The Payoff

Break? What Break?

The mid-season break was spent mostly wrapping up contract renewals, where I wanted to keep someone on, and trying to arrange a couple of Bosman deals. The challenge that’s starting to emerge is keeping things on a tight budget. We currently have only two players earning more than £29k per week, as a baseline salary, but with every sign that we’re set to establish ourselves at the top end of the Bundesliga in the long term players and agents are starting to push the boundaries.

A Quick Recap. Focus Regained.

So I’ve started and scrapped this update about hUa dozen times, trying to retrospectively analyse the back end of the 2017/18 season; the simple fact of the matter is that I played through it, not taking too many notes and just enjoying the ride, so with that in mind what I’ll aim to do here is:

1. A quick recap what happened during the second part of the season.*
2. Have a brief look at the squad and plans for next season.*
3. Look at tactical plans for the coming campaign.
4. Look in a bit of detail at my transfer strategy for the coming season.

Once that’s all done, and we get off and running, I’ll be making an effort to have a closer look at our tactics in action again. So, without further ado...

*(If anyone feels that they’d like more detail on anything then just let me know, and I’ll see what I can dig up for you).

Expectations Exceeded, To Say The Least

Last time out you’ll recall that we’d reached the winter break in a lofty 3rd place, courtesy of one of the best scoring records in the league combined with a surprisingly effective defence – Ryan Donk making his mark in style.

Coming out of the break we’d suffered a league defeat, and then a DFB Pokal exit at the hands of FC Bayern, and I’d expressed concern that we were in danger of getting onto a bad run as we closed in on a trip to Dortmund. The slide, such as it was, was slowed by a goalless draw at home to Nürnberg but we made it four games without a win despite scoring twice against the title contenders.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, momentum – in either direction – plays a big part in FM and I was conscious that we were in danger of getting on the wrong side of the curve. Cue the visit of mid-table Köln and a game that couldn’t have gone much better...

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...

KSC : Season 2014/15 Finishes

Last time out I was talking about our pseudo-4231 formation, using a tweak on the Central Winger concept developed by JLAspey, and I left you with some detail around the superb performance against Aalen. 

After the Aalen game we continued our fine post-break form with three more wins (conceding just twice in the process), before a 1-1 draw at home to Sandhausen reined us in slightly.

So So Close.

I’d already mentioned on Twitter that I was in two minds about promotion, on the one hand we have a handful of quality players, and a number of decent prospects, but on the other I just don’t think that we have the strength in depth to even battle for survival in the top flight. Of course I said that at Strasbourg too, where we promptly had a good run at European qualification two seasons running, but that was after I’d spent two or three years moulding my squad. 

Realistically I was looking at this season at Kalrsruhe being one of finding my feet, and preparing to build a squad for a promotion push next time around.

So Much For Taking It Slowly.

So much for taking it slowly. I’m sure you’ve all been there, assuming that you play Football Manager and don’t just read about it; you get on a roll and you don’t want to stop, or you hit a slump and you want to play through it – then, when you do, you get on a roll and... yada yada yada.

The next thing you know you’re feeling peckish, there’s nothing in the fridge, so you decide to pop out to the local corner shop…

How Did It All Go So Right?

First up, the headlines. Did we make it into European competition? No, we did not, thanks to SC Bastia’s inability to beat PSG in the French Cup final. Despite their 15^th place finish, the fact that they got to the final gives them the final qualifier spot for the Europa League. Had they somehow won, we would’ve been in, but I suspect that they never had any intention of actually trying, why bother? They'd already stolen our thunder. 

Selfish bunch of wasters.

How Far Can A +9 Goal Difference Take You?

So here we were, embarking upon RC Strasbourg's first season in the top flight since the run of eleven successive defeats that saw them relegated at the end of the 2007/08 season - a record for post-war French football. Not only had the intervening time seen them drop further still, but liquidation of the club in July 2011 saw them removed from the league - later reinstated in the fifth tier. 

This was our chance then, a chance to return the Alsatian side to the French elite and, hopefully, battle hard to stay there. 

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...

Onwards and... well, not upwards unfortunately.

Frustrations and Patience 

or ‘How not to give up and start a new save just because you’re not tearing up the leagues’.

First let me qualify that title by stating that I’ve never been one to crave success to the point where I just keep flitting between different top teams, but in the past I have had a history of starting various saves that only lasted for a season or two. That wasn’t due to performance, but was more down to my writing on the Stories Forum over at SI Games – and the fact that my imagination and ideas ran far faster than my ability to keep up with them. I used to have at least two saves running at all times, sometimes as many as four, and it wasn’t unusual for at least a couple of them to be very short-lived.

In terms of career games I actually prefer something of a slow-burn to start, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally suffer from itchy feet when things get into a rut. Towards the end of the 2014/15 season I found myself beginning to think that way at times, but more on that later.

WHEELING AND DEALING

Two factors dictated the deals made in December, firstly the concern that we were effectively operating with just two first-team strikers, and secondly the fact that one of them (David Ledy) refused my continued attempts to extend his contract and signed a deal for a summer move to Angers SCO. Even ignoring the potential for injuries, it made no sense to just keep plugging away with David and wait until summer to bring replacements in, so with that in mind I picked out the following players from my scouts’ reports.

A Breakthrough (?). Season's End.

If they’ve done nothing else, the early stages of my blog will doubtless have evidenced just how one dimensional my thinking has been in trying to make early inroads at Strasbourg…

...Okay two dimensional, I’ll be generous to myself.

Whilst I’m fully aware that the days of plug-and-play tactics are long gone, and I have no expectations of a quick fix, I’ve still been somewhat guilty of just scratching the surface in terms of my initial approach. In my desire to iron out single issues (long shots) I’ve tended towards looking at sections of my formation in isolation, rather than considering the eleven men as a whole. To give myself some credit I did recognise from the off that it’s not a simple question of telling a player to shoot less, and that it’s about creating better chances and space; it’s doubtful whether the changes that I’ve tried to make actually address that though, even given that I’ve been looking at a very brief period of time for the team to adapt.