Plymouth Argyle: Season 4; Premier League Preparations

Hello friends and a Happy New Year to you all. So, it’s 2012 which means a new beginning and a fresh start which the same can be said of my Football Manager Story. Last time we finished up with Plymouth achieving unlikely promotion to the Premier League and so the hard work must start to ensure we are able to stay in the top flight of English football.

The Liverpool job offer was indeed very tempting but having brought Plymouth this far I wanted to see how much more could be accomplished with them. Our success over the last three seasons and promotion to the Premier League brought in some financial awards as two new kit sponsorship deals added revenue of £1.2 million.

The board announced the initial budget for the upcoming season which was a massive jump from anything I’d seen before and in a way was quite daunting to have so much money.

However, the financial situation wasn’t all happiness as we had to start to make good on our loan repayments now that we had reached the top division. Also it seems we have taken out another very large loan as well?

Although my players have been very loyal those with 3 stars or less in ability and potential may severely lack what is required for the Premier League and most likely will be sold off at the earliest opportunity.

However there were two players that I wanted immediately to stay and put in bids for both Conor Coady and Federico Rodriguez as they had performed well whilst on loan. Both offers were quickly accepted by Liverpool and Bologna resulting in just over £3.0million being spent in an instance.

With the World Cup well and truly underway much of the attention was focused on Brazil though unfortunately I wasn’t able to send any scouts there to view the talent though before the month was over I did bring in two new defenders.

Finances improved dramatically as we received a huge cash deposit from TV Revenue so with the season expectations meeting coming up with the board  I was hoping for a nice pot of transfer money.

Well that wasn’t to be and I had no choice really than to say avoid relegation. Some good news out of that meeting was scouting was upgraded to anywhere in the world so I’ll have to bring in additional staff as I only had two scouts and one of those has just retired!

Back in my office I realized I had made a fatal error in terms of the clubs finances. The last three seasons I had taken pride in keeping a balanced budget and had dragged the club out of a very precarious situation. In the last month I had totally neglected this and I was shocked to see the result of my carelessness; almost £15,000 over budget in salaries. Some players would be released as their contracts expired and hopefully that would help the situation. I can’t begin to tell you how annoyed I was at myself.

If I wasn’t already upset by a very stupid mistake then this didn’t help matters either…but not a total surprise, though 5000 is a bit painful to read.

The month started off with more bad news on the financial front as we had plummeted to nearly £6 million into the red. Where had all the TV money gone?

The release of 8 players did help the salary situation which was now £2,000 under the £125,000 threshold.

I made three additional signings in early in the month, two on loan from Dutch clubs and Jake Livermore who had been released by Spurs.

These new intakes had affected the finances once more so I adjusted the budgets to compensate which dramatically increased money available for salaries.

In the Southern Hemisphere the World Cup had come to an end with host nation Brazil going out in the semi –final and their neighbor Uruguay winning the tournament. The dream final of England v Brazil would have to wait another four years.

Back in Devon two more players showed up at Home Park and had travelled some distance to join our “Band of Brothers”. The first was more of a sentimental signing as I wanted to pay respect to Johnny for allowing me to post on this site for almost two years now — so in comes Romanian striker Iosif Baesu from FC Timisoara. Right behind him from the Chinese Super League is Zhoa Xuri.

Plymouth Squad:

Goalkeepers:

Not much change here from last season and the only addition is Ronald Plat from Dundee United who will serve as a back-up.

Loris Karius, Aaron McCarey, Ronald Plat

Full Backs:

Right: Ehsan Zamani, Colin Watson,

Left: Bruno Bertucci, Jetro Williams, Onismor Bhasera

Bruno Bertucci comes by way of Grasshoppers and should be ideal for my left flank tactic with good pace, acceleration and determination. I’m also quite excited by my two Dutch loan players who should push for starting places all season long.

Central Defenders:

William Ekong, Conor Coady, Jamie Richards, Ryan Shotton, Daniel Boateng

I needed to boost my central defence and Shotton by way of Stke City seemed to fit the bill nicely. Some EPL experience and not too expensive either and I may be able to take advantage of that long throw attribute of his. Conor Coady dropped from last season’s midfield position into the back four and was also made the new club captain.

Wingers:

Right: Javi Lopez, IIyas Zeytulaev

Left: Marc Pelosi, Yu Hai

No change from last season

Midfielders:

Ball Winning: Jake Livermore, Zhao Xuri

Box to Box: James Wallace, Jaguare

James Wallace is the only survivor from last season in a revamped central midfield. Zhao Xuri was a bargain at £230,000 and although his work rate is a little low his determination will compensate for that. My most exciting and most expensive signing at £3.2 million is 18 year old Brazilian Jaguare from Flamengo. Surprisingly his flair attribute is remarkably low but more than makes up for it everywhere else. I see him as the key player for our season.

Forwards:

Poachers: Alexander Geynrikh, Sanmi Odelusi, Iosif Baesu

Complete: Kudus Oyenuga, Federico Rodriguez

At just 16 years of age Iosif Baesu seems to have great attributes and even though he is currently injured long term I have high hopes for him once he’s back to full fitness.

Behind the Scenes:

I was able to bring in far more staff due to our Premier League status though was limited by the board to a top salary of around £600.00 per week for most of them. Still we made improvements to our scouting network and have better coverage in mainland Europe and South America.

The board has always been very reluctant to improve our training facilities from day one so I haven’t bothered investing in youth players to develop and this season is no different.

I did bring in a handful of new coaches under the same financial restrictions as the scouts though overall our training abilities have increased a little.

Results:

Everything was looking really good until we faced Liverpool and although we only lost by a single goal we were totally outplayed by them and much the same can be said about our final warm up game against Mainz.

 Fixtures:

A tricky opening day game away to Everton to start the season off and I’m confident that we may be able to pick up some points before facing Man City.

So the pre-season update is done and thanks for taking the time to read it. Enjoy the new year break and all the best for 2012.