The Best Laid Plans

“I’d prefer not to bring in a whole raft of new players, especially as our base group of 15 or so seem to have gelled so well...”

- Me, last time. 

One Season Ends, Another Begins

Last time out I posted a quick discussion of potential transfer targets, and had some great feedback (with very varied opinions) as to how you guys would approach the decisions that I was facing. So, whilst pondering which players to approach (and whether I could actually afford to offer any them deals) I played through our final four games for the season.

At the best of times it feel like the summer period flies by far too quick, but in this particular season - where I was still recovering from the disillusionment of the early campaign, that was even truer than usual. Here's how things rounded out in the 2015/16 campaign, and the flurry of activity that saw me playing pre-season friendlies, with new faces, before I knew it...

QUESTION TIME: HAVE YOUR SAY

Hi folks, when I left you last time we were just coming out of the winter break on a run of draws, edging our way closer to my survival target of 36 points from 34 matches.

Two defensive mistakes at the left fullback position saw that run end in a 1-2 defeat at home to Hoffenheim, and resulted in me tightening things up by switching that position to a FB-D Role and Duty combination. It could have just been a case of a player (Bijker, on this occasion) having a bad day, but as my plan was already to try and develop a more solid defence it seemed the way to go.

At Augsburg we went in at half-time with a 2-0 lead, which I thought we were going to throw away when they scored early in the second half, but Jimmy Marton’s first goal of the season – combined with some good defensive play – saw us finish with the two-goal cushion restored.

A narrow win at home to Frankfurt buoyed our spirits for the trip to Munich, where a brave showing saw us concede only twice in a fairly one-sided affair. With ten to play, and 30 points on the board, I revised our target to 40 – more than enough to survive in either of the previous two Bundesliga seasons during the save.

Thanks to some patient play, and more good defending, we notched three wins and three clean sheets to take us to 39 points – adding the 40th with an excellent 1-1 draw at Leverkusen. With six to play we were as good as safe...

Chipping Away At Our Target.

Having had a short break from playing the game, it occurs to me (once again) that my issues are less about adapting to handle deficiencies in my tactics, and more about identifying them in the first place. That and recognising how much of any given problem is down to tactics and how much down to the quality of my players.

Given that I hadn’t played the game for two or three weeks, having left it during the winter break - and then played through the winter friendlies at pace, I decided to jump back in by attempting to view and analyse a full match to try and pick out the main points. Realistically what I probably need to do is view a few matches, potentially with different players occupying certain positions, and look for repeating themes - seeing something happen once or twice can probably be attributed to ‘luck’ but something happening more frequently is likely to be down to the player or the tactics; the latter, in particular, if it’s evidenced with different players in the same position.

I’d initially started the first post-break game in our counter style, but having reached half-time without much in the way of attacking play I’d switched up and watched us boss the second half to offset a two-goal deficit. Because of that, preparing to face Koln I lined up the best squad I could for our 4-3-2-1 shape and dived in.

Promoted Too Soon?

** WARNING ** 

This update is a bit ‘all over the place’ – as was my head for much of the period covered herein. I can only apologise.

Based on the table for the previous two Bundesliga seasons, I set myself a points target of 36 for survival, a tally that would’ve seen us stay up by a country mile last season, although would only have been enough for a relegation playoff spot in 2013/14. So, with a 34 game season, that’s a little over a point per game on average.

That was my only goal, and after three defeats in three games I wasn’t exactly full of confidence...

...particularly as we were to play host to the Hispter’s dream-team of Borussia Dortmund next.

Playing Catch-Up : The (Brief) Story of 2015/16

I’m already in danger of falling into old (bad) habits from my FM Stories days. Back when I used to write on there, I would get to a point where I was writing and stockpiling updates whilst forging ahead with my game(s); on one occasion it ended up with a situation where people were commenting on what I was posting, whilst I was playing the game four seasons down the line.

That’s all well and good in a pure fiction environment, but given that my intention here is to try and learn ‘on the go’ I want to try and get to a point where what I’m playing is no more than a month or so removed (in-game) from what I’m posting. With that in mind I’ve set up a couple of FMC saves* that I can use to scratch the gaming itch now and then, and I’m also going to do some fairly large scale updates to try and get us back close to ‘real time’.

*(One of these might well be producing a one-off update sometime soon)

Without further ado, here’s how the 2015/16 season played out...

Four-Four-One, Plus One : Settling on a Core Shape.

As well as the issues I was experiencing with width, the other factor in my decision to look at our tactics again was that we were getting a lot of possession with the 4-3-1-2 but not a lot of penetration. I actually got criticised by the fans for a negative approach, which seemed off given that it was our only 2-striker formation, it had an AMC in behind, and I was encouraging a number of players forward. It’s seemed likely that the issue was down to individual roles/instructions though.     

A brief conversation with @RTHerringbone ensued, and he explained how he’d been playing with 4-1-4-1 and 4-4-1-1 shapes, functioning with a lone striker. His outlook seemed to be a combination of ‘back to basics’ and giving players the licence to make their own decisions; it was very light on specialised roles and that appealed to me, although given the personnel at hand I could imagine mixing it up a bit.

  

Looking at the options I had in central midfield positions, I considered my approach to such a formation and arrived at the conclusion that I could look to build a fairly uniform 4-4-1, leaving me a ‘floating’ player to deploy as most appropriate. A DMC would help against shapes like the 4-2-3-1, whilst someone like Coco sitting in the hole behind the striker would add to our attack where viable. If it came to it I could always run with two strikers, although I still have a (completely unjustified) dislike for the bog-standard 4-4-2.

If my wide midfield men, who are mostly more suited to the AM strata, could supply from a deeper position then this could well be the shape for me – and as you can see from the Tweet exchange above, I'd started to see encouraging signs. 

New Faces. Tactics in Detail. Kicking Off 2015/16

Just before we move onto a look at the individual formations that we’ll be operating, exciting news on the transfer front as we moved for two central midfielders to potentially fulfil that role of ‘midfield general’ that I was concerned with. Two new names and, apart from Loyalty Bonusses and fees to agents, I’ve not had to pay a penny for either.

First up Jordan Ferri, a long time servant of Olympique Lyonnais – albeit that he only ever made seven appearances for them, along with another thirty or so for their Reserve side in the lower leagues of the French Game.

The suggested roles that our coaches highlight are primarily in the DM strata, but whilst he may play there as a Deep(er) Lying Playmaker, I see him in the middle of the park. His work rate and physicals suggest that he’ll be a good option in the Box-to-Box slot, but his fellow new joiner is more likely to take that role on and I’m expecting to use him more as our central pivot.

Operating alongside Ferri will be our first ‘big’ name at the club during my tenure, someone with extensive experience of top-flight football, and a limited spell in the French game. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the understated, the reserved, and the never controversial Joseph A Barton.

Squad Building and Tactics: Into 2015/16

SQUAD BUILDING

So it’s time set about prepping for next season (2015/16). Given last season’s performance I’m shooting for a top half finish as far as the Board is concerned, but secretly I’m hoping to have a good push at a promotion spot if – and it’s a big ‘if’ – we can bring in a good four or five new players. We’re going to losing some over the summer, and in addition there are a couple of others who really aren’t keeping up with the standard that we’re going to need.

Having filtered things down my senior squad is set at 20 players, and of those three or four might reasonably find themselves on the fringes.