Preparing for the Bundesliga

Last time out I covered the back end of our promotion winning season, and closed out with some nice stats around how we’d topped the league in terms of team goals, and individual goals (Micanski). Those, along with our huge unbeaten run during the season, were causes for optimism.

It’s not all rosy though, in fact it’s quite the opposite. With Alibaz and Yabo having agreed moves to new clubs before I had the budget to tie them down, and Pietz’s contract running out, things look a little thin in midfield to say the least – particularly if I continue with the 4-2-3-1 project, dropping one of the strikers.

Here’s what I’m expecting in terms of squad depth, although that’s assuming that no-one starts to poach our other prize assets.

Talking of strikers, if I do continue to pursue the lone man, to give me the extra man in the middle of the park, then it’s likely that Marton and/or youth-graduate Kevin Basala will be farmed out on loan for at least the first half of the season.

I’ve included question marks against Gordon as well, for the past two transfer windows Crystal Palace have been after him, and if I get a decent offer out of them then the 30-year-old will probably be allowed to go.

Whilst waiting to see what happens in the front and back departments I spent a while trawling through my scout reports and shortlists, and came up with a handful of targets for midfield; things moved pretty quickly, and before June was out I had a deal in place for a Bosman signing from Huddersfield...

I like the look of this guy a lot, as the static playmaker in the middle of the park. It means that Varnhagen may find himself reduced to a bit part player, although the young German has a better defensive game that may prove useful for games where we play more conservatively. Meanwhile, for a fee of £400k, I also picked up this lad from Juventus...

I’m liking him for the more dynamic role, whether that be a Box-to-Box in our 4-4-2, or the central attacking midfielder in our false 4-2-3-1 – closing down opposition defensive players.

With those two signings, barring any departures, our roster looks nice and complete again.

TACTICAL

Talking about formations and the like, I’ve set up three for the coming season and they’ll come as no surprise. The ‘false 4-2-3-1’ and the Direct 4-4-2 will continue to see play, but given our relative weakness (i.e. the fact that we’ll viewed as whipping boys for absolutely everyone) I expect that we’ll frequently fall back on the relative stability of the 4-1-4-1.

I’m also looking to set up some presets in the Team Shouts area, rather than only doing very minor individual tweaks. Examples might be a combination of Retain Possession, Shorter Passing, Lower Tempo and Work Ball Into Box when I’m looking to focus more on ‘not losing’ than on winning. I’ve been reading The Numbers Game recently - a really interesting read, well worth a look - and the correlation between retaining possession (i.e. not turning the ball over) and overall results is interesting.

In my experience it particularly ties in with what I saw in my original FM2014 save at Strasbourg...

Yeah, I know, I’ll try and stop constantly referring back to that!

...where playing a possession game certainly reduced our goals conceded even if it didn’t boost our attacking play.

What will be interesting is to play a game or two under those shouts, and the compare interception stats for our opponents compared to our ‘usual’ style.

With an eye on tactical variations, particularly the likelihood of playing a holding man, I forked out £900k (plus a healthy contract, including sizeable appearance fees) for a third addition to our midfield lineup...

I actually think that there’s mileage to be had out of retraining Alf to play in the back four, and if we do end up losing Gordon (no sign of it yet, although he’s still marked as ‘WNT’) that could well happen. Looking at his Work Rate and physical attributes though, I’m liking the idea of him bossing midfield.

With a third arrival in the middle of the park I’m leaning towards trying to find loan deals for a couple of guys who saw action last season, in particular Sven Mende. I’d really like to keep more direct control over his development, but realistically he’s going to be fifth or sixth choice and he’s not going to get the game time that he needs.

Before we could jump into the fire with our first Bundesliga outing, the DFB Pokal (German Cup) gave us a first-round tie with Duisburg. The bookies had us down as big favourites, despite the fact that we’d had to battle hard against our opponents in a pre-season friendly; although we ultimately ran out 4-2 winners in that one, we’d twice fallen behind in the game.

I took what I expected to be a rare opportunity to line up with two up front, as well as offering debut starts to Norwood and N’Diaye in the middle of the park. Once again we went behind, in what was largely an uneventful first half, but a late interplay between Valentini and ‘Conan’ saw the big Dutchman level things off before the break.

A better second half saw us in control, with Micanski grabbing the winner, but my main concern was the loss of Norwood with 10 minutes to play and all subs used. A Duisburg defender went straight through our man, and I was half-expecting to come out of the match and be greeted with the news that he’d suffered serious damage. Thankfully that proved not to be the case.

HOW TIME FLIES

The summer was over all too quickly, and pretty soon so was the transfer window. Now I’m not about to claim that, given more time and concentration, we could have further strengthened our side and relieved some of the pain to come. Our budgets were too tight to do a great deal more, particularly when I was mindful that a few of our existing roster were going to be pushing for new deals to bring them to parity with the new guys. That being said, it did feel like we (and by ‘we’, of course, I mean ‘I’) rushed into the season somewhat hastily.

I did have time to get loan deals sorted for Mende (Aalen, in the third tier – not ideal, but better than nothing) and Park Jung-bin (Münster, in the same division). In the case of the Korean I’m starting to have doubts as to whether he’ll ever become a first teamer for us. He has great Flair, and his ability to run with the ball is close to the best in the game, but he absolutely lacks the footballing brain to know what to do with it.

One final piece of pre-league business was that issue of current players’ contracts. Nothing is ever as smooth as we may like, and after trying to satisfy a number of players who wanted new deals I eventually came unstuck – Manuel Torres, who I expect big things from as Salibaz’s replacement, requesting a transfer due to our inability to agree terms. The fact that he was looking to earn another 20% on top of our top earner was the breaking point, and his request was granted (albeit with his asking price set significantly above his value).

FIRST GAME IN THE BUNDESLIGA

Our top-flight season commenced with a run out at Hoffenheim, a side predicted for sixth place and clearly favourites on the day. Based on their favoured 4-4-1-1 shape, and fondness for assists from crosses, I opted to field a 4-1-4-1 with N’Diaye tasked with picking up their AMC. That would allow us two men to double up on their striker whilst our fullbacks tried to cut off the supply lines. I was more concerned with the vague possibility of a clean sheet than in chasing goals.

The idea of a clean sheet lasted less than 10 minutes, as – apparently – did the idea of our big defensive signing sticking to his instructions of man-marking their AMC tightly. Here’s the pair of them circled...

...witness his tight man-marking skills in action (and a great statue impression from our left fullback)...

...witness how both then decide that the ball carrier is the priority...

...or maybe not, at least not for the fullback who now decides that he needs to mark my own playmaker instead. Meanwhile N’Diaye continues to do his own thing...

...bet you can’t guess what comes next?

...followed by a cross to the back post and our first goal conceded in the Bundesliga. It’s going to be a long season!

A well-worked corner routine put the home side two up inside 15 minutes, before I regained some hope when Micanski scored one back on the break. They were just teasing us though, a direct-free kick making it 3-1 before the break whilst our midfield spent their time chasing shadows (mostly each other’s, it seemed).

More out of hope than expectation, I switched up to a 4-4-2 at the break to offer Micanski some support. A central midfield pairing of DLP-S and CM-D tasked with covering the back four. We only conceded one more, but the two goals and one assist for Stanciu – the one man I picked out for close attention – was infuriating.

Having played a good way into the season already (and commented on it on Twitter), you may be aware that I've experienced a number of frustrating moments similar to the above - similar in that my players seem intent on winding me up by doing the most illogical things all over the pitch.

Like I said, long season. Loooooong long season.



That'll do for now guys, keeping it short and sweet. As always feel free to drop me some notes in the comments, or contact me on Twitter @flipsix3_FM.

Finally, before I sign off, I was asked about providing a copy of my 4-3-2-1 tactic for download. Realistically, should you want to, you ought to be able to replicate it from detail that I've posted in previous updates however here's a link to the .tac file on my shared Google Drive space - feel free to give it a whirl.