2014/2015 Tottenham Hotspur - End of Season Review

Season End

So it’s been a couple of weeks in-game since the season ended and in summary, I’m a little disappointed with my ending to the season and am now sure that I need to improve the squad in the transfer window.

I finished 5th in the Premier League which means I ended up dropping 2 places from 3rd when I updated you towards the end of the January. I reached the Second Knockout Round of the Euro Cup but was knocked out by Wolfsburg which was above board expectations, but below my own. And knocked out at the Semi Final of the Capital One Cup by Chelsea which I said I wouldn’t be too disappointed by in my January update. This has disappointed me somewhat as I expecting at least Champions League football and I promised a few of my players the same which I’m sure is going to come back and bite me in the butt later on in the coming few weeks when they come to me complaining and demanding transfers.

So how did I manage to drop down two places in the space of around 5 months? Well, our main problem throughout the whole season was clearly the fact we lacked a prominent goalscoring striker. Don’t get me wrong, I feel I got the best I could out of Harry Kane, who turned out to be top goalscoring Striker, but I didn’t feel he was very consistent in his performances and was often subbed on and off as a result of sporadic performances. Speaking sporadic, we often lacked consistency when it came to getting wins. Our longest run of winning form throughout the whole season never reached above 4 wins in a row and none of these streaks were ALL within the Premier League so never resulted in 12/12 points. On top of that, we’d often go on runs of poor form, such as 3 or 4 games in a row where we’d lose/draw against arguable competition which was often frustrating when I was hoping to keep some consistency. As you can see from the images, the poor strings of form are often against very average competition and even sometimes at home which, as any Football Manager player can relate with, caused some serious frustration and often arguments between me and the girlfriend as a result, ha!

Player Performances/Statistics

The first player I’d like to commend is Erik Lamela as he played above and beyond my expectations throughout the whole season and as a result ended up with 26 goals and ended up being my top goalscorer, my top assister with 20 assists throughout the whole season AND ended up being my highest average player with 7.50 being his score. He’s been the driving force of my team throughout the whole season, overtime he was on the ball he’d cause problems for the opposition whether it was a darting run, a crucial pass or a wicked shot or goal to demotivate the opposition fans.

The second player I’d like to highlight is Jorginho, my £14.25m signing in the January Transfer window. He’s not only come and dominated that midfield position, he’s been one of my best tacklers in the team since his arrival around 5 months ago. Despite my positive reviews of him, no stats suggest he has performed that well, however when I watched him play throughout the highlights he seemed to never lose the ball, play some crucial balls and keep a consistent pass completion.

Memphis Depay had a fairly quiet second half to his season which was absolutely fine as he more than performed win the first half. Personally, I feel he needs to be trained to pass the ball rather than shoot as he’s a bit shot-happy (although his shots are never far away).

Future Plans

All I know for the future is that I definitely need a striker who can produce 20 goals a season minimum. Now some of you may say Harry Kane can do that as he himself managed to get 20 goals by the end of the season. However, I’m talking 20 goals minimum in the Premier League alone, not including all other competitions. Therefore in the new season I shall be investing as much money as I can into the most affordable striker I can!

I’m happy with Jorginho in the centre of the park, I’m very content with my attacking midfielder choices in Lamela, Chadli, Erikson, Depay, Lennon and the incoming Andre Ayew! My defence could still do with some work, but Balanta is progressing into a very solid defender rapidly and Dede and Kaboul are both still young enough to be here for a few more years before they need to be replaced. My two weakest points are probably right back and left back, however these aren’t as vital as my defensive record wasn’t too bad last season!

This has been an update to the end of my first season! A little disappointing and a striker is definitely needed! What are your thoughts?!