the software was opening, she gave a quick peck on her husband’s cheek than got her attention back to the machine. Once all was open, she clicked the “New message” icon, wrote the address and started to write: «Ivan, This email is just to let you know that I will resign my position at the end of the current season. After three years at West Brom, I feel it is time for me to move one. Penny Stiles» She looked at Mark, who looked at her with his «Are you sure about this?» type of stare. She clicked the “Send” icon and smiled back at him. She then closed the laptop, brought it to the kitchen table and went back to her husband to give him a hug and a bigger kiss. He responded in kind. At that precise moment, Britanny came in the house. "You two are still kissing? Yuk!" she said, clearly disgusted by the scene. Both parents stopped, looked at her and started to laugh. Penny went straight to her daughter and forced a hug on her! Trying to get out of mum’s grip, Britanny wiggled as hard as she could but dad came in too! A family brawl started in the kitchen, with a lot of kissing from the parents, laughter and tickling! It got interrupted by the front door bell. Mark went to greet his parents while the daughter ran to her room, evading her mum’s embrace. Penny’s in-laws always were very close to the family and the dinner was a long overdue event. Living in Hereford, they had been particularly present and helpful during Brtianny’s sickness. If the grandparents loved their grand-daughter, she was returning the love with ease. The atmosphere around the table was very light. One thing in particular, about her father-in-law, always had fascinated Penny. This man, who could barely read and write but was pretty smart, was absolutely obsessed with education. Mark had once recounted the talking to he had received after coming back from a “big night at the pub”, two days prior to a big exam. Yet, it had “straightened him up” and, from there, Mark studied hard until he got his diploma; never one for school, really, he still got it with very decent grades. The funny thing about it all is that the talking to ingrained itself so deep in him, that he was now the one pushing Britanny the most for good grades in school! «Where do you plan to go on vacations this year?» Mark’s dad was asking him as all were eating dinner. - «We might not go anywhere… I think.» Mark smirked at his dad while answering. - «Huh? Why?» asked his mum. - «Because of me!» answered Penny. Both her in-laws gapped at the answer. - «What do you mean mum?» asked Britanny. Penny now was in the middle of chewing a piece of meat and was scanning the peoples around the table by the time Britanny had asked the question. She saw there was a lot more than a simple question from her daughter hanging in the place. Once she finished chewing, she followed through. - «I’m thinking of going back on the side lines. - You’re going to be the new manager of the Baggies?» asked Mark’s dad with an excited voice. - «Nope. They’ve already hired someone and I didn’t want the position anyway… I didn’t want peoples to think I was sabotaging things in the back so I could become the manager, you know? - Oh! Well, it is intelligent I presume, not wanting to be seen as the scheming one who wanted to be queen. - Queen Penny…Exactly!» chimed Mark in while laughing a bit. «She already notified him she’ll leave at the end of the season actually. - Isn’t that huh… a bit premature?» asked his mother. If dad was the rather impulsive type, she always was the worrier type. - Well, I guess I didn’t want to go through a fourth cycle of re-acquaintance and besides, there should be opportunities too» answered Penny. «As for you question, I’m not really worried about that…» she said looking right at Mark’s mother «because, may I also surprise you by saying that I even got some offers in the last three years? - What?» It was a stunned Mark that had just talked. - «Yes honey, I did get about ten or twelve calls in the last two years alone, to come for interviews. - You never told me that!» Penny smiled softly at him. - «Mark, they were inconsequential anyway! I told you that I wanted to go back when I would be right with the idea of me, going back out there first... Since I wasn’t there before today, there was no reason to talk about them. - What changed?» It was Mark’s dad now. Penny was a bit conflicted at that point. Mark knew… Well, kind of knew anyway, of her personal pledge to herself not to go back until Britanny would stop asking for the bedtime stories… - «I needed to step back a bit, sir. The last year with the Bulls was ... well... you know…» Mark’s dad looked at her and his eyes were telling he knew she was lying but, being nice as always, he didn’t push further on this part of the subject. - «You think you can find another job quickly then? - As you know sir, there’s always a bunch of relegated teams that fires their managers at the season’s end so, I think I should be able to find myself something, somewhere. If not, I’ll make some calls around to get something as a coach. I got a great relationship with Fran Escriba for example; the one that went to head the U23 English National team and who now is manager of the senior team. He’d probably hire me in a heartbeat, I think. - Well, for me, as long as she starts working quick!» quipped Mark with a big smile. «It would be unbearable to have her here day in and day out! That office hours schedule has made her soft!» All the adults laughed around the table. - «Mum? Does that mean we’ll have to move?» asked Britanny. Penny looked at her with a light comforting smile. - «Maybe sweaty, most probably I’d say… - Where to? - We’ll go where there is a job for me but, if there is somewhere you don’t want to go, than you better think about it and tell me fast». Britanny nodded and went back to her food without saying anything else. - «Well, I’d say this calls for a celebration!» said Mark’s dad. «It’s about bloody time someone should start winning because of you!» All laughed but Penny; she just blushed… she also knew he had said that only to make her to blush… the old bugger! As she was putting the dishes in the dishwasher, Mark’s mother came behind Penny and whispered softly: “If you and the family are happy, there’s nothing else that matters…” Penny turned her head and looked at her; she saw a twinkling in her eyes. She took her mother-in-law in her arm and, when she thought she’d be giving her a hug, she received one first instead. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 The next Sunday, the 24th of March, Penny was showing Britanny her training schedule for the coming week, explaining the exercises she would need to do, when her job cell rang. As she picked it up, she saw it was Craig (Shakespeare), the team’s Assistant Manager. When she arrived at work last Monday morning, she had found him waiting for her in her office; which was highly unusual. He had told her that he had seen the message she had sent Ivan since he had forwarded it to him. For about half an hour, they had talked about her resignation. He understood the reason she gave him: desire to go back to the side lines, new challenge and the whole speech she had prepared. There was no way she would be saying that since the daughter now wanted to go to sleep without a bedtime story every night, it was now “morally ok” for her to go back to managing, of course. Since she always had an excellent relationship with Craig, the talk wasn’t emotional in any noticeable way. At age sixty, he had seen and done a lot around the league; she knew he understood. As for Ivan? All was summarized in him asking her if it was definitive and then to never come back to the subject… «Hello Craig!» said Penny. - «Hello Penny, are you home at the moment? - Yes, why? - Is it possible to meet, like… right now?» She was surprised. - «Sure. - I should be at your house in about…huh… let’s say… twenty minutes? - Ok». He knew she was living very close to the Baggies training grounds; she walked there whenever she could, but he didn’t know exactly where. She gave him the address and he hung up. She went back to Britanny and her training schedule. The daughter was improving, especially on her balance and agility. She knew because some dribbling exercises were becoming easier. As the daughter was going out to make the first set of exercises, the mother plugged the kettle so the water would be hot when Craig would arrive. -------------- Penny was watching her daughter in the backyard when the doorbell rang. She went to the front door and greeted Craig. She had always liked him; his calm demeanour, natural warmth and ability to make tense situations cool down with just a few words always fascinated her. Both of them went to the living room. «Do you want anything to drink? Tea? Wine? Brandy?» she asked Craig as he was sitting on the couch. - «Tea would be nice» he answered with a smile. «Are you alone? - No. The daughter is in the backyard, doing her exercises». Penny was now in the kitchen, putting everything on a tray as Craig was going into the living room. «Mark is doing overtime at work though, tax season, you know? - The daughter is working mainly balance and agility I think, she wants to be a striker, right? - Nope, I told her she’d made a better winger, I saw she’s got way better acceleration and pace than average, with kids her age, and she listened to mummy… for now anyway. Balance and agility is to make her more solid on her feet and for the dribbling to become easier. I started talking tactics with her lately. She has some flair for sure but I want to help her think a little bit more; she tends to be impulsive. False nine in a narrow system might become a viable option, somewhere down the line though …» Penny was coming back to the living room with the tray with the tea cups, milk, sugar and some cookies. «Sorry, the cookies aren’t homemade. I’m terrible at cooking!» She said with a smile as she put the tray on the coffee table and sat by Craig’s side. He let out a little laugh. - «You can’t be good at everything, huh? Oh, and I hadn’t say it last Monday but, I think it was nice to make everything clear about your future here». Craig was constantly changing position on the sofa, clearly uncomfortable. Penny noticed it and was getting curious; the couch itself was very comfortable so… When he continued talking, Craig, as he so often does, cut to the chase straight away: «As you know, I have some friends pretty much everywhere in football, right? - Well, to say it like you do: “you’ve had a good run so far!”» she said with a little smile. He laughed a little again but went back at being serious quickly. - «I know that in the last two years, you have gotten a few phone calls for interviews as manager and…» She gasped! He noticed it and smirked. « What? You thought that wouldn’t be known? - To be honest? Yes… I did…» she said, rather weakly. - «Well, I know it because some of those calls that were made were done after some friends of mine called me to ask things about you». Penny was thunderstruck! - «What?» Craig took his time, taking a little sip of tea and then a bite of cookie; he was letting the news sink in before continuing and, by his demeanour, enjoying her reaction too. - «Why so surprised? You arrived in Conference South from a D9 team, blew the competition away with a straight promotion, getting designated Manager of the year in the process, and when in Conference the year after, you did exactly the same thing; promotion and Manager of the year. You think peoples forgets things like that?» he said, with a lot of authority at that! It wasn’t as much the substance as the way it was said that killed Penny. She pretty much thought of this herself, hoping others might remember them, but she never assumed anyone would think it too. - To be honest….» she started to say but he interrupted her. - «Anyway, I passed on the word that you were now ready to shop around». Penny gasped, again! «Penny, I don’t understand you! You said to your new boss that you are leaving at the end of the season, no? Are you taking it back? - No!» she said, «but I thought…» Craig interrupted her again. - «Hey, I think you have potential...» His face then changed to transform into a mischievous look, «…for a woman!» He laughed and, she couldn’t do anything but join him in it; he had broken the tension… « I believe you have qualities that are very attractive for a fair number of teams. And, so far, as a manager, you still only have a record of successes! So, I just passed the word around to some people who had once made inquiries about you. For now though, it’s not about those who had called me before that I want to talk to you about. I want to tell you something about a friend, who “shouldn’t be a friend”, that I want you to know of…». Penny was getting intrigued by now. - «A friend who shouldn’t be a friend?» Craig let out another little laugh. - Yeah… but before I continue, I want your word that our talking together today will not get out, ok?» Penny quickly nodded. «It’s a bit huh… sensitive, considering… well… Anyway, my “friend”, who is going to retire at the end of the season, actually works in the offices of a Premier Division team; he’s not directly involved in the football end. That particular team have just fired their manager less than an hour ago; it’s most likely known by now. This means that they are looking for someone. So, now, I want you to listen carefully, ok? - Ok. - What I’m gonna tell you is just based on chats about the team I had around some rounds of beers with my “friend” in the last year and they, mostly, are deductions on my part, ok? - Ok. - My “friend” and I once talked, specifically, about you too but I won’t say more about that». His face clearly showed he wouldn’t. «From what I got from the talks with him, but also about comments read in the papers here and there, the owner is looking for someone with, pretty much, the mentality you have when it comes to approaching the game and the team building aspect of it. They have a team that is aging and he apparently would want someone who would be in sync with the idea of bringing young blood into the team. He would particularly want this particular trait to be a natural inclination, not something done out of a request. For the last five years, they had struggled; struggled badly I would even add. They were able to stay in the Premier Division, yes, but they never were able to go higher than the 14th spot on the table, not to mention that they had spent a lot of time on the edge of and inside the relegation zone. This… This, is starting to bother him, a lot. So, for those two reasons, I think you should seriously think about sending your résumé». Penny had trouble believing what she was hearing. She remembered what Sean (Dyche) had once said, barely believing his statement at the time and still having doubts about it, but still… - «Prem… Premier Division? - Yes, and there is another reason for it too». She caught up fast this time and was getting ready to fire back but Craig didn’t give her time to do it. «He would love it! But! That is the thing: If he would, partly I think, let you in for the stunt, he would keep you because of what I think you would bring to the team: a place on the table that he wants to go to! Ever since he had bought the team, he is dreaming of playing on the European stage. I honestly think, that once you completely control the place, you could very well give him what he wants!» Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 It only took three days for Penny to receive the phone call. Peter Bosz was fired on Sunday the 24th of March. She had sent her application in the afternoon of the 25th, without telling anyone but her husband, about her interest and she had gotten the call for the interview on Thursday morning; it was scheduled for Monday, April 1st. After she had received the call, she went to see Craig in his office, closing the door behind her and passing him the news; he didn’t know she had done it at the time. He looked at her, gave her a big smile, and just said: «Told you!» She started to gather data on the team both Thursday and Friday night then spent the entire Saturday and a fair part of Sunday going over the records and team reports in the press about the club and the players. She didn’t use any of the Baggies data on the team, at all; it was a matter of self-imposed values and principles. She also gave a phone call to a scout she have a good relation with, who was with West Brom when she arrived and left a year after her arrival to join Manchester United. After telling him why and making it clear to keep all this under wrap, they talked for about fifteen minutes where he gave a picture of the team with very broad strokes. The most important thing he’d told her was that the senior squad was over 30 years of age in average, that the youngest in there was 22 and that he was the exception since the next “young” one was 27. They had played a 4-4-2 flat for most of the season and that their midfielders were slow but decent. Their biggest weakness was the defensive line and that the forwards seriously lacked acceleration. She had found videos of the last three games they had played so, she watched them. She also took a long look at the coming calendar for the team: they were in the red zone by four points and, of all the teams fighting relegation; they clearly had the toughest calendar of all! Staying in Premier would be an achievement in itself for sure! The interview started right on the dot. «Hello Mrs. Stiles, my name is Keith Wyness, I am the General manager here, at Aston Villa. To my left is Mr. Tony Xia, owner of the club, which you most certainly recognized already». Handshakes and smiles were exchanged. «Before we start things over and that I let Mr. Xia conduct the first part of interview, I just want to mention to you that Ms. Grey here, will make a written record of the interview» he added while pointing to a woman sitting at the opposite end of the table. - «First, Mrs. Stiles, I want to thank you for your time» Tony Xia said. - «I am happy to be here sir. - The first thing I would like you to tell us, are the reasons why you left Hereford, after such a successful run, to become a tactical coach, as we understand it. - I needed to take a step back sir. Yes, I achieved, faster than expected too, the goals that were set to me when I arrived with the Bulls but, especially in the second year, some events made me realize that, as far as managing was concerned, I had some shortcomings. Hence, by going with West Bromwich Albion, I was able to specifically work on those shortcomings, by taking classes and also, by learning the game from another standpoint». Her statement wasn’t a bold face lie but she knew, it wasn’t entirely true either. Nonetheless, they didn’t interrupt her. «Since I left football as a player, I always had been a manager. If I proved myself that managing the players themselves was something I could, rather easily, do, on the tactical side though, I felt like I was slowly moving toward a very narrow view of the game. So, by becoming a tactical coach, for a Premier Division team at the time, it was an excellent opportunity to broaden my knowledge by being in daily contact with the best teams in England. - Couldn’t you have done that while staying a manager? - I don’t think so sir. What I want is to be among the bests! To do that, there is only one path I really know: you need to have brushes against those bests. In my opinion, it is the only way to learn. From where I was, I couldn’t have done it because, as a manager, I have a duty to act in a broader setting. As a tactical coach, I was able to perfect my craft where it was needed. - I find it surprising to hear you say that you have shortcomings… - Why is that sir? Managing, or succeeding in any endeavour for that matter, is to know one’s strengths and weaknesses: “Know thyself” as they say. If I may be so bold sir, there must be some areas where you are not as strong as others are, aren’t you? Well, I think it’s the same thing for a manager. The management of a football team requires a broad knowledge, yes, but I always thought that, first and foremost, I had to know where my shortcomings were, accept them, and then, act on them by finding the right peoples to come and fill those gaps. Just like you I can easily guess. You are a businessman and you probably know a lot about financial laws and such but, you are no lawyer, spending his entire time working in those laws day in and day out so, you hire lawyers to fill that gap. In the same breath, a central defender has specific qualities and attributes, and they aren’t the same as a midfielder or a striker. You then put the central defender in a position where he will perform best and you find other players to fill the midfield and the front line. - It still would be a big step for you… - As for managing a team, I think it is the same thing, whatever the level of play: you manage human beings, egos, with their own personalities and you have to create an atmosphere where they will perform at their best, players and staffs. As for the rest, mainly my capacity to analyse a tactical situation during a match, I worked specifically on that in the last three years and at the level, or close to the level, the Villans are right now». Both Tony and Keith looked at each other when she said that. Their body language didn’t say much but, clearly, this last answer did something she thought. - «Maybe are you not aware of this, but it’s the 150th anniversary of the club and, to be honest, I would find it very shameful indeed, to see the team get relegated on this particular year. Do you think you could keep us in Premier Division if you would become our manager? - Right now sir, the team is in 18th position with 22 points, behind Brighton who is in 17th who have 25 and Crystal Palace in 16th who have 26. All have seven games to play at the moment but Aston Villa has, by far, the toughest calendar among the trio that is in best position to survive. For the analysis I did, I think 31 will be the magic number, this would mean nine points to get, in seven games. A 2-3-2 record should keep the team in Premier. Villa will meet: Stoke (13th). Arsenal (5th), Middlesbrough (14th), Manchester United (3rd), Newcastle (20th), Hotspurs (6th) and Chelsea (1st). Of them, three are home games and they all are against the top teams. Do I think it’s possible? Yes. Although, it will be ugly football, and I mean ugly! But yes, I say I can do it! - What do you mean by “ugly” football? - I mean parking the bus and hoofing the ball far in front. No fancy passing, no nothing. High pressing in the middle, trying to force mistakes and bad passes, recuperate the ball and go long!» She saw no reaction on the other side of the table and Penny was wondering if it was a good or a bad thing… - «Ok. Now for the staff, would you want a budget to bring in your peoples if you would get the job? - No sir. When I’ll do a reshuffling, if I do one, it will be done at the end of the season and when it will happen, it will be in a way where you will recoup everything inside twelve to fifteen months max. I’ll only fill the vacancies that need to be filled in urgency before doing the reshuffling anyway. Anyhow, before doing so, I will have presented you a detailed plan of what I’ll want to do and will seek your approval before I put it in motion. I should offer you a plan in the first week after my arrival. - We have a Director of football here, at the club, Lee Darnbrough. Would you accept to keep him? - Sir, I do not know him so, I would prefer to say that I don’t know. Whatever the choice I make, you’ll have the final say on it anyway. - Ok, the last point I want to bring on the table is about the club philosophy. I would like you to bring young players into the senior squad, young players that would make a difference. - I know that your actual squad is not on the young side in the Premier Division and I perfectly understand your desire. I have absolutely no problem at recruiting young players, sir, none at all. - Is there a particular philosophy of play that you would like to implement, other than bringing young players into the senior squad? - Other than bringing young players in sir? No». The entire interview had lasted about two hours. A lot of talks have been done with the GM after the owner had gotten the pieces he wanted to know about. The rest was more about finances and the processes in the club, and her own, when all comes down to decision making. When she finally left Villa Park, at ten past noon, she didn’t spot the photographer, at the end of the parking lot, taking pictures of her, leaving the building. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 7, 2018 Author Share Posted September 7, 2018 For over ten days now, Mark was having a ball at the expense of his wife! For ten days, he had collected tens of screenshots of articles and audios and videos about the rumours of her becoming the next Aston Villa manager! Barely ten minutes after she had left Villa Park’s main offices, a picture of her leaving the place, all dressed up for an interview, was posted on the FourFourTwo’s website. By the end of the day, FourFourTwo had placed her at the top of the list of potential managers for taking the position. The day after the interview, she was asked to go to Ivan’s office. Since she had just said she would need her morning the day before, he wanted to know the story. No, it wasn’t premeditated. No, she did not know that Aston Villa was going to fire their manager when she had sent the email of her resignation. Craig, which she met as she was going to her own office, gave her a gigantic smile and, to her surprise, a hug! He didn’t say a word but his actions were loud enough... She then got called by the top brass. She hopped in her car and drove to the Hawthorne to meet with them. The talk was a bit awkward; to put it mildly. She got asked why she hadn’t applied for the job here, at West Brom, and she gave them the reason; she would not be seen as scheming behind someone’s back. More importantly, no, she didn’t choose Aston Villa because they were West Brom’s arch-enemies. They didn’t really like it, but what could they say anyway at this point? In the end, other than a stern reminder of her Non-Disclosure Agreement, nothing else was really said. On the 3rd of April, Mark caught, and recorded, a radio program, with peoples calling in. He had made her listen to it, with a barely held laughter, when one particular Villa fan talked with… huh... passion: «Are they bloody mad in there? Are they really thinking of giving the team to the limping chick? For God’s sake man, this is raving mad!!!” Mark found it immensely funny! Fortunately, he was about the only one saying that. The same day, he caught an interview with Fran Escribà, the ex-West Brom manager who now was the manager of the English national team, who had worked with Penny for over a year, where he was saying that he was absolutely certain that, driven as she was, she would do a great job on the Villa Park side lines! Another interview Mark had caught was from Josh Barnes, the ex-Hereford goalkeeper who now was in League 1, with Burton, where he was saying that she was the best manager he ever had and that “Aston Villa would make a mistake not to hire her”! On the 4th of April, a fans’ poll presented on the FouFourTwo web site put Penny as their first choice to take over the team! Mark even printed an A3 size poster of it and put it on the kitchen table, which she saw as soon as she arrived home... He was teasing her mercilessly! As for Britanny, she just couldn’t believe it! Bringing a friend home to play after school that day, she boasted that her mum would soon be a big manager in a really big team in real big stadium! The 7th of April, Penny was happy to see the Villans had won their match against Stoke but still, she got no news from the team itself. She noticed that those three points in the bank still kept the team in relegation zone. Ten days after the interview, on the 10th of April, while they were eating dessert that night, Mark showed her the following story he made a print and found on a Premier League specialized media: «Aston Villa in turmoil over next manager’s choice According to multiple sources that should remain anonymous, the Aston Villa high management would apparently be in great turmoil over the nomination of their next manager. After nineteen days without anybody at the helm, pressure is building up in the higher echelons. Sources tell us that a great divide would be present among the top management about the candidate the team should choose. So far, without having confirmed their names to the press, the great uncertainty would seem to reside among two groups who are divided among experience in the Premier Division and new blood coming from the lower leagues. Two candidates, which we never were able to confirm despite all the best efforts, that they had interviewed, would fit the former description and one the latter. To them, we can add Dean Smith, ex-Brighton manager, which was fired last January, that would have been interviewed earlier this week and was confirmed by the club. It is speculated that the manager with lower league experience would be Penny Stiles, who was caught by FourFourTwo on the first day of April, leaving the Hawthorne offices. The hesitation would apparently reside around the fact that the three prominent candidates who would have prior experience managing Premier Division teams weren’t successful enough to keep their jobs at their respective clubs, all of them being fired at some point. On the other side, there would be the “identified lower league manager”, Penny Stiles, who has no prior experience managing in the Premier Division but have coaching experience at the level. As a manager, she has been extremely successful. Coming from D9, the ex-manager of the Hereford Bulls, a professionnal status club already at the time, made back to back promotions from Vanarama South to Vanarama League (2018/19 season) and then to League 2 (2019/20 season). Both years, the team was predicted to be relegated but instead, took the top position of the leagues on the last day of both calendars. In the interval, not only was she designated Manager of the year both times, she had also brought the team in a phenomenal Third round Rematch in the FA Cup against West Bromwich Albion while in Vanarama South. When the team was in Conference the next year, she became a giant slayer when she won against Brighton in Third round of the same FA Cup». Penny sighed here because it wasn’t even her that was the giant slayer, but her Assistant Manager at the time, Sam Walker. She continued reading. «Her only failure was in the FA Trophy competition. During her first season, Hereford was eliminated in the quarter finals and, in the second season, she lost against Salford at Wembley in the Finals. After her two very successful campaigned, she resigned and joined West Bromwich Albion, where she became a tactical coach for the team and competed both in Championship and Premier Division competitions. She had said after leaving Hereford that she wanted to get more experience on the tactical side of the game so that she could progress as a manager. All these internal debates arose at a moment when Tony Xia, the 47 year’s old Aston Villa owner, would apparently be inclined to rejuvenate the team. Allegedly, in numerous private and public discussions, he would have stated how sad he was at the team’s performance since he had bought the club and that, maybe, a great shakedown might be the solution. Last February, at a time when the team was flirting with the relegation zone, he said in an interview that he was saddened to think by the mere idea of the team being relegated on this particular anniversary year. Numerous fans seem to agree to such statement since there was a significant drop in attendance at Villa Park lately. Most are saying that it simply is the fans “voting with their feet”». Penny lifted her head toward Mark after reading the story. He was smiling at her stunned stare! At that moment, he pulled another print of a small article, this time, from BBC WM, that was merely an hour old: «English manager Dean Smith, who is currently unemployed since being fired by Brighton earlier this season, is believed to have attended an interview for the vacant Aston Villa job. Bookmaker had listed Smith as one of the favorites for the job the moment that Peter Bosz's firing was announced. With odds of 3-2 now available, Smith is considered to be the likely candidate to be hired by the club. A sporkesperson for Aston Villa offered little insight into the nature of the interview, only stopping to say that they were considering every option available.» She lifted her head and didn't really know how to react, really. She wanted the job for sure but she knew that it was a long shot at best, she didn't have a lot of experience yet. Just as she was going to say something, a phone started to ring. She could hear that it was her personal cell phone that was in her purse. Mark got up to get it, which was on the couch, and brought it to her. She saw the call was from a blocked phone number. She was able to answer it after the fourth ring: «Hello? - Mrs. Penny Stiles please» said a female voice. - «Speaking. - Please hold for Mr. Xia please». Penny made a big gapping stare at Mark that was sitting in front of her. After a few seconds, a male voice came on the line; it was Tony Xia, the owner of Aston Villa FC. - «Hello, Mrs. Stiles? - Yes sir. - Sorry to bother you at such hour but I would like to know if it could be possible for you to meet the management and myself tomorrow morning. We would like to offer you a two years contract as manager of Aston Villa FC». Penny became ghost white. - «Su… Sure sir! Wi… with pleasure! At what time would you want me to be there? - Great! A copy of the contract is on its way to your house as we speak. The driver should be there any minute. Are you at your house at the moment? - Yes sir, I am. - The time and place will be on a note, accompanying the contract. We should meet at a hotel and then proceed to Villa Park. A full schedule of the day will be included, along with a phone number to reach me, tonight. If there is any modification to the contract that you would want, or not. I would like you to call me in about two hours to iron out the details in the contract, if need be, and also to confirm your presence at tomorrow’s meeting. Would that suit you Mrs. Stiles? - It suits me perfectly sir. I’ll take a look at the contract as soon as it arrives and I call you in two hours. - Thank you. I hope you will find the proposition to your liking» and he hung up without saying another word. Penny’s hands were shaking as she was putting the phone on the table. Her ghost white face of a few moments ago still was there but now, she was wearing a big smile on it! Mark immediately got up and swept her off her chair to give her a big hug. As they came together in a joyful embrace, the front doorbell rang! Révélation These are to prove that the story is following the game. https://imgur.com/frcbcyX (btw, those odds are bullocks because this was the announcement of the firing: https://imgur.com/Dvtivto and the lady’s name is nowhere in that page lol ) https://imgur.com/VZFRWIs Sorry I don't have the pic of the Dean Smith article in the game. I thought of putting this in the story way too late and I the save was way beyond the point of being able to take a screenshot of it. I remembered the fact that there was an article the very same day of the lady manager being nominated for the job so, specifically the odds since I was sure I wouldn't get the job! I took part of the generic text we have in game and made modifications to reflect Dean Smith and Aston Villa. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 9, 2018 Author Share Posted September 9, 2018 «”You say the risk is to not win enough? That’s all we did so far this season!” Tony Xia, Aston Villa FC owner. In what could very well be the shocker of the year in the Premier Division, Aston Villa’s owner, Tony Xia, places his hopes in Penny Stiles, at Villa Park this morning. Twenty days after Peter Bosz was fired, a new manager has finally been appointed at the claret and blues. The press conference was a sought after event. Despite having many cameras around the buildings since the early hours of the morning, nobody was able to get a glimpse at the new manager beforehand. The best opportunity they had was when a car, with heavily tainted windows, went to the interior garage of the building but nobody was able to see anything inside of it. When Tony Xia entered the room, with his new manager in tow, a collective gasp resounded throughout the press corps. Ever since the first day of April, when a FourFourTwo photographer caught Penny Stiles on camera leaving the Villa Park offices, many analysts had considered her, an ex-Hereford Bulls manager and a former West Bromwich Albion tactical coach, to be among the most likely prospects to take over the team. It was another thing when the speculations turned to reality. In his opening statement, the owner agreed that the team wasn’t performing the way he wanted but more importantly, the way the fans wanted: “In the end, the fans asked the team to be competitive and the club failed them.” Asked about the late timing of the decision, he said that “…you must have faith in your people to find the solutions but… they clearly weren't able to do it”. Reporters in the room repeatedly came back to the late decision to fire Peter Bosz. The owner finally admitted that “… we may have acted too late, it adds to the burden on Penny’s shoulders…” but, after her interview, he was “…confident she could salvage the situation and that if she failed, he would accept the blame.” As she seemed to have predicted, her gender came on the floor at the very beginning. She dismissed the question by saying: “You guys still talk about this? Really?” An uncomfortable silence filled the room and it was broken by the club owner when he stated: “I don’t care about that and the vast majority of the fans either! What I care about, and I’m sure what the fans cares too, is to have a team that performs well and wins games! That is, even by having a former West Brom coach in the team’s midst!” About the situation and the expectations lying on her shoulders, Stiles answered: “It is uncomfortable, for sure, but I disagree when some are saying that it is desperate. Desperate means that hope is all but lost. For me, it’s not the case”. Asked about the team, players and staff, she was very assertive: “Will there be an evaluation of everybody, at every level? Yes, but not now. It will be done once the season is over. So, all now knows what to do if they want to stay at Aston Villa”! When asked if she already had a list of peoples she would keep, she simply answered that it would mean she would have previously lied if that was the case. Tony Xia then chimed in that changes were inevitable, because it had been made very clear to Stiles that “we want her to rejuvenate the team with young players that would fight to get a spot in the senior squad”. Some questions have been asked about some reports saying that, inside the high management, the decision was difficult to make. Tony Xia refused to admit it by stating that “…yes, the discussions have been intense but that to say that there was a divide among the management was taking it too far”. Asked about the reason that made the scale tilt in favour of Stiles, he simply said that “we wanted to go toward a younger squad who would be hungry for victory and her record clearly shows that she already was comfortable with such a format”. If she though it was a road that could produce results, Stiles said “I think a mix of eager, young, players who have everything to prove and a small group of experienced players who work hard to win would always be a very potent combination…” in her eyes. One aspect that was talked about was if it was a risk to give to a newcomer the reign of the team. Tony Xia said that the “risk is to not be able to win enough games to achieve the clubs ambitions…” but that “…it actually was the case with the experienced managers they had brought in before”. For him, the key is about being hungry for more: “What Penny demonstrated at Hereford was that when comes the time to put all on the line to win a match, she was able to motivate the players to do it and achieve great things. If something is present right now at the club, is a group of players that are dispirited. She showed she can make the necessary changes and make the group perform better”. When asked directly, Stiles’ demeanour changed and answered: “Why should it matter? When Julian Nagelsmann took the helm at Hoffenheim, he barely was 28 and had only managed the team’s U21 squad at that point and look at what he had done since then! What matters to the fans is one thing only: winning! The fact that I am a woman or not, still young, is unimportant for the vast majority of them!” Penny Stiles, as a professional football team manager doesn’t have a long experience so far. The former Women’s Arsenal team goalkeeper, who also was a member of the English Women’s National team, only managed Hereford FC for two seasons after spending five years in amateur level teams from D12 to D9; she nonetheless secured promotions two years in a row with Hereford that was at the time already a professional status team: from Vanarama South to League 2. At the same time, her peers had designated her Manager of the Year both years. In the FA Cup, she has rewritten the FA Cup history twice. The first time, she forced a rematch against West Bromwich at the Hawthorns in the Third round when the team was in Vanarama South. The very next year, when in Vanarama League, while she was caring for her daughter who was going through Leukaemia treatments, her Assistant Manager, using her system of play and approach, slew a giant, winning 3-2 against Brighton Albion in the Third round again. In the Fourth round, she was on the side lines at Old Trafford where José Mourhino’s Manchester United couldn’t get better than a 2-0 result while lining-up most of his regulars. An incredible achievement in itself considering that the red devils won the FA Cup and also reached the Champions League finals that year! That same year, she reached the FA Trophy finals at Wembley, where the Bulls lost 1-2 against Salford. In her two years at Hereford, Stiles cumulated 88 games as manager, with 59 victories. Her team ended up having a 1.99 goals scored per game average while giving only 0.88 goal per game. Known as being a rather defensive and conservative manager when it comes to systems, she tends to display a very aggressive approach on counter attacks. Using narrow systems with Hereford, she favoured owning the midfield and giving the flanks away. She usually used a low block approach, supported by a defensive midfielder and also, a midfielder that she would use deep in defensive phases. An interesting note to consider is that, of the 27 signings she made during her tenure at Hereford, 23 of those were players under 24 years old; 17 of them being under 20. Resigning at the end of her second season, she became a Tactical coach with West Bromwich Albion. In the interval, she also took on courses to get new Qualification Badges under her belt. When pressed for questions, many players and staff at the Hawthorn were shocked but happy at the news. Darren Allen, a Baggies young striker of the U23 squad, who is also the most promising prospect, said that he was “certain she’ll do great! She has a way of seeing the game that helped me a lot!” Jonathan Leko, a starting winger in the senior squad, said that he “...will miss her a lot! She is super smart and a great coach!” Craig Shakespeare, the Baggies Assistant manager, who worked with her for the last three years, was adamant at Aston Villa’s move: “I think they have made a great choice! She is as driven as she is dedicated. Her work ethic and her desire to win are both characteristics she possesses in large quantity and that are highly contagious!” Asked to comment, two former players of her Hereford crew accepted eagerly. Tareq Shihab, now 23, who is a regular central defender with Plymouth Argyle, 9th in League 1, said: “She is the most demanding manager I ever had! She pushed me, all of us, with such determination; it made us all much better players that we never thought we could be! She is tough, yes, but she is fair. I’m sure she’ll succeed!” Jay Richards, a 22 years old striker that now plays for Sunderland, 15th in League 1, said that “… she brought me to a whole new level! She hates to lose even more than she loves to win and she lovesto win! What she asks is tough and demanding, but she is showing , day in and day out, that she never ask you what she doesn’t ask herself first!” With last Sunday’s win against Stoke, Aston Villa is now trailing by only one point behind Crystal Palace and Brighton but still are in the relegation zone, in 18th position. Their next game will be tomorrow, against Arsenal at Villa Park.» Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 11, 2018 Author Share Posted September 11, 2018 «Thanks for letting me off the hook about West Brom sir!» said Penny with a smile to Tony Xia, the owner, as soon as they were out of the press conference. In his blue suit with a tie matching the Villans’ colours, the man looked at Penny and smiled back. - It was no problem Mrs. Stiles. I’ll let you go to your business now». He extended a hand and she took it. The grip was firm but warm. Has the owner was departing, Kevin MacDonald, the remaining senior squad’s coach, came to Penny, offering his hand: «Good day ma’am, I’m Kevin ma’am, Kevin MacDonald. I am a coach with the senior squad. As you probably know, we have no Assistant Manager at the moment so, I’ve been designated to meet you here». She took his hand and shook it, offering a smile in the process. - «Hello Kevin, my name is Penny, and I’d like you to call me Penny». She responded with a little smile. - «Alright then, Penny it is. The staffs are waiting for you at Bodymoor Heath Training Grounds. The players are already there too. It’s gym day today and they’ve been told that you would talk to them in about an hour. I hope we didn’t overstep our bounds on this Penny since we…» she interrupted him. - «It’s perfect. There are no bounds to think of when the right things are done. So… huh… my car is supposed to have been brought in the parking lot but I don’t know where... - Oh no ma’am… sorry… Penny. It has been brought to the training grounds. We’ll use one of the mini-buses instead. I also made sure you’d have a place to change clothes if you want to do it somewhere else than in your office. - Great! We go then?» Both of them walked to the underground parking lot where the Aston Villa identified mini-bus was waiting for them. The driver was already seated and two other peoples joined them; both were grounds staffers at the training site. During the ride to the site, Kevin gave her a list of the staffs with their job titles. She quickly saw that there were a lot of positions that would need to be filled, and fast! Apart from the Assistant Manager of the senior team, she’d need to fill five coaches’ positions on the senior squad alone! To that, she’d have to entirely fill the U23 squad coaching staff as well. Of the critical ones she’d had to fill, there also was the Head scout to consider. She decided she’d take a closer look at the list later, for now, she asked Kevin to give her a bit of info about the morale of everybody in the club. By the time they arrived, she had a general idea of the state of mind of everybody in the team. She made a comment about how far from the city the training grounds were and Kevin told her that, apparently, the lands were farmlands or, at least, in part since they were bought from a farmer in the early 1970s. They got out of the bus and Kevin brought her directly to her office. When she entered in it, she quickly saw that it was more than four times as big as the one that she had at West Brom. About ten seconds after she came in, as she was putting her purse on her desk chair, she heard footsteps coming toward the office. A young man then knocked on the open door. He looked on a piece of paper, than straight at her, and said, with a very rapid staccato pace: «You are Mrs. Stiles I presume? - Yes, I’m Penny. - Hi ma’am, I’m Brian» he said offering his hand. «I’m part of the IT department and I’m here to give you this envelope. It contains your ID magnetic card, email addresses and all the temporary passwords you’ll need to get started. You can see, by the desk, your main computer, which is a regular PC and you also have a laptop plus a tablet destined to your use. Know that your second office at Villa Park also have a PC for you to use. Is it possible to schedule a little meeting later today, before you leave, so I could give you a quick tour of our filing system and also a little briefing on our security systems? It shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes». Penny took the envelope and put it on the desk after taking her magnetic card inside it. - «Sure, let’s say at17h00, is it possible? - Your time is mine Mrs. Stiles. See you later!» and just like that, he turned heels and got out of her office. Penny almost laughed. She looked at Kevin. - «Does he always speaks like the place is burning and he’s gonna die soon?» Kevin rolled his eyes. - «Bloody wiz kid! He thinks we all know everything! And yes Penny, every time he speaks, you have the feeling a fire is raging and he wants to say everything before dying!» They both let out a little laugh. «Anyway, the couch over there? - The maroon one?» There were two lined up on the wall. - «Yeah. It can be made into a bed, if you ever need to. - Ugh... It’s the kind of thing I prefer not to think of, to be honest…» She made him a little wink. - «I guess I’d feel the same, especially at my age; I need a real bed by now!» She let out a little laugh. «Can we go see the staffs? - Lead the way!» They got out of the office and started the walk toward the main conference room. As they were getting closer, she could hear a telly that was on and where a reporter was talking about her becoming manager of the team. The moment she entered the room, the telly was shut down and all the staffs stood up to greet her. A quick round was made, where all presented themselves. Penny then asked them to sit down. «Ok. Let’s take the obvious out of the way since you probably watched the press conference. Yes, everybody is going to be on evaluation. This means you and the players. Everybody will have his chance because nothing will be done before the end of the season, ok?» All nodded. «Also, know this; I really believe that it is possible to salvage the season, ok? We have a tough path in front of us but I say that by pulling all together in the right direction, we can keep the team in Premier! Now, we have a game tomorrow against Arsenal, I’d like all the coaches and the U23 managing team to be here at lunch, we’ll start to go over the team report and establish a strategy together. You know the players better than me so; we’ll put all our heads together, ok? If the Data Analyst could be there as well, with all the data related to Arsenal so that, if needed, we could dig through it, ok?» The staffs nodded again. «Speaking of lunch, can we have food sent here from the cafeteria? - Absolutely Penny. When we’ll go see the players, I’ll make sure to pass the necessary instructions» said Kevin. - «Thank you Kevin». She then gave her attention back to the entire room. «Oh, one last thing, as you can imagine, I’m not the one who runs around on the pitch». All had a cringy smile; the limp and the crutch were both unmistakable items, just like her gender. « I don’t run on the pitch but I like being there and I will do it, a lot. One thing I’ll never do, on the other hand, is interrupt you in front of the players. If something is not to my liking, we’ll talk about it in private, away from every eyes and ears but ours». She saw that all let out, what seemed like, a little sigh of relief. «Also, starting next Monday, I’ll call you in individually so you can talk to me of your role and the way you do things. For the general training part, we’ll not focus on anything in particular until the end of the season; maybe even put a little more time into the games preparations themselves so that we could maximize our chances to stay in Premier. Finally, I want to say something to you and make it very clear. I’d been called a “cast iron bitch” before and, to be honest, I wear it without any problem... The “sergeant” nickname is true but, as time goes by, it can vary a lot from one person to the other. I can only say that I mostly do it to establish a certain distance between the players and me but. understand that it does not apply to players only though, if you get the message… Questions?» Nobody had one. She certainly had established the ground she’d be standing on. Now, it was time for the players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 13, 2018 Author Share Posted September 13, 2018 After making sure she’d meet both the Head physio and Head of sport science departments after the strategy meeting, to review the general health of the squad, Penny, led by Kevin (MacDonald), headed for the dressing room with, in tow, all the remaining managers and coaches of the lower squads. As Kevin was going to open the door for her, she stopped him. He looked at her, a bit confused. She said: «Would you make sure that all are decent please?» He nodded with a little ashamed demeanour; they were all coming from the gym so… - «Sorry Penny…» He entered and after a few moments, he came back out and made a little gesture, saying that all was ok. The group then went in, led by Penny. All the players were sitting on chairs that had been brought into the dressing room. She saw four peoples standing in front of the players. She quickly recognized Conor Hourihane, who was the captain of the senior squad. When he saw her, he walked to her, extending a hand and smiling. «Welcome to Aston Villa Mrs. Stiles, I’m Conor and I’m the captain of the senior squad. With me, you have the assistant captain and the captains of the U23 and U18 squads». The three of them extended a hand, presenting themselves to her. She responded in kind. Once the presentations were done, Conor guided the three others toward the four empty chairs in front and all four sat down, facing Penny She glanced at the room, there must have been close to seventy players in front of her and the U18 squad wasn’t wvwn present except for the captain, who asked for a leave of absence at school to be here. She stood and kept very still, scanning the room only with her eyes, silent and immobile for, at least, a minute before she started talking: «Congratulations to you!» she said in an upbeat tone. « As of today you have all been officially tagged as the Premier Division guinea pigs!» A little fit of laughter ran through the room. She felt the atmosphere lightened instantly, which was exactly what she wanted. She then continued in a very assertive, almost aggressive, tone: «Now, if you think we cannot salvage the situation we’re in, than say so, right here, right now! I’ll give you a chance to pack your stuff!» The mood of the place was brutally changed. She saw some players flinch; she was happy with that. «Ok, nobody?» She let some seconds pass, no sign from anybody. «Good! So now, we can talk. First, I would say to you that if everybody gives what he should give to win a game, then I think our odds of keeping the team in the Premier League are more than decent. Will it be easy? No. But some teams have come out of much deeper holes than the one the club is in at the moment. I don’t plan on being on the wrong side on that one». She let the seconds slip. She could see that the flinching was gone by now. The looks she was drawing were attentive and she had seen more than a few nods from players. «That being said, yes, everybody here will be evaluated from now on. Nobody will be ousted before the end of the season though but some may warm benches more they are used to... And yes, there will be new blood coming in in between the seasons. This means that you’ll have to prove to me that you belong here starting today. I promise you that I will not put you in a position to fail. At the same time though…» she started pacing around the players while talking, to make them see her walk with her crutch up close, « I’m here to make you happy only so I could squeeze every ounce of talent that you’ll gladly give me because I will have make you happy. This is the only reason why I’ll work my ass off to make you happy. I’m here to make you perform so that this team could aspire to higher things than surviving!» The silence was deafening when she stopped talking, she knew she had them exactly where she wanted them. «The French have a saying: “An Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove”. All the players that ever played for me could tell you that this saying fits me very well... They would also tell you that I don’t mind putting on a sheet metal glove either! I have been called a “cast iron bitch” before… I can take it! But the choice is only yours to make. You want to win, like I do? You are ready to work for it, like I do? Then, I’ll give you every opportunity to become the best player you can be and I’ll give you the opportunity to show your talent to everybody. Be lazy and you’ll warm that bench like you won’t believe… just before I give a one way ticket out of here!» She saw that some vets were nodding at the statement; she liked it but didn’t, couldn't, let it show. She used a smoother voice when she started speaking again. «Before I let you go for lunch, I want to tell you something else. I believe that my job is not to be your friend. I honestly believe it. That being said, not be your friend doesn’t mean no respect. Respect is the corner stone of success, when there is an established structure. Some might think this is “old school”, even if I’m rather young, and yes, I am young!» A little laughter spread in the room. «But I believe it nonetheless. So, as a sign of respect, I am making you this promise, here and now, that I will make every effort to learn your first name as fast as I can. I also expect the same from you, toward me and everybody on the staff. Respect goes both ways, I’ll respect you and I expect the same from you, toward me but also toward the staffs. Also, be mindful that, if you don’t think it yourself already: respect comes in many forms…» She saw that most were nodding now. «Anybody have any question?» She scanned the room and saw there was none. «Ok, so, go to lunch and when you’ll get back, you’ll continue your day». She made a move and started to go toward the door when she stopped and turned to face the players again: «Oh, and huh… by the way... Arsenal? I expect nothing less than a draw…» She turned heels again and headed for the door. ---------- The afternoon went by at lightning speed. Against Arsenal, she decided they’d go at it with a 4-2-3-1 Deep; Penny had decent midfielders that could play as DMs in her squad, according to her staffs so, she’d use them. The decision was also made because so far, they had played a 4-4-2 flat all season and, clearly, it wasn’t working… She then went on the pitch to watch the training. The U23 manager and his assistant were making a dual squads training, she decided to make the pre-game briefing on the spot. She also took the opportunity to watch the player’s reactions. After she had given the broad plan, she told them the coaches would work the details. She then made a little sign to Conor (Hourihane), the captain. With him, she started to walk around the number 2 pitch, where the defensive line was starting to work. «Can we talk?» she asked him as they started to walk. He was about to answer when she cut him off with a rather harsh tone. «No bullcrap, ok? Nothing that’ll be said here will leave my ears, and I expect the same from you». He was a bit surprise at the tone but he nodded. - «No problem ma’am”. She saw that he had, indeed, been surprised, she liked it; that was the intent. - «What do you think of our chances to stay in Premier? Forget the calendar; I speak about the will to win of the team. - Oh! That? I’d say that all of us pretty much liked your speech. Most of the us are happy about the change and…» he stopped walking and looked at her straight in the eyes, «some of us, and I’m in that group, are happy about the fact that it is you!» It was Penny’s turn to be surprised! - «How in hell do you know me?» He laughed and both started to walk again. - «Some of us have friends, old teammates, who played or still play with the Baggies. When we saw it was you, some of us made calls». He smiled broadly. «The general comment is pretty much, if I may say so, along the lines of: she knows her stuff, she’s bright and she’s a fighter! I could say some other things about your “sergeant” nickname and the fact you are as tough as can be but, in the end, they all said we got ourselves a great motivator who’ll make us work to death but never forgets what we are and will listens to the players”. Penny was baffled. He clearly was pleased by her reaction. «And to be frank ma’am? For little speech earlier only, I’d say that everything that got said by our friends showed up... big time! - So, you think they’ll fight? - Yes ma’am, I’d say the group will fight. I think the only lingering shadow is the dreaded relegation, some would just never accept that, if only for ego’s sake… - I get the message. - Also, if I may make a suggestion? - Sure. - I’ve been made the captain because I’ve been at the club for some time now. I don’t mind being captain at all but I think you should think of a replacement pretty soon». Penny was surprised, again. He saw it and continued. «Ma’am, you said “no bullcrap”, right? - I did. - Neil Bannister ma’am. The kid you saw and who is vice captain? I really think you should consider make him captain, very soon. He is smart, works hard and he is befriended by everyone». She thought for some time before speaking. - «You wouldn’t mind that? - Nope. I’m old now, I’m on my way out because, well…» He looked at his feet when he was talking now, «I must admit that my old legs... you know … Maybe one year left? I can’t even be a starter anymore… The game is becoming a little too fast each day…» She stopped walking and grabbed his shoulder. - «You remind me of someone I want to bring in, as a coach…» She smiled at him when he finally looked up again. «Conor, I think that you deserve a lot for what you just said». Both pairs of eyes met. «I can’t understand this, because of my accident… but I think it shows exactly why I want you to stay captain!» She saw in his eyes that she had struck a chord. «Conor, if what I just saw represents who you are, than, you are a great man and a wonderful teammate!» She shook his shoulder as she said that. He smiled. She took his hand and shook it, smiling at him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 15, 2018 Author Share Posted September 15, 2018 If Penny was in a frantic and nervous mood this Saturday morning, Brtianny, on her end, was in an ecstatic and hectic mood! The daughter was already wearing her brand new Aston Villa home kit, bought by Mark yesterday, and had even helped her dad prepare breakfast for mum. When the mother arrived in the kitchen, all cleaned up and dressed, she found both of them smiling at her, wearing the Villans’ colours, with the coffee poured, the toasts being made and a nice plate fruits. When Penny sat down and started to eat the fruits, the toasts popped out and Britanny started to chat, and chat, and chat… “So much for the silent type in the morning…” Penny thought. The daughter had two subjects this morning: the match itself and the fact the family, both pairs of grand-parents were going too, would watch the game from a VIP box. Penny’s parents were driving from London for the match. At the end of her breakfast, she acknowledged the fact that even if she would have wanted to, she could never have had the chance to place a single word, or Mark either for that matter... Penny left the house at 06h15 that morning, her heart rather light by the morning gift of the husband and daughter pair but, also, feeling a bit tense. As she was driving the somewhat short drive toward Villa Park, she started to bring everything back into focus. Her first thoughts were about trying to remember everything that was said during the staffs meeting to prepare today’s strategy. The team had played a 4-4-2 all season, which was something she couldn’t understand since the midfielders weren’t that good compared to the rest of the league; they were slow. Her knowledge of the 4-4-2s was, in general, that to make it work, it needed real solid and not too slow midfielders to act as pivot for the three game phases: “No wonder they performed so poorly on the table” she thought. Today was going to be different and she hoped that, with the 4-2-3-1 Deep that she was going to use, it would be enough to get some defensive control and also, maybe, with some luck, enough of a surprise for Arsenal to get a draw. She knew that by putting so many players behind the ball would, at least, give her some kind of a chance of obtaining a clean sheet but she also knew that the forward she would keep in front would need to perform above normal expectations; he would be alone for a long time before all the pieces could go in attack position… As she arrived at Villa Park, she was entirely ready for the day ahead. The Trinity Road Stand façade was impressive in itself but, entering it, to go to the dressing rooms and her office still was the first time for her and it gave her a little shiver. She was very happy to see that someone had thought about her since a security guard was waiting for her: «Good morning Mrs. Stiles. I’m Brian and I’ve been told to escort you to your office and also to give you a little visit of the place if you want it. - Thanks Brian» said Penny, offering her left hand to shake his. «This would be much appreciated». Both of them walked together toward her office; Brian giving her some directions in the corridors about where they were leading. Once in front of her office, he smiled, gave her a piece of paper with a phone number on it and left; it was the security post number at the entrance. As she went to her desk, she saw a big, non-descripted, wrapped box and a piece of paper on the right side. She quickly saw that the paper was the schedule of the day, as planned by the communication's team of the club; news conferences, meeting with some sponsors after the game and also a photo op for the main charity Aston Villa was supporting: Acorn Children’s Hospice. “Mmm… looks like there is more to it than managing a bunch of players now…” Penny said out loud to herself. After putting her purse on her chair, she started the unwrapping of the mysterious package and as soon as she was able to have a glance in it, she started to laugh! Inside the box was a basket full of chocolates, cheap ones she noticed, and also some real Scottish butterscotch! On top of the candies, there was a single envelope. She opened it and saw a card with white lilies on the front piece. Inside, a single message: “In hope you will achieve the same things with your players, with the same motivations!” It was signed by four ex-Hereford players who were now playing in other teams. If she was deeply touched by the gesture, she still found it immensely ludicrous… and she loved it. “Bunch of crazies…” she said while letting out a reminiscent sigh. As she was moving the basket, someone started knocking on her opened office door. She turned toward and saw Kevin (MacDonald ): «Good morning Kevin. Early riser too? - Usually, yes, but I was pretty sure you’d be here really too early too. If I may ask, what was that laughing I heard by the way?» he asked, intrigued. As she invited him to a chair, she showed him the basket and its content. - «I discovered that package on my desk», as she showed him the sweets. «It became some kind of a ritual when I was with the Bulls. Some players decided it might be a good motivation here too. - You still got ties with your ex-players? - No, not really. I went to a few games of some of them though, Josh Barnes, a goalkeeper I brought right at start in particular. - Where is he playing now? - He’s with Burton now, League 1». Kevin was now sitting and changed the subject. - Got trouble sleeping last night?» Penny was surprised by the question. - A bit; nervousness was there... I think it’s the same thing for everybody in my situation». She saw Kevin become uncomfortable. - «Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry ma’am… » She instantly raised an eyebrow; he saw it. «Sorry. Penny. Anyway, since you’ll probably going to get a talk with the PR department, I can tell you that the managers who came here usually said a girl named Jessy is pretty efficient and she’s been with the club for a long by now; she knows the club and the media surrounding it pretty good. - Noted. You know when the other staffs will come in? - They should all be here for 8h00; the coaches and also the U23 manager, as you asked. Do you want to gather them up? - No. What I’ll need to do, tactically wise, I’ll do it with you, if you don’t mind. - No problem. - How about in half an hour? - Ok. - I need to check my emails first and I’ll want to try and get a bit more familiar with the computer servers. - Alright. See you later» said Kevin as he was getting up. Penny fired up her computer and, as it was booting, she looked back at the schedule left by the PR department. At that precise moment, her personal cell phone rang. She fumbled in her purse to get it and answered without looking at the caller: «Hello? - Howdy Penny!» Her face illuminated when she heard the voice; it was Craig Shakespeare, the West Brom Assistant Manager. - «Hey Craig! - I knew you’d be up and I guess you probably are at your new office by now… right? - Right on both accounts! - Well, I wanted to be the first one, outside of the family to tell you that I am proud you got the job and that I wish you the best of luck». She blushed on her end of the line. - «Thank you! It is really appreciated. And I wanted to know… am I on the “Shouldn’t be a friend’s” list now?» He laughed at the end of the line. - Sadly yes… I will not be able to be present since we are away but know that my thoughts will be with you. I would have liked to see you on your first game… Instead, I’ll watch your match against Middlesbrough on the telly; don’t forget to wear something nice and fitting huh?» Both laughed again. «Anyway, you should be busy as hell so…» Penny interrupted him. - «Craig, I need an Assistant Manager… No joke. You want the job?» She felt it touched him a lot because his voice wasn’t the same when he talked. - Naw. Thanks for the offer but I think you need someone who’ll be with you for a long time; I’m too old for that. Know though that the thought is really appreciated, my dear lady friend». She knew he was as sincere as one could be. «See you soon!» and he hung up. She then turned her attention to firing up her email client just to find out that there already were over two hundred of them! She sighed heavily. “Not even a full day on the job and already two hundred plus…” She just hoped it was a onetime event because otherwise, she would need to find a very efficient way of dealing with those. She looked at the headers to try and see if some would urgently need a look at. After reading the ones that seemed to be very important, she felt the nervousness starting to creep in; the game was coming closer… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 17, 2018 Author Share Posted September 17, 2018 When Penny put her first foot on Villa Park’s grass, the crowd welcomed her by starting to chant the Aston Villa anthem, which she already knew! The stadium was full and the experience was beyond everything she had ever imagined in her wildest dreams… She felt her emotions coming up when, at the exact moment, someone took her left wrist. She jumped scare at the unexpected touch but she didn’t have the time to do much because Conor Hourrihane already was putting her left arm up in the air. The crowd became even more vocal. He then turned toward her, smiled and said: “Welcome to the clarets and blue boss.” She slowly walked toward the Villans’ bench while looking at the owner’s box where she knew that her family would be and started to wave at them. She couldn’t see them, the box being too far, but she knew that at the very least, Britanny would like it if she was looking at her right now. The crowd started to wave back at her and that made her smile. After letting the atmosphere sink in some more, she went back to her task; putting on her game face at the same time. She saw that Conor had let Arsenal take the first kick. She voiced some motivating directives to the players and went straight at the limit of the pitch. The game barely was four minutes old when Faitout Maouassa, her left winger made a dangerous tackle on a retreating defensive Arsenal player inside their own half. The referee gave him a red straight away! The fans were angry but if they were angry at the referee, Penny didn’t care; she was working overtime not to explode! She shouted instructions and changes to counter the numerical inferiority. As Maouassa slowly came at the bench, everybody saw her stare at him since she was on the giant screen in the corner of the pitch; all saw that if she could have killed with that stare, he would have been vaporized on the spot! As the play continued on the pitch, she couldn’t get her eyes away from her player who walked to the bench until he sat down. Then, her attention went back to the match and concentrated on it for about ten minutes, until that point when she thought it was long enough so it could not be interpreted as an impulsive decision. She turned toward the bench and started to walk to Maouassa. She stopped about one meter from him and said, while pointing to the dressing room’s tunnel: “Get out of the pitch now!” He looked at her, then scanned the others around him, trying to see if would get any support from anyone, and felt that it was best for him to do as he was told. As he got up, taking his stuff, Penny added: “I don’t want to see you in the dressing room at half-time, only at the end of the match!” She went back to the match. Arsenal was playing patiently, making her players run around. They still were able to limit the damages by making the Gunners shoot from the edge of the box most of the times. Now, instead of checking if anybody was playing bad and to replace them if the need arose, she would need to check for tiredness first; she was fuming! After about thirty minutes, she had noticed that Arsenal was playing mostly on her left flank so, she asked her left back to stay in defense and to support only on occasion. She also made some more formation changes. First, one of her DM, Mathias (Jensen), went to midfield as a DLP and she brought her advanced forward, Ross (Barkley), in the midfield as a regular CM. Basically, turning her original 4-2-3-1DM Deep into an asymmetrical 4-1-2-2DM, with the right winger staying there but as a playmaker. She then shouted to Conor to play as a basic defensive midfielder but by taking the left spot of a two DM formation; hoping this would cover her left flank and that his work rate would be enough since his speed wasn’t his main asset. At the end of the first half, the score was 0-0 and Penny was pleased by what she had seen from the players. As she was retreating to the dressing room, into the corridor, she stayed by the door with a big smile on her face, making sure that all her players would see it before entering. Kevin (MacDonald) came to her and asked: «Do you want me to get you the stats sheet before you talk to the team? - No. I’ll give a little talk first; then I will let them recuperate a bit while we go over the stats. Only after will I talk to them of changes, just before going out. - Alright» and Kevin went inside the room. The players passed in front of her and saw her smile on her face. No words were exchanged but she saw a lot of smiles being sent back at her. Once the last one was inside, she went in, closing the door at the same time. She immediately talked: “That’s a good performance so far. You worked hard and you were able to deny them the lead despite the fact we are one man short on the pitch. Now, take a good rest, I’ll come back about five minutes before going back out there… make sure you’re decent, huh?” She added with a wink as she closed her little talk and got a few chuckles in reply; she was happy. As she arrived in her office, Kevin was waiting with the stats sheet. Arsenal had shot nine times and Pierluigi (Gollini), her goalkeeper, had to stop seven of them; he sure had a busy first half! For them, the team only had five shots to show for and only one had to be stopped; the shots were mostly from outside the box. The only real good thing was possession, the team had managed to keep the ball a little more than Arsenal but she knew they’d need to do a bit better. After mulling over the needed changes, she checked the clock and saw it was time to go, she went back into the dressing and gave the tactical changes while adding: “Now, if any of you feels tired, make a sign, ok? Now, go out there and finish the job!” The players got up and started to walk toward the corridor; nobody commented out loud about Maouassa’s absence in front of her. The moment the second half started, she saw that the Gunners were playing a bit more hurriedly, being more aggressive and less patient, she quickly asked her back line to play a little deeper; she was scared. On the 54th minute, the Villans got a throw in form the right side, about at the height of Arsenal’s box. After some scrappy play on the edge of the pitch, the ball was passed to Mathias , now her DLP midfielder, who was on the right side of the box, about two meters in. Surprising everyone around, instead of passing the ball, as he always does, he took the shot in between three Arsenal players and lodged the ball in the top left corner of the goal! 1-0! The crowd exploded! His teammates rapidly gathered around him and, from far away, Penny could see that if the joy was palpable, she also saw them teasing him a lot! As they were slowly going back to their positions, she shouted some instructions and to focus on defense. On the 70th minute, the Gunners changed their formation, bringing in a third striker. She toyed with the idea of a change herself and finally caved in. She took out her right winger that was in an AF position to bring another player that could play as midfielder. She also asked Mathias to go back as a DM on the right side, still as a DLP but a bit deeper, transforming her formation into a 4-2-2-1DM while Arsenal was going for a narrow 4-3-3. Four minutes after the changes, Lacazette’s explosive acceleration gave him a perfect opportunity on a through pass. Alone in front of Pierluigi, he fired a thunder blaster. Her goalkeeper was able to stop it but not to catch the ball and, on the rebound, Lacazette was able to bring back the score to a tie, 1-1! She screamed at the team that the game wasn’t over yet and that they were doing great! Ten minutes later, Antonio (Sanabria), her striker, had a golden opportunity inside the Arsenal box but the ball was masterfully tackled just as he was taking his shot. The whistle ending the match was finally heard after four minutes of injury time with score staying at 1-1. Already inside the dressing room, she saw the players starting to come in. Maouassa was already there too, in his civilian clothes, silent; other than checking if he was in, she didn’t even look at him. As the players came in, they could see her in the middle of the dressing room with a big smile on her face. She knew there would be a press round so, as soon as the last player was at his bench she started to talk: “You did a hell of match today! I’m truly please with what I saw. There is room for improvement of course but, the way you guys played, short of one man all game was a beautiful sight! You offered yourselves a great stepping stone to better things! Pierluigi?” she said while turning toward her keeper, “you were busy as hell today and you gave us a shot at this! The defense gave all they could but, as fatigue was sinking in, it was harder minute by minute, and your solid performance throughout the match must be commended! Great work! Defense, you gave all on the field, as a unit, and for that, I’m proud of you! Conor? Your match was as best as it could be in the circumstances! Well done! Forwards, you did good, stayed focus and harassed their midfield and back line constantly, great effort! Congrats! And now…” she started slowly to walk toward Mathias. She talked again, with a smooth voice this time, only when she was about half a meter from him. “Mathias, no goal for the entire season but on my very first game, you decided to make a ton of strikers drool in awe at a perfect shot! Was that a way to welcome me here or was it your way of trying to seduce me?” Players started to laugh and some started hooting in the room. She gave him a wink and a smirk before looking into the left pocket of her blazer, getting out one of the chocolate she had gotten in the sweets basket. “There, it’s the best I can do since I’m already happily married!” and she gave him the sweet! The laughter was loud in the room as she was turning heels to go to the center of the place. Once there, she turned toward Faiout Maouassa and all saw her demeanor change. The noise and laughter, literally, vanished and a deafening silence took place. “As for you…” making a show at not naming him, “You have given me, for all to see, a great display of stupidity! Know that whatever suspension FA will give you, I’ll double it on my own and to make sure you understand how imbecile and dangerous and useless your move was, I fine you for two weeks of your wages! “ The deafening silence changed into a mourning one. He looked at her and said nothing. Penny let the silence go on for about twenty seconds before looking at the rest of the team, her demeanor changing again, to a smiling one: “My dear guinea pigs…” some laughed at the quip, “it’s now time to go face the press. I guess they’ll want to talk to “Don Juan Mathias” today… won’t they?” she said with a smirk and a lot of players laughed; the mood instantly going back in line with today’s result. When Penny was brought to the press room by Jessy, she had a good chat with the PR girl that Kevin had talked about. She was rather small, 5”6’ compared to Penny’s 5”11’, with long blonde hair and a perfect PR smile. Penny had to admit she was a stunner to look at. On top of that, Penny saw that she was very efficient and had a way of presenting talking points that were also giving away a lot of hints about the questions that would probably come at her. From the press conference, two notable things stuck out: First, yes, she was proud of her players’ reaction on the pitch and of Mathias’ goal. Second, yes, Faitout’s was a prime example of stupidity, that his gesture was unacceptable behavior and that he had already been fined for it before adding: “There’s a good thing in this though; it made my season’s end evaluation of him much easier”. It was her last words before getting up and leaving the room. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 19, 2018 Author Share Posted September 19, 2018 A few days after the match, Penny was sitting in a conference room at Villa Park for the meeting. «Good day to you sirs and thank you for accepting the meeting » said Penny as she shook hands with both Tony Xia, the owner of the club, and with Keith Wyness, the General Manager of the club. - «It’s ok. Congratulations again for the draw against Arsenal!» said the owner. - «Thank you very much sir. It wasn’t beautiful football but we did it! By the way, I wanted to express my gratitude again for letting my family watch the game from your box. - Well, it was normal to do it for the first game. As for the ugly football, you told us as much at the interview! I’m very pleased with the result, and the fans are too!» He started to scratch his chin. «Although, I did notice a fair number of changes in the starting XI, was that intentional? - Yes sir, it was. Considering the time I had and the talk with the remaining staffs, I decided to go at it in an unusual way. Beside, after a quick review, I saw that the team exclusively used a 4-42 since the beginning of the season and, as the results showed, it clearly wasn’t working so, I decided to try something else. - I was also wondering about the comment you have made about Faitout Maouassa at the press conference. Wasn’t it a bit harsh?» Penny stiffened a bit at the question. - «Sir, I stand by it and believe it was the one to make. We are fighting to survive and, in a useless play, he took the worst possible decision and, for me, by doing so, he told everybody in the team that he didn’t care. The play was over at the time; the opponent was into his territory and was looking at resetting everything by placing himself in a position to pass the ball to his goalkeeper. To that, I will add that there was three of his teammates close by too so, even if he would have gotten the ball, there was no way Maouassa could have been able to do anything but to lose it. For me, this is the proof of a lack of respect of the player toward everybody that cares for the survival of the team in Premier». She saw that both the owner and the GM still seemed a bit put off by the comment; she decided to add something instead of shutting up. «In my interview sir, I told you I would put the team in front of every individual. In any press review about me, you would have seen that I can be harsh but that all the players who ever played for me would also been saying that as harsh as I can be, I am also fair because everybody is duly warned beforehand about my methods. - That is a trait reveal for sure, but still… you’re sure about this?» asked the GM. - «Yes sir, I do. Beside, you saw some interviews with the players after my first meeting with them and they all said that I had made it clear with them what I wanted, of what I thought were the basic requirements that they should meet in order to stay with the club while I’m the manager. - But did you need to make it a show like this during the game though?» asked the owner, clearly referring to the finger pointing as she signified Maouassa to get off the bench. - «I made a call to show my authority in a way I expect I will never have to show it again so, yes, I think it was necessary. Not to mention the fact that, as you saw during Conor’s and Mathias’ press conferences, they both said the tackle was a dangerous one and that it had put the team in a bad position very early so, I think both implied that they agreed with my statement, publically. To that, sirs, in the dressing room, absolutely no one even questioned me or interjected when I imposed the fine and the suspension either. - Well, the result was there so… Anyhow, let’s move on …, shall we?» he said, making the tension bleed off. «So, your first staff evaluation is done? - Yes, sir, it is. I brought you my report about it and would start on working on implementing it tomorrow morning…» She gave both of them a single sided sheet of paper with general comments on the staff as a whole. «When Peter Bosz was fired, the key staffs decided to follow him. The ones that remained behind, well, I’m sorry to say that but, most just don’t cut it sirs. First, as far as specializations are concerned, the majority aren’t even Premier Division level, period. I can even tell you that at West Brom, in Championship? We wouldn’t have considered them for nothing either. Most are, for what I saw, League 1 level, at best, some, I wouldn’t even have considered them with the Bulls in my second year!» She saw Keith make a face. - «are you serious when you are saying that?» asked the General Manager. - «Dead serious sir! Not to mention the fact that, when it comes to what the club is paying for them, it is, I’m sorry to say it, simply ridiculous. I just want to point out that I asked accounting to double check every single number that is on that second sheet of paper». At that statement, Keith let out a little laugh and turned to Tony Xia. - «It’s true Tony! I can even tell you that Robert went ballistic cause he had to put a technician on it for half a day yesterday, in overtime!» The owner started to laugh. - «Half a day?» he asked after regaining himself from the laughter. - «Yes! She asked for budget and compensations simulation for premature contract terminations». The GM looked at Penny and added, «…by the way, don’t fret about us laughing at this, or Robert. It’s just that we asked him some extra stuff last month and he is a bit… huh… shall we say, stressed!» Turning to Tony Xia, he followed through. «Anyway, the numbers are solid and the simulation is solid too, I did a quick check on them yesterday nigh; he sent me a copy». Looking back at Penny, he continued. «Penny, I didn’t steal your wind, ok? I had to go through it considering the extra workload, wages and the situation we are in because, as you know by now, we are looking at red ink this year… It will be the third times in four years…» Penny dismissed the comment quickly. - «Sir, even if you would have wanted to do it, I’d have nothing to say about it. - Please, continue» said the owner. Penny gave them a second sheet of paper. - «Ok. One important note here, sir, the staffs I talk about are only the ones under my direct responsibility as manager, so, senior, U23 and U18 squads, from coaches to recruiters to physios to scouts. So, back to it. On the second sheet, on the left side, you have the total amount we pay, per annum, according to the running contracts on all 29 staffs we have at the club at the moment. For now, we have contractual obligations for a total of £2 945 183 per annum. This gives us an average of £101 558 per contract per annum. I would like to point out sirs, that I have no Assistant Manager, that four senior coaching positions are to be filled, as well as all the U23 coaches too and that the Head scout position also need to be filled plus almost all the scouting team. - And those aren’t the cheapest…» said the GM. - «True. Anyhow, I consider, after a complete review of all the positions that you have allowed to be filled, 50 out of 57 are necessary, in my point of view, to make the club really competitive on the long run. I think I could drop that number to 46 but, for now, I’ll use the figure of 50. So, I would like you to keep two numbers in mind. First, the actual total wages, who amounts to £2 945 183. - Let’s call it £3M”. said Tony Xia. - Ok, £3M. If we would keep the average, with a total of 50 staffs, to make another round number, the total amount would be over £5M per year. This means that there is a £2M difference. I think to fill the positions with peoples that are worthy of our level sir, it would be impossible for me to even fill the positions by keeping everyone because of the salaries we have. As you know, a decent Assistant Manager would be £250 000 alone, at the very least. At any rate sir, I think this is not good. First, we have wages to pay and, to be honest sir, only eight of the 29 are worth the price we pay them right now! By this, I mean they are Premiership level. As for the wages per se, I’ll say they are a bit high but... - Eight?» Tony Xia gapped at the number and his face showed something disturbing. Penny responded in kind. - «Yes sir, eight! I have two examples to offer you”. She started by giving them a third sheet of paper and then continued to talk. «First, I present you our Head of Youth Development that you surely know. He’s been at the club for the past seven years. Per annum, his wages amounts to £400 000. Now, I have a question for you sirs: how many young players had he brought in and that are currently playing for us in the first squad?» Silence filled the place. Penny was voluntarily letting the time goes by; she didn’t want to be the first to talk. Finally, after about 40 seconds, Keith dared an answer. - «One?» Penny took a fourth sheet of papers and pushed it toward the two men. - «Zero! On the sheets I passed on to you, you have the list of all the young players that came in the U18 squad since he’s been at the club. None of them ever made it to the senior squad. Not even 8% of them even made it to the U23 squad! Of all players he brought in, only one player was sold! It was last year and it only was for £56 000! That’s it! The rest? End of youth contract and bye bye, the kid vanish into nothingness, never to be seen anywhere in pro football again. So I ask you, is he worth £400 000per annum?» The silence was heavy in the room. Tony Xia was reading both sheets of paper and turned to the GM. - «Really? - Tony, I don’t run the football end, you know that…” The owner then turned to Penny. - «Alright, you’ve made your point. Leave the other example out if it’s as depressing, ok? Tell us your plan instead. - When I came at the interview, you asked if I wanted a budget, to bring my own staff. I told you no. That all the changes would be made at the end of the season and that, whatever the cost, you’d recoup it inside twelve to fifteen months. Well sir, here is my plan». She produced another document, in two copies, that she gave to each of them. «According to the simulations I asked for, to do a clean-up, so I could bring peoples who are at the required Premier Division level, I want to emphasize that, it would cost me a total of £715 000 for premature contract terminations. The clean-up would free £2 264 000 per annum in wages over the next two years. I would renew the contracts of the eight peoples who are worth keeping, all on long terms contracts. This should lower the individual wages demands on their part and stabilize things too. I will then fill all the positions that need to be filled and I would do it for an average, for all 50 positions, of £65 000 per annum, for a total of £3 250 000 yearly. All the contracts would be running for four to five years. All will have a relegation clause of 25% cut on the wages, no bonuses of any kind and I’ll wave off the clauses making us renounce to compensations if the staff wants to leave whenever I can. On that basis, I would like to ask permission to use up to £1.75M total, in total compensation, that is £715k for contracts terminations and £1.35M for compensation for “stealing” some staffs from other clubs. The budget is for up to 42 peoples, 50 permitted minus the eight we have at the club and will stay, and represent even less than the difference with the £5M previously talked about ,versus the total wages I’ll have, that will be end-up being around £3.25M per annum. The first year, you’ll have barely any saving, at all, but for the rest, we will save from £1.75M to £2M yearly, in wages, for the staffs of the club and, I want to underscore it again, all will be of the level they are supposed to be». Another silence filled the room. Tony Xia was clearly thinking as he was scratching numbers on his own document. It was Keith who broke the silence by talking directly to him. - «Tony, Peter’s staffs ran at £5.85M per annum... The only thing I’m asking myself is if the £65 000 per annum average is possible… Penny, you really sure you can do that? - To be perfectly honest, I’d prefer £67 500, for a total of £3.5M per annum, to give me some room but I think I can do it at £65 000 with young staffs with low reputation». Tony Xia was still scribbling numbers. After about two minutes he showed the result of his calculations to Keith, who nodded. - «Ok Penny, if you keep us in Premier League, I’ll give you the £67 500 per annum average but only £1.5M for staffs contracts terminations and transfers». Penny couldn’t resist asking. - «Sir, whatever I can shave on the total wages target, I can keep?» She saw Keith look at Tony with, what she took as a wicked smile. - «Yes, you can keep». Just like that, the meeting was over. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 21, 2018 Author Share Posted September 21, 2018 The very next day, Penny started to make the necessary tasks required to the recruitment of her staffs. She already had a plan so; all she needed to do was to put it in motion. Her main target was Jon Stead as an Assistant Manager. A former player that had spent most of its career in Championship and League 1, he did have some experience in Premier League. Recently liberated by Wrexham in July of last year, he had the qualities she wanted. She saw that the afternoon would also be a busy one. First, at lunch, it would be the chat with Kevin MacDonald that she was dreading by now; she would tell him his contract, finishing the last day of June, wouldn’t be renewed. She knew he was part of the team for a long time but she thought that she could find a better coach for less money. After, there was a meeting planned with Jessy, from PR, to go over some events that were planned. Finally, it was the medical staff of the club, for all three squads. She also thought about the next match that was against Middlesbrough Friday night, at Riverside Stadium. They were a team against whom she knew she couldn’t lose under any circumstances. They also were fighting to survive but they weren’t in the same predicament as the Villans; they had spent a total of two weeks in relegation zone but that was it. For the last four months, they had barely kept their head out of the waters of relegation. Checking some results, she saw that they were mainly using two formations: a 4-2-3-1 Wide and a 4-5-1. Their last ten league games record was 2-4-4 but they had to battle against top table teams seven times. They had played very defensively and their scoring sheet was pretty thin with only six goals. She suspected that they would probably want to play a rather defensive posture again; the season was coming to an end and she knew they would basically play to only try and guarantee that they would remain in Premier. The one thing that could be positive was that there was a chance that their morale would be a bit low, showing only one win in the last six games they had played, including taking two trashings by Manchester United alone; in FA Cup and then in league. Their last game was against Everton and they had lost 0-2. She knew it was a double edge sword; they most probably were counting on the fact they would play a team that was in murky waters, hence giving them an easier chance at boosting their morale with a significant win. At five to noon, she heard knocking on her opened office door. «Hello Penny». It was Kevin. She smiled. - «Noon already? - Yep. - How are the players this morning?» She didn’t have a chance to see them yet. - «Morale is good. - Any backlash on the Maouassa situation? - Not to be heard by me. I think some might be a bit concerned but all saw that the play was dangerous and useless so… - Ok, let’s hope Conor’s comment at the press conference will cement the situation to what it is… Anyway, can we have the lunch here?» She saw he understood there was something to it… - «Of course. You want me to call for it? - Naw, I can do that. What do you want? - I’ll take the curry chicken; they do it quite well by the way, with plenty of greens too». She smiled. - «Thanks for the tip». As Kevin came in the office and went to sit at the table in the corner, she called the cafeteria to have two curry chicken lunch sent to her office, with a sample of everything else; her breakfast was a far away souvenir... Once done, she smiled and went to join him. She brought a modified version of the plan she had presented to the owner and the GM of team with her. She passed the sheet of paper to Kevin as she sat. «That’s the plan for filling the positions that needs filling». She let him time to read it in silence. - «Pretty aggressive I think» he said after reading it. - «I think so too but since almost all key positions needs filling… - You have targets in mind already? - As a matter of fact I do and did some calls this morning to some of them. The main one being my Assistant Manager, I already offered him a contract this morning, it’s Jon Stead». She explained who he was and his story. While doing it, she also bought some time for the lunches to arrive; she didn’t want to be interrupted afterward… It took about ten minutes for the lunches to arrive and at that point, she had started talking about Adam El-Abd, the coach she had brought in at Hereford and to which she had offered the Head of Youth Development position. Once the lunches were set in front of both of them, she asked to close the door at the woman that had brought the meals as she would have gone out of the office. When they were alone, they both started to eat. Kevin was right again, the chicken was pretty good indeed! After about five minutes, she went at the core of the meeting. «Kevin, I needed to tell you that I don’t plan to renew your contract at the end of the season». He looked at her with a deadpan look. «I know you have been an integral part of this club for over a decade but, for monetary reasons, I need to change things... It’s nothing personal and it’s not a statement about your qualifications. It’s all about money». She let the man take the brunt of the news. After a few moments he finally spoke. - «I really thought I’d be able to finish my career here, at Aston Villa… - Kevin, I can understand that giving you are 63 now and that you’ve been a coach for all this time here. Nonetheless, I must say that financially, the club is not in very good shape because of the way things were done here. Did you know that Perter Bosz’s staffs wages totalled close to £6M per annum? - That much?» he said, with a certain astonishment on his face. Penny knew it very well she was playing a bullcrap game; yes the club had run in the red twice in the last years but it wasn’t by much… It could be fixed quickly even by keeping him but she had to play the money game because she didn’t have the guts to tell him what she really thought. - «Yes; £5.85M to be exact. That is only for the staffs. Add to that the squads that are way too big with some wages that are absolutely insane, in my view anyway, for the team’s position on the table in the last few years. The senior squad have 27 players alone with two of them not even registered! Five players running wages totaling more than £35M per annum combined before bonuses! For the level of the players we have here at the moment, it is unsustainable and I think anyone of your experience would concur with my judgement about this. - It is a little too much... - That is leaving out the U23 squad that is composed of 41 players; seven of them making more than £2M per annum, before bonuses, each…» He was surprised. - «Seven at more than £2M per annum? - Yes. Outside of the wages, I think, since you know the squad even better than me, that there isn’t seven players who would have nothing more than a slim to decent chance at making it to the senior squad one day, no?» She saw him think things over. - «Yeah, I think there might be three… but certainly not seven… - So, to circle back to what I told you about your contract, I think you can better appreciate the monetary situation being problematic… - Yes, getting a context like that, I’d probably arrive to a similar conclusion… - I know it’s not good news for you. I can only apologize and say that, sadly, the situation is calling for it, you understand?» She saw he was saddened; she wasn’t feeling good either… - «Yes… - But, if you want to of course, I would like to make you a part of the small group of staffs I want to gather to make the evaluations on all the players at the end of the season. I plan to limit the number of this group to five peoples only, six including me: the Assistant Manager of the senior squad, the U23’s Manager and Assistant Manager, the U18 Manager and you, if you would accept it». She saw it seemed to have some positive effect. «This group will have the final word on the squad cuts inside the club, at all levels. My plan is to have a senior squad of no more than 22 or 23, a U23 squad of no more than 20 and a U18 of similar size, maybe even smaller, I still don’t know for this one yet…» His eyes grew wide open. - «That much? - Yes. I think there is no point in having gigantic squads that will only impede any chance of developing younger players. I think that to focus on player development, it cannot be done efficiently by sending tons of players on loan, where you have little to no grasp on their training regimen. - What would be my role… exactly? - Well, as the memory of the club, you’d be the starting point of everything, bringing in history of each player, gathering all the info’s on them. Once done, you’ll present the data and also the first assessment on each of them. Once presented, you’ll be part of each meetings related to the decision making for each player. I can guarantee you that your voice will be heard and counted on by me; your vast experience is crucial, in my eyes, to be able to change things here. It’s just that once it will be done, because of financial reasons… well… you know everything by now…” She fell silent after talking, looking at him; trying to read him. She knew that he knew it was a consolation prize; he wasn’t a fool. It took him some time before talking. - «What would be the requirements you would be looking for? - For the senior squad, usefulness on and off the pitch itself. Determination and professionalism would be at the very top of the list. For the U23, the chance to become a player that could be useful for us in the senior squad inside a three to four years window, if only as a decent option to plug holes for injuries. For the U18, only potential, period. Once all of those are assessed for everybody, we will make the cuts. - Do you have a particular system of play in mind? - Formation wise? No, not yet. As for the philosophy of play I want, I have some ideas but I still need time to refine it, considering what we have at the club right now. I think though that I would like a very solid defensive, aggressive, set-up at first; players who can take pressure, minimizing bad decisions. For the rest, players who will have a good enough pacing to create spaces only by their speed on transitions. I also think about a short passing type of game, not as intense as Tiki-Taka though. I want possession to be meaningful on attack, not only as a defensive strategy». She saw that those lines seemed to resonate with him. - «With the players we have at the moment, especially on acceleration and pace, it would probably be very hard to do that, you know? The technical side for a short passing game shouldn’t be that hard but the rest… - I had a sense of that, from what I saw so far but, it shows how much your input will be valuable me to make the clarets and blue a competitive team again…» When Kevin was going out her door, she was relieved by the fact that he had accepted his new role and his faith; she felt like she had dodged a giant bullet, if only because she had bent the truth about the money part. As she was going to her desk, Jessy from PR arrived. When she said hello, she passed Penny a print of a FouFourTwo article titled: “Penny Stiles’ First Premier Division Match: An Upset for Arsenal Paired with a Clash Over a Red Card with Maooussa.” Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diego Imposta Posted September 21, 2018 Share Posted September 21, 2018 I've just caught up with this story @Rien102 and I wanted to say that I am really enjoying it. Keep up the good work! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 23, 2018 Author Share Posted September 23, 2018 @Diego ImpostaThanks, following your story with interest too. Wednesday, April 17th, was a busy day at Aston Villa FC since 14 new staffs, including the Assistant Manager of the senior squad, arrived to their new club. The office personnel at the club had had a busy week to find multiple temporary accommodations for all of them and also the others scheduled to arrive by the end of the week. Penny took some time throughout the day to individually welcome them, one by one; it was busy work to say the least but it was more than necessary. She had spent the entire previous day, preparing crib sheets for every position needing filling with objectives, tasks and roles they would have to do until the end of the season, for the big review. Once again, she saw how important the club was for Kevin who went through it like he was part of the group for years to come, helping out with just about everything, making tours of facilities with some of them, etc. Penny wrote herself a note to make certain she would thank him in a fashion that would reflect her sentiment about what he had done. It also was the day she had gotten the equipment she requested around the pitches at Bodymoor Heath Training Grounds; four low mobile scaffoldings with giant a white magnetic board and a set of wooden stairs for each of the scaffolds; she could go up on them only with the stairs because she wasn’t able to use ladders with her physical limitation. She saw that they had even attached little tarps to be deployed on them so that the whiteboard, and the ones on the scaffolds, could be protected from the rain. She thought it was a nice touch. She used one of them almost as soon she saw them for the pre-game briefing. For Friday’s game, the team would use a 4-2-3-1 Wide with some modifications. First, she told everyone that since only five games were left on the calendar and that the stakes were so high, chances were that the starting XI would most probably be composed with the best elements only with changes based solely on the opponent and the needs that were present in those specific games. Second, since Middlesbrough were a bit weaker on their left side, the strategy was to play an overload approach specifically on that flank to try and create chances. Finally, she insisted on the importance of the game; if there was an unacceptable lost, it was this one… When the boys started training for the game, under Sam’s (Stead) supervision, she took some time talking with the Head Physio about Amando Izzo, an injured CD she knew very well since he had been bought from West Brom the year before. Rather old now at 32 years of age, he still was the team’s third CD and he was out for another five to ten days because of a twisted ankle. The simple fact that he was the third best central defender was something to worry about in itself; he was slow when he left the Baggies, he was even slower now… Afterward, they offered her a thorough review of the general physical condition of the squads and the risks evaluations until the end of the season. A good portion of the day was spent making phone calls to some scouts she wanted to hire; the club only had two at the moment and only one was to Penny’s liking. She was able to bring Stuart Harvey as Head scout, from Blackburn, where he only had a contract running till the end of June 2025, to fill the position. He had been a scout and Head Scout for the last nine years over there. At 46, he had some good years in front of him and, being born in Northern Ireland, it gave her knowledge on a territory close to home. He wasn’t the absolute best, she knew that, but he was excellent nonetheless and, as an added bonus, he asked for wages that was right into the brackets she was able to offer. In the afternoon, Diego Falcinelli came knocking on her door. He was a 32 years old forward and his contract was coming to an end at the end of June. She had seen during training that he clearly wasn’t cutting it, especially on the technical side. According to Kevin MacDonald, he clearly was on the decline. «Coach? May I talk to you please?» he said. - «Sure Diego. What can I do for you?» she said as she pointed him a chair in front of her desk, knowing what would probably the topic of the talk. - «I know that my contract is coming to an end soon and that the club is battling for staying in Premier but I’m pretty worried about my playing time. I want to stay with club but if you don’t use me in game, there is no way for me to prove to you I can be a valuable asset, you know? - Diego, I can understand your wishes but right now, the situation is fragile...» Penny was trying to gain some time. «You can add to that, the new staffs and only been here for less than seven days... The evaluation of the players is not done yet. The only thing I can tell you is that I’ll take some time specifically for your evaluation, trying to see if I can bring you in before the season end and, at the same time, for a new contract. It’s all I can do for you». She saw it wasn’t what he wanted to hear but overall, there was nothing else she could do. - «Alright then» he said. He got up and left without saying another word. She decided to call for Conor Hourrihane. As he arrived at her office door, she made him sit down. «Conor, I was wondering if you knew about the fact that Diego was worried about his play time. - Falcinelli ? He’s a sub, but yes, I knew about it. It wasn’t a very big worry though; he’s a professional and acts like it». Penny was scratching her chin, thinking before continuing. - «Do you know if there is anybody else having the same worries? Or any other player having any problem at all? - Well, I know that Scott (Hogan) is also worried about his play time; he’s the other forward sub. Scott has been here for over eight years though; he knows everyone and everything here… - Mmm… Is it possible for you to have a talk with him? Try and see if you can calm his worries? - I’ll see what I can do but I can’t make you any promises… - Look, try first. If it’s not enough, I’ll have a talk with him. - Ok - Are there any other player having problems? - Not that I know of. - Ok, thanks». The little meet was over and he left the office. Once he was out, she looked in her computer to find Hogan’s file. She saw that his contract was ending at the end of June too and that he didn’t play a single time this year in League games… She then started to work on a big transfer she wanted to do. At West Bromwich, there was a young keeper that she knew very well: Daniel Downing. At 21 years of age, he had a lot of things going for him. First, his communication skills with the defence were excellent for a youngster of his age. Mentally, he was a determined player, was pretty good when it was time to take decisions and in positioning himself but his best asset was his vision; he was very very good at reading the pitch and there still was room to grow. She knew his passing, one-on-one and anticipation were average for the Premier now but she knew that those things could be worked on. The transfer would certainly be expensive but she though very highly of him, having been able to see him grow for three full seasons. Pierluigi (Gollini) was decent and with some years in front of him, being only 29, but she thought that young Downing could be trained and surpass Pierluigi when would come the time for him to move on. Leicester was already sniffing around despite the fact that he still had three years left on his contract; she wouldn’t want to be caught with no solutions from within. That was without even mentioning the fact that the back-up that was present at the club was definitely not good enough, especially for his age. She would need an outside evaluation on Downing though; she was too close to the call. ------------------------------ On the morning of the Middlesbrough match, she was happy to see Adam El-Abd knocking on her office door. She took her crutch, got up in a heartbeat and walk straight to him with a big smile on her face: «Adam! How are you?» He smiled back and gave her a hug, like old friends do when seeing each other after a long time. - «Very good! I’m happy that you thought of me for the job! - Non-sense! I saw what you brought the Bulls and I think you can do good things here too! A bit different than League 2, huh?» She had a twinkle in her eye as they both walk toward her office table. - «Well, football is football, except that the facilities here must be something else… - They are, my friend... they are. Before going into anything, I want to tell you what I expect from you until the end of this season». He quickly saw that the familiarities would be short lived today. «First, I want you to go to our academy, present yourself, tell them know who you are and where you come from. Second, I will want a full evaluation of the academy and an excerpt of what you can do to make it meaningful for us; we need players coming from there who will have enough in them so we can eventually get them into the senior squad. Third, at the end of the season, I’ll sit down with you and we’ll talk about the philosophy I want to put forward here, at Aston Villa. It will be your job to pass it along in the academy and to make them work along those lines. Ok? - Sure boss!» he said with a big smirk. She laughed. - «And finally, make sure the limping b**ch doesn’t put all the crap of the world on your lap too!» They both laughed. Right after the meet with Adam, she went to see Lee (Darnbrough), the Director of football. She had thought about it a lot and finally decided to make him an offer to keep him at the club. She have never worked with a DOF before... She thought it wasn’t that big a salary in the grand scheme of things. She also thought that it would show a will to keep some ties with the past of the club. She knew that in a rather short period of time, a lot of new faces would arrive in the club and that a signal like that, would demonstrate some form of respect for the club’s old infrastructure. Not to mention that it also was a direct question asked to her at the interview… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 25, 2018 Author Share Posted September 25, 2018 During the ride toward Riverside Stadium for their game against Middlesbrough this Friday night, Penny decided to lay down to her staffs the plan she had told Kevin (MacDonald) for the end of the season review. The presentation was also a way to find the vision of football that everybody have since all of them didn’t know each other. This, rather long, interaction between all of them was a good ice breaker too. Penny knew that, on other levels of course, cohesion was also something beneficial for the club. She noticed that Kevin was often keeping himself out of the discussion. She couldn’t make a decision about the behaviour: was it because of shyness, was it to leave the floor to her new staffs or was he signalling that he felt it wasn’t worth it since he would leave at the end of the season? She didn’t think it was the third option for what she saw of him the days before but still… What she wanted was for him to feel part of this if only because she knew that he had something valuable to offer. Hence, she often forced him in by asking questions specifically to him. For the system they would use tonight, she had chosen to go with a 4-2-3-1 but Wide this time. She decided to go with a duo combined with an advance midfield composed of a DLP/B2B paired with an AP. She knew that she had pretty decent technicians with decent vision but all lacked flair. The B2B was mainly to use the great work rate available to her with Marcelo (Brozovic) or Conor (Hourihane0. She decided to use the former tonight and to make Conor a sub basically because she wanted to see, in a match, what Marcelo could offer her. He also was giving her something else: he was good with both his feet. At 32, he was one year younger than Conor but also, according to Kevin, his general decline hadn’t started yet so, maybe it would be possible to keep him despite his age. She knew he wasn’t at his best as a B2B, if only because his tackling and determination were pretty average but, she was curious at the idea to use two players in midfield that were good with both feet since the DLP would be Mathias (Jansen) who was at ease with both feet too. Her attacking players would be Jarrod (Bowen) and Maxwel (Cornet) on both wings with Antonio (Sanabria) as a poacher. Jarrod would be used as an IF while Maxwel was going to be a basic winger. Jarrod being on the same side as Marcelo, she thought that the play would probably more naturally develop on the left side since the DLP was on the left side and, with both Jarrod and Marcelo on position at the top of the box, they might also offer some more crossing opportunities. Her backline would probably be pretty static, with the side defenders being on support duties only since the Boro would most probably play a 4-2-3-1 as well. The game being on the telly, she had to go through her first televised Premier Division media gauntlet. Jessy from PR proved to be everything Kevin had said about her. Efficient, precise and also pretty diplomatic when things come down to comments or critics, she would be an ally to keep close for sure. Not to mention the fact that she clearly was passionate about all aspects of her jobs; the total opposite of what Penny was! Finally, the game started and Penny felt that the energy was building up rapidly in the capacity filled stadium. Before the fifteen minutes mark though, the Villans sucked the air right out of the place on a free kick on the left side of the Boro’s box where they were able to open up the score. Jarrod had place a great kick inside the box and Maxwel had delivered a perfect header. 1-0! The rest of the match was a grinding kind of game in which Penny’s team won pretty much in every department, usually not by much but just enough to end up being on top on the scoreboard. When she retreated to the dressing room, Penny was pretty ecstatic but worked hard to keep it inside. She, who came in working for a draw, had gotten her first official Premier Division win! Talk about a chance for the Medias that the game was televised too! As the players slowly took their places in the dressing room, she stayed upright in the middle of the place, smiling but silent. The fact that she had to sub two players after they had gotten yellows was something nagging at her happiness. She was certain though that the way to play it for the players, was to see her happy about everything that had been going their way during the match. The best examples being the tackling and the heading ratios that ended up being way better than their opponent’s. Also, the fact that of the ten shots the Boro’s had been able to make; only two were from inside the box and none of them were into a good position. Once all the players were sitting down and starting to recuperate, she started talking: “You did good tonight! The defence in particular gave us a clean sheet that was well deserved; great job defence! This performance, above expectations by the way, should give us some breathing room to stay in Premier!” She still couldn’t resist. “On the other hand, we showed some problems midfield, huh? I think we will need to work a bit there to try and find some better footings, especially on the defensive aspect. Otherwise, midfield to forwards, you controlled the ball well and that is something commendable. Overall, an ok performance on which, combined with the Arsenal one, we can build on! Now, we take a rest before meeting another top team in eleven days: Manchester United. This should give us ample time to tweak things and perfect the areas where improvements are needed. Once again, good job and congratulations!” When she arrived in her temporary office, she and the coaches made a first review of the stats and the game. She quickly saw that her ass-man, Jon (Stead) was a stats wiz! Yannick (Dumas), her Defence coach made some great comments on the defensive line and he proved to have good intuition, especially by making her use Jairo (Riedewald), a central defender that could probably be used pretty efficiently as a BPD, on the left flank as a defensive WB. He clearly offered a great option on the left flank of the midfield, using his vision and excellent passing abilities. Onur (Cinel), her attacking coach did mentioned that the combo with Maxwel was maybe not as effective as it could have been but he thought that the end result was probably because they never had play together on a flank. After the quick meet with her staffs, she went to the press conference with Jessy. The event was as boring as it could ever be, if not worst since, oh despair, her gender was brought on the table, again. At that, Jessy had proposed her a few possible lines to use and that were those she decided to use. They weren’t as “direct” as she would have liked but, the end result was that the reporters left her alone with the subject while, at the same time, not making herself enemies of them on her second game in Premier. As she was going back to the temporary office, she asked Jessy if it could possible to find a single line that could definitively put that subject behind while, at the same time, punching the one who asked about the subject without alienating him? She laughed and said that it was doubtful it would ever be possible to achieve both objectives. At some point though, she added this: “You know, maybe just ignoring the question by, instead, going on another message might do the trick. He talks about your gender, you answer speaking of a tactical situation you liked or disliked during the match. At some point, they might understand that it is an irrelevant subject for you.” Penny was pretty dubious and pretty much would have prefer using her crutch against the journalists that would want to talk about the subject instead but she knew that it wouldn’t help. As they were getting ready to go in the bus for the ride home, she took both Maxwel and Jairo aside and told them that she was extremely pleased about their performances. She even joked to Maxwel that by giving her “the first victory ever of a female manager”, years from now, when the old timers would talk about the “infamy of bringing female managers into the game”, they’ll surely curse his name! He laughed out loud at the joke! She quickly saw that it had a positive impact on both of them, probably even more because of the way she had acted with Faitout (Maouassa) the game before. As the bus departed with all on board, she asked for Conor to come and join her. He arrived, wearing a smile: «You called for me? - Yes, Conor. I wanted to ask you if you had any bad feeling about you not starting today’s match? - Naw, don’t worry! I know that you want to evaluate the personnel too. - You’ll be on the starting XI for the one against United, I promise. - I know that time is short and that you’ll want to know who to keep and who to let go so, no biggy!» He gave her, what appeared to be, a big genuine smile. - «Thanks for understanding and letting me off the hook as well…» She smiled back. «How’s everybody? - Pretty satisfied. All loved to take their revenge against the Boro!» and he let out a little laugh. - «I wanted to know, about Jairo. Do you think he minded being use on the side instead of in the middle? - He said nothing about it… but my guess would be that what he wants is to play, period. He’s a solid pro who is old enough to know that things must be done. - Is he a big team player? - Yes, pretty much, but more than that, I always saw him as pretty ambitious so, if the way to achieve big things is to not get played, some time, at his favourite position, he would take it. It’s his first season with us but all year long, he did nothing but give his best every day. - Ok, thanks a lot». Conor went back to his seat and Penny turned toward Kevin. He smiled and gave a thumb up but said nothing else. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 27, 2018 Author Share Posted September 27, 2018 On Monday, April 22nd, Penny got her first scouting meeting. Her scouting department was still under-staffed but she’d need some more time and it was postponed until the end of the season. Two moments in the meeting were noticeable. First, the Head scout, Stuart (Harvey), told her about a kid striker in Egypt called Mohammed Saber. He had heard a few colleagues talk about that young 18 years old, with a soon expiring release clause of £375 000, and that was considered to be a prime prospect wanting to move on to better skies. As young as he was, he already had been included into the national team and had done more than just figuration. “Some scouting should be done ASAP on him” was his call. One of the scouts, Marko (Mitrovic), who knows a ton of scouts in continental Europe, also said that he had heard about the kid and that at least four big clubs were looking at him, including AS Monaco and Juventus. Naturally, the main question was: how could they even have a chance to compete with clubs as big as those… She knew she could offer something they would never offer: First team status. That was a real handle, especially by starting on the assumption that those already had top class players, and that a kid, no matter how good he was, would never be able to break into the regular starting XI line-up of those teams at his first season. Here, on the other hand, it wasn’t the case. Her own experience at Hereford had showed her that with First team status, a young player would most probably be happy to start three games out of five and to be a sub for another of those five. In anyway, for the strikers that she had at the club, there was barely two that were of a level she considered adequate... This meant that since she knew she would, most probably, go toward a two strikers system, she would need more of them, period. The other player that was brought to her attention was a defender currently playing at BMG in the Bundesliga. Her scout Gaby (Ruiz), very knowledgeable of the Spanish league and Marko who knew the player too, talked about Philipp Lienhart who was now 27 and was considered to be a rotation player there. Having grown up in Austria, he still had caught the eye of Real Madrid who had brought him there and developed him for four years. He never made his place into the main team, despite starting over 50 games with the B team, and was finally sold to Freiburg. According to Marko, he was an aggressive, and fast, CD with very good jumping, excellent work rate and was blessed with excellent composure and concentration. He thought that something along the lines of £6 to £7 million would probably be needed but, according to both her scouts, the basic Real Madrid qualities were present and therefor, were probably worth paying. The scouting meeting ended up withher asking to evaluate Daniel Downing at West Brom; an outside eye was needed. To him, two other prospects would be scouted more closely, Mohammed Saber and a young right back playing with Brighton’s U23 squad that should probably be good enough for the main squad: Callum Brayley-Stokes. As she arrived in her office, she called Robert, in accounting: «Good day Robert, it is Penny. - Hello Penny. What can I do for you? - How can I get access, in the system, to the financial data regarding what is left in the Transfers account and also for the wages too? - Oh. It isn’t kept on a daily basis but the monthly results can be accessed directly from the financial section of the squads. You’re not familiar with our system, huh? - No. - Well, I’ll send you Patricia; she’s one of our accounting technicians. She is the one being responsible, among other things, to make sure that the monthly updates are completed. Is tomorrow morning be ok for you? - Can it be around 11h00? I got a pretty full schedule early in the morning. - Most probably. I’ll tell her to call you and confirm the appointment. Is there anything else? - Well, I was wondering if it could possibly be to schedule me a little learning session on tracking the expenses for the scouting team. I tried to understand it but, to be honest, I don’t have fifteen hours to go over it by myself just to try and figure things out… - Sure, that shouldn’t be a problem. Know that the tracking of all expenses is done the same way, whatever the department, only the specific accounts of those department changes so, once you know one, you know all. When would that suit you? - Can it be done after the season’s end? I have a ton on my plate at the moment, you know? - Sure, it’s no problem. What I’ll be able to provide you with, if it would be convenient for you, is to give you a weekly report but, know that we will not be able to break it down, you’ll only have the allowed budgets and the used up budgets to that date. To break it down would ask for a huge effort… - Just the allowed totals versus an up to date sub-totals would be awesome for now. Thank you very much Robert. - You’re welcome Penny. Have a nice day!» and he hung-up. Afterward, following on the scouting aspect of things, she pulled out the file of a player called Arkadiusz Grezsik. The transfer had already been concluded before her arrival at the club and she wanted to see who he was. What she found out was, overall, pretty interesting. He was an 18 years of age Polish CD that was currently playing at Legia, in the Polish first division. From what she saw, he wasn’t the fastest or the best of jumpers, while being more than adequate at those but, at his age, he already was excellent in marking and tackling. She saw in his stats that he even had gotten five games in the Champions League where he had had a 90% tackling ratio. Overall this season, he had an average of 5.8 tackles per match! The best was that he was averaging only 0.74 fouls per match… It probably was because of his anticipation that, according to the reports, was putting him as excellent already. The real downside though was that he was piling up small injuries and now, he even was out for three to four months because of torn knee ligaments… He was interesting for sure but, because of what could be seen as a proneness to injury, she’ll definitely need to cotton ball him for sure. In the afternoon, she spent a lot of time on the pitches, looking at the players, and also her new staffs, working. As she was walking, she was thinking about the Manchester United match next week. After looking at some games, she knew they were often using a flat 4-4-2 lately. She had gotten some success with a 4-2-3-1 but both times, it was against other 4-2-3-1s. She was wondering how to approach the match... The fact that it would be played at Villa Park was also weighing on things. Have the game been at Old Trafford, she would have parked the bus like there was no tomorrow with something like a 3-3-2-2WB/DM, putting eight players under the midfield line but at home, she felt that it would probably not be very popular among the fans if she would do this. She was thinking that maybe, something along the lines of a 4-2-2-2 DM could provide both, a solid defensive system and also provide some opportunities to counter attack. She knew that she would get a full assessment of the squad by her new staffs by Thursday; maybe there would be some useful data coming out of it. She took her phone out and made a vocal note to ask to the Data analyst to give a review of the mentality and shape that Man Utd had used in the last five games against lower table teams. As she was arriving to the defence pitch, where her goalkeepers were working along with the entire defensive line, she spent a lot of time trying to decipher the interactions between the players. After a few minutes, she decided to go up on the back scaffold. She looked at them for a long time; before she finally realized that Jairo wasn’t among them and that one of the two physios wasn't present either. She took her phone and called infirmary. After a brief conversation, she hung-up and now knew that Jairo had felt pain in his calf muscle of the right leg; he was out for the day and most probably tomorrow too. When her attention went back to the pitch, she was impressed at seeing Yannick (Dumas), her French defence coach, who, with very scarce English, signs and sketches on his white board, was being able to pass interesting concepts to the players that seemed to grasp everything. She couldn’t help herself and smiled at this wonderful demonstration that football truly was an international language of its own! At the same time, she wasn’t surprized to see Javi (Manquillo), who had spent a year with Marseilles in Ligne 1 in France and who knew a fair amount of French, with Chancel (Mbemba), who was born in Congo and was fluent in French too, making translations for the rest of squad for the few times it was necessary. The things Yannick was presenting them was absolutely first rate! He clearly knew his subject and the exercises he was making them do were truly excellent. She saw that Pierluigi (Gollini) seemed to be very comfortable in the “new environment” and she was also happy about that. She knew she would need him when she, if, she corrected herself, Daniel Downing would come in. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted September 29, 2018 Author Share Posted September 29, 2018 On Thursday, both Penny and Mark were roused by Britanny; the daughter having decided to wake-up before the parents and was making some ruckus in the kitchen. Penny saw that it was 05h18 and cursed the world in silent: “Those lost 15 minutes of sleep would have been so good… “ When she finally put her first toe out of the bed, Mark already was into the kitchen, most probably saying that he “…was awake already…” instead of saying something relevant to the situation like… asking what the heck was happening? She went straight for the bathroom to start her routine so she could have a few minutes of cooling down before meeting the daughter. Once fully awake, with the morning mechanics were done, she went to the kitchen where she could smell that coffee was ready; she loved that man so much … if only for him to always prepare the coffee while she works on waking-up! As she arrived in the kitchen, she looked at the daughter who was already watching the telly as she was eating some toasts and asked: «What was that this morning?» The daughter turned toward her mum. - «I was hungry and I dropped my cereals and the bowl broke… Sorry…» Penny could see right through her daughter’s lie about being sorry; she didn’t care one bit! Those teen years would be hard to endure… - «Ugh!» She then turned her attention to something worth turning to, «Thanks for the coffee handsome» as she got close to him to give him a little kiss on the cheek. - «You’re welcome babe but it’s not like you’re the only one needing it, huh?» he answered, smiling and reciprocating the kiss. After serving herself a coffee, she went to the kitchen table and opened-up the tablet while her husband left to go start his morning routine. As she was pouring the milk in her cup, she opened-up her football news app to check last night’s results in the Premier. There only was two games being played last night and only one that really mattered: Middlesbrough. She was happy to see that they had lost, Chelsea trashing them 5-2. This meant two things: first, she still was outside of the relegation zone by at least three spots and the goal difference was better than before to Aston Villa’s advantage. That was good! The real big news last night though, she found, was that a takeover was in preparation at… Arsenal! A Prague based consortium apparently had made an offer of more than £800M for the team that was now in 5th place on the table. The club having put a hold on any transfer until the situation has been resolved. She was stunned by the news! Reading the news a bit more, she saw that apparently, the new owners would pledge to invest in the club over £85M the very next year. “Just like they need more money for transfers…” she thought. When she arrived at Bodymoor Heath, she was greeted by Adam (El-Abd) that was arriving at the same time. «Hey Penny! - Hi Adam! How are you today?» she said while she passed through the front door that Adam was holding for her. - «Just wanted to let you know that I made my first rounds at the academy. - Nice. Are all the reports done for today’s meeting? - Yep. - Ok. Thanks. See you later!» said Penny as they split to go into each other’s offices. Entering in her office, she booted her computer while filling her coffee machine. When she came back at her computer, she fired up her email client and while her coffee was dripping, she went over some messages. If there was something that was staggering when it came to volume of something in particular, it was the emails; 59 messages in her inbox! She went into full denial mode: “How on earth is it possible to have that many? I emptied my inbox yesterday night at 19h00!” She sighed in disgust… She really would need to find a way to funnel those things because, otherwise, she’d spend entire days doing only that: going through mountains of emails! She then started to go through her pile of messages when someone knocked on her door. Without looking, she just said: «Come in, it’ll be a few seconds». After finishing reading the one she was looking at, she lifted her head and saw that Pierluigi (Gollini) was in her doorframe. She invited him to a chair. - «Hi Penny, sorry to bother you but may I have talk with you about something?» She didn’t like that but she already was committed by telling out loud to come in without looking. - «Sure Pierluigi, close the door if you want... - Thanks». He closed the door and came to sit in the chair she had offered him. - «What can I do for you? - Well, maybe you don’t know but apparently Leicester is pretty interested in having me in their squad. - I am aware that many teams would apparently be interested in many of the players of the team, yes». She didn’t want to isolate one in particular, especially him; because of course she knew they wanted him. - «I would want you to let me join them». She just knew that was coming… - «What do you think you’ll have over there that you wouldn’t have here?» She asked, wanted to see which handle she could use to try and convince him to stay. - «I want to go play on the European stage. - Last I checked, Leicester isn’t going there next season and is nowhere near to go there. - They have a better team than here. - As of today? I don’t think so, honestly. We also already have great prospects in sight you know… - It’s your opinion but I’ve been here for a long time now and I think the team will not go anywhere before long». She thought for a few seconds before answering; it was as much real as it was designed to show she thought before speaking. - «Is there work to do here? Of course there is, but as far as I know, Leicester is not going to Europe next year. They’re at what, the 12th spot on the table? Over twenty points away from the 6th spot and the first qualifications for Europe… We both know Tottenham won the Carabao Cup against Chelsea and that in the FA Cup, the Finals will be played between the same two clubs…» She was trying to play her cards in way that could offer some leverage somewhere down the line in the talk but he came back at her pretty fast. - «I want to leave because I think they are better, period». She didn’t have a choice now, and there was no handle to hold on to. - «Alright, if it is what you want. You have a release clause in your contract, right? If they match it with hard cash and not some fairy tale “ifs” like “winning the League championship” and stuff like that, I’ll let you go». Her tone was stern and she looked at him straight in the eyes when she had said that. She saw him wiggle a bit on his chair. After a few seconds, he finally talked. - «Let’s just hope they want me enough so that they trigger it». He got up and added «Thanks for hearing me coach» and he just left. She felt like getting out of a cold shower. She didn’t want to look at contracts into detail before the end of the season but now, she thought she didn’t have a choice. She knew that seven or eight players were looked at by different teams. Some, she didn’t care or was happy for it, like Faitout Maouassa but others, she did care! Pierluigi certainly was one of those she wanted to keep here. She knew she couldn’t have offered a new contract because, out of her memory, she thought he had renewed his contract at the beginning of the season; she remembered a news article about that. She then went into the system to look at his contract. Yes, he had a release clause but it wasn’t very high; barely £14M. “Pathetic” she thought. She then made a note in her agenda to take a look at all the main contracts of her players that she knew were scouted by other teams no later than Sunday. The rest of the day was spent into meetings with her staffs for their first evaluations of the players and preparing the match against Man United. She decided she would use a 4-2-2-2DM, playing for possession without playing long ball at first. She wanted to see how much her team would be able to carry the ball into the Red devils’ territory before resorting to long balls in front. The fact that the match was played at home changed a lot of things; she wasn’t ready to sacrifice the “show” by just putting everybody in defence. Or at least, not completely sacrifice the show… She was prepared to lose but, because of the tight race on points, she wanted to lose by no more than one goal. Just before going home that night, she sent an email to all her scouting department to look for a First team goalkeeper instead of looking for a midfielder; she had three others in the club but no senior squad level goalkeeper… Pos Inf Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag GD Pts 1st ECC Chelsea 34 29 2 3 83 22 61 89 2nd EC Man City 34 25 5 4 74 24 50 80 3rd Man Utd 34 22 7 5 61 29 32 73 4th Liverpool 35 20 11 4 62 25 37 71 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5th Arsenal 34 21 5 8 57 37 20 68 6th EC Tottenham 34 17 14 3 52 33 19 65 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7th Bournemouth 35 14 9 12 45 48 -3 51 8th Everton 34 13 10 11 42 39 3 49 9th West Ham 34 12 8 14 37 40 -3 44 10th Southampton 34 12 7 15 36 51 -15 43 11th Watford 34 10 11 13 36 44 -8 41 12th Leicester 34 13 1 20 45 52 -7 40 13th Stoke 34 10 7 17 40 55 -15 37 14th Wolves 34 8 8 18 30 57 -27 32 15th Aston Villa 34 6 11 17 32 51 -19 29 16th Crystal Palace 34 7 8 19 28 47 -19 29 17th Middlesbrough 34 6 11 17 30 53 -23 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18th Brighton 34 6 8 20 28 51 -23 26 19th Swansea 34 6 7 21 23 56 -33 25 20th Newcastle 34 6 6 22 25 52 -27 24 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 1, 2018 Author Share Posted October 1, 2018 On Tuesday the 30th of April, Britanny was not happy to not go to the match; not happy at all. Penny took time, around dinner, to give her a call. Before the daughter hung up, she passed the phone to her dad so he would say a little something to his wife. When the call was done, she went back to her preparation for the match that was starting in less than ninety minutes. She was feeling a bit of nervousness; she was dreading a crushing defeat. She knew she had done all that she could but nonetheless, she still wasn’t certain. Entering the dressing room, she put on a determined and confident demeanour for all the players to see. She knew that some were nervous too, the last game against the Red devils had been a crushing defeat for them: 0-4! The Villans’ being able to only shoot five times while United fired 24 times; Griezmann and Mbappé getting two goals each. According to the scout, they would play the same 4-4-2 tonight that they had played at the time. She walked slowly toward the middle of the dressing room, scanning the place constantly. When she arrived at the centre of the room, she stayed immobile, wearing a defiant look toward everyone. From her stand point, she saw the nervousness of her players even more; she hoped that her defiant stance would make a dent in that nervousness because she was wondering if some were thinking that they were simply going to the slaughterhouse… As time passed, silence started to install itself in the place, becoming deeper at each second; the looks she got from the players were more prevalent. She let it go a bit more and then plunged: “The Red devils are in town with issues; their form in the last games is not as good as they would hope and some teams are eating up their edge by the day. This means that they are asking themselves what they can do to recapture their mojo… I think we can put a big fat wrench in their work…” She saw that some players’ demeanour was changing a little. “We had more than ten days to rest and work for this match and we have done our homework well. Just stay focused on your tasks and…” she made a little smirk, showing something like a smile for the first time, “the brain cramps should be kept in check!” A tiny bit of laughter in response, she was happy. “Now, D-line, when you’ll play the offside trap, don’t entirely focus your mind on positioning either; better to make a bad one and foil a through ball leading to a one-on-one than the opposite, ok?” The players nodded. “Now, go out there and do what I’m certain you can do; give a great effort!” The players got up, clapping in their hands and shouting some cheers. Villa Park was full, again. Penny still was wondering why since for the last three months, whatever the team coming here, it never was the case but, for both games now, it has been full. She pushed those thoughts deep down in the useless zone of her mind to focus on the game that was starting. What she was seeing on the pitch for the first thirty minutes was exactly what she had worked for; possession was excellent and the Manchester United shots were mostly out of the box at a rather bad angle. The offside trap was working ok but, since they were more often than not in a defensive stance, it wasn’t as impactful as she would have wanted. Nonetheless, the first half ended on a 0-0 score but the Villans’ show clearly wasn’t one that the fans liked; the Villans scarcely having pushed on offense and taking only two shots while the Red devils still got seven on their own. As she was retreating to the dressing room, she was starting to be torn between her desires to limit all risks and starting to take some… As she was standing by the door, her brain was working on that decision but kept a smile on her face so that all the players could see it. Once all were inside, she then came in and told them that they were working well and the she was pleased. She took an instant to remind them, though, that it was important not to lose their focus. As she was going to her office, she saw that Jon (Stead) was already reading the stats sheet with Onur (Cinel) and Yannick (Dumas) by his sides. Onur was the first one to talk: «Penny, I think we should stop playing possession for possession». She was toying with this option herself but she wasn’t decided yet about the risk level she was willing to take; that draw would be so good… - «I think we should do it too» added Jon, her ass-man. - «I am not yes» said Yannick, still struggling a bit with his English. «Formation still in front of zone of goal with Mbappé». Yannick, her Defence coach, was bringing a good point there; Mbappé was still too mobile in front of the box and she saw that her DMs/CDs often showed some hesitations, if they should follow him or let another take him at that point. She was cursing her limited knowledge of her players; she had a good idea of what they could do but, in some areas, she wasn’t sure yet… After mulling each advice, she finally answered. - «I think Yannick’s right. I agree we should try to push a bit more vertically but I am concerned about the front of our box. We have neutralized them pretty well so far, despite the fact it was a bit uncertain sometime». Onur, her offense coach, retorted. - «Then we should take advantage of their right flank then, their right back got that yellow at the end of the half, let’s push there since he is now forced to play less aggressive, weary of getting another. - I agree, let’s ask Jairo to push a little…» said Jon. «… to go support instead of staying on defence». She decided to take this and, when she went back in the dressing room, she conveyed those tweaks. The second half started and while still playing possession, the Villans were pushing a little more on the left flank. On the 54th minute, on a corner, Manchester United’s Jake Rodber scored, taking the lead 0-1. The header was the first shot on goal from them since the beginning of the first half and simply was perfect; there was nothing nobody could have done... It only was at that point that she asked her players to stop playing possession. She then was surprized to see the result on the pitch; in the next minutes, she instantly saw some very aggressive plays, on her left flank. That instantaneity was what caught her off guard; she then turned toward Maxewl (Cornet), her left winger to warm-up. On the 65th minute, she saw her players playing extremely well defensively despite the “keep the ball” instruction being rescinded. When Maxwel was ready, she took him aside and told him her plan. When an offside was called against the Red devils, she pulled out Josh Sims, her second CM and Maxwel came in all the while everybody took positions for a 4-2-3-1 Wide. She was astounded at what happened. She particularly was surprized to see Mathias (Jensen) push a little higher and on the left and to become a solid pivot point in a flank overload. United was having trouble dealing with it. Ten minutes after the change, she pulled Neil (Bannister) who was having difficulty to find space on his own and she brought Anotnio (Sanabria) in the match. Mere seconds afterward, Antonio got a beautiful chance created from the left flank with a wing changing ball to Jarrod (Bowen), playing as an IF on the right ,who offered a great through ball to Antonio. The framework was hit! Five minutes later, again on an open play, Maxwel did something unexpected, he held the ball and Jairo, still on support duties, decided to overlap and found himself pretty much alone. Maxwel then tapped the ball in the left corner space and Jairo was able to reach it and got his chance to cross. Jarrod was able to take it at the second post but, again, it was a framework again! She took a leap of faith and told her players to go all out; they were working hard, she decided to give it to them. For the rest of the game, they pushed hard but, to no avail. They got other opportunities but sadly, the game ended-up on that 0-1 score. In the dressing room, she decided to show them something they probably would had thought possible. “I want to tell you guys that I am sorry. I got scared and decided to keep you out there tied to a leash…” She saw some players react to the statement with a fair degree of surprise. “I was playing for a draw so much that I lost sight of everything else hence, the defensive set-up. So, I want to apologize to each of you for that. You played great by the way, really great. We got unlucky with those frameworks and you showed them that you were controlling the pitch better. I am thrilled at the aggressiveness you displayed once I let the leashes go! All I can say is that I won’t make the same mistake again”. She then turned to the defensive line. “For you, D-line, I want to tell you that you played an excellent game! To have the Red devils being completely shut out in the second half and, to only have given them one single chance, and that it was on a stopped play? It was a great display. Congrats!” When she arrived in her office, all her coaches were smiling at her. «That was a great speech and it was very well received by the players» said Jon. - «I say yes too» added Yannick. Onur just nodded while smiling. - «You think they accepted I made a mistake without holding a grudge?» asked Penny. - «I think so, yes. It’s not the mistake part that they kept, I think…» said Jon. «It’s the honesty. Their reaction was along the “leash/no leash” part and the fact that you made a decision but recognized that they were showing you that they were better without it, so, you trusted them and let them go…» Penny sure hoped so because if the players couldn't believe their manager being the best, they would not go to war for her… With the press, she only stated that she was proud of what her players had shown and that they clearly saw that they were fighters wanting to stay in Premier. “I’m very confident at our chances to stay here, with the bests” were her last words. Conor Hourihane was next and she stayed behind because she wanted to have a little chat with him. She heard him say he thought that they had played well and that the fact that United never was able to get anything done properly during open play was a great example of that. As he got out of the meet with the press, he was called by her: «Conor, may I ask you something?» He smiled. - «Of course coach! - I was wondering if any players had made a comment on my team talk…» He smiled broadly. - «All loved it, truly!» She was surprized at the “width” of the smile. - «What do you mean? - Coach, to say you took a shot thinking we could give you one thing but accepting our signal that we could do better things if you let us do them was much appreciated! I can even tell you that a few, I won’t tell names, even commented on the fact that it was the first time they had witnessed something like that and they loved it! - So you think in the long run, it shouldn’t come back and bite me in the butt?» He laughed. - «As long as don’t underestimate us too often, nope!» Pos Inf Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag GD Pts 1st ECC Chelsea 34 29 2 3 83 22 61 89 2nd EC Man City 34 25 5 4 74 24 50 80 3rd Man Utd 35 23 7 5 62 29 33 76 4th Liverpool 35 20 11 4 62 25 37 71 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5th Arsenal 35 22 5 8 60 39 21 71 6th EC Tottenham 34 17 14 3 52 33 19 65 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7th Everton 35 14 10 11 46 40 6 52 8th Bournemouth 35 14 9 12 45 48 -3 51 9th West Ham 34 12 8 14 37 40 -3 44 10th Leicester 35 14 1 20 48 54 -6 43 11th Southampton 35 12 7 16 38 54 -16 43 12th Watford 35 10 12 13 38 46 -8 42 13th Stoke 35 11 7 17 43 57 -14 40 14th Crystal Palace 35 8 8 19 32 49 -17 32 15th Wolves 35 8 8 19 32 60 -28 32 16th Aston Villa 35 6 11 18 32 52 -20 29 17th Middlesbrough 35 6 11 18 32 57 -25 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18th Brighton 35 6 8 21 30 54 -24 26 19th Swansea 35 6 8 21 25 58 -33 26 20th Newcastle 35 6 6 23 26 56 -30 24 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 3, 2018 Author Share Posted October 3, 2018 The day after the lost against Manchester United was a day of rest for the players but not for the staffs who came in at noon. The next match was going to be against Newcastle and Penny knew it was their real last chance to get a win this season since the last two games were against Tottenham and Chelsea… They spent the day going through the Newcastle scouting reports to make sure they would leave with those three points. In the end, she said: “You know what? 4-2-3-1 Wide is fine as far I’m concerned. Last night, they told me to unleash them; I’ll do it and defy them to make the boast a reality…” All agreed that it probably was the best way; they too were told the same message, they just weren’t the one in front to get it in the face. At 19h00, she shooed everybody out; it was enough for the day. Arriving in her office, she started to check her schedule for the next day and was surprized by a knock on her office door. She lifted her head and saw Jon (Stead), her ass-man. «I thought I kicked all of you out?» she said, half joking. - «You should have used your left foot, the right one isn’t strong enough!» he said with a joking smile. She threw her head backward as she started to laugh! She loved the joke less than the fact he had made a first comment about her physical limitation telling he didn’t care one bit about it in the process. She decided to go head first into that opened door. - «Can’t use my crutch, I can’t get you all in one swipe!» Both laughed. He came in and sat in front of her. - «I wanted to ask you something about yesterday’s formation» he said. She became serious. - «Shoot! - Well, I wouldn’t have talked about it in front of others and I didn’t have the chance before the match. I just don’t understand why you came in as defensive as that in that match». She considered the comment for a few seconds before speaking. - «I was a pussy, that’s why!» He was surprized, but not as much at the statement than at the choice of words. It showed. She continued «I think I got focused too much on the table instead of the match itself...» The surprise was over now and his facial expression changed; it became very determined but the tone still was calm and poised. - «I watched the two games since you came in, three times each. I also went through your manager records. May I offer a suggestion, using what I saw in those matches and the records? - Sure. - Well, I think you are a bit conservative and, by default, a bit defensive in mentality on the pitch but, especially for your use of the flanks, I think you have pretty good offensive instincts too». She had chosen Jon, in part, because she knew he tactically had a very offensive mind-set. «I would like to suggest you to let that instinct get a little more on top. I know that since you, we, I might say, don’t know our squad very much yet, the defensive stance might be a natural reflex but, on the other hand, why suppress instincts when you know that they usually are good?» She looked at him for a few seconds before talking; trying to hide whatever blushing that she knew was trying to surface. - «Point taken». He then smiled at her and continued. - «On another topic, I heard you would like to take a shot at getting Mohammed Saber to sign here; is it true? - Yes, it’s true. The only thing I can really offer him though is a lot of play time… - Well, I have something that might interest you…» He got his cell phone, unlocked it and did some manipulations on it. A few seconds later, she got an email forwarded to her by him. «I have an old teammate who is now a scout in Serie A. His team looked at the guy this winter; what I sent you is a vid he sent me last December, you’ll see the email is a personal one and it was sent because it reminded him of a teammate we had when we played together. It’s a compilation of the kid in games. Just so you know, in a subsequent chat with him, he told me that apparently, all this kid want is First team status… anything else than that, apparently, he would refuse if he thinks he can get it somewhere…» Penny looked at Jon for a very long time before going at it again. - «You’re serious? - That was his words…» She went into the email and looked at some of the vids while Jon continued talking. «For what I saw in those vids, he’s got explosive acceleration, got very good pace, pretty good dribbling abilities and he seems to like to run with the ball… a lot. - You say the key is First team status… and that would be it? - Well, I guess my friend didn’t give me everything but, in short, this could be the bulk of it, yes. If more than two teams are offering it to him, he’ll surely make a choice but… Anyway, I’m projecting, of course, but I could imagine the kid, in a two striker system, playing on the left side and being supported by a strong and intelligent passer like Jairo… Counter attacks on the left flank would than potentially be pretty productive, giving some time to adjust… - I’m wondering about the idea of him coming into a cold country… - They all adjust at some point, in my experience anyway. I guess you can ask your friend Adam (El-Abd), our HOYD, about that specific subject…» She smiled at Jon; he was as smart as he wasn’t a fool. - «I didn’t even think about that… despite the fact I know he was recruited from there by Brighton when he was about that age… You know how many teams were looking at him, in Italy? - Two or three my friend told me at the time. - The two scouts who brought his name up told me that about ten teams were interested, all over Europe, including England. - I guess as long as some Spanish teams, who shall remain nameless, don’t appear in the picture, we might have a chance if we follow my friend’s hunch». He said with a smirk. As she was driving home, she was thinking about the chat with Jon. She realized she’d made a great choice by asking him to become ass-man. She liked the fact that he had made a joke about her leg before the two week’s mark, not a mean one of course; this meant something to her. She was certain that the most uncomfortable thing wasn’t her gender but her physical limitation so, if he could make an joke about that, it meant her gender was meaning squat in his eyes. As she arrived home, at 20h45, she got welcomed by her husband who had already prepared her Camomile tea: “Old charmer” she thought, smiling. She gave him a small kiss. She then went to her daughter’s bedroom where she, again, was probably watching something on the tablet. Britanny came to her mum and gave her a kiss and a hug; she was in a good mood tonight despite yesterday’s match that she couldn’t come to. Penny then went to the master bedroom to change clothes and, when she came out, she saw that the daughter had changed into her pyjama, the new one she got who was the Villans home kit colours. Going to the sofa where Mark was sitting, she made a sign to Britanny to come join them; she took a seat between her mum and dad. «To both of you…» Penny said, «I want to tell you that you better not make any plans for Sunday, May 11th, because you’ll be with all the grandparents and all the uncles and aunts and the cousins at Villa Park in one of the VIP box to watch the last home game of the season, against Tottenham». Britanny was dumfounded and Mark just had his interrogative stare. «I pulled some strings and I got you all into one of the Doug Ellis Boxes. You’ll also eat there, have drinks, etc…To that, I was able to get you special passes. I’ll give you a small tour of the dressing room but it will have to be about two hours after the game. We will then go out on the pitch, to take a little stroll; to make you see what I see from down there. So, all 17 peoples of the family will come see me and my team against the last English qualifier for Europe this year!» Britanny just jumped at her mother’s neck to give her a kiss and a big hug. Mark just waited for the daughter to let go of her mum. Once the daughter was in her bed, Mark asked Penny how much it would cost. She dismissed the money part by saying that since not all the family had been able to come to her first match, she wanted them to be there for at least one. Besides, she said she had some kind of discount. The only tricky part was to funnel everybody here and to get hotel rooms for all of them but that a secretary had worked all the details today; even sending an official invitation to everyone with their travel and lodging plans that they would all receive tomorrow. He quickly saw that even if he wanted to argue, there was nothing that would get out of it so, he smiled, took her wife in his arms and gave her a small kiss that quickly turned into a full embrace… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 5, 2018 Author Share Posted October 5, 2018 The trip to St. James Park was rather long; 3h30. During that time, Penny thought a lot about her set-up; she had doubts about putting Neil (Bannister) as a lone striker, again, but she wanted to see him in game another time and the Newcastle one was the best chance for him to shine. The main problem with Neil was that he had two shortcomings: off the ball and first touch, both being average, at best. The players had reacted well to the 4-2-3-1 Wide approach and, when she had made a comment about them “wanting to be without a leash”, she saw that some took it personal... Despite going against the worst team in the league, she asked her player to take a defensive mentally nonetheless. The only thing she allowed, in an attacking mentality posture, was to ask Jarrod (Bowen) and Maxwel (Cornet), her right Interior Forward and her left Winger respectively, to roam from position. She wanted them to make the opponent’s deep flanks a bit murky. With luck, the side defenders might become uncertain and even hesitate, offering some space to be exploited. She knew that Newcastle would try and shut down the play; her job then was to create some space. When the players were warming-up on the pitch, Penny locked herself up in her temporary office to change clothes, like she always do. Once her trousers and blouse were done, she started to attach her hair; no bun today, ponytail it would be. She was happy to finally have found shoes that would fit her clarets and blue kit colours. Mark had laughed a bit at her when she had told him that, becoming a bit obsessed by the issue, she had asked, and paid, for a stylist to find her shoes she could wear with those exact colours. Not to mention her surprise, when seeing said stylist coming back with a full array of shoes but also, with full sets of trousers/blouses combos that would fit with her official Aston Villa FC blazer. It surely was surprizing since Penny, when all comes down to objects, clothes above all, she probably was the best example of “utilitarism”. Beautifying was always the last thing on her mind and Mark knew it. Once all dressed, she looked in a mirror to make sure all was ok. She didn’t need to check her make-up; she never even owned a lipstick except for her wedding! Getting out of her the temporary office and arriving in the dressing room, she saw that a few players looked at her; lots of smirks and some thumbs-up sign were made, making her blush a little. It was Conor (Hourihane) that finally killed all possible quip: «Hey boss, I hope the husband loves the Villans colours cause, if he doesn’t, that would be an awkward night for sure if you also have a matching pyjama!» A thunderous fit of laughter went through the dressing room. Liking the quip, she was among the first to laugh; clearing the little red that had started showing on her cheeks at the same time. Jon came to her with Newcastle’s official line-up. After taking a good look at it, she just pointed to the second striker on it; they would go with a 4-4-2, just like they had prepared for. She walked toward a bag that she had left at her temporary office’s doorstep, took it and started walking back toward the middle of the room. Leaning on her crutch with her right hand, she kept the bag in her left’s. Once she arrived, she stood still right after making sure the bag was unzipped but closed so that no one could see in it. She let the players take their place in silence, waiting for them to be ready to hear her out. It took less than a minute when silence filled the room; she let it last a bit longer still. Her face was wearing a very defiant look. She saw the players looking at her, saw them slowly focusing and that’s when she threw the bag open in front of her; about fifteen leashes fell on the ground: «You guys told me last game to let you out of your leashes… I guess what you need to do now is to show that this wasn’t boast, huh?..”. Her stare was piercing and she was seeking every starter with it; she wanted them to see her eyes… «… and help us secure the team’s place in Premier next year!» She then just turned and headed out the dressing room toward the corridor where the players would meet their kid escorts. Jon came to join her and whispered that the players looked at her when she left and that their eyes then focused on the pile of leashes in the middle of the place; it was clear that they took it as a challenge. The silence stayed on for about ten seconds before someone finally started to prepare to leave the room and come here. ”So much the better she thought…” The Magpies’ manager, Mauricio Pochettino, came to her and offered her his hand, congratulating her and saying he was happy to meet her. By that time, her players were slowly coming in the corridor. She saw that none looked at her… Newcastle got first touch and the third pass they made was intercepted in midfield; it was starting good. Her players played well, pretty conservatively for the first thirty minutes of the half, minimizing the mistakes and limiting the Magpies to a single shot while taking three on their own. At that point, she decided to ask Federico (Dimarco), her left back to push a little more and to go on support duty. On the 39th minute, Neil (Bannister) was fouled right in front of Newcastle’s box; free kick. Conor took it. Kicking the ball with incredible power, he scored! 1-0! After the celebrations, in the right corner, he walked back toward the centre of the pitch. When he almost was at Penny’s height, he looked at her and smiled; she gave him a thumb-up. He stopped, smiled even more and mimicked the gesture of someone removing a leash off his neck. She couldn’t do nothing but laugh; the defiant gesture was just too good! When the first half was over, she retreated toward the dressing room, reviewing the game played so far, in her head. The Magpies had only three shots, none inside the box and only one that was threatening, her players dominated the midfield pretty good, forced fouls and, all that while her players played with their head and minimized mistakes and fouls at the same time. On the other hand, she also noticed that Neil wasn’t able to cope alone as a striker, she would need to sub him for Antonio (Sanabria) and Federico got a yellow at the end of the half, she’d need to sub him too; she didn’t want to be shorthanded… The team talk was pretty simple and short, «It’s not over yet…» and that was it. Conor though made a little hook toward her when he came in, saying nothing but making sure she would see him; he wore a smirk. When it was time to go back on the pitch, he did the same thing; the smirk was even bigger… Antonio would be on the pitch as poacher. Federico had been told that he’d need to calm down a notch because of his yellow. Having first touch, the Villans showed that they intended to stay in control of the game and played well, doing nice passing and being aggressive defensively. On the 55th minute, Yassine (Benzia), who was playing as DLP in midfield made a rather weak through ball in the top of the Magpies’ box where Maxwel (Cornet) had to ran to, just to get tackled by Fernando Fonsaca, Newcastle’s left back; penalty! Federico took the shot and scored! 2-0! She, who was on the verge of subbing him because he was getting a bit reckless, decided to do it at this moment; Jairo (Riedewald) took his place. As Federico got off, she told him why and he said it was ok. Nineteen minutes later, Conor took another free kick almost at midfield. He kicked the ball toward Javi (Manquillo), her right back, that was in the box but he got shoved by Peter Stojanovic, the Magpies’ right back. Penalty! Jarrod (Bowen) took it and scored! 3-0! The game ended on that score. When the players arrived in the dressing room, they all were wearing big smiles on their face. Penny was waiting for them, standing in the middle of the place. One by one, they looked at Penny as they were coming in and, while wearing a smirk, they all repeated Conor’s gesture; they all mimicked the gesture of unclipping a leash that would be around their neck. The mood was light and joyful, just like it should be after such a good performance. She stood in the middle of the place, wearing a smile. When she knew she got their attention, she talked: «You sure played a good one… and showed what you got in you…» She saw a lot of smiles in there. «… but I would say that it was against the worst team in the league so, I still don’t know if it is worth something… you know?» She saw that some faces changed at the comment; they weren’t exactly pleased by the comment. «We still have two games and we need at least one point, and a wee bit of luck, to make sure Villa stays where it belongs: the Premier Division. You know that Hotspurs and Chelsea will be tougher preys. The only thing I can say is that while they have nothing to prove now, their position being secured, we still have something to prove to us all but also to the fans. In short: good game but you still have work to do!» She saw that the players accepted the statement that there still was work to do. Pos Inf Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag GD Pts 1st C Chelsea 36 31 2 3 92 24 68 95 2nd EC Man City 35 25 5 5 76 30 46 80 3rd EC Man Utd 35 23 7 5 62 29 33 76 4th Liverpool 36 21 11 4 65 25 40 74 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5th Arsenal 36 23 5 8 62 40 22 74 6th EC Tottenham 35 17 15 3 52 33 19 66 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7th Everton 36 14 11 11 46 40 6 53 8th Bournemouth 35 14 9 12 45 48 -3 51 9th West Ham 35 12 8 15 37 43 -6 44 10th Leicester 35 14 1 20 48 54 -6 43 11th Southampton 36 12 7 17 39 56 -17 43 12th Watford 35 10 12 13 38 46 -8 42 13th Stoke 36 11 7 18 43 59 -16 40 14th Wolves 36 9 8 19 34 60 -26 35 15th Aston Villa 36 7 11 18 35 52 -17 32 16th Crystal Palace 35 8 8 19 32 49 -17 32 17th Brighton 36 7 8 21 31 54 -23 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18th Middlesbrough 36 6 11 19 32 58 -26 29 19th Swansea 36 6 8 22 25 61 -36 26 20th Newcastle 36 6 6 24 26 59 -33 24 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 7, 2018 Author Share Posted October 7, 2018 On Wednesday, May 6th, Penny and her staffs spent the day working on the strategy for the game against Tottenham next Saturday. Decision’s been made that they would still play that 4-2-3-1 Wide with a playmaker on the left wing. She wasn’t very comfortable with it, mainly because of the average acceleration/pace combo in the midfield, but she felt that the bravado shown by them was forcing her hand. In a way, she was wondering if it was ill advised to “cave” but she thought that, in the long run, it may be beneficial; her success here, in this venture, depended on the support of the players so… This dilemma was hard to deal with… The day before, during preliminary strategy talks, she had wrestled with it and finally, at the end of the meeting, she had taken Kevin (MacDonald) aside: «Kevin, you have a minute? - Sure Penny, what can I do for you? - Can we go in my office? - No problem with me». During the walk, she did some small talk with him, asking him how he was, if the project she had given him was progressing the way he wanted it, etc… Once in the office though, she closed the door and invited him to one of the sofa; she sat on the other one. - «Since you’ve been here for a long time now and that you know the players better than anyone, do you mind if I ask you some questions?» He smiled. - «Nope! - I was wondering about what happened in the dressing room at the end of the Newcastle game, the “releasing of the leash” gesture…» He started to laugh. «… Ok, so I guess there was a message? - Personally, I think there was but maybe not the one you might think. - That’s the thing, I tried to show I found it funny but honestly, I do not know how to interpret it... - Well, I honestly was a bit surprised; we don’t have a team that is, personality wise, very defiant so, there was a little surprise there. That being said, I think they took your message, you challenged them, and they tried to show you that they liked it. The little gesture, I think it was going in the same “half-banter/half-defiance” of you dropping the bag full of leashes line. Was it negative? I don’t think so, honestly. I can tell you though that it was a long time ago since I saw the players act in such a defiant way, not toward their manager but toward another team. They want to impress you, yes, but I also think that you poked at their pride and they are reacting to it. - So, you think it’s not negative? - I don’t think so, no. For what I caught during training yesterday, when they came in, they were pretty proud to have done something they haven’t done all year so far: win with a three goal difference… with a clean sheet to top it off! - The thing is, I am feeling like I am being put in some kind of corner by them, strategically wise; make us play 4-2-3-1 and we’ll kick ass and if you don’t, you’ll suffer… - It may very well be, somewhere, a bit of that but, my opinion is, that they got burned so much with a 4-4-2 this year, a formation Peter (Bosz) never stopped using. The simple fact you play something different, and get results with, is just making them more confident. That is my opinion anyway…» Penny was trying to read him; he seemed sincere… - «Does this mean that you know that there is support for me at the moment? From the players I mean... - Support, I know of two: Federico (Dimarco) is one, but he is pretty new at the club and still try to makes himself a place inside the group. The second one though... Well, I caught a conversation between four players yesterday afternoon; one of them was Conor (Hourihane). He likes you as a manager. He was telling them that he likes the way you “threw all of them a gauntlet”. He was saying that he also liked your approach on the very first meet; the speech, the goals and the methods ». She was thunderstruck! - «Conor? - Yep! Being the captain and a team leader; he has a huge influence on pretty much everybody…» The talk resonated in Penny’s head all afternoon. As she was walking around the pitches, looking at the training, Kevin’s words were continuously coming back. She knew she wanted to believe them, especially for Conor; if there was anyone that could influence her acceptance by the players in the club, it was him... At some point, she was looking at the attack pitch and she noticed something, she went to Onur (Cinel) to tell him; he concurred. She got up on the scaffold, placed some of the magnetic markers on the whiteboard and called the attack crew to come to her. The thing was that when they were moving up the pitch, Jarrod (Bowen), her Interior Forward wasn’t moving along with the rest on the transition, especially when they were moving from the right side. She gave some specific instructions to make sure they would go up on the left flank and told Jarrod to stay in the right half space corridor. “Jarrod, you need to keep an open lane for our right back to pass you by hugging the side line. For the rest of you, Mathias (Jensen) in particular, reset the play instead of going on the right flank, ok?” She saw nodding all around. Conor then asked about the possibility to lose an opportunity to go up fast by resetting the play; she had that strong feeling that he wanted to tell her to address a concern that was present in some players. “The lost opportunity is nothing compared to losing the ball with Jarrod and our right back getting caught out of defensive position, more if they are hesitating on the next move. We don’t have the Spurs’ speed, so we must use something else; our head. You know our right back as mainly defensive duties but you know Javi (Manquillo), right? He goes forward whenever he have the chance but, if he can’t see a clear lane in front of him, he won’t even take that chance of going higher on the pitch, if only as a passing option to stretch the play.” She saw that the players were putting the blocks together. Later that afternoon, both defence and attack came together and she passed the same message again. She saw that both Jarrod and Javi were talking together about this and, at some point; they both came to her, asking about the half space corridor. She just told Jarrod to sit a bit narrower on transition and attack phase. Javi than said to him that he’ll try and hug the line a bit more, to make sure he doesn’t interfere in the play. The key, she told them, was to become outlets to make a big defensive switch of the opponent because the ball would have changed wing: “We want to be able to create some space in a heartbeat, if only by making them reposition themselves”. Jarrod understood the idea; if they saw him in the half space, they’ll assume he “should try” to cut inside but, with Javi going up, with an empty line in front of him, their left back would be forced into a decision. With Ross (Barkley) playing as an offensive midfielder since Josh (Sims) would play as a playmaker on the left wing, Jarrod wasn’t as much an outlet at going up the pitch but more as a safety option if the ball was lost on a wing change if Javi was a bit too deep and off position. She also made sure that Jairo (Riedewald) understood that it was important to sit narrower on the left side of the defensive line; she wanted the back line to be three wide in case of a counter attack with Javi out of position. She made the team practice that phase over and over for the rest of the afternoon and the results were getting better and better each time. It was the first time she was making them play that way, with a playmaker on the wing and she wanted them to understand the plan well. As the players were going to the showers at the end of the practice, a lot of them gave her genuine smiles as they were passing her. Kevin walked to her and said: “Looking good Penny...” She just looked at him and gave him a confident smile; she wouldn’t want to let him see her grasping at those words like they were lifelines... She really was worried and she knew that pressure was building up inside her; the Spurs match was her last real chance to have some sort of control on their own destiny. If Middlesbrough would lose against Southampton next Saturday, all she would need would be a single point to guaranty that the team would stay in Premier Division. She had no illusions about the last game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge… When she was back in her office, she gave a quick call to hospitality. Yes, all was ready for the family for Saturday’s match. She knew most would arrive late Friday night, either by train or by plane and all would go to the hotel only to leave next Sunday around noon. When they would arrive in their VIP box, they would all get a nice swag bag containing Villans’ shirts and scarves and mugs and stuff like that. For all the kids, they would also contain pyjamas and slippers. For her first match, the owner had brought Mark and Britanny with both pair of grandparents in his own VIP box but now, all the brothers and sisters would be there with their spouses and children too. She wanted it to be a big event for them because it was a big event for her to be in Premier now… It ended-up being a rather hefty expense but other than that stylist she got for her game clothes; she didn’t need that much money… at the moment anyway. Besides, “…what’s the point to have money if you can’t use it to make your family happy, huh?” was what she said to herself when thinking about the whole thing. The only thing she hoped for was not to get destroyed by the Spurs… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 9, 2018 Author Share Posted October 9, 2018 Saturday, May 11th, the Spurs match day... Penny was nervous, Mark could relate to that since she barely slept last night, turning and turning in bed... Britanny on the other hand was on “full excitement” mode! As soon as she woke up, she was very vocal and afterward, she was a full blown storm in the house... When Penny left for Villa Park, she got treated with multiple hugs and kisses from the eleven years old; she had to chuckle at the fact it clearly wasn’t a “bad mood morning” for the daughter! She arrived at Villa Park a bit before 08h00 and fired up her email client before going to her coffee machine to start a fresh pot. The game was early, 12h45, and time was short. When her coffee was done, she poured herself a cup and then went to continue reading her emails. A few minutes later, she heard knocking on the door, she lifted her head and saw it was Jon (Stead) flanked with Kevin (MacDonald), Onur (Cinel) and Yannick (Dumas), her first team coaches. «One point... huh?» said Jon. - «Yep!» she answered back. - «We do the meeting here or in the second meeting room?» asked Onur. - «Let’s go in the meeting room. Did Danny (Donachie) arrived yet?» asked Penny talking of her Head physio. - «Oui, I saw him at ze door when I arrived» said Yannick, with his “screaming French accent”, which she liked a lot… - Good. The players should be here by 08h45; we should get cracking». All went into the meeting room to make a last review of the starting XI and fill up the official line-up for the match. The team talk for the match was brief; since Kevin had explained that some players dreaded big matches, she decided not to emphasize the “one point to stay in Premier Division” stake. Instead, she told them to just stick to the game plan, that it was a good one and that if they’d play at the level she knew they could, they should be able to pull something off today’s match. When the players started to leave for the corridor, she saw that most were already wearing their game face; she saw a good dose of determination and focus. In the corridor, she shook hand with Nuno Espírito Santo, the Spurs manager. In the corridor leading to the tunnel, if her players were focused, they also were real nice to the kids that would accompany both teams on the pitch. The signal was finally given and both columns of players and staffs started to walk on the pitch. Villa Park was full again and the atmosphere was just awesome… The Villans got first touch but were intercepted quickly and, very soon, they gave a corner to Tottenham. Christian Eriksen took the kick. He sent the ball in front of the box, to Raheem Sterling, who made an awesome pass to Harry Kane who was inside the box at the second post. He fired a power shot that just went by Pierluigi (Gollini), 1-0! Penny couldn’t believe it! Barely one minute played and they already were trailing on the scoreboard! Ross (Barkley), her offensive midfielder was paired with Jairo (Riedewald) to cover Kane but still, they weren’t able to pull it off… She was disgusted. On the 16th minute, Javi (Manquillo) intercepted a pass on the Villans right flank and quickly launched a counter attack. The ball came up to midfield where Antonio (Sanabria) held it a little bit and passed it to Josh (Sims) who did exactly what he was supposed to do; he moved the ball up hugging the left side’s line. Jarrod took a quick look and saw that Javi still was far behind so he sprinted in the box, at the second post, where he received a perfect floating cross from Josh. He made a great header to level the score at 1-1! The crowd was absolutely ecstatic! After the air being sucked out of the place after less than a minute of play, they now had a chance to celebrate! At the 39th minute mark, another corner was called on the right side of Aston Villa’s box for Tottenham. Christian Eriksen decided to send the ball directly in the box this time. Harry Kane, again, covered by the same two players, Ross and Jairo, still was able to pull it off and scored a second time… 1-2! Penny was livid! She screamed at her players to shake it off and to get back at it; the game was far from over! When the Villans restarted the play after the goal, they played through the middle of pitch, right up to the box, and Ross repaid his last mistake by offering a perfect through ball to Conor (Hourihane) at the edge of said box. In the middle of the two spurs CDs, Conor took a perfect shot that the Tottenham goalkeeper, Alex O’Brien, couldn’t stop! 2-2! At halftime, she told them, in no long ways, that they didn’t play good enough, especially on defence! She saw that some were muffled by the comment but most took it at face value; they really did play bad defensively, it was a fact, especially their covering and tackling. When the players hopped on the pitch at the beginning of the second half, she saw them more aggressive, especially in the midfield. This translated into the Spurs having difficulty coming at the box from the front, being pushed on the flanks. She saw that her left and right backs, Jairo and Javi, were having a bit of trouble but were holding the line nonetheless and, since the plays were dying quickly, close to or inside the box, she decided to let things go that way. Thirty minutes before the end of the match, she saw her boys take control of the place. The midfield clearly was Villans’ territory by now and her box became a virtual no mans’ land. On the 72nd minute, she saw her players develop a great push on the left flank, Josh showing he could be a great outlet if paired with Mathias (Jensen). Deep in the Spurs territory, they did exactly what they had practiced so much. Javi decided to go deep on the right side and Jarrod stayed in the half space corridor, about ten meters above the box. Josh than made a long floating pass, making the ball change wing and all the Spurs redeployed, giving a nice space on the left side of the box. Javi kept the ball for two or three second before doing a great cross to Conor who was coming inside the box like a locomotive, his shot thundered on the left post of the goal! The play was absolutely superb but ended-up being all for nothing... They followed the game plan to the letter after that and when the referee ended the match, the tie was locked in! The crowd started to chant, telling their team that they were happy of the show they had given and the result they had gotten! In the dressing room after the match, she was all smiles. “The second half you boys played? It was a beauty to see! You played great, were disciplined and aggressive. Congratulations! D-line? You have shut Kane down like kings in the box in the second half! Nice work indeed! Josh?” She looked directly at him, “that push and wing change around the seventieth minute? Man! That was a great display for all to see! Just too bad Conor screw it up by hitting the framework!» All laughed at the quip, Connor being the loudest laugher of them all! «I am really proud of what you’ve done, despite a, rather bad, first half, you showed great composure and determination and I want you to know it…” She stopped talking as Jon was whispering something in her ear than went back at it. “…and by the way, Aston Villa is officially staying in Premier next year!” She saw a fair number of players sigh at the news, the joy was palpable! In press conference, she spoke about her boys, how proud she was at their performance. At one point, a reporter asked, in her opinion, what was the weight of her team talk into the result. She stared at him and said in a very stern tone: «The players are to be commended, not me. They showed everybody they deserve to be here. They only thing I said was to try and make sure they remember it!» When Conor came in for his meet with the press, he smiled at her and shook her hand with vigour, for all the reporters to see. He said he was disagreeing about what she had said, that her team talk had a big impact on the players but, not as much at what they did, but more about the fact that maybe they had forgotten what they were able to do if they worked the way they were capable of playing. When a reporter asked him about the playstyle they were using since her arrival, he just said: «Well, she thought that coming at the problem from another stance would probably give better results; she proved that she was right so far!» Everyone was getting ready to leave when Penny entered the dressing one last time before going to see the family. She had a big smile on her face; the pressure now gone, the PR duties were over and the result locked in; she only was looking forward at seeing her loved ones. She saw that Conor was still there and walked toward him: «I wanted to congratulate you personally for your game today, you showed a lot of composure and I particularly loved the way you gathered the team and locked down the midfield!» He looked at her and smiled. - «Thanks. It was easy doing it. Your half time talk poked more than a few egos…» She frowned a bit at the comment. - «You think I went too far?» He looked at her right in the eyes. - «Well, too far may be a bit strong… I think you went after our own pride and yes, if it was some kind of a shock since we had managed to come back, I think most thought that you were right nonetheless. Especially the first goal. Personally? I took it as it was: we defended poorly and this meant we had catching-up to do. I can tell you that Mathias, Josh, Jarrod and Ross took it like that as well. The D-line, I don’t think they took it any other way either but it still was a hard poking that was a hard to take at that moment. Once you left, we started talking between ourselves and we all agreed that defensively, we hadn’t played good. In the end though, it is pretty much in line with the way you said you were going to do things: Good? You say. Bad? You say too». Penny was breathing a bit better now… She smiled at him. - «Thanks and, again, congrats on that goal! It was a nice one! - The second would have been nicer…» he said with a wink, and started to laugh. She joined him. She gave him a pat on the shoulder. - «I got to go, I brought my entire family here today, and I’m going to join them to offer them a stroll on the pitch. - Your entire family is here? - Yes. I brought them in in one of the VIP boxes, except for my daughter, my husband and our parents; they didn’t have the chance to come to a match here yet. - Will they come in the dressing room? - Yes, but only after everybody have left. I don’t want to impose anything on anyone… - Go have fun coach, you earned it!» he said, offering her another smile. Penny started to walk toward the corridor door leading to the tunnel. The second she passed it, she could hear that the family was waiting for her; Britanny’s yapping was loud and clear! When she turned the corner, she saw that they were accompanied by a smiling young woman from hospitality. All saw her at the same time! She walked as fast as he could toward all the family, which was all wearing their Aston villa shirts. Britanny screamed, started to race toward her mum and offered her a gigantic hug. When she finally let go, the rest of the family was around them, offering Penny hugs too. After the hugs and kisses were done, she asked them if they were ready for the little stroll and all moved toward the tunnel door. Once on the pitch, they marvelled at the view they got; the place was huge and intimidating seen from the pitch! The kids started to run toward the first goal while the adults started to walk toward the dugouts. Mark was holding Penny’s hand delicately but strongly enough to convey all his emotions … The questions were coming from all over the place and Penny tried to answer them the best she could. After a few minutes, she noticed that the kids were now back with the rest of the group. At that moment, the girl from hospitality offered them, to take a family picture at the Villan’s bench. She caught her father’s eyes and saw that he was having trouble holding back his emotions; she was having troubles too… When all were lined-up, the girl took a few pictures and when they started to move again, a voice echoed in the place, coming from just outside the tunnel: «Wouldn’t that be better with, at least, a few players in those pictures?» Penny turned her head and saw Conor walking toward them accompanied by Neil (Bannister) and Mathias. Those pics were nice for sure… Pos Inf Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag GD Pts 1st C Chelsea 37 32 2 3 94 25 69 98 2nd ECC Man City 36 26 5 5 77 30 47 83 3rd ECC Man Utd 36 24 7 5 64 29 35 79 4th EC Liverpool 37 22 11 4 67 25 42 77 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5th EC Arsenal 37 23 6 8 63 41 22 75 6th EC Tottenham 36 17 16 3 54 35 19 67 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7th Bournemouth 37 15 9 13 47 51 -4 54 8th Everton 37 14 11 12 47 42 5 53 9th Southampton 37 13 7 17 42 57 -15 46 10th West Ham 35 12 8 15 37 43 -6 44 11th Leicester 36 14 1 21 48 55 -7 43 12th Stoke 37 12 7 18 46 60 -14 43 13th Watford 37 10 12 15 38 49 -11 42 14th Wolves 37 9 9 19 35 61 -26 36 15th Aston Villa 37 7 12 18 37 54 -17 33 16th Crystal Palace 36 8 8 20 32 51 -19 32 17th Brighton 36 7 8 21 31 54 -23 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18th Middlesbrough 37 6 11 20 33 61 -28 29 19th Swansea 36 6 8 22 25 61 -36 26 20th Newcastle 36 6 6 24 26 59 -33 24 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 11, 2018 Author Share Posted October 11, 2018 The week leading to the match against Chelsea, which also was the season’s closing one, went by in a blink of an eye. Penny was mainly preparing her battle plan for the after season review of the players and, everyone from top to bottom of the staff team knew exactly what was expected of them. First, the full evaluation of each player in all the squads would be on the agenda. Her small committee knew their tasks and, to them, was added Lee (Darnbrough), her DOF and Stuart (Harvey), her Head scout. She had thought about it a lot since speaking with Kevin (MacDonald) almost a month before; to make the cuts, she would also need to have a picture into possible replacements out there who would be within the team’s grasp. Afterward, there would be the review, with the evaluations’ done, of all the contracts currently running at the club. Then, it would be time to present the type of strategy she wanted to go to and then decide, with all the coaching staff of all squads, the specific key tactics they would work on. Naturally, this last part would then lead toward the scouting strategy in general; which positions would need reinforcement needed to be assessed and acted on. All of these would be done in two weeks’ time. Finally, it would be time for the staffs to take some vacations. She would herself only take half days here and there to go see her daughter’s matches and to spend some time with the family, but nothing more than that. For the Chelsea match itself, she had told everyone, early in the week, that they would again, play their 4-2-3-1 Wide; they had “told her” that they wanted to have a chance to be unleashed and had shown her that they, indeed, deserved it! The news was taken with smiles and chuckles by the team when she has told them the “unleashed” part and she knew she had achieved the intended result she had in mind. There would be some slight changes though; Jarrod (Bowen) would get his first match off, to be replaced by Josh (Sims) as a playmaker in an advanced right midfielder position, Maxwel (Cornet) would come in as left advanced winger. Enzo (Crivelli), a target man that was injured since she arrived would be used forward with Ross (Barkley) as a basic offensive midfielder right behind him. The midfield would be composed of Mathias (Jensen) and Marcelo (Brozovic) as DLP and B2B respectively. The D-Line, from right to left would be filled with Javi (Manquillo), Chancel (Mbemba), Armando (Izzo) and Jairo (Riedewald). Pierluigi (Gollini) would, naturally, be the goalkeeper. During training, she saw that the players were focused and more relaxed now that the relegation threat was gone. She was happy about this, for sure, if only to secure her place here at the club. On the other hand though, as far as it went for the players, she couldn’t stand away from Conor’s (Hourihane) comment about her poking at their pride against Tottenham. At one point, during match preparation, seeing some were a bit more, or too, relaxed, she decided to go at it again. She told them that if they thought the season was over, they were playing for the wrong manager. “No one, I say it again, no one’s positon at the club is safe at the moment. If you want to sit on the barely out of the relegation zone laurels, you are asking for a rude awakening…” She saw that it worked for the vast majority of the players; at least for the starting XI of the Chelsea game. Some players started to make stern comments to others who weren’t giving what they should be giving. If there was someone who wasn’t slacking off, it was Kevin. During a meeting, preparing next week’s review, he presented her with the work he had done and she truly was impressed. At one point, she almost asked herself if maybe it wasn’t a good decision to not renew his contract after all but no; the budget was established, her objectives declared and there was no way she could back on the issue. Beside, despite all the good work Kevin was doing, he still was paid more than her Assistant Manager… The weekly scouting meeting was productive. First, the comments about Daniel Downing, the West Brom goalkeeper she wanted so much, were pretty much the same she had hoped for. So, yes, he was a prospect worth acting on. Second, Mohammed Saber, the young Egyptian striker, was a wonder to look at! There and then, she decided that she would be making a bid on him and she was ready to put First team status on the contract offer. He really was that good! Quick as lightening, he also was pretty intelligent on the pitch and with awesome finishing for an eighteen years old player. Third, Marko (Mitrovic) presented a young defensive midfielder that could become a pretty interesting player in a few years: Aleksandar Hoßbach. Playing with Bremen II, he wanted to leave so he could play more. A natural anchor, he was interesting because of his acceleration, very good tackling and marking abilities. She knew she would like to have some decent prospects at that position and, at £300 000, it was a fair price too. Fourth, Marko brought the reports of Philipp Lienhart. The rotation player of BMG, he had pretty good characteristics for a central defender, if only his acceleration and is concentration in game. Marko had warned that after a relatively hefty sum for the transfer, he reminded her the estimated six to seven million pounds, he would certainly ask for a hefty salary too but, for the level of Aston Villa, he would be a very solid First team player for some years. The negotiations would probably be a bit difficult because BMG was a mid-table team in the Bundesliga but he thought that a common ground should be possible with a starting XI status. Fifth, she received the scouting reports on Callum Brayley-Stokes. Everything she wanted in a side back, the young man got it; so much that she was drooling on the reports... He was fast, highly determined and was good under pressure. At nineteen years of age, he was young, yes, and he had been trained mainly as a defensive back but with his vision, speed and fitness? She was convinced that he could be trained as a wing back. He really was short though, at 5’7” and his jumping reach was consequent but, he was aggressive and very courageous. The comment she had gotten from Derek Langley was: “He never backs away from a challenge”. She liked that for sure! Finally, some brought propositions for a possible replacement to Pierluigi (Gollini), her goalkeeper that wanted to leave for Leicester, but they said that they needed a bit more time; in two weeks, they should have more reports to offer. The last series of meeting was with the U18 staffs and her Head of youth development, Adam (El-Abd). The objective of the meeting was to prepare the long term plans for the players already there. The main problem that was reported to her was that the players weren’t very good and, even worst; most would most probably never even reach the U23 squad because their potential was, literally, non-existant! Victor (Fernandez), her U18 manager, was adamant: “The U18 squad Penny? Don’t expect anything of it. At best three, maybe four players might break into the U23 squad but even then, it is doubtful”. Only one player really had something interesting to offer, an advanced midfielder named Jacob Lambert who was fifteen years old, but he had two big flaws, he was pretty bad under pressure and he wasn’t a natural team player. Adam concurred with the evaluation adding that, with luck, he might become a half decent playmaker but nothing more. When the meeting was over, her spirit was a bit crushed. She knew that the former Head of youth development wasn’t good but now, she thought he was even lesser than what she had believed. Before leaving that day, she started to think about Kevin’s (MacDonald) departure at the end of his contract. She asked the PR team to prepare some kind of talking points she could use at the season’s review press conference. She made sure to tell them to do a full bio on him, to find anything they can find about his time here at Aston Villa. She would add the work he had done to help her. She wanted it to be a bit solemn without being maudlin in any way. The man had spent over ten years with the club; he deserved some kind of recognition. On Friday night, she arrived at the “decent hour” of 19h30. Britanny was at the door to welcome her; it was the first time she was seeing her mum before going to bed this week. Mark had made a comment that since the match against Tottenham, the daughter was dying to spend some time with her mother to show the pictures and videos they took. Those included all the ones taken by the rest of the family as well and this amounted to a big number. So, all sitting in the living room, with Penny in home clothes and the daughter in her brand new Aston Villa pyjama and slippers, the family spent two hours looking at the day’s pictures. Britanny talked, and talked, and talked… during the entire slideshow and videos on the telly. Penny saw that the family had a great time in the VIP box; getting the one on the top floor gave them an awesome view. The swag bags’ unpacking was particularly joyful for all. She felt, a little, like she had missed something but, at the same time, she admitted that since she was entirely focused on the match, she never thought about them... There were quite a lot of pictures of her in her technical area, in front of the team’s dugout. During half time, a video showed them getting some kind of giant bowl of nachos with beer and soft drinks for everybody. The kids dived into it like mad! Penny laughed at that. There was a nice video of about five minutes, capturing the last minute of injury time and the reaction in Villa Park; Penny was impressed by the crowds’ reaction. She had been there, on the pitch but she clearly was so relieved at the result that she never really appreciated the fans’ reaction to the draw… The last pictures were the ones in front of the team’s bench, including those with her three players. She saw that their presence in the pictures changed the mood a lot. The ones before, they could have been mistaken for any kind of tourists pictures but the ones with the players, they felt different. She noticed that the kids were smiling even more, if that was even possible, and that she was standing a little stiffer, prouder… like it showed in the pictures that she was their manager… When she thought it was over, Mark said that there was another one. He went into another folder in the tablet and made a new picture appear on the telly screen. It was the entire family, except Mark and Britanny, in the hotel lobby, wearing their official Aston Villa shirts, with a banner: “Thanks for the trip! We love you!” and all were blowing kisses. Penny felt her eyes become wet… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 13, 2018 Author Share Posted October 13, 2018 Stamford Bridge was full but the atmosphere wasn’t very festive in there. Especially since the Blues fans knew that their team had won the League championship weeks ago. In the tunnel, Penny saw Carlo Ancelotti, the Chelsea manager come to her: “Welcome to Stamford Bridge and congrats on your nomination but, better yet, for your team staying in Premier!” He offered her a warm smile and seemed really sincere. She worked hard not to become beet red at the compliment; Ancelotti still was a renowned manager who had worked with some of the biggest teams… She mumbled a sheepish “thank you” amid the crowded and noisy tunnel. She saw that Chelsea had been nice and provided her with a young girl goalkeeper to escort her to the pitch. The girl was looking at her with wide eyes, seemingly impressed. It made her work even harder not to blush. When the game started, the crowd became pretty frantic. The problem that quickly surfaced was that Aston villa drew first blood only sixteen minutes into the match. On a great transition on the right side of the pitch, Javi (Manquillo) received the ball. After holding it up with a nice dribbling move, he was able to pass it to Ross (Barkley) who was about midway into the Blues zone, right into the half space corridor. He patiently waited for Josh (Sims) to move up before making a nice pass right at his feet. Josh took the shot from right inside the box, using a Chelsea central defender as screen, and placed the ball in the top left corner of the goal! 1-0! The Villans fans started to scream like mad while the Blues fans became really subdued. It didn’t take long for them to regain some vigour because at the 22nd minute mark, buzzing in front the box, Pietro Pelligri made a great pass to Eden Hazard in the left corner of the pitch. He then made a perfect cross at the first post where Pelligri had moved to and he scored. 1-1! Penny wasn’t mad; the play had been perfect and sheer acceleration had been what made the difference in the stop play. She screamed to her players not to quit, that the game still was young. Eight minutes later, Chelsea developed another push on their left flank. Felice D’amico made a cross on the right edge of the Villans box to Hazard. Chancel (Mbemba) wanted to intercept it but, sadly, deflected the ball inside the net. 1-2! She saw Chancel completely destroyed… She screamed at the top of her lungs to shake it off, that it was just bad luck and they had time to come back. She saw Ross and Mathias (Jensen) go to Chancel to try to cheer him up a bit. Penny continued to scream that it just was bad luck. On the 44th minute, Pierluigi (Gollini) intercepted a cross and quickly put the ball back into play by throwing it to Jairo (Riedewald), on the left side. He saw Maxwel (Cornet) already sprinting and hugging the left side line. Jairo made a long ball over the head of the Chelsea player that was covering the Aston Villa winger. Maxwel left him in the dust and was able to get to the ball about ten meters inside the Chelsea territory. He dribbled the Blues right back like he only was a mere obstacle put there in training and continued his run. About two meters from the goal line, he whipped a thunderous cross to Enzo (Crivelly) who was at the first post. His shot was unstoppable, 2-2! At half time, Penny told her players that they were having an excellent game so far. “We don’t control the midfield as much as we did last week but heck! It’s Chelsea! A tie is better than good!” Looking at Chancel, she just told him that it was bad luck; and other than that, he was having a great match. Letting the boys recuperate, she went into the temporary office to look at the stats sheet. Chelsea already had fired twenty times but only seven of them had been inside the box. If the Blues had a big speed advantage over the Villans, she was happy to see that her players hadn’t made a lot of fouls. Actually, the two teams had exactly the same number: six each. The main thing was that, effectively, Aston Villa wasn’t able to control the midfield as good as they usually do. After conferring with her staffs, she decided not to change a thing. “Anyway, no sub will change the speed factor anyway…” she said. Before the players went to the pitch, she just told them to try and keep the ball a little more and to stay focused. It was a battle between a team playing a very offensive 4-2-3-1 Wide against a team playing a defensive 4-2-3-1 Wide. The second half started with Chelsea getting first touch. The entire half was a defensive grind on both sides. If it naturally was easier for the Blues, since their players were so much faster and better, the Villans still played well. Penny basically just worked to try and keep her players focused and the results were there to see... This time, they gave fewer shots to the opponents and she was happy. Toward the end of the match, she was thinking more and more that the draw was a real possibility. At the 70th minute mark, she made all her changes at the same time. Javi, Armando (Izzo) and Josh were all tired so, she brought fresh troops in. She then asked her boys to play super defensive. She thought the only way to play the draw was in that fashion. One minute into injury time, Chelsea got a corner on the right side of the Villans box. Isco took it. He made a floating kick right at the penalty area and César Montes, despite being surrounded by three Aston Villa players, still was able to steal the header and scored! 2-3! Two minutes later, the referee called the end of the match. She was looking at her players who were so disappointed but her? She wasn’t! She knew they had given all they had, had been disciplined and had played well. What more could she asks of them? Ancelotti came to her to shake her hand: «Cruel loss but you guys were tough as hell, congrats!» She looked at him with the most piercing stare she could make before answering. - « I can take you again anytime!» The Chelsea manager smiled at the comment. - «Looking forward to it Penny!» The handshake was warm, firm and better yet, sincere. She didn’t want to go inside and wait for the players to come in. Instead, she walked to the pitch to meet her boys, one by one, giving them pats on their back and telling them that they had done great! The 3000 Aston Villa fans were telling them the same thing too! She walked outside the pitch with the last player to go out, Maxwel Cornet. She took him by the shoulder as they were walking out and he gave her a dazzling smile. Once inside the dressing room, she went straight in the middle and started to talk. “Boys, you did a hell of match today! I cannot tell you how proud I am of what you showed on the pitch! You played aggressively and you were disciplined and you never quit!” She was offering smiles all around and she received smiles too. She saw her players happy. “I think you showed a lot of character today. You went toe to toe with the best team in the league and it only was on a set piece at end of the match that they were able to walk away with the win. This meant that you made them doubt. If only for that, I congratulate you once again!” As she was going to the press conference with Jessy, the PR girl, she started to think at what she was going to say. She suddenly stopped and grabbed Jessy’s arm to stop her too. «You think I can go in with an arrogant demeanour in there?» Penny asked Jessy. - «What do you mean? - I mean like coming in and tell that what they saw of my boys this last game, forcing the champions to doubt, is what they should expect from us next year». Jessy started to think before answering. - «I’d say it’s dangerous, they’ll keep that sound bite in their archive for sure… Maybe you could state that what the players gave out there is a perfect example of what they are capable of; it’s just that they have forgotten about it during the season… No?» Penny looked at her and nodded; she liked it. During the press conference, Penny was assertive with her body language. Some reporters kept coming to the question of the club staying in by the skin of their teeth. Penny finally changed tone and shot back, in a very defiant, even aggressive, way: “Those who are now my players had shown that they can hold their own. They have forgotten it, that’s all. Know that there’s no way in hell they won’t show it again, and more regularly next year!” She then got up and left. Jessy gave her a nice thumb up sign when Penny passed the door frame. Pos Inf Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag GD Pts 1st C Chelsea 38 33 2 3 97 27 70 101 2nd ECC Man City 38 26 7 5 79 32 47 85 3rd ECC Man Utd 38 26 7 5 70 30 40 85 4th ECC Liverpool 38 22 12 4 68 26 42 78 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5th EC Arsenal 38 24 6 8 67 41 26 78 6th EC Tottenham 38 18 17 3 60 37 23 71 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7th Everton 38 14 12 12 48 43 5 54 8th Bournemouth 38 15 9 14 47 55 -8 54 9th Leicester 38 16 1 21 53 56 -3 49 10th West Ham 38 12 11 15 41 47 -6 47 11th Stoke 38 13 7 18 49 60 -11 46 12th Southampton 38 13 7 18 42 59 -17 46 13th Watford 38 10 12 16 38 51 -13 42 14th Wolves 38 10 9 19 36 61 -25 39 15th Crystal Palace 38 9 8 21 35 55 -20 35 16th Aston Villa 38 7 12 19 39 57 -18 33 17th Middlesbrough 38 6 11 21 33 62 -29 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18th R Brighton 38 7 8 23 32 61 -29 29 19th R Newcastle 38 7 6 25 29 62 -33 27 20th R Swansea 38 6 8 24 26 67 -41 26 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 15, 2018 Author Share Posted October 15, 2018 On Tuesday May 28th, Penny met with the heads of the club to present her long term plan. She felt her grounds solid since she had predicted in her interview, pretty accurately, what would be needed to stay in the Premier Division… and had achieved it. «Good day to you sirs! I hope you are satisfied with the end results for this season» asked Penny to the Tony Xia, the owner, and Keith Wyness, the General Manager, as she was shaking their hands in the conference room. - «The simple fact that we stayed in the Premier Division is a good feeling for sure!» the owner said with a smile. - «The marketing department said to me that the fans are happy so, I am too!» added Keith with a smile of his own. As the three of them were sitting down, he continued. «I wanted to tell you that your staff termination/transfer budget, which was discussed in our first meeting, is almost empty by now. - I know sir. The remaining 13 positions I need to fill will be done through ads so, it shouldn’t cost us a lot to get the peoples we need by now. - I saw you went outside of the UK for some of your staffs», commented Tony Xia. «Was that intentional? - Not really sir but with the budget I had, I needed to have peoples with a rather low reputations so that the wages could comply with the average target I had set. The up side of the international identity can be a bonus in the future though. All the staff could become a reference point for someone in the squads who would have a common heritage. I think it could help, on the long run, for team inclusion». Both the owner and the GM looked at each other briefly. When the both of them turned their attention back to her, it was Keith that talked. - «That is some interesting way of thinking» he said while smiling at her. - «Thank you sir. Shall we go to the core of the meeting? - Proceed» said the owner. - «Whit the season now over, what I want to present to you is my plan». Penny distributed a little document to both of them entitled “From now to tomorrow: a transformation”. She then continued talking: «In this document, you’ll find what I want to do and achieve in the next three to five years. This, I want to do with your approval beforehand, of course. Hence, this meeting I asked for. I would want to point out that this document is related to the players, not the staffs. - Does this mean all the squads, senior, U23 and U18?» asked the GM. - «Yes sir. On page 1, you’ll find the basic evaluation of the squads. Overall, we have an old team in the senior squad; average age is 30.3 years of age. We have a rather technical squad but, overall, the team doesn’t have the physical and intelligence to do anything other than the technical part. This means that, in the end, we have a rather homogenous squad of technical guys but in all the other areas; they all lack some other attributes that would enable us to create opportunities on steady and regular bases. I have identified three areas that are particularly problematic: they have a barely average vision of the plays, they all have poor flair, except for one or two, and, this is a real problem, they all lack pace and acceleration. Outside of those who are identified as starters, we have no depth either or, we have too many, similar, lower than average players that can all play the same position». Penny saw the owner looking at the document with a frown on his face. - «You say that the results we have are directly related, in your point of view, to what is missing in the squads? - Yes sir. Let’s take the lack of pace and acceleration as illustration. Let say I have a midfielder that is able to take the pressing really good, that is technically apt enough to keep the ball and can do it under some pressure. When it’s time to create himself some space to manoeuvre, since the other midfielder invariably is more pacey than him, it means the opponent will always have the upper hand, placing himself in a better position faster. You can’t move around indefinitely, counting on dribbling only, to place yourself in a better position because the one, the ones, pressing you always are faster... That’s the way I see it. - All right. Continue please. - As for the other squads, well, there is nothing in there that can be use by the club to replace the ones that will leave in the senior squad. All the players suffer from the same flaws: they have rather average potential and, at the very best, they will all become very low grade players for the Premier. That is, if they ever develop to be good enough for the Premier. What I want to do is to change things around but, rather abruptly at first: two years’ time will be my first milestone target. So, by the end of season 2025/26, the main squad should have been modified, rather heavily, if only because of players being too old to play anyway. How many players are concerned? I am still making some fine tuning in evaluations but most of the players we have already will be too old to give us anything anyway so, it will be attrition, mainly. The real drastic measures will be taken in the U23 and U18 squads. Their size will be very significantly reduced. The U23 squad? It has 41 players in there now; it is simply impossible to develop anybody with a squad that big! - You want to it do in phases?» asked the GM. - «Yes. Not exclusively but, overall, yes. The U23 and U18 shrinking, right now, the senior squad, over two years. After that, it will be scouting work to fill the squads with decent players. - What method do you envision? - Basically, as I said for the senior squad, it will be attrition: contracts ran to the end and not offering them new ones, retirement for others, putting players on the transfer list in case we can sell them, etc. - Will that have an impact on the pitch, for team cohesion I mean?» asked the owner. - Yes, for sure but, we’ll be able to get more from the squad in the end because since the players that will replace them will be younger, this means that they will stay longer afterward. I have an example for you. If you go to page 7, the first player presented. When he was brought to the club, he was two months away of being thirty years old. He already was considered an “average” Premier Division player. Being so old, this means that he had, at best, two seasons in front of him as a starter. Add to that his absolutely ridiculous wages…» She saw the two men go through the document and look at the player in question. It was Keith, the GM that talked first. - «Peter brought this player in and said he would be a pillar of the club… - I am sorry to say that I disagree completely. He is technically interesting, yes, but he is extra slow, have very average determination, below average vision, and no flair at all, despite the fact he is best suited as a playmaker, and to that, sorry for the comment, he’s a first class wimp! I played him three times and he never, ever, goes into challenges to get the ball. In fact, I can show the videos of him for the three apparitions since I came in and, most of the times; he is “running” away from the action! - Isn’t the job of a playmaker is to make plays?» asked Tony Xia. - «Yes but if I can use a player in one or two phases of the game only and consider myself in numerical inferiority when the other phase is being played, how useful can he be to me? Football has three basic phases: attack, transition, defence. If you are a midfielder used as a playmaker, I need you to give me at least something in defence even if your main use is transition/offense, and vice versa. You are not a poacher for God’s sake! - Ok, I get your point. - In the end, sirs, what I’ll want to create is a team like you can see on page three of the document. First, a physical team that will scare everybody, accompanied by some gazelles. The defensive line will be composed of bulls. Hard playing, tough, physical players who will scare the forwards who will dare go into our box. In midfield, less physical but still hard playing, gritty players, that will be master of harassment with a strong work ethic on the pitch. They will get under the skin of anybody with the ball, forcing mistakes and rushing their plays. In front, gazelles, extremely pacey players who also will never shy away of a challenge. That they win these challenges or not is not that important for me; they’ll force hurried up decisions and mistakes by simply never shying away of them. The determination of the group will also be at the very top of the attributes looked for. Right now, the squad is composed of balanced temperament players. What I’ll want to look for will be driven, hungry players. This will take more than two years to get all those but in the end, this is what I want to have. Once this is achieved, I’ll be able to be more nit-picky. The target age average for the senior squad should be around 28, max, in about three to four years. The age spread should create a natural rotation of about 2 player replaced each year. This makes an exception of the goalkeeper by the way; he’s a class in itself and decline is very different. - For the other squads? - I’ll go into player development mode, real development: take a kid and make him good enough to be in the senior squad a few years down the line. Not just players that I’ll go to when there are too many injuries and that are not good enough the rest of the time, like it’s the case at the moment. As for table goals? Next year, I look at forty points gathered on the table. In the last five years, the lowest position on the table for forty points was 16th spot. The idea is to be competitive, nothing more. It will be the first year of the transition and experiments will be done. In three to four years’ time though, I want to have a very solid team that could look to go in Euro Cup Qualifying stage from table, so, if we use the same last five years as reference, we are talking of about 56 to 57 points to get ourselves at the 7th spot on the table…» She stopped talking because Tony Xia’s phone started to ring. The meeting was adjourned. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 17, 2018 Author Share Posted October 17, 2018 «I am sorry Penny, to have interrupted the meeting for this phone call» said Tony Xia, the owner. - «No problem sir» answered Penny. - «You were talking about going into development mode so we could go higher than mid-table» said Keith Wyness, the General Manager. - «Yes, as I was saying, the development mode. In the end, as you know, the rules for all the European competitions are asking for some club grown players, not only country grown players, to be part of the registration. Hence, we will need to grow some kids to the required level anyway if you want us to go in Europe without being penalized. At the same time, we only have eight players who are country grown and only one is considered club grown in the senior squad at the moment; this means we would be penalized a second time at registration. In the same breath, I also want to have one or two eighteen to twenty years old in the main squad, at first, preferably coming from within . I want to develop them, yes, but I also want to put pressure on the starting XI with them. Those kids will be used in such a way that they will breathe down the neck of the starters; a “someone wants your place“ kind of situation. - Where will you find those “kids”, as you call them?» asked the GM. - «Well, as recently as this very morning, I am very happy to say that I have secured the signing of an eighteen years old Egyptian player that has insane potential. His name is Mohammed Saber. You have the scout report excerpt on page 11, sirs». Penny saw both men going through the document and let them read the page a bit before continuing. «As you can see sirs, physically, he is pretty fast, his acceleration is close to insane, he is very agile, got very good balance and is pretty powerful. Mentally, he have a decent work ethic, has great anticipation and he is excellent off the ball. He’s very determined, got very good composure, is pretty courageous for a striker, and, best of all, he’s got a ton of flair! Finally, on the technical side, he’s got very good first touch and dribbling, got great finishing and, he is highly technical. As of now, he is an excellent poacher! His only flaw his is concentration, that is below average but he should pick up on that. As you can also see, he already is part of the main squad of the Egyptian national team. In his stats, you’ll notice that he scored 16 goals in 20 appearances in league and international games. - You were able to have him only for £375 000? - Yes sir, he had an expiring release clause... I had to compromise though, so that he would sign with us; a lot of teams wanted him, including Liverpool, AS Monaco and Juventus. - What was the compromise?» asked Tony Xia. - «I had to give him First team status. - What?» said Keith. - «Sir, I’ll play him, mainly, against the lower teams and in cups for the first year of his contract. First, to give him the best chance to grow but also to tell him that he still is young and that I’ll decide how and when he plays. - I see... - For the first year, I’ll train him to become an Advance Forward, to make him a bit more intelligent on the pitch, especially his concentration and decision making, but, on year two, I plan to start and train him as a shadow striker. This would give him a bit more brain on the pitch and should make him a bigger threat at a longer distance but also, he would give us great options down the line. I’m not sure on that yet but it is the preliminary plan anyway. - You really think he can become that good?» asked the owner. - «Sir, he have the potential to become a great player; the fact that teams like Liverpool and Juventus wanted him tell us that much! My job will be to give him every opportunity to become exactly that. In the end sirs, what I want is to make this kid a star that will either offers us the opportunity to build the attack around him or, when a bigger club will want him, make us a gigantic profit! - Will this mean that the youngster we already have… huh… Neil Bannister I think, will be side-lined?» asked the owner. - On the contrary sir. What I want is to make them a pair. Neil can be a decent Deep Lying Forward so, coupled with an explosive and courageous goal scorer like Mohammed can become, I think the two would become a wonderful threat against pretty much any defenders! - Do you have other prospects in mind? - Yes sir, I do. I will need your permission for this one in particular though. If you would kindly go to page 14 sirs, you’ll find the scouting reports of the player; I want to make him a priority transfer». Both the men read a bit of the page and then looked at her. - «He has a release clause of £39M!» says Keith, the GM. - Yes sir, hence why I need your permission. Calum Brayley-Stokes is an English right back that possesses everything we lack. He is nineteen years of age, with a ton of potential and is robust and hard playing. At 5”7’, he is rather small but, he is though as nail! Physically, he has explosive acceleration and very good pace; he’s also fit to run for a very long time and is very powerful already. To that, as an added bonus, he is more agile than the strikers we have in the team at the moment, except for the young Saber that will come in! Mentally, he is extremely courageous, got a ton of determination, has a pretty good work ethic already and more than decent anticipation. His positioning is already pretty good, just like his decision making but, best of it, if he doesn’t have a lot of flair, he’s got very good vision! Technically, he is an excellent tackler, is very good at marking, got pretty good first touch and dribbling but better yet, he already is very good at crossing the ball. In short, he can be the wing back that could become a constant concern for any of our opponents! Coupled with a pair of forwards, like Neil and Mohammed, we could have a combination that could lead to a lot of scoring opportunities. - Maybe so, but he is awfully expensive! - First, sir, you know as much as I do that English players always are really expensive, period. Second, Brighton, who is being relegated to Championship, needs midfielders and strikers. We have a lot of those here who are barely good enough for Premier so, I thought of a package, combining money and players…» Penny could see in both men’s faces that they were dubious about this. - «I must say that I have doubts about putting that much into a single player, especially a player that is that young...» Said Keith. - «I would concur» added the owner. Penny took a deep breath and went for it. - «Sirs, this player alone represent exactly everything we lack in the team at the moment. He is fast, intelligent, tough and very driven! Add to that the fact that he is a pure English product! We also know that he wants to leave Brighton because of their relegation. The only thing we have to do is take the steps to get it. This starts by making him a priority target and do what needs to be done to get it. Not to mention the fact that Spurs and City are interested but, he would never get the playing time I would be willing to give him right now. - You would offer him First team status too? - No, but I can give him Rotation status and play him the same way I plan to play Saber, just a little less often. - Who would you be willing to give away? - If you go on the next page, you have four players there, with their stats. All would be pretty good Championship players but in Premier, they are, in my view anyway, not adequate despite the fact they are considered to be starters at the moment. To those, I would be willing to dig into our U23 squad as well; it is way too big anyway and will get drastically downsized, just like I told you». Penny saw the men reading the player’s names and saw their stares. - «Are you sure about this?» asked Keith. - «Sure? Will he become the player we think he could be? Maybe. But as of today, he already has everything this team lack and he could be an excellent corner stone on which we could build our defensive line around. - We won’t be able to give you any extension on the transfer budget, I hope you realize this» said Tony Xia. - «Sir, I’m not here to ask for a bigger transfer budget. I already have released four players and they were taking over £17M in wages alone. To that, the drastic reduction of players in U23 that should free another £7M. Finally, there is Faitout Maouassa. He’s scouted by a lot of teams so far and, my guess is, I should be able to get around £10M , maybe eleven for him, if a bidding war starts to get him. I will work within the budget constrains you have given me. You gave me £49M in transfers’ budget and, with the wages reduction that will come; it should be enough to liberate enough money. To that, I'll add I got confirmation by Accounting that I can move money from Wages and Tranfers budget into each other... In the end sir, the only thing I want, is to have a preliminary permission to go on with what I want to do, and this include this transfer target and the length I am willing to go to to get him. This, I would also point out, would directly be in line with your desires to bring in young players in the first team … - You really are bent into the idea of trading Maouassa? - Yes sir. Other than the stupid expulsion against Arsenal, the bottom line is that he’s not the type of player I, we, need. He never goes into challenges, he is rather selfish and a study of his performances clearly shows that when it matters to be good on the pitch, he’s worst then worst and, well, he’s not that good to start with..» Penny saw the two men mulling things over. She saw they were dubious, at best. The thing was though; she thought she’d given them enough to validate her position. After about a minute, the owner looked at her and said: “Give us 48h to evaluate the Callum Brayley-Stokes case. For the rest, I like the overall idea so, run with it!” The meeting was over. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 19, 2018 Author Share Posted October 19, 2018 By Friday, May 31st, Penny knew all she needed to know to get her inter-seasons on the right track. The players’ and staffs’ evaluations were complete, her overall plan had been accepted by the governing body of the club and budgets have been set. The best thing was that the owner himself had called her to say that she could proceed on the Callum Brayley-Stokes situation. She felt he still was doubtful but, after thoroughly reviewing the scouting reports and her arguments, he agreed that it was fitting into the philosophy he wanted and that it “...would be counter-productive to say no”. She didn’t like the wording of the sentence but, as far as she was concerned, she didn’t care that much for now. It was a message nonetheless… Next week would be the last one with her entire staff before they would take two weeks of holiday. It would all be about training schedule and club tactical philosophy. There would also be some big, really big, scouting meetings to establish the requirements and who to looked for. She now had nine scouts plus the Head scout. She would go along with only those for now. Four were knowledgeable of the English territory and she was able to have one specialized in all the geographical areas of the region: England per se, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland. In Europe, she had four there too with all the main regional areas covered. Finally, she had gotten two to cover South America. They asked for a lot of money but, she needed some that were real good in there since they’d be so few to cover the territory. As far as transfers had gone, she was more than pleased. Seeing she had some £19M still available in the transfers budget before the last game of the season, she decided to go into negotiations mode for three players already targeted a few days before it ends. First was Mohammed Saber. It had been, in her eyes, a great steal! The staffs still were talking about the fact she was able to snatch him under Liverpool's and Juventus’ noses! She then got a quick talk with BMG for Philipp Lienhart, the big central defender. The negotiations for the transfer had been rather quick: £6.7M. The salary part had been tougher but he agreed the day of the Chelsea match. Finally, her las transfer, had been Daniel Downing. This one had been a doozy! They were, naturally, asking for the moon and the sun but after hard talks, she was able to get an agreement for £10M upfront with hard future installments for a total of £14M. It was a lot but he was high potential and she thought he’d be a good foundation to build on in about two to three years. The sad thing though was that the talks had been lengthy and she couldn’t use the budget of the current year, she would need to take the money in the overall budget for the next season. Salary wise, she thought the deal was decent at £1M per annum. She finally had called her interest in Callum Brayley-Stokes and her plan to get him was set in motion. They wanted the release clause triggered but she still had some months in front of her; her list of players she was willing to trade in has been also identified and now, she needed to be patient… Her target to get him was the winter transfers’ window. For the staff situation, she had put her plan in motion too. Ads had been placed to get peoples for the eight remaining positions to be filled. Kevin MacDonald’s position as senior squad coach was the only one she would fill by making a hard offer to someone specific. She knew she wanted someone for Shooting and her eyes were set on Dominik Drobisch. He was a young coach, specialized in the right area, that wasn’t with a club at the moment. She knew he would ask for a lot of money, in her eyes anyway, but it still was less than Kevin’s so… Anyway, it’s not like she had a choice at that point. The only important thing was to achieve the overall wage average and she knew she would be within the target range: with Dominik in, she would have an average of £66 800 in wages per annum for her entire staff. She thought that 45 staffs total should be enough for the first years of her plans; chiefly, having less Data Analysts. At one point, she thought that she should have hired some analysts to specifically look at U23 and U18 teams but finally decided against it, for now... At the end of the day, she received a phone call from PR; they wanted a meeting at the beginning of next week for a general planning on charity events for the next season. The main charity Aston Villa was involved with was Acorns Children’s Hospice. She knew about that one. The involvement was so big that a few years back, the team even gave up the main sponsor front spot on their kit, placing Acorns’ logo there instead. It was, pretty much, unheard of and she loved it. Her own personal experience with being in a hospital, for herself when she got her accident that ended her player career and for Britanny when she was diagnosed with Leukaemia, were enough to make her know the impact of such charitiy, and proud of being with a team involved at that level. Before leaving, she started to think about the pre-season planning, chiefly, the friendlies. With the Bulls, she remembered the strategy she had put in place. Starting the pre-season with two easy ones right at start, building confidence in her players with easy to achieve results. Afterward, another series of friendlies aimed at testing the players with clubs about the same level as they were. Since she was in Vanarama North at the time, she played against Vanarama South teams. It was then that she could evaluate the level of her players and also test some strategies. She often aimed at getting draws for those games, if only to keep the players’ morale. For the last two friendlies, she used to get a really big team first, for financial reasons, to come to Edgar Street and for the very last game, she would choose a very very easy team to go against; often three or four levels lower so that her players could crush them good. That way, their morale would shut upward just in time for the season opener. In her experience, it always had created a good baseline to start the season for her, as a manager, having plenty of opportunities to test things on the pitch and for the players, being able to have brushes against good teams as well as lower status ones to build up confidence. She felt that more than ever that the confidence was something her players needed to build back. They had responded to the “call to arms” for the end of the season but it had started so badly for them, that it had impacted the entire calendar. During the ride back home that night, her thoughts drifted toward the pre-season friendlies again. She was convinced that it was the best way to planned them. As she was pulling in her driveway, she already had put some kind of plan in motion for the friendlies: start with two low table Championship teams right at start, then a series of tactically meaningful ones to test things and combinations and for the last game, they would go against the League 1 champions. She hadn’t even opened the door that she could hear Britanny’s yapping! She smiled at that… As she came in the house, she saw that her daughter was with some friends and that they were playing in the living room. Britanny said hi to her mum, just like her three friends. As she was going into the kitchen, where Mark was, she could see him with a smirk. She was wondering why he was wearing this face until she arrived in front of him and he pointed to a print of an article that was lying on the counter top, right beside her cup that, she knew, would soon be filled with Camomile tea. “Aston Villa had been expected to be relegation certainties heading into the season and although that was the case, they will be delighted to have finished with their heads above water. The Villans’ season started badly, sinking to 18th by December and, although they survived under new manager Penny Stiles, they will not look back fondly on their campaign overall…” She looked at him with a smile and gave him a quick kiss. She then hugged him and whispered in his ear: “You are a mean man sir… but I tell you I will look back fondly nonetheless ‘cause I will be in Premier again next year…” just before taking a little bite at his ear lobe. He laughed and gave her a longer kiss… just to hear the kids in the living starting to scream their disgust! Both parents started to laugh. About an hour later, once everybody was in their right homes, Penny was sipping another cup of Camomile tea while Britanny was getting into her pyjama. Mark sat on the other sofa: «Do you think you’ll get the opportunity to take, at least, a week of holiday? - I don’t know yet» said Penny. «I was thinking more about taking half days here and there, to spend time with you and also to go to Britanny’s football games. Why? You have some specific plans? - Well, my sister called me today and they thought we could go somewhere for, say, seven days. She thought maybe renting a little house at the beach might be fun for all. The kids would have enough room to burn energy and the adults would have an environment to bleed off steam and recharge their batteries…» Penny started to think. She knew a lot of the work this summer would be to prepare for next season and, for the time being, it involved a lot of scouting. She knew that she had given the next two weeks to the staffs around her so that three weeks before the beginning of the pre-season, that was set to July 8th., all could start cracking. That time period should be long enough to iron out the problems and to make the decisions that needed to be made, like tactical strategy philosophy and the like. - «With my staffs on holiday for the next two weeks, I know the workload would be different for me but I still can’t tell you if it could be possible for me to go out, for an entire week. If only you knew how much stuff there is to take care of, to think about…» Mark looked at her and nodded. - «Babe, I know there is a lot to do, but not to be able to leave for seven days? - Go then! Take Britanny with you and go!» she said. «You know I have no problem with that. - Penny, it’s not about going with Britanny, it’s about spending, at least, some time all together». She started to think about it and came from another angle. - «Mark, the best I can do, I will do. The thing is, I have put so many things on the backburners if only because I didn’t have the time. The best examples I can give you are the players’ contracts... I simply put every contracts that didn’t end this last June on my “to do” list, mainly during the next two weeks». Mark’s demeanour showed that he found the talk disappointing. - «I will call my sister to tell her we can’t go this year… I know this nomination so late in the season must demand that you put a lot of things to do for the inter season period. Do you think next year would be possible? - Next year, I’ll make sure to have, at least, ten to fifteen straight days. I even think we should try to find a way to bring all the family too». She tried to offer a nice smile before continuing. «Instead of bringing them for only one day in the VIP box, I, we, could keep the money to pay something for a longer period… » She kissed him softly. She knew he really was disappointed but there was nothing she could do about the issue; the paperwork pile simply was too high to go away for an entire week… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 21, 2018 Author Share Posted October 21, 2018 With June, Penny started the full review of every contract, beginning with the staffs; this was the easiest part. She offered renewals to eight of them and all accepted for the same wages but with a five years contract. All got the relegation clause with 25% of wages cut. Then, it was time to go for the players. She started with the players that were being looked at. There were two players who had strong interests from other clubs: First, there was Pierluigi (Gollini), her starting goalkeeper. She knew there was nothing she could do with him, his contract still was valid for three years and she thought that the wages he already was getting were a little too high for the level he was. The only thing she could was to wait and see if Leicester was willing to cough the money. The other player was Maxwel (Cornet). The left winger had a contract ending in June 2026 and he was 27 years old. Two clubs were sniffing hard: West Brom and West Ham. She thought for a very long time about him. He was a bit above average, was well liked as a teammate and he didn’t run on outrageous wages. What she didn’t really like was the fact that he could only play as a winger or, at worst, as an IF on the right side. The decision hadn’t been made yet but she knew she liked narrow systems in general and, well, he just couldn’t play anywhere in the central corridor. She finally decided to make him an offer for a four years contract. She rationalized that, maybe next year; she could get a decent amount of money for him... To that, she thought that since she would do a lot of testing this coming year, the new contract would offer her one more year to think. There was no other player that was scouted with great interests by other clubs so she looked at those with contracts running until June next year. There were four: The first one was Marcelo (Brozovic), a 31 years old midfielder that was best used as a DLP. When she looked at him in detail, there were some interesting things with him. First, he could play with both feet, that definitely was an asset for a playmaker in CM position. He was pretty good in passing and technical abilities but, best, he was someone that was very active on the pitch with an excellent work rate. To that, without being the best, he still was able to sustain a fair amount of pressure and had decent vision but no more. The only thing that was against him, really, was his age, Jon (Stead), her ass-man even hinting that his decline was closing fast, and his wages that was pretty steep in Penny’s view. She finally decided to offer him a two years contract, if only to deny the possibility to anyone to grab him for free in the winter transfer window; he still was worth something. Just like with Maxwel, this would give her an extra year to make test and try to find someone to replace him. Yassine (Benzia) was next on her list. She decided to do nothing with him. With a Rotation status in the team, he was way too overpaid for it. His main problem, in her eyes, was that when the big games were played, his performances were dropping in a spectacular way. She decided to put him on the transfer market. The next on her list was Enzo (Crivelli), a target man that was pretty slow for a forward… To that, she couldn’t let go of the fact that he was getting over £3.8M per annum in wages! She just didn’t know what to do about him… Despite an excellent work rate and that he was as aggressive as he was courageous, when she looked at his performances and stats; he was nothing more than lackluster. After mulling over its case, she decided to sit on the fence with him until November; she needed more time. “If only to see if I can get a replacement in the interval” she thought. Finally, there was Conor’s (Houriane) case. At 33 years old, he clearly was on his last stretch. The thing was, when she looked at his performances and stats in details, the man was a steady pillar on the pitch. He never was spectacular but never was bad either. This was also shown by the fact that PR had said he was among the preferred players of the team for the Villans fans. Off and on the pitch, he was a beacon of leadership and everybody and everyone respected him and, Penny couldn’t forget it, he was the only team leader to have “said outloud” his support for her as a manager… Not to mention his wages, which were more than reasonable at £1.4M. She decided to make him an offer for a two years contract with an automatic extension if he played fifteen games in his last year of contract. Penny got the first bit of news about her interest into Callum (Brayley-Stokes) from Brighton. He had said in the press that he was extremely interested in transferring to Aston Villa. Naturally, on Brighton’s side, they said that there was only one way they would let him go: his release clause had to be triggered at £39M. The player didn’t take it well, at all, apparently. At the same moment she was negotiating Conor’s new contract, she asked him if he could say some nice things about the club to bring the young right back here; he did it in less than a day. The day after, she made another offer at £15M but added four players to trade; two senior squad members with contracts ending at the end of the month and two U23 prospects who could become, at best, good Championship players. The result was instantaneous; the club rejected the offer immediately. Penny then went again into the media to declare Brayley-Stokes a priority target. The week after, two of her scouts, who were looking at the club closely, told her that apparently, the young right back was very angry and that he seemed to have support from some other players in the team. Her plan was going along even better than she had anticipated. She never thought some kind of disruption would happen so fast inside the team but yet, there it was… On a strategic level, she started to weight things for next season. At the moment, what she knew was this: She would like to play a two strikers system, to make a pair of Neil Banister and Mohammed Saber but, the squad wasn’t good enough to sustain a system like a 4-2-4 if only because of a lack of speed in the midfield. She had two pretty decent wingers with running contracts at the club at the moment, Maxwel and Jarrod (Bowen) who was best used as an IF on the right flank. To the duo, she knew that Josh (Sims), even if he was nothing more than a pretty lacklustre player, could be used on both sides as an advance playmaker, offering the opportunity to play flank overload… She then only had one decent AMC that could be used, mainly as a playmaker, especially if she was able to let Yassine go. Considering the results she had gotten with the 4-2-3-1 Wide, it was tempting to keep it in her pocket but it wasn’t a two striker system and she didn’t want ‘Mohammed alone in front” yet and she already knew Neil wasn’t able to be alone, period. She started to form a dual system, one playing large, the 4-2-3-1 and the other, maybe a narrow system. She knew she already got an excellent left back in Jairo (Riedewald), he had demonstrated it in spade. If she could count on the young Brayley-Sotke or, as suggested by Yannick (Dumas) her defence coach, maybe by using Chancel (Mbemba) as a right back, it could become sustainable. She still wasn’t set on anything except that a 4-4-2 flat was out of the question; the results were clear already… She also spent some time with the PR department to talk about some events during the coming season, including visits to hospitals related to the Acorns Children’s Hospice network. The body language of Mary and Bob, the taskmasters of those events, clearly showed that they were more than happy to get such reception on Penny’s part. She finally took some time to speak with some staff in the Accommodation’s Offices to make sure that the five players who would arrive on June 10th would have decent temporary accommodations. She also asked them to find language courses for the three players she knew who would need them fast since they were not speaking English, or were barely blabbing some words in English… She even started planning the training of all those new arrivals; she was excited about getting them here, at the club… At home, she took time with the family. She made sure that she was able to go watch every game Britanny was playing. The daughter definitely was getting better on dribbling and the mum was proud. The daughter was a first rate team player, she had a very good work rate and, best of all; she was listening to her coach. Penny always was scared of Britanny’s boasting as her mum knew very well that the daughter could be very… “enthusiastic” and she was scared that at one point, she would say something along the line of “my mum is a Premier Division manager and told me this is better than that!” Penny was so terrified this could happen, she took some time to go see the girl coaching Britanny’s team and talk with her. The 22 years old young woman called Lilly, clearly loved football and was very intelligent. Penny took her apart and said that whatever was needed to make Britanny listen and do what she had to do, to never shy away of “telling her the way it was”. Furthermore, she said: “If, for whatever reason, the daughter would use mum as argument to refuse instructions, never hesitate, do what you need to do! You are the coach, not me and I will support you, ok?” Lilly clearly was impressed. She was a West Brom fan and she knew who she was talking with. Penny was a traitor for sure but she still was a Premier Division traitor… As for Mark, she made sure to keep the job where it should. She still felt him extremely disappointed about not going out for a full week on holiday as a family. To compensate, she worked hard to make sure she would be home for 19h00 every day and to keep the Sundays as family time at least until the pre-season would start. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Once the senior and U23 squads coaches’ holidays were over, the work started to pile up differently. Everybody was back two weeks prior to the official start of the pre-season and Penny got big meetings with them, laying down all the plans for the coming season. First, they would formalize the club philosophy she wanted to implement. The first week would be focused on this: what is the philosophy, what it implies, how to implement it in all the squads. The second week would be to prepare the main tactics the club would be using this year and the training schedule. She wanted everybody to be in on this for two reasons: First, she wanted them to know she was respecting their inputs because she knew that for the group to come together as a tightly knitted fabric, they needed to feel implicated in the decision making process. Two, team cohesion wasn’t only a matter of benefits on the pitch, it also was off the pitch and it started with the coaches… Eleven of her players were selected with their respective national teams. She followed closely the reports she was getting from the games which were part of the European Football Championship or, in some rare instances, friendlies. She was very happy to see that none had gotten real bad games. Some had offered some lacklustre performances but other than that, no real biggies. On the good side though, there was one that shined more than the others: Ionel Vuin. He was a 22 years old Romanian central defender that she thought could be more than useful to her. Pretty determined, he was particularly good when it was time to make decisions on the pitch, was a good marker and tackler, was very powerful and, to top it of, he was an excellent jumper. If he clearly was unable to play with his two feet, being exclusively a righty, he seemed to know and accept what he was able and unable to do on the pitch and was playing accordingly. He would never be a top of the class player but she knew he could be part of a solid defence and that was more than enough for her. Of the transfers, there was some interesting news. First, Leicester didn’t make any offer for Pierluigi (Gollini) so far; this was good news in itself. The summer was far from over yet but still… As for Faitout (Maouassa), she had already received two offers by mid-June. The first from Middlesbrough that she rejected if only because they were asking her to pay some of his wages. The second one came from Watford but, again, they were asking for her to pay some wages. Less than the Boro but still some money and, if only for this reason, it was out of the question. She was happy though to see that over ten clubs were showing great interest and she was confident she would be able to strike a deal to her liking. Her patience paid off rather quickly since in the last week of June, she got another offer without asking her to pay wages this time. It came from West Ham and it was for a total of £11.2M, which also included a resell clause percentage. At the end of the last week of June, she got an offer from Malaga, from Spanish top division. The next morning, she got one from another Spanish team, Vigo. The offers were virtually the same but, the best thing was that he wouldn’t play against her so, she decided to accept both of them and to reject the offer from West Ham. At that point, she didn’t care and only hoped he could go play far away… Finally, she made another offer for Callum Brayley-Stokes. This time though, if she had good initial results in trying to destabilize him, she now got even better ones! First, they asked to negotiate and the overall price they asked was a little below his release clause price. She knew there was a lot of ruckus inside the club because she saw that four Brighton players had commented in the news… The deal wasn’t concluded yet but it was going along nicely... On June the 24th, she received all the squad’s calendars. The pundits were back on the air by now and they were placing the club above the relegation zone this year so, this meant that they agreed that she had made good moves on the transfer market. The senior squad’s season opener was being played at Villa Park and it was against Wolves which was called for a position close to the Villans by the media. On the other side of the calendar, there was a very bad news; she would end her season against two top teams again: Manchester United was the last away game and the closing of the season would be at home against Tottenham. This meant that she would need to secure the team’s position before the 36th week. The other news was the promotion of West Brom to the Premier Division through the play-offs. She already knew that since she had followed the Championship play-offs but, also, because she had lunched with her friend Craig Shakespeare, the Baggies’ Assistant Manager. It just didn’t feel real at the time but now, seeing the team on the official calendar was something else. It was going to be interesting… to say the least. On Wednesday June 26th, she spent a good portion of her morning with the Adam (El-Abd), her Head of Youth Development and the U18 crew. With Adam, it was all about the implementation of the philosophy of the club into the academy and the following that needed to be done. The talk was productive and since she could work without trying to establish anything with him, it was eerily smooth and easy going. That was something that she was hoping would arrive rather quickly with all her new staffs. They all had to define who they were; know everybody’s quirks. Afterward, it was the time to include the U18 staff. She made it clear the key was developing and that she would need to rely on them to make it happen. The U18 Manager, Víctor (Fernández), asked her if it could be possible to hire another coach, specialized in attacking phase. She told him that she didn’t have the budget and that Iván (Ruiz), the U23 Manager would fill this gap for now. Victor said that he understood. She promised to re-evaluate everything when the next batch of kids would come in; the number of players, after the series of contracts terminations she had done to shrink the squad, was too small to justify the hire, period. She ended her day going into a scouting meeting where she was able to put three more goalkeepers on the club’s shortlist. There was one in particular, a Turk named Hayrettin Birgen. He was 22years old and if he had a ton of good points going for him like agility, reflexes, one-on-one, he had a major flaw: he was very short at 5”9’ and this impacted his vertical reach a lot. Not to mention the fact that there was at least eight teams wanting him. This meant that he would ask for the moon and the sun…Mirko (Mitrovich), her scout was adamant; the kid is even better than Pierluigi! She just couldn’t overcome his small size and the limited aerial reach that was coming with it. So, listening to her scouting staff, she decided to probe the player and, right at start, he asked for three things: Key Player status, to be named Vice-Captain and to make a promise of being in the top half of the table this very season. She backed away real fast. She wasn’t ready to offer captaincy to anybody and since she had doubts to begin with, there was no way she would offer Key Player status. Not to mention the table position promise… She knew all these could be negotiated but it was too much to take on a first contact. As she was coming home, this last Friday of June, Penny was light hearted. It wasn’t even 18h30 when she opened the front door. She quickly saw that everybody in the house was on the same beat. Both Mark and Britanny had decided to wait for Penny to arrive before starting to eat; barbecued fish with greens and, for dessert, a big fruit salad. After changing into more casual clothes, Penny went to the kitchen to help out just to see that there was nothing else to do. She decided to give big hugs and a few kisses to the family instead… just before opening the bottle of wine. At the dinner table, Britanny was monopolizing the place… Mum and dad were accustomed to this and decided to let her take the stage. The daughter had a big game tomorrow and was just happy she would play it in front of all the family since even grand-pa and grand-ma Stiles would be here, in Birmingham, this week-end! Later that night, once Britanny was fast asleep, both Penny and Mark went to the backyard veranda to enjoy the nice evening. Sitting on a love seat, they were sipping an excellent Chardonnay. «My sister said that next year, she would really want us all to be together for an entire week» Mark said. - «I got the official calendar for the next season» Penny answered. «Our last game is the 18th of May so, for Half Term break, there would be a window but…» Penny was using a very light touch now, «…since the break is literally the week after the last game, it is extremely difficult for me to leave. You know that pre-season is well underway when the summer vacations come…» She saw that Mark wasn’t happy at the answer. - «You’re telling me it wouldn’t be possible next year either?» She was feeling dispirited at the conversation during such a nice evening… - «Mark, I don’t get to decide the Premier Division calendar, you know? - How are we going to be able to take holidays as a family then? - I think the best bet would be for the Spring term break. I’ll need to check ‘cause I didn’t really looked for it. So, if we aren’t in the FA Cup at that moment, I guess it would be the best time». Penny tried to put her head on his shoulder, trying to get everything back to what it was before the chat about family holiday begun… END OF SEASON 1 Before starting to write this story, I decided on some rules about the writing, going from length of posts to the number of them per season and some more things piled on top. For the first season, I took the decision to let the writing goes for as long as I felt needed when it comes down to the number of posts itself. With the beginning of season 2, the rule as for the number of posts per season will be put into place. With it, a faster pace will ensue. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rien102 Posted October 30, 2018 Author Share Posted October 30, 2018 Basic workload, that is a bit too rough at the moment, forced me to put things on the back burner for a while. Also, many comment on other stories (never on mine), kind of pushed me toward rethinking the efforts put into the story itself to follow through... Don’t mistake me on this, it isn’t that I don’t love the story (and the save itself cause I’m already in season 4 of it with point form of every single posts already) and I absolutely love the manager in it. Nonetheless, the constant comments about “love simple story”, “love uncomplicated story” while on my end, I must admit I really loved the way it was done and the fact that it was complicated. Maybe it’s not a format peoples in general want to read. Maybe the fact it is in post is simply not something that permits peoples to dive into it. I don’t know. So, with life being included, I must ask myself if putting, roughly, about two hours of work per post (it really is the total amount spent on each of them who are already done, I’m no writer so process is probably more difficult than for real writers) is really worth it… Anyhow, that’s that. BL, a.k.a. Rien102 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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