Sporting CP – Starting the Rebuild

The first season is over and we have finished second, in this post I will go into how the season went and who our best players were.
Following on from that I’ll share the changes we’ve made over the summer to the squad and how we look ahead of next season.

A big part of our success has been Nuno Santos our flying wing back popping up with 17 assists in the league. To have 4 players in the top 11 assisters show it wasn’t a one more effort but a squad effort.

Gyokeres led the way with 19 league goals backed up by Paulinho who scored 10.

We followed up second place with success in Europe leading the side to a Europa league trophy after we beat Bayer on penalties. A great way to end our first season in charge.

Following this success I wanted to make sure we continue to improve the side especially with Champions League football next season. The main areas I wanted to focus on were, CB, and a Backup GK. As always as a selling club we have to expect players to leave so again we have to be ready to react. So I have my shortlist updated just in case.

We had a few players leave…

We have sold €141.4m of talent and freed up €198,890pw (€10.34m per year). The main ones to note are Goncalo Inacio leaves us for PSG for €47.5m, Nuno Santos to Real Madrid for €35m and Marcus Edwards to Brentford for €24m from our starting XI. Adan our keeper retired and is now a coach at the club. Youngster Fatwu was snapped up by wolves for €28m.
So now I I set about starting phase one of our rebuild. Targeting players under 24 who we can resell for a profit or players who have had a big move but its not worked out.

First in we strengthened the defence replacing Inacio.

21 year old Mexican defender Guzman joins as he makes his move to Europe. At 21 he has the development left in him to improve then move on to a bigger club.
After signing Andrew in January as my new number 1 Goalkeeper I wanted another keeper similar to him to be the back up so it doesn’t affect our style of play if he is out ( FM24 Goalkeeper Injuries are a thing)

€1.4m is a low cost investment for a player that will be back up. A current international who will be our Cup Keeper.

Nuno Santos was our best player last season and that meant Real Madrid came calling. So we went out there and replaced him with a young attacking LWB

Barco Joins us for €11m and will go straight into the first XI. Probably not a player I will be able to hold on to for many years but feels like a natural stepping stone for him before a big move.
I’m amazed I got through the summer with Diomande still at the club, He had a lot of interest but no real offers. I had this next player ready all summer to replace him but as we entered the season he started getting interest, So I decided to bring him in now.

Boselli joins for €10.25m Long term replacement for Diomande. I feel confident he will get enough game time with rotation this season.

The next one is a perfect example of my “get a player whos made a move and not worked out” strategy. It was a really long process that went all the way to the deadline. He had been transfer listed all  summer around €50m and in the final days I managed to get Arsenal down to €26m with a big sell on. The way I look at it is we have lost some experienced quality this summer and I want more from my RPM in the DM slot and he feels perfect for that role. If he does well and we can get €50m we will at least break even with the sell on %

I feel he can be the central creative hub for our side this season and am happy to get one over FC Porto by bringing in one of theirs!

Looking forward to next summer I’ve signed two players now with loans back to their clubs for 6 months. First up is..

As we become more attacking and getting more players forward I think long term we will need a solid Anchor behind our attack so I’m hoping he grows into that role.
Next in was a Free signing, A youngster from Ajax who was unhappy with their lack of gametime so they ran their contract down, He joined with the promise of being loaned out so will spend the season at St Etienne on loan.

And as I talk about attacking I brought in my future RW this window too as we had money spare now before he was snapped up.

As you can see we have bought in young talent who can all be sold on for the future.

€83.15m spent.

As you can see here we have a rolling rolling profit if we include the January window of €85.95m and our wage budget is €9,690pw lower than what it was (€503,880pa)

Going into this season I’ve tweaked the tactic a bit.
Following the introduction of Andrew and Ramirez as my keepers I have changed it to Sweeper Keeper on attack. Diomande has come into the Libero role and I have changed that from defend to support.
Torres on the Left Wing has been more to attack duty and I’ve added the Team instruction “Run at Defence”. This season I was to get more bodies forward when we attack. I’m hoping this creates a 2233/2143 in attack.

I will update at the end of the season how we got on.