“We are the champions, my friends!”© Queen
Dear readers, long post is awaiting for you today.
Matches and final Championship table
In the end it appeared that the second half of the season had been much easier than the first one. There were no bad series of games at all. So latest row of matches continued our nice run of games without loosing to 21:
Finally Leeds lost to Peterborough when the 1st position was guaranteed:
Analysing statistics of the final table we can notice that my asymmetric tactics is really attacking one – 100 goals were scored in 46 matches. We will see how my tactical approach show itself in the Premier League!
At the current moment the board is, for sure, delighted by the season result:
Leeds players
Ok, here is the final statistics of Leeds players:
The Best Player
Dawid Janczyk – The debutant scored 27 goals in 39(2) matches. What can be better for forward in his first season with new team? Leeds fans agreed with me giving him ‘Player of the Year’ award.
Most Assists by…
Dawid Janczyk – 12 assists. This fact proves he is the best player of the season in Leeds United.
Surprise of the Year
Adel Taarabt – I don’t know how he manages to show such kind of performance. His attributes values are merely lower than his quality of football.
Disappointment
Joel Lindpere and Bradley Johnson – they both played at ML position in rotation. Their poor average ratings prove that left midfielder is the most weak position currently…
Hope of the Year
Marco Verratti – very, very hopeful transfer! Marco made 3 assists in 6 matches with average rating of 7.03.
OK, if I started talking about young talent Verratti then some words can be said about other youngsters. Actually Leeds United has nice prospective youth (average age of Leeds – 23). For instance, once 3 of them took all places in Championship Young Player of the Month award:
Apart from this trio I can single out top transferred Brazilian Giuliano with 9 assists, 3 goals in 37(3) matches. It’s a decent result. Of course, he should perform better in future because his attributes have been growing all the time.
There are also two talents in Leeds that will be used later when they grow up enough – Alphonse Areola and Jano Ananidze.
Leeds Best Eleven of the season
Thoughts about future squad changes
Personally for me this is the most interesting part of this post. It causes several questions which I should answer (and you may help me with that by the way!).
Question #1: Does the Leeds squad need changes before Premier League season?
I can answer it just right now. The answer is Yes. At least a new goalkeeper should be bought at least because Ian Walker announced about his retirement and Alphonse Areola is not ready and quite weak now.
Question #2: What positions should be strengthened?
In my opinion new goalkeeper, strong central defender and left midfielder have to be bought definitely. Though I should think over other positions more intensively.
Question #3: Whether does Leeds need a new forward?
I don’t know. Please, tell your answer on this question. But don’t hurry to answer. Look again at squad selection picture above: Janczyk and Trejo scored 27 goals each, Beckford scored 11 goals in 20(14) matches.
Take a look at Shots on Target statistics for the whole Championship:
You see all three forwards have really high values of shot accuracy. So now I am hesitating among buying new better forward instead of Trejo (he will still be used from substitution bench in this case) and loaning a good striker for substitution bench.
Question #4: What current Leeds players should I sell?
At the current moment I am going to sell Sandrinho, Lindpere and Basturk (he start becoming too slow + Verratti will surely be better than Turkish AMC)…
I am tend to leave Bradley Johnson in the team for substitution. Moreover, he develops himself well during trainings.
Hope to receive some advices for you regarding my questions, especially - question #3. Premier League season is ahead!!!
Previous posts of the season #2:
- Heading the Championship…
- Championship. Just right after “Winter Rush” matches
- Second season started
Thursday, 15 October 2009- Squad revolution before the Championship season
Hull Game Download
As I promised here is my Hull story save. You can download it now from here:
Hull story is finished. The season of 3 finals!
Hello, my dear readers!
The season #7 is over. My Hull has the following results:
What I can say… It was the best season in my Football Manager 2009 career! Let’s analyze a bit results of my club in every tournament.
Premier League
I didn’t cope with Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal at all and disappointed board expectations of getting Premier League title.
By the way my Hull got only 1 point in 3 last Premier League because of second squad players usage. I tried to have 100% conditioned first squad players for Champions League and FA Cup finals.
Three finals
But the results in the other tournaments more than satisfied Hull board.
League Cup
League Cup final was a very dramatic one. We took a lead on the 19th minute and I was already starting to celebrate the first historical League Cup of Hull when Asier (regen forward of Man City) scored a late equalizer on the 3rd minute of injury time. Then sudden penalty brought Manchester City ahead in the score. Unfortunately my guys were unable to do anything with strong defence of opponent during the last minutes of extra time.
FA Cup
Blackburn awaited us in the FA Cup final. It was easy game because Hull is better and more strong team than Blackburn. 2:1 score doesn’t reflect our complete advantage on the pitch of Wembley stadium.
It was my second FA Cup in row!
Champions League
I got so many emotions during the 3 last rounds of Champions League. It was something really special! Quarterfinal with Inter was complicated but not so dramatic as semi final matches against Real Madrid:
Real Madrid – Hull 1:1
Hull – Real Madrid 2:1 (extra time)
The decisive goals in the second match were scored during last minutes of 2nd and 4th times by Manuel Brand.
We had certain advantage in the home match but Iker Casillas was truly perfect performer! I think he is the best goalkeeper in Football Manager 2009!
Look how many cards were shown to Real Madrid players! They battled hardly against my team!
The Final
Ooooh, it was absolutely incredible match!
1:0 – Milovan Rakic scores!
1:1 – Kaka scores!
1:2 – Strange own goal by Ochoa on the 81th minute!!!
2:2 – All out of attack mentality creates one-on-one chance for Rakic!
3:2 – 114th minute. Manuel Brand makes a golden header for our club!
It was really great fight, equal game:
Milovan Rakic got Man of the Match award:
As a result:
This is how my Hull story ends… But don’t be sad if you are becoming sad because Football Manager 2010 is on the way! And new story will begin for you and me…
PS Tomorrow I will post a link on my Hull game save. I know some of you are keen to try it.
Hull. First half of season #7
I am trying to do my best to finish my last season in Football Manager 2009. And this is the latest report about it. Actually about the first half of the season.
Matches
Here are Hull matches of season #7 in 2014:
I want you to pay attention to the Community Shield Final against Manchester United. That was really great victory – 4:1!
The next important thing you may notice in the screenshots is poor start of Hull in Premier League. We managed to loose 3 away matches of starting 5… It decreased my chances of winning title perceptibly.
Tournament Tables
You see there is a gap between Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal and my Hull. But I hope to shorten the distance because in the second half of the season I will play only home matches with these rivals.
Meantime I got quite complicated group in the Champions League having Inter, Lyon and Celtic as opponents.
But excellent 3 wins and 3 tough draws (the one with Inter was really tough) provided the first position in this group. Now Bayern Munich waits for Hull in the next round!
Players sold during winter transfer window
All 5 players were sold because they had been unhappy with their second roles in the team. 33-years old Eto’o didn’t impress me at all.
Player stats
Some Hull player statistics:
Best players of the season #7 first half are:
1. Darwin Suarez – the man who makes goals in my team either scoring or assisting!
2. Diego Buonanotte – the best assister, Hull leader.
3. Javi Garcia – brilliant debut from former Inter DMC! His long shots are amazing!
4. Fabian Monzon – the most confident and reliable defender in my club. Heavy transfer money paid for itself.
5. Milovan Rakic – sometimes he scores wonderful one touch goals from any position on a pitch.
Praising Fabian Monzon I can add the following picture:
PS This is my last weekend with Football Manager 2009. I will start investigating FM 2010 demo on the next Saturday!
Hull. Before the start of the last season…
You know the upcoming season #7 is the last one in my Football Manager 2009 career with Hull. It’s just because FM 2010 is on the way! So without any risk I decided to set up the highest targets for the season and receive maximum of money for transfers and wages:
Win the league! Ye! We can try – though it will be very complicated having such great opponents as Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City. And you see my Hull is on the 4th position following season bets:
Transfers
Players out
I sold Barazite and Witsel who were unhappy with their second roles in Hull. Genero Zeefuik disappointed me during the last season due to his inefficient dealing with ball when there should be goals from his side. So he was sold as well.
Players in
I decided to buy experienced players who can either become new team leaders or add some depth to Hull squad.
Fabian Monzon
The most valuable signing is Fabian Monzon. Left back of Argentina, World cup champion… I paid $53M paid to Villarreal for him. Look at his stats. He is one of the best (if not the best at all) left defenders in my game!
Gojko Kacar
Excellent versatile player from Bayern Munich. Hope to use him on different positions: DR, DMC, MC. We’ll see where he will show himself better.
Javi Garcia
Inter should cry selling this very good DMC to my club. He will certainly be in the first squad instead of my Ukrainian defensive midfielder - Eugene Shakhov.
Joe Cole
Risky $8M transfer aimed at gaining experienced flank attacker. But surely he will start the season from substitution bench because of current team leaders – Buonanotte, Suarez and O’Brien.
Robert Lewandowski
During the last season I had a real problem when leading forward Milovan Rakic had been injured. So I decided to buy two good forwards. Robert Lewandowski is the one of them. I think many of you, my dear readers, tried his services in your team. Now it’s my turn to try him!
Samuel Eto’o
The second forward is the most famous footballer of Cameroon – Samuel Eto’o. Experience of Eto’o should help in the Premier League and Champions League.
PS They predict us the 6th position…
World Cup 2014. My Ivory Coast got the bronze!
It was tough and very interesting competition for me that I had been waiting for a long time.
Currently Ivory Coast national team has a row of really good players like Kolo Toure, Yaya Toure, Emmanuel Eboue, Salomon Kalou and 36 years old Didier Drogba. But when I take a look at squad of Brazil, Argentina or Holland it seems almost impossible to win the World Cup… Anyway great team collaboration and quick direct tactics I use made my Ivory Coast the 3rd best national team in the world!
Matches and results review
The group with Colombia, Sweden and Iran didn’t seem a complicated one.
So after first 2 fixtures we had 6 points and guaranteed the 1st place in the group. Therefore I decided to use players of the second squad for their form estimation in the last game with Colombia. It explains the loss in that game.
2nd Round – Denmark
Denmark wasn’t a strong opponent for us. They have no dangerous forwards in my game at all. Their best one is Nicklas Bendtner who plays in FC Kobenhaven. So you understand if he plays Danish club then his attributes are not impressive.
Excellent strikes of Drogba and Yaya Toure brought 2:0 win:
Quarterfinal – Serbia
National team of Serbia – the first opponent that had squad stronger than the one of Ivory Coast. Vidic, Ivanovic, Jankovic, Kacar, Kuzmanovic and some great regen-players as well... Just look at this brilliant regen forward - Nicola Petrovic - playing in Milan:
His price is $73M!!!
I had some fortune with the fact that Serbian star forward Milovan Rakic (my Hull player) had been injured. As a result he was substituted by Nicola Zigic in the first squad who wasn’t dangerous in the match at all.
Again Yaya Toure, again Didier Drogba and powerful header from Kolo Toure guaranteed the victory:
Semi final - Holland
Mighty Holland, World Cup 2010 champions, were expecting us in the semi final. I remembered our 3:1 win in the Confederations Cup and thought that we have all chances of becoming a finalists. But, but, but…
The class of Holland team was perceptibly higher. Though it was an equal game. The only thing is that Ivory Coast was not so good in shots on target…
By the way, Holland has lost the Final to Argentina with 1:3 score. Two goals - by Carlos Teves, two other – by Pablo Zabaleta and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
3rd place match - Brazil
It is my moment of triumph! Ivory Coast – Brazil 3:1!!! Bets were absolutely against my team but two quick goals by Kolo Toure (9h minute) and Baky Kone (16th minutes) shocked Brazil players and fans! Fantastic commitment by all players of Ivory Coast team allowed to have an advantage in the amount of made shots:
Player ratings of this historical match:
This is my last post about Ivory Coast team in Football Manager 2009. It’s always said to say “Good Bye”. But who knows… maybe I will be managing this flamboyant national team in FM 2010.
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