I actually completed this season a few weeks ago, but got distracted by EU4. It's time to get stuck into this save again, though.
TransfersAs you can see, we had a much busier set of windows than I had expected, which was largely kicked off by Aston Villa bidding 13M for
Himad Abdelli. Abdelli was a player I was hoping to see become a mainstay at the club, but the money was too good given our financial struggles. Because he was such a key player, the sale caused some discontent within the club, but things eventually settled down.
That money was then partially reinvested back into the club, with an eye towards upgrading at the weakest positions: fullback and centerback. At rightback, which has been a persistent problem both in terms of the first team and youth recruitment, in came
Rodrigo Pinheiro to shore things up. As we'll see below in the stats, he was extremely reliable going forward, leading the team in assists and finishing third in chances created. He was also solid in defense, tackling well and getting a high number of interceptions. At leftback,
Umut Meras decided that he wanted a contract well beyond what we could afford given his level of quality, so when I got a reasonable offer from Besiktas, off he went back to Turkey (for less money, naturally, than what he wanted from us). We also haven't had any luck bringing through leftback prospects, so I brought in
Rogerio and
Birger Meling to rotate. Neither made the sheer impact that Rodrigo Pinheiro did on the other side, but both did well enough.
At centerback, last season showed we needed a major overhaul.
Leo Xavier had been a key part of our promotion in Ligue 2, and did a job for us afterwards, but his form fell off quite a bit. He's done quite well at Caen this season, so I think high Ligue 2/low-medium Ligue 1 is his level. I also sold
Fernando Mayembo to Caen. Mayembo had been at the club from when I started the save, but was never able to make a claim for a first-team spot once we were promoted. In came
Lukas Mai from Bayern and
Janos Mojzer from Ferencvaros for a combined 2.9M. Mai was a standout early in the season, forming a nice partnership with fellow Lukas
Lukas Muhl and knocking in a few goals off set pieces, but suffered a damaged spine in December, which caused him to miss effectively the rest of the season. Mojzer wasn't quite as imperious, but did a good job settling in once he got over his homesickness (which is why I signed Gergo Lovrencsics from Ferencvaros in January; the player was chosen specifically as he would almost certainly retire, which he did).
My other major signings came at DM, where we needed a bit of a bridge to the future. I was still envisioning
Antonin Arnaud as our future as a supporting CM/DM, but wanted him to get some loan time before throwing him into the first team. To span that time, I signed
Salih Ozcan from Koln, who did a serviceable job. While Arnaud started out on loan, I recalled him around midseason, and the two of them rotated effectively. Ozcan is definitely second choice going forward, but he'll do a job for us. That signing still left us without a real holding midfielder aside from
Pape Gueye, and so I signed
Ofek Luttati from Lille. He's a player for the future, but got some first team action this season and will give us a nice alternative to a more creative deep player like
Lilian Martel.
Otherwise, my goal was to upgrade at the margins in attack.
Julio never quite settled in and was occupying a non-EU slot, so he was sold onto Niort and replaced with
Valentin Decarpentrie, who gave us additional cover across the AM strata. In my ongoing search to find cover at striker, I brought in
Loick Piquionne.
These signings turned out to be important, as we had a fairly major injury crisis this season (which I'm going to blame on the scheduling changes from the 2022 World Cup, which continues to be the worst). Aside from Mai's damaged spine,
Lautaro Schischman suffered damaged cruciate ligaments in preseason and only ended up making 8 appearances. Pape Gueye also tore his hamstring in a match and missed several months. Then we had a large number of more moderate injuries, which still involved players missing 2-5 weeks at a time. This made it difficult for the afflicted players to find any real consistent form, and so I had to rotate the squad quite a bit.
Ligue 1Table |
Fixtures (page 1) |
Fixtures (page 2)We tightened things up slightly from the previous season, though it took a tactical change after October. I was looking to improve our attacking movement, and so I switched to a standard 4-2-3-1. We started off brightly against Dijon and Toulouse, but then fell off quite a bit, not scoring more than 2 goals for the next few months (some of that was luck, but in other matches we still didn't create many chances). We were also quite open at the back, and while Guingamp had a stellar season (they signed Mohamed Daramy on loan from Bayern), they shouldn't have put 3 past us, and there was no excuse for the 4 goals allowed against Angers. Giving up 4 to PSG away wasn't the worst in isolation, but something needed to change. I went back to a tactical setup I'd used at Newell's Old Boys, dropping the two CMs to DMs, and that shored up our defense quite a bit. I don't think that change in of itself was responsible for our increase in scoring after the World Cup break, but it might have given us some more space to operate in. We allowed multiple goals too often, and particularly after going up, so I'm not pleased by that, and I really need to think about our tactics over the break.
The entire last month of the season was a tight battle for the final CL spot (and the only EL spot) between us, Lyon, Marseille, and Lille. The 1-0 loss at home vs. PSG was expected, but heartbreaking, as we survived the onslaught for 78 minutes before Mbappe scored a worldie. Verratti got sent off a minute later, and we pushed forward, but couldn't finish effectively. Fortunately, we took the positives from that, and wouldn't have lost again but for the 1-0 loss at Monaco (on a penalty right before the end of injury time). Lyon had been in the driver's seat for third, but didn't win during May (two losses to us and Rennes and draws against Marseille, Guingamp, and Lille), which opened the door for the rest of us. Lille similarly struggled in the run-in: while they beat Saint-Etienne 4-0, they lost to Monaco and Strasbourg and drew against Bordeaux and Lyon. Marseille had the best results in May, but we held them off and were a point below Lyon on the last match day. While we dismantled Dijon, Lyon could only draw at Lille, and we'll see CL football for the first time next season. This will be great for us financially, but we're still a bit limited by our stadium size.
Incidentally, PSG should have had an invincible season, but lost their focus after clinching the league at the end of April. They lost at Brest in the next match despite going 1-0 up on a 2nd minute penalty. They got it together afterwards, of course.
Europa LeagueGroup Table |
FixturesOur group draw was tricky: Porto were the obvious favorites, but Spartak Moscow was going to be tricky competition as well. I had initial hopes of progressing when we drew at Porto in the opener, but Spartak then dismantled us at home. While we took full points against BATE, the loss at home against Porto meant we needed a win over Spartak in Moscow to advance. While we dominated the match, we never took our chances, and a late penalty sealed the loss.
Our time in Europe wasn't over, though, as we qualified for the knockout rounds of the Europa Conference League. We were first drawn away at APOEL, and thumped them 5-0 (on 32 shots to 4). Unfortunately, our next draw was at Manchester United, who treated us like we treated APOEL, demolishing us 4-0 on goals from Rodrigo Betancur (just purchased for 77M from Juventus), Anthony Martial, Javairo Dilrosun (just purchased for 52M from Hertha), and Harry Maguire.
Coupe de FranceWe drew National 2 side Beauvais in the Ninth Round, and I actually didn't rotate the squad much as it was at the end of the World Cup break and I wanted to get the first team ready for the intense rest of the season. We cruised to a 4-1 win (with their goal coming in garbage time). But then we were drawn at Monaco in the Tenth Round, and while we were outplayed, we held on and it looked like things were going to extra time, but Monaco scored off an injury time corner. Oh well. PSG, shockingly, won this as well.
Squad Overview
Team Stats:
Not shown above is Schischman, who as I noted above only played eight matches and only managed five shots, no goals, and no assists. Hopefully he has a healthy next season and can rebound.
Otherwise,
Yahia Fofana is still doing well in goal and staying tidy in possession. He's still ahead of our best prospect,
Kevin Robinet, who shook off his broken ankle from last season and had a very successful year on loan in Ligue 2 at Laval. Robinet is closing the gap, though: he's not as physically gifted as Fofana, and I'd like to get his strength and balance up, but he's close when it comes to his other attributes. I might not be able to use Robinet as successfully as a sweeper keeper, as he lacks eccentricity (though his rushing out stat is quite high; does anyone have any insight into how those all work out in terms of SK performance?).
In attack,
Jean-Pascal Fontaine continues to be undroppable, though he's finally starting to regress physically. While he'll eventually make way for
Andy Mondoloni, it's his job to lose. We got great creativity from Rodrigo Pinheiro on the right wing, and finally saw Bradley Barcola find his form with 16 goals (though 5 of those did come in the 6-0 win over BATE). Mehdi Merghem regressed a bit, though, and it might be time to start looking to sell him on, though I'm at that awkward phase where I don't have enough regens who are quite ready yet at AMR but they do have potential. We'll see; maybe I'll try a narrow diamond or a 5-3-2 next season.
In terms of youth development, things are proceeding very nicely. I mentioned that Antonin Arnaud came back from loan and made himself a first-team candidate. He'll definitely start off in the destroying/runner role no matter what setup I use next season.
Nakibou Ali has come along nicely, and I see him as a backup or rotation option next season at CB if I decide to use three CBs (he'll be loaned out again if I use two).
Mohamed Hamada is also looking quite developed, and he'll likely be loaned out again for one more season before getting in the mix for the first team.
Yann Lelievre is not quite ready for the first team, but he'll be there soon. Some younger prospects are getting closer: Andy Mondoloni will be in the senior squad next season, as he's comfortably better than my other creative CM/AMs other than Fontaine. Lilian Martel and
Michel Ochieng are both looking ready for some loan time, and will hopefully return ready. And
Romuald Petit will ideally be loaned out, though I'm butting up into the limited number of players I can loan out to domestic sides. He's not quite as good as Ali, so if I can't loan him out, he'll be sold on.
Around the World
It was an all-Italian final in the EL, with Lazio beating Inter 1-0. Similarly, Belgium had quite a good run in the ECL, with an Antwerp-Gent semifinal, and Gent went on to beat Dortmund 2-1 in the final (Dortmund had eliminated United in the other semi on away goals). And in the CL, Barcelona beat Liverpool 2-0 on goals from Clement Lenglet and Ilaix Moriba.
Barca also nipped Real to the title in La Liga, with 102 points to Real's 101. Atletico and Valencia got the other CL spots, but both finished 14 points behind Real. Sociedad and Sevilla go to the EL, while Betis just lost out and will be in the ECL. The top 4 in the Premier League was tight, with City winning with 86 points just ahead of Arsenal (84), Liverpool (83), and Chelsea (80). Spurs were in clear fifth, 6 points behind Chelsea but 10 points behind sixth-place United, and Everton finished seventh for the ECL place. Napoli won Serie A by 12 points over Juventus, who will be joined by Milan and Roma in the CL, as well as Lazio (due to their EL win). Fiorentina and Inter will represent Italy in the EL. In Germany, Bayern cruised to the title with Bayer Leverkusen, Hertha, and RB Leipzig getting the other CL spots. Schalke and Frankfurt qualified for the EL, and Gladbach will be in the ECL.
In the World Cup, hosts Qatar finished last in their group (shocking, I know), with zero points against Portugal, Serbia, and Burkina Faso. Switzerland and Japan qualified out of their group over Mexico and Argentina, which was surprising (Japan ended with a 0 GD versus Mexico's -1). Uruguay could only qualify out of their group over Slovenia on GD (France won the group and Jamaica finished last). Algeria finished second behind Germany in their group, beating Chile and Costa Rica on GD. In general, it was a bad group performance for South America, with only Brazil and Uruguay going through. Uruguay was then promptly eliminated by Spain 3-2 in the Second Round, while Brazil lost to Germany 1-0 in the Quarterfinal. The final four were Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and Italy beat Germany 1-0 in the final on an Insigne goal, with Portugal beating Spain 2-0 behind goals from Ruben Neves and Joao Cancelo for third.