Swansea Summer Transfer - Season 4 (Writing in progress, check back later for updates)

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!!

This is going to be a very exciting 4th season since this is Swansea's first venture into europe and its the Champions League no less! I am sure you guys are all very excited as well so lets get started!

For this season, I believe that Swansea should be able to qualify for Euro Cup at least and with the budget at 15mil, it should allow me to buy a few more players in! :)

Players OUT

This season I had managed to sell a record of 25mil pounds worth of Swansea players! Quite an achievement, considering the performances that they had put up for the team. Take a look at the following 2 for example.


Lucas Viatri

 Scored only 3 league goals in the first 18 months then scored 13 in the last 12 months. Sold him first in case his form is a 1 season thingy.

Marcus Ruben

 Scored only 4 goals with an average rating of 6.59 in the last season. Celtic came calling with a 7.5mil offer. Took it without even the need to consider :)

And now the moment everyone is waiting for! :D

Players IN

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

 Swansea's only star signing of the season. Zlatan Imbramovic is a world club winner, having won trophies at AC Milan, Barcelona, Ajax and Inter. I am very happy that we can get such a world class player on a free! Zlatan has a good finishing touch and is tall enough to be a threat in the air. I hope that he will be able to add a new dimension to our play! :D P.S. I hope this pleases you Timo :)

Matteo Destro

 I bought Matteo Destro as a direct replacement for Lucas Viatri. Together with Zlatan Imbramovic, they will be the 2 strikers in for selection whenever I needed a presence in air. Matteo's young age also means that I might be able to use him for many more years to come :)

 Carlos Fierro

 Carlos Fierro is another player that I had signed for free. He is a young player with lots of potential! Carlos strength lies in his pace and his ability to trick defenders which is not unlike Alberto Bueno. I am hoping that he will be able to emulate Alberto Bueno in terms of his achievements in Swansea :)

New Signings Coming SOON!!!

I had just finished my summer spending spree! There are many new players coming in and I am excited to say I had managed to sign 1 star player as promised to Timo! I should have time to write about it this coming sunday so stay tuned and thank you for your continued support! ^^

Swansea Season 3 Review - Great Wall of Swansea

I am back and I can finally continue on the review of Season 3. Swansea's exploits in the league has surpassed everyone's expectations and I am extremely excited to get on with the next season especially when we can finally play in the Champions League!

 Swansea is the best overachiever for this season!

Great Wall of Swansea

For the past 2 seasons, Swansea had always been proud of its stalwart defense. This season it is no different and it has even taken its performance up to greater heights. The Great Wall of Swansea has managed to achieved a spectacular result of 19 clean sheets in all competitions and 15 Man-of-Match awards for its defense personnel. It is also among the 5th least goals conceded in the league!

Squad Performance

Best GoalKeeper - David Ospina - Kept 15 Clean Sheets in All Competitions.
Best Striker - Alberto Bueno - Achieved the most Goals, Assists and MOM awards among strikers
Best Midfielder - Karel Pitak - Contributed the most Assists
Best Defender - Ryan Shawcross - Achieving consistent and highest average ratings in the squad

Team Stats

 In this season, Swansea has managed to improve both on reducing the goals conceded and increasing the number of goals scored! Comparing with the 1st season's stats, this is a great achievement!

Conclusion
With the first team performing at a steady and decent level and also the our first entry into Champions League, I will be looking to build up our youngsters to include more "homegrown" players in the squad for our next transfer season. I will also be looking into the possibility of getting a more consistent and reliable striker.

Where else do you think we should strengthen? Do you have any good recommendations let me know your views! :)  

Swansea in Dreamland!!!!

I am extremely excited to announce that Swansea is now in the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!!!!

And again my favorite Swansea player had been instrumental in providing the critical win!!!

Here are the standings at the end of the season.

This has been an extremely exciting season for Swansea with tension nagging at us throughout the whole season. Notice that the 3rd to the 9th position are only separated by 6 points!!! This had been the closest season I had ever played in FM.

Here are the last 5 fixtures till the end of the season.

I am rather surprised that we had managed to dispatch Fulham and Tottenham with relative ease. This shows that we had great mentality to hold on till the end of the season. I am very glad because this is a great improvement from the 2nd season in which we dropped points to fall low in the league.
Honestly, I had never expected this at the start of the season. I had only expected a 10th position at best given the previous low position in the 2nd season. Not to mention the quality of our squad is doubted by my assistant manager, Tony Coton. The best player in my opinion, Alberto Bueno, is only rated 3 stars and the 3rd choice striker by Tony! Furthermore, the majority of my players are 2-3 stars only. The only reason is that it must be my great tactics! muahahaha! :P

In the next post, I will review and reflect on the 3rd season and plot the new strategy for the 4th season.
Unfortunately, I had been really busy of late and I had to go on an overseas trip soon so I expect the next update will take quite a while. I estimate that it might be around 2 weeks time perhaps?

What do you think of Swansea's 3rd season so far? What strategy do you think I should employ for the next season? Let me know your ideas! I would really love to share a good discussion. Plus it really motivates me to keep on writing :D Hope to see and hear from you soon, my dear readers!

P.S. You can also subscribe to my blog so you won't miss the next post when I get back ^^

8-Horse Race!!!!

 Everyone hold your horses!!! Swansea might have a chance to get champions league for season 4!!!!


With only 5 games left to go, Swansea has managed to protect a fourth position in the league giving it a real chance to get into champions league next season!

  This is an extremely exciting season as you can see that I have highlighted on the league table. From 3rd to the 10th position is just separated by 7 points! Should Swansea falter and lose within the next 5 games, we could have ended up 10th instead of the dreamy 4th position right now!

Swansea has performed decently for the latest 9 league matches with 4 wins 1 draw and 4 losses. But I am not sure that with the same performance level we can still survive the next 5 games. Some of the matches are almost won on borderline luck like the match against Man U. It is going to be very difficult since we have 2 big teams in the form of Chelsea and Tottenham and also in-form Fulham. I have a special dislike for Fulham because they caused us to crash out of the FA Cup!!! :(

Notice that Man U had 3 clear chances on goal but did not managed to take advantage. We are under pressure most of the time but made good with a superb assist by Alberto Bueno and finished by Lucas Viatri.

Lucas Viatri has been superb this season and finally managed to pay back his transfer fee through his performances. There is now a new balance in the goal scoring responsibility of Swansea. Below is a short summary on the top 3 strikers.

If It Ain't Broken, Don't Fix It

Swansea continued its superb form by bulldozing its way into the big 4. It had been a dream so far and even as head coach I wonder how long can we maintain this form. With only 6 points behind the leaders, I wonder if there is a remote chance where Swansea might even take the title this season!

During this winter transfer window, I decided not to buy any new players. If the current crop of players are capable of playing so well together, I don't want to risk jeopardizing the harmony in the dressing room right now. As an old saying goes, "if it ain't broken, don't fix it!"

Having played some matches thus far, I think I had made the correct decision as Swansea had not lost a match since the previous post.

I am elated at the results against Man City. Those 3 points we took from them have now reduced the title race to within 6 points! In this match, I would like to commend the defense, led by Guillermo Burdisso for producing a stellar performance.

With the critics predicting a meagre 16th position for Swansea at the start of the season, I wonder what will they say now? I supposed we are still at the 16th... 16th counting from the bottom that is!

What do you think of Swansea's season so far? Do you think that Swansea might even have a chance to snatch the title? Let me know your views!

Swans Flying A Dream!!!

This has been a very exciting season for Swansea! It is still far but it seems that we might have an outside chance to qualify for europe the next season! Here are the standings during mid season :)

We are now in the 6th position and we even stand a chance to take part in the champions league! Note that 3rd to 9th positions are very close so I hope that Swansea is able to maintain his form.

We had managed to hold on to our position by winning 3 out of 6 matches. The Fulham match marks the start of our mini revival when Alberto Bueno finally ended his goal drought by scoring a hat-trick versus Fulham! This is also Swansea's first multi-goal match since 10 games.

I am a little disappointed though that despite a brace from Alberto Bueno, we were unable to take all 3 points versus Tottenham. This is due to 2 own-goals by Ryan Shawcross! Though I cant really blame him since he defended decently and the own goals are resulted from deflections from his body. I am also annoyed that Swansea had been made to play 4 GAMES in 8 DAYS, starting from the Fulham match. Despite the extremely tight schedule, I am proud that Swansea had so far secured 2 victories out of 3 games already.

Possible Reasons for Success

1) I had come to realised that might be a secret recipe to Swansea's current success. The secret ingredient is....
a good goalkeeper!

Notice the glaring stats. Michael Vorm has only managed to achieve a 30% win chance as compared with David Ospina! Furthermore, Vorm had not collected any clean sheet to date while Ospina is leading by 7!!
You know now who will I pick for my next team.... :)

2) Another albeit rather minor reason would be the good early form of Lucas Viatri. Notice that he has scored more goals in this half of the 3rd season than his first 2 seasons combined!

Swans Flying Low

I would apologise to my dear readers. I have been pretty busy lately and little time for FM but I will update what little I had played.

As I predicted in my previous post, the Swans are now starting to struggle from their top flight dreams, having lost 3 league matches since the last post. With the winter window closing in I hope to be able to hold on till the window opens. Here's what happened since we last met.

I was elated when we managed one of our biggest wins in history against Stoke in an all out 6-1 demolition.
However, we had probably used all our scoring luck in that match because for the next 7 matches, Swansea could not achieve more than 1 goal per match. The performances became bad and we are practically losing every game. What few games we had won are achieved by merely pure luck, as with the Newcastle match.

Despite making numerous chances, I am appalled by our finishing skills by not being able to even put in 1 goal. In the end, we have to settled for a win given purely based on our opponent's generosity.

However due to our previous strong run of games, we are still able to stay afloat in the big 4 standings so far.
I hoped that even if Swansea is underperforming right now, the rest of the league will underperform with us too :)

Given that Man U is underperforming too right now, I hope that we will be able to snatch some points from them in the next 2 games :)

The First Few Matches - Season 3

The 3rd season started off pretty well!!! Well, I think a picture speaks a thousand words so I let the picture below do the talking :)

Yes! We have broken a club record of having 6 matches unbeaten! Now lets take a look at the latest Swansea matches :)

We have not loss a SINGLE match since the start of the season including friendlies! Finally, I think there is a light shining at the end of the tunnel :)

Our current form is best represented by this really impressive comeback win against Everton in the league cup!

Burdisso started the salvo with a powerful header during 1st half stoppage time. Anichebe equalized halfway in the 2nd half but Ruben stunned the ground when he finished at the dying moments of the game! I am especially pleased with the amount of chances created in this game. I would like to remind my dear readers that Everton is now a major club because it is now backed by oil-rich tycoons with Carlo Tevez as their best striker!

Due to our amazing run, we had also achieved a stunning league position! Please note that we are currently that BEST scoring team in the league!

I know that I am getting really excited but I must keep calm. If we looked back at Swansea's history, Swansea had a bad habit of starting to falter about 10 games before the winter transfer window. If only Swansea can maintain this form till the winter transfer window then I can breathe easier :)

Swansea - Season 3 Transfers!

After having an unsatisfactory season 2, I've decided that its time for the ugly duckling to evolve into the graceful swan. For the past 2 seasons, I had adopted a more prudent approach for transfers; preferring to buy cheap deals while improving a little by little at a time. Because of such transfer policies, Swansea has managed to amass quite a decent warchest for the transfers this season and I will be looking to use it at long last to bring some real players that will make a difference.

A re-cap on my primary objectives: to be league champions by season 5 and champions league winners by season 7. Seems quite a daunting task still now that 2 seasons had already past and I am not even close to european qualification.

While I do want to fight for a top half finish this season, I have learnt from my previous season to take things easy. So this season I told my board that Swansea will compete for a mid-table finish at least. And I am going to issue an ultimatum now to you my dear readers, if I cant even achieve a mid-table finish for Swansea this season, I am going to quit as head coach of Swansea as I feel that Swansea is definitely capable of that at least.

This season I bought more than I had sold. Without further ado, lets take a look at the INs and OUTs of the season!

Players OUT

Perhaps the most prominent of the leavers are Matteo Ferrari and Andrea Orlandi. Once important members of the squad, I have decided to let them go because I wanted to take Swansea to a new height they can only play up till relegation level. Modeste M'bami was let off because he had given rather unsatisfactory performances last season. Having signed him on free, I am glad that at least he contributed to the financial success of the club. Johan Andersson is definitely my worst signing thus far and I am please that I am finally able to let him go without much of a loss. Having sold him at 100k with 200k worth of addons, I may still be able to make a profit out of him!

Players IN

As you can see, I have done a major shift in my transfer policy this season splashing out the cash on 5 players worth over 22.5mil. With these signings I hope to show the league my intent to make Swansea the King of England!!! So let us now welcome this great men to our beloved family!

Ryan Shawcross (DC)

My MAJOR signing of the season! Ryan Shawcross is the ex-Stoke captain but now he is the current Swansea captain! Shawcross is also the highest earner of the club and also the tallest! Because of his english nationality, this commanding defender will serve to lead the line of Swansea's defense in the future european competitions!

Hernan Bernandello (DMC)

Hernan Bernandello is signed as a direct replacement for Modeste M'bami. Faster and a better passer than M'bami, I hope that he could provide the more consistant and better performances that M'bami could not. Additionally, Bernandello sounds like my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle character, Donatello! LOL


Nemanja Matic (MC/DMC)

 I must admit. I signed at Nemanja Matic mostly because he is cheap. A decent midfielder all-around, his most valuable asset is to provide good support in the air. Matic is a also signed for a very special reason but I will reveal this in the following paragraph.


Senijad Ibricic (MC/AMC)

 My 2nd major signing of the season. Senijad Ibricic is also the reason why I had signed Nemanja Matic because Matic is the only person to speak russian. With Matic around, I hope Ibricic won't be so homesick and be able to adapt quickly to life in England. Ibricic is strong on either foot and being a creative player, I hope he can stun the opposition by spilling killer balls left and right :)

Henri Lansbury (MC)

 While his natural position is a MC, Henri Lansbury is a versatile player who can also play on both the left and right wings and I signed him to make sure I would have adequate cover on both wings.

I have since already finished playing all my friendlies and would like to show the results below.

If you had been following my Swansea journey so far, you would have known that this is the best set of friendlies results in 3 seasons. The new signings seem to have integrated well into the team with both my major signings impressing. I hope that this form will continue for a long time to come.

What do you think of Swansea's season 3 transfers so far? Do you think that with this team we will be able to finally go up the ladder? I love to hear your views! Please comment if you could, even anonymous will be great :)