InFMous
Welcome to a side-series I'll be doing over the course of my blogging career (or stopping after this first one because it's received awfully) - Infamous. I've seen other creators do similar ideas to this, where effectively you take on a team/challenge that a club/country did poorly in reality, or actually succeeded. I've had something like this in the pipeline for a couple of years and was actually going to create this as a YouTube series back in the glory days of November 2018. Those were the days - before the dark times, before the lockdowns...
As they say though, what's done is done, and you can't change it, right? WRONG. I'll be focusing on some well-known failures of football management in this series, and trying to right some wrongs. I've got a few of the obvious examples of British football covered, however if you ever feel the need to get in touch to suggest any further examples from outside my current knowledge, then please do so. I have David Moyes at Manchester United (and Real Sociedad/Sunderland) in the locker, but I'd rather not go for some THAT obvious.
Anyway - onto the most obvious example I can think of from Scottish football: John Barnes and his eight month stint at Celtic. Original.
Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic are Atrocious
It's an absolute classic, I'll give them that. John Barnes reign as Celtic Head Coach ended two days after the Bhoy's defeat to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup third round on 08/02/2000. From my quite limited reading, it appears as if Barnes' sacking was moderately inevitable, given that good early season form had vanished amidst player politics, tactical indecisiveness, and perceived poor transfer activity. Barnes had lost the faith of his players, the fans, and the clearly, the board.
The 1999/00 season wasn't a complete washout for the Hoops, though, as Kenny Dalglish took over for the remainder of the season, claiming the Scottish League Cup. The cup was poor consolation for finishing 21 points behind bitter rivals, Rangers, in what was then the Bank of Scotland Premier League. Larger than life striker Mark Viduka was the league top scorer with 25 goals, and despite grumblings around the performances of Celtic's transfers, they did sign Stylian Petrov during Barnes' time as Head Coach. In terms of making an immediate impact, Barnes clearly failed to transfer his playing prowess into a coaching dynasty at the first (second, and third) time of trying. The challenge in Football Manager 2021 is simple:
Sign a 'marquee' player for Celtic in the opening transfer window
Perform better than John Barnes over the same course of time. I'll be resigning after my 20th league game with Celtic, at which time a fair(ish) comparison can be made. I had planned to just resign on the same date that Barnes left, but that would take me up to 27 league games. Consistency is key (until it doesn't fit my narrative)
Sounds easy, right? Rangers are smashing it this season up in sunny Scotland, and are on course to deny Celtic their decade of domestic dominance in the league. Can I be the one to bring in a future icon of the club, and deliver the 10th league title in a row for these heavily expectant fans? Let's find out.
As a quick note - I did actually begin this during the Football Manager 2021 Beta and played it incredibly slowly, thus any Match Engine changes are likely to seem a bit more drastic over one season. Getting my excuses in early, there.
Transfers and Tactics
After loading a database containing the entire SPFL, as well as the top division of the seven biggest European leagues (as well as the EFL Championship), I took it upon myself to rid my to-do list of the backroom staff contract negotiations, and wanted as little input as possible into the Reserves/U18s sides. I'm a Head Coach, innit.
My 'marquee' signing promise is already looking a little bit suspect, with around €5m to spend on a player, and €50k p/w being the maximum of my ambitions. I am out of touch with whom is a 'wonderkid' these days, so pomp for a bit of experience at the back - here's your future Celtic icon:
I had to get a Jamaican in there somewhere to honour our boy Barnsey, didn't I? I also signed ex-wonderkid Tin Jedvaj, who is my actual serious exciting 'marquee' signing. Ecuadorian wingback Christian Ramirez is my final transfer, as I felt that current incumbent Diego Laxalt lacks alt(ernative abilities to play wingback effectively against better opposition). I'm also happy to have these extra defensive options, as well as a few promising youngsters, with such an arduous and congested season, with the likes of Karamoko Dembele, Jeremie Frimpong, and Luca Connell on course to get plenty of minutes.
They're not the most exciting when I think of the word 'marquee', but seeing as we'll be playing with three centre backs this seaso- wait what? Three centre backs, Ted, three? You read it right, baby. This is how we lined up for the first game of our season, and no matter how bad it gets, I will not be accused of being tactically indecisive...only tactically inept. I'll probably make a couple of role/TI changes to this, but I'll stick to the formation and most of the intent throughout the save:
I tend to have a good idea how I want my teams to play in Football Manager, but honestly I'm not so great at creating a tactic when I either start with a dominant team, or start with a team that's practically guaranteed to fail. Celtic should be pressing their opposition, be dominating possession, but also be able to use their pace and skill to break if needs be. The three defenders is my attempt to let the middle roam a little bit more, and with two wingbacks (with the right wingback more offensive), I'm just looking to make patient overloads. Will it work? Probably not. Let's go.
The mild Autumn
The pressure is on early to deliver some decent results in every competition for the first three months of competitive football at Celtic. Barnes enjoyed some good early form, which was only started to tail off just as October was ending.
The key result from our early season was the 3-0 smashing of arch rivals, St. Mirren. Also we beat Rangers 3-0, too. The fans should be chuffed.
After setting the team up to try and be secure from breakaway goals, and remain dominant in the opposition half, I should have perhaps anticipated a few of the low scoring affairs that ensued over the opening months of the season. It's not that we weren't creating chances, but the chances that we were creating weren't particularly excellent. I wish I could cite that opponents aren't scoring, but it's simply not the truth. 6 goals conceded in 12 league games is pretty good, as it also resulted in 7 clean sheets, but I'd be expecting more at either end of the pitch. It's down to the quality of our players that we are top by 2 points at the end of October, rather than my tactical genius. Rangers are pushing hard, but we do have a game in hand.
Our league record against John Barnes is favourable, although we are lacking a couple of hammerings that his Celtic side gave out to the likes of Aberdeen (5-0), and Aberdeen (7-0). Not a typo.
Our Scottish League Cup record is infinitely better, and also infinitely worse, however, as that competition hasn't been played yet - we are scheduled to play Dundee United at the end of November. Europe is where there's a bit of a difference with our managerial ancestor:
After defeating Welsh and Israeli opposition in the first couple of rounds of the old UEFA Cup (RIP), Celtic lost the first leg of the Third Round match against Lyon 1-0 at the end of October, before the same scoreline knocked them out at the start of November. I'd say we've improved on his results on the continent, with us smashing all who came before us to reach the Champions Cup League proper, and we are currently second in the group behind Liverpool. It's not the toughest group, but I'd be disappointed to not go through to the knockouts now.
The winter of malcontent
With the weather starting to turn, my initial thoughts turned to my tactics. This is the point in the save where I stopped playing initially as the Beta rolled over into the full version of Football Manager 2021, so after playing three games with the initial 3-4-3-esque formation, I changed a few roles around and decided to focus on shorter passing, working the ball into the box, and adding creative freedom. The wing play was clearly working to an extent, but in the current Match Engine we seemed to have completely isolated Odsonne Edouard (makes sense seeing as he's an AF(A), but it was interlinking well in the old ME with this tactic - he's now become a DLF(A) to try and get him more involved).
November is where things started to go wrong for big JB - dropping out of the UEFA Cup after their 2-0 aggregate loss to Lyon, as well as losing two of their three league games (including one to Rangers). The 99-00 season clearly wasn't great for Celtic, but it's also worth considering that Rangers had a great year domestically. The fact that Kenny Dalglish 'saved' their season by winning the Scottish League Cup overshadows the fact that his record arguably was also a bit crap in the league, at least compared to what was expected after the departure of his predecessor.
I mention the above as it's definitely something I can sense creeping into my campaign. November is where we tasted defeat in competitive football for the first time this season, with Liverpool defeating us 4-1 and 3-1. Injuries started to mount after the international break, and going into December we were essentially rotating our entire side each game. I suffered my first John Barnes moment when we were dumped out of the Scottish League Cup by Motherwell after losing 2-1, with this being the decisive goal...
Disaster. The board were expecting us to win the domestic treble with no issues. We're perhaps saved more grief because of the fact that we beat our European expectations of 'Reaching the playoff round':
A score-draw and a 4-3 victory over both Shakhtar and Basaksehir was enough to see us through at the start of December. We drew Chelsea in the Champions League knockout round, which is a one-way ticket to exiting European competition, so I'm moderately thankful that I'll be finished with the save prior to this event.
This of course leads me to cover off our league fixtures over the two-and-a-bit months. November was sparse of action, which naturally meant a bit of a catch-up in December, prior to my final game in January 2021. In regards to my earlier comment about rotating my side, it still didn't stop me losing Odsonne Edouard and Scott Brown to injuries just before Christmas. The duo will miss the remainder of the four matches I have in charge, which is especially unhelpful as my last contribution to the season will be away at Rangers.
Seeing as I've revealed how we've done in the other competitions I didn't see the need to filter the schedule. Soz not soz. What you'll notice is that, despite losing our top scorer to injury at Livingston (24 in 26 matches in all competitions), we still managed to bang in 11 over the next 3 games, with Albian Ajeti stepping up in his absence. As mentioned, our final game of this save is against Rangers, and, as things stand, we are 2nd in the table, but a win takes us above them, and potentially up to 8 points ahead if we win our games in hand. Simples, right?
As I prepared for our final game in charge, I noticed that the transfer window opens on the same day, so this accelerated my plans to bolster the side for the rest of the season after my departure. Long-time Celtic players Nir Bitton and Leigh Griffiths left for pastures new, and I managed to bring in a few dudes to help me with my final game, as well as help the club transition over the final stretch of the campaign:
John Lundstram, Vukasin Jovanovic, and Andy Carroll join for a total of around €6m (which we made by selling Nir Bitton), whilst Jesse Lingard joins on loan for the remainder of the season. Lundstram and Jovanovic are decent enough to provide depth and options for the future manager, Lingard is a quick fix of quality, and Carroll...well, I'm a Newcastle fan, and we need a striker, so he's here and he's beautiful, although he arrives injured, naturally, so can't grace the pitch for our next game. Onto Rangers, yeah?
That's it? Apparently so. A drab game was ruined by the fact that Andy Carroll was injured and couldn't play the heavy rain seemed to affect our more intricate play, and what chances we did make came late on. The pressure we did put on resulted in an Elyounoussi goal disallowed as he was narrowly offside, and that, as they say, is that. If only we had Eduoard...
So with all said and done, we leave Glasgow four points behind Rangers, but with two games in hand. We've been dumped out of the Scottish League Cup, but we are still in the Champions League, and are yet to participate in the Scottish Cup.
More inFMous?
Truthfully, a lot fell on that final game against Rangers. Going ahead of them in the league with two games in hand would have been immense. I feel like some of our transfers have been a bit obscure (Mariappa has performed, in fairness!), but overall I think we've improved the depth of the squad. Outside of transfers, some of the younger players have improved quite well, and I think things look promising for the season...at least compared to Celtic's current season IRL.
My overall results compared to John Barnes are positive. More wins, more points, and nearly unbeaten in the league (until that final game). I have zero context to compare the quality of our play, though. The first few months were quite dire, but we were more explosive in second half of our save, which was perhaps to do with the ME. When looking at Celtic's results in the same period (Nov-Feb), they either didn't win, or they absolutely battered teams. You could argue that this means the football should be more entertaining, in theory, and I'd be inclined to agree. I'd put myself narrowly ahead at this point - the league is in our hands, there's still two other trophies to play for, and our results are better, quite frankly. However, given that we know Celtic went on to win a trophy in their 'torrid' season, I'd like to see what comes of this campaign.
Former Alaves manager Abelardo lead Celtic to the title, and also won the Scottish Cup, beating Rangers 3-0 in the final. The league record is actually very consistent with my own - if they played two more games, won them both, and got a +3 GD in the process then it'd be identical. Their Champions League journey ended in the first knockout round after Chelsea beat them 3-2 on aggregate. Did I set them up for success, or did I hold them back? I'm willing to share the spoils this time out, especially in a long, hard season, where we were pushed all the way.
Am I as infamous as John Barnes? No. No I'm not.