Liverpool July and August 2014

Hello everyone, sorry for the delay, I have been very busy recently. However, I now have time to write this post, so welcome back!
After my exploits with England at the World Cup it was back to Liverpool for pre season, I immediately turned my attention to transfers. Only two players left the club for money in the summer, they were Alberto Aquilani, who didn't get many starts and is getting on a bit, and Emilano Insua, who, after losing his place to Anthony Anderson, wanted games.

All the players who were released were young players, who aren't good enough. Obviously, after selling a left back and a midfielder I needed to replace them, and I set about straight away trying to do so. Here are the transfers in, only two players were signed, despite my huge transfer budget.

Stefano Paoli is the centre midfielder, although he is also a natural DMC and accomplished on the right wing. He has very good attributes, and at just 19, he has potential to be one of the best midfielders around. Particularly impressive are his mental stats, they are very good for someone so young. $21.5m is a big fee, but I'm confident he can repay it.

The other signing was, you guessed it, a left back. It is young regen Jonas Helland, he will play as a backup for Anthony Anderson, and he has good potential. Hopefully he can be a good player for us for many years to come.

With the new signings on board it was time to start the new season, here are the results:

Friendlies:

We only played three friendlies, but all of them were won, we played with confidence against both St Mirren and Wigan.

After that it was time for the first competitive match of the season, it was the community shield against Man City. The match wasn't a very good one, the first chance fell to David Silva in the 39th minute, and he tucked it home. It was level just two minutes later, and after that very little happened. Penalties were inevitable, I was confident going into them, but it seemed that we just lost our composure. After Wilshere and Gerrard both missed it was Alexis Sanchez who blew the crucial penalty, and City had won the shootout. I was disappointed as we had created the better chances during the game, but I guess the shootout is just a lottery.

We played three matches in the Premier League in August, and we looked in fine form, we bounced back quickly from the shootout loss to Man City. The Tottenham game was particularly pleasing, we absolutely hammered them, we were clinical in front of goal, partciularly from corner's, that were three of our goals came from.

UEFA Super Cup

The most important game in August was the the UEFA Super Cup final against Valencia. We were looking to win it for the second time in a row, here are the team line ups:

We were missing Valencia old boy David Silva, he had a minor injury, so Jack Wilshere came in. We started the game well, we looked very dangerous going forward, and in the 14th minute Wilshere crossed for Torres to slot in from ten yards. We still looked good, Valencia also looked dangerous on the counter attack. Unfortunately despite our chances we couldn't kill the game off, but Valencia were also wasteful. We managed to hold on in the nervy final stages, but I'm disappointed we couldn't score more goals. However, I'm delighted we have managed to win the trophy, hopefully we can make history and win it three times in a row next season.

We have climbed to the top of the table, I won't show you it, but we are three points clear after our great start.

That's all then friends, thanks for reading!

Liverpool March Results

Hello fellow FM gamers, it's time for an udpate on my Liverpool story! The biggest match of March was the game against Barcelona, we also had a trip to arch rivals Everton. I appreciate that most of you may have already read this post at http://www.footballmanagerstory.com/ , so I won't go into huge detail about this month.  

Here are the results for March at a glance.

The Everton game was won by two fantastic goals from 18 year old Giovani La Rosa, he was playing due to a series of injuries to the main strikers.

The match against Sheff Utd was disappionting, we battered them all game but, after they scored an early goal, we couldn't break them down. It took a wonder goal from Steven Gerrard to get us a replay, his goal came just five minutes from time.

In the Sheffield United game I rested quite a few players ahead of the Barcelona match. It was a pretty poor game to be honest, we managed to nick a goal just on half time when Torres' pace enabled him to beat Valdes to the ball, after doing that he poked the ball in.Barcelona were the better team after the break but the defence stood firm and we managed to hold on, we are through to the Quarter Finals! It later emerged that we will face Genoa, the current champions of Italy. They have some good players so we will have to be careful, but I'm confident we can progress.

After the Barca game we faced Blackburn away, we looked very good going forward, but for some reason the defence looked very shaky. Torres scored two good goals and Andre Pierre Gignac got one, but just as I thought the points were in the bag we conceded and ended up drawing.

Next up was the FA Cup Replay against Sheff Utd. Again we looked poor at the back, luckily we are very good at attacking. It still took us until extra time to secure the winning goal, Nicolas Otamendi stabbed in from a corner. This followed goals from Darijo Srna and Gignac and two equalisers from them. The result means that we are through to the semi final, we will face Aston Villa there.

The final game of the month was back in the Premier League, we faced Tottenham. We were on top most of the match, and we got a comfortable win thanks to an early goal from Torres and a late one from Wilshere secured another three points for us.

After that pretty good month we are now 6 points ahead of Man City with a game in hand. I am sure the title will once again be ours, the test is to try and progress in the other competitions.

Next month sees us play a very tough nine matches. The squad will be tested by the busy schedule, I hope they can cope and that we don't get too many injuries. The biggest games are obvisouly the matches against Genoa, it will be interesting to see how the players cope with the 'favourites' tag, something we didn't have in

the last round against Barca.

That's all for now then, thanks for reading, I hope you will continue to follow my career with the Reds.

February 2012 and Champions League Thriller

Hello readers, sorry for the slightly longer than usual delay with the posting. However today is the day for this post, and I am pleased to say we have gone more games unbeaten. Take a look at our latest results. We got a good draw against Arsenal, which means we are all but guaranteed the title.
I am saying this because look how many points clear we are. A whopping 12 points, with only 8 games left! Another few wins will wrap up the league and we should almost definitely win it in the next 5 games. This is a good thing because I want to win it as early as possibly, so players can be rested for the crucial knockout Champions League games.

In the first Knockout round, as I said in a previous post, we were drawn against Lyon, a decent team, but a side I expected us to beat. The two legs were thrilling ties, although I am disappointed that we conceded so may goals after going in front.

You can see, we did that in the first game, conceding two very disappointing goals after we had taken a two goal lead. You can see from the match stats, that Lyon had more possession, but we had more attempts on goal, and looked more dangerous throughout the game. I was particularly pleased with the performance of Yossi Benayoun, who sliced open the Lyon defence a number of times and claimed both assists, and Fernando Torres, who terrorised their defence, with his pace, skill and great finish for his goal.

Despite conceding from a winning position, I still felt this was a decent result, because we had scored 2 very important away goals, and probably deserved to win the game. I felt with a strong defensive display, we should easily qualify for the next round.

Unfortunately, we didn't play well at the back in the 2nd leg, although I thought we were cruising through when Carragher scored from a corner, to double our lead, after Gerrard's penalty had given us the advantage. Then, as in the 1st game, Lopez scored to give Lyon some hope, and our defence couldn't cope, allowing Lopez to score again, and level the match and the tie.

As you can see from the match stats, Lyon had more of the ball, but again we had more shots, both on target and off target.

Lopez's two goals meant the tie was level and after that the game went very flat, with no chances at all, even in Extra Time. This meant the game went to penalties. As I chose my penalty takers I was confident we had better takers than them. I looked through their team before the shootout, and their highest attribute penalty taker was Lopez with 12 as his rating. I felt this was very poor, although Lyon surprised me by scoring 4 out of 5 penalties taken. The only miss was from Kim Kallstrom, who's weak penalty was saved by Reina. For us I was delighted that every penalty was scored, and I never had any doubt, that my players would miss. Obviously I was delighted we had come through, but I am slightly worried that we became so complacent after going ahead.

It means, though that we can still achieve our goal of Champions League glory, but we have drawn Real Madrid in the quarter final. This match will be very tight, I am sure, but the competition is definitely getting tougher.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Good Form and January Transfers

Hello Readers. I am pleased to say that our good form is continuing. Have a look at the league table. We sit a comfortable 9 points clear, which is mainly due to Arsenal's poor form of late. We are playing Arsenal next, and if we win we will be 12 points clear and the title would almost be ours.
Here are the latest set of fixtures from the beginning of December to the end of January. We only lost one game, and that was a dead rubber against Roma when we fielded a weakened team, and even then we didn't deserve to lose. Apart from that it has been an excellent couple of months and we are now unbeaten in 20 league games. As I have said before, the Champions League is the target this season, and after topping our group, we were drawn against Lyon. Lyon are a decent team but I fancy our chances of winning the tie.

These are the all the transfers for the season, but you can see we signed two players in January. They were Darijo Srna on a free, after his contract expired at Shaktar. He is a very useful player due to his versatility. He is a natural at DR, WBR and MR, and is accomplished at DL, WBL and ML. The one player sold was Albert Riera, to Barcelona. He was sold mainly due to his age (29), his declining pace and the good offer Barcelona put in. Downing was signed as a replacement for him and will be a backup for Silva on the Left.

Here are Srna's attributes. He has no real weakness, and is quite quick, skillful and is a decent tackler. He also has amazing crossing and delivery, and is a real danger from free kicks.

Downing was signed as a direct replacement for Riera, and his attributes are very similar, he is just younger and quicker. He is only a backup player, so is not a particularly interesting signing and is merely a decent player. Finally, I would like to mention Lauri Dalla Valle. He was out on loan at Stoke until Christmas, but came back just in time to play a few matches. We had an injury crises up front and he ended up playing against West Ham, Fulham and Man United. The crises came because Fabiano got an injury that kept him out for a month, Torres got an elbow injury, that sidelined him for 2 weeks. Gignac was still not fit, due to his broken ankle, although he has just come back now. To top it all of the 4th choice striker Vavilov was out for 6 weeks with Cruciate Ligament Damage.

All this meant Dalla Valle played up front on his own in 3 games, and he did well, scoring against Fulham and a beauty against West Ham from an impossible angle. He has really improved over the last year, and now is my bright hope for the future.

That's all for this post, thanks for reading. I will inform you of the Champions League and spring results soon.

4 Months Played- Decent Start Continues

Hello Readers! 4 months of the season have now been played, and you can see the latest results below. It has been a good couple of months for us, going unbeaten throughout that period. Especially good were the 4-0 victory away at Man Utd, when we played fantastically, and the 3-0 win over Atletico, also away. It seems we are playing slightly better away from home, as we also beat Macabi Haifa 5-1 away, in another good performance when we were missing a few players and had a weakened team. We also got a good point at Chelsea in the last match, when we dominated but they scored a late equaliser from a corner. Overall a good couple of months, then.

Below is the current League Table, in which we are still sitting comfortably top. We do have a few tough fixtures coming up and we have to play Man City, away, Tottenham, Man Utd and Arsenal in the next couple of months.

This is the Champions League Group Table. Due to our wins over Atletico, twice, and Macabi Haifa, also twice we have qualified quite comfortably, and that now gives me the liberty of resting a few players in the last game. The Champions League is of course the target for this season, so I am awaiting the draw for the knockouts, eagerly.

These are the current player stats. I want to mention Luis Fabiano, and have special praise for him because, when Gignac broke his ankle, he has stepped up magnificently with 9 goals recently, including lots of crucial Champions League goals.

That's all for this post, have a Happy New Year and please comment. Thanks for reading.

Winning Start with England

Today's post is just a short one about my first two games as England manager. They were games I expected to win, and would have been disappointed if we hadn't won them. Below are the screenshot for the Azerbaijan game. As you can see we won 4-1 with a great performance from Gerrard, in particular, as well as Rooney, Walcott, Crouch and Lampard.


Here are the match stats for that game. We had an amazing amount of shots- 27! That is a good number, although 10 of them were Long Shots, so actually it was 17 chances created. We dominated in just about everything, as of course we should against a team like Azerbaijan.

The other match was against Austria, another match I expected to win, especially at home. The result suggests it was a very close match, but really it wasn't as we were always superior and more dangerous, and should have won by a bigger margin.

Here are the match stats, for the game. Although the possession was shared equally, you can see we had a lot more attempts and had double the amount of efforts on target.

Here are the tactics I used for the first two games. Rooney has been trained by Man Utd to play as an AMC, so I thought I would try him there and he played quite well. The Defence has my usual player settings. They are- DC- Central Defender-Defend and the Full backs are- Full Back- Support. In midfield I set Lampard as a Deep Lying Playmaker- Support and Gerrard as a Box- to- Box Midfielder, which is always Support. Rooney is AMC- Attack and Walcott and Young are Wingers- Attack. Crouch up front has the settings of Target Man- Attack.

I haven't completely settled on this tactic yet, and plan to try it more over the coming matches, so it may change once I see what it is like against better opponents.

That's all for this post, thanks for reading, and there will be another one soon.

Two months played - decent start, but Champions League worries

Hi, hope you all had a good Christmas. Two months of the third season have now been played, and I would like to fill you in on my latest results, which you can see on the screenshot below. Overall it's been a good start to the season, with only two defeats, although these defeats were very disappointing, especially the one at Fulham. We played terribly at Fulham, but we played much better against Chelsea, and just couldn't take our chances. This, in some ways is even more disappointing than if we had played badly.

Below is the current league table. We are top, although not by much, so I really want to win our game in hand- which is against Aston Villa- to open the gap at the top.

This is the current Champions League table. The group is pretty tough, because Roma and Atletico are good teams. Despite this we hammered Atletico 4-0 with a really good performance and we got a good 0-0 away at Roma. You might be wondering then, why I am saying we have Champions League worries? The problem is, I messed up when I signed Otamendi and Silva, because I didn't realise they were cup-tied. This means in defence I have to play Carragher and Jourdain, a young regen, who he is pretty good, but not as good as Otamendi. Unfortunately Carragher got sent off against Roma (2 bookings) so is suspended for the next match. As you may know I sold Kryiakgos, in the summer, and sent Havard Nystad out on loan. This means in the next match I will have to play Marra, who is only 15 and although he has great potential, is not good enough now. Luckily the next match is against Maccabi Haifa, who are the weakest team in the group, but I don't like to think what would happen if Carragher or Jourdain gets injured later on.

The first England games of my reign are coming up soon. I have selected the squad and hope to beat Austria and Azerbaijan quite comfortably.

Also as you may have noticed I have a nice Liverpool skin on my game. I got it from the wonderful makers at FM-Base, so if you like it I would recommend you to check it out.

That's all for this post, keep playing FM and comment!