Technical issues have got me again. I started my next stint with a 2-1 home win over FC Seoul in the local derby and started to get my mojo back…then the game crashed during a save. The save game is corrupted and now won’t load, my last autosave is only a few games back but I’m taking it as a sign that the journey is over.
The fundamental point of this game was to use Google Stadia to run this game with every league loaded, Stadia issues prevented that. The only positive thing about that whole experience with Google was that I was refunded the cost of Football Manager. I then tried to adapt and go via steam, it wouldn’t be the same as I could only load 10-12 leagues due to hardware constraints but it was worth a go. Then this crash and corruption is the end of the road. Too many obstacles and it is impossible to hit the aim that I defined at the outset.
I started this as something to keep me occupied during lockdown and have ended up with just short of 3,000 views. I didn’t expect that, I didn’t know anyone would care or read. To end up with an average of over 120 people reading each instalment is beyond what I had hoped for. So thank you very much for making this such a positive experience.
I will be getting FM21, I’m already thinking of ideas for a game/blog combination and will update when something is on the way…I’ll be back.
Last time around I was happy to end with a long unbeaten run, Mugosa back amongst the goals and optimism that we can get the top half before pushing on.
We pick up here with games straight away, first up was Ansan Police at home for a second time this season. They still have 3 of our players on loan and playing for them. Despite Mugosa scoring in the last game, I stuck with Mueanta up front in his place in an unchanged lineup.
We took a first half lead through Mun-Hwan, he doesn’t score many from right back but a great surge into the box was capped with a tidy finish. We couldn’t hold on though, pegged back in the second half. A draw was probably a fair result, so I can’t complain. What was annoying is that Eun-Su on loan from us was man of the match again, talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
Moving on, we had a tough test against champions Jeonbuk. We are on a good run and so I tried to keep momentum and name an unchanged team again.
Another game where the match stats reflected an even game and we end up splitting the points. We are unbeaten but racking up far too many draws, this will cost us a chance of the top 3 and means this is really a season of treading water at best. It was nice for Min-Kyu to level the game in injury time to secure our point though, it would have been all the tougher to take if we had lost.
Another good sign for the future of the club, we are the second highest producer of talent playing in the K-League. Given the lack of financial power, it will always be a good business model to produce and sell on players in order to compete.
Next up in the league was an away day derby against FC Seoul, who are currently the runaway leaders in the league. For this one I brought Mugosa back in up front in the only change.
I keep saying the same thing, but that doesn’t make it any less true. We got a deserved point from a tough game and I have no complaints. The run of draws is starting to grate though. We really risk not getting ourselves into the top half the longer this carries on.
Mueanta got goal of the month but the goals have dried up, the extra depth up front is not giving us more firepower as I anticipated. Mugosa looks a totally different player who misses easy chances and that has rubbed off on the others, we are really struggling for goals right now so we are indebted to our defence for being solid so far.
Our next game brings Suwon Bluewings to town, they are hot on our heels in the league and so we have a chance to put some daylight between us. I dropped Mugosa out of the team again for this one, again in the only change to the lineup. Tactically, it is difficult to change too much when you’re in the middle of a long unbeaten run, even if the majority of those games are draws.
Finally a win! Totally undeserved but I couldn’t care less. Ju-Ahn and Garcia on the scoresheet this time around. We dominated the ball but didn’t do anything with it. We are turning into a Guardiola team, we dominate and play pretty football but there is no penetration to it and we don’t score enough goals. It was nice to see Sarachat getting back to form, though after his long term injury last season.
That win against our rivals resulted in the sacking of their manager, that makes it all the sweeter! Always nice to have an impact on them with our performance.
Our old bogey team Pohang Steelers also sacked their manager which resulted in this confusing news story. I am installed as 5-2 second favourite for the job, despite there being no chance of me taking it on. The strange part this is that despite being in the frame for a new job, I am also the 7-1 third favourite to get sacked!
The media asked me about the Pohang job and I reaffirmed my commitment to Incheon, for this season at least, which seemed to keep the new board happy.
We got an early assessment of the youth products coming in to the club. I know I won’t be around to see them but it seems that the gaps in the squad could well be filled from the youth. They have some full backs, wingers and a goalkeeper coming which would round off the squad well.
About 6 months too late but Gangwon offered me an interview too, they came 3rd last season and played in the Champions League this season. The trouble is that they crashed out of the group stage of the Champions League and sit 11th in the league. Those factors mean it would be a long term commitment to get them back to the top and I feel like my time in South Korea is coming to an end, not just my time in Incheon. The only job that could change my mind on that is Jeonbuk. I probably would have taken the Gangwon job before the season started though, for another taste of Champions League, it wasn’t much of a run with Geylang.
The league continued after the job merry-go-round rumours with us visiting Sangju Sangmu. Mugosa returned to lead the line and with Hyun-Woo away with the South Korea U23s, I gave a rare start to Jae-Seong. Jae-Seong is getting on now and starting to really deteriorate physically, I will need to look at getting in a centre back in the next transfer window.
A completely dominant away performance, how we ended up 2-0 down in 17 minutes I have absolutely no idea. It was great to get back level before half time and I expected us to kick on and win it in the second half, we knocked on the door but missed some big chances. Every time Mugosa scores I think maybe it will be the catalyst to getting him back to the form he showed last season, here’s to hoping again. I was nervous when Jae-Seong stepped up to take the penalty, but he calmly placed it down the middle and beyond the diving goalkeeper.
The battling back was worth it to rack up 13 games unbeaten, we certainly banished any thoughts of relegation that were there in the opening weeks of the season but we’ve been unable to trouble the elite teams. We lack consistency and, despite scoring 2 this game, goal threat on a regular basis.
With a tough run of games out of the way, we have all of the bottom 5 in the next 5 games. It seems like a great time to get points on the board to kick on. Next up is Seongnam FC at home. Do-Hyeok came in to defensive midfield, Jong-Seong moves back to centre back in place of Jae-Seong who I now am keen to move out of the club.
They score their only shot on target and we draw a blank again, our unbeaten run is gone and I am fuming. I don’t have words to describe how frustrating this was, it confirms in my mind that the only goal left is top half and this squad is not capable of top 3. I actually seriously considered resigning, but I opted to see out my contract as a man of my word. I won’t be a Kevin Keegan type. The quicker we can move on from this one the better.
Next up was a chance to truly banish Pohang as our bogey team. Hyun-Woo returned from International duty at centre back, Do-Hyeok continued in defensive midfield in place of the suspended Jong-Seong for this one.
A very good away performance and a result to match. Tabanou curled in a great free kick for his first goal of the season and we pick up a much needed 3 points. I wish we could play like this more often, although the only goal being a free kick rather than cutting, decisive football is still a slight concern. The pattern of us struggling to create many chances continues, despite our high possession in most games.
Outside of South Korea and Liverpool spent £37.5m bringing in Dwight McNeil from Burnley, 9 goals and 10 assists in the Championship is impressive but that fee still seems very steep!
In order to finance that deal, Liverpool also made a huge loss on Nicolas Tagliafico. They signed him for £49m and after a single appearance in his full season at the club, they chose to sell him back to Ajax for £26.5m. Great business from the Dutch club.
Our next game took us to Daegu to take on the perennial strugglers and a team we really need to be beating every time we play. Jong-Seong returned from suspension to replace Do-Hyeok in an otherwise unchanged lineup.
An absolute bore draw, nothing of note even happened to report on. Deeply disappointing to be throwing away points so frequently in this run of games against the bottom sides, we are missing our chance to push on. My solution to this is the refresh the squad, we need some new blood and to move on some players who are complaining about a lack of game time. I raised £400k from selling 3 players and our loan right back who only played a single game was recalled from his loan over that lack of game time.
I decided to loan in Ki-Je, an experienced left back who my scouts and coaches all rate as better than the ageing Tabanou. We also included a clause allowing us to buy him for £68k, should he settle in.
We sold Suk-Jong from the midfield, one of those who wanted more regular games and so I needed to replace him. Jin-Beom comes in, he is also on loan and will bring some more depth to that area of the pitch.
Suwon FC are next up in Incheon. Ki-Je comes straight in at left back, with Mueanta leading the line. Mugosa moves to the right and Ju-Ahn drops to the bench. Ho-Ik comes in at right back for the suspended Mun-Hwan.
Centre back Dae-Jung popped up with his first goal of the season in a dominant win. We had chance after chance, which of course we wasted as usual but found the breakthrough just before the hour mark and the result felt safe from there.
My potential new employers, should they have got their way, Gangwon FC were next up and I was hoping to justify why they wanted me in the first place. Mun-Hwan came back in at right back, Mugosa lead the line with Ju-Ahn on the right again for the only 2 changes.
What a mad game, I was pulling my hair out at 2-0 down within 6 minutes! To then be 2-2 after just 17 minutes was just the kind of turnaround I was hoping for and we went on to wrap things up inside an hour. We had all of the chances and thoroughly deserved our impressive comeback win. Mugosa rolled back the clock to give performance straight out of last season with a hattrick that doubled his goal tally for the season!
Pushing on with more signings and we have 2 central midfielders on loan, so when the chance to steal Chan-Dong away from Jeonbuk came up I wasted no time in spending £200k to bring him in. He is better than the loan players and I didn’t want to leave the club with no depth in that position after I am gone.
I was also sufficiently impressed with Ki-Je to turn his loan permanent for the £68k we had agreed on just a couple of weeks ago. He has already cemented himself into the left back role and frees up a foreign player spot as Tabanou can move on at the end of the season.
A tough test followed on, a visit to Ulsan Hyundai who are performing better than us in their quest for Champions League football next season. I brought in centre back Jong-Eun for £27k and had him partner Hyun-Woo for this game in the only change. After declining physically, complaining about a lack of football and missing training twice, I also let Jae-Seong leave the club. I offered him mutual termination of his contract and he agreed for around 50% of the remainder of his deal, it seems to be best for all parties. His pace and strength had dropped from 8 at the start of the season to 4 at this point due to his attitude in training. I thought best to remove a bad apple, one that I would not want to play either.
It was a tough away day and we gritted out a 1-1 draw with a penalty from Min-Kyu. It was nearly so much more, but we got pegged back with just 3 minutes on the clock. Nevertheless this is a good point and I can’t complain too much.
5 unbeaten and we are starting to get used to these sort of runs which is nice, long may they continue!
Ansan Police came to town again following that and we really need to beat them, having lost and drawn our previous 2 games against them. I brought in Mueanta for Ju-Ahn but the lineup was the same otherwise.
Let me prepare you to be shocked, we drew again! So many draws and so many of them are 1-1 as well, it is the story of our season and so disappointing. We didn’t deserve to win it either, just to compound my frustration. If I am honest, I can’t wait for this season to end so I can find my next club. It feels like we are going nowhere fast and my ambition doesn’t allow me to stand still like this. Most places you can plan your squad out in advance, but here when players can be plucked for national service and disappear for nearly 2 years without any compensation makes it near enough impossible to know which first team players you are losing at any given time. Losing players isn’t even the real issue though, it is not having anything in return to replace them with, my squad gets weaker without any input from me, which is quite annoying.
After being the league player of the year last season, Min-Kyu gets himself into 2nd place in the player of the month award to show he is coming back to his best. We could really use him stepping up and getting back to his creative best right now.
A huge blow to us as Hyun-Woo is ruled out for 4-8 weeks, our best defender and a real linchpin of our side. Still, I’m sure the next game is a simple one, right? Oh, it’s Jeonbuk. Of course it is.
Dae-Jung comes in at centre back and my hands are tied on starting Mueanta for the next 4-8 weeks, as he is now our only U22 player capable of starting games. The league rules dictate we must have 2 in the squad and 1 must start for the U22 players, the other U22 players we have are not first team ready yet. I’m hoping a run of games will do him good, but it hasn’t so far.
We weren’t really in the game but held firm until the 88th minute, the pattern of our season continues and we get close to where we want to be, only for the rug to be pulled. Losing 1-0 away to the champions isn’t the end of the world, the manner of it is just so typical of the way our season is panning out.
Just when we are forced to start him and Mueanta has now gone 8 games without a goal, wonderful. He really needs to step up and justify why I bought him.
That spell was pretty frustrating, we are drawing far too many games. I will review our current position in the table next time out before finishing up the season, my contract and my time in South Korea. We need to push on, secure top half and ensure that we overachieve this season. I need the little boost to my reputation to take to my next club. We are more than capable of that, but it would take a miracle now to qualify for the Champions League and that will make me feel like my time at Incheon is a failure regardless. Onwards and westward, seems like a plan.
The off season was disappointing, I really thought that if we had the squad from last season with 2/3 additions then we would be top 3 for sure and possibly pushing the title. Instead we lost both our first choice centre backs, still have to pay their wages and got no fees in. I know I’ve said this before but it has altered our ambitions. We spent £1.8m this window, just to end up slightly weaker than last season, which is a real shame. So, we go in to this season with me looking to come top half again, I think that will be success given our limitations.
The fixture list was not kind to us, we have all of the top teams from last season early on. We finished last season with 6 wins from our last 7 games though and I want that momentum to continue. Ulsan Hyundai are first up for us, a tough away trip to start the season. In terms of the lineup, the goalkeeper and full backs are the same as last season. Record signing Hyun-Woo starts at centre back with Dae-Jung who came back to us mid season last time around from his national service. The midfield 3 remains the same as last season as well, with new signing Mueanta coming in on the left wing. I kept the faith with our front 2 from last season.
A very pleasing performance, we just edged the match stats and had 61% possession away from home as well as having the only 2 clear cut chances of the game. The surprise was that they were relatively easy chances that were wasted by the normally prolific and reliable Mugosa. Everyone can have a bad day at the office though and overall it feels like a point gained.
Another thing we haven’t shaken off is a constant stream of injuries! Sarachat is still not back from his cruciate ligament injury and we’ve lost Kyung-Jung for 6 weeks. Luckily I kept a third left winger in the squad and, although a natural striker, Mueanta can fill in for us when needed.
The squad does feel slightly more able to cope with the injuries I expect this season though, and that is pleasing.
Next game up was at home to newly promoted Ansan Police. Similarly to Sangju Sangmu, this is a team of loaned in players who are doing national service. The starting 11 for them contains 3 players that are contracted to us and we are actually paying wages to whilst they play against us which is just ridiculous. They have Je-Un at centre back, Jeung-Ho at left back and Eun-Su in central midfield who was my first choice holding midfielder when I joined the club. My lineup was unchanged from our good performance first time out.
What a ridiculous game, we battered them start to finish. In every stat we were ahead but they scored their only 2 shots on target and we were wasteful again. Just to add insult to injury, Eun-Su scores the winner in a man of the match performance. A real gut kick of a game but at least we are playing well.
It doesn’t get any easier though, as we have champions Jeonbuk Hyundai next, away from home. I decided to change things up a little bit as it was Ju-Ahn who was wasteful against Ansan Police. So I moved Mueanta into his natural striker position, bringing Ho-Nam in on the left wing.
We got taken apart in the match stats but could so easily have got something from the game down to our resolute defending. They only scored 2 penalties and couldn’t even break us down with 10 men for 20 minutes at the end. Not registering a shot on target is a first for us but at 0-0 in the 67th minute, despite high shot numbers, they hadn’t really troubled us. We need to forget about this one quickly and focus on the coming games, losing away to the champions is to be expected after all.
Another positive in having Mueanta in the squad is that with him, Sarachat and Mugosa being called up for international duty, I have the option to postpone games now rather than having to play without some of my best players. It does condense the schedule a bit but I’d rather that than have to compete without key players.
The league’s and our own player of the year is now missing for 5 weeks and Aleix Garcia is also injured and won’t return to training until after our next match. The heart of our midfield taken out.
That next fixture is a derby against FC Seoul. I lost patience with Dae-Jung at centre back, he announced he wanted a new challenge and so my response was to tell him in no uncertain terms that he will be staying while dropping him to the bench for Jae-Seong. Club captain Do-Hyeok comes into the midfield, Garcia plays despite his knock. Ju-Ahn returns up front, with Mueanta shifting out to the left wing again.
We put in a shocker of a performance, we have only scored 1 goal in 4 matches so far which cannot continue. We had the only clear cut chance of the game but we had very few shots or shots on target. It’s bad enough that I need to look at our tactics, I will give more creative freedom to the team, I’ll also bring the defensive line up slightly to condense the lines and support our high pressing game and see how that goes.
The roundup from the transfer window shows that our deal for Hyun-Woo at £1.3m is the biggest deal in South Korea, but overall Jeonbuk spend £2m to top the big spending stakes. Daejeon Hana Citizen had the kind of window we had last year with 15 players coming in, we are relatively quiet with our 4 this time around.
Back to the games and next up is the runners up from last year, Sangju Sangmu. Dae-Jung apologises and no longer wants to leave the club and so is restored at centre back. Ho-Nam comes in on the left wing, with Mueanta dropping to the bench. Da-Sol picked up an injury and was only fit enough for the bench, so Tae-Hui deputises for him.
Another timid home performance where were are outplayed at our own ground. Luckily for us we keep a clean sheet and so can take a point from this one. I’m hoping this is a case of the team adjusting to the new tactics and better is to come, this is a very worrying start though.
An awful start to the season shows us 5 games without a win, with a single league goal scored. We are rock bottom of the league, this is not how I planned my final season here. I won’t leave before the end of my contract though and I am determined to go out on a high, whatever that may be now.
Next up was a tough away trip to Suwon to play the Bluewings. Given I changed tactics and got a clean sheet last time around, I stuck with mostly the same team as I believe it to be the strongest I can select at the moment. Da-Sol did return in goal though for the only change.
Finally! A very much needed win and we are up and running! We had the only 2 clear cut chances of the game and so I think we deserved it. Hopefully this is the start of an upturn in fortunes, let’s be fair though, it could hardly have got worse. Ju-Ahn was signed from Suwon and seems to score against them every time we play, they must really regret letting him come to us.
Our next match is a visit to Seongnam FC, unsurprisingly I name an unchanged team as we look to build momentum.
That’s more like it! An absolutely dominant performance where we completely swept them away. Ju-Ahn at the double and Sarachat off the bench in his first game since coming back from injury and he marked it with a great goal. Mugosa is really struggling though, it’s not just his lack of goals but the fact is that he is getting plenty of chances but not taking them.
The next game was a break from the league to travel to K-2 league Seoul E-Land. I used this as a chance to rotate the squad, tried to keep some freshness in the first team while giving match fitness to the reserve players.
Another game where we had the only clear cut chance but Mugosa was firing blanks again. I’m losing my patience with him but the team failed to deliver again. I thought we had a realistic chance of winning the FA cup but we’ve fallen at the first hurdle. It means that my spell in South Korea will end without any silverware, which is especially annoying after how well things went in Singapore. Tae-Hee had a good debut at right back, winning man of the match and Jin-Ho was solid in central midfield so at least I know the loan players can contribute if needed.
The next game was a visit of our old bogey team Pohang Steelers. I went back to the tried and tested league lineup but dropped Mugosa to the bench. I gave Mueanta to the central striker role with Ju-Ahn in his regular spot to the right.
Mueanta bagged both goals in a pleasing performance. We completely dominated the ball, the shots and the scoreline. We needed to get a run going in the league and I’m really pleased that the tactical tweaks, in the main, seem to be working.
Keeping the momentum going and the next visitors to Incheon were Daegu FC. They barely stayed up last season and so I expected more of the same. An unchanged lineup from us is awaiting them.
The match stats, possession aside, favoured the visitors so the performance actually wasn’t great. We’ve had so many good performances where we didn’t get what we deserved, so I am very comfortable accepting this gift of 3 points! Mueanta scored again and Ju-Ahn bagged another brace, so our new front 2 is firing.
From 5 without a win to 5 unbeaten and things are looking bright right now, long may it continue. The target of the top half still remains, if we can find some consistency then the stretch target of champions league qualification isn’t completely out of the question still, so we must fight for it.
Something encouraging for the future of the club is that with just 2 players from our academy in the national team, that makes us the only team with more than one player in the squad that came through their academy. It’s a real shame the improvement to the youth facilities was scrapped, as it would have been a nice legacy for me to leave when I move on.
Ju-Ahn and his 5 goals in 5 games landed himself the player of the month, Mueanta coming in third shows that it will be tough for Mugosa to break back into the team.
We now face a trip to Suwon to play newly promoted Suwon FC. I know the saying goes “if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it” but when your most productive player in Min-Kyu is back from injury then you have to make room for him to return, Do-Hyeok makes way.
We played well but just couldn’t break them down despite 3 clear cut chances. We dominated and kept another clean sheet though, so plenty of positives to take forward. We also keep our unbeaten run going, which is a big plus. Min-Kyu returned with a man of the match performance, so at least that justified me bringing him back into the team.
In other news, there are real takeover rumours, normally they are quashed by the chairman on the day they are raised. This time though, he kept quiet and there is a real chance of new ownership being in place in the near future. A transfer embargo has been placed on the club until the talks are concluded one way or the other. It’s a shame it’s a local businessman rather than big investment from a billionaire, but any more money would be appreciated and it may mean we can strengthen mid season.
Our next game was a home game against Gangwon FC, they did well last season, finishing 3rd to qualify for the Champions League and so this is a tough test. The timing seemed right, having built up his match fitness from the bench recently and Sarachat returns on the left wing, having him playing next to his international teammate in Mueanta should bring the best out of both players. Otherwise the team is unchanged.
A good performance and result to match, which is obviously pleasing. Mueanta notching again, with the second added late on by centre back Dae-Jung for his first goal since returning to the club. These are the sort of matches we need to be winning in order to keep climbing the table.
We extended our unbeaten run to 7 with that win and 6 of those 7 games included clean sheets too, showing a real stubbornness and resolute determination to defend better this season.
The run is good enough to be a new club record, it’s always nice to set and break records and hopefully there’s even more to come!
The last match of this update sees Ulsan Hyundai visit town for what is another tough test for us. We’ve hit a good patch and so the team pretty much picks itself at this point, the biggest surprise being that Mugosa is not part of things right now.
We went a goal down, battled back to take the lead through Mugosa, only to throw 2 points away by not defending to the final whistle. We did enough to edge the game I think, but they are a good side and so extending our unbeaten league run to 8 games is very pleasing.
I didn’t think it would come to this but Mugosa’s goal was his first in 15 matches, for a guy who was well clear as top scorer in the league last season. He seems to have completely lost his ability to find the net, this goal only came because Mueanta squared him the ball with an open goal too!
We end the first section of the season sat in 5th place, which after 5 games I would definitely have taken! We have joint top scorers with 5 each in our front 2. Tabanou belied his advancing years to be our top assister in Min-Kyu’s absence through injury. We are just a single point outside of the top 3 and Champions League qualification which is very satisfying, I just hope we can keep this form going. We are also 6 points clear of Suwon Bluewings in 7th and so relatively comfortable in the top half. 12 points clear of relegation at this point is also pleasing, especially given our start and sitting bottom after 5 matches!
In relation to the league, our top scorers are both joint second in the goal scoring table although Johnsen at Ulsan is running away with that. We have the highest average possession by far, the second most chances created but are only joint 4th top scorers so that conversion rate is killing us again. We are amongst the best defences in the league though, that is an improvement on last season and gives us a solid platform to build on.
A strange bit of news, in that Daegu FC offered me an interview to replace their recently sacked manager. They are 11th in the league and perennial relegation battlers, so quite why they thought I would be interested is beyond me! They even had the cheek to say that despite the interview offer, they had reservations about my lack of silverware! They won the FA cup in 2018, but that is the only trophy they have won in their history, so it’s not like they are dripping in glory themselves. It wasn’t a tough choice for me to reject the interview, if Jeonbuk came calling it might be different though.
The final update this week is to say that our takeover completed, we have a new chairman. He has taken our bank balance from £3.2m in the red to £700k in the black, so he has already invested around £4m. Hopefully there is more to come and the club can grow with or without me.
Next time around will be the middle part of the season, if we can keep our form going then I’d like to cement our top half position and be at least within striking distance of those Champions League places. Although I am pretty determined to move on at the end of my contract, continental football could change my mind, I don’t think we can achieve it though honestly.
This is quite a long update where I will cover the end of the season, the transfer window and introduce you to my squad for my final season in Incheon.
Straight into the games, there were 5 to play against my other top 6 contenders and first up was runaway leaders Sangju Sangmu. The visitors come into this one unbeaten in 21 games, top of the league and in great form. To add to the challenge for us Mugosa is on International duty with Montenegro, Ju-Ahn is suspended and so Jeong-Hyup comes in up front with Min-Kyu who is pushed forward from central midfield. That opens up a spot for captain Do-Hyeok to come in to midfield.
A long range drive from the skipper bobbled in from 25 yards to end the visitors unbeaten run! We bossed the game without making too many chances but can’t complain with beating top of the league. A nice way to kick off the post split, considering we didn’t win any of our 5 post split games last season in the bottom half, this was especially pleasing.
Next up was a visit to surprise package Gangwon, who sit 3rd and 6 points ahead of us. If we could win this one then we keep our chances of Champions League football alive. Despite the win last time around I brought back Mugosa and Ju-Ahn immediately, Min-Kyu drops back into midfield at the expense of captain and match winner Do-Hyeok. I also brought in Kyung-Jung on the left.
Mugosa stepped up at a crucial time. Again, we dominated the game but this time the creativity was there, Min-Kyu is a real creative force when in midfield and stepped up with a goal here too. This puts us 3 points from the Champions League places and our season is going from strength to strength.
Next to try and stop our winning run is Jeonbuk Hyundai, reigning champions and easily the best team in the league. We are gelling together as a team now though and I’m excited to see how far we can go. I brought Ho-Nam back in on the left wing for this one.
The early red card for them was a factor for sure and I was fuming when they took the lead 2 minutes after that from a set piece we failed to defend. From there though, we totally bossed the game, created chance after chance as well as converting those chances to run away with a comfortable win. Mugosa again showing why I put my faith in him despite his lack of goals last season.
Just two games left to the season and we still sit 3 points outside the Champions League places. It looks like it might be too much of a gap to close but we’ll fight on until the end. An unchanged lineup travelled to Ulsan Hyundai, who sit 4th, for this game.
I can’t fault the team at all, we’ve played really well again but not taken our chances. On the balance of play we deserved to win but coming off the back of 5 straight wins, it’s difficult to be too tough on them. I just hope we can build momentum again and take it into next season.
Our final game of the season didn’t mean much in terms of positions, we couldn’t finish anywhere else but 5th by this point. The reason it meant a lot to me though, is that I want to get one over our bogey team and finally beat Pohang Steelers! Kyung-Jung came back in on the left in the only change.
I’m not going to lie, it felt great. Too many times we have dominated them but lost, we needed to clear any losing records before next season. It was nice for Ju-Ahn to finish his season with 2 goals as well, taking his tally to 12 league goals.
The record books show a 5th place finish, just 3 points from Champions League football. Given the huge rebuild before the season, I achieved my goals for the season. We easily secured top half football and challenged the top 3 right down to the wire and I couldn’t be more proud of the team. We took all 5 places in the top average rating for players. Min-Kyu who topped that was bought to be a sub as was Jong-Seong who came 5th, very surprising but pleasing performances. Mugosa top scored in the division, Min-Kyu 3rd for assists. We also had the best average possession and created the most chances, although we only scored the 3rd most to show how wasteful we were at times.
Just when things were looking up, a real kick in the nuts. Both of our first choice centre backs are starting 22 months of national service immediately after the season finishes. The heart of our side has been ripped out and not only do I not get any money to replace them from transfer fees as they are out on loan, but we also cover the wages while they are gone to add insult to injury! This news alone changed my mindset from thinking we could go for the title next season to thinking that treading water would be success.
A random bit of better news is that Jeong-Hyup played a single FA cup game, scored 4 and ended up top scoring for the whole competition!
Min-Kyu wrapped up both our fan’s player of the season and signing of the season for us. The £100k we paid seems like a bargain now. Aleix Garcia coming in mid season and snapping up the young player of the year award was also pleasing. Getting him on a free transfer was a no brainer.
The roundup of our season shows that the media tipped us to battle relegation, that was never in danger and we ended up 27 points clear of the relegation playoff. We won’t have to worry about that again while I am in charge. I know Mark Hughes said that before sending QPR down but I am a much better manager than that egomaniac.
The financial position is worsening at the club somehow, despite me not spending crazy money or being over any of my budgets. Someone in the accounting department needs firing! The result of the downturn in financial stability though, is that our planned youth facilities upgrade is now cancelled.
Mugosa and his 22 goals this season are a new club record, he doubled his tally from last season too.
Min-Kyu and his 11 assists this season also set a new club record.
As does Mugosa with his 5 man of the match awards.
Ju-Ahn hit a sweet volley from 20 yards against Pohang which was significant for breaking our bad run against them and getting third in goal of the month.
I know I keep saying it but £100k for a 30 year old utility player is such a bargain, then he goes and wins K-League player of the year! Mugosa in second and Ju-Ahn third for an Incheon clean sweep too.
Confirmation of Mugosa as a dominant league top scorer with 21, the fact that 3rd place had just 13 goals shows just how far ahead of the other strikers in the league he is.
Ju-Ahn also picked up young player of the year, another bargain when we paid just £200k for him.
Da-Sol couldn’t quite take top spot but still £60k for the 2nd place in goalkeeper of the year is good value to me.
A little recognition for me as well, coming in second for manager of the year which is a nice bonus. The title winning manager coming in third must be a rare occasion too.
Despite having our players celebrated in the individual awards, strangely, we were mostly overlooked for team of the season. Only Mugosa made the team which didn’t include the player of the year or young player of the year which seemed more than a bit odd to me but never mind.
I mostly kept the backroom staff the same but Bart Caubergh came in as a big upgrade for the fitness coach position and I am hoping that will help our players develop physically over the next year.
The club reputation did go up and ensured that we have a higher reputation than all of the lower division clubs at least. But we are only above the relegated teams and the newly promoted clubs for next season, meaning realistically we are only the 10th biggest team in South Korea.
I was disappointed that we weren’t the overachieving team of the season. Aleix Garcia was rated as the second best signing of the season but poor Ho-Ik who I signed as a backup got voted as the worst signing of the season at £70k. I think that’s harsh, the fee wasn’t very big and he provided decent cover.
Now for some excitement, as I am delighted to welcome 2 new faces to the club.
We didn’t convert as many chances as I would have liked and Ju-Ahn at times looked like he could use a little more rotation. Muenta is going to predominantly be used as a striker but he can also play on the left if we get another injury crisis. I’ve gone for quality over quantity with signings this time around and splashed £500k on the Thai international.
With the guts ripped out of our defence, I decided to invest a club record £1.3m to sign Hyun-Woo who looks to be a monster. He’s better than both of our central defenders last season, just 21 years old and will be key to our season.
Following on from our 2 new signings, we are predicted to come 6th next season and I am pleased we are starting to raise expectations. Aleix Garcia is regarded as the league’s best player and Mugosa 7th on that list means we are finally utilising our foreign player spots to bring quality we cannot get from local players, contrary to the position I took over in.
As a little side note, Chelsea really do like Kai Havertz. About an extra £40m outlay to what they should have paid though.
I thought that I might have trouble moving John Ogu on in this window after he didn’t impress me with his awful disciplinary record whilst with us. That dilemma was removed when he failed to recover from his cruciate ligament injury and promptly retired. It’s a shame he isn’t a good head of youth recruitment or I would have added him to the backroom staff.
We had a striker called Sang-Hyuk come through in our youth intake, I was informed by the staff that he had the potential to be as good as Mugosa which for a local player would be game changing for us.
As you probably noticed from him being at Jeonbuk in the picture of him, my chairman decided that £350k was enough to let him go without giving me any input. This is the second time the chairman has done this to me and I wasn’t best pleased.
With other signings made around the league, our season preview for the team drops our prediction to 7th from 6th for the season ahead. It also lines our players up in a formation that I have never played, which is bizarre.
Mugosa is the favourite to be top scorer again and Ju-Ahn figures in 6th as far as the odds go.
Garcia second in the odds for top player in the league but notably Jeonbuk have 3 players in the top 6. They will take some stopping winning the league again.
We dominate the best odds for top young player though with Garcia and new boy Mueanta listed as 2nd and 4th most likely respectively.
I spent most of this window offloading those on the edges of featuring in order to balance the books for our big money signings as best I could. That left me with gaps at full back and in central midfield. With a limited budget, the best plan was to add 2 loan players to bolster the squad in terms of numbers.
Jin-Ho comes in to offer experienced backup in central midfield. We are paying £575 pw of his £2k pw wages and so I think this is great value.
Our final signing was Tae-Hee to cover full back, again I don’t expect him to feature much but at £1.8k pw I think we have a handy option if and when required.
4 players in for a combined £1.8m and £750k back in to this point but with another £200k to come in from the Kang-Kook loan fee over the season. A lot of the deals out were loans for our promising young players, the only other departure of note was Je-Ho who requested to move to Jeonbuk for the chance to play Champions League football and so a £150k deal was done to let him go.
That’s the roundup and the last thing to do before we dive into my second full season and final one in Incheon, is to introduce you to my squad for the challenges ahead.
Goalkeepers
Da-Sol remains our number 1, second in goalkeeper of the year and key experience for our defence.
Tae-Hui remains good backup and never lets the team down when called upon.
Right Backs
Mun-Hwan was someone I was worried about losing but I managed to tie him down to a new deal and he will continue at right back.
New loan signing and depth cover for this position.
Left Backs
Tabanou is starting to show his age but was a key attacking force with his overlapping runs beyond our right footed left wingers who all like to cut inside.
Ho-Ik was sub right back last season but I trained him to cover left back too as there is a lack of quality in that position around the country.
Centre Backs
A new big money signing and despite his age I will expect him to marshal the back line and be our standout performer.
Dae-Jung didn’t get much of a look in after coming back from national service as we had an established back 4 but he is ready to step in now as first choice.
Jae-Seong is past his best, an annoying player who always has something to complain about and I was looking forward to releasing him at the end of last season. Losing our first choice pairing though, meant that I need him for depth.
Defensive Midfielders
Jong-Seong came in as backup last season and cemented his place in the side by the end of it. He will provide cover at centre back in emergencies as well, as we are only carrying 3 centre backs.
Suk-Jong also didn’t get much of a chance after coming back from national service but will continue to provide depth to our squad in the season ahead.
Central Midfielders
A great free signing and still has room to grow. He will be the driving force of our midfield again in the season ahead.
I’ve already spoken at length about his abilities, more of the same this season please!
Still club captain but no longer first choice, he is a great option from the bench though as he can come on defensive or central midfield without lowering the quality.
Loaned for depth and hopefully won’t be needed much.
Left Wingers
Still recovering from his long term injury and will take time to get back up to speed, still much better than our other options.
Kyung-Jung is getting on now and offers little else but pace, but sometimes that is enough. An alright backup.
Due to Sarachat not being fit yet and his ability to cover as an extra striker option means that I will keep Ho-Nam around for this season but hope not to need him.
Strikers
The boss, vice captain and will carry the armband when Do-Hyeok isn’t on the pitch. Our leader and talisman, he really did come good last season.
Ju-Ahn settled in very well and with a full season under his belt he should go from strength to strength.
Competition for Ju-Ahn and can also contribute from the left wing if needed. I expect him to cement a place in the first team within the early weeks of the season.
Jeong-Hyup is declining but will still be useful as a last choice striker, I hope I won’t need him much either.
So those are my guys, it’s a 22 man squad as I like and there is some good quality there. If I hadn’t lost my centre backs then I would have said top 3 was a minimum for the season ahead but that blow means that my target is top half again, but with an eye on that top 3 as before. I have decided that this is my last season at the club, the only thing that would change my mind would be Champions League qualification but I can’t see us making that kind of progress. I am thinking that my time in Asia is coming to an end and that my next hop will be to Europe, let’s see how that plays out over the next season.
Last time out our progress was hampered by injuries, I would love to tell you that this time around things were different but we had more occasions where we couldn’t even name a full bench again. Squad depth in terms of the numbers will be a key part of what I do in the transfer window after the season ends.
The biggest news coming out of South Korea though, was a huge deal taking Son Heung-Min from Spurs to Real Madrid for £87m. A 17 league goal season at Spurs being enough to tempt Real to splash out. I guess it is a good thing to have a Korean player at a top club, hopefully it means more quality players come through our academies.
Not sure how I feel about it, but the takeover rumours are coming more frequently. The chairman is quashing the talk so far, but things can change in an instant. The club have backed me to rebuild the squad, but a cash boost wouldn’t be the worst thing. There is also the chance the new owner sacks me as he walks in the door too which, given the effort that has gone in to the squad building, would be devastating.
Slightly off topic openers aside, there’s a season ongoing, so let’s get to the games! First up was a local derby with FC Seoul, I’m definitely settling in to the club because I feel the rivalry and want to get one back over them after they beat us last time out. I told the boys that was what I expected and that we needed to avenge the loss for our fans. Do-Hyeok was out but I was thinking of giving Jong-Seong a game at defensive midfield anyway, so that worked out. Otherwise it was a strongest fit 11 out.
A flying start and 2-0 up in 20 minutes, Mugosa is absolutely flying and Ho-Nam showing that even my third choice left winger is capable of having an impact. A really good result and a performance to go with it. Less possession than we normally have but all the clear cut chances to us, that’s the balance I have been looking for the whole time I’ve been at the club. I’d happily sacrifice a little possession and control in order to create a better quality of chance.
A massive change from last season that we already have 8 clean sheets in the league. I still want to tighten up the defence a bit, but we are making real progress which is nice.
I figured with our ongoing injury issues that getting more medical staff in couldn’t hurt. Although the level of injuries we are getting is making me think that I will clear out a lot of the coaching and medical staff to start again at the end of the season. The majority of injuries come from training, so I am thinking better coaching staff will set better schedules and execute with less risk of injury. Then clearly a better medical staff can bring any already injured players back to fitness in the shortest possible time, both elements key to have a settled team.
Back to the games though and we faced newly promoted Gwangju away from home next. Tabanou was suspended so my last minute loan signing Han-Bin came in at left back, otherwise the team was unchanged.
We allowed a sloppy early goal, albeit one from 25 yards but the closing down wasn’t good enough. A good reaction and tidy finish from Min-Kyu got us back level and from there I expected us to kick on. We couldn’t get over the line but an away point isn’t the end of the world.
In great news for our squad depth and numbers, we had 2 players complete their military service with league leaders Sangju Sangmu and immediately return to the club. Even though we were outside of the registration window for the league, there is an exception for players coming back from the army and so let me introduce you to our 2 new players.
Dae-Jung adds depth at centre back and cover at right back too. A solid performer, he won’t be first choice but I think he’ll rack up a few appearances as needed.
Suk-Jong is the better of the 2, natural as a defensive midfielder and a central midfielder so he gives us more options in a few areas. He played 24 league games this season for the team running away with the league and so definitely can contribute.
Funnily enough having got those 2 back from Sangju Sangmu, you’ll never guess who we are playing next!
At the pre-match press conference, it was highlighted that they are on a 15 match unbeaten run. It’s a big chance for us to really close the gap on the top 3 if we can win this one. Ju-Ahn was suspended, so Jeong-Hyup came in for a rare start. Tabanou returned at left back and Do-Hyeok came in for Jong-Seong at defensive midfield.
We dominated every metric, except the one that counts. Three times the number of shots on goal, over double the number of shots on target, 2 clear cut chances to 0, yet somehow we managed to lose. I can’t be too disheartened though, there are a lot of positives to take from how we played.
On a brighter note Min-Kyu ranked third in the player of the month award, good recognition of his increasing importance to the team. I brought him in as a sub and utility man but he has cemented a place in central midfield.
A side note, just on a crazy signing that Manchester City made. Ivan Cavaleiro is a decent player but to splash £58m on him seemed more than steep! Fulham will be laughing with that.
To carry on our wretched injury record, it has started to impact on the players we have that aren’t even at the club! John Ogu does his cruciate ligaments while out on loan, which means that we won’t be able to shift his wages at the end of the season. This will limit what we can do to rebuild in the summer which is frustrating.
Next up was a home game against Ulsan Hyundai. They are one of the top 3 in the league, playing well and one of the teams we need to be looking to bridge the gap with. Ju-Ahn returned from suspension up front, Ho-Ik came in for a rare start in place of the suspended Man-Hwan in an otherwise unchanged lineup.
What a back and forth game this was, taking an early lead, then going 2-1 down before equalising and having our main man Mugosa snatch the win in the 87th minute! Ju-Ahn was on a bit of a goal drought and so getting him back in the groove was useful. We dominated the game against a much bigger club and I am very proud of the boys for that. It shows that on our day we can compete, we just have to find that consistency.
Post match, Ulsan sacked their manager, the result was that I was placed in the running to take over. I must say that it was quite tempting, being a bigger club that can push on but I decided to honour the new contract I signed and stay put. I want to see how far I can take these players, I think we are 2/3 players away from a real challenge for continental football and I want to see the job through.
The board were pleased with my commitment and hopefully it bonds the club together even more and helps us push on to the next level.
Injuries struck once more, this time my entire first choice midfield 3 being ruled out for our visit to Gangwon. I decided to pay a half fit Garcia anyway with Jong-Seong coming back in to defensive midfield and Suk-Jong coming into central midfield. Mun-Hwan returned from suspension at right back but the remaining players are pretty familiar at this point.
We deserved more again, a completely even game where a 0-0 would have been fair and a decent ending. Somehow we managed to throw it away in injury time though. We need to sharpen up but I’ll take my share of the blame for being naive. I decided with 10 minutes to go that I wanted to push for the win rather than settle for a point, without that we may have held on. Something for me to think about.
We had an instant chance to make amends against Daegu. Do-Hyeok and Min-Kyu came back into the midfield for our 2 changes from last time out.
Another dominant performance that doesn’t get the reward it deserves. I have no idea how we conceded 2 goals to a team that never got near our goal but we found a way! This match cemented for me that the idea of Do-Hyeok as a defensive midfielder to use his technical ability simply doesn’t work in the way it did with Barry Maguire in Singapore. The demands are increased here in Korea and as such I will be using more physical, screening players in that role moving forwards.
Along those lines I decided to restore Jong-Seong to defensive midfield in the only change to the team for our visit to Gyeongnam.
Jong-Seong rewarded my belief in him with a man of the match performance in a very welcome away win. The goal was a penalty but if we can keep clean sheets away from home then we give ourselves much more of a chance.
That result had a very welcome impact on the club plans too.
It puts us 2 years ahead of the schedule the board have for us and secures our top 6 finish. I said I wanted to get top half of the split before the season started and despite us flirting with the top 3, we never really looked likely to hold on to it in truth.
Garcia’s first goal for the club was a great strike in the loss against Daegu, enough for second in goal of the month but not much consolation.
After a patchy run of form we headed into a home derby against Suwon Bluewings, I wasn’t holding out much hope of a result in all honesty. I went with the lineup that I now see as my strongest 11 available players. What is clear though is that Ju-Ahn needs a rest, I really need more competition for places up front next season.
A much needed win recorded and with Jeong-Hyup coming off the bench to clinch it in injury time. He has done ok but I really don’t want to rely on him next season, I need better to challenge higher up. Still, we got ourselves back in form and I was pleased with that.
So, after 33 games is where the league splits in half. I said I wanted top half and we currently sit 5th. That means we cannot come any lower than 6th now, even if Suwon get more points than us, due to the split format. To end up 10 points clear of 7th, and a whopping 24 points clear of relegation is a huge improvement on last season, where we were not mathematically safe until the second to last game of the season. We are 7 points from 3rd, so in the ballpark of what is needed, just not quite ready this season but that’s ok. Mugosa is the top scorer in the league, Min-Kyu has the best average rating which is more than I expected him to do when I bought him as a depth player. We are also the team with the highest average possession which shows control in games. We’ve created the most chances but only scored 3rd most, highlighting the need for more firepower next season.
With our objective for the season from the board being to avoid relegation, we have smashed that one out of the park. My own objective was top half and so we have met that too, so this feels satisfactory rather than reason to celebrate. We now have 5 games, one each against the other top 6 teams to determine our finishing position. In my next update I will round up those games and the transfer window, as there won’t be anywhere near as much business to report as there was before this season started.
The first third of the season went well, I was hoping to carry momentum into the middle third. As you can probably guess from the featured picture of this edition, the key theme of this update is injuries, we’ve really had to limp through and on a regular basis we’ve been simply unable to name a full bench even. That’s not to say we haven’t picked up some results along the way, but it has been a hard slog of a season so far.
No more introductions needed, let’s move to the games. We finished last time around with a 0-0 draw with Pohang Steelers, who are quickly becoming more than a bogey team, I dread seeing them on the fixture list. The first game this time around was away to last seasons champions Jeonbuk. The team selection at this point was pretty much second nature and we lined up in a very familiar way.
A great result, Sarachat scoring his first goal for the club as well. Couldn’t ask for much more. A good welcome back and keeps us challenging near the top.
My original 18 month contract was due to finish at the end of the season, I have unfinished business here no matter what. Committing to next season was an easy choice and I am looking forward to seeing how far I can take this team.
Next up in the league was lower half team Seongnam at home, with an unchanged lineup.
A very disappointing draw, the sort of game we really need to be winning to match our ambitions. We dominated the game but didn’t make any clear cut chances and so can have no complaints with the result really.
Interesting to see that upgrading the youth facilities does seem even more vital due to the fact that we produce so few players that go on to play in the K-League. Having had a thriving youth academy in Singapore, that provided a large number of squad players, it is definitely something I want to establish here as my legacy.
I stated last time around that my aim was to improve the club in every way, my staff list is a constant work in progress. During the season I am adding more reserves and youth staff to support my aim of bringing through our own players. A fitness coach for the reserves should help my young players to develop their physical attributes.
Back to the league and the derby with FC Seoul was up. Another game and another outing with our settled lineup.
A derby is tough enough on its own, without Ju-Ahn deciding 10 minutes into the game to throw in a horrific tackle to get himself sent off. The writing was on the wall from there, we really limited them from an attacking sense but it wasn’t enough. A hugely frustrating day all round.
More bad news from the training sessions after the game, Da-Sol ruled out for 6-7 weeks and we lose our experienced head at the back. Added to the suspension of Ju-Ahn and I’ll be forced into at least 2 changes next time out.
We faced newly promoted Gwangju next and in addition to the 2 mentioned, I also had Mugosa only fit enough for the bench, so I moved Min-Kyu from central midfield to striker and brought Jung-Seong into defensive midfield. Jeong-Hyup came in to lead the line. Obviously Tae-Hui came in to the side in goal too.
To say I didn’t expect that would be a huge understatement! Having not scored all season so far, Do-Hyeok popped up with a hattrick! That was much needed and hopefully we can build on that. I didn’t expect the backup players to play so well and it proves that I have improved the overall quality of the squad dramatically from last season.
Another addition on the staff side, bringing in a Data Analyst for the U18s team. Not sure he’s entirely necessary but the board allow for one so I thought it couldn’t do any harm.
Having actually not even had a youth intake last season, the upgraded facilities and new staff, specifically my head of youth recruitment, means that I will have some players coming through. There is mixed news on the standard of what will come in but I like the sound of the “Golden generation” that is previewed, that would do very nicely.
The league pitted us against Ulsan Hyundai next up, midfield numbers were short and so Sarachat got his first game in central midfield, with Kyung-Jung keeping his place on the wing after 2 goals last time out. Ju-Ahn and Mugosa return up front after suspension and injury respectively.
A solid away performance, a deserved point against one of the strongest teams in the division. Our task was made all the more difficult by Ogu picking up his second red card in 14 games. I have lost trust in him, and will be looking to move him on. I’ve seen him caught in possession leading to goals conceded and his over aggressive tackling is causing us problems, I think I could better utilise his foreign player spot with a playmaker as I have local players for the hard working, ball winning roles in midfield.
Do-Hyeok was player of the month and Kyung-Jung in third, just to backup my thinking that we have had a very good month and are in a great position to push on.
To help us push on, I brought in former Manchester City player Aleix Garcia. He’s the playmaker I have been looking for and has a lot of quality, my staff are sure that he is head and shoulders better than my other midfielders. Ogu is 32 years old and Garcia is only 22, so also has room for further growth, I am delighted with this one. I loaned Ogu out and plan to move him on permanently after the season finishes.
Gangwon come to Incheon next, they are flirting with the relegation zone and so it’s a good chance to keep our momentum going.
We found ourselves 2-0 down in 11 minutes and I was fuming, awful performance and defending. I threw the kitchen sink at them and a Mugosa double salvaged a point with 2 second half goals. He added a third in injury time to win it, but it was ruled out for offside. Considering the first 11 minutes I suppose I should be happy with the fight the team showed, but mostly I’m just angry with the start!
Another staff addition, this time a goalkeeper coach for our reserves. The more rounded our staff, the better our player development should be. If we want to become a big club, then we need to behave like one.
The reserves also needed an assistant manager, so our backroom team is looking stronger still.
Our next fixture was a visit to Daegu, our relegation rivals last season. They haven’t kicked on this season like we have and I detailed them losing Cesinha last time around, who was their star player. All things considered we really needed the win. The lineup was our new best 11 and I was hoping to keep it settled for a while.
We delivered! Not a great performance, but we stole the points in injury time. Min-Kyu scored his first for the club too and overall it was a good day.
Horrific news in the aftermath of the match though, Sarachat went off injured during the game and the diagnosis was 10-12 months on the sidelines. I am glad I opted to carry 3 left wingers in to the season, so numbers wise we can cope but we do lose the quality our Thai international brought to the table.
Our next match is Gyeongnam FC at home, another relegation candidate coming to town. Form is good and on paper it’s a good chance to get some momentum. Kyung-Jung is now first choice winger for the season, Da-Sol returned in goal, otherwise the team is unchanged.
I don’t even know what to say, we were knocking on the door the whole game and it looked like just a matter of time until we broke them down. We built more and more pressure before getting caught on the counter twice in the last 10 minutes to be sucker punched. A game we really need to be winning these games if we want to get in the Champions League, this proves we are still a way off that level.
A bit of better news and Jeonbuk came in for Do-Hyeok after his player of the month performances and he wanted to go. I managed to convince him to stay and sign a new deal. He is our best local player and so this feels like a significant moment in our progress.
In adding to the staff, I couldn’t resist hiring Terry Butcher when he showed an interest. As a kid the images of Terry with a blood soaked bandage around his head, still heading crosses away from the England goal made him seem like a brave hero from a comic book. The reality is that it was borderline medical negligence but it was acceptable at the time! It seems logical to add another Englishman to my staff, especially one with International playing and management experience as well as some regional knowledge. The fact he was happy to be my youth team assistant manager was a bonus!
Interest in our best centre back Jeung-Ho from Japan unsettled him and when a bid came in, he was keen to leave. Again, I managed to persuade him to not only stay but sign a new contract, I am delighted with that.
Suwon Bluewings were up next, the lineup was our strongest remaining 11 again.
A 3 month injury to Kyung-Jung was a huge loss but in a game where we claimed a solid result. We dominated the play but they had the better chances, that evens out to a fair draw in my view. Ju-Ahn broke a goal drought with a goal against his old team which was nice and Je-Ho came off the bench to salvage a draw from a breathless last 10 minutes that contained 3 goals.
Post game, the chairman decided to accept a bid for Chae-Woon, our young left back. I was very disappointed that he chose to take that out of my hands and it would leave our squad short.
The deal went through with no input from me, which was very disappointing. If that becomes a pattern then I will need to consider my future at the club, £275k really isn’t big money and there are a limited number of capable local players, so losing a promising one hurts.
Last minute I loaned in Han-Bin for the rest of the season to provide cover for Tabanou. He’s not great but the best I could get with limited resources at the last moment of the transfer window. He was very much the low cost option.
Garcia was listed as a significant signing for the league, Seoul and Ulsan paying £1.8m and £1.5m respectively for players though, shows how small a club we are in comparison.
Pohang Steelers were up next, I said earlier that I dread playing them but we have to break the hoo doo at some point surely?
Today was not the day, we dominated the ball and had the only 2 clear cut chances of the game but they conjure 3 goals from half chances to leave us scratching our heads again. I might have to think of a different tactical plan moving forwards because they are the only team that we never seem to get anything from, they are bang average against everyone else but prime Barcelona when they play us.
A bad day for us all was ended with a good moment for Mugosa and his return to form is timely for us. I really do need more depth up front though, as the first choice guys have had some patchy form but I don’t have the depth to give them a break.
Nice to see a growing relationship with my top scorer, the bond I have with the top players can only improve the atmosphere in the club moving forwards.
Next up in the league was Jeonbuk again, champions last year and a real test. We are down to Ho-Nam at left wing, our third choice but only fit option.
I didn’t see that coming! A great performance and result, well deserved and we seem to be the bogey team for Jeonbuk. Ho-Nam on the scoresheet and Mugosa again, we allowed them back into the game just before half time and survived a disallowed equaliser with 5 minutes to play but we held firm.
The final game of this update is an away game against Seongnam and morale was high, I was expecting a good performance. Tabanou was out injured this time.
In truth we never looked like scoring, a bad day at the office. Just need to move on quickly and see what the final third of the season holds for us.
One last addition to the staff was a Sports Scientist for our reserve team. Keeping our promising young players fit and firing, once they arrive because we don’t really have any right now!
So, in review, we sit 5th which is still massively overachieving but I really feel like we should be 3rd given the points we’ve thrown away. We are only 4 points from that, but we are also only 2 points clear of Pohang in 7th and so the threat of not making the top half still looms large. For the development of the club and my career, we really need to cement our top 6 place. I mentioned all of the long term injuries but at one stage we had 7 injured and 2 suspended players for a league game. Anyone would struggle without 9 of their first team squad and we don’t carry many additional players, so it has been a slog. This 38 game format, although fairly standard globally, seems like a long slog compared to the snappy 24 game seasons in Singapore. Maybe I need to carry a bigger squad for that reason.
Next time out I will share the update of the final third of the season, to see if we can hit our targets. A cup is out of the question and so our sole focus is that top 6, once that is secure then we can dream of top 3.
Slightly off topic but just a nod to the fact that both blog 16 and this one feature genuine pictures of Stefan Mugosa playing for Incheon United, just in case you wanted to put a face to the name.
With a good pre-season under our belt, I go into the season with a huge amount of optimism. I know the new players will take time to settle but there’s enough quality in the squad now to challenge for that top 6 position I am aiming for. In future windows I will only be looking for the top players to boost the first team, as the squad is now solid. I was asked to add some more match details, and so I will also show every match this season, with the match stats and lineups. Hopefully the additional detail will show how my squad is utilised and what players are performing and provide a deeper level of immersion.
So let’s get to the matches. Although we only came 8th last season, we started the season away at Pohang Steelers who came 10th. On paper it looked like a very kind start for us.
Maybe not! The match stats were actually pretty even, they just finished clinically. Not the start I was looking for but 5 debuts in the starting 11 and one more from the bench, so things will take time to settle. Although, having said that, our next match pits us against last season’s champions Jeonbuk. For this game I decided that I didn’t really like Ogu in defensive midfield and so I moved him to the left sided central midfielder, dropped Do-Hyeok back into that vacated defensive midfield spot. Then brought Min-Kyu into the right central midfield spot in place of Je-Ho. The other change I made was dropping Lee-Seong at centre back for new signing Je-Un, I expected to make that change at some stage but I felt like we needed more pace at the back.
We raced into a 3 goal lead in 44 minutes playing some scintillating stuff, then promptly took our foot off the pedal to allow Jeonbuk back into the game. We held firm though to record a very important win to get our season up and running. It was great to get my front 2 on the scoresheet as well, we lacked cutting edge last season and I am hoping that the new partnership can continue to deliver.
I mentioned last time around about missing out on my top target Cesinha, and despite me continually having bids accepted, he chose a £300k move back home to Brazil with Santos. Can’t say I blame him but he would have been a real game changer for us.
For the next game away at Seongnam, I decided to keep the same lineup that beat the champions.
A solid, if unspectacular match. We got our first clean sheet of the season, which was much needed. We had the better of the game, but no clear cut chances was telling and the result was fair. Ogu marred the result though with a ridiculous lunge in injury time which resulted in a deserved red card.
Up next was the derby with Seoul. In the suspension absence of Ogu, I pushed Do-Hyeok into the left centre midfield position and brought in new signing Jong-Seong for a first start at holding midfield. Ju-Ahn got a knock in training and so was only fit enough for the bench, meaning a first start of the season for Jeong-Hyup up top.
A really nice, dominant performance in the derby. Mugosa starting to show the quality he has, weighing in with both goals. A very pleasing win just before the transfer window closed.
Considering I spent £1.4m on 10 players, I expected we would either be the highest spenders or the most active team of the window but we were bettered on both counts. Ulsan Hyundai spent £1.4m on Shin-Wook alone, a 31 year old striker who was playing in China and wouldn’t even get into our team. Busan IPark brought in 13 players, including 3 from us to supplement their FA Cup winning team for their continental campaign, despite being a second tier team.
South Korea, Son Heung-Min aside, aren’t exactly known for having players in the top 5 leagues in Europe. In fact, there are only 5 players and Incheon are one of those clubs who have developed a top 5 league player. The player is Lee Kang-In, who wore the number 10 shirt for Valencia last season at just 19 years old. I will definitely be looking to tempt him home at some point!
Next up was newly promoted Gwangju away, this was the second and final game of Ogu’s suspension, Mun-Hwan also managed to accrue 3 yellow cards in the league and so is also suspended. Therefore the changes to the lineup were Ju-Ahn being restored up front at the expense of Jeong-Hyup, and also Ho-Ik coming in at right back for the suspended Mun-Hwan.
We didn’t play particularly well, but never looked in danger while securing a routine win away from home. I’m pleased with how the new players are settling in and the form is very good so far.
We had a tough test next though, with the early and unbeaten league leaders Sangju Sangmu. They are the team containing all of the players doing their military service and it seems like it’s a good crop of players for them this year. For this one I brought Ogu back in central midfield, dropped Do-Hyeok deeper again and dropped Jong-Seong to the bench. The goalkeeper, defence, and forwards pick themselves at this point now that Mun-Hwan is back from suspension.
We started on fire with an early goal from Ju-Ahn, then had a lull in the second half that left us 2-1 down and staring at a home defeat. That was before my first signing after arriving Kyung-Jong came off the bench to nod in an injury time equaliser. It’s disappointing not to win a home game but when top of the league come to town then I can accept a draw.
That result meant that after 6 games, we had recovered well enough from the disappointment of the opening day to be sitting in 3rd. Very early days but the aim this season was top 6, we are only 2 points ahead of 7th place though, as the league is quite congested so there is no reason to get ahead of ourselves. It is a nice position to be in though and ahead of my anticipated schedule.
Next up was a game against last season’s runners up Ulsan Hyundai. The lineup was a case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. We have a consistent lineup and the consistency of the selection, I am sure, is having a positive impact on the results.
Another home game we didn’t win and an even encounter ended with a deserved draw. The front 2 fired a goal a piece again which was nice, but having fallen behind early and battling back to lead the game, it was frustrating to let that lead slip.
From going 8 games without a win at the back end of last season though, we set a new club record for going 6 games without defeat. The turnaround has been pretty quick and I am very pleased with our progress.
Gangwon came 3rd last season and is the toughest away trip we have faced so far. Another game where the team remained the unchanged.
A tough one to take to be honest, the match stats had us even against a higher ranked team but they were clinical. Despite our unbeaten run being over, I am not too discouraged. I still think we are on the right track.
The league pauses here for the first round of the FA Cup and we were drawn against semi-pro Gimpo. This looked to be a great chance to rotate the squad and give some fringe players some football. The only players that started this game from our strongest 11 were Je-Un at centre back and Sarachat playing as a centre attacking midfielder. Otherwise, it was an entire backup team.
Jeong-Hyup tore them to shreds with 4 goals, his first 3 being the perfect hattrick of right foot, left foot and header too. A nice chance to give some game time to the squad and get us back into that winning momentum heading back into the league.
Our next league game was against Daegu, who lost Cesinha as their star player, and even with him they only stayed up last season by winning the relegation playoff after finishing 11th. I went straight back to our standard league game starting 11 for this one, having given them a little break for the FA Cup.
Another hugely impressive performance, goals from the front 2 again as well as a first goal from Ogu to cap a comfortable win. We bossed the game from start to finish and really looked like a team on the rise. We just weren’t capable of this last season and again, it’s another sign of our great progress.
Following our good win Ju-Ahn was named as K-League player of the month after netting 5 goals in 5 games in the month of April. It was a gamble to spend £300k on a youngster who had never scored more than 4 league goals in a season before, but he is really flourishing in our system with Mugosa.
The feeling is evidently mutual, as Ju-Ahn took the time out to call me a key reason for his success. As my Dad always says, “you can give someone an opportunity, but they have to be one to take it”. Those words rang true again, I put him in the team but if he wasn’t playing well then he wouldn’t be staying there.
Just a side note to mention that the board have rated my performance as A+ at this stage, very pleasing to see recognition for how well the team has performed to this point. Also, it’s worth noting that even after I won the league with Geylang, the board never rated my performance above an A-.
Our schedule then took us to Gyeongnam away, a mid table side and a chance to really press on with our promising start, build on it to cement our spot competing at the top. Jong-Seong has now come in to the team at holding midfield, pushing Do-Hyeok into central midfield and Min-Kyu has dropped to the bench.
An absolutely dominant performance, despite the win being narrow. I brought Kyung-Jung off the bench to play on the left wing again and he stepped up with another vital goal. Sarachat is taking some time to settle on the left wing, he is young and doesn’t speak Korean yet though so I will be patient with him. It does mean there will be chances for Kyung-Jung though while Sarachat beds in to the new surroundings.
Another tough game followed this one with Suwon Bluewings at home. Suwon are another satellite city from the outer metropolitan area of Seoul, much like Incheon but a little further out. For that reason Seoul are our main rivals but we also have a healthy dislike for Suwon too. Owing to the patchy form of Sarachat as mentioned, I benched him for Kyung-Jung for this one. Kyung-Jung is a bit more physical, offers more pace and I thought both would be important in the blood and thunder environment of a derby.
Another really pleasing game where we dominated our rivals, took local bragging rights and another goal from Mugosa to cement his much improved start to the season. The team is looking very comfortable, that’s 3 clean sheets in a row as well.
For the first time in my time at the club, we top the table! Ok, so there are 2 teams with games in hand to overtake us and so we are only top due to playing first but I don’t care. While we flirted with relegation last season, this seemed a long way off and so even a little over a quarter of the way through the season to be within touching distance of the top of the table is well ahead of my ambitions for the season.
Next week have back to back games against Pohang Steelers at home, first in the FA cup, then in the league. They seem to be our bogey team, despite being bang average against everyone else and raise the level they play at when we are involved. Other than bringing Sarachat back in on the left wing, everyone else is the usual starters.
I felt like we did enough to win the game, I really thought we had an outside chance of winning the FA Cup. A second tier team won it last season and we are a match for anyone on our day, unfortunately this was just not our day. I’m disappointed, I racked up a nice trophy hall in Singapore and was keen to continue to build up a reputation as a manager that brings silverware wherever he goes. Jose Mourinho has a record of having won a trophy at every club he has been at, granted his record with more clubs and better trophies is more impressive but you’ve got to aim high and I want to have that record too!
On to the league game then and I didn’t hold out much hope given our record against Pohang. Ogu managed to get himself a suspension for 3 yellow cards so far this season, so Min-Kyu came in for him. I also had to make some changes due to the FA Cup game going to extra time in order to freshen up the team, this game coming just 3 days later. Ho-Ik came in at right back, Chae-Woon came in for a first league start of the season at left back, Jae-Song came back in at centre back for the first time in the league since the opening day, and Kyung-Jung took the left wing spot. It was a patched up team but at least Pohang were in the same boat.
It was a disjointed game, both teams made a lot of changes and it showed. We probably did enough to win the game, 2 clear cut chances to 0 shows that. Our finishing and our play was jaded and in the end a draw was alright.
There ends the games from this update and a mini assessment of our season so far. We sit in 3rd place, a single point off the top of the league but in all honesty it feels like it’ll be too soon for us to win it this season. We’ve been very lucky with injuries and some of the other teams have had some indifferent form which I don’t expect to continue into the latter stages of the season. If you told me we would be above Jeonbuk and Ulsan then I would have assumed we were top, so other teams have also started well. The more important points gap for me is that we are 6 points ahead of Seoul who sit 7th, well on target for my pre-season aim of ensuring a top half finish this season. The top 3 qualify for continental competition, and so as a stretch aim it would really elevate the whole club if we can maintain our spot in that top 3. We are the 3rd highest scorers and chance creators which is positive, but of our 18 league goals, Mugosa and Ju-Ahn have 13 of those 18 with nobody else scoring more than 2. That reliance on our strikers may come back to haunt us in the long run, we need to keep them fit and firing. Not trying to sound like Pep here but it is pleasing to be top of the possession table too, it shows that our midfield is now of a sufficient calibre to control games, we also clearly have the strikers to compete. The glaringly obvious place we are missing is from the conceded table, we can clearly improve on the defensive side and I will look to do so when the transfer window opens again.
On an unrelated note, I saw this guy during the season and it reminded me of the meme that was popular a few months back…
Me: Mum can we get Willian?
Mum: But we’ve got Willian at home.
Willian at home:
Terrible attempts at humour aside, that concludes things for this week. Next week will be the second third of the season, which should give a pretty clear indication of how far we can go this season. I am very happy with our progress so far though.
I did finish up last time around by stating that I thought it would be revolution rather than evolution, and I was as good as my word. The old cliche of a revolving door was very apt, a lot of signings, more players leaving than joining, a lot of additional staff coming on board, and upgrades to the facilities were all on the agenda for the closed season. The club that travels to Pohang Steelers for the opening fixture of the new campaign is very different to the one that rounded out last season.
I said that if I got my target positions strengthened then I wanted a minimum of top half at the split this time around, I got every target except one to solidify that goal in my mind. The only reason that I am not targeting the top 3 this season is because of the level of change, everyone will need time to settle before pushing on again. I definitely feel like we have much more quality now, the depth is also very pleasing.
Before we get right to it though, I wanted to share the season summary.
The standout from that is the champions Jeonbuk had the top scorer in the league in Lee Dong-Gook. If that name is familiar, then you might remember him from such clubs as Middlesbrough and Werder Bremen. With over 100 caps for South Korea, he has the pedigree but the surprise is that he’s still doing the business at 40 years old! I had the time to make an impact, but the indifferent results we got meant that we didn’t get a call out in the review for doing anything spectacular.
Now on to the busy period, and I am delighted to introduce you to 10 new faces.
I signed 10 players for a combined £1.4m, while recouping £1.1m from 17 players who were shown the exit. A net spend of £300k while dramatically improving not just the squad but, critically, the first team was perfect. I start the season intending to make 6 out of my 10 signings first choice in their respective positions. Another thing to note is that I kept Mugosa as my only foreign designated player from last season, the others were all moved on.
Yoo Ju-Ahn comes in to partner Mugosa up front. £300k from Suwon Bluewings for a 21 year old who is already my second best striker seemed like a no brainer to me. He is also South Korean and doesn’t take up a foreign player spot.
Lee Jong-Seong comes in as cover for defensive midfield initially but, unlike my backup last season, I am happy to drop him in at any time. At £85k for a 27 year old Korean in his prime, again I saw little risk with this signing.
Here is where I have taken quite a big chance, but I believe that Sarachat will back me up. I spent £700k bringing him in from my old Champions League rivals Buriram United. He is only 21 and the foreign player ruling means that I can have 3 foreigners of any kind, 1 Asian, and 1 southeast Asian. So Sarachat counts as the last of those options as a southeast Asian foreign player and drastically improves my options from the left wing.
Kim Da-Sol is a definite improvement in the goalkeeping department, although not quite as drastic an improvement as I was hoping for. The foreigner rules do not permit foreign goalkeepers of any kind, the Korean options are limited and overpriced. I felt like the £60k outlay on such a key position was well worth it though.
I really wanted to improve in the full back areas. Having made one of my first signings after I arrived Kim Mun-Hwan, a right back who settled in quite nicely and is developing, it seemed to make sense to use a foreign player spot that I had freed up to plug a gap that I seemingly couldn’t with a local player. Tabanou is a massive improvement and easily one of the best players in the league, I’m delighted with signing him.
Youth development seems to be key to the future when so many of the squad need to be local players. With that in mind I checked through the South Korean youth squads and found Kang Ji-Won was in the national age group squad but had no club. Seemed worth a free transfer and £70 a week to see if I can develop him into at least a squad player. He will play in the youth team this season, at 16 years old he has plenty of time on his side.
I actually confirmed this signing before the end of last season. I knew I wanted to move on my foreign players and Bunoza was my only decent backup centre back. £110k is a little steep but he was the best Korean centre back available to me other than the ones playing in the Middle East who are earning £15k+ per week.
Joo Min-Kyu is a good all rounder and squad player, he improves the depth but I don’t expect him to get many starts in either of his positions of central midfield or striker. £100k seemed about right for a player in his prime, covering multiple positions and, at 29 years old, who has at least 3-4 years in him at this level.
Depth at full back was also required. Jang Ho-Ik comes in for £71k to provide competition at right back but again, I don’t expect him to force his way into the team.
My final signing, and probably the best of the lot. John Ogu comes in to ensure our squad has a Nigerian voice in it, having let Lanre Kehinde leave earlier in the window. Ogu is a class above any of the other midfielders in my squad, is one of the best players in the league and I expect a big contribution from him. I got him to join us ahead of Nashville in the MLS, which hopefully is a sign that we are a club on the up!
With my 10 new faces onboard, I thought I’d check out the season preview. We improved from being 1000-1 to win the title last season to just 250-1 this time around. Given the time needed for the new squad to gel, I really can’t see us challenging the top 3 but 4th-6th is a realistic aim I think. Cesinha at Daegu, who is listed as the top player in the league, was my top target of the window. Especially when Daegu looked like they might be relegated at one point. He is transfer listed there as he won’t sign a new contract, but despite having multiple bids accepted for him he just won’t discuss a contract with us.
I mentioned that youth development would be key to the long term success of the club and improving the youth facilities will be key to that. I know that I likely won’t reap the benefits, but I want to leave the club better than I found it.
Along with the youth facilities improvements, I also talked the board into improving the youth recruitment. This will improve the level of young players coming in to the club.
The final facilities upgrade was to the data analysis, more accurate data on new signings is important and again, I’m pleased to be improving the club as a whole.
When I first asked Mugosa about renewing his contract, he was unwilling to talk about less than £10k per week. Given a bit of time, seeing the new recruits and negotiating again though we managed to agree on a new 3 year contract on £5.75k per week, which is good value for a top player in his prime.
My rebuild of the club wasn’t limited to just players and facilities though, our new club needed more staff and 12 new faces arrived.
Notable new faces are ex-Canadian international and Everton player Tomasz Radzinski, as well as Bernd Schneider who is a decorated ex-Germany international, both as scouts.
With my rebuilding complete, I feel ready to stage an assault on the top half of the table. I am pleased to share with you my squad 2.0 for the season ahead.
Goalkeepers
New boy Kim Da-Sol takes the number 1 shirt and will be my first choice keeper for the season.
Lee Tae-Hui is progressing quite nicely and is ready to step in at any time. He has growth left in him too, so he could develop into a future first choice.
Right Backs
Kim Mun-Hwan settled in well as my first choice right back last season. He’s still young and just a good all round player.
New boy Jang Ho-Ik will provide backup at right back and challenge Kim Man-Hwan. I am pleased with the depth in this position.
Left Backs
Tabanou will clearly be first choice at left back and improves the first team significantly.
Kim Chae-Woon will continue as backup left back, he’s still only 19 years old and has plenty of scope to improve. Lee Eu-Ddeum came in for an experienced head last season but he was 30 years old and so Chae-Woon makes a better backup player.
Centre Backs
Kim Jeong-Ho is still our vice captain, a solid centre back but I would prefer a better partner for him really.
Lee Jae-Song is a solid, experienced partner for Jeong-Ho but I think I can get better moving forward.
New boy Je-Un will push Jae-Song all the way, by the end of the season I expect him to be first choice.
Yeon-Soo is a horrible player, nowhere near good enough for this level but the best option I have for now.
Defensive Midfielders
Ogu stands 6’4” tall and is a physical machine, he also has a decent level of technical ability for this level. I expect him to dominate matches for us in the same way Barry Maguire did in Singapore.
Jong-Seong is a more than capable backup, if I need to use Ogu further forward then I will have no hesitation playing him regularly.
Centre Midfielders
Kim Do-Hyeok is freed up with Ogu’s arrival to play further forward, I want to get him on the ball in more attacking areas centrally. He is more technical than physical and so I want to make the most of those abilities.
Je-Ho stepped in to play really well last season, he was the pleasant surprise in my squad. I’m not too sure on his haircut but as long as he keeps delivering then I can let him off.
Min-Kyu will be an alternative to Je-Ho in the attacking central midfielder role and also double up as a striker option. Versatility could be his downfall but will also get him regular game time, even if that is from the bench.
Woo-Hyeok is alright, I’d rather not have to use him but he’s a decent player and shouldn’t embarrass himself or the club if called upon.
Left Wingers
Sarachat may take some time to settle but as a right footed left winger, I’d like him to play like a mirror image of Arjen Robben in his Bayern prime. I probably won’t get that but I’d settle for something like that!
Ho-Nam is a good backup, he performed well last season and will double up as backup for the wing and striker positions.
Kyung-Jung is still a good pace option from the bench, I wouldn’t want to be starting him much but he can still offer us something different. With Sarachat settling in and Ho-Nam backup for the striker position too, it made sense to keep him around.
Strikers
Freshly signed new contract sorted for Mugosa and I expect that with a much better supply line from midfield and more quality from his strike partner he will flourish. I expect a lot more goals from him this season.
New boy Ju-Ahn is fresh from winning the U23 Asian Cup with South Korea and will partner Mugosa. He will take time to settle but also has plenty of room to grow at just 21 years old.
Jeong-Hyup was a good signing from last season and will be more than capable of contributing this season. Never hurts to have a 20 cap international in reserve.
I am not carrying a fourth out and out striker as I will use Min-Kyu and Ho-Nam to cover if needed, as described above.
Pre-season went well with only a single goal conceded in 5 matches against Chinese league opposition as well as second tier Korean teams. The notable end to pre-season was being invited to play a testimonial for a Chinese second tier team, I’m not sure the game played out as he expected. A bit harsh of the boys to ruin Zheng Zheng’s day, but I’m actually delighted at the ruthless streak.
We were rampant and I am looking forward to testing ourselves in the season ahead.
The K-League season is 38 games compared to the 24 played in Singapore and so I will be splitting the season into thirds rather than halves to give more insight into how the games have gone. Next time around will be the first third of my first full season with Incheon United.
Picking up from where I left off and my season really needed some momentum. For background, the K-League works in much the same way as the Scottish Premier League. There are 12 teams who play each other 3 times to get to 33 games played. The league then splits into top 6 and bottom 6, where you play the remaining 5 fixtures against the other teams in your section for a total of 38 games per season. Once you are locked in to your section in the split then you cannot move to a league position on the other side, so the team in 7th could finish on more points than the team in 6th. Incheon were predicted to come 10th out of 12, so anything above that should be seen as a bonus. My ambitions are much loftier than that though, I had a chance of making the top half of the split and, despite it being a long shot, that’s what I was aiming for. My next 2 games were against bottom of the league at home, followed by 11th away from home.
This match was so familiar from Geylang International, we totally dominated the game start to finish, but could not break them down. The outcome from this game meant that I personally was 4 games without a win at the club, the club itself had now gone 9 games without a win. Things were looking desperate, you can’t go nearly quarter of a season without a win.
I made a slight tactical tweak because my joint best players are Mugosa and Kim Do-Hyeok. So I wanted to have Mugosa in front of goal more in central areas and similar to my use of Barry Maguire, get Kim Do-Hyeok back in defensive midfield to get him quarterbacking the play. It seemed to work, we finally won a game! We put a nice distance between us and the bottom 2 leading into the next game, Ulsan Hyundai came to visit from top of the league and I didn’t expect much.
Not quite as deserving of a good result as some of our other performances, but I will take 7 points from 3 games. The front 2 both scored, Lee Jeong-Hyup having cemented his place in the first team over Kehinde since his arrival. Things definitely are looking up and we are looking like a solid team. Next up were our main rivals FC Seoul.
A frustrating one really, we twice took the lead and twice were pegged back. We went to our rivals and took the game to them though, more possession, more shots and the only clear cut chance of the game. Good old xG would have had us down for the win. Despite throwing points away, this still felt like a good point, against a better side away from home in a derby.
One of our best performances, 64% possession, 24 shots to 2, 11 on target to 2, 2 clear cut chances to 0. How on earth did we manage to lose?! Missed a penalty to boot, that was a very annoying game.
We followed up the good performance but not result against Daegu with a nice 2-1 away win against Sangju Sangmu. The interesting thing about that club is that every single player they have is on loan, with the wages paid in full by the parent club. They get their players on a 2 year loan as they serve their mandatory military service. We rounded out the first phase of the season with defeats against Gangwon, who are challenging for Champions League football next season and champions elect Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, my old Champions League opponents with Geylang.
So after 33 games, we sit in 8th place. Still overachieving from our predicted 10th but now 8th is about as good as we can do. The threat of relegation during the bad run was real, and so to have no such worries I suppose is a positive sign. For our first game after the split though, we have 5 first team players out. Mugosa is on International duty with Montenegro, two injuries and a further two suspensions.
I thought things would be tough but we were absolutely torn apart. They deservedly won and won big. It really highlights that beyond the first 11 there really isn’t much strength in depth in the squad. I absolutely have my work cut out for me at the end of the season to get this squad up to scratch, I want us competing much better than this no matter what personnel we are putting out there.
With 3 out of the 5 missing players back we do ourselves justice again, with a performance that should have been enough to win the game. Another missed penalty and despite him being one of our better takers, I can’t let Lee Jae-Song take them anymore. Sergio Ramos apart, I’m not a fan of centre backs taking penalties and I will pick a more attacking player moving forwards.
A good end to end game and a nice double from Kim Ho-Nam from the left wing, it seems that I’ve finally worked out how to get more from the winger in my system, prior to this nobody playing that position had scored or assisted which was worrying.
Another dominating performance where we didn’t take our chances. This is really highlighting that we need more creativity from central areas. It is positive that we are performing so well while only utilising a single foreign player in Mugosa though. It means that Kehinde, Bunoza, and Mahazi are expendable, should foreign players of sufficient quality become available.
Again, this is the pattern. Gyeongnam score the only shot they have on target, this is killing me. As well as more creativity in midfield, we need more clinical strikers. The last game of the season and it is a microcosm of my time in charge so far. The performances are pleasing but the results are all over the place.
Despite not picking up a single win after the split, we somehow keep our 8th place. It is a mediocre season at best, but there were some positives. If I can get the transfer business concluded that I want to though, then next season I want top half of the split as a minimum and an outside push at the top 3 and Champions League qualification. That is quite a stretch but I am demanding of myself and the team, I believe we can do it. My main areas for improvement are goalkeeper, full backs, central midfield and striker. Unlike in Singapore where some windows I only added 1 or 2 players, this squad needs at least 5 signings to be competitive at the top end of the division. If I can sign 5 first team players then the players pushed to backup from the current first team will give me the required depth as well.
One additional thing I will have to factor in though, is that I have lost a first choice central midfielder to national service. That means for the next 2 years I get the privilege of paying Lim Eun-Su while he plays for someone else on loan. His contract was automatically extended for 2 years to compensate, but it does weaken the team still further.
With the season wrapped up, that gives me an awful lot to do before my first full season starts. My coaching staff are not up to the standard I would like either, and so this will be a winter of rebuild before we come back for the new season. My levels of optimism will be decided by how much I can change the squad, I am very much thinking revolution rather than evolution.
With my feet under the table, I find myself with around a week before my first game. Ideally I’d play a few games, settle in and see what I need but the transfer window also shuts the day before my game. My early business will need to be concluded in advance of seeing anyone in match action. I could choose not to act, but the squad I have inherited is quite unbalanced and I need reinforcements.
My plan is to play the same asymmetrical formation that I used in Singapore, except this squad has good left wingers rather than right so I will simply mirror it with a left winger and striker on the right. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce my new squad:
Goalkeepers
I’m not exactly blessed in this area, Jeong San is solid but unspectacular. This is definitely an area I would like to improve on.
Lee Tae-Hui is a reasonably young and adequate backup, I won’t be looking to change him at all as long as he remains happy as number 2.
Right Backs
Kim Dong-Min is a decent age, with all round ability but I prefer more pace from my full backs and so this is another area I will be looking to improve on.
Jeong Dong-Yun is an ok backup player, as long as I get a better first choice player then he will remain good cover.
Left Backs
Kim Chae-Woon is a good left back, only 19 years old and can still grow. If he was just a little quicker then I would stick with him long term.
Kang Yun-Gu is more a wing back, just the only other left back in the squad. I will be looking to move him on as soon as I can.
Centre Backs
Kim Jeung-Ho is a solid centre back and still only 24 years old. I will be building my defence around him.
A perfect experienced partner for Kim Jeung-Ho at centre back. The only concern is his age.
Bunoza is currently injured but another good option for an experienced centre back. I am not sure that his quality and at the age he is, that he justifies having one of the foreign player spots but I will asses that in the half season I have before the transfer window opens again.
Kim Yeon-Soo is not a good player at all, way below the level I need and will make way once I have more depth in this position.
Defensive Midfielders
Mahazi is another decent player, but not miles ahead of my South Korean options, as with Bunoza, I will be assessing whether he justifies taking up a foreign player space in my squad when he isn’t much better than some home grown options I have.
Lee Je-Ho is another good young player, he fits the U22 quota for this season and will be at least on the bench moving forwards but a capable understudy.
Central Midfielders
Kim Do-Hyeok is my best midfielder and, although I am tempted to play him in defensive midfield, he will mainly be used as a central midfielder. He should be the hub of my midfield.
Lim Eun-Su is another more defensive midfielder but who will do a job for us as a central midfielder. This might limit our attacking options but should also result in us being solid through the middle.
Kim Jun-Beom is a decent all rounder but not of sufficient quality for the long term. I will be looking for more quality depth in central midfield.
Lee Woo-Hyeok is another reasonably well rounded midfielder but again, he lacks sufficient quality for where I want to take this team in the long term.
Left Wingers
Kim Ho-Nam is another player that fits into the category of good players that I wish had just a bit more pace. He’s a good finisher and works for the team though.
Ji Eon-Hak is not of sufficient quality and the wing is an area I am actively looking to improve on.
Strikers
Mugosa is my best striker, my priority needs to be adjusting our tactics so that I get him chances. He is coming in to his prime and certainly justifies taking up a foreign player space.
Kehinde is ok but I will likely move him on to get a better player for his foreign player spot, I think there is better out there in the medium term.
My depth up front is very weak, other than a little pace Jung Chang-Yong offers very little and needs to be replaced.
Lee Jong-Wook can finish but very little else, another who needs to be improved on and quickly.
23rd Man
So that I have a little tactical flexibility, I have opted to keep Song Si-Woo as my extra man. This allows me to move to a formation with wingers on each side, should I need to shake things up.
As was evident from my assessment, I would like to add a goalkeeper, right back, left back, centre back, and a striker to my squad to be happy with the strength of the team. Unfortunately, I missed out on some of my key targets at left back and left wing, due to bigger clubs coming in for them. I made good offers in terms of wages, but it wasn’t to be. So my transfer dealings were not as fruitful as I had hoped. Much like my stay in Singapore where signing local talent was key to my success, finding and signing the best South Koreans I can will be vital to any success, as foreign player rules are strict. My concern is that there were very few players of sufficient quality to improve the squad, let alone the first team, that were available. I can only hope that more players are willing to sign for us come the end of the season. I was still, though, able to add some quality.
A spend of £395k on 4 new signings, as the top 2 on the left side there were signed before I arrived. I more than evened out that spend by bringing in £450k for the 6 players that left the club. I was able to add a right back, left back, left winger and striker. Despite 4 new additions, I’m still not happy with the squad. I managed to improve but not as much as I had hoped to, as mentioned I need more quality South Korean players. I also have to factor in that at a certain age they have to do military service, and I still need to have 2 players under the age of 22 within my match day squad, of which one must start. I have the budget to add quality, but persuading them to join is another matter.
A slightly quicker right back, also a little younger than Kim Dong-Min. Kim Dong-Min forced a move away for £250k as well, so Kim Mun-Hwan will be my new first choice right back. I did get Kim Dong-Min back on loan for 6 months as part of the deal to sell him, just to ease the transition though. To get a player I like for £90k and move on the player he replaces for £250k is just good business as well.
An experienced left back as my current first choice Kim Chae-Woon is only 19 and my sub is more a wing back than full back. A good all rounder with a good free kick in him as well, which should be useful. A bargain at just £40k means there is little risk with this one.
£95k for Kim Kyung-Jung adds some much needed pace to the squad. He will, at the very least, be a different option off the bench against tired legs.
Lee Jeong-Hyup was my big outlay, he cost £175k plus a transfer listed player I was looking to move on in part exchange. 20 appearances for South Korea shows his class, and he will challenge my current front 2 for a position, whereas before my first choice pair were much better than my backup.
I can’t complain too much, although I am still very much in the market for a goalkeeper, right back, centre back, central midfielder, and another striker. I just need to keep scouting and scouring around until the end of the season and hope there will be some more options for me. I can then also review my foreign players to make sure they are of sufficient quality to justify their places as referenced on those players in the squad assessment. There is a lot of room for improvement still, in terms of personnel.
On the staff side, I had a vacancy for a scout and moved to add Erwin Vandenbergh. I am hoping his European knowledge might come in useful to tempt some players to move East. All other staff roles were filled, not necessarily to my liking, but I didn’t want to pay the compensation required for a complete rebuild of the backroom staff. I will wait for contracts to expire and replace when the costs will be significantly lower.
So, with the transfer window now firmly closed, it was on to the serious business of the league campaign. The fixtures looked quite kind, we start with 2 home matches against the team one place above and one place below us in the table.
This felt like being in Singapore all over again, we played so well, had 38 shots and 62% possession but found ourselves 2-0 down with 10 minutes to play. I brought my new left winger and striker off the bench though and went ultra attacking, boy did it pay off! A great comeback, well deserved point, and avoiding defeat in my first game.
We followed that up with a very slow start, conceded the first shot of the game and then laboured. We still racked up double the amount of shots our opponents had, along with 55% possession, but a tame 0-1 home defeat was hard to take and compounded by the red card.
Suwon Bluewongs are a good team and we held them at bay with a very solid display until Rashid Mahazi decided that, despite being on a booking, he wanted to slide through the back of someone in the style of Vinny Jones. They scored from the resulting free kick and added insult to injury in the 84th minute. We didn’t create much in this game but we defended resolutely until the idiocy of the second red card in 3 games. It looks like discipline could be an issue with this squad for sure.
I had hoped to have an immediate impact on the results, the club had gone 5 games without a win at the time of my appointment, this is now extended to 8 games and I’m not happy about that at all. Again, though, the fixtures are kind and we play the team bottom and second bottom in our next 2 games. These games really will be make or break for our season and we desperately need 6 points to start some upward momentum before the league splits.
Next week I will bring more updates from the games and where our season is headed.
After the hassle and failure of Google Stadia, the only positive thing I can say about the experience is that I was refunded my £40 by Google. They acknowledged that they sold me a defective game, which I am surprised and disappointed about, especially the fact that Sports Interactive (SI) as a developer allowed it to be sold in the first place. To have a known issue from January until August with no resolution in sight, leaves a very bitter taste.
No more negativity though and more about me having purchased and installed the game the traditional way via Steam. My original save game was lost, but I have installed a custom skin, real names for competitions, and a face pack now that the game installation is contained within my own laptop and I have control over those aspects. So visually, moving forward things should look a bit slicker than the default dark skin I was using before. There will also be no mention of Zebre in Italy due to Konami having an exclusive license to have Juventus in Pro Evolution Soccer, I now also have Juventus within the game as well as all of the other licenses SI do not own being added. This should contribute to the immersion level being heightened and just generally things are looking good to go!
This time around I have set my reputation to the level it was at the end of my time in Singapore, to ensure my next job is one I would have earned from the trophies I have collected so far. The other change I had to make was in my nationality, due to reputation having a localised element within FM. My success in Singapore would have raised my profile in Asia much more than in Europe, so with that in mind I made my second nationality Singaporean to reflect my journey so far and attempt to start this game at as close to the exact position I finished the last as I am able to. I want the transition to be as seamless as possible.
All the installation, customisation and loading completed, my job hunt stepped up. To follow up on my enhanced reputation reflecting my successes in Singapore, it wasn’t long before a bigger job came calling.
My new club are K-League side Incheon United, based in the city of their name which is the third largest in South Korea. A mere 40 minute journey from central Seoul, tucked in the North Western corner of the country is where I find my new job. Incheon airport is the largest in South Korea, sitting on an artificially created piece of land between Yeongjong and Yongyu Islands which was previously a shallow sea. Over 70 million passengers land there every year, and I added to those numbers with an excited skip in my step to see what the future held for me in my new home.
Incheon Munhak Stadium was built for the World Cup in 2002, yet the city had no professional team. This led to the club forming in 2003, in order to make full use of the investment made in the area. The capacity of nearly 50,000, though, was a little big for the club’s needs. The result of this was that in 2012 the Incheon Football Stadium was purpose built for football rather than the previous multi sport arena, housing a more modest 20,891 fans. The club were K-League runners up in 2005 and South Korean FA Cup runners up in 2015, but as yet the trophy cabinet is as empty as the one Brentford are in the process of moving from Griffin Park to Brentford Community Stadium. That is fine by me, as it gives me scope to be the first man to bring success and silverware to the city.
You’ll notice at my unveiling that I turned down offers from Australia and Israel to move to my new home. The Australian league is a step up from Singapore, Western Sydney Wanderers are one of the best teams in the country, but salary caps and drafts in the US sport style don’t really appeal to me. Given the constraints the rules bring, I feel that I can have more impact at a club with more freedom to trade players and set salaries. Israel is an ideal gateway to Europe, a natural move West, but after the previous Champions League campaign with Geylang I felt that I had unfinished business in Asia before I even contemplate a move to Europe. I won’t rule out moving to the country in future, but Amutat Hapoel Ra’anana are one of the weakest teams in the division too. It would have taken quite some time to bring success to them and I was not willing to spend that length of time in Israel, I plan on bigger things.
After 22 games in the league, we are only 7 points away from 3rd place which is encouraging. Sitting 9 points clear of the relegation zone also puts the club firmly in the mid table bracket, but that’s fine with me. We clearly have a solid base to build from and I am confident with decent recruitment and some attacking football implemented in the Geylang style, we can push on to challenge for continental football in the near future. I will use the remainder of the season to asses the squad and see what areas we need immediate reinforcements in.
The recent form shows only 2 points from the last 5 games, meaning my first task will be to stop the slide. The league history is a fairly static mid table finish for the last 12 years, but I believe I can unlock the potential of this sleeping giant. The club have a very healthy £6m in the bank and saw fit to make £3m of that available to me and £4k per week in wages above the current wage bill for new signings. I can already see the squad is bloated in a few areas with players I have no use for. I should be able to use my budget to get 2-4 new signings in immediately and then once I clear some of the unwanted players out, get those final pieces of the jigsaw.
I did have thoughts of ending my adventure after the first hurdle of losing my progress, but now I feel excited to carry on building my legacy. In the next instalment I will take you through a full squad assessment, the tactics and formation I intend to deploy, and hopefully have some new faces to introduce you to as well. We’re back in the game, and ready to make some waves.
A lot has happened since I last wrote something, let me start with how I was planned to approach the season.
I was really pleased with the new strength at centre back with Arifin, then partnering Reilly and Purflett for Champions League games resulted in lots of goals. This screenshot also shows that I had to live without my first choice centre back, left back, centre midfielder, right winger and sub striker because of International duty clashing with Champions League fixtures, which was pretty disappointing.
My reaction to this game accurately reflects that over the first 9 games of the season, we had won 3, drawn 3 and lost the other 3. The Champions League games, with the higher standard of opposition, really took their toll on our early league form. We struggled to get a run going when we had distractions mid week. We then went on a 5 game winning streak once the Champions League group stage was over though, this enabled us to claim second place with 14 games played. We sat 4 points behind Young Lions, the surprise early pace setters and 3 clear of Home United who also started slowly.
So on to the Champions League, which delivered the best result of my career so far without question.
Not only do we beat the Chinese team, but we deserved it. It was a great performance and definitely the high point of my reign. The group itself wasn’t quite as successful though.
We didn’t embarrass ourselves, we lost 5-4 at home to Buriram United in another thriller and absolutely did the country proud against the big boys. To score 9 in our 6 games as well was testament to the fact that we had a real go, we might have gone out but we stuck to our principle of attacking football.
There was also a clear showing of the impact my policy of using our youth system to supplement the squad.
We were way down the list in 8th when I took over, now we find ourselves the third highest volume producer of Singaporean talent. That is a very pleasing aspect which shows the club has really moved forwards.
At this point you are likely wondering why the new format? Where are the details?
What happened was, there is a known bug with Football Manager 2020 when run via Google Stadia which has been outstanding for 7 months without a fix. This results in the game save corrupting and not being able to be loaded again. So my time in Singapore is brought to a premature end. The bug is so significant that Google actually refunded me the cost of the game as a defective product. Given that playing Football Manager was a major reason for my purchase of Stadia in the first place, this was hugely frustrating. There are no such issues with the steam version of FM, so this is clearly a Google storage issue, which they have no appetite to resolve. Stadia as a platform has been widely ridiculed, and I had been one of the few defending it to this point. It does seem that the criticism is justified though, and Stadia is not being treated as a serious product even by Google. My advice would be to steer clear of investing any time or money with Google Stadia.
What next?
My plan now is to get Football Manager set up via Steam on my laptop. Luckily, as I was moving on at the end of the season anyway, I was very aware of exactly where my reputation stood. I will be taking my reputation levels from the end of my time with Geylang and applying for jobs to see where my next stop will be.
It will take me a little time to get back up and running, so there will be no update next week in preparation for my second job update on 9th August. Thanks for continuing to read.
I am very excited to get my first taste of continental competition, our qualification for the Champions League is actually perfectly timed too. The overall reputation of the Singaporean league has gone up 8 places within Asia. This means that, much like a UEFA coefficient, we gain better qualification places. So where Home United have fallen at the playoff hurdle and dropped from the Champions League into the Europa League equivalent, we are directly into the group stage. That means we could be mixing with teams from the South Korean and Chinese leagues which would be equivalent to taking a team from Azerbaijan into the European Champions League, so we have to strengthen as much as possible to avoid embarrassment.
The future of the club, beyond my stay, looks very bright. There were 2 players in particular coming through to address weaknesses in the squad.
Jumai looks like a future club captain in the making, decent leadership already at 16 years old and rated by my staff to be as good as Pujiyono at centre back already.
Kim Sai also looks like a future star, the long term successor to Nizam, who at 34 has a limited time left at our level.
To round up our previous season, the supporters named Puflett and Reilly on the bench of the all time XI, while Rusli has come through the youth team to claim the first choice left back spot.
In a break from Maguire winning everything, it was Anders Aplin who stepped up last season to be our player of the season. He was a creative force and very consistent. Puflett was voted signing of the season, a nice vindication of my mid season choice to bring him in too.
The man Aplin beat to the fan’s player of the year, which surprised me, was Saberin. Saberin broke the club record for league goals scored in a season, I thought he would be a regular scorer when I joined the club, but it was only when the rest of the team was up to his level that he delivered what I expected of him.
Looking back at the reasons we were able to win the league and there was some pleasing stuff. We scored the most goals, had the highest average possession, best passing accuracy, best tackling completion, and scored the most goals from corners. The possession on it’s own isn’t pleasing, but coupled with the goal scoring it is very much what I aim for. Contrary to popular opinion and the media frenzy that surrounds Pep Guardiola, I don’t see the point in possession for the sake of possession. I like to dominate the ball, but only if we are also using it to create chances.
The full season summary shows that Puflett was signing of the season, despite coming in mid season. Saberin top scored, Aplin top average rating was pleasing. The overachievers coming in 1 place above prediction does show that the odds were spot on before the season started. The other thing to note is that we get to the group stage of the Champions League and Home United qualified for the preliminary round due to the improved league performance and reputation.
Given that I won 2 out of the 3 available trophies last season, it was possible that the season ahead could fizzle out with a lack of anything new to achieve. The news that my old mate Grabovac is staying on for next season means I’m doubly focussed on making sure that when I leave Singapore there is no doubt as to who the dominant team and manager in the league is.
With my motivation rekindled, I had one of my coaches and my chief scout decide that they needed to leave the club to further their careers. That meant I needed to replace them to complete my coaching staff ahead of the new season.
Khamis comes in as a coach, he’s not that good at the actual coaching part but his style is possession control, he’s determined and adaptable as well as being the best coach I could get so it was a pretty simple choice.
On the scouting side, I thought that getting some knowledge of South Korea, Japan, and Brazil would open up new foreign player possibilities. I know the value of this won’t be realised until after I am gone, but I will keep checking in on my old team and want them to continue to do well once I leave.
The season preview is released and, unsurprisingly, we are named favourites for the title again. Puflett named the league’s key player and Reilly second is good considering Maguire will turn 32 during the season, so the younger 2 will be the future of the club. Sharp eyes will spot that the name Suzliman on the right wing has a Geylang shirt on him but was listed on the season review of last season as a Tampines player, having recorded a league high 11 assists. I should then introduce you to him as my first signing.
As a further part of the building for the season ahead, I identified centre back as a position that I wanted to improve on. Ichikawa is going to turn 35 years old during the season. His pace is down to sluggish levels, he is still a great influence but I don’t think I can rely on him for a minimum of 24 league games, 6 Champions League games, and 5+ cup games at his age. I was drawing a blank but decided that if Hoagang United had 3 out of the 4 defenders from the dream team 11 then I should see if I could sign one. Ho-Won is Korean and so would count as foreign, so I decided to look at Arifin.
A £40k deal later and we have a 60 cap Singapore International centre back to partner with Sulaiman moving forwards. At 30, he still brings experience to the back line but with significantly more pace than Ichikawa, which I think is crucial to our season.
My third signing of the window is an 19 year old, Singapore International striker. Fandi Ahmad will bring depth to the striker position, given that the local striker position was Saberin with not much competition from Junaidi, this will bring more depth to the squad.
At that point, I thought my transfer business was done. A strange set of events led me to making my first loan signing of my career. I was checking on the latest Singapore squad to see if any new call ups would be good signings for me, when I noticed Danish Iftiqar was out of contract. I offered him £800 p/w to sign for us, but he chose to stay at Home for £625 a week, which was disappointing. After the new contract was signed, I went to check out his profile and I noticed that despite being an International player, he was listed in the Home U19 squad and listed for loan. Given my relationship with the manager, I didn’t think there was much chance but all I had to do was cover his wages and they were happy to loan him to me for the season ahead.
With the players I have signed, there are a few old faces that no longer fit. The time came for Palmer to leave, back on loan to his native New Zealand. Next in line was Van Heuizen, with Rifqi and Suzliman as senior options and Noronha coming through, he simply wouldn’t get a game and so Warriors snapped him up for £20k. Anouar has also been displaced in the squad, so a £15k move to DPMM followed. For the first time, one of my signings needed to leave the club too. Hudzaifi has been solid for me but I now have Rusli and *Iffiqat* for the left back spot and so he needed to make way.
An odd result of my transfer business, is that our odds went out to 5-1 and Home United have become favourites for our title. Arifin looks better in the Geylang kit, and Home signed Smolcic who becomes the best rated right back in the league. It doesn’t really bother me though, in my mind we are favourites for a domestic treble.
I plan to keep 3 foreign players again this season, despite only being able to play 2 in the league. This season it will be Reilly who is the man for Champions League and the cups, where Puflett and Maguire will be registered for all competitions. Nice to see all 3 listed amongst the top 5 rated players in the league.
In other news, the club don’t really have any legends, so to be listed as the only person on the road to that status is pleasing. I am a favoured person at the club, it would be great to end this season with some silverware and push up to Icon status. Who knows, I may be back later in my career to put Home United back in their place again.
With the roundup complete, I’d like to introduce you to my squad for my final season in charge of Geylang International.
Goalkeepers
He’s coming to the end of his career now but there’s nobody better out there that I can afford, so Nizam will continue as our vice captain and number 1 goalkeeper.
Syirhan hasn’t played a game for me yet, no doubt he’ll have to this season now I’ve mentioned it. He looks like a solid backup but, as mentioned, we’ve not had to find out as yet.
Right Backs
Irfan was at the club when I took over and really grown in to his role, this is his final year of counting as an U23 player against the quota, so I assume that Pujiyono will take this position once I have left.
Pujiyono has been solid since coming through the youth team in my first season, developing nicely and can cover at centre back when needed.
Left Backs
As I anticipated, Rusli cemented his place at left back last season, he has much stiffer competition for his place this season though.
Iftiqar coming in with International experience at only 20 years old is very welcome. I think he will likely displace Rusli as my first choice left back for the season.
Centre Backs
During the course of last season Sulaiman showed the kind of form that deserved recognition, his 3 International caps were merited and I expect him to be the key player in the defence this season.
Arifin comes in to displace Ichikawa, I needed more legs in the heart of defence. He’s a very different defender though, he has a lot of pace but is not mentally on the same level as Ichikawa. Only time will tell if this move was the right one.
Ichikawa remains a key part of the squad, his pace and acceleration dropping to 4 out of 20 though was just a little too slow to remain first choice for me.
Stephen has been a dependable backup, pushed further down the pecking order and I don’t expect him to feature at all.
Defensive Midfielders
Barry is showing the strain a bit now, still technically superb but his physical capabilities have been hurt by injuries the last couple of seasons. We are lucky to be in a place where we aren’t so reliant on him now, but he’s clearly still a huge factor in our success.
Masri only played a handful of games last season, and I don’t expect much more from him this time around. He’s not too bad but I wouldn’t want to rely on him.
Central Midfielders
Last season he was one of our 2 standout players, consistent and creative. At 30 he has become a regular for Singapore again and is clearly in his prime.
Shafiq will continue to be first choice next to Aplin, he covered in defensive midfield at times last season when Maguire was injured and I will use him in the same way this season.
Even at 34 years old, Kasman can still contribute a lot. When Shafiq was played deeper then I leaned on Kasman’s experience and he ended up playing a lot more than I initially anticipated last season. Like Ichikawa, he is showing the signs of age but his experience is key for the younger players.
Seow Chin is now ready for regular game time. He spent a year learning how to play central midfield and his development made me comfortable with moving on Anouar.
Right Midfielders
Rifqi remains my first choice winger, his goal and assist return was vital last season. He regularly broke the deadlock in tight games and was a threat at all times. The only downside was that he did suffer with injuries, likely because he dribbles more often that most of my other players.
Suzliman will initially be cover, but I expect him to really challenge Rifqi for that starting spot in a way that Van Heuizen didn’t last season. He can also play on the left which gives some options when I come up against tough opposition.
I have added another body to my squad here because I simply couldn’t leave Noronha out after his end to last season. We have at least 6 more games than last season with the Champions League, Rifqi has a patchy fitness record and so it just made sense to keep all 3 options available to me.
Strikers
Puflett came in mid season and stole the show, he will be our main striker for the season ahead and I expect more of the same from him.
Saberin top scored last season, but I think that was mainly due to Reilly and Puflett having half a season each. Still, I hope he can maintain that level going in to this season.
Fandi Ahmad brings real competition up top, getting someone so experienced at such a young age, and for free was great business.
Junaidi steps back from 3rd to 4th choice striker this season. After a promising start and some vital goals the season before last, he really disappointed last season. He registered just the 1 goal and had a huge goal drought in the middle of the season. Although I don’t plan on using him unless necessary, I still expect better than last season.
Reilly played well last season but just didn’t score enough goals. He was surpassed by Puflett and will find himself playing the same role this season that Palmer played last season. He will be our striker for competitions outside of the league. Luckily for him that is the Champions League as well this season.
I feel like we have depth all over the pitch, and that ultimately even our backup 11 could challenge adequately for the title. It’s nice to have options all over the pitch and I am ready to take on the best Singapore has to offer, one last time. Although I introduced the two new youth players, I don’t believe either is quite ready to be a part of my squad but the next manager will certainly benefit from them. Even so, we go into the season with a first team squad of 24, rather than my usual 22. I wanted more depth to handle the schedule of having to play 2 games every week and I am really pleased with the signings I was able to make.
Now though, on to the most exciting part of my career so far, the draw for the 2022 Asian Champions League.
The draw could not have been much tougher here. Jeonbuk won the K-League last season by a 10 point margin, they are also 3 times Champions League winners. Jiangsu were once managed by Fabio Capello, came 6th in the CSL last season. They then spent £30m on signing Neal Maupay from Brighton to partner the former Shakhtar and Brazil striker Alex Teixeira in a pretty scary front line. Buriram United are regulars in the competition, getting to the last 16 in 2018 and are certainly no pushovers. I will be lucky to get a point from this group, my aim is to try to get points from Buriram and not lose by double digit scores against the Korean and Chinese teams. The exposure to higher level football will be good though, for me and the team. I just hope we don’t embarrass ourselves.
Next time out will be the first half of my final season in Singapore.
We begin the second half of the season in a great place, we’ve left ourselves in contention for all 3 of the trophies we are entered into. In the league, we are 2 points clear at the top, albeit with Home United having a game in hand behind us. We also have the group stage of the League Cup coming up, as well as the quarter final of the Singapore Cup. In the Singapore Cup we skipped the first round due to our high league finish last season, so we are a two-legged quarter final and semi final away from a cup final there.
There’s a lot to update on, a dramatic end to the season, so straight in to the games.
A mixed bag of a group in the League Cup, Warriors aren’t great and we should have won, DPMM are awful too. The Hougang result was really disappointing, as I mentioned I can use more foreign players in this competition and I figured being able to use Palmer would be a boost. We somehow made it through the group on 4 points though, by virtue of our goal difference from the big win over DPMM.
Despite both legs being at neutral venues, there is nominally a home and away leg in the Singapore Cup, weirder still is that away goals do count double. So the 0-0 with Tampines was actually our away leg and means that if the second leg is a score draw then we go out. With all the cup games going on it is difficult to focus on the league. Niigata were in the title race but they lost to Hougang United before we played and we managed a fairly routine 2-1 home win to keep top spot for now.
The League Cup semi final is a single game, where we were drawn to play Young Lions. We have a really good head to head record with them, but we had lost 2-0 at home in the league earlier in the season. I was a little nervous heading in to this one.
I shouldn’t have been! Reilly was back from International duty, Palmer came off the bench to score, but Ollie Puflett was the star of the show bagging 4 and assisting another. I was getting increasingly frustrated with the output of Van Huizen by this stage and so I called up Milton Noronha from the U19 squad. He’s still quite raw, but his pace is such a weapon that I couldn’t ignore him from here on. The sharp eyed among you might have noticed that I brought Barry Maguire off the bench in that game, firstly it shows what a great performance it was without him, secondly though there was some bad news.
It’s not just the League Cup final that he misses, this injury keeps him out for 6 weeks. We now have to show that the squad improvements that I have made can carry us through without our captain, leader, and best player. On a brighter note though.
A record win for the club and the competition, to be recorded in the semi final is very impressive.
Next up is the League Cup final, who else would be waiting for us…Home United again. We’ve struggled at full strength against them all season, losing home and away in the league. Now we have a big stage, cup final, without Maguire and we have to find a way to bridge the gap.
Ollie Purflett had a header early on that hit the post, came out and hit Home United goalkeeper Sekagya in the back, before trickling over the line. In truth, we didn’t look in danger after that until an 89th minute counter attack, which ended in a sucker punch to take the game to extra time. Nothing of note in extra time, so penalties to decide it. Reilly stepped up first and missed! Luckily for him Zamri and Sharif did for Home and so for the second time in 3 seasons we have our name etched onto the League Cup trophy!
In the absence of Barry Maguire, it was my very first signing for the club Zaiful Nizam who lifts the trophy. That adds something extra to this one, it definitely feels like the beginning of our winning this season though, rather than the peak.
Not a huge surprise that the board are happy with this, at a minimum now I will have collected 2 trophies in 30 months in charge, not a bad start to my career.
The review of the competition vindicates some of the decisions that I have made during the season. Mainly, that is bringing in Puflett, who top scored with 6 goals, and bringing Noronha up from the U19s to be the biggest creative force in the competition. Rifqi has struggled a bit with injuries, so having a direct replacement has been invaluable as they are similar players.
After the high of the win, it was back to league action with back to back away games.
A draw at Hougang is a respectable result and to score 12 in our last 2 games against Young Lions really hammered home our superiority. We are cranking up the pressure in the title race but things are congested at the top. Home United, Hougang United, Tampines, and Niigata are all still in the mix and only 4 points separate the top 5.
In the hectic schedule, I thought it might be worth talking to Maguire and seeing what chance we had of holding on to him beyond this season, I am on the fence about whether I will be around or not, but I always like to leave the clubs I manage in a better place than when I took over and that has to involved keeping Maguire for as long as he will stay. A further year contract for our captain is great news, I cannot believe that the reaction from the supporters was uncertain as to whether this was a good move!
During this time, the voting was released for the Singaporean Premier League Player of the Year. Given that you cannot vote for your own players, my voting options were somewhat limited!
I was very pleased to see that 3 out of the 4 candidates were ours, standout seasons from Aplin, Rifqi, and Saberin is great to see. We have to rely heavily on our Singaporean talent and for so many of our own to be recognised, was great to see. Two of whom were part of the original squad too but now performing at a higher level, in Aplin and Saberin.
A solid win over Tampines in the quarter final second leg means we do not get penalised by the odd away goals rule for neutral venue matches. Then we click into gear moving forward again to obliterate Balestier. They had replaced DPMM at the bottom of the table before the game, so we heaped on the misery by ensuring they stayed there. We now have a 4 point lead in the league, with 2 games to play. Our penultimate game of the season, you guessed it, is Home United away from home. Currently, Home and Hougang United are both 4 points back. Win this match, and we seal the title at the home of the champions the last 2 seasons. The timing would be ideal and a literal passing of the torch.
It started so well, we went 1-0 up and I really believed that we were going to do it. Another lesson in clinical finishing from Song Ui-Young, by far the best Singaporean striker plus a constant scorer against us. It’s not all doom and gloom though, we go in to the last game of the season with a point lead still, with the title still in our hands. Before we get to league action though, there is the first leg of our Singapore Cup semi final to be played.
Another meltdown moment for us, the players were tired from the congested fixture schedule but still I expected to be in the tie for the second leg. We cannot afford to win just the League Cup again this season, we were far too close last season and are too good to come away empty handed again. We really do risk getting the tag of nearly men.
It is time to see if we can shake that tag, our final league game of the season comes with an interesting sub plot.
Just 19 days after leaving his job as our U19s manager, we face an away trip to Warriors managed by Zulkifli Yusuf with the title on the line. Either we have a friendly undercover agent to ease our path, or one of our own takes the title from within our grasp! I was hoping for the former, but then Yusuf started telling the press that we were lucky to be in with a shot of the title in advance of the game. I didn’t expect mind games from our former employee, but I decided to keep my thoughts to myself with the intention of berating him once we have the title in our hands.
We made it more difficult for ourselves than it needed to be, but WE ARE CHAMPIONS! 5-2 over Yusuf and his team gives us the points to get over the line and seal the title. I expected that Home United would win to keep the pressure on us, so we had to deliver and thankfully we did.
The double is sealed, but our season isn’t done yet and I wanted all 3 trophies at the start of the season. So we needed to overcome our 2-0 first leg defeat against Niigata. Barry Maguire returned from injury in our 5-2 win over Warriors, and he would again be in from the start for our semi final.
We stumbled to a 1-1 draw, just didn’t have enough left in the tank. We rounded off our season with possibly the most pointless fixture, a third place playoff where we won a pretty bland game 1-0 where both teams wished we had been playing the cup final.
I did cave on the back of our Singapore Cup quarter final victory and sign a new 1 year contract to remain with Geylang International. At that point we had sealed the League Cup again, were in pole position in the league and I had faith that we would see the job through. We qualified for the Asian Champions League, and I’m really looking forward to testing ourselves against the best the continent has to offer. If we can perform well in the Champions League next season then I am hoping to move on to one of the bigger leagues in the region, preferably Korea although I would travel anywhere globally for a step up in league quality.
It’s always nice to deliver on the board visions for the future of the club and we managed to complete a couple of those a year and 2 years early.
The other positive, on a personal note, is that I picked up my second successive Singaporean Manager of the Year award. Adding these trophies and awards will all contribute to my next role.
Back to the players that have got me to this position, and it was a real coming of age season for Saberin. He top scored the division with 16 goals, as well as having an average rating of 7.51, just to underline his quality of performance and consistency. He was on the verge of losing his place in the team, but stepped up to become a key player in our success.
The league team of the season was a joy to see as well. I personally signed Nizam, Sulaiman, and Rifqi. I brought Rusli through from the youth team, and feel that I have brought on the careers of Ichikawa, Aplin, and Saberin. The right back, Salime, is the one who I wanted to sign before the season started, but couldn’t pay the £80k required after splashing out on Reilly. I don’t play a left winger, so couldn’t contribute there, and I have previously stated that Ui-Young is the best Singaporean striker by a distance.
We ended the season with a double, qualification for the Champions League, new contracts for Maguire and myself to keep the band together, and optimism for the future. My personal rating for this season would be an A, we achieved a lot but the missing of the Singapore Cup keeps us from that A* rating. My aims for next season are a clean sweep of the 3 domestic trophies, as well as equipping ourselves for a Champions League run. No matter what we achieve though, next season will definitely be my last at Geylang International. There is nothing more I can do at the club, the only reason I am staying one more season is to get the continental exposure and get the increase to my reputation that comes from the Champions League.
This season is very early on in my career, but it feels make or break in terms of my ability to move up rather than sideways in my career after I leave Geylang. The favourites tag for the league title means that nothing short of winning the league will be acceptable for me.
Pre-season was fairly routine again, I usually pick some lower standard teams locally and use the wins to build some confidence. Morale and fitness were boosted up, and we are ready for the real thing to begin.
My regular pre-season seemed to work quite well, as we got off to the best possible start. Tampines were favourites for the title the season before last, had an off season last time around, but are expected to challenge again this season. The main decision I had to make is that Shafiq can play defensive midfield or central midfield. This meant that for the first time I had a viable option for pushing Maguire further forward. I opted to leave Maguire deeper to get more involved in the play, this meant that Shafiq was a direct replacement for Kasman. Reilly was very lucky to capitalise on a poor back pass to open his account, but you can’t argue with a debut goal. Rifqi made his debut from the bench too. If this was a sign of things to come then I was even more excited for the season ahead.
We followed up that great opening day with a really nice run. Hougang United is always the second toughest away game of the season, we played well but didn’t take our chances for that familiar feeling. The way the league works, you play each team 3 times, we have the bad luck to be playing Home United and Hougang United away from home twice this season, another obstacle to our success. The way we are playing early season, we are taking apart all of the teams except the big boys, this season it looks like Home United, Hougang United, and Niigata Unicorn will be our main rivals and so the matches with those teams around us will likely be the difference between success and failure. Niigata are an interesting team, they appear to be the feeder club for a the main club, of the same name, in Japan. Their entire squad of players is made up of Japanese players and they have several players on loan from the parent team too. It means one less team to compete with for signing of Singaporean players, however, the depth of Japanese talent far outweighs Singapore.
Our good early season form will get another test, next up we have Home United again. They are a bit weaker this season than last but still the yardstick by which teams from Singapore are measured. Given we have an array of ex players of theirs, ones who contributed a lot to their success, I am confident of not just taking their title but also beating them.
My confidence is misplaced, 61% possession and a lot of shots again for a pleasing away performance. I’m getting a bit sick of saying that we played well and didn’t get what we deserved, another shake up is needed tactically. We have a way of playing to steamroller the smaller clubs, we still seem to come up short away against the better teams though. I am thinking of bringing Rifqi in to the team at right midfield in place of Van Huizen, who plays attacking midfield on the right, that would give us more numbers in the deeper areas and hopefully create a numerical advantage there. It means that Aplin can defend wider on the left without leaving gaps in the centre as well.
A very disappointing run of fixtures, it seems that the loss to Home and the tactical tweaks have resulted in the wheels falling off of our season. Winning away at Warriors was a decent result, the point away at Tampines was also fine. Then the DPMM game was horrendous, we went 3-0 up against a team bottom of the league and somehow gave them a route back in to the match. That is the first time since I took charge that we have thrown away such a commanding lead, the fact that it was against the worst team in the league hurts that much more. I moved the positioning around, specifically with the right winger post the Home United match, and I have stuck with that, but now I have tweaked the way we play a little more in an attempt to get out of this rut. I am now looking for my team to continue with the high tempo possession game but also look to utilise more crosses, I have physically capable strikers and I think this way we will get our shots in from better positions, to capitalise on our possessional superiority more. We risk becoming like Arsenal, with some good football in triangles but completely lacking that cutting edge. Hopefully the latest batch of tweaks will see us become more clinical.
The immediate results reflect the changes I had hoped for, we are getting a higher quality of chances, it has come at the expense of not being so tight at the back but after the run we were on, the fact that we won 3 straight games is enough for me. From a really bad spot we have got ourselves back in contention, I am optimistic again that we can be there or there abouts when the trophies are handed out. We have a real test of our upturn in form and new tactics, with so few teams in the league you are never too far away from a game with Home United. At least this time it is at home.
In the lead up to this game though, I noticed that Greg Reilly was going to be away for a month with the Irish U18 team. Then on closer look, the Irish U21 team then have a tournament the following month. Having a quick look at the competition for places in the Irish youth teams, I have a strong feeling that Reilly is going to be missing for the next 2 months, which is a cruel blow to our ambitions. From here I have 3 options that I can see, firstly I can just sit tight and wait for Reilly to come back, secondly I could just register Matty Palmer to fill in for Reilly for the second half of the season, or thirdly I have found a player that won the title the last 2 seasons with Home United. Oliver Puflett was Singaporean League Young Player of the Year last season, so it was an odd choice for Home to release him. Given our next game was Home United again, I thought it would be perfect timing for a debut goal! I didn’t make any signings in the mid season window last season, but exceptional circumstances call for action.
I took the punt and signed up Oliver Puflett, he looks a real talent and someone who I can utilise long term. It does mean I will likely move on Palmer after the season, he’s now 4th in the pecking order of foreign players and I don’t want to carry more than 1 in the squad that I can only play in cup games. It does mean that Reilly is unhappy with me for not registering him for the second half of the season, but he won’t be around for many games and I can still use him in the cup competitions.
It’s the hope that kills you, 59% possession this time, but when you only hit the target with 1 of your 15 shots then you get what’s coming to you really. I tried to use Saberin as the deep lying forward and Puflett in the centre to get on the end of things, but in truth we never looked like scoring. I may have to use Puflett out left as the deep striker and Saberin in the middle, considering Saberin is finally starting to show the goalscoring form I have been looking for out of him for the last 2 years.
We finish up much stronger for the slight change up top and a couple of solid home wins later, we end the first 18 games of the season in top spot! Home United have a game in hand and are only 2 points behind us, so things are not in our own hands. It is promising that they seem to be dropping more points than usual though. We’ve put ourselves in a good position in the league, we also still have the League Cup and Singapore Cup in the second half of the season and I intend to challenge for all 3 trophies. I have some good options available, strong depth and for the first time I feel like we are capable not only of winning individual games but putting a really strong run together to finish the season on a high. The tactical and formational changes, as well as giving me more options, have shown a lot more consistency in terms of us getting our shots away from within the box, rather than pot shots from distance or wider areas. I have a confidence in the team, despite some less than impressive results, and feel like if we are right there in contention now with how patchy we have been then it should only take a run of 5/6 games of consistency to pull away from the pack.
Next time out will be the conclusion of the league season, the cup campaigns, and my future plans. I had previously stated that this was my last season at the club, but I am reconsidering that. If we qualify for continental competition for next season, in any way, then I think the reputation boost for me will be worth staying another season before making my first job move, but we have to qualify first for me to even consider it.
With the season over, despite being disappointed at coming so close to a double, on reflection I am pleased with our progress. We’re firmly established as one of the top 3 clubs in the country, and this is significant progress from being predicted to come 7th in a league of 9 at the beginning of last season. It really does solidify that I must pick up some silverware next season though, a cup would be great but the league is a must win. I need to boost my reputation in order to make my next career step. If I had to grade the season we have just completed, then I guess I would rate us as a B-, we clearly overachieved again, but I’m greedy for more.
There were still some plus points from the season though, the first team can now compete, and my next job is to ensure I have a squad to compete. My backup options need to improve and be interchangeable with the first choice players, then I can deal with injuries, bad form, fixture congestion, or anything else that gets thrown at us. There were also some individuals at the club recognised for their contributions to our season.
Matty Palmer top scored in the division, but 12 goals from 24 games is pretty average as far as goalscoring goes. Van Huizen ended up the best creator with 13 assists, which is sightly misleading as he had 2 games in which he registered 3 assists in each, meaning that he only recorded 7 assists in the remaining 22 games. That is still good but more patchy than consistent, mirroring our overall team form. Unsurprisingly, Barry Maguire had the highest average rating, I have no idea how we have him or continue to keep him but I’m delighted that we do! It was risky to pay £80k for Shaqi Sulaiman at centre back but him securing signing of the season, despite the large fee, justifies that outlay. We were the biggest overachievers in the Singapore Cup, as losing finalists that is no consolation whatsoever.
The strange one is that Young Lions were predicted 9th and came 6th, which is a decent achievement for sure, but we were predicted 6th and came 2nd. We climbed more places above our prediction and put ourselves in the title picture. I thought that would be enough for us to be labelled the league overachievers, but somehow Young Lions beat us to that. I did secure Singaporean Premier League Manager of the Year though, which was a nice personal reward for a decent season.
Moving on to my preparation for the upcoming season, we needed more depth in some areas for sure. We finished last season with a fairly routine 4-2 home win over Warriors, the part I hadn’t mentioned before is that 2 players from our most recent youth intake were on the pitch from the start for that game.
Milton Noronha has lighting pace and provided 3 assists in that end of season match, it is going to be tough to find room in an already well stocked position in the squad for him but I really like him and want to bring him through next season.
Along with Noronha was Teo Seow Chin, he is an attacking midfielder right now and will train to become a central midfielder. I have not really had like-for-like backup for Aplin before and this is a welcome addition for the squad moving forwards.
In other areas of the pitch, I was uncomfortable with our lack of depth in central midfield and didn’t want to rely on a 33 year old Kasman next season.
So I brought in Izzdin Shafiq on a free transfer from Home United. A current Singapore International and part of the first team for back to back champions for the last 2 seasons, it seemed a pretty easy choice to bring him in to play ahead of Kasman next season, with Aplin and Maguire as the midfield 3.
Another area I had identified was the right wing, it seems odd given I have the top assist maker in the league there and Noronha coming through but I felt like I needed something a bit different.
Iqram Rifqi was my signing, again for free, and again from Home United. You can see the pattern here, I am strengthening my team while weakening my main rival. Realistically though, when we have to use a minimum of 9 Singaporean players in each lineup, then I need to ensure that when International calibre players are available then I am doing what I can to sign them, and Rifqi has been a key player for club and country over the last 2 seasons.
In my quest to keep Barry Maguire, I tied him down to a new contract. On the back of that I noticed that it improved my relationship with Maguire’s agent. Purely being curious, I had a look to see what other clients were on the books and discovered a player that could be game changing for me.
Greg Reilly is rated by my coaching staff as being even better than Barry Maguire, at 18 years old! Matty Palmer top scored in the division last season but when a player of Reilly’s class is available then I didn’t hesitate. The deal is £64k rising to £90k depending on appearances for club and country, but I see very little risk in that outlay. The last time I spent out for Sulaiman, it ended up being money well spent and I am sure it will be again.
My final signing of the window, purely for the depth of the squad as backup. Abdul Aziz actually came through the youth system at Geylang, so this is something of a homecoming for him, I managed to get some cash in for Farhan who was 4th choice last season and so bringing him in for free, on a lower wage, made complete sense.
I won’t touch on all of the outgoings, I released a lot of players who had no part to play, either came back from being loaned out, didn’t develop as I had hoped, or simply needed to make way for better players to come in. All in all, 18 players left the club but only Farhan and Miswan for transfer fees, they both went to DPMM for a combined £25k.
So, with 4 signings coming in, 2 new youth players in the mix, there is hopefully enough depth in the squad now to compete over a long season. I also think we have added 3 players who I expect to be first choice in their positions, which I hope can bridge the gap at the top in terms of quality. With that in mind I would like to introduce you fully to my squad for my second full season in charge.
Goalkeepers
No change here, Nizam is our undisputed number 1 goalkeeper and vice captain. He is 34 though, change will be needed soon.
The same backup goalkeeper too, I’ve not had to call Syirhan into action yet but he looks ready if needed.
Right Backs
Irfan once again continues to develop, still looks a bit raw and I was competing with Hougang for the Singaporean International right back Salime, but they paid £80k for their man and I preferred to spend my budget on the top end of the pitch.
Pujiyono is still coming along nicely too, now finds himself as our 4th choice centre back as well as backup right back. Competent and comfortable in either position.
Left Backs
Rusli did enough in his first season as a professional to show me he is ready to play, he’s about the same quality as Hudzaifi but has much more scope to improve. He’s a solid a reliable full back.
I said when I signed Hudzaifi that he would be an immediate improvement but could slide to a backup role once someone else came along and now is that time.
Centre Backs
Ichikawa is still our leader at the back, despite his lack of pace and his age. He continues to defy the downsides and put in great performances.
Sulaiman was signing of the season, still young enough to grow and a future Singapore International in the making.
Stephen was my squad depth signing last season, he rarely featured but I had to fend off interest from Hougang and Home United for him post season to indicate how well thought of he is.
Defensive Midfielders
Can’t say more about Maguire, the boss, simple as that.
A less highlighted member of the newly graduated youth team, Masri is a solid and capable backup. I am very lucky to continue to have players of this calibre from the youth team to contribute.
Central Midfielders
Aplin is a regular in the national team, my creative lynchpin centrally and continues to get better and better. A key player.
Shafiq will come straight into the first team, he improves the team significantly. He will provide more stamina, younger legs, and a winning mentality.
Kasman is still a solid squad player, dependable but I wanted more youth for the first team. I won’t hesitate to throw him in though.
Anuar was down as a right winger previously, but I no longer need him there. With the signing of Rifqi I can use Anuar in the centre which he is equally capable of.
Right Wingers
Van Huizen has earned the right to start the season, given that he lead the league for assists, I’m not sure how long he will keep that position though.
Rifqi will be held back to the bench early season, but I expect him to be first choice before the season is out. The other option that Rifqi affords me is that he plays right midfield rather than attacking midfield on the right. This means that, especially for the tough away games, I can play a slightly deeper winger and have more numbers in that midfield area.
Strikers
Reilly is undoubtably my star striker and a guaranteed starter when fit.
Saberin is the best of my Singaporean strikers and will partner Reilly. He hasn’t been particularly free scoring but does get involved in the play well.
Junaidi came up with some important goals last season, given it was his first season since turning professional, I expect even more from him in the season ahead.
Abdul Aziz is my last choice up top, will only play as a last resort and isn’t expected to contribute much.
That is my main 21 man squad for the season ahead, I usually go for 22 but we only play 24 league games and with some versatile defenders I don’t feel the need for a 4th choice centre back. I also think for their development Teo Seow Chin and Noronha will play U19 football for the most part, but I am more than comfortable using them when needed. For Teo Soew Chin, he will learn a new position in central midfield and looks to be the long term replacement for Aplin. Noronha will be working on his finishing intensely and also on his technical ability to complement his raw pace. I’ve also made the choice to keep Matty Palmer around, despite the rules meaning I can only register 2 foreign players for the league. Maguire and Reilly will take those spots for the league but in the cups I can play up to 4 foreign players, and so Palmer will be used for both the Singaporean Cup and League Cup as I go all out to win every competition in the season ahead. I feel like I now have options in a number of positions, variety in terms of the game plans that I can play, and I am ready to challenge on all fronts.
There were some unexpected results of what I believe was a very strong window for us.
So from last season Maguire has moved to being named the key player in the league, Reilly comes in second. The most dramatic change though, is that we are named favourites for the title!
When you can only have 2 foreign players in the squad then it is testament to the quality that we have, our Irish guys are rated as the favourite and second favourite to be named top player in the league.
Ideally this off season, I was hoping to overhaul the staff to ensure I had the best team around me possible. Given that this first job is intended as a stepping stone, I am leaving the team training sessions to be organised by my staff, as that is enough to keep players ticking over. Where I intervene, is to set the individual training, especially for the younger players. I am looking to round off those players and the more youth players I can integrate into the first team squad, the less I have to recruit and that is very much my preference. A few of the existing staff had expiring contracts, and the timing seemed right to improve in this area. Although I have a healthy transfer and wage budget, the owner has had to put in £400k to ensure that the club is solvent. This precarious financial situation is why I was reluctant to pay money to release staff from their contracts. My moves were limited but I’d like to introduce my new staff members.
The Head of Youth Development plays a big role in the personalities of the young players coming through, Lee Jia Jun is a decent all rounder and works well with youngsters.
On the coaching side for the first team, again Chowdhury is an all rounder but brings a good level of discipline and adaptability which is important.
Bringing in the highest quality physiotherapist to minimise our injuries and keep players on the pitch, a worthy investment in my book.
Support for our Head Physio and completes the best physiotherapy team in the league by a distance, I hope it pays off over the season.
Sports Science, again, complements the Physiotherapy team and I am looking to minimise injury impact to our season. No point in us having options in our squad if we can’t keep them on the pitch.
A new Chief Scout, an ex player of ours also which is nice.
I wanted to get a little bit of knowledge of Australia, in case of foreign player spots opening up in the future, Jantan brings that.
Our U19s Manager was linked to a number of clubs as their new manager, so to get him working with our youth is a real coup.
A former Manager of the club who was willing to be Assistant Manager of the youth team, can’t happen very often but seemed like a good choice to make.
The board for some reason do not allow any other medical staff for our youth team except for a Sports Scientist, the options were slim but if it helps then we may as well have one.
So there you have it, our entire setup for my second full season in charge. The media are in agreement with me that we should be winning the title after coming close last season. It’s now up to us to go and get it, something tells me Home United won’t be giving up their title without a fight though. Next time around will be the summary of the first half of the season.
This is going to be a slightly longer update than normal, due to having the second half of league games plus both cups, I will update in more even halves next season. First things first, though, the next game was Home United.
Everything clicked in this one, it felt really good to get one over them for once. Van Heuizen with 3 assists really stole the show but 2 goals each for Saberin and Palmer was great too. We went 2-0 up early in this one, I thought we were on to give them a hammering! Then they came back to 2-2 and the game was really in the balance again, before Palmer took it upon himself to bag a couple of goals and seal the win in style. A well deserved result and keeps us in the mix. The transfer window closed shortly after this game, but I am quite happy with the squad, plus I have no budget whatsoever and nobody on contract that is not needed wants to leave. No drama, I’m content to move forward with what I have.
On the back of the win over Home United, consistency against the other teams in the league would be key. We let ourselves down badly away from home. Tampines are a decent team, probably our third toughest opponent after the obvious and Hougang United, but still coming directly on the back of our best result of the season it was heartbreaking not to capitalise. The win against Hougang was very comprehensive and unexpected, again really highlighting our inconsistencies. We outplay our opponents in pretty much every game, when our finishing is on point then we walk through anyone but our off days are pretty bad. We have a number of ageing players in the first team and I am going to need to add some younger legs, as well as a bit more depth to the squad to make sure we compete better next season through the more congested parts of the season.
The league season took a break at this point, which to be honest was a welcome distraction from the stop-start performances we were putting in. We were drawn in a relatively favourable group with Warriors, Young Lions, and Niigata Unicorn.
To say things didn’t go to plan would be an understatement. Drawing all 3 games, being eliminated at the group stage, and in the process failing miserably in the defence of our trophy. Some distraction from the league that was!
Much quicker than expected and on a real downward spiral, it was another game with Home United, this time in the Singapore Cup quarter final first leg, before we head back to league action.
Well and truly in crash and burn mode, our season is falling apart. I had to have a serious look at how we were playing, as you can see from the match stats, we had 3 times the number of shots on target. On the surface that looks good but those shots are not coming from the areas we want. There are too many shots from bad positions and we are not creating simple chances. I am pleased with how our passing football is dominating the possession and shots, but we need to increase the quality of chance we provide to our forwards. I instructed the team to try to work the ball in to the box more, hoping that this will result in us getting the ball into more dangerous areas before shooting moving forwards. I needed the changes to have an impact immediately, if we were to salvage anything from this season.
Ok, it didn’t quite resolve everything immediately but we are still winning every home game and converting the away defeats to draws is just the kind of improvement we needed. Last season the league was won with 50 points and so over a 24 game season winning at home and drawing away would be 48 points, so it is title contending form. Three clean sheets in a row in the middle was also very welcome after a shaky patch. Now to test out the new tactical switch with our good friends Home United in the second leg of our Singapore Cup quarter final.
Well, what can I say. We went 2-0 down within 25 minutes, meaning we were 4-1 down on aggregate away from home and in desperate trouble. I don’t really have the depth of squad to make personnel changes to turn a game and so I simply told the boys to go all out on the attack, it made no difference if we lost 2-0 or 5-0, so I figured we might as well go out with a fight. From there, a 3 goal second half blitz took us through to the semi finals on away goals. It was particularly great to ensure that there would be no double this season for my old mate Grabovac either.
Before the semi finals, we had what I earlier described as our second and third toughest opponents back to back. Two very comfortable wins later and we move to the two legged semi final in great form against DPMM. The massive news from the Hougang game though, was that our talisman and star Barry Maguire is out for 7-8 weeks with a twisted knee that rules him out for the rest of the season. We’ve not had to deal without him for more than a game here and there with knocks before and this is really tough. Taha will step in as the experienced cover but he is on his way out once his contract expires at the end of the season and he certainly doesn’t bring anything like the skillset Maguire does to the table. Time will tell how much of a toll this takes on our season.
I was a little disappointed with the result here, but not the performance. We just didn’t finish our chances until youth product Junaidi in his first season in pro football, came off the bench to seal the win late on. Work to do in the second leg still for sure.
When Palmer opened the scoring within 20 minutes, I thought we were home and dry. We then proceeded to make things difficult for ourselves again. Saberin gave us another lead on the night, before we allowed ourselves to be pegged back to a single goal lead on aggregate. It was only once Saberin notched the penalty that we shut up shop and saw the game out comfortably. A second cup final in 2 seasons and I couldn’t be happier, the league is slipping away from us, as I think we have the team but not the squad to compete over a long season at the top but on our day we can beat anyone.
The cup final was against Hougang United, who came second last season and are also in the final of the AFC Cup on the continental stage, which is the equivalent of the Europa League, and so they are no soft touch.
Such a frustrating day, I truly believe that with Maguire we would have won conformably, but it wasn’t to be. In a game of few chances, again we didn’t take ours and were punished for it in the cruelest of ways.
Our final league game was a routine win over Warriors, which included some of the newly arrived youth players who will be in and around the squad next season, more of that to come next week. It was a pleasing end to a season that promised so much but in the end didn’t really deliver anything.
If I had been offered second place at the start of the season then I would have taken it, but it was bitter sweet when we were in contention all season. Much like Bayer Leverkusen in 2002, we ended up the bridesmaid but not the bride this season. Second in the league and runner up in the Singapore Cup. The crushing part of that is if Home United had won the cup instead of Hougang, then we would have qualified for the AFC Cup via our league position. We obviously would also have secured that spot if we won the cup, but Hougang got it last season for coming second as Home won the double and this season via the cup. I decided to sign a one year extension to my contract, to have one more crack at winning the league next season, I’m enjoying it and I don’t think we are that far away from winning some trophies. My next job will be significantly better if I can get some success in Singapore before moving on.
Next week I will touch on the awards from the league season, my transfer business, and my updated squad assessment ahead of my second and last full season with Geylang International.
Back to business and back to the Singaporean Premier League, after maintaining an overachieving season last time around. This season, after assessing the competition, I set my sights on a top 2 finish in the league and to win either the FA Cup or the League Cup. High expectations for a team predicted to come 5th place out of 9 teams but, if I don’t aim high then I won’t get anywhere.
Pre-season was a routine set of wins against lower league local opposition, it’s tough to gauge too much from those games. I was quite pleased with the attacking, my coaching staff are continually telling me that playing a high tempo short passing game isn’t best suited to the players, but I am convinced that it will being long term success. It’s how I enjoy watching football played, how Real Madrid in their back to back Champions League winning prime played. They set up with quick interchanges and created a lot of chances from possession, but also when they won the ball high up the pitch they had the pace to be devastating. Trying to recreate that with some pretty mediocre Singaporean players is pretty optimistic but we’ll get as close as we can, I’m sure Barry Maguire will find a way to drag us through!
For those needing a refresher, the squad heading into the season can be found here.
The league season started pretty solidly, 7 points out of 9 is title contending form in any league. We only conceded one goal in the opening three games as well to continue the improvement on that side we showed during our League Cup win. The matches weren’t particularly thrilling but solid and a platform to build on. Matty Palmer was on the scoresheet in the opening game and Saberin in the second game, it’s always nice for your strikers to get off the mark and bodes well for what is to come. The next game up was away to Home United, my enemy Marko Grabovac, and a chance to really put our stamp on the title race early on.
This game was massively frustrating, as you can see from the match stats we were very much the better team. We dominated the game and the chances within it, however, it was Home United who were clinical and showed us how to win games while not playing well, a mark of the Champions they are. We are still in reasonable shape, but this was an early blow to our title hopes. It’s never good to have your biggest rival and nemesis get one over on you, the only positive is that it is early on and we can come back from it.
There was a slight hangover from the Home United loss, back to back home draws is never ideal. Tampines challenged near the top last season but came to us sitting bottom of the league, so that one hurt more than usual. Hougang United were runners up last season though, so going there and picking up all 3 points was a very welcome boost at a time when it was much needed. Warriors and Young Lions are bang average sides and so we were expected to win, but it was still great to seal three straight wins and bring ourselves back into the title picture. Matty Palmer bagged against DPMM and Hougang, to keep himself ticking over on the goal stakes. It’s always nice to have a striker you can rely on and the early signs are that Palmer can be key to any success we achieve.
Our form has turned really patchy, Matty Palmer stopped scoring and at this stage Barry Maguire with 6 is our top league goalscorer. That is a great return from a defensive midfielder, nevertheless that does highlight the struggles our strikers are having in front of goal. For whatever reason, our home form is superb and we create lots of chances, take them and win the vast majority of our games. When we head on the road, we maintain the great performances, create plenty of chances, but for whatever reason we just don’t finish enough of them. We are coming up short and not even drawing many games away from home right now, which is a huge worry. Our title challenge has been derailed by the poor away form, and it’s only our home form keeping us in contention for that top 2 placing and continental qualification next season. I am going to look to tweak the tactical approach, it does seem like there are certain positions on the pitch where we have players isolated. This seems particularly to be the case when the left back and left central midfielder are in possession. I suppose that is going to happen when you play an asymmetrical formation without a left winger as an outlet, but I need to find ways to minimise that and create some more passing lanes and triangles for our passing game to work better.
After that run of inconsistent form, I don’t know whether it is a good thing or bad but we face our home match with Home United. Now, I know I am majorly up for this game and I am hoping that my players feel the same way! I stoked the fire again with Grabovac, telling him that his team wouldn’t be able to live with mine in top form and that I expected us to cruise to victory. We currently sit 3rd, just 3 points off top with 12 out of 24 games played. We also have the FA and League Cup campaigns to come in the second half of the season.
The result of the Home United game and the remainder of the season to come next week.
To this point, I have been updating on my career, the matches I have been a part of and the focus has been quite narrow. I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of the side plots of my career to date, some good and bad relationships I have developed, as well as some updates from elsewhere in the world and my future plans.
Right at the beginning of my career, I got destroyed by Home United in the league and then beat them on the road to the league cup win. I have been having running battles with their manager before and after every fixture. So far the plan hasn’t worked that well, I have a league cup in the cabinet, but Mirko Grabovac won the league and FA cup double. My aim is to dethrone him before I leave Singapore and prove who the better manager is! You can see our relationship is listed as “Fairly Poor” and I’ll be working hard to make him my mortal enemy.
That rivalry aside, one of my future aims is to move in to International management, and with that in mind I have been building a positive relationship with the Singapore manager. This does two things for me, balances out that I am not as aggressive with everyone as I am with Grabovac and also means that I can back my players publicly when they are in the mix for a call up to the national team, thereby furthering their careers. I’m hoping that being friendly with the 100 cap international in charge of the national team will make me an ideal choice to replace him in the future.
One of the challenges of working in Singapore is that there are quotas meaning that nine of my starting eleven players have to be Singaporean, however, most of the talent are already signed to other clubs in the league. This means that there is a real premium on price for a promising local youngster. There is only really one player of quality playing outside of Singapore and I have been trying to sign him from the moment I joined Geylang. He is the son of the national team manager and plays for Raufoss in Norway, if I can tempt him home then I know he will be a star so he’s one to keep an eye on.
Now, for an update outside of Singapore and a summary of the big European leagues from the first season they have completed.
Nothing all that surprising here, I guess maybe Bournemouth in 7th is the best overachieving team and Leicester in 13th for underachievers. My favourite team in this league and who I hope to manage in the future, is Man U. Being a QPR fan then when they won the league when I was a kid I heard a lot less about it than if Arsenal or Chelsea won something and so from doing me a favour they became something of a favourite of mine.
In Spain it was Atletico sealing the title in a small surprise, Valencia getting back to the Champions League after a little time away. Really Real Betis should have finished higher than 10th, given the depth of talent available to them but again, the table has no real anomalies. I don’t really have much of a preference in this league, I would prefer anyone but Barcelona as I think they say a lot about being “more than a club” but then sold shirt sponsorship and stadium rights when they previously said they would not.
The sun rises in the East and Bayern win another Bundesliga, cue shock around the world! Leipzig down in 7th is a bit of a surprise, as is Werder coming as high as 8th. Status quo is very much preserved in general though. Given the connection they have with player trading with QPR and playing a friendly with them recently, I have a soft spot for Union Berlin in this league. The idea of bringing them back up to the big time following relegation would be a nice story for later in my journey.
An actual surprise winner, Juve didn’t rack up another Serie A title and Napoli took the honours. Other than that, it’s pretty much as it should be. My favourite team in Italy is Roma but I do have a soft spot for Verona too, so I will be keeping an eye on them in future.
Obviously, the perfect end to my journey would be to lead QPR to glory, they had a solid season in 12th and I’ll be keeping a close watch on when that job is available as soon as my reputation is at a sufficient level to be considered.
That concludes my world update but if there are any particular players or teams that you would like to see featured in these updates moving forwards, or any other types of updates away from the usual progress of my team, then please do request via the comments section below. I already have a request for a deep dive tactical overview and scouting review and am more than open to making this more interactive.
With this beauty nicely nestled in the trophy cabinet, attention turns to improving the squad enough to challenge next season. Unless something drastic happens with Home United, then they have to remain favourites for the league, especially as they won the double of the league and Singaporean FA Cup last season. I do want to at least challenge and get closer next season though, the top 2 get qualification in to continental competitions and qualifying for that higher stage is my main aim.
The first thing I do once the games are finished is revisit my squad assessment, see where players have developed over the season, where some of the older ones may have dropped off, and analyse where I feel the weakest positions are. I do this initially in my first 11 and then also for my reserve players, trying to ensure I have the most rounded 22 available for the next season.
My assessment leads me to conclude that I am weak up front, scoring goals has felt like a problem and one I would like to address as my first priority. After some scouting around though, there are not many strikers out there that I can afford and who would benefit the team. The option I opt to take here is that I will recall Matthew Palmer from his loan back in his native New Zealand and centre my attack around the young target man. My intention is to use his height and strength as a focal point to my attacks, use him to move the ball up the pitch and bring others in to play in typical old English centre forward style. I also see a lot of myself in his total lack of pace and mobility, and am very much invested in his success.
A consequence of recalling Palmer to the squad is that with him and our captain Barry Maguire taking up the foreign player quota, there is no longer room for Palmer’s fellow Oceanian Mortaza Safdari. Safdari was ok for me but I really need more impact from my foreign players. He is only 20 though and so I opt to loan him out rather than sell him, hoping he will develop into a future commanding centre back. This decision though leaves me with only 2 centre backs of sufficient quality to play, and both are the wrong side of 30 years old.
After scrambling around for a while, I finally found a player who I felt I could build my defence around. He’s Singaporean, only 21 years old thereby helping with the U23 quota, and looks every inch a future Singapore International player. He plays for Balestier, who sold me my goalkeeper and vice captain Nizam. Unlike Nizam, who was transfer listed, they rate Shaqi Sulaiman as highly as I do. It takes a lot of persistence and £80k to do the deal, but I really feel like this is a huge step forward and a great partner for Ichikawa at the heart of defence.
Given that my other 2 centre backs are moving towards the end of their careers, I was still looking for a squad centre back. Someone I could throw in if needed, but equally would be happy on the sidelines. Tampines had just the man transfer listed for £2.5k and so I also welcomed Shannon Stephen to the club.
With the hefty expenditure of £83k this window, I set about clearing out a raft of unneeded players and youngsters who had no potential to grow.
This cleared the pathway for some of the more exciting youth players to become part of the squad for the upcoming season as well. Our youth intake for the season was surprisingly good and offered several players who can make an impact over the course of their careers, as well as some who will be part of my squad now. With that in mind, I’d like to take some time now to introduce you to my squad for the season ahead:
Goalkeepers
After arriving mid-season for a mere £15k, Nizam was a consistent and calming presence. So much so that he is now the vice-captain of the team.
Syirhan is a capable backup, didn’t get a look in after Nizam arrived but decent enough that it wouldn’t be a disaster if he had to play.
Right Backs
Irfan remains first choice right back after some good showings, still has the youth on his side to develop some more but has all the key attributes I look for in a full back.
Pujiyono was a very capable backup for both the right back and centre back positions. More game time will be essential in order to continue his development.
Left Backs
I’m really excited about Rusli, he came through the youth intake, has huge potential and can grow into the team. I plan on using him a lot over the coming season.
Hudzaifi was a very solid signing and will be a rotation option so that I can bring Rusli in and out of the team as his development needs.
Centre Backs
Ichikawa is still a current Singapore International and the experienced heartbeat of my defence. Given that I have young full backs and a new young centre back partner for him, I will be leaning on the experience that he and Nizam bring to the back line.
As introduced earlier, my new partner for Ichikawa and record signing. He has a lot to do to repay the £80k transfer fee but he was by far the best player available to me.
In his last season for the club, veteran Taha will still be vital backup in case of injuries and also, I have got into the habit of bringing him off the bench to sure up the midfield to see out games.
My other new signing will make up the depth of the back line.
Defensive Midfielders
Maguire is still my standout player and who I have built my team around. He is far too good for this level and I intend to make sure he is on the ball at all times.
Another academy graduate, Rosli will be my backup defensive midfielder this season. Huge potential and an eye for goal from set pieces make him a good prospect.
Central Midfielders
Aplin is still my best central midfielder, his flair really shows and his driving runs from midfield are key to how my team creates chances.
Kasman will partner Aplin again this season, he is a good box to box midfielder for me but he is starting to decline physically. I couldn’t afford to replace him but I am on the lookout for a younger version to improve the team.
Miswan is solid enough back up, nothing spectacular but a decent option.
I have promoted Chua from the youth team also to add some younger legs to the midfield and keep the wage bill down. I don’t expect he’ll play much but he’s not too bad.
Right Wingers
Van Heuizen again will be my main width and along with Maguire and Aplin form the axis of my chance creation trio in midfield. My top assist maker last season and I expect more of the same from him again.
Anuar is a good substitute that I use on a regular basis either on the right wing or in central midfield, one of my most dependable squad players.
Strikers
A change of emphasis this season and the recalled Palmer is the main man up top, I’m hoping this change will bring more goals in the campaign ahead.
Saberin wasn’t quite as prolific as I would have liked last season and so bringing Palmer back means a move to the left of my front 2 for him. He will see more of the ball but in areas further from goal, I am hoping this suits his talents more than playing more central, as he was quite wasteful in front of goal.
Considering my lack of goals last season, I have promoted another academy player in Junaidi. He is quite well rounded, has a lot of potential and is about as good as any of the more senior options I had and so I wanted to ensure we had a few home grown players in the squad.
Farhan was around last season but I didn’t use him much, he’ll serve as fourth choice striker and also emergency backup for the wing. I can always use him off the bench to play on the left wing to make the team more defensive when needed as well. For that flexibility, he earns a place in the squad.
Those are the 22 I have selected to go in to the season with and I am full of optimism for what lies ahead. We have a trophy in the bag, overachieved massively but now I feel like I have a squad to get close to the top. This is also the first full season I have been in charge and so I am itching to get going. This season I would like to have some good progression in the cups again, with at least a semi final in either the league cup or FA cup. As far as the league goes, we have to be aiming for the top 2 and continental qualification with the wider exposure that gives me. If other teams are off form then I want to be in a position to challenge for the title too, but I think this season may just be a little too early for us. Only time will tell if we have what it takes though. My contract is up at the end of my first full season and how we perform will have a major baring on whether I see chances to enhance my reputation at the club, or if I think that it’s time for my first change of scenery.
After winning away in my first match in charge, despite not being as fluid as I would have liked, I am looking at our upcoming fixtures with a lot of optimism. The schedule means that we have two more league fixtures to tackle, before the league cup starts and we won’t return to league action until we are eliminated from that cup.
On to those league games and a little more evidence of exactly where we sit in the pecking order in Singapore. We start with another away game, but this time at the runaway league leaders Home United. I’m still learning the strength of the other teams in the division and so I keep mostly the same game plan and tactics as I used in the opening win against DPMM:
Back to earth with a bang! A very strange match that showed the difference between a team that is lethal in finishing, and one who wastes their chances. 4-0 is definitely very flattering to them, I took the positives of the fact that we had more possession and shots on target. Despite that, it’s never good to ship 4 goals and I will certainly be more conservative in my plan the next time we play Home United. We ended up getting caught with too many men ahead of the ball and Home United were devastating on the counter, we need to make sure we have a more defensive shape, even when attacking, for these stronger teams when we are away. They proved why they are runaway leaders and why I have a lot to do to compete for titles.
There was one last game in the league before the league cup begins, finally one at home, where we face Warriors FC:
Again, I mostly kept the same plan given that the match stats were alright, despite the score last time out. My thinking was that chopping and changing this early on would be confusing for the players, until they are familiar with my tactics and formation then consistency in selection will be the best way to enable them to get familiarity. Again, we were quite wasteful, this time more with the build up play rather than the finishing which is reflected in only having 3 shots on target all game. It was promising to hit back after conceding so quickly both times, but equally frustrating to find ourselves losing at home on two occasions. It’s also always nice to have an influence on the result with your tactical changes and substitutions, having both goals come from subs vindicates those decisions, but does, however, highlight that I don’t know my best team yet.
Picking up 4 points from my first 3 league games is solid enough, especially considering the first two were away from home. So on to the league cup campaign. The format of the tournament means that we start with 2 groups of 4 teams where you play the other 3 teams once.
We cruised to the top of the group with some solid, if not spectacular, performances despite being drawn to have 2 out of our 3 games away from home. After looking very leaky and shipping 6 goals in our last two league games, it was especially pleasing to get 2 clean sheets in the group too. Some of the passages of play were starting to sharpen up and I am pleased with the level of control we have of both the possession and the rhythm of games. We averaged over 55% of the ball over the 3 games, and now my focus is on finding the best combination of players and tactics to turn that possession into chances more efficiently. I have added instructions to work the ball in to the box, partly to make clearer chances and partly because we have no players with good enough long range shooting to make it a worthwhile avenue to explore too often.
The winners of the two groups play the runners up from the other group, we were drawn at home though as a reward for topping Group A. I was looking forward to seeing who would be runners up in Group B but luck did not favour us. Home United, the team on auto pilot to the title in the league and whom crushed us 4-0 a matter of weeks ago await us to compete for a spot in the final.
We get our revenge! Another hugely impressive defensive performance and the composure of our captain and leader in Barry Maguire from the penalty spot is enough to separate the teams. In my most important match to date, we step up with easily our best performance so far. Just a matter of weeks in to the job and we have a cup final to prepare for, exciting times ahead!
Three days after our semi final heroics, we are lining up at Jalal Besar Stadium, with it’s 8,000 capacity and built in 1932, which is surely the Singaporean equivalent of Wembley. The nerves are there, I’m already starting to really like this squad but how much do I know about them after just 7 games? Will they have the bottle to stand up to the big occasion?
The boys answer me with an emphatic yes! A little more than a month after taking charge of my first game and we have something for the trophy cabinet. We went a goal down early, but were piling on the pressure even in the first half. Just as it was starting to feel like one of those days where you knock on the door but never quite find a way in, and Saberin again shows why he is considered our main goal threat. Then 2 minutes from time and another crucial intervention from a substitute, Teh belies his finishing rating of 6 out of 20 to etch our name into history as 2019 Singaporean league cup winners.
The remainder of the season was quite a mixed bag of results but it kept us in 4th in the table, ensuring our place as the biggest overachieving team in the league. Another win over DPMM was nice, to establish some superiority, but equally being torn apart by runners up Hougang United reminded me that we are a long way from the top 2 and continental competition. We were predicted to finish 7th, and so 4th and the league cup win signals that we are a club on the up.
That concludes our 2019 season in September and the 2020 season doesn’t start until February. That leaves plenty of time for scouting and planning ahead for our assault on the top 2 next season!
I have shared my initial thoughts and squad assessment with you already, but I wanted to do more of a deep dive into my options, the gaps, and how I will organise things moving forwards. My way of working is the same as it has always been, which is to have a main tactic that I use in around 90% of my matches, then a secondary tactic which is more attacking for when I am chasing a game. My third tactic is used to either shut up shop or play against much bigger teams with plenty of time wasting and men behind the ball, hoping to catch the stronger team out on the counter attack. In order to be confident in my squad, I like to have 22 players of a standard I am not embarrassed to throw in to any game, 2 for each position, but amongst the backup 11 I do like to have some flexible players capable of playing multiple positions. That way, if my tactics don’t work or I need to change things up, then I have some options rather than being stuck with something that is dragging me down.
Before I could really get my feet under the table though, there was the small matter of my first match, on my second day in the job, away at DPMM. All future plans would need to go on hold until we got this match out of the way. Given how early this was, the players were far from familiar with me and my tactical approach, so I didn’t hold out too much hope of a free flowing, positive performance, and I wasn’t wrong.
In a game of very few chances and no good football of note, we looked solid in defence and scored the only goal of the game to start my reign on the front foot. I thought Saberin would be my best source of goals and so it proved straight away. There’s still plenty of work to be done, but I am very encouraged with what I saw. I know the level within the conference and conference north/south divisions in England, and the standard here seems to match that. So despite the names being less familiar, the style and standard required is actually looking like something I am comfortable with.
I will now run through the squad, focussing on the members of it that will make up my 22 man group for the remainder of the season:
Goalkeeper
Syirhan is the only keeper on the books who looks able to catch a cold, let alone keep the clean sheets I want to. Quite well rounded but not of sufficient quality to be a number 1.
Right Backs
I really like Irfan, he’s got the key attributes I look for in a full back. He’s reasonably quick, good tackling and decisions. Should be able to grow in to the role too, given his youth.
At only 17, I am really pleased to have a solid understudy to Irfan. I won’t be looking for another right back while I am at the club.
Left Back
Tan is ok as a backup but I really don’t want to be relying on him for a whole season. He is reasonably young but not young enough that he could develop into what I need, a backup at best.
Centre Backs
I already touched upon Ichikawa as my star defender, the leader of the back four, and someone I will rely on.
Safdari is a young all rounder to complement Ichikawa as a partnership.
Taha is my experienced backup, as only Ichikawa among my first choice defence is over 23 years old then Taha will be used from the bench at centre back or defensive midfield, to sure things up or see out games we are winning.
Samsudin as fourth choice centre back and also an option in defensive and central midfield, the epitome of the flexible backup I mentioned that I like before.
Defensive Midfielders
Maguire is easily my best player, experienced and with quality to play well beyond this level. He will play as a defensive midfielder and I will be ensuring he is on the ball as much as possible.
Wahid is a little raw but defensively solid without having much ability on the ball. Given Maguire will play as many minutes as possible, as well as Taha having flexibility to play the role then I hope to not need to use Wahid much anyway.
Central Midfielders
Kasman is my shuttler, he’s a good all rounder and will be utilised as either a box to box midfielder or mezzala. His job is to make himself available for a short pass at all times, and to keep us ticking the ball over.
Aplin, as a former Singapore international, will have the attacking duties of the midfield three. He will play in a more advanced role and be expected to contribute goals and assists from the central area.
Miswan has good technical ability but lacks physicality, with very low strength and tackling. This means he is only suitable for the role Aplin will play, so he will be my backup for that position.
Ramle, despite lacking physicality in much the same way as Miswan, is slightly better at marking and worse at shooting. He’s far from an ideal backup but he will be the box to box backup for Kasman, I simply have other priorities in terms of strengthening for now.
Right Wingers
Another former Singapore international and my first choice winger. Van Huizen is quick, technically good and has great leadership. If he could only finish then we would have a real star on our hands here.
Anuar will rotate with Van Huizen for the right wing role. He also brings pace and technical ability but with the same flaw of not being able to finish from short range. He is more able from distance and so, when he plays, I will encourage him to shoot from range.
Strikers
Saberin is a great all rounder and suited to either position in my front 2. He has everything I look for in a striker with pace, finishing, heading and decision making at a high level. Should be our main source of goals.
Samion, again is decent all round. Where he has better anticipation than Saberin, I will likely start him as the central striker with Saberin playing to his left.
Teh is competent but his extremely low finishing makes him a backup option at best. His pace from the bench late in games could be useful though.
Ismail, much like Teh, is a decent all around player but the lack of finishing is a real worry. Hopefully he won’t see much game time and it won’t be a factor in our season.
As you can see, and as I identified in my last post, the glaring weaknesses are with the goalkeeper and left back positions. There is a budget available, but not enough for wholesale changes. Given the squad is overachieving at this point in time anyway, there doesn’t seem much need for multiple changes. I am quite content to add 2 players to my squad, clear out anyone who doesn’t fit my 22 man squad, which will trim the wage bill and give me more to spend come the end of the season. The exception to the clear out of those outside of the 22 though, is that anyone 21 years old or younger, with potential to be the best player at the club in their position. Those players will be retained and either trained hard, or loaned out to aid their development.
I kept to my plan and made the following 2 transfers:
Nizam is a solid former Singapore International goalkeeper with bags of experience, I intend to field at least two of my required three U23 players in the back four and so a goalkeeper of character to organise those players was key. A bargain at £15k and will immediately sure us up in a key position.
There really weren’t too many left backs floating around, the options were severely limited. To find Huzaifi at 27 years old, coming in to his prime, who can be our first choice now but signed with the promise of receiving the playing time of an emergency backup, means that when I can find a better player, then he will be a willing and able backup. He’s also a free transfer, so there really is very little risk with this one.
With those additions, I now feel comfortable in my 22 for the rest of the season and am ready for the challenge of continuing to defy the pre-season predictions of being at the bottom end of the table.
So with the transfer window soon to shut, I am content and will spend the remainder of the window just looking to move on those who I won’t use, in an attempt to free up some budget for a few signings at the end of the season. The Singaporean season runs in the calendar year, rather than from August one year to May the next, like the European leagues, and so the summer time window is actually the mid season window and the winter window is the pre-season one.
Next time out I will review the second half of the league season for the club, which will include the remaining league games and the league cup campaign…
The date is 5th July 2019, and the location is Bedok, Singapore. My first club was founded in 1974 and are based out by Changi airport: Geylang International FC, previously known as Geylang United. I’m offered a contract worth £375 per week that runs until November 2020, giving me the remainder of this season and the entire next season to work my magic.
The club’s best period of success was in the late 1980s and early 1990s where they won 6 consecutive FAS Premier League titles, a semi-professional top flight, which was replaced by the professional S. League in 1996. The club went on to win the new professional top flight in 1996 and again in 2001, including becoming the first double winners in 1996 with the addition of the Singaporean FA Cup. The new millennium, however, brought tougher times with a single FA Cup win in 2009, the only trophy win since 2003. My intention is to bring this once great club back to it’s former glory. The top 2 spots in the league provide access to the continental competitions, it might be a bit too far away this season but it will be my aim to qualify for one of those before I move on. In addition to that, I will be looking to pick up either the FA cup or league cup as well. There are only 9 teams in the division, which means I should be in with a decent chance of some silverware.
The squad looks to be in reasonable shape, with only two glaring weaknesses in goal and at left back. The squad also only contains two right wingers with no left wingers, which leads me to play an old formation I’m borrowing from a friend who I coached with in Munich. This tactic proved to be very successful for him in getting the team playing some attacking, passing football. It also helps to cover for the fact that I lack any wingers on the left side in my squad.
My 4-1-2-3 asymmetrical, according to FM:
Normally with this kind of tactic I would have full backs pushed up attacking, but given the lack of quality I have in those areas, I made the left sided central midfielder more attacking to fill that space and expect the left striker to also pull wide when needed. My short term goal is to be solid with the full backs deeper for now until I establish myself, but with the long term aim of having far more attacking full backs and switching to a more attacking outlook overall. Despite the lack of technical ability in the squad, I feel like I have more of a lack of physicality, which means we are not suited to playing direct or long ball football.
I am quite happy with the overall strength and depth of the squad and my key men are:
Barry Maguire:
An amazing central midfielder for this level. I already have 2 other good central midfielders though, and so he will operate as my half back and dictate the play from deep as my defensive midfielder. I intend to play high tempo, passing football and get the ball from my defenders, who lack technical ability, and in to Maguire as soon as possible will be key.
Yuki Ichikawa:
A rock of a centre back and the pillar of the defence, the entire backline will be organised by him.
Somehow though, this squad contains 3 foreign players when the limit for squad registration is 2, meaning I will have to let one of my foreign players go despite them being amongst my best players. There is another rule stating a maximum of 6 players over 30 years old, but this is a young squad so no issues there. One of the further rules is that for the first half of matches, there must be 3 players under 23 years old on the pitch.
Quite uniquely, the rules are different for each club, and I’ve captured them here:
Back to my foreign players dilemma though, and the odd man out is Matt Palmer who I will have to send out on loan as Maguire is a star and my centre back Mortaza Safradi from Australia is needed:
He’s a good striker, but I need to make sure I am solid at the back first and foremost. Due to me insisting on playing attacking football, my teams rarely struggle to score goals, so I’ve decided it’s more important to keep as strong as possible in defence. With that in mind, my plan is to use the wages I freed up loaning out Palmer on a new goalkeeper and left back; there’s enough of a budget, but given that we are a small club overachieving, there are not too many players interested in joining. The backroom team is looking bare, so I will be employing some new coaches and certainly some new scouts in an attempt to find some outside of the box players. I need to plug those gaps as soon as possible so that I am able to develop the younger players in the squad and also widen the net when it comes to recruitment of players.
So that was my first day on the job; my second contains a home match against DPMM and an early chance to see the boys in action…
With the addition of Football Manager 2020 to Google Stadia, the possibility of loading every league at once on a single save became a reality. Like many others, the idea of starting unemployed and with no reputation, only to work my way up to European glory has been something I was only stopped from doing by the limited processing power of my laptop. I used to read Football Manager stories, blogs and forums, and from the first time I heard the term “journeyman” and learnt how it involved earning your spot at the elite table in FM as you would do in the real world, I couldn’t wait to see if I had what it takes. With google now supplying the hardware to make this a reality and global events meaning that the majority of us are confined to our houses, I now have the time to dedicate to something I have wanted to do for years. My ultimate goal is to win the Champions League and I hope you find the story as interesting as I have so far!
At this point, if you’ve never played Football Manager, or want to know a little more about it, you might want to read my previous blog detailing how things work here.
In terms of setup, I am starting with a National C licence to reflect that I have my FA level 2 coaching qualification in real life and a Sunday league footballer reputation, equally reflecting the lumbering target man I am for the QPR Supporters FC on Sunday mornings when the country isn’t on lockdown.
All leagues are loaded and all 0.5* and 1* reputation jobs available are applied for, however, the first week passes without as much as a sniff from any of the clubs from Denmark, Indonesia, Singapore or South Africa picking up the phone for this unknown Englishman. The beginning of the second week has me wondering if there are any clubs out there willing to take the plunge, I’m contemplating a new idea for the game when the offer of an interview in Singapore drops into my inbox.
I’d never considered managing in Singapore before, I don’t know any of the teams or players either. I attended the interview with no strong thoughts either way, and the team I interviewed with are sitting 4th in a league of 9 teams after 14 games of a 24 game season, despite being predicted to come 7th. The team were clearly overachieving, and it seemed like a different challenge than I usually take on in game, to keep up that level of performance. Usually my first job or jump is with a team rooted to the bottom of the table and confidence needs to be restored. I liked the sound of the challenge, and on 5th July 2019, I accepted a contract with a club to be revealed in my next post.
This is the first and only post by the FM nerd, real life version of me. From this moment forward the “me” and “I” that is referred to is my alter ego, the unknown and untested manager touting his abilities around the world in search of glory…
Just in case this is all new to you, I have listed the key concepts and terms I use in my game blogs. There are lots of other great sources of knowledge out there, this is far from a comprehensive list but it should be enough to understand my game.
Football Manager:
Wikipedia probably summarises the game best:
Football Manager, also known as Worldwide Soccer Manager in North America from 2004 to 2008, is a series of football management simulation video games developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game began its life in 1992 as Championship Manager. However, following the break-up of their partnership with original publishers Eidos Interactive, Sports Interactive lost the naming rights and re-branded the game Football Manager with their new publisher Sega. The latest version of Football Manager, titled Football Manager 2020 was released on 31 October 2019 (Early Access Beta).
Google Stadia:
Again, leaning on wikipedia:
Stadia is a cloud gaming service operated by Google. It is advertised to be capable of streaming video games up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second with support for high-dynamic-range, to players via the company’s numerous data centers across the globe, provided they are using a sufficiently high-speed Internet connection. It is accessible through the Google Chrome web browser on desktop computers, Pixel smartphones, supported smartphones from Samsung, Razer and Asus, as well as Chrome OS tablets and Chromecast.
Therefore, for the purposes of this game I will be utilising Google servers and essentially streaming the game to my own laptop.
Loaded Leagues:
Once you decide to begin a game on football manager, you have a selection of 53 countries across 5 continents to select from. Before Google Stadia, a reasonable specification laptop could handle between 8 and 15 playable countries. This definitely limited the possibilities within the game, but was the way it had always been and so it was accepted by players. With Google Stadia, it is now possible to load all countries and leagues as playable, ensuring a much more immersive experience.
“Journeyman” game:
There are many different ways to approach playing Football Manager. These range from simply taking over Real Madrid, Barcelona or Brazil, all the way down to a newly promoted Conference North/South team in England and everything in between. The concept behind the “journeyman” game, is to start with a minimal reputation of manager, be unemployed at the start of the game and thus, earn every job and opportunity you gain within the game with the ultimate aim of making it to the very top of world football in some way.
Coaching Licenses:
The in game levels matchup to the levels available in each country. Within football manager there are Continental A, B and C licences which relate to UEFA licences in Europe. The UEFA Pro Licence is mapped to the Continental A licence and obviously each continent’s equivalent. There are also National A, B and C licences which relate to the FA coaching licences in England. The FA Level 1 coaching licence is mapped to the National C licence and again, each country has an equivalent. The more generic names mean that it is easier to compare amongst staff around the world in game.
Reputation of Manager:
Within Football Manager, each manager whether a human user or the real life managers who have digital versions, all have a reputation out of 5*. There are 10 levels of manager reputation on the star scale and this is dynamic and affected by performance in the game. The star rating system is a graphical representation of a reputation out of 200 in the backend but this is not visible in the game. This allows for variation beyond what is graphically represented in the game and influences which teams are interested in hiring the manager. Reputation is also regionalised at the lower levels, this means that if a manager does well for a lower league team based in London, then the bigger teams in London are more likely to hire him than, say, an Italian team.
Reputation of Clubs:
Much like managers, clubs are ranked in game via the same 5* rating system as managers, with 10 levels within that. Also, this is reflected by a figure out of 200 in the backend to allow for more granularity. The reputation of the club is also dynamic and changes due to performance. This affects which players and staff are willing to sign for a club and reflects the clubs position within the game world.
Another meltdown moment for us, the players were tired from the congested fixture schedule but still I expected to be in the tie for the second leg. We cannot afford to win just the League Cup again this season, we were far too close last season and are too good to come away empty handed again. We really do risk getting the tag of nearly men.
Such a frustrating day, I truly believe that with Maguire we would have won conformably, but it wasn’t to be. In a game of few chances, again we didn’t take ours and were punished for it in the cruelest of ways.
With this beauty nicely nestled in the trophy cabinet, attention turns to improving the squad enough to challenge next season. Unless something drastic happens with Home United, then they have to remain favourites for the league, especially as they won the double of the league and Singaporean FA Cup last season. I do want to at least challenge and get closer next season though, the top 2 get qualification in to continental competitions and qualifying for that higher stage is my main aim.
Pujiyono was a very capable backup for both the right back and centre back positions. More game time will be essential in order to continue his development.
Kick it in the Goal 