Quick Note: I apologise for the lack of updates on Football Manager. This is due to many reasons such as having deadlines for University throughout most of December, Christmas time meaning I wasn’t playing a whole lot of FM and also new games for Christmas that took up more of my time. I also progressed past February without any thought and therefore forgot to save and so couldn’t bring you a February update; however no worries, I shall be updated you on the whole season in this update! Anyway, onto my third season review…
So How Did We Do?
I have just completed the third season of my Tottenham Hotspur managerial career and have successfully qualified for the Champions League again after coming fourth. Currently, in these early stages these are realistically going to have to be my expectations as I go through a transitional period of bringing through the players I want to.
Chelsea have won the title for the third year in a row as expected and don’t seem to be slowing down at all having won by 7 points with the second highest goals scored (we actually scored the most). Man City were the surprise underachievers this year coming a shocking 7th after coming 2nd the two previous seasons; this appears to be as a result of an awful start to the season in which they only won 4 of their first 20 games in all competitions (one of which was a 7-4 extra time win over Birmingham City in the Capital Cup 3rd Round). The only slight surprises were Southampton who managed to qualify themselves into the Europa League spot with Man United.
The three teams to get relegated were Swansea (who actually finished 6th the season before so is a shock), Leicester and Aston Villa. The three teams coming up from the Championship are West Ham, Birmingham and …
Competition Performances
When it came to competitions this year, it was a bit of a mixed bag with some impressive performances in some competitions, but not so impressive performances in others. For example, the 5th round knockout against Aston Villa in the FA Cup was not a great result, 5th round isn’t bad but to lose to Aston Villa who were eventually relegated is very bad. In addition our Capital One Cup run wasn’t great getting knocked out in the Quarter Final by Newcastle. However, my Champions League run was a sick surprise as I ended up making it all the way to the Quarter Final and only getting knocked out to PSG which is a respectable exit for any team, let alone a team who’s first time it is in the Champions League knockout stages for many years! Overall, as I said it was a mixed bag of results this year in all competitions with the highlight being my successful run in the Champions League.
We were very impressive in the Premier League when it came to goals scored, which you'll find out why later. We managed 92 goals which is more than any other team, even that likes of Chelsea who had the top goalscorer in the season and arguably one of the best players in the game in Eden Hazard.
Transfer News
So let’s talk about the players that helped to get us here! With the enormous £40m sale of Memphis Depay who had performed really poorly for me for the passed couple of seasons since his Golden Ball nomination, I decided to sell him and stick with Andre Ayew on the Left Wing position. Therefore this gave me plenty of money to work with and so the first signing of the season was Sime Vrsaijko, I didn’t even bother trying to say his name out loud. However, I realised that a left back and a right back were my positions of need in this new season and so I went forth and purchased this guy from Bayer Leverkusen for £10m which was a good deal for a player who was easily better than any of my current right backs. As aforementioned, a left back was my final position of need and so I spent a little more time than the previous looking for the right left back for the right price. Considering my current left back was Danny Rose who I don’t believe to be Champions League quality, I wanted to spend quite a bit of money on ensuring I brought in someone who was young enough to still improve, but was old enough to have enough experience playing First Team football at a relatively high football, or could adapt to such. For £17.5m I brought in Wendell from Bayer Leverkusen who had a four star potential and had stats that already surpassed Danny Rose’s so I thought was a good purchase.
My next signing was the addition of an exciting young prospect by the name of Tiziano Tulissi; I honestly couldn’t think of a more Italian name! He cost me £12.5m from Atlanta, but boasted some impressive dribbling and speed stats, along with crossing and technique. These are all signs I look for in a young winger/Striker. He actually has gone on to score 12 goals for me which is very impressive for his first season. My next signing was also a young addition by the name of Juan Soriano (these last two may be regens, I’m not sure) who’s a young ‘keeper from Athletico, who we all know have a good record for young goalkeepers with David De Gea and taking Courtois on loan! I imagined he would be a back up to Lloris and eventually be a first team goalkeeper, we’ll have to wait and see! My final signing was the addition of the central defender Alessio Romagnoli for £7.5m from Roma, an addition to hopefully partner the ever-improving Balanta!
Along with Depay, there were some other notable sales such as Sergio Canales for £23.5m to Roma; I just felt I didn’t have a first team position for him and I felt that he was too good to be a substitute. Other notable names were Moussa Dembélé to Zenit for £5m, Ibrahim Afellay to Livorno for £5.5m and Lewis Holtby to Torino for £10m.
Stats/Performances
When it comes to stats and performances, it is only really about two players when it comes to the important numbers and those two players are Carlos Vela and Jovic who grabbed not only the top goalscorer but also Carlos Vela achieved joint assists with 19 with Christian Eriksen. Which was a result of a run of games where we he either scored or assisted once every 30 minutes or something absolutely insane like that (stats I worked out myself) over the space of two months being voted player of the month two months in a row. The goals ended up being 26 for Luka Jovic which is absolutely incredible for an 18 year old Striker coming from a different country to a league like the Premier League. He also came in second in the Premier League just behind Diego Costa which is really quite something spectacular. Carlos Vela came in a close second with 25 goals.
We saw once again Jorginho securing the top-spot in the pass completion stat with 85% for players who weren’t defenders (as their passes were usually simple ones to players infant of them and less crucial) and and had played more than 20 games in the season.
Another player of note was Erik Lamela who really impressed me again this season, he had an off seasons last year but did really well and came the third in the top scorers which highlights how well he played this season. He was back to the Erik Lamela who played in the CAM role in Eriksen’s absence in my first season, but he’s adopted that brilliance to the right wing. He managed to achieve the second highest rating in the Champions League, only behind Marco Reus which isn’t a bad feat at all.
Player of the Season
My player of the season is a close tie between Carlos Vela, and Luka Jovic. Carlos Vela because of the incredible run where he brought us back from some poor form almost single handedly scoring 5/6 goals a month in the Premier League alone. However, if I had to pick one it would be Luka Jovic as he was “consistently consistent” as my brother described it. Statistically he may not have, but it felt like contributed either an assist or a goal in every game he played which is literally all you can ask for from a player, let alone one who is still a teenager, something I just can’t quite take in.
Player Achievements
A few player achievements to note are Vela, Jorginho, Eriksen and Lamela came in the Premier League Team of Year which is a good achievement for them and quite impressive that we managed to get so many players in the first team. Andre Ayew was also included among the substitutes for the Team of Year.
Another achievement of note was the award given to one of my youth players by the name of John Paton who came from my youth recruitment network; the player was awarded Young Player of the Year whilst on loan in the Championship.
Summary
This season has been one where I began to beat the bigger teams, I gained a win over Arsenal and United throughout the season, something I have failed to do in all previous seasons. In addition, I even gave the invincible Chelsea a challenge in a game that ended in an incredible draw away from home at Stamford Bridge!
Luka Jovic is a player who I believe within 2 or 3 seasons could be scoring 30-40 goals a season which is something that a team who wants to seriously compete in the Champions League needs to have. He’s a player that already has all the traits to be one of the best Strikers in the world and has the potential to grow into one of the best players in the world. He’s a very exciting player indeed.
My Champions League efforts were really impressive and something I’m really proud of the team for achieving. It will also show other teams that Tottenham are now a well established Champions League team as long as they can consistently keep getting into the top four. Qualifying and managing to get into the quarter finals is something only the biggest English teams can do, let alone Tottenham Hotspur. Watch this space!
