Merry Christmas Everyone and welcome back, Here I will round up the back end of our first season back in the championship and our summer business off the pitch.
February
5 points from a possible 18 wasn’t a brilliant start after the winter
March
2 points from a possible 12. We need to pick up a few wins soon!
April
12 points from a possible 18 is a brilliant end to the season beating Luton and Charlton condemned them both to relegation and ensured our survival
Table
A great first season back to the Championship I remember 50 points being the media target for survival but in the end we finished 13 points clear of relegation. A lot of draws though so next season we have to be careful they don’t turn into losses.
Awards
Politic retains the POTY award with another cracking season and again retaining YPOTY.
Stats
Goals were hard to come by Samuel only hitting 10 after his record breaking season last year.
Transfers Out
Where to start! A massive £11.5m of sales secures the clubs short term finances at least.
Eddie Brown left for Premier League Preston for £4.4m, Shaughnessy signed for Aberdeen due to a release clause. King-Harmes left for Reading (15% of next sale will come back to us) Nathan Sims a promising youngster who i was happy to sell on due to the fee and overcrowded options the same for Harry Emerson. Both were strikers/Wingers and we have plenty of options there. Ryan Colvin left for £11k he was a youngster who wasn’t going to make it and then finally Josh Emmanuel left for £2.8m which opens the pathway for two promising youngsters.
I’d of liked a bit more money for Brown and Emmanuel but we were in no place to reject these offers. It also gives some youth a chance to push into the first team.
Transfers In
Just the two free signings to replace 7 departures.
Barnes
Barnes joins to lead the line. Samuel seemed to struggle to find goals and Barnes brings talent and experience a 2 year deal I hope he will be influential in his time here.
McLean
McLean joins to strengthen the options in midfield and add a bit of creativity going forward.
Starting XI
A nice mixture of youth, homegrown and experience. Matthews is still the number 1 from day one of the save. Brockbank, Lowe and Politic are all original players. Boon, Whalley and Hurford-Lockett were all in the original day 1 youth team. It’s nice to see after 3 seasons and a promotion we can see the original squad still performing.
Balance
The Balance looks great but when you add up £11.5m of sales and £4.5m of TV money it could of been a lot worst!
Debt
Still £23m of debt left to pay off.
Hopefully as we head into our 4th season we can fight bravely against relegation again. A summer of change with 7 departures we also released 5 players at the end of their contracts including Jack Hobbs.
It’s time for a few more youngsters to step up like Whalley and Hurford-Lockett.
Thanks for reading and have a lovely Christmas and new year.
1st – Ashley Barnes = God Tier signing
2nd – As a prominent influencers of Football Manager, could you please update your Twitter bio.
What would you like it to say?
Awesome read as usual. Seems that you are moving the club in the right direction. I got the Gills up in season 2 and currently I am sitting in the play offs in Feb. It scares me a bit as my players are all league 1 ,lower championship standard and I wouldn’t want to go against my principles of splashing the cash to survive if we go up. So far I have spent about £750000 over 3 seasons and brought in about £5000000
Yeah you don’t need to spend loads to get up the leagues and my player development is paying off it seems. Everyone hits a ceiling and PL is the biggest step
Enjoying these quick updates Dan.
I enjoy yours
Another enjoyable read, Daniel.
Any chance we can get a walk through of your tactic in the next update?
Can we get a more in-depth look at your tactics?
It’s in the pipeline