Hello there my friends! It’s been quite a long time since the last post, I know… I’ve been very busy with my job and didn’t have much time to play my favorite game, Football Manager 2009. I still don’t have much time, but when I need to relax I start the game and forget about all the problems for a few minutes or hours.
In the last article you read about the pre season, about all the transfers and preparations for our second season in the Premier League. We were also qualified for the Europa League, an absolute novelty for our small club, Chester City.
Right after the beginning of the season I felt the need to sign another striker, a pacey and technical one. I immediately thought about Brazil, and went through the scout reports. Finally I decided to sign Choco, a young but very talented Brazilian striker from Sao Paulo. I signed him for 15 million euro, the highest sum we ever payed for a player. But I guess he was worth it because he can play also as an attacking midfielder and even as a central midfielder.
And now let’s see how our season went so far, competition by competition. First of all, the Europa League. After knocking out Bulgarian side Levski in the preliminary round the draw put us in a difficult group, with two strong teams, Feyenoord and Sparta Prague, and with a smaller but good team, Levadia.
We managed to get great results though, 4 wins and 2 draws.
We finished first and we were drawn to play Espanyol Barcelona in the first knockout round in February. I guess it will be a tough encounter.
In the Carling Cup things went very well too: we reached the semi finals after knocking out mighty Manchester United in the quarter final! Unfortunately our next opponent will be Liverpool and maybe we don’t have too many chances of reaching the final, but we’ll give our best!
And now the most important competition, the Premier League! We played 18 games until the end of 2013 because one of our games was postponed. The results were quite good, we managed to beat Chelsea and Manchester United!
We were in fourth place at the end of the year, with mighty Liverpool and Chelsea behind us in the Premier League Table! If we could manage to keep that fourth place we’ll qualify for the next year’s Champions League and I think that would be a remarkable achievement for or small club.
I want to highlight two of my players. The first one is young regen striker Michael Harper. I bought im in 2012 from Bournemouth for 500,000 euro. My scouts believed in his talent and I signed him as a possible star for the future. One year later he was already our star and gained his first international cap for England! Now all the big clubs like Manchester United or Chelsea are desperate to get him. The latest offer was 17 million euro from Chelsea! I hope to be able to keep him at least for another year.
The other young regen player that is slowly becoming essential for us is Australian left back David Wilson. My scouts were following him for a few years now and this year I was finally able to get a work permit for him. I signed him from Pumas for 4 million euro and he really is a great player and a wonderful prospect for the future. His pinpoint corners and free kicks created a lot of goals for us so far.
That’s about it, stay tuned for the second part of our wonderful season in the Premier League!
Zl
31 марта, 2009 at 03:07
Hey, great job! Haven’t even gone past 2010 yet! Just keep getting frustrated that all my big buys don’t perform.
JohnnyKarp
4 апреля, 2009 at 12:02
@ZL
Just be patient and you’ll get the reward. Maybe your tactics aren’t good enough for your «big guys»… Anyway, keep trying and good luck!
paine
1 апреля, 2009 at 09:36
Hi mate, Choco will make great things for your, no doubt about that.
If you like you could add my new blog to your links.
Thanks!
JohnnyKarp
4 апреля, 2009 at 12:03
Hey Paine! Choco is a very good player indeed, I’m happy with his contribution to our efforts. I’ll add the new blog to the links page soon, it looks very nice. And I’m looking forward to try your new tactics!
Duah
20 апреля, 2009 at 07:50
hi JohnyKarp
it’s great job, so great then hard to believe :) I mean in new fm’s so difficult to make top class team from underdogs, so will you share some experience? :)
what oposition instruction you use? do you change tactic or tweak tactic in tough away games or against 4-2-4? and last, how you search those talanted regens? :)
Best wishes
JohnnyKarp
20 апреля, 2009 at 10:55
Hey Duah, thanks for reading the story. There will be a lot of info about my tactic in a future post, I’m just going to say that I do tweak the tactic and the opposition instructions to meet the challenges that my opponents have for me. For example, if they have very good wingers and full backs I try to close them down and show them to their weaker foot, also mark them tight to give them less time and space to develop their speed and talent. About searching for players, I constantly send out my scouts everywhere around the globe and I keep an eye on the under 19 and under 21 national teams to search for good youngsters. After I spot one I send my scout to give me a report about him, and that’s basically how it works. When you’re in a lower league you have to do most of the work by yourself, but now I have many scouts that do the job for me. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have other questions. Cheers.
James
17 января, 2011 at 09:52
I was shocked when i seen Michael Harper was worth 16 MIL!!! and you only bought him for 500K!! thats amazing lol.
Johnny Karp
17 января, 2011 at 10:52
Those are nice memories, I remember that Harper was scoring for fun and that he was one of my favourite players :)
James
17 января, 2011 at 15:57
Do you know if hes in FM2011?
Johnny Karp
17 января, 2011 at 16:20
He surely isn’t, he was a regen in that game!
James
17 января, 2011 at 17:19
Aaaawww that’s a shame :(
James
21 мая, 2011 at 23:56
Very consistent results against ManU (sadly one of my faves teams) Great job ! My tactics are a lot more by the couple o million type players (Like the underrated regonesi and such) when I hit premier, but then again I haven’t gotten such a low league team like chester in there. I’m impressed :)
Johnny Karp
22 мая, 2011 at 07:50
James, we’re talking about FM 2009 here, a long time ago… But thanks for the comment anyway.
Excessive
22 мая, 2011 at 10:44
Haha, i thought we had a new story on the site! ;)