Warren — FM 2011 Hartlepool United 2014/15 Part 1

Hi everyone and welcome back to the north of England and to Hartlepool United. After just managing to survive last season it was imperative that I spend well in the summer to take this club to the next level. I got a budget of £22 million to spend and I will now go through the ins and outs of the summer before revealing my aspirations for the season and finishing off with a look at the pre-season results.

OUTS

A total of 8 players departed the biggest ones probably being Jermaine Beckford who hit some form at the end of the season but his performances in other games proved that he wasn’t all that and I decided to cash in on him. Another big departure is Scott Flinders who was the last of the original players that started in my first season as Hartlepool manager.

INS

I used up the entire transfer budget before the season had started and that brought me 13 new players with 11 of these players being permanent deals. Let’s see who I managed to persuade to come to the North of England.

Albin Ekdal — £2.5 million from Aston Villa

Matthew Chambers — loan till the end of season

Dimitri Payet — £1.4 million Sunderland

Fraizer Campbell — £4.8 million from Fulham

Kyle Naughton — £2 million from Aston Villa

Tiago – free transfer

Stiliyan Petrov – free transfer

Steven Pienaar – free transfer

Leon Thompson – loan till end of the season

Emmanuel Adebayor – free transfer

Joe Cole – free transfer

Wayne Hennessey — £12 million from Wolves

Chris Basham — £1.6 million from Birmingham

Season Expectations

I am really happy with the amount of business that we were able to get done over the course of the last few months. With a little bit of luck I feel that I should be able to reach a mid-table position and possibly push on for a European spot but that would take a lot of hard work and effort.

Pre-Season Results

A half decent pre-season with some new signings getting on the scoresheet but I knew that this is only used as a warm-up for the season and I could wait to get started again in my 5 season as Hartlepool manager.

Thanks for reading

Warren