Infamous : FM22 : Nuno Espírito Santo - Tottenham Hotspur

InFMous

Having signed an initial two year deal with Spurs on 30/06/2021, Nuno Espírito Santo had an uphill battle on his hands to convince the fans, and even many players at the club, that he was the right Head Coach to try and return the Lilywhites to the top table of domestic and continental football. In a well-publicised drawn out saga, Nuno was seen as a last resort option after the likes of Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino rejected the opportunity, and Paulo Fonesca and Gennaro Gattuso were overlooked for one reason or another.

The job, on paper, looked difficult from the get-go. From the outside, it seemed as if fans wanted the club to be back in the Top 4, and challenging for silverware. With the standard of the playing squad you could perhaps forgive this as an achievable target, but having been without a Head Coach for two-and-a-half months, and with the player unrest building up within the squad (and culminating in a very public interview in which Harry Kane declared his intention to leave his ‘boyhood’ club), it seemed more of a poisoned chalice than a golden ticket. Nuno was immediately greeted with scepticism due to his ‘Mourinho-lite’ image, perhaps due to the counter attacking style adopted by Wolverhampton Wanderers during the tenure of their new Head Coach. Would teams give Spurs as much space to roam? Are they capable of being as organised defensively? Even if the answers to the prior questions had been positive, you still need to sell it to the fans, and in my opinion that was never even attempted. On 01/11/2021, Nuno Espírito Santo was dismissed after only 10 league games. The wrong man at the worst time. I’m here to fix that (and not Antonio Conte).

 
 

Nuno was sacked from Spurs following three straight defeats - one in the Europa Conference League to Vitesse, an away loss to London rivals West Ham, and a 3-0 spanking at home courtesy of a hideously disjointed Manchester United (Manchester UFC to some). Spurs are only 5 points away from Top 4, are into the League Cup Quarter Final against the Irons, and are still in control of qualification in their ECL group. Drab performances seem to have killed off Nuno rather than results, although the latter wasn’t that fantastic, either. When they won it was narrow, and when the lost they were generally tanked or just totally inept.

Marching In

I turned transfers off for the opening window as I want to work with the same squad that Nuno had been using. I am glad that in-game there appears to be no personal issues with Harry Kane (which is surely something that Sports Interactive know as fact and could have been hard-coded, but oh well), however upon looking at the squad I’m reminded that the defensive and midfield positions are actually a bit rubbish, at least compared to other teams challenging for Champions League qualification spots. This is the best I could come up with:

 
 

Am I confident this will work in the Football Manager 2022 Beta? No. I think it’s a bit of a risk to throw myself into this challenge at all, quite frankly, as for many years I haven’t managed a side expected to do well whilst having actual decent competition within the league. I mentioned that I wasn’t overly keen on the quality of the defence or midfield, so theoretically one option would be to just try and decimate a team with the attacking talent Spurs have and hope to score one more than our opposition. I’ve decided to go all Thanos, though, and attempt to be balanced. I’m expected to deliver attacking, possession-based entertaining football, and I think this tactic matches intent with the reality of the current squad. I intend to keep hold of the ball in the middle to allow Sergio Reguilón and Emerson Royal to move up the pitch, and without having a forced Regroup/Counter-Press or Hold Shape/Counter, the players should be intelligent enough to decide if there is an opportunity to move faster and take advantage, or simply retain the ball and await an opening. We are pragmatic in the middle of the pitch, as I need to ensure a presence within defence and transition, as well as have at least one player from deep supporting attacks. With Dele Alli and Tanguy Ndombele in the middle, I’m confident we’ll see some good contributions from at least one of them. The attack speaks for itself, although having Son Heung-min as a DLF(A) possibly wastes some of his workrate, but he should link up with Emerson Royal and Dele Alli quite well, and hopefully move into the channel enough to make the most of his dribbling ability. Harry Kane is there simply to create and finish chances - I was tempted to use him as a Poacher, simply to guarantee he’d be around the 18-yard box as much as possible, and I may yet move him there, but for now I’d like to see how mobile a CF(A) is in this new game.

 
 

As fixtures go, unfortunately the game has decided not to use real fixtures (I honestly can’t remember if I clicked the button…or if there even is a button?), so I’m not playing all the same teams that Nuno did, however we are due to play both Manchester Ultimate Fighting Championship and East London Irons during the month of October, so that’ll be a good litmus test as to how we compare to the poor Portuguese chap. We have managed to avoid Pacos de Ferreira in the final stage of Europa Conference League qualifying (and yes I am sorting the real name fix shortly!), however we’ve drawn our Scottish friends St. Johnstone instead. The fixture list is relatively kind overall though, so I’m hoping for more than 5 league wins, and perhaps taking control of our ECL group once we get there…

August

On paper Norwich City away is quite a kind opening fixture, however we were fortunate to get away with a 1-0 win in an awful match. Slow Lloris saved a penalty early in the second half to keep the scores at 0-0, and I decided I’d had enough of the formation already in the 70th minute, bringing on Bergwijn and playing a 5-2-3 (clearly my go-to for Infamous…), Clearly an inspired change, as Bergwijn scored the winner in the 91st minute. I decided to take the 5-2-3 tactic forward (IF(A) on the left, IW(A) on the right, CF(S) in the middle) but with the same instructions. A partially rotated side then smashed St. Johnstone 5-0 in the first leg of our ECL qualifier, although it’s hard to judge if we looked exciting or were just vastly superior. The return leg yielded a mind-numbing 0-0 draw, so we progress to the group stage. Our first home game in the league was a vaguely entertaining 1-0 victory over Burnley thanks to Harry Kane’s early strike, with plenty of chances created, but our lack of cutting edge could have cost us on another day.

 
 

September

After an international break in which we lost Lucas Moura for a few months (to injury, not on his travels), we hosted a Saudi-backed Newcastle United managed by Hansi Flick, and earned a convincing 3-0 win despite playing the last 30 minutes with 10 men after Lo Celso went off injured a few minutes after he came on. What followed was a drab 0-0 in the Europa Conference League against SK Sturm Graz (also in our group are Shamrock Rovers and AMO Apollon Limassol), in which our rotated side lacked any synergy and were actually dominated possession-wise by our Austrian visitors. We looked better in the 80th minute once the big guns came on (I was daydreaming so forgot to make changes earlier), but our hot-and-cold performances leave me wondering if I’m essentially Nuno mark II at this point. The Wolves of Wolverhampton were our foes in the Carabao Cup Third Round, but despite playing our strongest XI we put in yet another faltering performance, however at least we came away with a 1-0 win (courtesy of another Harry Kane penalty) and our seventh clean sheet in a row. We kept faith with the previous squad as we travelled to Goodison to face Everton but we conceded our first and second goals of the season before halftime (a Richarlison penalty and a Michael Keane header from a corner), so I shifted to a 4-2-3-1 just to try something different in the second half, before conceding once more after the break. My favourite moment of the game was when Emerson Royal ran the ball straight off the pitch whilst under zero pressure - at least they seem to have got him right in the Match Engine.

With performances generally being quite poor, albeit usually clinical in attack, I decided to mix things up a bit and at least pretend to look threatening going forwards.:

 
 

On paper we’ve simply moved our fullbacks into wingback positions and adjusted a few roles. I’ve given our central defence less license to ‘ball play’ (the Libero may flit between that and a standard CD(D) depending on opposition), as it were, and want to get the ball wide quite quickly and rely on some overlaps to create options in the middle, which is occupied by Ndombele and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg who will be offering most of the legs in the middle. I now expect the team to press when we lose the ball, and counter when we win it. It’s not particularly original, but giving the Spurs squad license to think for themselves is clearly a risk. We actually conceded in our following game against Shamrock Rovers, but put four past the Irish in a comfortable victory. The key month for the save is now upon us…

 
 

October

A key month, but the only key I’ve seen so far is the one that opens up the door to our 18 yard box. Our first match sees us get spanked by Manchester United, with Cristiano Ronaldo proving unplayable in this edition of Football Manager. We were awful. Over the international break I pondered my existence, and wondered if this is going to be my first Infamous failure. I panicked and moved Son up top to play DF(A), and moved my other winger role into Shadow Striker. My tinkering was rewarded with a lovely 4-1 win over struggling Southampton, with Son scoring twice and securing Player of the Match from his new role. My final Europa Conference League match, against AMO Apollon Limassol, was a sensible 2-0 away win with a fully rotated side, so we end our stint in this competition top of Group C with 7 points from 9, and looking good to progress. Wolves then came to try and spoil the Spurs party again, this time in the league, but were vanquished to the shadow realm after a confident 2-0 win. We’ve looked a lot more mobile when going forwards, which is possibly due to the increased space down the wings. Who’d have thought? A Paul Dummett inspired Newcastle side fell to a 1-0 loss to our lads in the Carabao Cup, setting up a lovely tie away at Norwich in the Quarter Final (which we will never play). Our final game of the save comes on 30/10/2021, where we travelled to the generically named ‘London Stadium’ in order to be unfairly beaten 1-0 by the generic East London club, West Ham United. A Saïd Benrahma free kick dashed my hopes of leaving on a high, and we were unable to convert from our many good opportunities. These games happen sometimes, I just really could have done without it happening in my final game in charge.

 
 

Team Espírito?

Having lived through a sample size of Nuno’s toils with Spurs, I can understand why things went wrong. The squad, at least in Football Manager 2022, doesn’t seem amazingly balanced, and at some point in the near future is due a refresh, especially at the back. Although we won 5 of our 8 league games, the games we did win were against fodder, and we even managed to mess up against our London rivals in the final game. The final tactic I stumbled upon seemed to play better than anything else I had attempted before then, and think with some minor tweaks that it’d have done Spurs some good going forwards. One thing I did not have to contend with was a wantaway Harry Kane, for which I am most grateful. Despite the team’s inconsistent performances (less so results, as these were probably about as expected overall), Kane managed 4 goals in 8 league games, and a further 5 across Carabao/ECL action. Aside from Hugo Lloris (who is definitely far superior in Football Manager compared to reality), it was only really Kane himself who performed well, although the late tactical change did start to bring the best out of Son Heung-min.

 
 

In reality, Tottenham occupy ninth position in the Premier League table after 10 games. We are in the same position, however the scheduling seems to have just done its own thing in-game. We have two games in hand at the end of October versus the IRL Spurs. The next two league games on the schedule in my save are showing as Chelsea and Leicester, so there are no guarantees that 10 league games would bring about a greater return than what Nuno managed. We matched the club’s efforts in the Carabao Cup, as we’re both in the final eight, but in the Europa Conference League we are 3 points better off, and actually in a qualifying position as things stand.

This was my favourite moment of the save - Emerson Royal switching on the afterburners to ghost past two of his own players

I suppose the final way we can judge the success of this Infamous save is whether or not we were playing more exciting football than Nuno’s side. I’d argue that by winning games by more than one goal, and that our goal difference in the league is +7 on our counterparts, that it may seem that way. It definitely took a little while for my side to find their feet tactically, however it wasn’t a snooze fest every time we entered the pitch. I feel quite similar to how I felt during my John Barnes Infamous, wherein we had a better average of points per game but the actual end product was very similar to the results we were trying to improve upon. I’ve definitely not done worse than Nuno Espírito Santo, and I’d also suggest that we’ve done a little bit better, and that’s enough for me. Well done me.

Infamous : FM21 : Gary Neville - Valencia

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.

N.B. I’ve gone for the black again due to Valencia’s classic white shirt with black shorts - just think white is lazy so I’ve chosen the colour for their shorts

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:

Only three points away from the Europa Conference League positions, but also just four away from a relegation place. The league is quite compact

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):

 
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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:

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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:

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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!

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Infamous : FM21 : Alan Shearer - Newcastle United

InFMous

On 1st April 2009 it was announced that club legend Alan Shearer would take over as interim boss of Newcastle United until the end of the season. The club had been an amusing distraction to neutrals for a number of years before Mike Ashley took over ownership of the club in 2007. After his directorial appointments undermined one club legend in Kevin Keegan, he turned to laughing stock Joe Kinnear to try and steer the Mags in the right direction. Following medical issues (and a few games under future boss Chris Hughton), Alan Shearer was appointed as interim boss on 1st April 2009 until the end of the season. Shearer pointed to his passion for the club as the reason for him taking charge and trying to save his boyhood club from relegation, which is the same challenge we face today.

 
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As a Newcastle fan, it’s hard to look back on this time to try and figure out why things didn’t click on the pitch, simply because it was absolutely wretched and I have attempted to block it from my memory. Following a failure to qualify for the Champions League in the 2003/04 season, Sir Bobby Robson was sacked early in the following campaign after a 4-1 defeat to Aston Villa. Managers came and went, and the club somehow managed to stay in Europe for a few seasons whilst rocking it with the likes of Peter Ramage and Antoine Sibierski. Madness. The mass turnover of players, and an inability to stick with a manager/philosophy finally caught up with the Toon in the 2008/09 season when relegation was confirmed following a spineless 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa (they love being there for dramatic moments). Serial payslip snatcher Michael Owen did his best not to get injured prior to his contract expiring, and other ‘big hitters’ like Obafemi Martins, Damien Duff, Mark Viduka all failed to perform consistently, which led Newcastle to the Championship. I recall Shearer placing all of his faith in Owen leading the side to safety, however zero goals in 7 appearances shows how committed he was, although the side only scored four during the final 8 games of the 08/09 season.

On a personal level, I feel like relegation was completely deserved, and no team is ever “too good to go down”, as many have thrown at the likes of Newcastle and West Ham. I don’t blame Shearer for trying to save the club he loves, but he surely would have got another shot at a later date had he not stepped in during this tumultuous time:

As you’ll see from the above, we take over the club with 30 games played, and find ourselves in the relegation zone. I only had to re-load the save twice to get us into a similar position, although bizarrely the first time around Newcastle were 7th. We are three points from safety rather than two, but I’m fairly pleased with the ‘simulation’ overall. Where this differs from reality (aside from the 12 season gap, players, and my hairline) is that we play more games against other relegation candidates, and thus I’d say our run in is slightly easier than Shearer’s.

The goal of this 8-game save is to complete what big Al’ couldn’t and save Newcastle from relegation. Quite frankly I don’t care how I do it, but that’s the intention. Shearer’s results speak for themselves, and at the very least I expect to beat his measly win ratio:

Let’s go.

State of play

Upon looking at the squad I notice that Matt Richie has been loaned out, which is a bit of a disaster as I felt his sheer aggression would be enough to keep us up. Calum Wilson has scored 9 goals in 22 games in the league, and the mercurial Allan Saint-Maximin has missed nearly 3 months through injuries. You can see where the problems lie within the squad at the minute, and a lack of real quality at the back, partnered with a stifling of ability up top has really put us in a spot of bother. I feel like I need to make the most of a fluid attacking midfield trio in order to stop the rot, with Joe Willock, Miggy Almirón, and ASM the key to supplying the walking doctor’s note, Wilson, with decent ammunition. The rest of the tactic will have to be fairly pragmatic, so to that effect, here’s what I’ve come up with:

 

Willock didn’t last long…

 

I think this 4-2-3-1 is relatively well balanced, albeit we’ll theoretically end up quite narrow when attacking due to two Inverted Wingers. Jonjo will hopefully spread the play wide whilst Longstaff(s) will be the legs. In defence I’ve gone for a standard set up to try to remain in solid defensive unit. I’ve tried to leave instructions fairly bland so I can adjust over the first few games, but in theory I just want play to go through the middle of the pitch before springing any of the front 4, and I don’t intend to hang around to do it. If we end up too narrow then we have the option of Ryan Fraser to come in whom will be back from injury shortly. We have plenty of pace and flair, so I’m letting them make the most of it. Defensively…well, I’ve never been a defensive-minded manager on Football Manager, so this is my attempt at some balanced attacking intent. If it all goes pear shaped then I’ll drop the AMC into a DMC role, and we’ll go from there. Recent results have been awful, so I’m hoping a change in shape/manager means that the only way is up:

I’ll admit there are some tough games in there, however when you’re battling for points you really need to beat, well, anyone really, and that’s precisely what I’ll be trying to do now.

SOS

Upon receiving an achievement for delegating literally everything to my staff (and then taking back the touchline instructions and team talks), I looked ahead to the game away at Leicester City. They’re comfortably 8th, and a number of points off the European spots, so they’re not exactly an impossible challenge on this save, even away from home. Before this, though, I managed to see off my first enemy – Mike Ashley. A takeover of the club was completed days before our first match, and the new chairman insisted that the board had been “impressed” by my tenure so far. Thanks, chief.

I’ve sat through a lot of football, and Football Manager, in my time, and I’ve never seen such a boring display. Leicester had their chances, but they were mainly pot-shots, and any time they had a go in our penalty box it was inevitably blocked. Overall, it’s a good point to gain against a top-half side, and we try and take the positives into the next game (we didn’t concede?).

Next up is my geographically closest Premier League side – West Ham United. Again, we are away from home, but this version of West Ham differs vastly from the one in reality. This Hammers side, at the start of play, are in 18th, and level on points with us after they drew 0-0 with 17th placed Sheffield United. If there are any must-win games in this mini-save, this is surely one of them. I’ve decided to keep with the same tactic and XI that got us a point away at Leicester, as I feel like trying to go and more direct towards the end of the game may work when countering against a side desperate to take the points in front of a frustrated crowd. Cross your fingers.

What a win. Aside from Michail Antonio’s two attempts at the start of each half, we stifled the Irons completely, and had a fair number of half chances ourselves. The goal from Sean Longstaff was a little scrappy, but we made that from some good play over the right hand side of the pitch. Our second came at the perfect time for us to seal the points, and it was a bit of a ripper from Peruvian AMC Rodrigo Vilca (replacing the injured Willock). Two games, two clean sheets, four points, and we’re only a couple of draws off beating Shearer’s managerial record already, although a win would be handy as we’re up against…Sheffield United.

Sean’s goal is the first for the Toon in my tenure

The Blades start the day in the relegation zone on goal difference, but only because of our second goal in the previous match. We’re finally in front of the Geordie faithful, and hopefully our recent good results and momentum can be carried through. Vilca starts ahead of Willock in this one due to his injury, and will even when the latter returns at this rate, but the remainder of the side remains intact.

STOP THE COUNT!

When Joelinton is coming off the bench and bagging a brace you know that you’ve done something very right, or that your opponents have done something very wrong. Another clean sheet, and six goals spread amongst the front four (Joelinton x 2, Wilson, Almiron, ASM, Vilca) are justifying my tactic thus far. We looked dangerous every time we had the ball, and there’s not much more to say than that. Normally when these results happen, people jump for the “it could have been 10!” chat, but this one really couldn’t. It should have been about six, and it was, and that pleases me more than wasting a load of chances.

The Wolves of Wolf Street were up next, and I got a few pre-game jitters. We were first up for the Matchday as we were playing on Friday night, and, as things stood, we were 3 points outside of the relegation zone, with West Brom also acting as a buffer. Despite our excellent results thus far, a loss here, coupled with decent results from the sides beneath us, will drop us right back in it and with lost momentum.

For once we were up against it from the start as a Willian José strike from an early corner ensures that the Newcastle defence was breached for the first time in over 3 games, but a Jonjo Shelvey free kick brought us level soon after. Calum Wilson poked home from a low Miggy Almirón cross in the 58th minute, before Christian Pavón equalised for the home side late on. Dogs of draw, more like (one point each against Leicester and Wolves…I’ll show myself out). I think my mistake came during my triple change, where I inadvertently let Jeff Hendrick onto the pitch.

With four games down, and four to go, we’ve already surpassed Shearer’s record in terms of points return and win ratio, but it’s good to take stock of what’s still required to keep Newcastle in the Premier League:

Sheffield United recovered from their hammering against us to wobble West Brom, and Fulham have picked up four points from their last two games. These results keep us within touching distance of 18th, which is unfortunate, but it also shows how dire of a state we were in prior to my arrival. My final four games are Manchester United (H), West Brom (A), Arsenal (A), and Fulham (H), so I’d still say our goal is well within my grasp, but I’m anticipating on losing at least two of these games.

Against my better judgement, I changed absolutely nothing about our side prior to the visit of Manchester United. It’s looked decent so far, so figured that the worst that could happen is we get tonked 4-0. After seeing Sheffield United and West Ham both win games before we kicked off, the pressure was on to pull away from 17th place.

Defensive chaos - I live for it

This has all the hallmarks of a match against Manchester United. Undeserved penalty for them? Check. Anthony Martial looking unreal in the match engine despite being absolute tat in reality? Check. Defensive abominations allowing us to come from behind to win? Check. Sensationally, Fernandes’ penalty was saved by Dubravka, and Martial’s early goal was cancelled out by yet another Almirón assist from a cut back on the right, and some penalty box ping pong late in the game which Calum Wilson took full advantage of to bang home. All of a sudden we’re four points clear with three to go, and with two against relegation rivals we are surely favourites to survive.

In a truly turgid affair, I thought we’d snatched three points off Sam Allardyce’s West Brom when ASM cut in from the left and fired home into the corner on 68 minutes, only for the sublimely average Karlan Grant to slot home after a long ball effectively removed our defence from the game. A point isn’t the worst, and we’re still unbeaten in six, but the Baggies were there for the taking. I have noticed that our players are starting to get quite tired, especially right back revelation Emile Krafth, but after the majority of the squad has started six games in the last 30 days I can’t say I’m particularly surprised that there are some early signs of fatigue. I’ll push on with the same XI for Arsenal (Willock misses out due to his loan arrangement, but he’s already been usurped by Vilca anyway) as we have a 7 day break afterwards.

The task facing us prior to the Gunners game is simple – we are four points ahead of both West Brom and Fulham with two games to go, thus a win guarantees our safety. Annoyingly, we start the game in 17th due to Sheffield United’s continuing renaissance, but I don’t really mind. If we fail to beat Arsenal, the prior clubs will still need their own positive results to be within striking distance with one game to go.

It was going to happen at some point, and, realistically, taking four points from Manchester United, West Brom, and Arsenal is probably as good as it was going to get. We had a few chances here, but this was the result of our attacking midfield trio all failing to get going. Wilson hasn’t taken games by the scruff of the neck quite as much as I’d hoped, but he usually drags defenders and allows our mercurial talents to flourish. Pépé scored in the first half, and Will.I.An finished us off a few minutes from time. I wanted to scream and shout, and let it all out. Easy pickings, and it could have been worse. Our rivals’ matches were the following day, so I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and prayed to the ghost of Steven Taylor that we’d be celebrating early survival.

Fulham lost, and thus drop into the Championship (again), however West Brom pulled off a victory against local rivals Wolves in order to take the battle to survive into the final day. A win guarantees our safety, although even a draw or defeat may still be fine as West Brom are playing away at Manchester United. We could even finish as high as 15th if results go our way, which would be a little mad. We’re already one up on Shearer’s Newcastle in this instance, as we start the day 1 point outside the relegation zone rather than 1 point inside. Anything other than a defeat against Villa would have saved us that fateful day, and I am intending for history not to repeat itself. My standard line-up will continue, though I do have Andy Carroll on the bench if things go drastically wrong (right?)…

In the end this was indeed null and void as West Brom fell to a 3-1 defeat, however we absolutely smashed the Cottagers to ensure Premier League survival. Wilson made my previous sentiments look idiotic with two early goals, as did Krafth who then dutifully assaulted Lookman and received his marching orders. We sensationally went 4-0 up before a late Harrison Reed goal robbed us of our clean sheet, before Wilson saved a little beauty for last…

I went full Tom Hanks when I saw this finish

Conclusions

Well, frankly, we were fucking awesome in almost every single game. We played exactly how I wanted us to, which is rare for me to get right at the first time of asking. Including his 4 goals against Fulham, Wilson scored 7 in 8 to see us over the line (something Owen never even looked like doing back in ’09), and Saint-Maximin and Almirón were extremely threatening from wide positions. I’ll die by this sword - Heco Dubravka was solid and didn’t make any mistakes (and he is lovely IRL). As expected, our midfield and fullbacks didn’t rate too highly, however they passed the eye test so I’m happy with the roles they fulfilled. I’m also surprised at how competitive the bottom end of the table was when you consider our record of 15 points from 24 available, yet we were still in the firing line on the final day of the campaign. West Brom were the team that plummeted, as is so often the case (apparently?).

Our overall record versus Alan Shearer reads as follows:

My success in having an actual plan aside from ‘pass it to Owen and hope for the best’ has won the day. My ‘pass it to ASM and hope for the best’ plan was far better.

This one isn’t up for debate – am I as infamous as Alan Shearer? No fucking way

Infamous : FM21 : John Barnes - Celtic

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:

  1. Sign a 'marquee' player for Celtic in the opening transfer window

  2. 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.