Happy holidays, and welcome back to the South of France. Not all that much FMing has been going on for me of late, but there’s just enough done to post an update for the start of our first season back in Ligue 1.
First up, Ted will run us through a vital summer of recruitment, before I step in and chronicle our first three months back in the big time. I’m hopeful that our very solid defence from season one will provide a base for a comfortable enough season, but the media and bookies don’t fancy us much…
With a promotion under F’s belt (and title winners to boot), the club obviously has a decent base to build upon to solidify its position in Ligue 1, and not a lot of business needs doing. Naturally I then decided to spend €10m on 12 permanent transfers, circa €4.5m on future transfers, and €2.5m or so on loan fees for two players. This was somewhat offset by bringing just over €10m back into the club through the sale of fringe players, as well as selling the next sale clause for Jean-Claude Todibo for almost €8m.
The finances of the club are in excellent shape, having also reduced the weekly wage after contractual increases for promotion came into effect, and this has been achieved whilst looking after the present and future of Toulouse.
I sought to add real strength in potentially wobbly positions, with Mike Maignan being a top target – he wouldn’t talk to us about a permanent transfer, but a creative loan-based solution secured our man, and hopefully he falls in love with the club over the next few months and will agree a pre-contract for a freebie next summer.
Aside from that, I’m very happy buffing the spine of the team with sensible experienced options, and promising players who are capable of delivering now. As mentioned before, some youngsters will be arriving in future windows (including one in 2.5 seasons time…), which will hopefully assist Toulouse 2 in their National 2-D campaign – it’s surely a worthy endeavour to keep the reserves in the playable leagues for our own youngsters sake.
One of the perils of contract negotiations with young players is the ‘locked’ demand for sending them out on loan. This issue is especially pertinent when Toulouse’s reserve side is now in a playable league at a decent level for those 16 year-old prospects, who would no doubt progress far quicker with our facilities/coaching versus clubs with their first team in the same division. It’s forced a couple of departures already, and I think I had to accept a couple of these demands from agents for the incoming future transfers, too…
There were also plenty of loans out
On the sales front there’s no-one I’m particularly worried about having lost. Manu Koné looked promising on paper but wouldn’t sign a new deal, so we cashed in for almost €1m and a next sale %, although the fact he’s gone to Nottingham Forest may indicate he isn’t really that great after all.
Hopefully From will give some feedback on his favoured signings that I’ve made – it’s been a busy window so I don’t want to keep adding words. Over to the manager to figure out how to effectively use this many new signings in a previously settled squad and tactic.
FEO:
Ted has had a dream of a summer there. He’s already pleased the board too, which is nice. I’m likely not going to spend a lot of time discussing Club Vision in this series, but I feel I should at least let you know what they want:
The 5 year plan makes sense, I approve. I’m not wild about the defensively solid football and counter-attacking football additions, but they also wanted direct football. After a bit of persuading, they put that in the bin where it belongs. I’m sure it’ll be back in twelve months.
Back to the transfer business, I’m a little disappointed to lose Koné, but he was agitating for a move, and wasn’t going to be first team in this, the final year of his contract. It’s wise to have got some cash and let him go. To have only spent €1.75m more than he recouped is great work from Tedderz, as the squad looks both leaner, and meaner now.
I’d entirely agree that Maignan is the top acquisition. I especially like the signing, as it’s not something I probably would’ve even conceived of. A masterful move from the DoF. Despite last year’s #1 grabbing the Goalkeeper of the Season award (I think they’ve been Dupéd by our brilliant defence there), Mike’s a massive improvement between the sticks.
My other favourite signing is Domingos Quina (pronounced keeen-waaa):
He’s versatile and quality, and I’m hopeful he can carve out a starting role toot sweet.
I’m going to save any talk on the younger signings (and future signings) for the next part, when I’ll focus a bit on youth development.
August – September ’21:
I intended to largely keep the faith with the tactic that got us up, but made a couple of minor changes in anticipation of tougher challenges:
I’ve removed the counter press and higher defensive line team instructions, and added force opposition outside, as I fear top class through balls more than top class crosses. The goalie will be instructed to distribute short to try and minimize the amount we give the ball away.
Role-wise, VDB (not that one) becomes a DLP rather than an AP, which suits him to be honest. The Pressing Forward returns up front once again.
The fixture computer was pretty kind to us first up, although both of our rivals came out of the hat as away ties in the first three fixtures:
Smoke it. Bizarrely, our first six performances got exactly the results they “deserved”. We were really good in particular against Stade Rennais, Reiss Nelson getting two goals that his early season form warranted.
His injury just after half time against Stade Brestois coincided precisely with our worst half of the season, but we just about held on for a win.
Koulouris has been a bit weird. 7 goals in 184 minutes (plus injury time) where he looked like Ronaldo, no goals outside of that, when he was all but anonymous. Still, our first month in Ligue 1 and he got the Player of the Month award.
What a start! 19 points already, halfway to safety.
September – October ’21:
Of course, such a friendly start on the fixture list means the harder games must be around here somewhere…
If you’d offered me seven points from this run of fixtures, I’d have had your hand off. We were thoroughly outclassed by Marseilles and PSG (as you might expect), and we totally robbed Lyon with a VDB (not that one) direct free kick, and an unquantifiable goal, that will come up in a mo.
I certainly didn’t expect to be sitting this pretty at any point in our first season in Ligue 1, although I did think we had enough about us to finish in a fairly solid mid-table position. I reckon we’ll probably fall down the table a wee bit, as truly impressive performances have been relatively rare, but I’m already confident we’re safe.
Most goals: Koulouris (8), Van den Boomen (4), Nelson (3)
Most key contributions: Koulouris (3), Van den Boomen (2*)
Most assists: Amian (3), Van den Boomen (3)
Most secondary assists: Amian (2), Saïd (2), Sidibé (2)
#GifGoals:
*Can’t decide whether best goal ever…
…or total fluke…
Next time out, we’ll cover the middle few months of the season, including the (probably quiet?) January transfer window. I’ll have a gander at some of our youth prospects, including a couple that should be arriving on January 1st. A cup run would be nice…
Thanks for reading, stay safe x