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Bury FC: Pre-season 14/15

Published on

1 апреля, 2011

Sayam Khan

Hi everyone, welcome back to my Bury story. Our first season in the Premier League ended very successfully as we finished 10th. This season we wanted to get a place in Europe, but we needed some good signings to do that. Lets see what happened in pre season.

Firstly, player of the year was given to Shaun Wright Phillips by the fans, deservedly so.

The club also decided to expand the stadium by6295 SEATS!!!

Start of season expectations

Board did not want to mention a single word regarding relegation as they asked for a mid-table finish as minimum expectations. I told the board I can achieve a top half finish but you all know my secret expectation ;-) The board trusted me with a massive budget of 33.5m however the wage budget isn’t that big.

Transfers Out

We were extremely lucky to get our money back that we paid to bring Ortega to Bury. We made 700k profit by selling Johnathan Page after two years. Frank Lampard was sold because he had a ‘Match Highest Earner’ clause which led to his contract going from 10k to 40k! My advice is, never offer this clause to any players. 5.75m was made by outgoing transfers.

Transfer In

Despite our budget of 33m + 6m (player sales) we only spent 21m on transfers. Not a lot of players were available in this summer. Big names such as Emmanuel Adebayor, Andrey Arshavin & Micah Richards were signed!

The goalkeeping position will continue to be occupied by Paul Robinson and Yves Makabu Ma Kalambay will continue to be his back up.

We welcome a new right back, which was probably the most weakest and annoying position last season. Hopefully I don’t have to worry about this position anymore as we signed Micah Richards from West Ham. Micah was playing in the Championship! He has suceeded in Darren’s stories and I’m hoping the same for my story ;-) Micah posses excellent physical attributes and main defensive attributes, Marking, Tackling & Heading all = 15 :D A great signing in my opinion!

Victor Laguardia will be a definate starter in central defence. Christopher Mfuiy and Kevin Long will have to fight for the second place. But, Roberto Beltrame, signed for 3.4m could have a slight chance, but he is only 18 …

The LB position will continued to be occupied by Hector Alvarez.

Javi Garcia was signed on a free transfer after being released by Benfica. A typical defensive midfielder with high levels of marking, heading, work rate, team work and physically very good. A great signing in my opinion!

We broke our record transfer fee by signing Brazilian regen Ronaldo for 8m from Dinamo. His best position is a defensive midfielder but I think he is wasted there. He has such high technical attributes, and high levels of pace, that he can turn into a winger! Anyway, I’m sure he will be in my Bury team for years to come! :D

Petr Lastuvka is a young regen, who was only signed for 55k. Bargain!

Our new right winger is Antonio Quimbaba, born in Angola, was signed for 1.2m from Colo Colo. I’m sure he will also be in my Bury team for years to come!

Emmanuel Adebayor is our new partner for Nichlas Pedersen this year. With these two up front, goals are almost guranteed! I am amazed that I had managed to sign him for free. There were many clubs wanting Adebayor (Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Milan), but he rejected, maybe because they weren’t offering him first team football. By the way, what role would suit Adebayor most? (poacher, target man, advanced forward etc etc…)