Cambridge United: 2010 / 11 Pre Season

Hello everyone and welcome back my new FM 2011 story featuring Cambridge United of the Blue Square Premier League.  My previous post was basically an introductory one so now it’s down to the business of assessing the team, seeing who stays and who goes and preparing the squad for the upcoming season.

My initial course of action was to get a team report from my Assistant Manager, who was in fact part of the first team playing in squad as well, and having checked his coaching attributes threw this report in the garbage and moved on after he agreed to a mutual termination. For the time being the other members of the coaching staff I have decided to keep on.

With a blank piece of paper in front of me I reviewed the current first team squad, the reserves and of course the under 18’s to see who I wanted to keep which after that task was completed the paper remained blank for the most part. All the under 18’s were released on a free to save a little money on the salaries as I was already reaching the top of my budget which was set at just over £12,000 per week. Naturally there was no transfer budget so out of contract players and loan signings would be the targets. A few players from the reserves also agreed to mutual termination and as for the first team most were relegated to the reserve squad at least for now.

As many of you know I generally get carried away during the transfer window but this time was unprecedented bring in 17 new players, essentially rebuilding the first team for the upcoming season. The tactic I decided upon was my Wrexham 1.3 which thankfully was on this site as I hadn’t saved that either to a USB before my PC died just over a week ago.

Here then are the new players to join Cambridge and will be all in the first team. By now many of you will be familiar with a lot of these players so I won’t bore you with screenshots of each one.

Starting at the back the goalkeeper situation looked pretty bleak and so I managed to get Conor Devlin on a season long loan from Man United followed later in the month by Dean Bouzanis from Liverpool, but he will only be with us for six months.

The DR position was totally void of any players so that needed to be addressed quickly and was done so with the arrival of Dominic Shimmin and Nikki Ahmed. Both have pretty good physical attributes and good tackling skills so should handle attacks down that flank.

On the opposite side I was delighted that former Newcastle player Darren Lough agreed to join us and he will be supported by 18 year old Welshman Tomos Roberts who I have a good gut feeling about.

In the centre of the back four three new players were brought in. Scott Wotton on loan from Man United, young Frenchman Tony Diagne and Gambian Mustapha Traore whom I was  particularly happy about as he will really add some steel to the defence.

On the right flank David McDermott will be the starter and on the all important left flank where most of my attacks will begin comes Andrew Spencer and Karl Moore to The Abbey Stadium. I think Moore with his extra pace and crossing abilities will just have the edge for a regular first team spot.

The middle of the park was one area that wasn’t too bad but I did bring in some added support through Shane Williams who has been mentioned in my other game and Craig Tawton who will rotate in and out of the DM position.

Up front then I already had a couple of players that would suffice in back up duties so my starters will be Ismael Fofana and Dorian N’Goma both from the African continent. As you have all seen Fofana before,  here is N’Goma’s profile. He has lots of pace, a good dribbler of the ball and most likely can take a decent penalty as well. He could be around for a long time.

So that’s completes a look at all the new players after which I found unsurprisingly that we are some £6,000 per week over budget in salaries. I guess the board were happy to live with that variance. There is still time to offload a few of those players I dropped into the reserve squad but so far there has been very little interest in their minimal talents.

I only have two coaches to handle first team duties and the job advert is still running for an Assistant Manager as most candidates have required too much salary so far.

I was very happy with the pre season results which saw Dorian N’Goma and Mustaphe Traore make an immediate impact which I sure hope they can continue on into the regular season.

The game against Bristol City was particularly pleasing as we showed strength of character coming from 3-1 down the snatch a draw.

Fixtures

We have six games to play in August with our opener at home against Bath City.

That completes my pre season report and I look forward to bringing you my August update.

Thanks for reading!