Hello everyone welcome back to my Liverpool story! It’s time for another update, which will be a short one, about the pre season of my fifth season with Liverpool, 2013 — 2014. I didn’t expect much transfer activity in, despite having $70m to spend after the season expectation was set at ‘ Title Winner ‘. This does put quite alot of pressure on me, but I am confident we can secure the title once again.
Here are the transfers that happened, both in and out of the club.
As you can see, there was only one player signed in pre season, with eight players leaving the club. First let’s see the transfers out. Stewart Downing was sold because he has never impressed during one and a half years at the club. I have young left winger Axier Kortadi back after a loan spell at West Ham, so I will use him as back up to David Silva. Ronnie Williams is a 17 year old right winger who has come through the youth system. I have sent him out on loan to get some experience, as I feel he could be a good player in the future. Areola was sold because regen Gergely Varga is already better than him despite being younger and I feel that I don’t need both of them. Michael Gartside is another player to come through the youth academy but when Zenit came with a very good offer, I just couldn’t refuse.
So onto the one player who was signed. He is Melvin Delamare, a 15 year old striker. I know that 15 is very young but his stats are already very good and my scout says he has the potential to be better than Fernando Torres. He also said that he would be a quality signing, so I decided to take a risk on him. Have a look at his attributes.
He has very good attributes don’t you think? He’s quick, skillful and a good finisher, and he will only get better, so overall I am happy with the signing.
We played only four friendlies in pre season, as I don’t really like them and try to get away with the minimum number possible. Most of the players are match fit however, so I’m not worried about their fitness.
The game against Antwerp most stands out, of course. We were actually 10-0 up at half time! The scoreline could have been much more but the players took their foot of the gas in the second half.
There was one big game in pre season, though. We were against Man Utd in the Community Shield. After beating them in the Champions League final at the end of last season, I was confident we could win at Wembley. We played much better than them all game but Rooney gave them the lead in the first half. We created alot of chances but we were wasteful in front of goal and luck wasn’t on our side either, as we hit the post and the bar. Man Utd killed the game off in the second half when Anderson beat Reina to the ball and rolled it into an open net.
I was disappointed with the result but I was pleased with performance, because we carved United open a number of times and that can only be a good sign.
That about concludes a pretty uneventful pre season and I am now looking forward to playing some competitive games. We have four fixtures to play in August including the European Super Cup final against Valencia.
That’s all for now folks, thanks for reading.
Kevin Mayo
16 февраля, 2010 at 21:59
Hi Laxeyman
Did your scouts finf that 15 year old or was it your own search filter? He looks great. Very good results in the friendlies and hard luck against United.
Sears
16 февраля, 2010 at 22:03
Laxeyman,could you please tell me what tactic you used in your first season and the tactic your currently using? much appricated.
Laxeyman
16 февраля, 2010 at 22:07
Hi Kevin, I found him through a manual search, then I set a scout on him a couple of times, and he came back with a really positive report, so I went for it.
Laxeyman
16 февраля, 2010 at 22:10
Sears, I am using a tactic that’s 4-4-2 with an MC pushed back to DMC (Mascherano). I didn’t actually create the tactic, I just did it manually by changing player settings and moving the player positions around.
Johnny Karp
16 февраля, 2010 at 22:42
Well done Laxeyman, you seem to have found a real wonderkid. His attributes look amazing for his age, I bet he’ll be a first team player by the age of 17. Too bad about that Man Utd defeat though, it looks really unlucky. And a quick suggestion to wrap up the comment, if you still have a lot of money to spend you should maybe look to invest all of it into under 18 youngsters that your scouts might have recommended to you.
Laxeyman
17 февраля, 2010 at 01:17
Hi Johnny, thanks fir the comment. About investing in youngsters, I don’t think I need to as I’ve got 10 very good young players, 5 of them are wonderkids. Thanks for the suggestion anyway though.
cory berman
17 февраля, 2010 at 02:32
yo laxeyman
im new to your blog and so far its been suberb, Dont know if you would do this sort of thing but if your not using aany of that money why not spend it all on a huge superstar, give it a season and if it doesnt work sell him back.just a suggestion. you’re the expert
Lye
17 февраля, 2010 at 02:51
Hi Laxeyman, great that the squad remain unchanged and the players can start the season right away with no problems. I agree with Johnny that you had gotten yourselves a wonderkid, his attributes is awesome for such a young age. Will you be sending him out on loan to gain some experience under his belt?
TheZiggy
17 февраля, 2010 at 14:45
It’s great that you have young players coming through to replace those that you’ve moved on. Your young striker looks scary for his age, and should develop into a very classy player in a few years.
Another frustration against Man United. You seem to be able to outplay, but so often they get the goals to win the match.
Laxeyman
17 февраля, 2010 at 15:28
Thanks everyone for the comments. Lye and The Ziggy, I am pleased with Delamare, his truly are amazing. Hopefully he can develop into a world class player. It seems that we just can’t seem to beat Man United. They are our bogey team, if you like. What makes it even worse is that we always play better than them, they either get lucky or Foster puts in an amazing performance (as happened in that game).