Darren: FM 2011 Brighton’s end of season report 2010/11

Hey guys and welcome back to the seaside where I’ am attempting to turn Brighton from L1 mediocrity into a household name. During the last post I outlined how August to December went, Brighton were top of the table and maintained some self respect in all competitions. But with Winter approaching it was time to push on and secure top spot as well as strengthen for the clubs biggest challenge. We’ll start today’s post in the transfer market and then move swiftly through my end of season results.

With the half way point comes a change in expectations and a much anticipated budget adjustment. I raised the bar a little in saying we’d win the league, after pre-season I was left with no wage budget and needed some to negotiate free signings for next season. The £425K transfer budget was still hanging from the summer so don’t think my board were been generous. In fact……

During January I felt a sharp blade pierce my back, this was of course the board screwing me over :) They accepted an offer for my star right back, Calderon. The offer came from Burnley and my best defender wound up leaving for £925K, a reasonable amount but I couldn’t find someone of the same quality that wanted to join us. I also offloaded one or two backup players and found myself raising £1.1 million.

Now lets see what I did with the extra cash, first of all I found a replacement right back. Not as good as Calderon but Frank Simek is an ample replacement for just £400K.

I also decided to bid for Donal McDermott, the Man City player could be good for any side in the Championship and should be my best left winger for the next couple of years. He cost £250K and I believe this could prove a real coup.

So two good signings and a total of £650K spent, we brought in almost double what we spent but this wasn’t reflected in the finances which were quite worrying. I will go into more detail later, but lets just say I am desperate to move into our new stadium next season. Now the transfers have been explained, let me go through some cup competitions and then finally reveal our end of season League One results.

FA Cup results

After progressing through the early rounds Brighton also beat Brentford to reach the fourth round of England’s proudest cup competition. Championship side Norwich awaited us and unfortunately taught my side a lesson in Football, we were thrashed 3-0 which left me to concentrate on our league form.

St Johnstones Paint Trophy

Brighton struggled through this competitions early stages, after relying on penalties we finally faced Colchester in our sections final. The first leg was an utter disaster and embarrassment as League One’s second placed side thrashed my boys 4-0. We then took a 2-0 lead in the second leg but could only finish with a 3-3 draw.

League One results — January to February

With no other competitions to worry about, I could focus on League One and trying to secure top spot. We had a ten point lead and this should have proven difficult to lose, but January threw up some surprises. After beating Yeovil 3-1 we could only draw against Leyton Orient and Colchester. My form seemed to take a turn when we beat Swindon 4-2 before Charlton held us to a 1-1 draw. I’m not sure what went right from there, but we won 6 matches in a row and looked unstoppable while finishing off the February fixture list.

League One results — March

After that brilliant run of form we travelled to Exeter and scraped through 2-1 victors, then were held at home by Peterborough 1-1. This left me concerned before playing Plymouth who we beat 3-0, before the inconsistent form continued with a draw to Huddersfield and 5-1 thrashing of Hartlepool.

League One results — April to May

With the seasons end closing in fast, I had to pick up speed or risk a major dip in form. So you can imagine my mood when Brentford beat us 2-1. I then thought we’d turned a corner after victory over Southampton away, but my boys finished the season with four consecutive draws. A terrible end to the season, but the big question is what did this do to our league standings?

League One table — final standings

That bad run could have cost us the the title or even promotion, but it all fell on other clubs results so what did the league look like….well we finished the season on more points than Brighton managed in real life, a total of 100 points gained top spot, promotion and the title! :)

This season brought about many different challenges and I had to reinstate our form on many different occasions. I put this down to a slow defence and the fact that none of my forward thinking players hit consistent shots on target (bar Brandy.) To be honest these are all concerns for next season, but I was delighted with some of the ratings for this year. Greer managed a 7.5 including 16 goals, while Brandy scored 25 goals despite being injured for two months. Noone was my best midfielder and managed 19 assists before falling out of favour following McDermott’s arrival.

Financially things are very poor though, we started the season with almost £3 million and also gained £450K on transfers. Yet my balance is almost in the red and will definitely drop well below that black line come pre-season. With such bad finances I am sure to have the facility upgrades cancelled and the board will probably be reluctant to offer a transfer budget.

Well that concludes my first season in charge of Brighton & Hove Albion. It was a success but I have fresh concerns over the clubs future. Our financial state could stall any growth and I will be left with the decision to stick or twist…I can either go for broke and promotion again next season, or trust in my current squad to keep the club stable but this will result in a mid-table finish at best. All the answers will be revealed soon my friends, but until then please feel free to comment and thanks for reading.