Preseason 2013-14

The start of the 2013/14 Season is just over a month away. The Club and I have been very busy over the summer recruiting staff and bringing in new players. One major piece of news dominated the summer.

The first thing I did in the summer was to get in new members of staff to bring our staff numbers up to the number allowed by the Board for each area. I was able to bring in better quality staff after winning the Champions League and Premier League again.

Alessandro Nista, Goalkeeper Coach

Absolutely fantastic young GK coach and was surprisingly unattached.

Bernhard Peters, Scout

He is a great scout and equally great youth coach. I expect some great finds from him.

Igor Budan, Youth Team Coach

A decent young youth team coach. He has recently retired and can related to the players about being a professional player in the modern era.

Lee Trundle, Youth Team Coach

He not have the mental attributes but his coaching attributes are fantastic and second to none. He can cover 4 areas of player coaching: technique, ball control, attacking stats, and shooting/finishing. Also recently retired and has experience of lower leagues which will benefit the young players  who may not make it at the top.

Mario Yepes, Fitness Coach

A fantastic fitness coach and recently retired so he knows what it takes to be in shape to play at the highest level and prolong a career.

Matthew Upson, First Team Defensive Coach

He understands the modern defender and defensive styles suited to attacking styles.

Stefano Rapetti, Fitness Coach

A great young fitness coach.

Sylvain Wiltord, First Team Coach

He was a great player and is now a great coach specialising in ball control. His playing experience will help the younger players in the First Team.

The big transfer news of the summer was the sale of of my best players.

John Heitinga was in his final year of his contract and at 29/30 he is in his peak years as a central defender. He wanted around £90k a week and a clause where he gets the same wage has the highest paid player (in this case Fellaini is on £90k+ with a 15% increase annually) so this transfer is good for me has it means the transfer budget is around £40m and the player budget gets an extra £40k a week. This transfer was solely based on economic and not that I do not want him the side but I was able to negotiate away the match the highest earner clause then I would kept him until he was 33/34.

I brought in 3 new players after the transfer Heitinga went through but it was coincidence because I have a £38m transfer budget and around £300k a week in the player wages budget.

Laurentiu Branescu from Juventus for £1.5m.

He has the potential to be a great keeper to challenge Karius for the “No. 1 Shirt” over the next decade or so. £1.5m for Branescu is a bargain for a suck talented young keeper.

Pedro Manuel from Atletico Madrid for £2.8m

He has some good GK attributes for a 17year old keeper but he has plenty of time to develop mentally and physically.

10.07.13 The first preseason friendly is against Crewe.

A game to renew partnerships and create new ones. Also the first opportunity to look at Branescu in a game.

18.07.13 We start 2 game tour of Germany has we face Hamburger SV.

This is a good indication of where my team is in terms of fitness and tactics against a good European team.

12.07.13 Hoffenheim was our 2nd game in Germany.

Another fine game to help the players get back into the swing of things.

24.07.13 The annual Preston preseason friendly.

A good game for the 2nd XI to get a run out.

26.07.13 I have been looking for an experience striker for the Champions League. I found Robert Vittek amongst the free agents.

He is a target man type striker.  If he has a good season for us then he might be offered a new contract for one more season which will help to rebuild my striker choices and send some on loan.

Fixtures of the coming season.

The first 5 games could be 3 wins, 2 draws and 0 loses. A tricky 3 game run in November against Tottenham, Man Utd and Chelsea. I like my run in April and May with a possible title match at the Emirates for our last game.

I wont be adding more players to my first team but will be looking for youth team players to bring in.

This is my last FM12 post of 2012. In the new year I will be posting about the goings-on in August to October 2013 and be adding the 2013/14 squad to the Squad Page.

So if you are not coming back to fmcrowd until the New Year then have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.