Queens Park Rangers Story: July

Hello and welcome to my second blog of football manager. My previous reign in charge of Halifax was great, but short lived as I went out and bought Football Manager 2009 a few days after my first season. I had a few games on here which weren't that successful (Southampton promoted but then relegated, Stoke relegated, Hull stayed up but then relegated) and now I am going to play with Queens Park Rangers in search of success.

I start in July 2008, and the fans are not happy at a virtual unknown taking charge of one of the richest clubs in the world (richest in Championship by far). Nevertheless, I kept the job and set my start of season expectations to 'Top half finish'. For this I was given £12m to spend on new recruits, which is a good amount for a Championship club. I already had some great players at the club, but I wanted to get rid of the dead wood and bring some top quality players in to improve our squad. I didn't get rid of that many players as we had a relatively small squad, but I did sell 4 fringe players who I didn't want at the club. These were:

Adam Bolder (MC) - Leicester - £160k
Dexter Blackstock (ST) - Cardiff - £725k
Damion Stewart (DC) - *Released*
Fitz Hall (DRC) - Hibernian (loan) £35k

So I collected £920k which boosted my transfer budget to about £13m. I decided that I needed 2 central defenders, a left winger, a striker and possibly a goalkeeper if money allows me to. I acted quickly, and brought in 3 out of hopefully 5 by the end of July. These were:

Martin Taylor (DC) - Birmingham - £3.2m
Glauber Berti (DC) - Manchester City - £1.4m
Hobbit Bermudez (AML) - Atlante - £2.9m

I also tried to capture Gerard (MC) on a free transfer but my wage budget couldn't afford his salary (£40k).

Anyway, while these transfers were going on, I had the small matter of some pre-season matches to contend with. I had 6 matches, with 4 out of 6 coming against lower league opposition, and the other 2 being Scottish clubs. Here are my results:

Rotherham 0-1 Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers 1-0 Dundee
Notts County 0-2 Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers 3-1 Celtic (!!!!)
Chester 0-3 Queens Park Rangers
Bury 1-2 Queens Park Rangers (first match of August)

So a great pre-season, with a 3-1 win against Celtic being the highlight. We combined good finishing with a solid defense, a great combination in any team! This bodes well for the start of the season, but we have to remember that these are mostly lower league teams, and not to get complacent. Hopefully in August I can get a good striker to improve our finishing even more and maybe even get a play off place! We will just have to wait and see :)