Hello friends and welcome back to the latest chapter in my Cambridge United story which sees The «U’s» preparing for life in The Championship following a dramatic promotion at the end of last season.
After the euphoria of getting promoted the board handed me a bad piece of news that there was no budget to fulfill my earlier request to upgrade the youth training facilities…
…even though they had just been handed £325,000!
…after that I didn’t bother asking about stadium expansion or upgrading first team training facilities!
I may have come second in the league but I was top of the table when it came to League One managers!
June 2013
As soon as possible we made loan bids for Nuno Santos and Chelsea’s Conor Wickham who had no intention of joining us and as for Santos Man City snapped him up and then refused to loan the young Portuguese star. By the middle of the month myself and assistant Warren Neill hadn’t done that well in terms of filling 5 spots that we felt needed attention and were shocked by the news that the club was looking at a financial crisis.
If that wasn’t bad enough Will Keane didn’t want to come back for another season at The Abbey Stadium.
As the month drew to a close it was time to meet the board and set out the season’s expectations and after receiving a nice TV package of £2,600,000 my hopes were quite high of a decent transfer budget like last season.
The board offered £350,000 regardless of what I chose so I told them we would avoid relegation which would at least increase my salary budget by around £16,000
The bookies didn’t give us much hope of mounting any kind of title challenge.
July 2013
So we turned the corner and on into July with as usual things getting very frantic in the first two weeks with lots of players departing and arriving at the Abbey Stadium. Here’s a look at the full transfer activity which saw Victor Palsson return to his native Iceland in which we made £100,000 profit on him (free last season) and Will Packwood heading off to Bradford City. There maybe a couple of familiar names there of whom I decided not to renew their contracts.
Now for the exciting part and a look at the Cambridge squad with all the new players and their roles.
Goalkeepers: No change here other than 20 year old Mehmet is handed the Number 1 shirt. Both him and Rigoni had offers on them all through the summer but I managed to keep them for now!
• Mehmet — Rigoni — Hansen
Back Four: The centre positions will once again be dominated by Wootten and Bennett with Fernandez and Berchiche inter changing in that all-important left back position. On the opposite flank Irishman Brendan Moloney will start and will be backed up by new signing Julien Tadrowski. Sead Hajrovic who we signed from Arsenal will come up from spending last season in the reserves joining Oliver Nicholas in rotating those centre back positions.
• Fernandez — Berchiche
• Wotten – Bennett – Hajrovic – Nicholas
• Moloney – Tadrowski – Brown
Midfield: This is now a two man area, one defensive and one supportive in nature. On the defensive side the incumbent Gabriel Gomez is supported by Spaniard Imanol Eslava whom I’m profiled last season and new recruit Sunny who was released by Valencia.
• Gomez – Eslava – Sunny
The supportive midfielder is Shane Williams who has been with Cambridge from our old BSP days and will share this role with Conor Newton who has moved into to middle from the right side and seems to be enjoying the new role
• Williams – Newton
Attacking Midfield: The right flank is now filled by 20 year old Jonny Gorman who was released by Wolves and he is joined by Javi Lopez who has enjoyed three great seasons in the Spanish lower leagues. The centre is spearheaded by Davide Petrucci with Julien Gorius and Rasmas Falk in the rotating and back up roles. On the critical left side Jacob Walcott will lead the charge with former Norwich City player Josh Dawkin acting as a more than suitable back up. Alex Smith is the «floater» between defensive or attacking duties.
• Gorman – Lopez
• Petrucci – Gorius – Falk
• Walcott – Dawkin – Smith
Strikers: With Will Keane not wanting to come back I had to go hunting for at least two strikers as I wanted three in total to be able to rotate through the one man up front role. Nadir Ciftci is remaining at the club but is third choice behind Spaniard Baston Borja and Darko Bodul who had three decent seasons with Ajax.
• Bodul – Borja — Ciftci
That completes the review of the first team squad and after some of those signings had been made I had gone over my salary budget by a few thousand pounds. So I thought nothing ventured nothing gained so I asked the board for more money and they said why not! The weekely salary budget has now gone up to £82,000 from the initial £72,000 at the start of July.
Tactic:
We finished off the last couple of months of the previous season playing a 4-2-3-1 formation which proved quite successful. The fundamentals are still the same as my old Wrexham tactic that builds with «defender collect» down the left flank which also utilizes long throw and free kick capabilities of my two Spanish full backs. Having said that the ball does not exclusively travel down the left side and all area’s of the field are open to create scoring opportunities.
Youth 2 Gold:
At the time of writing this I have only one player to report but will hopefully have a couple of more to show next time around. For now here is young Italian left back Fabio Cirillo who we picked up on a free.
Finances:
Although we took a hit from the new year up until early June we seem to be back on the road to recovery which is probably down to some good gate receipts and the selling of Victor Palsson.
The pre-season fixtures went far better than expected as we picked up four wins against a variety of teams as well as a thrilling That completes this report so thanks for taking the time to read this and see you soon!3-3 draw with Scottish giants Celtic who had to come from behind to avoid an embarrassing defeat.
The season will start with two road games before taking on West Brom in our home opener.
That completes this report so thanks for taking the time to read this and see you soon!
Johnny Karp
13 июня, 2011 at 11:35
Great signings Kevin, especially those coming from Spain! Sunny, Lopez and Borja are great players in my view and they should be quite successful this season. My prediction is that you will be nowhere near the relegation spots, good luck!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:08
Thanks Johnny
There seemed to be a lot of good talent available from the Iberian peninsula and appreciate the positive prediction :)
Darren Smith
13 июня, 2011 at 11:44
Good pre-season Kevin, I think Sunny is an absolute coup and should be great for the Championship. There seems to be a lack of pace upfront, but I don’t think your tactic requires speed like mine so no problems there. Looking forward to the new season and good Y2G player too, he could make some nice improvements and a profit in the future.
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:11
Hi Darren
Sunny is a great acquisition for the club and to be honest I was suprised by him coming to Cambridge.My loan striker is a poacher setting though he’s well supported all the time.
vaibhavc
13 июня, 2011 at 13:29
Hey Kevin
Great signings, I want to see what happens soon. I hope your team will not struggle in the Championship. Good Luck!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:12
Hi vaibhavc
Glad you like the new inductee’s and I’ll try not to leave it too long for an update.
Lye
13 июня, 2011 at 13:47
Hi Kevin,
Sunny and Lopez are definitely good additions. I believe your squad is strong enough to finish at least in mid-table. Jonny Gorman was with me for 1-2 seasons and he is good in the Championship. I hope he can provide a few assist down the right flank. Good luck for the new season ahead.
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:14
Hello Lye
Good to know about Gorman and I happy you like Sunny and and Lopez. I was delighted to capture them both.
Sibo
13 июня, 2011 at 14:00
Good signings and the team looks very strong for the Championship Kevin. I am sure you will do well this season and I hope to see Cambridge fighting it out with the big boys this season!
Well done and good luck! :D
P.S. I have seen Bodul in real-life, playing for Herenveen, he is a beast of a man and should do well in the Champioship! :D
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:16
Hi Sibo
That is VERY interesting you have seen Bodul in real life so I hope his fantasy clone lives up to your assessment :)
Sears
13 июня, 2011 at 15:54
Well done Kevin, excellent signings. Looking forward to see how you fair in the Championship, good luck!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:17
Thanks Sears
I’ll try and put on a good show for your enjoyment!
Stromson
13 июня, 2011 at 15:55
Excellent post Kevin; it looks to be a very successful offseason to my somewhat untrained eye. There are several key signings that should do you some good next year, and I’d say your squad is fully capable of survival!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:18
Hi Stromson
Gald you liked the post. I was aiming for a slightly different layout and I’m happy to hear that you think the squad is up to par.
Laxeyman
13 июня, 2011 at 16:03
Good signings Kevin, I especially like the look of Sunny and Javi Lopez, they will be fantastic for you I’m sure. You won’t be near relegation this season, I’m sure of that, as always, good luck!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:25
Hey Laxeyman
It seems that I’ve picked the right players in Sunny and Lopez so i’m delighted to get your vote of confidence.
Sayam Khan
13 июня, 2011 at 17:41
Good Signings Kevin, I like Julius Gorius, Javi Lopez. Hope Borja Baston bangs in the goals for you, I have a feeling promotion is on the cards! Good Luck!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:26
Hi Sayam
I’m glad you mentioned Gorius. I like him too and thought no one had noticed :)
David Wiggins
13 июня, 2011 at 18:34
really looking forward to seeing Sunny play for you and even more so Borja Baston! I have seen on other forums that he can turn into a bit of a legend!
Kevin
14 июня, 2011 at 00:28
Hi David
Well, thanks for the scoop on Baston, I had no idea as i don’t ever go to other sites. This is reall good to know so I hope he performs well for me too!
CsAtlantis
14 июня, 2011 at 02:58
Too bad no one wanted to come on loan to your club, but you’ve stocked up well on free transfers, Baston is only 20 and can still improve, are your finances really that bad? how much bank balance do you have left? Maybe those youth facilities costed more than your balance (even after the 325k payment)
Good luck for next season, you could probably finish say midtable?