Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Big Changes At Anoeta For Season 4!

I have to say the pre-season i have had for season 4 has been one of the most enjoyable i have ever had. I decided i had to build on last years successful 6th place finish so there has been many changes to the playing staff.

The main players to leave were Giorgos Samaras to Sunderland for 6 million, Xabi Prieto to Bayern Munich for 6.5 million and Riquelme has joined Besiktas on loan for the season. This means he had effectively left as his contract is up at the end of the season.

I signed Bogdan Stancu from Besiktas, Andrey Arshavin from Zenit, Calvin Jong-A-Ping from Wolfsburg, Jose San Roman from Lille for free, and Xisco from Deportivo for free. Last Christmas i signed Romanian winger Doran Vladescu for 300k for the future but is now a first team regular which i'm delighted at. I have also signed Frank de-Boer as Assistant Manager after the contract expired on the old one.

My pre-season friendlies went well with no defeats for the first time. As usual with my first update of the season i have played my first 2 matches of the season. A fantastic 4-0 victory over Mallorca was followed by a 5-3 defeat to Real Madrid. To enter the group stages of the UEFA Cup i must first defeat FC Zurich in the 1st round so hopefully i can avoid an upset.

I have managed to upset my star defender HÃ¥vard Nordtveit in just about every way possible. He is angry that i have rejected enquiries from Man Utd, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Then because i sold my captain Xabi Prieto i was asked to pick a captain before a friendly and because his influence is 20 i picked him. Almost the whole team was unhappy about it so changed it to my goalkeeper so he asked for a transfer - which i refused!

I will update again halfway through the season where i will hopefully be riding high in the league and maybe even still in Europe. Adios for now.

7 comments:

Lightspeed Champion said...

Stancu looks like a good replacement for Samaras, and if Arshavin can play as well as he has in Euro 2008 then you will have a quality side. How much did you pay for them?

Kova said...

I paid 7 million plus another million after 50 games for Stancu and 5.5 million for Arshavin. From what i've seen of Stancu so far he could be the best player i've ever signed.

Lightspeed Champion said...

7 million is a bargain for a player of that quality, and the same can be said for Arshavin, good luck for next season!

Vincent said...

One tip, if larger clubs enquire (or bid if im conserned) just rebid them with an extremely high request of prise, for instnace nordtveit is wurth 10 mil, ask 50 mil. This way you avoid nordtveit to be angry and the larger clubs will not want him anymore, and if they do, you get a very big amount of transfer fee, which you can get another star with.

Kova said...

I never thought to do that Vincent good thinking. I will do that the next time. I'm getting annoyed because Man Utd ask at least 2 times a week asking how much i want for him. Just hope he won't get annoyed for over pricing him. That will be another thing to add to his angry list!

Vincent said...

now if you tested it yet but he won't, I am doing this ever since I bought FM for the first time last year and they never got upset for overpicing him.

Kova said...

Yeh i did it and he never complained so you were correct. Its been great cos now no-one is interested in him. He is still unhappy about the captain situation though and its nearly Christmas ha ha.