Stade Malherbe Caen: Summer activities 2011

So what were my priorities this time? I needed a better Goalkeeper as Thebeaux just isn’t good enough to guard our goal in Champions league let alone against the top clubs of ligue 1. Next up would be replacing a few dodgy players like Verkhovtsev, Dady, Monzón etc.

Artem Milevskyi came in june already as he was aquired on a free transfer and the deal had been done since january. A great allround central striker.

To start with I got a pretty decent transfer budget to spend. I told the board that I’d challenge for the Championship this year so they handed me 19,5 M £ and a raised wage budget from 700k to 900k. The wage budget wasn’t much to get excited about but we could do some good signings nonetheless. I sold Monzon right away when AZ Alkmaar wanted him for 4,5 M £. He doubled what i gave for him just one year earlier. He was also a foreigner and I wanted to free up a space in case I found a really good foreign player on the market and I didn’t intend to sell Figueroa, Guarin or Rodriguez. Shortly after that I also sold Verkhovtsev and Dady bringing in another 3,5 M £.

My first signing was youngster Timothee Kolodzieczak (and I spelled it right at my first attempt!). His stats may look below average but i like his physical attributes and some of his mental traits are good. He could turn out to be a reliable back-up defender. I would still need to sign a better leftback.

Next signing was spanish right winger Pedro Leon. He was rather unwilling to join Caen but somehow managed to get convinced by my generous contract offer. I needed a great winger, but maybe i should’ve gone for a leftsided one, seeing as Kakuta didn’t want to return and Russotto is pretty good on the right wing.

The signings came in quick succession as just one day after Ukrainian central defender, Yaroslav Rakitskyi joind from Shaktar for 5 M £. I needed a good partner to Kryvtsov so why not a fellow countryman. My scouts even rate him higher than Kryvtsov. I don’t…

After these signings I tried to find a good goalie but had trouble getting bids accepted. I had my hopes on signing David Ospina from Nice but he quickly became to expensive. Then i tried to sign Landreau and Pouplin but in the end I found the perfect man for the job. Brazilian/Italian Diego Alves from Almeria.

Before this transfer became finished I had managed to sign a few other players who’d do a good job filling out our squad.

Then I found 2 Fullbacks who’ll be my new first choices for next season. Artur Boka and Eggert Jonsson.

Jonsson is actually extremely versatile and that’s the big reason why I spent so much money on him.

I felt I had to sign another striker so I took a look at availble options on the transfer- and loanlist. I found Okaka on top of the loanlist and decided that he was the way to go. I didn’t put any future fee for him and only paid a small fee to loan him. I’ll be looking to sign Romelu Lukaku next season.

The last signing I made was from the free transfer section. Juan Capdevila would strengthen the weak left-back position in case Kolodzeiczak would be insufficient. Capdevila would also be a great role model for the youngster. He’d also hold Pedro company as a fellow spaniard. But the nationalities have been mixed up by now. It’s hard to hold it down to just 4-5 nations.

That’s that. I wasn’t that psyched about my transfers but I was relieved that i found a really good goalkeeper and felt that Rakitskyi and Pedro Leon were good signings.

After my pre-season fixtures, which I won easily, I made some adjustments to my tactics as I was lacking ML players and didn’t really want to put Rodriguez on a wing. Here’s what I came up with.. And don’t put to much attention to the the starting players in this picture.

By moving my wingers up on step i could use both Pedro Leon and Okaka there. Yatabaré and Russotto would compete for the right wing. Milevskyi and Figueroa compete for the Target man position. And having three central midfielders I can implement Verratti more easily, and I have good cover in these positions aswell by signing Heeren, Marcq. Guarin, Rodriguez will cement their positions however and Deroin might get a few chances to shine next to these two. The backline is the same as before except for playing with wingbacks instead of fullbacks.

Here’s the signings summed up:

And here’s the team for this season:

Finally you’ll get to know the group i got in the Champions League:

A tough group. But I can beat both Galatasaray and Ajax. At least at home.

Until next post. Cheers,

Majk