Vauxhall Motors Story: Preparing for a title challenge

Hello folks and thank you for coming back to read another episode of the Vauxhall Motors Football Manager 2011 story! After the historic Europa League success the team had to aim even higher: we finished third in the Premier League and the mighty Motormen were going to play Champions League football for the first time in the club’s history. I see the Champions League only as a bonus for now though, my target is to mount a serious Premier League title challenge and maybe even win it in the end. Winning the title isn’t easy though so I had to be very careful on the transfer market, the team definitely needed some reinforcements.

The board was not aiming as high as I was, they would have been happy with a respectable position. I think that we’re quite respected in the Premier League already so I told them that I want to challenge for the title and they gave me 41.5 million pounds to spend on the transfer market. The wage budget could have been a bit higher since most of the top clubs spend at least three time the amount I was offered but I guess it’s OK for now.

The bookmakers seem to have a better opinion of us now, I advised the chairman to bet some of his wealth on the Motormen :) The media prediction is better as well, the journalists predict that we will finish 8th! I remember that we finished 9th when the prediction said 20th, then 3rd when the prediction said 17th, now I guess we should finish somewhere… above 1st! :)

Alright, enough joking, now let’s get to the real business: the transfers! As you might remember from the last update I was looking to bring in three new players: a left back, a left midfielder and a central midfielder. As you can imagine I brought in much more than three players… :) Let’s see who they are, role by role.

First, our new goalkeeper: Luis Guilherme. He joined us on a free transfer from Ukrainian club Dnipro and because of his arrival Dean Bouzanis was sold for 4.8 million pounds to Southampton. The Brazilian seems to be better than Bouzanis and I hope that he will do a good job between the sticks.

Our new left back might become a future star, he is only 18 years old but I paid no less than 10 million pounds for his transfer from Swiss club Neuchatel Xamax. This youngster has great mental skills for his age, good technical attributes as well but he might need a bit more speed to become world class. However, he is the best left back that I could find (when I say the best I mean that he represents the best balance between price, wage, current ability and potential ability).

I sold former left back Nikao for 4.5 million pounds and when I received an offer of 4.1 million for Grant Baddeley I decided to take it because I had a better option available: Finnish versatile fullback Hans Larsson, a player that I have followed for a few seasons and that was available for only 3.5 million pounds from Everton.

That’s about all about the defense, now let’s move on to midfield. I already had a first choice right midfielder, Leandro Velasco, but I felt that I needed better backups. Fortunately I found two very good players that were transfer listed: Ravel Morrison and Abdallah Yaisien. I decided to buy them both and I paid 1.5 million for Morisson to West Ham and 2.5 million for Yaisien to Manchester United. I think that these two are better than my former backups and I also managed to get good money for them: 5 million for Stephan El Shaarawy and 250K for a season-long loan for Marcelo.

And now, the most expensive signing of the summer. I desperately wanted to bring in an influential and talented central midfielder but I have to admit that I had quite a few problems here. It’s quite a paradox: there were good players available for low prices but I couldn’t afford their wages or they were not interested in signing a contract with us. Anyway, I broke the bank and paid no less than 17.5 million pounds to Brazilian club Internacional for Tinga, a former youth international. His qualities are exactly what I need in my style of play, he is both creative and hard working, but I admit that I paid more than I should have for this guy.

Fortunately I managed to recover some of that loss on the other central midfielder I bought, he was transfer listed for some reason and Inter Milan let him go for just 2.5 million. If you add that I sold fringe central midfielder Elias Kost for 3.9 million then I guess we can say that we came out pretty well in the central midfielders area.

I’m quite proud of my new first choice left midfielder, another Brazilian. I paid 7 million pounds for him to Ukrainian club Dnipro but I believe that he’s well worth that much considering his great skills. I hope that his quickness will improve as well through training and maybe this 18-year old will become a world class player.

I didn’t really want another left midfielder but I couldn’t resist when I saw Real Madrid offering Javier Garcia (Ana’s younger cousin maybe :) ) for just 1.8 million, I snapped him up and sold Andrew Driver for 5.25 million!

If you add up the sums I paid 46.3 million for these new first team players, nine of them in total. However, I didn’t stop spending until I reached the 60 million mark and I brought in a wealth of youngsters that will be developing in the reserves team for now. There will also be six more players that will be joining the club after six months or a year, talented South Americans that you will see at the right time.

I am quite happy that I managed to make no less than 35 million pounds from selling fringe players and youngsters that had no future at the club anymore.

As you can see I have a pretty large squad now, 27 players, but I guess that’s because I still have last season’s injury crisis in mind. Let me give you a quick report for each role, you can see the player profiles by clicking their names:

Goalkeepers: Luis Guilherme, Jack Butland

Right backs: Julian Marino, Kwabena Quartey

Left backs: Pierre Touya, Hans Larsson

Centre backs: Javier Godoy, Julian Bazzi, Louis Laing, Mervin Simon

Right midfielders: Leandro Velasco, Ravel Morrison, Abdallah Yaisien

Left midfielders: Tiago, Javier Garcia, Andrew Surman

Central midfielders: Tinga, Radek Vecera, Graham Howson, Denís, Mark Brown, Shyamdew Weibolt

Strikers: Zé Carlos, Parana, Wellington Paulista, Ibrahima MBow, Pavol Vesely

Now I also have a pretty strong reserves team, most of these lads will be sent out on loan as some of them really have great potential.

I thought that we were the biggest spenders in the Premier League this summer but that was not the case, Manchester United beat us with a staggering 39 million pounds fee for Real Madrid‘s Mesut Ozil and a total of 77 million.

I arranged eight friendly games this summer and I’m pleased to report that we have won all of them. The first two produced a couple of nice goals (click here to watch Parana‘s goal against Partizan, click here to watch Leandro Velasco‘s goal against Metalac) and the last three saw us beating strong teams like Boca Juniors, Villarreal and Corinthians.

Our season will begin with a tough match at Villa Park and then we will have another historic event for the club, the UEFA Super Cup against Champions League winners Atletico Madrid. Then we’ll have a tough away double against Chelsea and Tottenham, I guess we’ll know pretty soon if we have what it takes to win the title or not.

Before wrapping up the post I have to deliver a few screen shots that were requested by some of you on the last post.

For Sibo: the current club icons and legends. If you don’t know who Terry Fearns is, have a look here.

Jack requested a screen shot of Bojan‘s current profile (in the year 2017). I guess he’d be a good signing but he’s not interested for now.

And now a bonus: a picture of my famous notebook! :) (I use it to take notes during the game, this page is he latest one!)

That’s about it folks, I hope that you enjoyed this shorter than usual post. I’m looking forward to your comments and predictions and feel free to submit any screen shot requests.