Football Manager 2021: AS Saint-Etienne – 2021/22

Welcome back, I’ve now completed my second season in charge of ASSE, And its been an interesting season to say the least.

Early season

After qualifying for the Europa Conference playoffs we were knocked out by Hertha before even making the group stages, in the league things didn’t start well. Abi went off the boil, 20 goals last season only 2 so far, and 18year old Yanis Lhery out scoring him with 5 over the same period. It was a strange start as going into the season I felt like we were stronger than the previous season.

Things didn’t get much better over the winter period, lots of close games that could have gone either way, we were now struggling to even make the top half

Our one signing of the window saw us snap up French center back Evan N’Dicka for 1.7m! which was a bargain. We were probably 18 months away from needing the improve the CB positions but when the right player becomes available you have to move quickly and shift plans.

Results improved massively post winter, we had 6 wins before February and 9 after in 6 less matches, Abi still not scoring as many as last year finishing on just 10 goals.

As you can see we recovered enough in the second half of the season to finish 8th in the end but its a backwards step from the previous season

So this summer after Abi seemed to struggle last season and the rest of the striking options being 18 or younger I wanted an older striker to help Abi share the front line duties and we went with Vincent Aboubakar

8m signing and our one first team signing of the summer window, will bring in experience and hopefully goals!

We also decided to strengthen the under 18s and 2nd team with 7 players. The youth intake wasn’t brillant and we had some gaps to fill.

A selection of youth to improve and hopefully become first teamers.

Now the outs, this is where i have shot myself in the foot, jumping the gun too early with my one first team signing.

Hertha Berlin came in with a massive 22.5m bid for Bajic my wonderkid keeper so it now left me without a reconigised first team goal keeper, Man City also poached one of my top youth players for 5m.

Current first team goalkeeper! Think you can work out what my one winter window signing will be next season!

All in all we took a slight step back last season, the goals dried up, this upcoming season we need to score more. I think a realistic target of around 6th-9th again is fair and hopefully we will have a few more players emerge and take their chances like Lhery did this season.

Thanks for reading

Dan