Sporting CP – Season 4

January Window

Wolfsburg came back in for another Centre back of ours in Araujo for €20m before Man City splashed out €40m for Trincao. Spurs Spent €54m to sign Perrone and Gomes left for €22m to join Leverkusen. Wolfsburg then came back in to sign Essugo on deadline day for €30.5m.

Once again in January we’ve been torn apart. A Centre back, 2 centre midfielders and 2 attacking midfielders all leave the club.

As I’ve mentioned before I mainly use January to sign youth players which as you can see there’s been a few but as I mentioned on the last post I was concerned about depth at Centre back and with Araujo leaving it’s left us even worse off so I went out and signed two new centre backs.

Introducing two new Austrian centre backs to link up with our Austrian goalkeeper, Affengruber joins for €21m and Baidoo joins for €13.75m

This has been our worse season so far at the club, finishing third and not even close to being in the title race, luckily due to previous performances top 3 now qualify for the Champions League from next season but we will have to face one year in the Europa League now which will hurt our bottom line.

We did manage to win one cup but it’s still a big drop off from a treble and quadruple the previous two seasons. I don’t think a massive overhaul is needed but I do think where we’ve had a high turnover the quality has dropped we will look to address that as quickly as we can but also understand some players as still developing.

Summer Window.

This was a bad one for us. Nearly my whole starting XI have been taken from me by bigger clubs and in terms of LWB all 3 of my long term replacements.
First up Bayern signed Echeverri for €64m. Broja had an amazing season which saw Stuttgart come in for €49.5m. We made a €46.5m profit on Kouame who was meant to be Barco’s replacement this season as he went to Spurs for €47m after a sensational season out on loan. It’s ok Monteiro can fill in I thought, then Chelsea came and snapped him up for €12.75m. Over €100m made from selling LWB as Barco joined Leverkusen for €45m. Asllani stayed only one season as Real Madrid saw enough to meet his €40m release clause. RBL met Moreira’s release clause as he left for €30m after doing well replacing Trincao and then Villa met Bosellis €40m release clause as well.

We needed to react, revamp and recruit and quick. We brought in a number of players but some were youth team players for the future. Below I’ve listed the first team signings.

Bica finished second top scorer last season and with Broja leaving and him only having a €2.1m release clause we pounced to try and take advantage of a player in form.

After losing Echeverri and Torres the last 2 seasons we lacked options for a LW Playmaker.
My scouts had been highlighting Caceres for a few seasons and at 19 he looks ready for first team football so we moved quickly to meet his release clause as interest in him increased.

I had tried to sign Costinha from Rio Ave a few seasons ago but he rejected us for a move to premier league Forest, following their relegation it activated a clause for me to meet so he could finally join us.

Talking of Rio Ave I spent big on their wonderkid who returns for a season on loan. Right winger and homegrown saw me invest €20m potentially rising to €45m but he’d have to play 50 games for us.

Talking of Wonderkids Belgian Left winger who I want to convert into our LWB was the man chosen to fill in the massive hole we have there as we signed him for €18.25m from Westerlo.

Another player who had previously played in Portugal who we were watching but went to Fulham now has the chance to join us following their relegation which meant we could get him for €20m comes in to play centre midfield for us.

We needed someone to replace Broja and lead the line as our no9. Options were limited this summer but Fabio Silva became available, A player who had a big move and hasn’t hit the heights. His stats don’t read great but I’m hoping we can tap into the attributes he does have to fit into our system. We need him to start fast so fingers crossed.

A summer of turmoil after a bad season last year isn’t the best start for us to bounce back. We’ve brought in a mixture of experience and potential hopefully can bring them together so that we can get back into the title race. Top 3 is automatic qualification for Champions league now so at a minimum we need that.