InFMous

Back for more, eh? I don’t blame you, this blog series is the hottest shit in town, speaking of which…Gary Neville was hired as Valencia CF’s head coach on 6th December 2015 following the resignation of Nuno Espírito Santo a few days earlier. A 1-0 away loss to Sevilla left Valencia 5 points adrift of the Champions League places in La Liga, but only a single point behind 7th, and the final Europa League place:

As much as ninth in the table after 13 matches isn’t that bad, a poor showing in the Champions League group stages had all but doomed Los murciélagos to the dreaded Europa League knockout rounds. Still not making it untenable enough? How about the fact that infamous investor Peter Lim became the club’s owner the year before, and that the 2015/16 summer window saw Valencia spend a net 80m euro on players like Álvaro Negredo, a young João Cancelo, and Matthew Ryan. Expectations were high that Valencia would begin to restore their position as challengers to the ‘Big Three’, however it was too much, too soon, and the current manager of North London’s biggest club decided he’d had enough.

Following Nuno’s resignation, Lim turned to Phil Neville (who had been on the coaching staff at the club since July) to take temporary charge, before deciding a different approach was needed. Gary Neville was inexplicably brought in from the Sky Sports studio to prove that his criticism of football managers could be justified by proving himself in the big chair. What followed was almost farcical. Dropping into the Europa League, not winning a league game until his tenth attempt (and only winning three of the 16 in total), not keeping a clean sheet in a single league game, getting battered 7-0 by Barcelona in the Copa del Ray semi final first leg, and left the club in 14th, just six points clear of the relegation zone, when he was sacked on 30th March 2016. Neville’s managerial reputation never recovered, and to this day his spirit is known to walk around the woods with another Manchester United dinosaur, Roy Keane.

What have I walked into?

Well, my friend, the media prediction for the squad in Football Manager 2021 is 8th. €0 was spent in the summer just gone, with €40m incoming for the transfers of Ferran Torres, Francis Coquelin, and Geoffry Kondogbia. In their place is Wolves reject Patrick Cutrone. In real life, Valencia went on a huge cost-cutting venture due to losses of over 300m euro over the previous six years, and that is evident in Football Manager as well. ‘The bats’ eventually finished 13th in real life, and we at least find ourselves in a similar position as we take charge on 5th December 2020 in-game:

The good news is that we have already played the two Madrid sides once, the bad news is that we kick off straight away against Sevilla, with an away game against Barcelona coming next. Fantastic. I’d best get to grips with the squad as quickly as I can then:

For the first time in one of these Infamous ‘challenges’, I feel a little apprehensive about how to set the team up. With Celtic, we were dominant force, but I also wanted to avoid the pitfalls of attacking relentlessly. At Newcastle I was acutely aware (being a long-time fan/sufferer) that we had a dynamic attacking unit and little else, so more defensive solidity was required to build a base for our flair players. Things were almost the same here, however our wingers, Cheryshev and Guedes, aren’t quite as dynamic as Saint-Maximin, and Maxi Gómez is a very different striker to Wilson. We have a few bigger lads at centre back who are strong in the air, so the idea is to force other teams wide and get them to try and successfully beat us in the air. I was tempted to give our decent wingbacks more license to roam either on an attacking duty, or as Complete Wingbacks, however I want to ensure our shape is kept when building an attack as I feel like we’d get caught quite easily down the wings seeing as we’re giving up space in front of us (when it comes to defensive responsibilities). I’m not sold on the two roles in the middle - I may end up standard CM roles if I think Soler is heading too wide to get involved. As mentioned before, our front three aren’t completely dynamic, and I will need to bring Maxi Gómez into play to make the most of him, as he’ll certainly not be running onto anything. Patience. Patience also is the name of the game when it comes to waiting for my starting XI to be fit, as we’re about 3 weeks off having all of them back. Sweating.

In terms of key players, I suppose I’m looking at our defence to basically get us through games, as I have very little confidence that I’ve set the middle and final thirds up very well. Jasper Cillessen in sticks is reliable, Gabriel and Mangala in the centre are experienced and better than their Premier League reputation gives them credit for, whilst Wass and Gayà could be the spark down the wings that brings our attacking play to life:

The fact that Daniel Wass is even highlighted shows how worried I am by our squad. He’s very much an all-rounder, which hopefully will just about suit his position, but his attributes are very similar to our offensive wingers, and even Soler in centre midfield. Honestly, pray for me. The transfer window opens in a few weeks, however it comes at the wrong time - we are currently short of an actual striker for the next two weeks with Gómez, Cutrone, and Gameiro all injured for two weeks. Once they’re back, you’d hope we won’t need more cover for a single striking position. I don’t yet know what we’ll need, but possibly just decent cover in the middle of the park, and perhaps an ‘x factor’ on one of the wings (provided we can afford it).

December

Five league games, four wins, three clean sheets, and we advance to the next round of the Copa del Ray. Despite being extremely limited by the sheer number of injuries we currently have (it wouldn’t be until the final game of the month, against Huesca, that we are able to make our allotted five outfield substitutions), it looks like my initial attempt to stay defensively compact is working! We also didn’t have to wait long for our first goal, with winger Denis Cheryshev heading in from Lee Kang-In’s cross - Football Manager things?

Our most emphatic league performance was our first game, on the day we took over, against Sevilla. We only conceded one half-chance, and looked dangerous cutting in from the wings. Barcelona scored two set pieces against us, including a direct Coutinho free kick, to dent my confidence - we created nothing in this match. We smashed some unknown lower league side in the Copa del Ray 8-0 to help my overall goal difference, before three close games against Celta Vigo, Cadiz, and Huesca, resulted in three victories. A common theme was our left wingback (Gayà once, Lato once) linking up with our left winger, before firing a cross across the box for Guedes and Cutrone to score winning goals against Celta Vigo and Cadiz respectively. Huesca were beaten by a deep free kick that was headed home by centre back Diakhaby. Iago Aspas scored the only goal against us during this time which came from a bit of penalty box pinball, but that aside, we didn’t look like conceding - Gabriel and Mangala have been absolute rocks thus far.

January

The transfer window is upon us, and as well as shifting out some deadwood, we also got rid of ageing, high-earning Kevin Gameiro, as well as agreeing to an end-of-season €45m transfer for Carlos Soler to Man Brick Red. With the books now more than balanced, we set about recruiting ageing, high-earning stars Ashley Young, Mario Mandžukić, and Fabio Quagliarella for low fees and alright wages. On the pitch we had eight games this month due to our progression in the Copa del Ray, with victories against FC Andorra and Villareal then punctuated by a 3-2 extra time defeat to lowly Girona. Disaster. In La Liga we went unbeaten, starting and ending the month with draws, but beating Elche (thanks to a Quagliarella rescue mission from the bench), Getafe and Eibar in the middle. We lost Eliqiuiam Mangala at the start of the month (I brought in David Carmo for €15m or so to cover and replace) and our defensive stability faltered, as is evident from only one clean sheet in the 5 league games, and we’ve been sneaking late wins recently, so we could do with the niggling injuries to Guedes ceasing, and for Gómez up top to find some consistency. From 14th to 8th in December, and now up to 4th at the end of January is not to be sniffed at though…two months down, two to go to prove I’m better than G Nev.

February

The start of the first month without any particular intrigue, which makes a nice change. We were hammered by Real Madrid, but managed to escape with a 2-1 defeat, before 3 league wins on the bounce which were punctuated by a few friendlies to get minutes into the legs of the also-rans of the squad. We’ve become incredibly reliant on a specific XI, and those in reserve (and even some playing) seem to be losing fitness very quickly. In every single match we are advised by our assistant to play Defensive over Balanced, which I am attributing to our flat five at the back looking very defensive, however we’ve been anything but that this month, scoring 11 goals in 4 games, and conceding 4 in the process. It’s been a good month for our strike force though, with Quagliarella bagging his fourth for us against Levante, Mandžukić heading in his first versus Granada, and Maxi Gómez finally hitting some form and scoring in each of the final two games of the month. Special mention goes to Gonçalo Guedes, as he’s looking completely unplayable at the minute, registering 6 assists in his last 3 games.

Things are clearly going very well at Valencia this season, however I have begun to wonder if I’ve hamstrung the club a little bit next season. European football is definitely the target, and hopefully they can continue this good form to secure Champions League, however with a number of older heads in the squad they may struggle to strengthen properly across the park. Fortunately I’m only simming until the end of the season though so it’s not on my head!

March

So, this is it, the final month of my tenure, and we have only 3 games to play. Atletic Bilbao offer the sternest test, but otherwise Valladolid and Alaves offer us a kind end to my stint as big Gary. Bilbao end our winning run by holding us to a 0-0 draw, which is disappointing as Quagliarella, Gómez, and Lee Kang-In all had chances to bag all three points in a game which was dominated by our defence. I was happy with the performance, but the fans clearly weren’t and it was rated as an ‘E’, which I consider more than harsh. I’ve heard stories of how demanding the Valencia fans are, but they can just get to fuck. We surely improved their mood by beating Valldolid 1-0, with Gonçalo Guedes scoring this howitzer to secure the points (this was actually the final goal of the save as we drew our subsequent match with Alaves 0-0):

The Batman

So with all that said and done, it’s already incredibly clear that I’ve smashed Gary Neville in this challenge. Not only did we improve our results and league position considerably, but we also set Valencia up to finish the season in the Champions League places:

So we rescued the club from some horrible early form that left them closer to the relegation zone than it did to European spots, and we did it with some good defensive performances (9 clean sheets in 17 league games), with some punctuating moments from the likes of Guedes (5 goals and 8 assists in 17 starts), and the ageing striking maestro, Quagliarella (4 goals and 1 assist in 5 (4) appearances). Jose Gayà was wonderful at wingback, as predicted, however Daniel Wass struggled to get a run in the side after the signing of Ashley Young. A slight blot on the CV comes in the form of our Copa del Ray exit to Girona, however I’m pretty sure the league finish justifies the lack of progress on that front:

Overall, I’m happy, although in Football Manager 2022 I need to look to try some ‘harder’ challenges. I had things like Frank de Boer at Crystal Palace lined up, but honestly it’d probably be a waste of time, even for me! Hit me up in my DMs if you have any other great challenges to try. For now though, I’ve completed my hattrick!