Pickard: Club Brugge — Season 3 (Pre-Season)

Hey everyone!

Welcome back to my Club Brugge save. Sorry it has been a while since my last post, internet problems didn’t help, but we’re back in business and in this post I will bring you Season 3’s Pre-Season. Last time out you’ll remember that we didn’t regain our League Title, finishing second behind Treble winning Genk, however we did finish in a Champions League position and qualified for the qualifying stages of the competition. Right on with the show… 

The board didn’t give me an option…they wanted a title challenge.

Also they announced… 

Nice to see a team I’m managing make money, doesn’t happen that often.

BREAKING NEWS 

It didn’t take me long to make up my decision… 

I wasn’t interested in taking the job…it wouldn’t have been a challenge, besides I haven’t completed all my objective as Club Brugge Manager.

Transfers IN/OUT 

This was a fairly quiet transfer window for me, normally I sign more players but I was happy with most of the first team and was looking to strengthen in a few areas. I felt that I needed to improve the strike force of the team, so as you can see a few strikers left and also a few backup players.  Paul-Jose M’Poku went on loan to get him some game time, he turned down our feeder club which was a shame because he would have been given first team football week in week out. Let’s have a closer look at signings…

Leo 

Definitely signed for the future, I finalised this deal back in my first season but due to the Brazilian transfer rule he couldn’t join until he turned 18. He has potential to be a 3.5 star rated striker so fingers-crossed. He’s been loaned out to my feeder team Wetteren who are in the second division, so hopefully plenty of game time will help his growth.

Devlin Ndinga 

Brilliant deal thanks to my scouts, Ndinga is currently a 3.5 star rated Defensive Midfielder with amazing Physical Attributes. His Work Rate and Teamwork are also high with great anticipation and demon positioning, he will definitely be able to fill in when Phillipp Klement is fatigued. Plus he’s only 24 and has plenty of years left in him. Check out his value…1.9m and I got him on a free.

Yaya Sanogo 

Since the link with Barcelona was sent up in the first season, they have normally sent me players only worthy of a U21’s start, but this season they have sent me a pure beast. I was very disappointed in my strikers last season and Yaya would definitely help strengthen that position with his truly amazing finishing and composure.  He also has a great aerial threat and I’ll hopefully use that to my advantage.

Jo 

Couldn’t believe he was out of contract and that he was interested in signing for us and then to accept a £12,000 a week contract was unbelievable. Brilliant attributes for a striker and he should definitely be able to do a job in the Pro League. Jo still has age on his side and we’re all hoping that he can reignite his career with us. 

Tom De Mul 

Signed as backup for Hao Junmin, he is a Belgium player so helps with the match squad rule if need be. He possess good crossing, drilling and decent crossing attributes as well as decent pace. Still only 26 he has a few years left in him and should be able to cover well. 

Jonas Ivens 

With Carl Hoefkens nearing retirement age, Ivens was signed for defensive cover, he’s Belgian so again helps with the match squad rule. He has great Teamwork and Work Rate stats with awesome strength and fairly decent speed for a defender. He strangely has unbelievable Penalty Taking stats too. At 170k he was too good to let go and I managed to beat Genk to the signing of him.

We also had a bit of a scare. Fulham came sniffing for Hao Junmin… 

Thankfully the board didn’t accept the deal, but 4.2m when we signed him for 375k is brilliant.

So that’s the Transfers…Hope did the Pre-Season match go…well… 

A nice, unbeaten pre-season against decent opponents. It was nice to see Youngster Nick Van Belle get on the score sheet against sc Heerenveen.

Champions League Qualifiers

The draw was very kind to us and we managed to avoid the likes of Shakhtar, Ajax, Benfica and Rubin. Larisa should be a comfortable match, which will be in the next post.

Last but not least for this post is…new season…new kits… 

That’s it for this pre-season post, thanks for reading and I’ll bring you the next update, which will include all our matches from July to September (Big update). Thanks again

Regards

Martin