Chester 2010-2011 Pre Season
After two miraculous promotions, first from League Two and then from League One Chester City were preparing for a difficult season in Coca-Cola Championship. We had virtually no transfer money this time too, but the board allowed me to have more scouts and coaches, and that was quite good. I managed to get 7 stars in every training category except set pieces and send my scouts all over Europe, from Portugal to Russia. Despite the positives, the expectations for the new season were not very good.
The promotion odds and media prediction were not very good either. As a matter of fact the media were sure that we would finish last. :(
As I said we didn’t have too much money, or almost no transfer money at all. And that was quite frustrating because my scouts were sending me good reports about some promising players all over Europe. I had a very good shortlist built up, but no money to sign the players I wanted. I decided to sell some of the players that weren’t very useful last season and signed only a few players, most of them very young lads that I hoped would turn useful in a year ot two, maybe even three.
The first thing that I wanted to secure was to extend the loan deals for my Manchester United players, defender Craig Cathcart, midfielders Sam Hewson and Rodrigo Possebon and striker Febian Brandy, our top goalscoarer last season. I finally succeeded in 3 out of 4 cases, Sam Hewson didn’t want to come on loan to us again, although he played for Chester for the past two seasons on loan. Anyway, I was glad I could use the other three for another season.
As fot the other signings, they were mostly free transfers, as you can see. Out of the 7 players I signed only 4 were ready to play for the first team, the rest of them were too young. Let’s introduce these important signings.
Denny Welbeck, pacey striker, signed for free from Manchester United
Tibor Virag, Hungarian regen stiker, signed for free from Ferencvaros. He is one of the best young prospects in my team.
Sergio Tejera, young Spanish central midfielder, signed for free from Chelsea. I was really happy to capture his signature as Sam Hewson refused to come on loan and my midfield was suffering.
Zouheir Dhaouadi, Tunisian international left winger, very good pace, acceleration and dribbling. He was also signed for free.
Along with the players I had from last season I hoped we could avoid relegation. That’s right, I wasn’t hoping for a new miracle, I just thought it would be too difficult. League One and Two are a completely different story, the real deal is in Coca-Cola Championship and, of course, the Premiership.
But the friendly matches were giving me reasons to hope for more, we lost only one game, against Manchester United.
Good results in friendlies, but the competitive games are a lot tougher, anybody knows that. I had two main goals for the season ahead: avoid relegation and build a decent financial position for the club. At the start of the season we were 1 million euro in debt, although we sold three times more season tickets than last year…
That’s how our pre season went, we were getting ready for the most difficult season yet, in Coca-Cola Championship. If we could just avoid relegation… Or maybe we could do more? Who knows… We’ll see.