Southampton story: 1st season: Improving!

Hello everyone, hope you are all well. When I left you, Southampton was in deep trouble, 16th in the league table. After this, we went from bad to worse, a few games later being 20th in the table. But then, form picked up, and after I got two loanees in, things began to stabilise. Take a look:



The games follow a similar pattern, win or draw our home games, and lose or draw our away games. We actually won our first away game of the season against Norwich, but they are 23rd in the league, so I’m not over the moon at it. What is interesting is that we got to the League Cup quarter final, after beating West Brom on penalties. Subsequently, we crashed out to Chelsea, but I am still very proud of our performance, and only wonder why we cannot replicate this form in the league. Speaking of the league, here is the table:



12th place, not too bad. Still extremely inconsistent, as you can see by our win/draw/loss ratio. 8 wins, 8 draws and 9 losses, you just don’t know which Southampton will turn up! Apart from us, the stunning stat is that Football Manager has accurately predicted 2 out of 3 clubs who finished in the relegation places in real life to be in the relegation battle at this time; Norwich and Charlton. I have a feeling if it was not for my heroics, we would have been there too haha. This run of good form has mainly been down to my midfield, with my two loanees, James Tomkins and Rhys Murphy, playing a little part in it as well. Tomkins is a young central defender from West Ham, who allowed me to terminate the loan of the awful Zoltan Liptak. As for Murphy, he is a young, prospective striker from Arsenal, and was brought in because our strikers are absolutely terrible at the moment. He has not been much different unfortunately, so I might have to send him back and get another loanee in January. If I scrape enough money together, I may also be able to buy a decent right winger, as Jake Thomson is really not good enough for Championship level. He will be kept as back up though. Anyway, let’s move on to player ratings:

Again, our best performer is Morgan Schneiderlin, running away with it on 7.31. Next best is Stephen Appiah on 7.13, and third is Gerard on 7.07. Top scorer is Appiah on 7 in 26 starts, with Schneiderlin and Gerard completing the top 3 with 6 in 25 and 5 in 19 respectively. Top assister is Rudi Skacel, with 9 in 23 starts. Second is Schneiderlin with 8, and Appiah is third with 6. Top passer is Rhys Murphy, with 80% success rate. Second is Schneiderlin with 77% alongside Marek Saganowski, also on 77%. Third is Gerard, 75% of his passes have reached their mark. Anyway, some of you wanted my tactics, so I shall give you a screenshot of them. They have changed since I commented last, to accommodate Adam Lallana, who apparently is good for any Premier League club in the AMC position:

When he is injured, or if there is a particularly tough team facing us, I will move the AMC to DMC, and then put forward arrows on both the MC’s. They have been quite effective over the past few games, so I am quite happy with them.
Among other news, we have been taken over by a lifelong Southampton fan, yay! Unfortunately, he has not pumped any money into the club, to relieve the debts or otherwise. So apparently I am going to have to do more wheeling and dealing. Sheikh Mansour of Man City, please give us a few million!
That’s it for today, new post coming soon!