How do you do, fellow kids? Welcome back to Toulouse, where things are very comfortable indeed, despite the 2022 World Cup making the schedule look disgusting, prompting me into rotating the side to the extreme. Honestly, some of the players I put in the side will have Ted in tears at one point…
Today’s post will run through to the conclusion of season three. How far can we get in Europe? Will there finally be a cup run? Towards the end I’ll take a look to see how our new corner strategy has worked, and whether big Melv is still involved in the first team…but first, how about we see how January goes, with just a bit of Ted?
Ted Redwood:
On the assumption that I’ve just been highly praised – thanks FEO.
January’s have been very miss and hit so far for myself at Toulouse. Summer is a wonderful time, full of disturbing scouting methods, looking for the next 6’9″ colossus left winger, but the winter window is fraught with peril. Not only do I need to try and improve the squad’s weak points to maximise results, but I also need to actually gain some of these results myself. My first January was horrid, but last year was very successful, which in turn led to F adopting most of my tactic full-time.
Naturally, with the team sat in the Champions League spots, I decided to tear the squad apart somewhat, with at least four first-teamers departing, among others. Most, like Efthymis Koulouris, left as their contracts were up in the summer, however there were also a couple of cases of upgrading existing, complicated options. Domingos Quina joined Norwich for €5.25m after kicking up a fuss over his contract. He’s a talented lad, but exciting attacking options are easy enough to come by, and he wasn’t worth the hassle. The other departure was another contract clown, Fabio Cardoso, who fetched €10m from lowly Benevento. I replaced him with a new centre back, one far younger and more powerful. We raised close to €19m in transfer fees, and freed up a tonne of wages (don’t ask me how much, because I wasn’t paying enough attention, as always).
The board were stingy again, considering our sales, but I still managed to spaff €13m on a few young rogues who will hopefully bless our team in the years to come, as well as three players I intend for the first-team right now. Despite their contracts expiring in the summer, winger/strikers Wahid Faghir and Dušan Vlahovic joined for a combined €3.8m right now. It’s one of those funny instances of the AI demanding €7m for a player valued at €1m despite an expiring contract, so I offer him a deal, accept the deal, then ask to take him now – all of a sudden, that player is now being sold for his value. #FMThings. My replacement for Portuguese centre back, Cardoso, is Portuguese centre back, David Carmo. He’s younger (23), and as good as his predecessor. We’re paying a little more in wages, but he’ll surely still improve a tiny bit, and have a higher resale value. Coining it in.
On the pitch, things were…well, bollocks, to be honest. We had a busy January, with six league games scheduled, as well as a cup match against Ligue 2 Ajaccio (in which we crashed out on penalties, as apparently I have used up all my good luck in my regulation save over at tedredwood.wordpress.com – like & subscribe). The six league games were dross. Two wins, three draws, and one defeat doesn’t sound that bad, but considering the form going in to the month, it was a disappointment.
Realistically, I was too quick to change things if we went a goal down, and I definitely over-rotated with the wrong options. I feel like I’ve undone a lot of From’s hard work, so he’ll need to work extra hard to try and regain some ground in his title challenge…
FEO:
Title challenge forsooth.
Ain’t no title challenge, but we’re in the CL mix again. There is no need to be upset.
Ted’s perhaps been a little hard on himself I feel. What about second pre-season? Really there was no form to speak of, it’s a bit like a re-set. We’re still well positioned, and other teams around us have dropped points too, even PSG have *gasp* drawn a match.
Despite both being amongst our top performers last season, I’m glad to be rid of Cardoso, and especially, Quina. They’ve been rubbish since kicking up a contract stink and had both lost their places in the first eleven, even before reinforcements have arrived from the South.
I’ll spare a moment for Efthymis Koulouris though. He’d done nothing wrong particularly, but I agree with Ted’s assessment that he wasn’t the answer long term, and it was sensible to grab some cash rather than wait for his deal to expire. He was really just a poacher in season one, scoring twenty in our Ligue 2 campaign. He surprised me by being more involved in play, and handling the step up in level with no problems, although he has been outshone somewhat by some of our other options. He scored 41 goals for us in his 30 months under our stewardship, good luck to him at Samp.
In terms of incoming deals, alongside Ted’s usual plethora of young signings, David Carmo looks great, an improvement on Cardoso, and five years younger (favourable comparison screenie), but it’s Dušan Vlahovic I’ll focus on:
He and Faghir are slightly different to our “usual” types up top, and have me mulling on some tactical changes for next year. We’ll stick with how we’re playing for now, and try and gently introduce them over the next few months. I have fond memories of Vlahovic from a glorious season on loan (cc: Christopher Johnson esq.) in FM20 at Mačva Šabac, and look forward to what he can bring to the table.
Ligue 1:
February started wonderfully, with four good performances making a mockery of Ted:
Before we turned into a steaming turd in the double header against bottom of the form table Lens. We rolled with our Champions League tactic against PSG, and played quite well, Haaland’s 94th minute winner was a kick in the nadgers and no mistake.
We went with a 523 that I’d been pondering for a while behind the scenes, for the derby against Bordeaux, but in truth, things looked the same as against Lens, not very good, and lucky to grab any points, let alone the full three.
Then, from out of nowhere, we were magnificent, even better than early in February really. Had we just bewildered opposition scouts or something?
Our top form continued:
The end of season draw with Monaco aside, we looked superb throughout. The second XI’s batterings of Lille (who had just beaten PSG) 5-2 and then Lyon 4-1, sandwiched the first XI failing to beat Stade Brestois. It has been a weird season. Alas, after his goal against Lille, Faghir broke his leg, and faces a battle to be fit for the beginning of next season.
It was another great season, serious props to the squad depth Ted has provided us with. I don’t think I’ve ever rotated a side so drastically, even as a dedicated devotee of rotation policy. We can’t beat PSG or Monaco for toffee, but our consistency against everyone else has left us flying.
Europa League:
We started our campaign with a one-off tie, away (due to them being the higher seeded team) against Vitória de Guimarães:
Seeing as our Champions League 42DM31 had done so well, we kept the faith with it here. It was a humdinger of a tie, with both sides having more than twenty shots on goal. Our inability to hit the target was frustrating, until a triple change on 69 minutes, and a switch to 424 brought immediate success.
Curtis Jones scored the winner in extra time to send us through:
In the Second Knockout Round, we faced CSKA Moscow in another one-off tie, away once again (due to them being the lower seeded team…what?):
Again, we stuck with the 42DM31. This game was not as good. Rain throughout the 120 minutes wasn’t enough to melt the snow on the pitch, maybe that effected the quality of football? Tenas and Sarmiento were the shootout heroes, as we progressed 5-4 on penalties.
The quarter finals brought an all French clash with Marseille, and over two legs this time. Here, we reverted to our “normal” 4231, which had been so successful in domestic football. The first leg (away) was pretty similar to the CSKA match, but we emerged with a 1-0 win, courtesy of Moise Kean.
In the second leg, we murdered them…
Parrott and David Carmo were particularly guilty of spurning good chances to score, but a win’s a win.
Semi-final! And we faced Sp*rs, reverting back to our CL formation. At home in the first leg, we were comfortably the better side. They had one shot on target, a penalty that they converted. We left it late to get the goals we deserved but two Ugarte assists got us a 2-1 win, the first a corner, and this the second:
A win, but a dangerous away goal. In the second leg, we started as we had played in the first, but in the second half we didn’t do a damn thing, with our xG story flatlining.
They took us down with a 90th minute long shot, and our dream was over. Fortunately Roma beat them in the final :smirk:. No Only a bit of shame losing to them. Our performance in the Europa League was enough to earn us the “biggest overachievers” tag, but it always hurts to get so close to a big final. We remain trophyless.
It’s been a fun season, in a sick kind of a way. We’ve proven that we can mix it with the big boys, though our back-up players have been the real inspiration for me this year, Bacanin, Sylla, and Camara especially. We’ve given a whopping 40 players first team action, with plenty of Ted’s young signings, as well as some academy youngsters from our first intake, getting their first minutes.
Most goals: Kean (14), Jones (11), Parrott (11), Vlahovic (9)
Most key contributions: Jones (8), Bacanin, Camara, Parrott (all 6)
Most assists: Ugarte (13), Bacanin (11), Jones (11), Sylla (10)
Most secondary assists: Jones (6), Van den Boomen (6), Bacanin (5), Ugarte (5)
Manuel Ugarte has made a big step up this season, adding set piece assists and wonderful through balls to his repertoire. We may face a fight to keep him this summer, as of the end of the season, both Liverpool and Barcelona are showing an interest. With captain Gabrielsen’s contract to expire, I’d quite like Ugarte to take over leadership of the team, and perhaps give him a chance to play in a more ambitious role. We shall see what Ted decides…
Corners, II:
I had a whinge last time about our useless record at corners (3 goals from 82 matches). After making one change to our routines, that of removing 6’7″ goliath and ideal target Sidibé from the penalty box and sticking him back with the full backs, how have the numbers stacked up for the season?
Much better! 14 goals from 52 games this season. We’re not a dominant set piece team by any means, but at least I’ve stopped rolling my eyes every time we get a corner, it was getting medically dangerous. The main beneficiary was captain Ruben Gabrielsen, who scored his first ever goal for Toulouse, and then got another five.
Why though?
The Curious Case of Melvin Camara, II:
He ended the season with 8 goals, 6 key contributions, 5 assists and 2 secondary assists from his 1’886 minutes of football. He continues to pass the eye test. I hope Ted can find more unexpected young bargains like Melvin Camara, as our intake this year was absolutely diabolical.
Any Other Business:
Both Ted and I have some work to do in the staff department this summer. Some contracts are winding down, and I think substantial upgrades need to be brought in. I’ve already replaced our Head of Youth Development.
Ted’s ahead of the game on transfers, and has got some player deals lined up for the summer, the following January, the summer after that, and even January 2026 ffs. The budget looks a bit more generous than seasons past, so I eagerly await what Father Tedmas brings us next year.
I am working on a pair of complementary tactics for the future, as I think there are things we can improve on, weaknesses I’ve spotted, plus I’ve been reading books recently. Always dangerous. I’d ideally like to write a blog post devoted to my thinking, with examples from the game, but this version of Football Manager doesn’t make it easy to do that sort of thing. So many of the screens display nonsense, or contradict each other, and finding specific highlights is onerous. If I was to do something like that, it would probably involve re-watching this entire season, and I think I’d rather play on/do something else.
As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe x