Dorchester Town Story: Preparing For League One

Hello dear friends, welcome to my fourth season in charge of Dorchester Town in Football Manager 2010! As you know we got our third consecutive promotion last season, we won League Two quite comfortably and made the step up to League One. I felt I had a massive task ahead of me during pre-season as I believed that the squad needed some heavy reinforcements in order to be competitive in the new league. Let’s see what happened during the long, long, summer.

I was already over the wage budget when the season ended so I couldn’t make any signings until the board announced the new season expectations and financial structure. They were expecting us to fight bravely against relegation, I told them that we could get a top half finish and that added 2,000 pounds to the weekly wage budget. The transfer budget was quite impressive again, no less than 45 pounds! Yes, you read that right, 45 pounds! You can buy a copy or two of Football Manager 2011 with that money but you can’t buy a player for that kind of sum nowadays…

Alright then, let’s move on to the actual transfers. I sold eight players but they left the club gradually, whenever I managed to sign a player I had to sell one in return. We had to say goodbye to our long serving Romanian striker Marius Dabu, I felt that his abilities were not enough for League One but I surely am grateful for all the goals that he netted during the previous seasons. I also released the whole bunch of lads from the yearly youth intake, I considered them not fit for a career in the beautiful game.

We managed to get a healthy 450,000 pounds from the player sales but the board allowed only 20% of that money to go back into the transfer budget. I decided not to use that money from transfers anyway, I moved everything into the wage budget and went on to sign only free players. Overall I brought in 12 players plus five more on loan.

I asked my board to find a parent club yet again but they gave me the exact same answer, they think we don’t need one at this point! I’ll try again in January…

Now let me present our new players, almost all of them! I sold both my goalkeepers, they didn’t prove to be reliable enough, and I brought in a new pair. First, Czech youth international Miroslav Kocur, a talented 19 year old that is believed to have good potential. He never played outside of his homeland before so I guess he will need some time to adapt.

My new first choice goalkeeper will probably be Romanian 19 year old prospect Gabriel Nicolau, he already had his first youth cap and he surely shows a lot of potential. There were quite a few Romanian clubs that placed bids for his signature but I managed to capture him with a higher wage and benefits offer.

My new first choice right back will be John White, a 26 year old English player that joined us from Blackpool. He should be a reliable lad because he has good League One and Championship experience under his belt.

White’s backup will be young prospect Eddie Kelly, a player that was released on a free by Arsenal. He surely has some potential and I hope that he will make some progress this season as I will try to give him some first team football.

I decided to cover the left flank with the player that served us so well last season, Fabio Daprelà, West Ham agreed to loan him to us again for the whole season. His backup will be Luke Garbutt, a promising talent that was released on a free transfer by Everton. He started his career with Leeds and Everton paid no less than 600,000 pounds to buy him in 2009 but he didn’t settle too well. I hope that he’ll try to fulfill his potential at Dorchester. Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

We had two centre backs on loan last season so it was an area that needed a lot of work. Ryan Carolan and Stefan O’Brien have been quite reliable but I surely felt that they needed good competition for a first team place. I chased several free central defenders, some of them pretty good, but most of them chose other destinations. In the end I had to settle for Romanian experienced defender Alin Ratiu, a 29 year old player with loads of experience in the Romanian top flight.

The first two friendly games showed lots of problems in my defense, I was quite worried so I decided to bring in two more centre backs on loan just to be safe. The first one is a Spanish youngster, Joseba Barbero, a guy with great pace that joined us on loan from Wolves.

The other loanee in the middle of our defense is Tom Thorpe, 1 19 year old defender from Brimingham. I hope that with these two my defenders will be kept on their toes and thus provide better performances against the tough League One strikers.

I guess I tended to overdo things a bit in defense but it’s better to be safe than sorry :) Moving on to midfield now, let me introduce Hristu Chiacu, a Romanian right/left winger that can also provide decent backup as a striker. He was a great prospect in Romanian football when he was 19 — 20 years old, now he’s 25 and he’s been tossed around from one team to another ever since his first game as a senior. He might never live up to the expectations that were stated at the beginning of his career but I reckon he could do a good job for us and maybe succeed in reviving his career.

I also brought in versatile winger Matt Richards from Walsall, he can also play as a central midfielder or as a left back. He has good Championship and League One experience, a decent free kick taker that could provide great backup in several areas of the team.

The last winger that I brought in might also be our first ever Canadian player: his name is Jacob Lensky, born in Vancouver from Czech parents. He is a current Canadian international that started his career with Celtic in Scotland, then moved to Holland where he played for Feyenoord and Utrecht. A cruel knee injury sidelined him for eight months and when he signed the contract with us he still had fitness problems that prevented him from training during pre-season. I have great expectations from him though so I hope he’ll settle in quickly and get back in shape. These three new wingers will compete with the three that we already had, Tiberiu Pãduraru, Aleksandar Mladenov and Revy Rosalia, so I feel that we’re pretty well covered in that area.

We also needed some more strength in the middle of the pitch and I was pleased to sign Al Bangura, a strong midfielder from Sierra Leone that also holds a British passport. He started his career at Watford and even managed to get 16 Premier League appearances there. Then he moved to Blackpool and for some reason got released on a free transfer this summer. He is still young and I hope that he’ll do his best to revive his career at Dorchester.

I already had another three central midfielders, Simon Ferry, Mimoun el Kadi and Chris Herd, but another good one can’t hurt especially when he comes for free and you don’t have to pay his wages. Young Dutch creative midfielder Zakaria Labyad joined us for a season long loan from Liverpool, the lad has good potential and I can only hope that he’ll show some of his talent in League One this year. Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Now let’s move on to the strikers, a pretty important area of the team. With Omar Koroma and Szymon Kazmierowski confirmed for a new season I needed another pair to improve my striking force. I was pleased to capture Peter Singh, an 18 year old English prospect that was released on a free by Manchester United. He surely can’t compete with Rooney for a first team place at Old Trafford but I believe that he has good potential to succeed at a lower level.

The other striker that joined us this summer is 21 year old Jonathan Obika, a strong lad that was released on a free transfer by Stoke. He already managed to get two Premier League appearances but he also got some League One experience while being sent out on loan. As a short term safety measure I brought in another striker on loan for three months, Michael Garrity from Everton.

So, I have a 27 man squad at my disposal for the start of the season. It’s a pretty young squad overall and I can say that three or four of these players might be sold in December, I just can’t decide which ones right now :)

I arranged eight friendly games together with my assistant and the matches went pretty well overall apart from the 3-1 defeat at the hands of Championship side Doncaster. I was pleased with the results against MK Dons and Notts County, fellow League One teams, and delighted with the win over Championship side Fulham (that’s right, they just got relegated with Roy Hodgson in charge!)

Here’s how my assistant evaluates the team but I have to say that I will rotate the players a lot at least during the first couple of months. So there won’t be a standard starting eleven, probably until the second half of the season.

The bookmakers think that we have a good chance of getting relegated and so do the media, their prediction is, as usual, that we’ll finish last.

After completing all the transfers and also bringing in some new staff I found myself 5,500 pounds over the weekly wage budget. The board was clearly unhappy with that but when I checked the finances I was surprised to see that the club had more than 600K in the bank! Most of that money came from season ticket sales (we sold 1,800!), TV rights and player sales. I thought I could ask the board to adjust the wage budget a bit since they had all that money. Their answer was not very pleasing though.

They did relay the pitch though, we’ll finally play on a decent surface at least until the heavy rains will start pouring down. That’s how our pre-season went, lots of activity and no money spent on transfers… I can’t really say what I expect from the new season, I can only hope that my players will manage to cope with their League One opponents. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the post and the first Premier League match day ;)