Bury FC: Pre-Season report of Season 3!

Hi everyone, I am ready to bring you the post of what i enjoy posting most. Pre-season! As you know, we won League 1 last season so lets see what we have done to prepare for the Championship.

Before I start, I have some intresting screenshots:

So with recieving 350k for only participating in League 1 and 180k for a year from our new sponsership, we are on the up financially!

And then some great news for myself!

Yipee! I won Manager of the year!

Ali Fuseini was given player of the year, which I think is completly deserved.

And then we were given a further 3m for Championship TV rights! This should give us a good budget.

I have also signed a new 3 year extention to my contract which should keep me at the club untill 2017 at least.

Start of season expectations:

On to the the business, below is my start of season expectations.

I told the board I can achieve a mid table finish, I didn’t want to promise something too advanced as it would mean I would be sacked. Anyway I was given 1.8m, which is more than enough. However it seems I had forgetten how to spend money! :L

Player Out

All the players that left in the above list were because they wern’t good enough for the championship. The standout name is probably Martin Hansen, who made quiet a few ridiculas errors in the previous season and it was a nice profit we gained on him also of 60k. It was hard to part with Lolo, Marco Teani who were both at the club since I joined. They were one of my first signings. Duccio Innocenti performed well for us last season and at the age of 36 and pace = 10, i was prepared to keep him for his final season on his contract at Gigg Lane. However when I saw Wycombe were intrested, I decided to let him. He later expressed he was sad to depart from me…. :-(

Player In

Before I start, I would like to say I did enquire about Wellington Silva and Kevin Long on loans, however we failed. Wellington Silva rejected to join us, and Kevin Long wasn’t given permission due to first team commitments in the Premiership! He’s really com a long way in one season!

We spent a third of our budget on four players! The rest were all on free transfers and one loanee. We signed 12 players in total, and I accept that we may have a bad start to the season due to adaptation process. As you can see, I certainly made Motherwall weaker! ;-)

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My new keeper is Yves Makabu Ma Kalambay (quiet a hard name), whom we signed from Preston on a free transfer. He is on a cheap contract and was at Chelsea earlier on in his career.

Our new right back is Alan Dunne, who was bought from Millwall on a free transfer. I had around three right backs on my shortlist but he was the best one available.

My new centre back is Johnathan Page, bought from Motherwell for 350k. Hopefully he will replace Kevin Long in our defence and be successful.

We also bought another new centre back on loan with a view to a permanant deal of 2m. However the loan cost 75k. He has just turned 17 years of age and is born in Brazil. He joins us from Flamengo. His name is… PAULO!

In midfield we have a new defencive midfielder who will take replace Marcel Mahouve and Lolo. His name is Matthew Bates and he was realeased by Middlesbrough.

We also signed Steve Jennings who can also play the DM role if needed for 350k.

Another Central Midfielder which we signed is Bryan Robson. His experience and infulence (=16) will be vital for us in the middle of the park. However he will mostly play from the subs bench.

Staying with central midfielders, we also signed Fran Rico to help us in the creative department, however now I feel we have too many central midfielders! A total of 7 players can play there at our club.

Daniel De Ridder will be our main right winger, but now he has some competition also as Abdallah Yaisien has joined us on loan from parent club Manchester City. He has high levels of pace and will help us exploit tired defences later on in a game.

We definately needed a left winger so I bought in Andrea Gasbarroni on a free transfer. Yes he is already 31 years of age, but I just couldn’t find a decent left winger. Plus the first game of the season was approaching so I desperately needed one! It was a bit of a panic buy….

Our last two signings are the new strikers of the club. Sergio Van Dijk was signed for 100k from Adealaide United FC. I think he is our best striker but my assistant thinks otherwise.

The second striker we signed is Caleb Folan, an experienced premiership striker. He has pace which should give him an advantage over slower defenders.

So, a lot of signings! I wont be suprised if we get off to a bad start due to the adaptation process. I hope it isn’t too bad otherwise we would have to spend 2 seasons in the Championship!

Pre Season went quiet well. 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Van Dijk looks like he’ll be a great signing with 5 goals in 2 games!

 Well folks, that ends my pre season post, I was sooo eager to continue the season that I have already played 2 months so expect my next post to be about the first 3 months either tommorow, or Thursday!

Take Care, Sayam ;-)