Tuesday 7 July 2009

QPR Story: 6th season: Summer signings!

Hello readers! Hope you are all feeling good and ready for some QPR transfer action! Yes, you've guessed it, the 6th season has started, and I have been relatively busy in the transfer market. Take a look at my ins and outs:


As I said to LiamTheWelshman in my last post, I haven't gone for a massive influx of players. I have simply identified the positions that let us down in our top 4 battle last year and improved on them with quality signings. Unfortunately, these quality signings cost a large amount of money, with the bulk of our £56m expenditure being spent on just 2 players; 23 year old Brazilian striker Pato and 23 year old Brazilian central defender Rafhael. These 2 are truly world class players, Pato definately being more famous in the real world. I want him to develop a good old fashioned Brazilian strike partnership with Keirrison. As for Rafhael, because of the sale of Andriy Rusol he will play in central defence alongside a big money signing from last summer, Sokratis Papastathopoulos. As he is just 25, I am hoping that the 2 players can be the heart of our defence for many years to come!

As for the other 3 signings, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake has been snapped up on a free to cover for Pato, Keirrison and Oikonomou. I am currently in the process of selling my 22 goal striker Marius Niculae, as his second half of last season was absolutely dreadful. I decided to try and sell him now to get as much as I could for him. Offers have been made for £3.5m but I am hoping that a higher one will come in. Dave Cunningham and John Burke are prospective youngsters, who I am certain you will hear a lot more about in the coming seasons. Burke is a tall and powerful striker and Cunningham is a pacey winger who already at the age of 16 has 14/20 for crossing! Anyway, I shall show you my friendly results and the next 10 fixtures for QPR. You may see a little surprise (not the good kind):


Not the fantastic pre-season I was hoping for to be honest. A draw with newly promoted Championship side Southend really shocked me, so the 3-1 win over Plymouth and the 5-2 over Vallaloid cheered me up somewhat. But then came the biggest shock of all, a 1-0 defeat away to Greek side Anorthosi. I was dumbfounded as full time approached, seeing as we had completely and utterly dominated them in every department. Their goal was in the first 40 seconds, and they finished with just 29% possesion! Somehow, we didn't score, which really worried me as Pato and Keirrison both started and finished that game. Coupled with my very attacking 4-1-3-2 formation with 3 attacking midfielders and 2 strikers, I am quite concerned. Hopefully though, we can progress through to the group stage, seeing as we DID get to the final last year. Although it may act as a distraction, I was kind of hoping that we can go one better this year.

Anywho, seeing as this post is a little short, I shall post up my formation (and the best team inside it) for you to have a little look-see. Any questions, feel free to comment!


Thanks for reading!

18 comments:

  1. Pato...
    Pato?
    YOU GOT FREAKING PATO?!
    Hell.

    You were right when you said you made 2 big signings, but, wow.

    However, I DESPISE your formation. You will not make too many chances, I think, due to the huge midfield gap. Why don't you pull all three attacking midfielders down into regular midfield, or maybe just the wingers, and keep the AMC. I prefer the 1st one - it's my formation!! That shoud help you out loads. I'm not very fond of the attacking LB + RB style - I think it leaves you too open to counter attack. Maybe, cancel their forwanrd runs, OR, give the DM a defensive run. I find it very useful.

    Can't wait for the next post - can't wait to hear you thrash my beloved Swansea!

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  2. Liam, yeah I got Pato! Yay :D He isn't as good on FM as in real life, but I don't care haha.

    My formation eh? To be honest, in theory it really should not work, but apparently (considering I have used it throughout my QPR career) it has worked in FM. To be honest Liam, I am mulling over whether to cancel my full back's foward runs, but in my game against Reading, Sebastian Dupont (my right back) has just scored an absolute screamer because he made that forward run. Mattock on the other side also overlaps very well and gives Young/Hobbit good support for attacks, whilst also covering well for defence. I try to get a full back with high work rate if possible to make my formation work.

    As for the defensive run for the DM, wouldn't that just widen the gap between DMC and AMC? I am quite unwilling to drag the AMC back to MC because Jack Wilshere and Wijnaldum's best positions are indeed AMC. Maybe I will cancel forward runs of the wingers?

    And as far as Swansea goes, they will be one of the last games in my next post. I am of course hoping for a win, but not too big a win to make you all depressed! Anyway, thanks for reading my friend, it seems like you are my only reader these days!

    Regards, Mike

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  3. That formation can work, ive used that formation as well as another similar formation. I do a 4-2-2-2 formation with 2 midfielders with defensive arrows, 2 wide attacking midfielders and 2 strikers.

    Congratulations on your previous seasons and i hope you can secure a top 4 spot this season. Also, an early goal against Anorthosi and you will cruise into the group.

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  4. A little teaser for you: We are in the group stages, and our 2 Brazilians (guess which ones) are not doing well AT ALL. Also, a player I didn't think would do well, has indeed done well.

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  5. Ah, but you see, you can retrain your AMC to become MC, which will help you somewhat. It'll take time, but it'll be handy.

    No, dragging the DMC defensively shouldn't widen the gap TOO much - it is only their runs when you're in posession, I think.

    What if you drag your wingers down (but keep their runs forwards) into the LM + RM positions, give your RB/LB no run - one like your AMC should give them neutral ball-chasing runs, which could be advantageous. This way, you won't be dominated in midfield, won't be so prone to counter attacks (in theory), still have an AMC and you'll have the best of both worlds in terms of your RB/LB.

    I love reading your blog - so, yes, it may appear that I am your only reader!!

    So, your Brazilians aren't doing so well - let them adapt - I assume they're Pato and Rafhael - because they're both from Italy, and will take a while to adjust - maybe play them sometimes with your adapted players in similar positions in some matches.

    :D

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  6. Hi Mike, i was just going to ask how you get such good pictures. How do you take them, by Camera? Please Tell Me :)

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  7. Liam, that would indeed be a good idea, but seeing as this formation has served me well over the (in game) years, I shall stick with it until we suffer an alarming drop in form. But I shall definately try the defensive runs on the DMC.

    Instead of taking my wingers down, I just cancelled their runs. They now track back quite a bit and the wingbacks still are able to get forward. It has been working well the past few games.

    As for the Brazilians, I have now revised my opinion of them, but I can tell you that Rafhael was never in doubt. It was the Pato/Keirrison partnership which was really faltering at the beginning of the season.

    Stevie Mitchell, I simply take a screenshot. On a standard keyboard it is the Print Screen button located near to the top right hand side. Then I simply crop it using Microsoft Picture Manager.

    I'm loving all of these comments as well! Regards, Mike.

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  8. If you have Microsoft Picture Manager, you simply paste the screenshot onto there, double click, click on "picture" and select "crop". Then crop away.

    If you have Microsoft Word, you paste the screenshot onto a document, go to picture tools, and select crop. But then you would have to save the picture in a program like Paint because a word document cannot be put onto the blogger site.

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  9. so you press "Prnt Scrn" on the keyboard then what?
    Thanks for your help so far and sorry about this :)

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  10. Do you have Microsoft Word or Microsoft Picture Manager? (Picture Manager ideally)

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  11. em... sorry i only got Microsoft Word :)

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  12. Got it now :) Thank you Very Much Mike, Looking forward to hearing your next post soon :)

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  13. How do you open a Word File with Paint?

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  14. Hey Mike, Can i ask you what formation you played in season 1?

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  15. Sorry for the late reply Stevie. Happy to hear that it worked! Well you just copy the image and paste it into Paint. Then save it to become an image file which you can then upload as screenshots.

    As for my formation, see this post. Those are the exact same as my first season, albeit there are a few team instructions which are not visible.

    Regards, Mike

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  16. Thats good, when will your next post be soon?

    Stevie Mitchell

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