Out of Oskarsham [2013]

Title gives it away really. I got sacked. Probably fairly although I would have liked a few extra games to try and turn things around.

Sacked!

After the record high of 4th the media was expecting a healthy midtable finish of 7th for the club. Which I thought was more than attainable. At least I did right at the end of the 2012 season before I started trying to recruit some players.

Pre-season

They really didn't want to come to the club. First of all I tried Hinningsson and got the dreaded, "You'll have to make a fantastic offer..." message at the contract screen. Based on his 26 goals last season and the fact he was on a free now I pumped all my transfer budget (a whole 12k!) into the wage budget and offered the best I could. £250 a week, £7.5k sign on and all the other bells and whistles I could. I didn't hold back. I put a yearly wage rise of 50% and a promotion rise of 50%. He laughed it off.

It didn't go much better for any other targets either. I normally check and see who's been realised from the squads in the divisions above and see if I can tempt anyone into joining. It took a while to trawl through every team above Oskarshamn in Sweden and the return was pitiful. I got a few extra youth prospects.

The loan market wasn't much better. Very few teams wanted their players to go to such a small team, at such a low level of football (sorry Oskarshamn). So I decided I would rely on the players I had and my new youth players.

At least until my first choice winger got sold from under me by the chairman for £33k. I had a back up but it rankled a bit.


The Season

Our form was patchy. When the team was fit and all my so called first choice players were there we did alright.  We did lose a few matches undeservedly but generally the results were fair.

When were weren't fit and had injuries we couldn't win. We weren't even scraping points. As a result we yo-yo'd up and down the table - mainly from mid-table to the relegation playoff place. We only once dipped into the dreaded relegation zone.

With 15 games gone the board had decided enough was enough and sacked me. We sitting just in the relegation playoff place. With 7 games left to play I'd like to think I could have climbed back to midtable safety but the board didn't want to gamble on that. Which is fair enough. 7 games gave them enough time to reach safety with someone else.

Off I went to find a new job. I was quite worried. At this point my managerial career consisted of one season of slight over achievement (but no reward) and a sacking after a poor season. Not exactly a stellar C.V.