And we're back! Hope you guys are doing well and staying safe at home.
International games are being played now, which means I don't have much to do for the next 2 weeks sadly.
I'll use the time to send scouts out to find someone who's not useless up front, and a centre back so we don't have to shit our pants whenever the opponents have the ball.
I decided to sell our backup striker considering he's in his last year of contract and he has no place in the team honestly.
Got some ok money for him and freed up some wages, which is always nice.
Farewell mate, you won't really be missed because I don't think I ever played you in the first place.
I like to leave my clubs in better spot than when I joined, so I made sure to request a better future for our youngsters. This will probably not be as important as I'd like it to be, but hey, it's better than nothing.
Tactics wise, I'm trying out a formation with an AM, makes sense to use it in games I should be winning.
I've done everything that needed to be done, so I decided to holiday through this break. Sorry.
I still believe we're in a very good spot, it's a matter of time before we start capitalizing on our domination in games, and once that happens, we're golden.
There have been a few of those since the start of the save, which might mean a takeover is happening in the near future.
Hopefully it happens before January so we have some actual money to spend instead of hoping for a loan.
As it usually happens on international duty, our best players got injured and now we're in a really tough spot.
I honestly can't believe it happens every single time with the best players, it's infuriating.
Montero, grow up mate.
Our next match is against Albacete, another game we should win comfortably IF HALF OUR TEAM WASN'T INJURED DUE TO NO FAULT OF MY OWN, and I'm going to debut my new tactics there in hopes I'll unlock™ my striker.
Let's do this!
Albacete(A) 0:0Who could've guessed? I for one would never assume that you won't be able to play well with a team full of reserves and a donkey up front. I'm completely in shock and I have no words.
On a more serious note, our regulars would walk all over these and I'm somewhat ok with the way we played.
Shibasaki is a huge miss in midfield, it's going to be rough without him.
Still, a point is better than nothing, and onwards we go.
Kone seems to think he's playing well seeing he disagrees with my criticism. The cheek on this fella.
I swear, if I didn't have to leave this save to someone, he'd be rotting in reserves from this moment on.
To break up this negative tone, I found a potential gem in our u19s, and I think he's not too far from maybe featuring in the first team, in place of someone on much higher wages(looking at you Beauvue).
Elche now awaits in another away game, some of the fellas are back and I pray for a win, otherwise we're entering a dangerous territory.
Elche(A) 1:2Complete domination in the first half led to us scoring from a header after some dodgy defending. No, it was not Kone, he's going to be on the bench for a while.
Keko scored another beauty and we're 2:0 up at the half time after making Elche look like a lower league side in a friendly game.
Nothing of note happened all half, until Elche scored from outside the box, a shot any goalkeeper with functioning arms should save really.
They had a few attempts but nothing to cause any concern.
Decent performance, 3 points and we're sitting at 5th with 11 points from 5 games.
Next game is a home game against Malaga, everyone's hipster team for that one brief period when they were good.
Malaga(H) 4:2We're off to a brilliant start after Merino scores a nice goal in the bottom left after a throw-in, keeper had no chance!
Malaga turn into prime Barcelona for some reason and score a header after about 30 passes while my team decided to not interfere, as that would be rude.
We score a much more primitive goal after a long free-kick and a header that ended up with another header and a goal. 2-1 at half-time, we're once again dominating without anyone to score a proper chance.
I decided to give Kone a chance from the bench, thinking he might be a bit less useless after having a chance to observe the opposition, not that he does anything else while he's playing.
And would you look at that, he scores a beauty that ensures I'll give him another 5 games without scoring because I have blind faith in my awful players.
Beauvue came on from the bench and scored to make it 4-1, while we conceded a header not too long after. Conceding 2 headers in one game is not a nice feeling, and it indicates the lack of quality at CB, which I mentioned a few times now.
Game ends 4-2, we were always on top and should've scored a few more, but you can't be too greedy at this stage of the season.
Well done to the boys, we're 6 games unbeaten and playing arguably the best football in the league.
Once again there are rumours of takeover, with nothing new said this time. Bit odd to have it pop up so many times in a few months.
Dressing room is looking very well, with players being all friendly with each other and loving life at the moment.
I also have a very good support from the lads, it's good to see they realize how good they have it with me. Let's be real, they're nothing without me(I'm just kidding, haha yeah...).
Let's get back to the games, we're hosting Lugo and we're going to establish our authority over this league.
Lugo(H) 1:0I wrote an entire match report, then pressed F12 in Chrome instead of FM, so my page reloaded and it's all gone, so I'm just going to let you know I wrote some super funny things before I brought Kone on to make it seem like I believe in him, he then missed 2 clear cut chances in first 25 minutes and I just sat there watching the screen with a painful look in my eyes.
Merino scored a nice goal after some top notch off the ball movement, and he ensured we got the 3 points we deserved, as Lugo haven't threatened us once, and we should've scored at least 2, but you know, Kone.
Well in lads, I'm proud of you. Except for a certain individual.
This brings us to the end of the month which was almost perfect had it not been for the injuries that were the reason for the only draw this month.
Results are coming in, we've conceded 3 goals in 7 games which is brilliant in my opinion, as 2 of those came in the same game, which shows how solid we can be when someone decides not to have a brain fart.
I'm really starting to feel this save, I enjoy every single game and I'm actually emotionally invested at this point, there's just something special about it.
Our finances should be
fine by the end of the season, we'll probably get a cup run so that should boost them a bit.
Here's what the projections say:
I know this is not something to rely on, but hey, as long as it's not in the red, we're fine.
Our big stadium will most likely be really helpful once the gloryhunters come out if we're looking likely to win the league, so that will also be a nice little income.
Our current income looks like this:
And our expenses look like this:
As far as I can tell, there's no promotion money here, which is quite odd.
I might be wrong as I never played this division before, but there's nothing implying otherwise in the league rules.
TV money is also not as high as compared to England obviously, so I don't think the promotion will do us much good when it comes to money.
It won't harm us, but it's not like we'll be able to splurge out a bit unless I'm terribly mistaken which I hope is the case here.
That brings us to the end of the month, and the next month brings some easy fixtures as it currently stands as majority of the sides are struggling, so I don't expect us to lose for another month.
Here's how the table looks at the end of September:
That's gonna do it for this post, hope you enjoy my journey so far, and as always, I'm open to any criticism or advice as I've never written a "blog" before!
Stay safe lads, these are weird times, hope you're all managing to cope with the situation.
Until the next time!