Vauxhall Motors FC: Blue Square Premier pre-season

Hello folks and welcome to a new chapter of the Vauxhall Motors FC Football Manager 2011 story! It’s a historic moment for the club since it never got to the Blue Square Premier before so we needed to strengthen the squad and exceed the expectations once again. Our fans celebrated the unlikely promotion from Blue Square North last season but I was hoping to see more both from the team and from the fans since I wasn’t very pleased with having just around 100 people in the stands at our home games.

I made several requests to the board during pre-season but only two of those got approved: allowing my scouts to be sent all over Europe and a slight increase to the wage budget. I have also asked them for better training and youth facilities and to relay the pitch but they were unable to accept because of the poor finances. Anyway, I told them that we could achieve a top half finish so they handed me a wage budged of 5.5K per week. No transfer budget this time either :(

As always, we were predicted to finish bottom of the table but that doesn’t scare us anymore :)

Here’s a round-up of the transfer activity: 11 players joined the club while another 11 departed. We got a massive 3,000 pounds from the outgoing transfers, not bad :)

Now let me introduce the new faces. Let’s start with the new pair of goalkeepers, I’m quite happy to have found these two. Canadian youth international Adam Street should be my first choice goalie next season, he was released by West Ham and I seized the opportunity. I think he’s a very good keeper at this level and he also has some potential to become even better.

English youngster James Dunn seems to have enough potential to keep Adam Street on his toes, the 19-year old might have a decent career ahead of him.

I made no changes to the full backs area but I felt that we needed another pair of centre backs to compete with Ryan Carolan and Chris Pendleton for a place in the first team. Oliver Nicholas was the first new centre back to join the club this summer, an Eritrean international that came had the opportunity to be at Arsenal during the early years of his career. Then he moved to Manchester City, Blackburn and Newcastle but never managed to make a first team league appearance.

The other new centre back is Scottish youth international Fraser Kerr, a tall defender with lots of potential. I’ll have to work with him to improve his pace just a bit but he is good enough to be a decent player at this level.

I was planning to make some improvements to the wingers department but I couldn’t find enough worthy players until now. I have managed to get in just one new winger, Spanish youngster Pablo Navas who was released by Portsmouth after coming to England from Barcelona. He has decent technique and pace and I hope that he will settle in quickly.

I have also brought in a new pair of central midfielders, two promising youngsters that could serve the club for a few years. The first one is Turkish youth international Oguzhan Ozyakup, a former Arsenal player that can also provide cover on the right wing.

The second CM is Northern Irish youth international Matthew Ball, a player with exciting potential and decent attributes overall. I wanted him because he has good technique at this level and he could team up very well with Shane Williams in the middle of the pitch. Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

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

The largest improvements were made in the strikers area, I released all of my previous forwards and brought in four new ones! First there’s Nigerian Danny Uchechi, a pacey lad that started his career at Charlton Athletic. His speed and skills could really make a difference, at least I hope they will…

Then there is Gambian international Omar Koroma, you might remember him from my Dorchester FM 2010 career. He was a key player for me back then and that’s why I decided to bring him under my command.

Then there’s an exciting 18-year old prospect from the Netherlands, Akwasi Asante. He is hard working, pacey and a good finisher too but my scouts believe that he has enough potential to become a good Championship striker.

I saved the most interesting transfer for last: former England international Michael Ricketts! OK, he just had one single cap but still, he played for the Three Lions! He earned that cap in 2002 while he was playing in the Premiership at Bolton, he scored 37 goals in 98 apps for the Wanderers! Then he was bought by Middlesbrough for 2.2 million pounds and his career went downhill from there, all the way to Tranmere Rovers from where he was released in 2010! He was unable to find a contract since then and I hope that he will seize the opportunity and revive his career or at least have a happy ending to it.

Here’s my squad, I’ve got 26 lads that are ready to rock the Blue Square Premier! I’m still looking for a better right winger, hopefully my scouts will come up with some good findings.

The assistant is impressed with our attack but not so pleased with the midfield. I disagree with some of his choices though and I think that our midfield has by far the most potential in the whole squad.

I decided to follow Mariano‘s advice and Vinners‘ example for the friendlies so I arranged a few exotic matches to get in some money for the club. We did manage to get in around 50K by playing in Mauritius, Thailand, New Zealand, Argentina and North Korea but I decided to give some of that cash back to a poorer club so I invited a team from Bangladesh to play at Rivacre Park :) The results were not too good until the last few friendlies but we managed to play an outstanding last game at home with Championship side Derby County.

No, you don’t have to put on your glasses: we beat Derby County 5-0 and we scored all the goals before half time! Koroma and Uchechi both scored a double while Kerr banged in a corner kick header but it was a great performance overall as we dominated our supposedly much better opponents. I don’t know if they really are better but one thing is certain: most of the Derby players are earning more every week than our whole weekly wage budget of 5.5K!

I had a quick look at the team facts and I discovered a few interesting things: we have the lowest average age in the league, only 19, the lowest average wage but we have the highest number of internationals and youth internationals!

That’s about it for now, I can say that I’m quite happy with the new transfers but I will continue to scout the market as we are almost 1,000 pounds under the weekly wage budget! Thanks a lot for reading and please share any suggestions of a good young right winger that might join the club for at most 500 pounds per week ;)