Season 3: part 2

The Striker Role

Firstly, a big thank you to Doublef93 for their suggestion of using a Complete Forward (support) as my striking role. While I’m not trying to make this into one of the big FM blogs, I am hoping to start a small discussion and maybe make some public mistakes so that potential solutions are also public.

At first, I wasn’t sure if the change was for the better. The Shadow Striker role was somewhat ineffective – a few assists but virtually no goals from the player in this role, and the Complete Forward didn’t get off to a great start with a 0-0 draw at home to lowly Bari.

From then on though, things started to improve, and by the end of the season I was very happy with the role. My main striker was Andrea Belotti, and he finished the season with 12 goals and 14 assists. This is what I expect from the striker – a decent goal return but mainly a lot of assists. My wide players – Iturbe and Depay – are my main goalscorers in this system and finished the season with 26 goals (14 assists) and 30 goals (17 assists) respectively.

The Season

In many ways, this season ended up something of a disappointment. After leading Serie A until my clash with Juve, I then had a little stumble and they simply ran away with the league. In the end, they finished 17 points clear, with 33 wins, 4 draws and only 1 defeat. My anti-Juve rage peaked with our home game against them. I was 2-0 up after five minutes, then 3-1 ahead, 3-3 at half time, and then 6-4 ahead with 15 minutes to play. It finished 6-6 (no, I can’t believe it either!) with Juve carving me open at will. Their front line is enviable (Tevez, Morata, Carlos Fierro, Llorente and Berardi) and I just couldn’t stop them. In the end, I was 13 points clear of third place with a goal difference of +62.

The Champions League disappointment has already been discussed, and the Europa League wasn’t much different. I thrashed PSV 7-1 on aggregate, only to be knocked out by AC Milan in the second knockout round (Milan finished 11th in Serie A in the end).

The only bright spot was the Coppa Italia, which we succesfully retained, avenging our Europa League exit by beating Milan 2-1 in the final.

The Transfers – January 2017

I bolstered my front line in January with the signing of Christian Benteke for a mere 5.5m Euros from Atletico Madrid and he proved a decent backup player, bagging 7 goals in 11 appearances. However, I want a more creative striker and he won’t be around for long, unless a run of red-hot form changes my mind. I didn’t sell anyone mid-season, and have been restricting my transfer dealings in an effort to make my squad leaner and meaner.

The Transfers – July 2017

The summer has been more eventful. I turned Marco van Ginkel’s loan into a permanent move and also bagged Thiago Alcantara on a Bosman. Bilal Ould-Chikh’s loan toTwente has expired, meaning he joins me finally, which has allowed me to offload 29-year-old Gervinho to Barcelona for 9.75m Euros, rising to 16.5m.

Totti finally retired (strangely he decided to do so with about four matches left in the season) freeing up a space up front, but one I am reluctant to fill without selling one of my other strikers. Currently, I have Belotti, Zaza and Benteke, with a promising younster Alessandro Bordin coming through. I also have Depay, Iturbe and Klaassen who can play there at a pinch. (I’m convinced Klaassen is the ideal man for my striker role, but his performances there say otherwise.)

I’ve also signed Branislav Ivanovic for 550,000 Euros as cover and experience at the back. I wasn’t happy with Astori and then not totally convinced by Romagnoli towards the end of the season. I am now trying Jedvaj alongside Manolas, but centre-back is now one of my major priorities with regard to recruitment. I reckon I am a top class striker and a top class central defender away from the Serie A title.

Tactics

In the middle of last season, I wasn’t quite happy with the way my team was playing (and I’m still not totally satisfied). For the 5-2 win over Sampdoria in April, I switched from a Counter mentality to a Defensive one. I’d been inspired by Cleon’s recent posts about defensive football. My main desire was to create more space in behind the opposition for my pacy attackers to run into. To my mind, my team was playing well and scoringquite freely but (a) I would often score two or three goals from 20-30 shots, which tells me we are taking shots from the wrong places, and (b) I wasn’t scoring the types of goals I would expect; nobody was getting through one-on-one with the keeper with any regularity.

This still hasn’t quite transpired, though I have scored some wonderful counter-attacking goals since the change which I wasn’t before, and in fact my defence seems less secure. I am still using the ‘Be more expressive’, ‘Roam from positions’ and ‘Close down more’ shouts, which could be disrupting my defensive shape. I haven’t noticed it too much though, most of the goals I have conceded I would attribute to individual lapses.

The change has had another effect – I think it is making my attack too narrow because my full-backs are now more cautious. I’m thinking that I can afford to switch them from Complete Wing Backs with support duties to attacking duties and hope that the overall team mentality will prevent me from being exposed at the back.

I’m also considering changing my Anchor Man into a Central Midfielder (defend) as I am a bit concerned that my central midfield triangle is a little narrow, and doesn’t cover the channels as much as I’d like. I’ll have to see if this exposes the space immediately in front of my defence. Playing with a defensive mentality means I’m a bit closer to my own goal, and I don’t want to be creating space for long shots for the opposition if I can help it.

The players

As with all squads, there were winners and losers this season. The obvious winners were my wide players, who continued to score for fun, but I was particularly impressed by my central midfielders this season. Pjanic hadn’t set the world alight in the first couple of seasons but this year he exploded, providing 14 assists, nearly triple the amount he had provided in either of the previous years. However, he was outshone by Nainggolan, who really slotted into the CM (A) role, bagging six goals and 17 assists. I had considered selling Nainggolan but now he’s my first choice in that role. This is partly why I’ve started using Strootman as the most defensive of the trio – he’s too good to leave out but can’t compete with the numbers Nainggolan is producing.

James Milner did well, filling in all across the midfield and picking up 5 goals, 9 assists and an average rating of 7.18 from 30 appearances, and Benteke proved useful too. Van Ginkel did enough to convince me to make his move permanent, but as you can see, most of my signings are simply adding depth rather than taking the team to the next level.

As for the losers, they would have to be Simone Zaza and Davide Astori. Zaza missed a lot of the season with injury, but still only managed 4 goals and 4 assists in 17 appearances, while Astori was inconsistent, with a tendency to make mistakes in the big games. At 30, he is only going to decline so was transfer listed at the end of the season, while Zaza made the decision for me by publicly complaining about a lack of football.

I’m also concerned by Mattia Perin. He’s not quite good enough to compete for the goalkeeping spot, but I failed to loan him out in either transfer window and I don’t think he will progress enough to ever be no.1. I also have a very highly rated 17 year old keeper coming through, so he may leapfrog Perin in a couple of years’ time when Valdes is on his last legs.

Transition update

By now, most of the ageing players I identified in my first post are long gone. At the start of this season, I was left with only Totti and De Rossi to replace. As mentioned above, Totti has now retired but De Rossi is still at the club, drawing a hefty salary. He’s 33 and seems to have issues with his fitness, despite a stamina attribute of 15 and 14 for natural fitness. I’ve also taken to using Kevin Strootman in the Anchor Man role, which means that De Rossi is now in a three-way fight for his position with Strootman and Romero.