FM 2012 Scarborough AFC season 10 report: Giant strides

Hey guys and welcome to my FM 2012 Scarborough AFC season 10 report. My last update saw the Seadogs finish their first ever season in the Premier League 6th. This outstanding achievement meant my boys would experience European football in the Europa League, obviously I’d need to strengthen in the summer but there is much more than transfers to look at. Today’s post will be a long one so buckle up for a nervy ride!

I actually forgot to get a screenshot of the boards expectations and media odds. But the clubs owners demanded a top half finish which led to a transfer budget of £26 million and extra £260K a week in wages.

I put my new riches to good use but not before offloading a few players. All our departures were no longer needed and some didn’t even warrant a transfer so I had to settle for loan deals. A total of £11.75 million was raised and every penny was reinvested in the squad.

Now for your favorite part of the season, my summer signings. Almost every area of my squad was strengthened and most of these signings would become rotational players at least. The best of my signings came in defense with new centre back Timo Finke and upfront with my new 24 year old prolific Brazilian striker Vieira. (Both players profiles can be seen by clicking their names.) My summer spending hit an all time high of £35 million meaning a net spend of £23.25 million.

Premier League results — first half of season

After such a successful first season I set myself the goal of 4th place…while that may have seemed like a stretch looking at the quality in England, I felt like the summers additions would give us the edge that was lacked last season. And I was proven right by our early form as Scarborough won the opening three games including a 3-1 victory over Man Utd. Then despite a loss to West Ham we carried on winning against Wigan and Birmingham before things got tough. A difficult fixture list and bad luck with injuries saw my boys draw the next two against Arsenal and Newcastle before losing to both Manchester City and Chelsea. With a tough run out the way we regained composure though and went onto win 5 and draw one of our next 6 matches.

The good end to December left us sitting 4th, just four points off top spot but also just five points above 7th. The season was well and truly up in the air, anyone in the top half could challenge for Europe and the title seemed like a bizarre four horse race.

Stepping back a little to November I had some very good news, my board showed their support and enthusiasm by coughing up £12.25 million. This helped raise the bank balance significantly.

But the good news didn’t end there. My board then decided to reward me for their own generosity by upping the transfer budget to £16 million…I love you Jordan Bradshaw!! ;)

I secured the signature of a genius central midfielder in Ryan Simonin, after Cardiff’s relegation he was available for £2.2 million but I couldn’t capture the 23 year old during the summer, so was delighted to finally get my man. I also bought Lukazs Pyda for £5.75 million, I needed a central defender that could dominate aerially and one with some potential to boot so the German seemed to fit like a glove. The season went on while I waited for my new recruits to join in January and when the time finally came my board announced the new expectations.  They were still happy for me to finish in the top half and I agreed, this left me with just over £8 million to spend before deadline day.

I had almost given up searching for talent, the main area I wanted to strengthen was central midfield as I required more depth (you’ll see why soon.) Then my scout provided a report on Arsenal’s Ricky Northwood who I tried to sign in the summer when the player wasn’t interested in a move up North. Well now he had done a U-turn and completed the £5 million switch, an excellent coup that brought our winter transfers up to the £13 million mark.

Yes I have spent a lot of money this season, but I did mention needing more strength in depth and below is one of the reasons…come January we had a long list of casualties and players away on International duty. Besides, my backup CM’s just weren’t good enough.

Premier League results — second half of season

So with Scarborough sitting 4th and my new signings ready to go I felt optimistic going into January. We started in style thrashing Spurs 6-0 at White Hart Lane and then continued with victory over Aston Villa. The next four games were mixed seeing two victories, one draw and one loss. The mixed form continued with two wins and one loss from our next three games, but then what felt like disaster struck as my key centre back Pedro broke his leg and would miss 6 months. This awful injury didn’t seem to effect us too much though as my boys went onto win 9, draw 2 and lost one of our next 12 matches.

The superb late rally had put us right in the frame, not only had Scarborough qualified for the Champions League, but we just needed one point to secure second place but we even had a shout at the title with one game to go.

Just two points behind United with one fixture to go, our game was at home to Sunderland while Manchester United had to travel to Goodison Park for a tough match vs Everton.

I honestly couldn’t have asked more from my players, we had a sending off after 9 minutes, then lost star left winger Carlos to injury just 37 minutes in. All was going wrong but then from nowhere we gained a penalty and Foster converted with a lethal strike. It was all Seadogs from there as we ran out 5-0 victors…I told the lads they were brilliant and then nervously waited after clicking continue…

…I took a glance at the other EPL results as my eye cast over the names Everton and Manchester United. Anything but a win for United would secure the title!!!

Ahhh so close!!! Ow well, my old star striker, Shepherd, came back to haunt us as he scored for United to win them the Premier League title. My boys finished a very respectable second and that means automatic Champions League qualification.

That was the league, but we are only one quarter way there my friends, I still have three more competitions to report on so go to page number 2 for our journey through the cup competitions.

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

FA Cup results

We also made a real good go of the FA Cup, waltzing through to the 5th round after enjoying an easy early draw. We then beat Manchester United at home 4-1 and Chelsea away 4-1 to reach the semi-final where Man City proved too much as we were eliminated 2-0.

League Cup results

This competition felt like our best chance of silverware and therefore featured our strongest players. The risk paid off as Stoke and Birmingham were brushed aside, then Wolves took us to penalties but my boys held firm. Our semi-final opponents were Newcastle and proved to be no match as the Seadogs won the away leg 4-1 and drew at home 1-1. Through to the final where Arsenal await, finally my chance for revenge after losing to them in the FA Cup final during 2018.

League Cup final vs Arsenal

Venue: Wembley

Attendance: 90,000

Starting formations:

Back in 2018 Arsenal played a very weak side against me (remember we were in League One back then.) But this season was completely different, the London club had decided to go all out and featured their top talent to secure some silverware. Its obvious who the favorites were but I had a strong side myself, the defense seemed to be getting more and more solid with every game while Vieira had a lethal touch upfront. I’ll leave you to watch the highlights below and some wonderful goals…but who scored them? Arsenal are in blue and Scarborough are in red.

Match highlights: Click here to watch the League Cup final highlights

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Match stats:

Arsenal shaded the possession but Scarborough had the best of the chances and more importantly, made the most of them too. Both goals came on the break as Vieira and Mangan caught the Arsenal defense napping to get through on goal. I always felt in control of the game and that was probably the most pleasing aspect as my side lifted their biggest trophy to date.

Europa League results

Going into Europe for the first time sounds the battle horn for any club and it was no different for Scarborough. I had no idea how far this club could go during the campaign but wanted to give this competition my best shot. We had one qualifying game to play and that led to the 6-2 aggregate thrashing of Groningen, now it was time for the group draw which could decide our fate in the competition.

Despite been drawn from the bottom seed I landed a reasonable group playing alongside Lille, Hajduk and HSV. We won 5 of these matches and drew just one away to the German side Hamburg. My best result came with the 5-0 thrashing of Lille, even I was shocked but delighted to reach the 1st Knockout round.

We obviously finished top of our group and HSV joined us in the next round finishing 6 points behind in second. My favorite stat from the group stages is defensive, my boys conceded just one goal from all 6 matches.

The first Knockout round drew Scarborough against Sampdoria, not the easiest opponents but certainly one I’d expect to beat and that is exactly what we did winning 4-1 on aggregate. The 2nd round draw pitted us against Spanish opposition in Valencia. A slightly tougher test, but we still prevailed with a 4-2 home victory and 0-0 draw away.

The quarter-finals drew Scarborough against French side Bordeaux, while they had a good team I didn’t feel they could threaten as much as Valencia had in the previous round. And I was right, the first leg was an easy 3-1 victory and the second leg an even easier 2-0 victory. When the semi-final draw came out my initial reaction was relief as Espanyol came out the hat. But then I examined their team and realized the Spanish side had gone from strength to strength and enjoyed a very similar if not better squad than myself. This showed during the first leg away as the Spanish giants dominated and deserved their 2-1 victory. However, the second leg was a different story, my side morphed into some sort of scoring machine and thrashed Espanyol 6-0 to qualify for the final!

Europa League final vs Benfica

Venue: Parc Des Princes, Paris

Attendance: 54,453

Starting formations:

Benfica have a very good side including a prolific goalscorer in Doumbia, while I was missing key players like Ross, Simonin and Mangan due to fixture congestion I still had hope. The first half was very nervy and both sides seemed to be fluffing perfectly good opportunities so the scores remained even. With the second half whistle my boys went up to fifth gear and threw everything at the Portuguese club but Benfica proved very strong defensively. Despite a great performance from Scarborough the game finished 0-0 and went into extra-time where the deadlock still couldn’t be broken…so onto penalties we go!

Penalties: Onto penalties and I selected my best five takers, then decided to leave the rest to chance. After clicking continue and play I checked the teams motivation and almost all of them looked ‘confident about penalties’. This gave me hope and the end result was…

5-4 to Scarborough!!!!! We scored all our penalties my keeper saved Benfica’s last spot kick meaning the Seadogs have lifted their first ever Europa League trophy! An outstanding end to the most amazing season!

Squad stats and finances

After playing so many games and achieving such great results I have a lot of thanks to offer my players. Pyda and Finke chipped in with 14 goals between them from centre back while Mokoena set the record for assists at 17 but was closely followed by fellow CM’s Ross and Anderson who hit 16 assists. My main goal threat was Vieira with 32, but Mangan scored 19 from the right and even assisted 16 while my main left winger, Carlos, scored 12 goals and assisted 8.

Before I show you the finances I’d better show a few things that effected them come the seasons end. Firstly my board accepted a request to improve the youth recruitment which was very poor and still is.

Then they responded positively to my training and youth facility upgrade request. Both will be upgraded at a cost of £3.9 million, the youth facilities are still pretty poor but my training facilities will be at an acceptable level after this recent upgrade.

And then finally the board announced plans to increase the stadiums capacity which was certainly needed. £7.6 million will more than double the stadiums capacity from just under 6,000 to 12,500.

After investing more than £10 million in the clubs facilities and stadium the board also pumped more money into the bank balance which to be honest wasn’t necessary but I won’t complain ;) A massive £28.5 million was invested and that should secure a good transfer budget for next season I’d assume.

£41.7 million is my bank balance come the seasons end, now if it weren’t for my generous chairmen and his investments this figure would be more like -£12 million…I admit that the club is been run out of the chairman’s pocket, but this is only because he keeps pumping money in anyway…in a few seasons time my transfer action should start to make money which will hopefully even out the books and make Scarborough self sufficient.

Well that is all for today and season 10 of this epic journey. Scarborough lifted both the League Cup, Europa League and qualified for Champions League football next season. Who knows, maybe I’ll be wearing that dusty old suit sooner than we think lol :) Until next time thanks for reading and please feel free to comment below.