Cambridge United: Preparing for EPL and Europe!

Hello friends and welcome back to my Cambridge FMS as I prepare to build the team for the upcoming season. Yes, it’s been a while and my apologies to those people who have been looking forward to the next update. A combination of almost unbearable heat in Canada combined with a very awkward number of weeks at work left me somewhat deflated and miserable.

Hopefully both situations are now passed.

In this report I’ll bring you up to date with all the activity as far as the opening game of the season.

May 2014

Following a dramatic end to last season where we played at Wembley twice in a week, gaining promotion to the Premier League and a place in the Euro Cup Aston Villa came back knocking on my door. After much consideration I decided to stay with Cambridge due to the prospect of playing in Europe for the first time.

As we will be playing at a higher level next season the board moved quickly in announcing a much needed stadium expansion to meet the requirements of the Premier League

A quick look at our financial report shows we have indeed a healthy bank balance considering where we started off in 2010 with £0.00 and are now at £3.2 million!

June 2014

I sent my scouts off to the World Cup in Brazil whilst back home I started to watch some of the players on my shortlist get snapped up by other clubs. By the middle of the month the World Cup was well underway but my scouts had only come back with two reports?

My Assistant Manager Warren Neill pointed out we have a bit of an issue with playing in Europe due to the home grown rule something that I hadn’t even been on my radar and I’m not even sure if our lack of players will effect participation in the competition?

It was June 25th already and I’m thinking to myself where the money is for transfers from The Board? I can’t sign anyone as they will only allow a maximum of £300.00 per week for a salary. My transfer targets are getting less and less!!!

Finally….they show me the money!

Before moving onto the transfer news here’s a quick view of the 2014 World Cup which was won by Argentina. Host’s Brazil were eliminated in the Second Round by defending champions Spain.

Transfer News

Let’s start off with the summary first and as you can see I didn’t bring in that many new players simply because I couldn’t get people to sign due to their salaries they required and in some cases the agent fees were astronomical. The players that I sold were all profit as I didn’t pay anything for them to join Cambridge. I was happy to get rid of Darko Bodul as he was a high wage earner and never really performed.

So let’s take a look at the inductees starting at the back. First up is central defender Antonio Bandiera who joins us from Sunderland and was supposed to be a replacement for Rhys Bennett whose move to Burnley fell through. This kid is excellent at jumping and heading but needs to improve on his team work skills.

With the departure of Yuri Berchecci I needed a new left back so young Frenchman Jason Bli joins us from the Arsenal reserve squad. His speed should adapt well to my left flank tactic.

Moving on to the midfield and to the left side is our oldest player in the team that being Andrea Dossena who we got on a free after being released from Blackburn. He still possesses a decent amount speed and can whip in a good cross by the looks of things. Having played at the top flight for some time in Italy and England his experience should be most valuable.

In the centre of the midfield Steve Brown joins us from Watford, In fact this player was signed at the beginning of the year when I figured we‘d be in The Championship for at least two seasons. Still, Steve actually performed very well in pre-season games.

In the AMC position Thorgan Hazard joined us from Man City and will play a support role to Julien Gorius. The Belgium youth international doesn’t display anything spectacular in terms of attributes but seems to be a good solid player.

Borja Baston will lead the charge up front once again this season and will be helped out by two new strikers. The main back up will be another Belgium youth international Gianna Bruno whose is very quick indeed and most suitable in the poacher role…I think?

Rotating into the strikers position is young Algerian Djamel Ghazi who is the slower of the three strikers I now have but hopefully can make up for that with his composure in front of goal.

So that completes a look at the new players with still a couple of more weeks left in the transfer window. I’m looking for a young goalkeeper for the third string spot and would really like an MC who has good finishing attributes.

Results

I only managed to get four games in for improving fitness which we got through without losing and finished with a strong 4-1 win.

Fixtures

We start the season off away to Everton before facing both Manchester teams though this could all change as I’m yet to see who we will be playing in the Europa Cup.

Well, that’s about it for this update. It’s a bit of a mish mash I feel and not up to my usual standard as this report has been hanging around in MS Word for a number of weeks and I lost track of where I was with the game.

Also I think I accidentally deleted «friend requests» that came through to my work email for the new  FMS Scouting community.

Again, apologies all round to everyone who has been checking for updates and I hope to get back to more consistent posting very soon.

Thanks for your patience.

Kevin