Hi everyone, We are now at the 1st of February and as such has played just over half the season and are at the end of the January transfer window. ‘Disaster’ is a word that is thrown around a lot in modern terms, so of course its the correct term for my first save on the new game.
I must also apologise as I have only recently released that I have been referring to the season as being 2015/16 when in fact it is 2016/17.
Anyway, on to this disaster of a season, we have now played 22 games with a grand total of 18 points and find ourselves in 19th place:
As you can see even though we are in the drop-zone, one victory take us out of it and two could take us as high as 13th; so even though it has been a disaster so far it can be turned around very quickly. Notable other performers are Sevilla (who are continually changing place with 1st place Barcelona on a weekly basis) and Las Palmas (who might not be as big a surprise if you know about the amount of money that they spent this summer).
The heavily defensive system that is being used and clearly be seen in the results as most matches are very low scoring:
Not once have we conceded more than 3 goals in a single game but at the same time we have never scored more than 2 in a game. The win against Atletico is clearly the highlight of the season; a game that we had 1 shot to there 31, so we kinda FM’ed FM with that one. On the negative front the defeat to Alaves and the draw at Deportivo are the worst; we dominated Alaves and I felt like it was our best attacking performance of the season but unfortunately just couldn’t find the net and the draw at Deportivo is disappointing as we were 2-0 at half time only for Gabriel to get sent off with 10 mins to go and Deportivo to score two late goals from corners – 2 dropped not 1 gained.
In the Spanish Cup we had the expectations of reaching the 5th round (entered in the 4th)and as such I saw it as a chance to rest the main stars and give the younger players some game time:
To get past Deportivo – even on away goals – was still a great achievement for my second string side. Villarreal blow us away in the first leg but we played with real quality in the return which was great to see with a side who had an average age of 22.
So on to the playing squad and first the new transfers for the January window:
Transfers in
Jorge is a player that I had originally tried to sign in the summer but did not have the funds, he is an 19 year old ball playing defender who will hopefully become a figurehead at the back for years to come. Also on a side note, I cancelled Insua’s loan after this transfer as I felt like we did not need 5 first team centre-half’s in the squad.
Nwakali is a young central midfielder who will come in as a back-up with Medjani going to the African cup of nations. I highly doubt we will see a lot of the youngster but you never know if he takes his chances well.
Dani Mallo is a 38 year old goalkeeping veteran who has been brought in till the end of the sign as back-up whilst our two young goalkeepers go out on loan to gain some much needed experience.
These transfers have left us with the following playing squad:
A good size of squad with most of the players competing for a first-team place every week. As you can see goals come once in a blue moon for most players but this is not a problem due to our high standard defending. Oscar, our summer signing, has been unregistered for the second half of the season due to the fact that he is on a contract that would require us to keep him next season if he plays one more match and I don’t fancy paying him 15.25k a week again to have him sit on the bench. Our best player so far has been winger Darwin Machis, who is also our top goal scorer with 7.
We will be very lucky to keep him on next season but I would be happy to part with a large chunk of our transfer budget in the summer to keep him scoring for us and not against us.
So there we are so far, will we go down? Survive on the last day? Find out in the next update!
Thanks again for reading guys, as usual I would be very grateful if you would share the blog and also follow us on twitter @wedidntsignbaba.
We Didn't Sign Baba 