Mission Impossible

I haven’t play any football manager after my Southampton save was corrupted so I had quite break. My initial intention was to take Youth Challenge but I  change my mind. I want to bring glory back to my favorite team Arsenal. So I take over the team and start to make it winning team again.

I really don’t have anything special on my mind this time. Just play, try to make team strong with quality signings and win some silverware.

Next post will contain signings and pre season.

I’m sorry to inform you all that my old computer which have served me well end his contract last evening. So therefore all my FM saves are gone and including my Southampton save. My not to worry I bought new one and already have installed FM13 to it and I’m going to start new save soon and what kind of it is that you can read here

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/319117-ri916-s-FM13-Anglo-Euro-Youth-Academy-Challenge

So basically it’s the same that my Southampton save was but I’m not allowed to buy any players and need to start newly promoted lower league team. For this task I’m going to start in new country Spain.

So see you next time with new adventures of Mission Impossible.

Yours

-Jani-

Because it’s have been fun to play again this save I’m going to now post and tell you how magnificent have the Saints play. Again there is link on the photos.

 

Games and Player Stats

 Jeffrey Bruma continue his good performances again this season. He seems to be the best player at the moment in our team. Also Vladimir Weiss and Jack Cork have impressed me. In other end of the table Jay Rodriguez and our young guns Higgs, Gauld and Elliot haven’t been so good. But I think it’s because of their age. But Rodriguez the man who scored 12 league goals have failed. But like you see in our games. We didn’t lose any of our 18 league games and only lose is our Super Cup lose against Bayer that is something to cheer for.

 

Premier League

 In league Andy Carroll with 5 goals is our best scorer. This isn’t so good coz best league scorer Leandro Damião have scored impressive 15 goals in 20 games. That is the one reason why we are not leading the table. Actually when you look those goal and assists stats there isn’t a single Southampton player. Even Wolves and Sunderland players have scored more than our best player. But the league table looks good in our eyes. We are only 6 points behind Tottenham with 2 games in hand and 2 points behind City and United with 1 game in hand. At the bottom Reading, Blackburn and Derby seemed top contenders to relegate.

 

EURO Cup

 We handed quite easy group this year and our young players played good first 6 games. Jonjo Shelvey and Vladimir Weiss have been our best two player so far in this tournament both scoring 2 goals and giving 2 assists. Also Andy Carroll have played good scoring 3 goals in 5 games. I’m also happy how Sam Johnstone have played as goalkeeper. 5 games and over 7.00 average rating is good for young goalie. In our youth ranks I would rise up Jason Marshall-Jones or JMJ as I liked to call him. This young striker have scored one goal and have been very good in those 4 games that he have been playing. In first KO-Round we face Trabzonspor from Turkey. I think that we could win and qualify to 2nd KO Round.

Capital One Cup

Only 3 games played in this tournament. This year we managed to qualify at least semi finals as we beat Cardiff, Blackburn and Nottingham Forest. So far JMJ is our best player when he scored once and assists 3 goals in 2 games. Also another youngster, our own youth star Kerry Higgs have been really good in this tournament. I hope that we could go all the way to the final. It’s possible coz we face Wolves in Semi Finals in January. In final (if we are there) we face either Everton or Reading.

 

So we played perfectly in our first half of the season. I can’t wait how high position we can achieve this season. Top6 is still our target and maybe this year we could win FA Cup of Capital One Cup.

 

Thanks for reading (if there is any)!

Yours

-Jani-

Hello Again!

I have again inspiration to play and therefore I have complete my pre season for the upcoming season. On this post I will cover Southampton transfers show team report and pre season games. Also tell you a bit our season targets and finances.

So lets start with the money issue. Like every year we start our season with setting our targets and board gives us money to spend.

Board set our Initial Budgets to very generously. 60M to transfers and 925k to wages. I think our success last season and very good financial status at the end of the season made this possible. But still I don’t think we need to sign any big names only make squad a bit larger with some quality signings.

 

Like you see our last season success at Europa League made this. Top half finish would be good but honest I think our squad is strong enough to push in EURO Cup qualification so I choose that. That means that we should be at top6 end of the season. So we stick our Initial Budgets 60M to spend on players and 1M to wage budget. I think with this amount of money we can strengthen our squad significantly.

So our this season target is definitely league. Last season we had problems coz we had lot of games. Now we have a bit larger first team and therefore I think we have better chance to be in top6 which is our target.

Transfers:

Firstly lets see how left.

Big bunch of players leave. Lot of players run out of contract and therefore were leaving but notable sold players were Jason Puncheon, Mike Williamson and Michael Keane. I also tried to sell Jermaine Pennant due his contract expires in 1 year and I don’t want to renew it but no-one wanted him so that could happen later. Especially I’m happy with the deal of Keane. I bought him at Manchester United with 250k 2 years ago and now receive 4,3M bid for West Ham it was easy deal for me.

Newcomers.

Total of 8 players came in Saints. You can see that I signed two Chelsea defenders. Jeffrey Bruma who we had last year in loan and transfer-listed Gary Cahill. Probably now you understand why I sold 30yo Mike Williamson away. We also sign new left back when Aidan White came from Leeds. Two players came to center midfield. Jack Colback from Liverpool and Jon Williams from Crystal Palace. I was disappointed with Billy Sharp so I bought young talent from Bolton. and also two youngster came from other teams. 

Lets look closer those players.

Gary Cahill 7M from Chelsea

We got new leader in our defence. Gary is one of the best in league for sure. High hopes for him.

Aidan White 6,75M from Leeds

Our new left back. He can also play in midfield which gives lot of options to me.

Jason Marshall-Jones 2,5M from Bolton

He’s young, big and talented. Do I need to say more? JMJ will be one of the 3 strikers for this season I’m going to use.

Jeffrey Bruma 10M from Chelsea

Jeffrey wowed St. Mary’s last year and I didn’t hesitate to sign him. He will paired up with Cahill to complete our starting central defence.

Jack Colback 3,8M from Liverpool

Jack was bought from Liverpool where he didn’t make his break into first team last year. I hope he could cover Schneiderlin in defending midfielder position.

Jon Williams 7M from Crystal Palace

Jon is young backup. Next year I will sell Steven Davis so I bought Jon to the team for that reason. He have year to blend into team and I hope he can jump next year in first team.

 

I’m quite happy with players I got. Of course there is lot of young guys but I think it’s only positive. We got older players like Davis and Pennant who could help the young guns.

Team Report:

I don’t think this picture tell the whole truth. I think we have solid young team which will grow and develop so in couple of years we can win the league.  What do you think?

 

Pre Season:

Good solid pre season. I think our players played good pre season. Maybe there is couple of games we should’ve won but still good results. Mostly I’m happy with our new defence which conceded only 4 goals in 6 games.

 

How we start our season:

I think our fixture list looks decent for us. There is only few games that I’m unsure how we going do. Of course biggest of them all is that Euro Super Cup game against Champions League holder Bayer Munchen.

 

So season 3 is started. How you see our chances?

Thanks for reading!

Yours

-Jani-

Long time since I last write this blog and I’m not when I’m going to write next time so I make this post short and clear. My second season with Southampton is just ended and it was good season. We played good EURO Cup campaign and managed to go quite far. Also FA Cup was success. In league we had ups and downs like it should be and we got fairy good result at the end.

The bellow icons show how it went this season (click the icon to show results):

Games & Player Stats:

At the end of the season we had lot of difficulties due our players form. We had lot of games and so small group of players that their form was in some games really bad. Still we manage decent result. We had two major problem this season. We conceded too much goals and we made over 20 goals less than last year. There was couple of players who played good season. Jay Rodriguez made good job in left flank as an Inside Forward. Also I’m happy Andy Carroll’s contribution. John Guidetti and Jeffrey Bruma were brilliant and I hope that I can get them both back at St. Mary’s in next year. Also our young guns Hicks, Shaw, Gauld and Ward-Prowse had good season. Hope seeing same next year.

League Table:

 This was the year of Tottenham. I was glad to see Spurs to win the PL instead of those Manchester teams. Wolves was the surprise of the season. It was great to see them so high on the table. I couldn’t reach to top6 which was a disappointment but still we qualify to EURO Cup second season in row. But I’m not worried I know that without so many ridiculous fixtures (game in every second day) we would have been around 5th or 6th place.

Capital One Cup:

Capital One Cup was a bit disappointed for us. When our games in third round started we were drawn against Manchester City and we lost 2-0 so COC was over after that first game. But when we came to the end of the season I think it was our advantage that we didn’t play in this Cup coz we had so many games and players got tired easily but still next year we must do better on this Cup.

 

FA Cup:

 In FA Cup we were brilliant. We beat Bolton in 3rd round after replay. 4th round we won Brighton. In 5th round we had to play replay again and we managed to beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-2. In 6th round we had tight game against QPR which we won 1-0. In semi finals we had an epic battle against Cardiff which we managed to win 2-1 in extra time. In the Final we face superior Tottenham. This time it wasn’t our time I hope that our young team grow and we got new chance in future.

 

Europa League:

Europa League we start in 3rd qual. round and managed to qualify in group stage. There we face Napoli, Genclerbirligi and H. Tel-Aviv. In all surprise we managed to win our group with 4-1-1 record.  In first playoff round we beat Italian side Cagliari with away goal. In second playoff round we face Napoli and coz we knew how they play it was easy  and we won both games in home 1-0 and away 4-2.  In Qtr. Finals we face Benfica from Portugal. It was really tough battle. They managed to get away goal in our home game when score was 1-1. Luckily our counter-strategy worked in Portugal and we won 2-0. So we were drawn against Mainz from Germany in Semi Finals. That was really good opponent for us. And in first game we pick up magnificent 2-1 away win. In home game we were solid winning it by 3-1 so we had played our selves on the Final! In Final we faced strong French side Olympic Marseille. To coming this game was difficult for us. We had just two day earlier lose the FA Cup Final so it affected our performance for sure. But it doesn’t we played brilliant football and gather 1-0 win and our first continental trophy!

 

Conclusion:

I was happy our cup success but little disappointed our league performance. We need better defence on next season. I think our young guys are not enough at the moment if we like to battle that title. After this years EURO Cup success I fear that board want that league title next season. I think that despite fact that we scored only 57 goals this season compared 73 scored last season our young strikers will be better next season and also Andy Carroll will be better than this season. But I think that we still need larger group if we had such ridiculous fixture list than this year.

 

Yours

-Jani-

Hey!

This is going to be a short post about the January Transfer Window.

So it was quite busy transfer window. We saw Manchester United spend lot of cash. They bought David Alaba from Dortmund but saw Nani to join Real Madrid. Also Martin Skrtel and Micah Richards switch teams. Our Southampton was the most active on transfer window so let’s see who we sign and who sold.

Players OUT:

Like I have told before I give many youth player free transfer therefore our finances have been loss for two months now. But there is couple of important transfers. You see Rickie Lambert moving in Blackburn for 1M and I finally get Emmanuel Mayuka (my only foreign player) to go on loan. I hope stoke will buy him. Also Jason Puncheon, Barnard Lee, Danny Fox and Jack Stephens got loan deals which we benefit.

Players IN:

We sign in total of 9 players in this transfer window. But only 2 of them are first team players. Those other 7 are youth players which are going to in reserves and youth team.

First Team Signings

Jonjo Shelvey (Liverpool for 9,25M)

Actually the transfer fee is 7M plus 1,1M after 20 league goals and 1,1M after 30 league appearance. So I think it’s good deal for us. Jonjo is good addition for our midfield and only 22yo he is our young side.

John Guidetti (Manchester City for Loan)

John is Sweden next Zlatan (I hope). With his age and attributes he could be good Premier League striker someday. We also have 2,5M buying clause for him so if I see potential in him I probably will cash him out and sell Billy Sharp.

 

Youth Signings

Maxime Carpentier (PSG for 1,4M)

This 4,5 star potential ability owned defender was our biggest signing for sure. He is only 15yo so he could come our first team player in age of 18. He’s tall which was one of the key factor about his signing also.

Pinto (Vit. Guimarâes for 775k)

Another 4,5 star potential came from Portugal. This young guy have good potential to be our leading midfielder in couple of years.

Patrick Polli (Young Boys for 500k)

This Swiss youngster have good abilities already but that 4,5 star potential gives hope for even better. This left back could take Clyne’s spot in few years or it’s possible that he will be playing at center defender position also.

Gonzalo Vazquez (Dortmund for 250k)

This 3 start potential midfielder perhaps isn’t the best of what we got but decent signing for future.

Eirik Kvanvig (Stomsgodset for 130k)

Eirik have 4 star potential ability and decent attributes already for a striker so it’s fair to say that we got good player for cheap.

Filipe Gomes (Rio Ave for Free)

3,5 star potential he will be placed in our reserves for next few seasons. Not the best talent but decent.

Kasper Sorensen (Brondby IF for Free)

Good attributes for 17yo defender and he got good potential ability (4,5 stars) I hope that he could grow one of our best defenders.

 

I think we probably paid little too much for couple of the players but I think that we made also good deals. So what do you think?

Until next time!

Yours

-Jani-