Football Manager 2014 – Networked Career Season 5

Season 5 is upon us! Can Dave’s Daggers survive in the Championship? Can Mike’s Morcs make a promotion push in League 2? All will be revealed…

(Links to previous seasons: Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, and a reminder to click on photos so you can actually see what’s in them!)

Morecambe Season 5 (2017-18):

As you have probably come to expect, season five opens with your noble hero (yours truly, whatever Dave may try to convince you of) signing some players on free transfers and selling some players to try in vain to balance the books. Unfortunately the financial circumstances dictated that there would have to be some reasonably “big name” (by Morcs’ standards) departures.

It was a particular shame to see Lionetti go – Morcs will miss his refined left foot and the general novelty of having a classy player around. Unfortunately you just can’t say no to £235,000 when you are over half a million pounds in debt…

There were no major incomings to note – I mainly signed some young up and coming players in the hope that this would facilitate some kind of buy-low (err… zero) and sell-high strategy.

Tommy Spurr turned out to be a very handy addition to my back 4. Tim Jakobsson is a handy centre midfielder who appears to be a prospect. Keith Southern by this point is basically an old man who I brought in to try and add a bit of experience to what is a very young squad. Note that Andy Parrish, Morcs utility defender extraordinaire, appears on both lists – I resigned him when I realised that I couldn’t afford anyone better!

So, with all of these changes to the playing staff, you might imagine that this season would be a bit of a slow burn – with the new guys taking some time to settle. Fortunately, the core of my starting 11 was largely unchanged barring Lionetti – who was replaced by a player on loan from a certain Dagenham and Redbridge. The player in question being the extravagantly named Stuart Laidlaw-Wilson: or SLW to his friends. I’m not quite sure where Dave found this guy, but he looks a real talent for the future – and in exchange for a promise of first team football it was agreed that he would make the trip north to Morecambe for the season.

This stability appeared to have an immediate upside as Morcs started the season very strongly. For example, in early September the League 2 team of the week was:

This is from the week which included a 6-1 win away at Luton… [Dave: Booooo!]

And thankfully, this pattern continued for a little while. At approximately 1/3 of the way through the season, Morecambe were somewhat unthinkably sat in the automatic promotion places:

I think I feel a nosebleed coming on…

Unfortunately, by winter the lack of strength in depth in the squad was starting to show. Somehow I had achieved the feat of having plenty of players, but not having enough who were actually ready to play for the first team. Hopefully the experience did the kids some good.

Much of my early season form was based on being reasonably defensively sound – so when I saw this, I began to fear the worst:

Jackson and Delfouneso both out? This means trouble.

Unfortunately it turned out that I was right. Injuries and a loss of form dashed my hopes and meant that Morcs’ performances during winter were not great… which inevitably translated in to a slide down the table. To give you an idea of the results:

A bit of Christmas cheer on Boxing Day being the only win in a run of 12 games was not a good omen for my automatic promotion hopes.

Thankfully things picked up again towards the end of the season though and Morcs stayed in play-off contention right until the last game…

If only Morecambe could play football in the winter…

But unfortunately, we missed out on a play-off spot: losing to Oldham on the last day of the season.

Despite this, the improvement over last season – and the fact that relegation was never really a strong possibility… even in the middle of the mid-season dip – was significant, and that is hopefully a sign of good things to come. If I can balance the finances and keep the core of this team together for another season, then there were enough bright spots in this season to leave me thinking that a play-off spot might one day be mine.

Summary

League 2: 8^th / 24. 67 points: An agonising 1 point off the play-offs (and a comfortable 23 off the drop). 4 points more than last season, the gradual improvement continues.

League Cup: Thrashed 4-1 at Crewe in the first round. Bad Morcs.

FA Cup: Out in the first round vs. Leyton Orient. For the second season in a row! Took them to a replay this time though.

JPT: Lost on penalties (the theme recurs) to Tranmere in the… one more time… first round.

Best signing: Stuart Laidlaw-Wilson (SLW)? Not really a signing I can claim as I had him on loan from Daggers, but not much competition. The young striker provided a much needed additional creative spark up front. He ended the league season with 15 goals and 12 assists. Honourable mention goes to Adam Buksa – a young polish striker loaned in with a view to buy.

Novelty signing: Bakary Sako. I (as a Wolves fan) thought I had achieved a major coup by bringing Sako to Morecambe. Turned out there was a very good reason he was available for free…

Player of the Season: Emmitt Delfouneso – outstanding for a second season in a row. I lost count of the number of games he single-handedly kept us in.

Net Transfer Spend: +£782k: yet somehow we are still in the red?

Top Scorer: Alex Samuel again. Notching 20 league goals and again acting as the focal point of the Morcs attack… when fit.

Most Assists: Ruben Lameiras, continuing his development and looking very promising: 15 assists and 9 goals this season for the young winger. He is very good for League 2.

Best Moment: The completely unexpected 6-1 away win at Luton mentioned above – achieved whilst providing Luton-fan-Dave with increasingly incredulous text commentary. The 6 consisted of a Samuel hat trick plus goals from Delfounso, SLW and Lameiras – like some kind of greatest hits compilation.

TLDR Summary: An improved Morecambe start strongly but narrowly miss out on the play offs. Promising signs for the future.

Rating: 3 / 5 Tiny Balotellis

Mario starting to get bored of League 2 now

Dagenham & Redbridge:

Pre-season Thoughts:

So, Daggers in the Championship. This should be fun…

I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this season. Well, that’s a slight lie – I expect to be thumped by pretty much everyone and be relegated by February. However, after last year I’m not sure my predictions really count for much when it comes to this team! Honestly, I expect to be in the bottom 3 come the end of the season, but I hope I can blood some youngsters and make some money from the TV rights to push me towards bouncing straight back up from League 1 the season after. I’m not too worried about my team going forward, but defensively I feel we’re really going to be found out this season, as we were hardly defensive stalwarts in League 1.

Key players:

• Jack Thomas – central midfielder. Jack has now really cemented his place in this team, and at only 22 still has a big future ahead of him. Some teams are beginning to sniff around though.
• Andy Ryan – striker. Came alive last season to blast us to promotion – if he can get anywhere close to 20 goals he’ll give us a fighting chance this year.
• Mathias Pogba – target man. Effective in Leagues 1&2, but how will he fare against Championship defenders?
• Anthony Burchell – central defender – another impressive season last year, will be interesting to see how the young man copes with the Championship. Will his inexperience lead to him being found out?

Tactics:

Take a guess…if I can sneak some draws away from home and keep up my good home form, I might have a chance.

Transfers:

Anyone for a loan?

Suddenly everybody and their dog wants my players on loan – and I’m happy to oblige! The emergence of Ruben Loftus-Cheek in central midfield led to me accepting an offer from Doncaster (of League 2) of 375k for Matthew Dolan, as I felt this money was needed to help strengthen the defence. Some interesting freebies were brought in, including Mats Daehli, a very talented, but injury-prone attacking midfielder, Danny Fox to play left back and Aaron McCarey, formerly of Morecambe, to fight Etheridge for the number1 jersey. Another interesting move was loaning Stuart Laidlaw-Wilson, a young striker, to Morecambe for the season. He’d really make an impact that and make me think long and hard about giving him a starting role next season.

Key signings:

• Danny Fox – left back. Left back was a weakness going into season, and Danny really gave us some experience there, while also contributing going forward.
• Mats Daehli – attacking midfielder right/centre. Mats has a lot of potential, so I was delighted to get him on a free. His technical ability far outstrips any of my other players, the only problem is keeping he fit for more than 2 games at a time!
• Steffen Overgard – left winger.  Brought in on loan, Steffen formed a good partnership with Danny Fox as the season went on, to make our left flank both solid defensively and a threat going forward, something it hadn’t been in years!

And so to my first game in the Championship, away at Barnsley….

Keep it tight, keep it tight….oh, OK then.

Blimey. So, the plan of keeping it tight at the back and looking to sneak a goal on the break….failed. However, the spirit of this Daggers team (and my reliance on Poggers and Andy Ryan) were demonstrated admirably, as we came back from being behind 4 times to snatch a draw at the death. I had my first Championship point! Hooray!

However…this then followed:

Gulp

Oh dear. If I needed it made any clearer that this season was going to be a struggle and very unlike the previous 4…

However, as shown in the Barnsley game, this Daggers team has some character to it, and slowly but ever so surely, results began to improve, with our first win coming against Newcastle followed immediately by another one against Villa (and then losing 5-4 against Crewe…):

Green, I see green!

At the turn of the year, I was hovering just outside the relegation zone, and shipping far too many goals for my liking. Scoring wasn’t too much of an issue, but I was conceding at an alarming rate – I had conceded 3 or more goals in 10 of my first24 games in the league. As the season wore on, I kept grabbing the (very) occasional win, meaning that with 2 games to go I was 2 points clear of the drop. One win could see me safe, however one defeat could drop me into the relegation zone. I had games away against Sheffield Utd and home against Swansea – both battling for playoff spots, so my I was pinning my hopes on the teams below me also failing to see me safe.

Not so much green…

And so to Sheff Utd on the penultimate match day of the season:

BOF!

This fantastic victory (look at the scorers…sensing a pattern?!), coupled with a Bristol City defeat meant I was staying up!! I honestly can’t believe I managed to stay up given my start to the season. Absolutely chuffed. Even a tame 2-0 defeat to Swansea the last game of the season couldn’t dampen my spirits – we would be spending a second season with the (relatively) big boys!

We are staying up, say we are staying up!

The cups:

• League Cup: Lost at home to Wycombe 1-0 in the First Round. That was rather embarrassing and fed into the sense of doom over the first set of results.
• JPT: No longer in it!
• FA Cup: Comfortably beat Gateshead in the 3^rd Round 3-0, following that up by being knocked out 2-1 at Reading in the 4^th. Considering the focus on league survival, not too fussed.

Favourite moments:

• SURVIVAL!!!11!!1
• Andy Ryan the one man team leading me to safety – another 25 goals this season, and he has already guaranteed himself iconic status among the (few) Daggers faithful
• The performances of Stuart Laidlaw-Wilson at Morecambe – scoring 15 and setting-up 12, not a bad return from a 19 year-old making his first professional starts. Definitely someone to keep an eye on in the future.
• Did I mention SURVIVAL??!!11!!1

Next season:

Same again please! I am under no illusions that this team is likely to fare any better next season – but I’m hoping with a year’s experience and a couple of extra signings to shore up the defence we can survive a little more comfortably this time around. Also, it would be very helpful if the board used the money coming into the club (we now have nearly £3m in the bank due to TV and prize money – honestly, it’s such a massive step up from League 1) to expand the stadium. In the long-run we are going to be severely restricted by only having 6 thousand fans at home games. Over to you, board…