Pleasing Platanias [2028/29]

Have to say I've been pleasantly surprised by Platanias and the start we had made. 17 games in, the halfway mark saw us in the top half of the table after a nice run of form. 4th place at the end of the season would put us into the European play off spots. I know I should be more concerned with survival and then reaching mid table as per the expectations but European football...

We had a few blips initially as the team settled in but the points started to come in. The team got used to each other, the tactic and many of the said they were glad that a certain player was in the team to help them settle in. I think that sped things up a little.

Some games we just lost out on in the final 10 mins. The losses to Iraklis and Xanthi for example. Our defence was pretty decent but with such a small squad we tended to tire in the 2nd half and didn't have much cover to combat it.

The squad was doing fairly well though. Fengqi was starting to find his feet up front and Tavima was really doing well. As was Thoniatis.

Villia was seeing more playing time than I'd planned from the bench as well but he was performing well. I started training him as an AMC to increase the amount of cover we had, as he seemed suited. He would run onto the ball in the pocket and cause all sorts of problems above and beyond what his stats would suggest.

I was impressed with the squad and the place in the table. It was made even more impressive, I think, by the amount we were spending on wages.

  

That meant I could add another player without feeling too guilty. I did break the wage budget to do it but Korey Flanagan was too good not to really. On a free and looked more all round than Fengqi. Fengqi scored a lot of his from balls over the defence where as Korey looked like he could do that plus more.

 

  

Second half of the season

The plan was basically more of the same. I was worried about the squad depth but there wasn't a great deal I could do. I didn't have the money to bring in extra players worth bringing in. I just had to hope that the team would stay fit and rotate where I could.

Correction

In the last post I suggested it'd be easy to become the top Cretan club but I completely missed the fact that Platanias are one of two Cretan sides in the top flight. The other is Ergotelis. There are also more in the division below that could join us later. I made it a secondary season aim to finish above Ergotelis.

This all added to my love for the current game. I've found myself researching Greek teams to get a feel for it. Always a good sign in FM.