Good day and welcome back to my poorly spelt and shoddy attempts to bring you some sort of decent FM content. Once again we’re diving back into our hexagon challenge and season 2 at Auckland. We have completed the Champions League Challenge for Oceania, however there were no decent jobs available at the end of the season, so we’re continuing with Auckland for the time being (with hopefully a few more achievements ticked off along the way).
Transfers
A fair few ins and outs this season, but majority of the ins were youth or reserve players to bolster the squads. However there were some major signings for the first team…
Ins
Jody February comes in on a free transfer from Ajax Cape Town to hopefully be first choice. He was the best keeper available for next to nothing after that bastard Judas Zubikarai left on a free transfer. Zubi was offered a new contract that would have made him our highest paid player ever. Yet he decided to leave. I threw such a hissy fit that I refused to play him for the rest of the season. If you want to see why I rated him so highly then check out the previous episodes here and here. Let that be a warning to the rest of the squad! Sorry Jody. You are a good keeper really. But don’t leave me…
Daley Sinkgraven is a player I’ve encountered before, having done numerous saves with Ajax. Only problem is that in those saves, I could never work out where his best position was so always ended up selling him. However this time I’ve brought him with a purpose, after Riera has retired, to be the sides primary playmaker. Hopefully this will be the Play-Making of him. I’ll get my coat…
Aleix Febas is a player, honestly, that I’ve never heard of until the day I signed him. Signed as an aggressive box to box midfielder, Febas is a player with good all round attributes who should be a star player in this league.
Loans
I managed to secure the loans of some good quality players for this league. They are as follows:
Jean-Manuel Mbom And Giorgious Kastanos were with us last year. They provide us with extra bodies in a midfield that aside from Febas and Sinkgraven is now quite young and inexperienced. Ryan Kent and Sheyi Ojo are good options for the wide areas which has a similar problem to the midfield. The last loan deal we made was Henry Onyekuru from Everton. We did try and get Colidio back on loan (let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?) but Inter rejected the deal. They wanted him to play with “higher quality players”. Twats. Anyway, he left a huge hole in our squad as our reliable goalscorer. Initially I was hoping Onyekuru would become the Colidio of this season, but injuries virtually wiped out the first half of the season and someone else stepped up…
Outs
As previously stated, Riera and Zubikarai both left, one retired and the other signed for Maritimo. As previously explained in the previous log post, Dallku left for Deportivo in a record transfer for the club. Both Thapa and Abel returned to Sydney FC after their loans ended. However despite the emergence of Daniel Pitts and Jordan Kerr coming into some form, both Thapa and Abel barely played after they signed on loan.
3 key players
In this section we’re quickly going to go through 3 players, who at the start of the season, should be key players throughout the season. At the end of the update we’ll see how they got on, whether they were actually key players and who actually was.
First key player should be Daley Sinkgraven, who we’ve already spoken about. He should be a class act in this league of semi-pros and youngsters. I like to play good attractive football and Sinkgraven SHOULD be part of that culture.
Next is Hassan Abdullah it Al-Maqbali our Omani centre back. He formed a partnership with Dallku last season which made us nigh-on unbeatable. Now that Dallku has left I’m expecting Al-Maqbali to step to be an influential player within the squad and on the pitch.
Callum Gribbin arrived on a free transfer this summer and after his stellar performances last year, I’m expecting him to repeat it. His set pieces really did save us at times last year and his partnership with Colidio was the backbone of our success.
ASB Charity Cup
A good start to the season as we battered Phoenix Reserves 4-0 in the curtain raiser. Ignore the scorers, the result is more important.
ASB Chatham Cup
Embarrassing 5th round exit to lower league opponents on penalties. A review may come later but the upshot was too much rotation and too many players lacking match fitness. Yes we had a red card, but it’s not as if we were playing well before that. But no excuses we were crap.
ASB Football Cup
Noticing a pattern here? 1st round exit after a shit show of a performance. Once again probably too much rotation but we still should have beaten them. We just never turned up. All doom and gloom in the domestic cups
ASB Premiership
This was our bread and butter and possibly mine too. I’ve always performed better in leagues than cups on Football Manager. Especially at Auckland, I’d expect us to win the league every year. Last year we manage an unbeaten season. Would we manage it again?
Well no. It took two changes in tactic through out the season, but overall it was our ability to hold on to draws instead of losing games, certainly in the early part of the season. To start with we kept faith with our 4-4-1-1. But after consecutive 2-2 draws, it was binned for all eternity. Especially after the second one, when we were 2-0 and conceded twice in three minutes at the end of the game to draw.
So initially we switched to a 4-2-3-1 with inside forwards and, to begin with, results picked up. It suited Kent and Ojo playing as inside forwards and they scored bundles. Then we started dropping points again, cumulating in a disastrous 4-3 loss to Team Wellington. This game was the final straw for me. We went 3-0 down after 20 minutes, pulled it back to 3-3 and conceded in the last minute to lose our first league game. In a strangely good way, our league season paused at this point for the Club World Cup.
After returning from the Club World Cup, I had to do some serious soul searching. Not just because of what happened in the Club World Cup (find out later), but I was struggling to what to do about my tactics. After long discussions with @NewgenFM and @FMNovice1 they recommended I look amongst the forums for some answers. What I found was a 4-2-4 tactic with pressing forwards and wingers. Here it is:
As FM Novice pointed out, my players are far superior to the rest in the league. So once put under pressure, they would buckle. So by constant pressing, they would eventually give the ball away. The logic was there. But as we know, FM and logic always go well together…
So after the tactic shift we started scoring goals. And lots of them. The pressing forwards gave the room for the box to box midfielder and deep lying playmaker room to operate. And with wings backs, we overloaded them down the wings. It was beautiful at times.
Of course we won the league by a margin of 14 points. We only drew 3 games after the Club World Cup and won the rest. We had some freak results along the way including, as you can see, a mightily impressive 11-0 victory against Phoenix Reserves. Yes they were bottom of the league (only achieving 9 points all season), but we did have 4 penalties awarded to us in this game. We missed two of them but what can you do?
Overall it was a productive league season. Ed Cross finished as our top league goalscorer (2nd overall) and Sinkgraven broke the record for the number of assists in a season. With just one league defeat in the end, the future is definitely bright at Auckland.
OFC Champions League
We had already completed this continent of the challenge, but it’s always nice to do it again. So the group stages came after our tactic shift, so we won our three group games 8-0, 4-0 and 2-1. The last game was with a heavily rotated side but we won through.
I was quite disappointed in how easy the rest of the games were. We were barely troubled in the following 5 games, scoring 29 goals and conceding just 2, scoring 8 in a game three times. Happy days as Berlanga lifted the trophy once again for us!
Club World Cup
I wasn’t expecting to do well in this as Oceania sides rarely do. So with that in mind, we made the trip to Algeria to take on ES Mostagnem of Algeria. After Ojo put us ahead early on, we dismantled them and won 5-0 (which of course made us madly popular with the locals!) to put us into the Quarter Final.
Against ES Tunis we conceded early thanks to a stupid game of ping pong in our area. I was hugely frustrated. I needn’t have worried as ten minutes later, Daniel Pitts banged his first professional goal for the club with a screamer from way outside the box. After that we picked them apart and won 6-1. That put us in the Semi Final!
A Semi Final against Corinthians. Surely that’s it, I thought. I’ll settle for a third place playoff. I even checked how much the prize money for third place was (£1.5million). In the game, they went ahead early on and just stopped attacking. They had a few chances but almost looked like they thought the game was finished already. But after an hour it was still 1-0. “We’re still in this” I decided to use the 4-2-4 we had been developing for the first time. Bilel Michel came on for Gribbin, as a second striker, along with Mbom for Sinkgraven who was having a stinker. Suddenly a ball is pumped long and Ed Cross (later!) dribbles with it, slides it to Michel who, with his first touch of the game, smashes it past the keeper. Cue delirium. Two minutes later, Ojo swings a cross, bit of ping pong and Michel slams it home from a tight angle. Limbs everywhere. Finally a corner is swung in, keeper drops it and Mbom slides it through bodies into the net. Final score 3-1. Oh. My. God
The final was against Pumas of Mexico. They defeated Man Utd on penalties to reach the final. I was so pleased. Surely this was ours to lose?
The less said about that final the better. We never turned up, to be fair, Pumas didn’t either. They won 1-0 thanks to another scrappy goal that we shouldn’t have conceded. Annoyingly there were barely any highlights, even on comprehensive. We did the same switch as in the Corinthian’s game but to no avail. Overall though, second place is a massive achievement, giving us £3.25million which is a kings ransom in New Zealand
The Three Key Players
At the start of the post I introduced three players I thought would be key to our season. How did they get on?
Sinkgraven did prove to be a smart acquisition. At 24 years old, he was a old(er) head to have in a team of youngsters. Daley was our go-to guy in the playmaker role especially in the second half of the season. 12 assists in the league plus chipping in with the odd goal from CM
Hassan Abdullah Al-Maqbali started the season ok, forming a good relationship with Michael George (who?) at centre back. However as the season went on, Nathan Stroud (local boy and academy product) overtook him on ability and performances. He’s out of contract next summer and I think his time may have come.
Callum Gribbin is an enigma. He started the season electrically alongside Ed Cross, but his form tailed off dramatically. After Christmas he wasn’t helped by the change in tactic which doesn’t incorporate an AM. He’s someone else who islet of contract next summer and is on some hefty wages…
1 out of 3 ain’t bad?
Well done to anyone to gets The Meatloaf reference there. But yes as you’ve just seen, only one of our 3 key players actually proved to be key. Gribbin couldn’t unlock (see what I did there?) any defences and Al-Maqbali became like most men and started losing out to younger guys. So who were the two other key players to our season?
Paul Naicker joined in August and was a pre-arranged youth transfer (couldn’t join till he turned 18). To begin with, I couldn’t see what my coaches were raving about. He struggled for match sharpness and any real impact. When we shifted tactics to using wingers, he was suddenly unstoppable and undroppable. Defences were terrified of him. Suddenly goals and assists came from a different area, allowing other players more space. And it pleases me with random and tiny nations, as he is from Samoa. Lovely jubbly.
I struggled to pick my third key player. I really did. I had my Maltese right back Gabriel Sammut, my striker Ed Cross or maybe even Aleix Febas that all deserved it. But the person I decided on was Sheyi Ojo. Initially he played on the let, switched the right as an IF and then switched back to the left as a winger. And in both switches he bagged goals and assists. It allowed a few of our younger players to really progress and make a few substitute appearances and be ready for next season.
The Achievement Hunter
Last season was a very successful season for gaining achievements. In all we gained 10 different achievements. A lot of people were expecting something similar this season.
However they were disappointed. Only one achievement was gained:
- Top a Nations Hall of Fame (New Zealand)
There was a poll on twitter as to whether I should leave at the end of this season. We applied for jobs everywhere around Asia, but we was only offered one job: Tehran in Iran. Whilst I was very tempted, I turned it down. After doing some research, I decided to stay put. I was close to a few more achievements and staying would allow me to achieve them. Find out next time to see how we get on with gaining more achievements!
Season Review
A productive season, don’t get me wrong, but I was extremely disappointed with our domestic cup games. Yes I know it’s partly my fault because I heavily rotated for both games, but at the same time, the teams I put out were more than good enough to win those games. What did concern me was the number of times that a team against us suddenly rocketed one into the top corner with their only shot on target. As a team that presses high, I need to find out why this happens. Overall I would give our season a B- as we did well in the league, Champions league and Club World Cup but limped around in the cups and bombed far too early.
The Others
Throughout this post, I’ve mentioned a few players who have been signed as youth players in our first few seasons or come through our youth academy. So as a footnote to this update, I thought I’d introduce you to them!
Nathan Stroud was in our youth team when we first joined Auckland. He’s grown a lot in two seasons and ended last season as one of our starting centre backs, ousting Hassan Abdullah Al-Maqbali. So far he’s made 15 league appearances, scoring 1 goal. Soon to be a few more appearances that’s for sure!
You may find this hard to believe, looking at Torres’ attributes but…. he’s actually our 3rd choice left back! His physicals are amazing, along with quite a few mentals. So far, 7 league appearances, 0 goals.
Rashid Ismael has only made one first team appearance, when we bombed out in the first round of the Football Cup this year. Obviously he didn’t score and I banished him to the reserves for the rest of the season. Amazingly though, PSG have just signed him for £200k and agreed to send him back on loan for the rest of the season! Happy days…
I love this guys name. Imagine being called Turki in school. School must have been a nightmare for him… Anyway here my 1st/2nd choice left-back (lots of rotating). It says he’s never made a league appearance for us, but he didn’t make his debut with us until late February because of bloody international call ups! Drives me fucking nuts…
Another one for obscure nations! A Maltese right back who is adventurous and is quick. I’ve never known a right back to score so many goals! Including a hattrick in the OFC! so far 9 appearances and 2 goals.
One of the surprise packages of the season. Michael George arrived at the start of the season and went straight into the first team. And to be honest, he never really left it. He’s quick, he’s strong and works hard. What more can you ask for? So far, 20 appearances 0 goals, bar a few in the cup.
Michael Munro was one I was really excited about when he arrived. An AM who could rival Callum Gribbin as a passing destructive force? Sounds perfect to me. However he’s only really started to perform once he was moved back to a CM. He could pick the ball up from deep and really damage team. So far 8 appearances & 2 goals.
Ed Cross may end up being a two season wonder for us. He ended as top goalscorer last season, but Man Utd have offered £500k plus a loan deal for him. Yoink!! So far 19 appearances & 10 goals.
Bilal Michel was the man, the myth, the legend that saved our bacon in the Club World Cup. What a wonderful man he is, that little Belgian fucker. Aside from being a damn good player, he’s a fucking whingy bastard! It took him a while, but he’s finally worked his way into the first team. So far, 12 appearances & 7 goals.
Daniel Dillon has only just started breaking into the first team. But I think he’s got all the attributes to make it. So far 2 appearances & 3 goals.
My adoptive son, Daniel Pitts. This is my first real superstar from my academy and the one I’m pinning my hopes on for a few achievements in the international arena. This kid is the future. Make a note of it. So far appearances 18 goals 0.
The last two are kids that arrived in the first season, spent the second season out on loan, and are now back to compete in and around the first time. Both got decent playing time during pre-season to the third season and will hopefully push on sooner rather than later.
Well finally we have reached the end! If you’re still here, thank you and well done! We went through a lot more than usual and I hope you found it interesting. Please do feel to comment, positive or negative feedback is always good. My twitter is @TheFmNewby and you will mainly find me there, or on the FM Creators discord. Please make sure you check out the people I’ve mentioned so far, they really are some great content creators. If FM Novice does try and insult you, don’t take any notice, he’s a pussycat really. I am also part of the FM Base Blogging team, you’ll find some great bloggers there. See the graphic below for more information. Otherwise until next time, happy FM-ing everyone
Thank you
The FM Newby
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