Royal Antwerp - The Great Old - Season One. #FM21
Happy new year fellow Football Manager enthusiasts. Here is hoping it is a better one. Playing time has been hard to come by for me between lockdowns and school closures, I can honestly say it has been a tough few months.
But things are looking up I have completed the regular season in Belgium and I have really enjoyed the challenge the save has posed so far. There have already been a number of ups and downs.
If you fancy reading it about then scroll down, if not, thanks for the hit in any case.
In my opening post I mentioned that I wanted to make Antwerp a success on, and off the pitch. With that in the mind the first thing I did on day one was fill the gaps in the coaching staff and the recruitment team. I see no point boring you with details but I simply used the search function and looked for out of contract coaches (money is tight, more on that later) with high Determination, Level of Discipline, and Motivation. I then simply look at the areas in which we were deficient, such as attacking and add that to my search. I repeated this process until I had filled up all the available slots. I plan to revisit this at the end of each season when staff members contracts expire. If I can replace these staff members with someone better I will, if I can't I will offer them a new deal. I followed a similar process for scouts focusing purely on judging ability and judging potential. The only exception to this was Jose De Medina who I hired purely for his knowledge of the DR Congo which I intend to scout throughout the save.
With the first transfer window disabled there was little else to do other than get started with some games.
Things got off to a fairly good start with only three defeats across the first three months of the season. Oostende were the first side to inflict a defeat on us, and they would become the surprise package of the season finishing a credible 5th in the end. They are, rather interestingly, the latest club to be owned by an investment group, New City Capital, who have interests in a number of clubs around Europe.
Chien Lee is the founder and chairman of New City Capital. He is chairman of Barnsley Football Club in England, co-owner of FC Thun in Switzerland, co-owner of the already mentioned KV Oostende in Belgium, who he saved from liquidation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most recently New City Capital acquired AS Nancy in France.
Mr Lee's ambitions appear to be to own a growing portfolio of clubs across Europe. He has connections with Billy Beane (who has shares in Barnsley), so it will no surprise to readers that Mr Lee intends to use a data approach to identify young, untapped, talent across Europe.
Potential FM22 save anyone?
We also lost 3-1 to Vincent Kompany's Anderlecht who were on a different level to us on the day, as were Gent who manged to get the better of us in October. We did have some pleasing results, not least two 1-0 wins against Standard and Brugge that were made even sweeter given the timing of the goals, and raised me from my sofa, if only briefly.
Towards the end of October we began our European campaign, having not had much European success in any FM save since around FM14 I really want to get my hands on some Continental silverware. The Europa league probably offers the best route to do this. Unfortunately the draw wasn't exactly kind pitting us against Milan, CSKA Moscow, and Sparta Prague. Making the top two would be a challenge. Two draws in our opening two games wasn't the best start, and I feared the worst with a Milan double header on the horizon.
Moving into November and December and things started to get pretty busy and our form really tanked. We went six games without a win, which coincided with our Europa League campaign so we finished a very disappointing 4th in the group.
At this juncture of the season I started to panic somewhat and entered the tactical 'scattergun' phase. I do this every year early in a save when results, or performances, start to decline. Even while I am doing it, I tell myself it won't help, yet I still continue to play 45mins in a 4231 before switching to a 352 at half-time. Thankfully I have a small channel on slack where I can receive an intervention from other FM players and get back on track!
This year the board didn't help in this regard. The club culture stated we should sign Belgian players, the board where disappointed that I hadn't, despite the first transfer window being disabled. More worryingly the board were, fairly quickly, disappointed that I wasn't playing entertaining and direct football. Add to that our poor showing in the Europa League and I started to really fear that if results continued to be poor I could be sacked and this save would turn out to be very short.
Thankfully after losing to CSKA Moscow we had two 'easier' games against Mouscron and Club Brugge's second team in the cup. Two regulation wins here and we ended the Christmas period strongly before taking a short two week break.
The little break really did the trick and our best patch of form followed in January and February. My favourite game of the save so far was the 4-2 win over Anderlecht. 2-0 down at half time I changed both wide men to Inside Forwards and switched the lone striker to a false nine. It seemed to work to stem the waves of attack, but we had made little headway ourselves. With 20 minutes to go I pushed up the mentality to Very Attacking and Anderlecht couldn't cope. Four goals in the last fifteen minutes, two of which came in injury time to secure the win. A hat trick for my bae of the save, Cristian Benavente.
It has been a long time since I have managed someone of this quality. His trait of cuts inside from both wings fit his role as Inside Forward well. Add high technique and flair into the mix, with Curls Ball, and some of his play has been superb to watch in the match engine. I have concerns in that he is Peruvian, and is on loan, so he won't be staying, and my self imposed transfer rules may mean I can't replace him with a player of the requisite standard. When you look at goal contributions across my squad and I think we can all agree his departure will leave a great hole to be filled.
I plan to do a separate blog at the end of the season to go through recruitment and introduce our first batch of potential graduates from Antwerp.
Anyway here is our winner against Anderlecht which features a through ball, hurrah!
Our run of form was fantastic, so good in fact that I went dark on my slack channel for fear of invoking the wrath of the FM Gods. However, after we steamrollered fierce local rivals, Beerschot 6-0, I decided to crow about my progress in slack and on twitter. So, it really was of no surprise to anyone that we lost our next game 3-0 to Charleroi.
The defeat to Charleroi was the start of a decline in form. The goals dried up as Benavente started to show signs of fatigue. He wouldn't score in the league again. In fact we wouldn't score more than one in a game for the rest of the season. The board wanted a top four finish and if you'd asked me in February if I thought we'd make it I would've been very confident. Ask me again at the end of March and the chances were 50/50. With four games to go we sat 3rd but only two points ahead of fifth placed Oostende.
A massive, and nervy, 1-0 win over, relegation threatened, Waasland-Beveren gave us some much needed breathing room. Two scrappy draws after that saw us fall over the line in fourth place on the last day.
Mission accomplished! European football confirmed you may think. Well dear reader, you'd be wrong. Belgium has a playoff system for the top 4 sides to decide the final placings, and European qualification. It was one of the reasons I decided to manage in Belgium this year. I wanted something different, and I wanted the chance to qualify for Europe early in the save. The eagle eyed among you may notice that finishing 4th in the Championship Group qualifies you for the European places playoff. This is played against the side who finishes fifth after the teams placed 5th-8th have their own little playoff league.
Whats more is we go into the 'Championship Group' against the other three teams with each of us having lost 50% of our points (Good news for us). So the table now looks like this.
We have six more games to play in the season, starting with a vital double header against Genk. Third is the height of my ambitions this season and to do that we will need a result in both those games I would suggest.
If you look around a room and can't tell who the sucker is, you are the sucker. - Some Poker Player back in 2003
My plan is to play these games and come back with a shorter post looking back at any pivotal games or moments. After that the fun begins with recruitment of the free agents, which is something I am looking forward to.
I do have reservations though. Antwerp are a better side than I thought and the board wants a title win within 5 years. To do this with U23 rejects may prove difficult. I may extend my search to any free agent that I think we can sell on for decent money, we shall see.
As mentioned earlier the boards seems intent on us playing direct and entertaining football. Coming into the final year of my contract this is something I may need to focus on trying to achieve if I want a new deal. So a tactical overhaul is required, especially now I can bring in my own players.
I spent a good few hours on this site to get some advice.
I still haven't mentioned the finances....
We've lost £19m over the season, £10m of which was in loan repayments and our current balance is now minus £12m. I firmly believe we need to sell some assets this close season to keep the club afloat. Our projections aren't the best either so perhaps my recruitment policy is necessary after all.
So there you have it, all we have left is six games to decide if we will qualify for Europe next season. Given our financial status I really need to make it.
If you made it this far thanks very much for reading. Northern Ireland has recently announced an extension to our full lockdown until 5th March. I can't believe we have basically been locked down for almost a full year. At times I do feel very forlorn about it and after a day crouched in front of my work laptop in my bedroom, the thought of turning on FM to crouch over another laptop is sometimes too much for me. This has meant a reduction in playing time but I hope to get on a bit more in the coming months.
Stay safe, read blogs
Over and out
FM Eadster