Doing a Newcastle [2031/32]

I'm referring here mainly to a season of dismal performance after continental qualification rather than a tendency to sign French players or wear string vests. Things did not go well.

Transfers

I won't go through them in too much detail but basically we expanded the squad with some free's and got to the point where I thought we had a nice squad size without being too full. We had cover and the cover was young, with some potential.

The two DC's I mentioned before came in. Groot and Murilo.

Both I thought would slot in nicely and do well pretty much straight away. I also got Mirko and Versick to add cover for the wingback positions.

I finally signed a youth keeper, Payen. Who had experience in the league below already.

I also got another midfielder, French Berthier.

Again he looked like he could rotate in and help out as well.

Champions League

We started in the playoffs and we drew Shaktar. A team that on paper looked like they would rip us a new one. I had a feeling that our foray into Europe would be short but painful.

Couldn't have been more wrong. We outplayed them for the 1-0 win but I didn't expect the 6-0 drubbing that came after. Zhiqiang scored all of them, he got himself a double hatrick. Shaktar left traumatised and the club had to issue formal apologies to all the fans who brought children with them because of the mauling they had witnessed.

We then got the kindest draw possible for the next playoff round. We got Besiktas, the weakest team there bar ourselves. It wasn't to be though. They thumped us in the first leg and we never really got back into it in the second.

Europa Cup

Losing in the playoff meant we dropped into the Europa Cup group stage instead. There we would face OM, Real Sociadaed and...Shaktar.

We started well, taking points off OM and Shaktar with two wins. But then we lost against Real both times and lost the return to OM. We were knocked out with a game to go. Still, not bad for a debut in Europe. Prize money alone from both Cups had netted us over £2.5m which put the club in a healthy position.

Magill showing Europe what he can do

Superleague

We started okay, but despite how well we did in Europe we didn't manage to carry the form over into the league. We weren't terrible but we didn't reach the dizzy heights of last season. We played fairly well but we didn't close games out and started making mistakes.

Form dropped, heads dropped and my players started to complain that we weren't doing well enough. We were hovering around midtable though so whilst I was frustrated we weren't doing as well as we could I wasn't panicking. We had over half a season to go and once Europe was over we had less squad management issues.

I started  to get dreaded messages though. First Bengondo piped up...

I then got the one loss away from sacking message. Which prompted me to go on a winning streak. That abruptly ended with 3 league losses in a row and the board lost their patience despite me being a runner up in the manager of the year awards.

Sacked!

Bastards.

Yes we weren't doing well but I could have fixed it. I was sacked when we were 9th with over half the season still to play. It wasn't an impossible task but they just didn't give me the time.

So my journey with Platanias came to an end. I was livid as I'd been enjoying it. Even with the poor form I was happy enough as I had a young talented squad developing. Players like Bengondo, Jordan, Ponce, Magill, and Villia looked like they would be Platanias legends of the future.

Still, I left them richer, with a better rep, with improved facilities (the board agreed to improve them after our Europe windfall) and a much better squad. I'd gotten into Europe for the first time in this save and I felt fairly confident that I could move up despite the sacking.

What next?

As above I think I can move on and up. Or at least to an equivalent side so I'm not too worried.

Something I'm thinking of doing though is adding another manager to the save...Rodrigo's younger brother...Tiberius. Mainly because whilst I'm enjoying moving around with Rodrigo I'd like to manage in Northern Ireland and try and build a team/club pretty much from scratch. It's always fun managing there and if you read any of the 1000 goal striker threads on the SI forums from past FM games it's quite inspiring. So a potential plan is to had fresh face Tiberius start at the bottom in N.I. and build whilst Rodrigo makes the best use of his rep and moves around searching for glory.

Surprise... [2023]

Surprise Sacking that is.

I'm livid. Yes I missed out on promotion but I was building a team. A most unfair sacking.

I want revenge.

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.