Hello and welcome to what is unfortunately the final season of my Southampton adventure. Football Manager 2010 is coming out soon (vote in my blog regarding what team I should be) and I will be looking forward to that immensely. Meanwhile, there is the small matter of my Southampton team, and when I left you last I had been promoted to the Premier League for my 3rd season! Happy days, and while I do not have the screenshot unfortunately, I can tell you that the board gave me a massive £17m to spend on transfers. Seeing this large amount of money was very rare for my Southampton days, so as you can imagine, I spent spent spent! Take a look:
I spent £7.5m on a brand new central defence, in top class centre backs Jan Simunek and Mark Beevers. I have high hopes for these two, and I hope that Oliver Lancashire and Paul Huntington never have to be used again! Coke Andujar is a solid right back from Rayo, and with Lloyd James injured, he shall be our first choice right back for the first month or so. If he performs well, who knows, maybe he could nail down a first team place! I recruited 3 of Manchester City’s reserve players, goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, and strikers Chedwyn Evans and Daniel Sturridge. All 3 are Premier League quality players, and at a combined cost of £7.1m, a bargain I think! I also showed that I still have a good feel for free players, with striker another striker, Miku and former Celtic left back Lee Naylor joining the squad. They will be very good cover for our first teamers, and both have experience playing at the top level. Finally, I brought in left winger Adam Johnson from Middlesbrough, who is now one of the best players at the club. I hope that he can be a big success here for my final season. Now, you may think that I have too many strikers now, but the next screenshot will tell you the real story:
I spent £7.5m on a brand new central defence, in top class centre backs Jan Simunek and Mark Beevers. I have high hopes for these two, and I hope that Oliver Lancashire and Paul Huntington never have to be used again! Coke Andujar is a solid right back from Rayo, and with Lloyd James injured, he shall be our first choice right back for the first month or so. If he performs well, who knows, maybe he could nail down a first team place! I recruited 3 of Manchester City’s reserve players, goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, and strikers Chedwyn Evans and Daniel Sturridge. All 3 are Premier League quality players, and at a combined cost of £7.1m, a bargain I think! I also showed that I still have a good feel for free players, with striker another striker, Miku and former Celtic left back Lee Naylor joining the squad. They will be very good cover for our first teamers, and both have experience playing at the top level. Finally, I brought in left winger Adam Johnson from Middlesbrough, who is now one of the best players at the club. I hope that he can be a big success here for my final season. Now, you may think that I have too many strikers now, but the next screenshot will tell you the real story:
4 first team strikers offloaded, at a combined cost of £2m. Along with those 4, reserve player Aarran Racine, goalkeeper Kelvin Davis, left back Joseph Mills and experienced left winger Rudi Skacel have all been sold for a price of £3m. I thought I would miss Skacel a lot, but with Adam Johnson now at the club, things are looking a lot rosier. I definitely think that the £13.5m outlay was worth it, because now our squad is well equipped, and definitely odds on to stay up. Only something spectacular could take us down now! (I’ve jinxed it now haven’t I)
I chose not to have many pre-season fixtures, but I certainly did not envisage only 2 matches. Unfortunately, that is what we got and now we enter the season not fully match fit. Not going to tell us much, but here are the 2 results:
A surprising result was the 2-0 win over West Ham, an established Premier League side. Goals from new signings Jan Simunek and Mark Beevers secured our win and a good defensive display kept West Ham’s attackers out as well. Recently relegated Reading put up a fight, just 2 days after our West Ham match, and grabbed a 2-2 draw. Goals from our end came from Nathan Dyer and goal machine Stephen Appiah. I shan’t bother to do a ratings section from 2 matches, so this shall be the end of my post. Until next time, goodbye!
Very good, you are doing well. Thanks for putting a vote on my poll!!
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Well Done Mike, brilliant transfers there. By the way i put a vote on your poll. I chose Nottm Forrest :)
ReplyDeleteStevie Mitchell