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Welcome to the start of the new season. Today we prepare for our first friendly for tomorrow but first we get to check out our new stadium, the 25,000-seater Windmill Gardens.
On the first we also got a new back-of-kit sponsor but it's only £4,500 for the year. Thankfully it's only for one year.
I must be doing something right as the board wanted to meet on 30 June to talk about a new contract. Yes, please! I mean, I do start the month as "Untouchable" at 90%.
Oh excellent! Desmond Brizan immediately gets put in the Influential Player bin. I'm also very happy to see Pat Lawford, he of only 18 years, in the same bin.
I don't know why the Dressing Room Atmosphere dropped. Only thing I can figure is Derek McLeish and Alex Rae being shown the door.
You'll see not many youths having a great June, but that's alright, they were supposed to relax and come back fresh.
Well look at that. I was right. Dean Rice's Bravery continues to improve past the original 12.4. He is now 12.6. He now knows he can survive a brutal injury and be more brave about it.
This is swell. David Caffrey is now assessed at being 5.0 stars in Potential Ability. On top of that, his Technique, Concentration, and Vision each gained a point.
On 5 July my AssMan reassess GK Kris Newton, our Model Citizen, as now being a Conference National talent. Excellent...
We kick off the month with more rumors. Luton (Championship) now are linked to Mickey Morris. Will they make an offer?
Boston (League One) offer £190,000 for Ben Evans. Auto-rejected. (Interesting note: Boston's nickname is The Pilgrims. Interesting juxtaposition on how things are viewed over there.)
Right before our first friendly a bid of £250,000 comes in for Evans. He has a £300,000 release clause so I deny. Eventually somebody is going to offer £300,000. Eventually. On 10 July Walsall (Championship) think £195,000 is enough for Evans; they are wrong.
The 3rd of July sees an email about Morris going to Crystal Palace (Premier). I could get behind that, I like CP.
While I'm celebrating America's freedom with burgers for the entire squad and staff, Walsall make another trial offer for Evans. No! Go away and let me watch the fireworks!
July 7th brings something that gives me pause. Cardiff (Championship) offers £100,000 for Jose Parker. Well, this solves the problem of what to do with Gary Ferguson. What about a loan-back? Nah, we got enough coverage. Hmm...Cardiff are in the Championship and my AssMan doesn't believe Parker is better than League One. So we'd be fools not to pull the trigger? Let's add £50,000. And they bite! The next day Brentford (Championship) make the same bid and now Parker has choices. The 12th sees Norwich (Premier) toss in their hat. Maybe my AssMan is very wrong about Jose.
The bids for Morris resume on 9 July with Millwall (League One) coming in at £195,000 and Hibernian (Scottish Championship) at £200,000. Brentford offer £210,000 on 11 July.
In unexpected news, Falkirk (Scottish Championship) make a bid for Gary Ferguson. It's not all money up front so I tweak it a little. It can bring up to £19,000 for us. If he and Parker both leave, we'll still have enough defenders who can step up and be DMC3 if needed. He agrees to move on the morning of 15 July. Good on ya, Gary! Light Scotland up!
Later that afternoon Ben Evans finally agrees to leave, heading to Norwich. Maybe I should have set a higher fee.
A Morris offer on the morning of the 16th again leads to his agent demanding a new contract. Damn you, Portsmouth! (They are in the Championship) Stop low-balling us. QPR (League One) get close on 26 July with an offer of £235,000. We have £15,000 to go and the transfer window closes in five weeks. I think someone will make the right offer before then. I wasn't too far off. Hibernian (Scottish Premier) offer £245,000 on 27 July. Next offer should be the winning one!
I am quite happy to bring in these two guys, even if they fans are indifferent on the signings. Brizan might get to be the Vice Captain depending on if Eddie Macey or Stephen McGregor leave. Evans is more likely to leave, and with Alfie Barnes already gone, Desmond will be our left centreback starter. He should be mentoring someone soon. Cosgrove? Cockbill?
Luke Matthews will supplant Mark Flitcroft as our starting attacking midfielder. This will allow me to ship off David Doran, hopefully for a nice price. He has a lot of good attributes and in a few years might be our Captain, and hopefully mentor.
While we were all walking around Windmill Gardens, taking in the view, our Chief Scout was back in his office pouring over the list of players recently released.
I spent A LOT of time on the 1st looking over those players, not that I really had any heavy needs but it doesn't hurt to do your homework. Timing is everything. One of the kids I had on my shortlist was released by Manchester United. He is an 18 year-old attacking midfielder who is Ambitious and Media-friendly. My AssMan rates his potential at 4.0 stars. He won't cost us much and I'm sure we can loan him out for a season. Does Jordan Wainwright sign? If he does, I will change his first name as I don't like it when they are geographic references. Plus we already have a Jordan.
He signed immediately. I guess I overshot. He gets £250 per week until 2024 plus some graduation after five (£500) and ten (£750) matches. I immediately change his name to Alex; my best friend knows why.
With Barnes and Parker both gone, and Evans too I suppose, I decided to look around for another DC. I need another starter because I can't trust Ferreira, and Cosgrove and Cockbill just aren't ready to be reliable starters. The first one I make an offer for is an 18 year-old Welsh kid who came up through the ranks at Sunderland. Steven Thomas is his name and turning a profit next year is his game. My AssMan thought he would want between £120 and £200 per week but opens up with £350 and all kinds of clauses and bonuses. But I could get him until 2025 if things fall our way. And they do! He agrees on the morning of 22 July.
On the morning of 26 July left winger Chris Keegan joins us from a miniscule Irish team called Home Farm F.C. I reported on him in our October 2020 update, when I drooled about his Flair and him playing on the left but being right-footed. Let's take a look at when he first signed.
And now. Look how much he improved over 22 months!
I'm literally chuckling to myself. He might be one of my best hidden gem signings ever. At least so far in FM2018. I believe he'll be Premier League-quality. (Oh, in his two years of 1st-team football for Home Farm, he scored 12 times, assisted 5 times, in 52 matches for an average rating of 7.06. Not bad when you consider the talent around him in such a lowly league.
Spoiler alert: Rory Collopy twists his ankle in our final match and Kevin Jenkins got a concussion in an earlier match so I decided to try to find yet another DC for us. I had my eye on this guy since I found Brizan and I'm quite pleased to get him relatively cheap; £750 per week and up to £1,000 after 10 league matches. We also get him for an additional year if he gets those 10 games and we get promoted. Meet Thamindu Noel. (Would it be weird to nickname him Mace Windu?) He pushes Steven Thomas down into the U23s.
Little footnote: On the morning of the first U18 friendly I see that the game automatically added a Grey goalie. Maybe I should take on a real player for a one-month trial? I find a Scottish lad, after about 20 minutes of poking around, who plays for a Scottish Championship club. He's in their U20s and does not appear to be close to getting any game time. His team allows him to join us and I'm quite surprised. I'm surprised again on the 27th when he says no when I go to offer him a full-time contract. I go back to square one. Whomp, whomp. I find nobody worth signing.
I'm having trouble finding a U23 Ball Control coach. The good ones want to be the U23 Manager, U18 Manager, or a U18 Coach. And then there's a bunch of dross. I eventually come up with a solution. Make my U18 Ball Control coach my U23 one and then sign a newbie to be the U18 coach. Let's see if we can get this to work.
I have to give Marco Izzo £825 to think of taking the promotion. He'll need some time. He waits until 5 July. Now to sign his U18 replacement. He, Deon Taylor, is going to cost £850 per year.
I find a new scout. He's not really that impressive but he is younger and slightly better than the one we let go. What was cool about the transaction was that we poached Andy Polley from a lesser team. Flexing!
We open the friendly season with a home match at our brand new digs, Windmill Gardens. And we'll work on integrating Brazin and Matthews.
On 3 July I got an email about ticket sales for the new stadium, new league. Only 461 so far and an expected total of 1,000. Kinda low but hopefully the trend of increasing numbers per year will see around an additional 2,000 per match. Two weeks later we are up to 911 holders. By the 24th we are up to 1,213, way more than projected. Maybe we will turn a profit this year...
World Cup news is broken. Despite signing up for updates, none are delivered. But the matches went on. Not surprised that USA finished bottom of their group but it was surprising to see Romania finish top, over Spain. Minorly surprising was Peru passing Scotland to get out of their group. In the end, England beat Italy on penalty shots. Kemar scored 3 goals in 5 appearances.
We find out on 27 July who we face in the First Round of the Carabao Cup. Good news? We host. Bad news? We host Burton from League One. With so many Conference National and League Two teams in the mix we got a small bit of bad luck.
The same day (what a busy day!) I had to decide win bonus for the league and cups. I'm very surprised that I have the option to select £950,000 for the cups. That's crazy! I go with the lowest option, £400,000, and the highest for the league, £210,000.
We are expected to win the league by the press and the board fully expect that. They don't have high expectations for Carabao Cup and the FA Cup, thankfully. As we won't have so many cups as previous year I will probably run with a smaller squad. But who will I sell off?! I'll also actually loan out players this year to both save some money and help younger players increase their skills.
Mickey is expected to win the league golden boot with 5-1 odds and Burns is third best at 7-1 odds. If by some miracle Morris stays with us all season the race will be between these two chaps.
We lost two centrebacks with Premier League potential this month and I fear this might hamstring our defense. Maybe not now but get back to me in 6 to 18 months.
Let's look at those who left us last July.
GK Andy Webb went to Bradford (League One) but only got into one cup match with them. He spent a lot of time in the U23 matches and I guess friendlies as he was in 58 non-competitive matches. This year it looks like he'll be their primary backup for the Seniors.
MC Liam Roberts agreed with York (League Two) where he appears to have been a regular starter. He had 40 starts and 4 sub appearances in both cup and league play last season. He averaged only a 6.77 rating though. We should face him as our teams meet on 22 October.
DC Mitchell Nightingale joined Motherwell (Scottish Premiership) and represented them in league play and cups in 18 starts and 4 sub appearances. He rated only 6.97, which did not please his bosses, who then shipped him off to Dunfermline (Scottish Championship) in January on loan. While there he stared in 15 league matches, rating 7.06. This year it looks like he going to be stuck in their U20 squad. He's not valued that high, £27,000, so if we have another injury in the center of our back line maybe I should buy him back?
And finally, MR Andy Robinson went off to Hearts (Scottish Premier). He got 23 starts and 1 substitution, somehow not scoring at all. He rated 6.74. It does not look like he's destined to start for the senior Hearts this year either.