|
Post by coffers on Apr 20, 2006 7:35:19 GMT
Oh, I forgot to mention, shoot your penalty taker!pHe used to be our first choice spot man and rarely put a foot wrong, until Guarin came along. Now he is second choice to Guarin who was suspended. I did feel like hauling him off as soon as he missed the second one, especially when Inter equalised. I left him on and he still managed to come out of the game with a rating of 8, so he was doing something right. Maybe the occassion got to him. He scored the second penalty in the FA Cup Final shootout, with ease.
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 20, 2006 8:20:05 GMT
A clean sweep, eh? Aye, not bad i suppose. It was never in doubt though, really but it is still one hell of an achievement, even if I have said it before. :thumb:
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 20, 2006 10:45:52 GMT
I forgot to ask, what are your plans now then? Are you going to defend the LAC, or do you fancy a challenge somewhere else? How about replacing Pedro? :checkit:
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 20, 2006 11:11:28 GMT
I am currently considering an offer from Liverpool to replace Rafa Benitez. They have offered me £160,000 per month salary which is double what I'm currently on plus a £43.5M tranfer budget constrained by a £3.7M per month salary budget. It's very tempting and I'll probably jump ship again, obviously I will do a save position. It's the thought of that bug where I get to see previous scouts lists that is putting me off a bit as it was very distracting trying to work out which scout was mine and which belonged to a previous club. To get rid of the problem I ended up recruiting all the previous clubs scouts on a short term contract, which was not ideal and totally unrealistic, or given that manager tend to take their backroom staff with them in many cases when they move on, was it unrealistic? Anyhow I still have a few days game time to consider my options. I don't think I'll get that much in the transfer budget with City and to be honest we really need to improve the strikers and maybe add one or two players in midfield and defence. I think the last season was a fluke and won't be repeated next season. Vassell's skills are waning and the other stikers aren't what you would call world class really, even though their stats are pretty decent.
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 20, 2006 11:19:47 GMT
So you're a money grabbing whore, then? Nice!
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 20, 2006 11:28:27 GMT
Spot On. Look after number one, that's my motto and I don't mean the goalkeepers.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 20, 2006 11:50:07 GMT
Having reviewed the Liverpoo' squad, I think they will need more than £43M to revive their fortunes. The defence is awful and as far as I can see they are letting their best keeper go when the season ends. The resreves are crap and they don't have a lot in the youth team. no wonder they want to revive their fortunes, I'll probably stick with City again and try to pick up a likely bargain or two to bolster the areas that I feel we are lacking in.
Our reseves and U18's finished 3rd in their respective leagues, the U18's were Runners up in their Cup competition, so at least at City we have some future.
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 20, 2006 12:16:59 GMT
I honestly thought you'd have jumped. Loyal poof.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 20, 2006 12:53:27 GMT
I managed to get 2 delays out of them before they demanded that I made up my mind, that is the point I saved the game so I could go back to the decision later, if I felt like it. For the moment I'm sticking with the devil I know. I'm interested to find out what they will offer for the coming season and they is a Stadium expansion in the pipeline, if plans get passed etc.
|
|
|
Post by Sonic on Apr 21, 2006 1:12:05 GMT
I'd say Guarin would be the top of your list if you jump ship.
The lack of quality was one of the reason I turned down Arsenal, as they had sold off most of their best players and needed major investment.
What you need at CiteH is for a new board to take over, to wipe the debt.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 7:06:49 GMT
The board could wipe out the debt with what we have in the bank and stil have well over £20M in the pot.
|
|
|
Post by Sonic on Apr 21, 2006 7:45:55 GMT
They won't, or at least I've never seen it happen. Or even reported on. On FM5, I made a challenge game of playing at a club until the debt was paid off. I was there a while.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 7:49:30 GMT
In the European rankings announcement, City are placed at number 30 so we have moved up 20 placed in a season, The top 3 are Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.
|
|
|
Post by Sonic on Apr 21, 2006 7:52:32 GMT
It's always annoyed me that they don't do this, as they would save a bundle in the process.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 8:14:55 GMT
Well due to the debt we're paying £4.2M per year to the banks, which is a fair whack, we've had that debt since before I joined and it's not due to be repaid until July 2034. We're now in 2011 so another 25 years at £4.2M per year means we will pay a total of £105M, that's on top of wht we have already paid out to date.
In the meantime, the shareholders get a payout of £550k. The stadium expansion is to go ahead, it will take 5 months to expand the stadium by 15,300 seats, it will cost £14M to complete. That should give us a ground capacity of around 63,000. The board have given me a transfer budget of £21M which is linked to a salary budget of £2.8M per month. We're currently running at £2.4M per month. If I go for the higher transfer budget option of £25.5M I'll be limited to a salary budget of £2.5M per month so I decide to stick with the original offered option.
It looks as if I won't be able to quite afford the top quality players I was hopingto bring in.
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 21, 2006 9:59:03 GMT
Sell to buy, Coffers? Is Vassell an asset to get rid of to get in the top striker? Where was it you were thinking of improving?
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 10:38:07 GMT
I've managed to et in a couple of young decent strikers, one on a Bosman, an AM/RC/ST from Chelsea aged 23 and one from Sao Paulo for £8M who looks the Bee's Knees If I can improve his strength & Stamina. I might sell Vassell as he is now 31 and I suspect his strikers stats are starting to wane a bit, his main asset is his pace.
I'm probably looking for improvenments in the defence but I'm a bit unsure where would be best to address at the moment.
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 21, 2006 11:24:35 GMT
Sell Vassell, he's ugly.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 12:22:02 GMT
Harsh, but fair, probably. Vassell actually was voted player of the year by the fans and now that he has returned to training his stats are definitely improving. I suppose at 31 now is a good time to sell, but no one is biting for him at twice his valuation, I might be lucky to sell him for what he is worth.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 15:31:19 GMT
Right; having released a load of players for free and snaffled a load for a grand total of £8.75M so far we get to the stage when the friendlies start again. The decent incoming players that cost money or were total bargains, on bosmans, are:
Lee Judge (£1.2M) one of my former youth players at Preston, he's a 19yo English DL, WB/RL, DM, we got him on a Bosman, but because of his age etc we had to pay compo. He'll do nicely as backup/rotation type player and is one for the future.
Roberto Di Matteo (Free), no not the old one you are thinking of, he's Italian aged 23 and a damned decent AMR/ST. An absolute bargain and is already worth £6.25M. He started at Roma, then Parma before Chelsea bought him for £12.5M, they played him for 12 games before sending him for a season each to Blackburn and Dortmund on loan. Another for the future who no doubt will get more than his fair share of games.
Nathen Croft (£95k) a 17yo WB/RL, DM who I nabbed from Carlisle. He's gone straight into the U18's to be developed for future use. Current worth £775k.
A Brazilian bloke called Alan (£7.7M), an out and out Striker bought from Sao Paulo. He's an inch taller than Vassell, but I have some reservations about him, which I hope he will overcome once he gets going in our training regime. These are: he lacks strength and stamina (6 for each), plus he's not too brave or aggressive (5 and 8 respectively).
I'm trying to purchase a star of the future DC from Juventus, they keep accepting terms at £8M but the player doesn't want to come even though I'm offering 6 times more than he is on. Even at the youngster setting the board are willing to pay £400k per month, I'm trying to get him to sign for £200k per month, he's only on £35k per month at the moment.
Anyhow that's the way I've decided to go with transfers for this season, ie. build for the future, the established stars will cost too much.
The round of friendlies started with 3 lower level teams from England, before we jetted off on a tour of Switzerland, the details follow:
First up a trip to Bootle, they proved no match as we stormed to an 8-0 win. The goals were scored by: Whelan, Di Matteo (*2), Croft, Monteiro (*2), Alan and finally Ekin.
Skelmersdale were next to be swept aside in front of their own fans, this time the score was 9-0. Goals by: Vassell (*3), Whelan, Vertonghen, Charisteas (*3) and Luke Turner an 18yo who came through the City youth scheme.
The final English opponents were Bacup who visited our stadium. We won this one 7-0 and it should have been by more a 38/24 shot ratio tells the story. For the record the goals were scored by: Alan (*2), Di Matteo, Croft, Charisteas, Oskitz and Vassell.
The next games will be played in Switzerland against: Kreuzlingen, La-Chaux-De-Fonds, Basle and Grasshopper Zurich. There will be one friendly game left, after that, against Genk in Belgium.
Screenshots of the main new players may follow.....
PS. The board expect me to win the league this year. :humb:
|
|
|
Post by Moo on Apr 21, 2006 15:37:17 GMT
"...may follow"? Bah!
Sounds like you're in with these lot for the long haul, Coffers. KUTGW!
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 15:50:54 GMT
Okey Dokey as you are so disappointed, here they are: Alan: Di Matteo: Lee Judge: Nathan Croft: PS, Basle canceled their friendly against us because of European commitments
|
|
|
Post by Boony on Apr 21, 2006 15:57:18 GMT
That Brazilian chappy looks quite tidy. KUTGW :thumb:
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 16:21:23 GMT
Aye, we only got his work permit after an appeal, I'm still not sure what swayed the D of E or whoever issues them these days, as he certainly hasn't got enough full caps.
|
|
|
Post by coffers on Apr 21, 2006 16:58:09 GMT
The first two games of the Swiss tour end up in wins as expected.
The first game against Kreuzlingen was an easy stroll, the final score was 6-0. Goalscorers: Guarin, Papadopoulos, Vassel, Vertonghen, De Guzman and Flood.
The second game at La-Chaux-De-Fonts was a much harder game, They played a very defensive line-up and we only won 3-0, the goalscorers being: Croft, Charisteas and Papadopoulos.
In all the friendlies so far the opposition have only had a total of 2 shots at our goal, only one of those was on target. That is one shot at us in each of the last two games. I'm hoping Grasshoppers and Genk will provide some sterner opposition, but at least the lads are getting match fit in time to meet Arsenal in the Community Shield.
|
|