[FM15] Chelsea FC - Taking over the world

[stephensmedley]

Introduction

I have been an occasional poster and long time lurker to these forums and this is my first attempt at detailing my story with a club/save.

The reasons behind Chelsea were first and foremost I wanted to try and get Eden Hazard to win the Golden Ball award playing as a Raumdeuter, which is a position I've played around with a fair bit but never got it working too well before this save.

And secondly, to become the best team in Europe over a prolonged period of time, which shouldn't be too difficult with a team the size and stature of Chelsea but is a fun starting point for a story.

The Start of the Journey

The expectations of Chelsea are, as always, to challenge for every trophy going and do it in style as the board want us to play possession friendly attacking football.

Given a nice £52.9 million budget to start off with allows me to fix any problems I see as soon as I see them in pre-season.

The Team

The squad has selection of players including several players that can play in several positions.

First and foremost the player I'm building the tactic around;

Eden Hazard

Next up is the player that will playing up front alongside Hazard;

Diego Costa

And the last of my top 3 picks for this season is the person who will be chipping in with the assits;

Cesc Fabregas

The Tactics

This is the main tactic, with the Raumdeuter at AML where Hazard will spend most of the time.

And this is the back-up tactic, the only difference is the AML slot with the duty being Inside Forward Attack instead as Raumdeuter is a specialised position and the other players for position will not adapt to it too well.

The instructions for both are the same

[stephensmedley]

Midseason Update

We have safely navigated ourselves to the end of the January transfer window. The start of the season was a bit sticky with players still getting used to our formation and Hazard was himself a bit slow adjusting to the specialist role that is the Raumdeuter.

My favourite my favourite spell was the end of September to December where we won many games in a row and just took every competition by storm.

Definitely helped the cause for the season.

League and Champions League Progression

As you can see, 1st in the league with a small buffer to second place, with the best goalscoring in the league and second best defence.

It's looking positive from there, hopefully end up 1st at the end of the season.

We also won our group in the Champions League, easily as well I might add. Another impressive feat of goals scored and defense again.

In the first KO Round we drew Gelsenkirchen, so hopefully, should be a winnable tie.

Transfers and Tactics

Being as two transfer windows have since closed since the last update, should dissect the list as much as possible.

First of all, incoming transfers;

Balanta was the first to sign but was sent back to River Plate until the end of their season, so has only played 6 games for us, but I see him as Future First Player rather than First Team right now.

Lucas Romero is to fight with Matic for the DM role, as Mikel got upset with the amount of game time and no amount of talking him round would work.

Depay is a player I wanted to sign from the start and has caused me to create a new, 3rd, formation for the team, but more on that later.

Thiago is again competing for a place, but this time with Fabregas in the middle of midfield, and has come in handy as Fabregas has been injured a few times already this season.

Now for the new formation to incorporate the talent that is Memphis Depay

I've gone for the slightly adventurous approach of 2 Raumdeuters. I will only use this tactic for matches that we should win with consumate ease, and as such hasn't been used extensively yet, only in easy cup games and a handful of league matches.

However it is effective.

Squad Development

The first team squad hasn't changed much since the start of the season, just our four new additions and Mikel going to reserves until someone will buy him

The stand out factor is of course Hazard. 34 goals and an average rating of 8.08 helped him win World Player of the Year, however, he unfortunately finished second to Messi in the Golden Ball award. Next year I'm going to be aiming for both awards.

Now to check on the development of the 3 key players I picked at the start of the season;

Eden Hazard

As stated above he is just taking apart any opposition in front of him with ease.

Cesc Fabregas

The same cannot be said about Fabregas, with injuries and just lack of form this hasn't been his season so far, hopefully the second half will be a turning point, especially with competition for places now

Diego Costa

Another player that has failed to live up to expectations, starting more games than not but not hitting form. Loic Remy has scored more than he has, 9 to 8 for anyone interested.

Now to end the season in Style

We are still in 4 competitions and I'd be upset if we didn't win the league from here and at least 1 cup competition.

[stephensmedley]

End of Season Update

It's not over. It is now.

And that's how this season has felt. It's not felt that long at all.

First of all we shall review all the competitions we were in

Barclays Premier League

The rest of the matches, and a brief recap, looked like this

As you can see plenty of victories a few draws and just 1 loss to go with the first half season losses to Stoke and Tottenham. And in this match, Southampton Away last game of the season, I played a few youth players and rotation players, I still wasn't happy but could understand.

As you can see from the league table, we won comfortably in the end, a margin of 10 points. My future plans for the Premier League are to go unbeaten and accumulate more than 100 points. Neither task are easy.

Champions League

We got unlucky with the draw after Gelsenkirchen as you can see, with Barcelona. The first leg we were unlucky to just draw ~60% possession and many chances. The return leg however they were all over us. Kept it tight until late on and then mistakes crept in.

Next year my aim is the Final.

FA Cup

My run to the semi finals was straight forwards, always against lower league opposition and only conceded once, against Bury, fielding a very inexperienced side.

The loss to Liverpool I think was unlucky, it was a very tight game. But their unorthodox tactic of 3-4-2-1 seemed to be enough to fend off my team.

The aim next year is to win the FA Cup.

Capital One Cup

All the way to the final where we lost an incredibly tight match against Man United. Both teams missed a couple of penalties but unfortunately we missed the one that mattered.

I am unhappy not to win a cup competition this year to go with my League title, so next year will be trying to add a Cup to our impressive League victory this year.

Youth Candidate

Only one Youth Candidate stood out this year, so won't post an overall view. Hopefully next years haul will be better, need to start bringing some HG players through.

The one good player is Ronson Griffith

He looks a good, pacey Attacking Midfielder which suits our tactics, will slowly bring him into the squad by playing him in matches such as Friendlies and Capital One Cup matches.

Squad Update

Lots of 7+ in the average rating coloumn which I like to see. Eden Hazard ended with an average of just over 8 which I am thrilled about and he was certainly the best player of the season.

We also had to make use of a new formation during the latter matches of the season. We lost Costa to a torn hamstring after a challenge (I've never seen that before) and I wasn't confident in having Drogba or Remy lead the line for us. Which bought about this new tactic;

As you can see it is based of my 2 Raumdeuter tactic with the 2 AMC's plugging the gap between the Defense and Raumdeuters.

Record Breakers and Awards

Footballer of the Year went to Hazard for him amazing season, he also fell just 1 goal short of Andy Coles record of 35 goals in a league season.

Players' Player of the Year went to Cuadrado, I'm surprised about this one really, I didn't feel he was the best of the rest but I shall not complain!

Manager of the Year was won by myself

Top Goalscorer, you guessed it, Eden Hazard

Golden Glove award went to Courtois, with a whopping 16 clean sheets from his 34 league appearances, nearly every game.

Premier League Players Team of the Year

I don't know what season everyone else saw. Cuadrado and Hazard players of the year and nowhere to be seen in the team of the year. Glad to see Courtois there and Zouma did have a good season with his partners consistently getting injured.

A late update

Progressed a little bit further after writing the post and got the message that Hazard won the Best Player in Europe, beating Messi and Ronaldo. Good signs for next seasons Golden Ball.

Preseason for 2015/16

Preseason now starts 5 weeks before the start of next season. I don't see a need to improve too much of the team although several players have been upset this year and will be looking to sell them. Namely, Cahill, Mikel, Willian and Drogba. Drogba is leaving on a free anyway so that leaves me with 3 players to ship out.

I will keep an eye on my young strikers in preseason and see if any of them can step it up to the first team, if not I will be looking to buy a young striker to use as backup to Costa with the view of becoming a future first team player.

The next update shall be after the preseason friendlies, hopefully some interesting signings and a fun build up to the next season.

[Maw74]

2-1 to the mighty Spurs.

[stephensmedley]

That loss hurt :-(

It was late on as well even the mighty Hazard couldn't prevent it

[stephensmedley]

Post Season

After the end of the last season and the beginning of this season we get to see who was the Fans Player of the Year, and also how the club compares to all the others in the game.

I don't think it was ever in doubt, Hazard won the award by a large margin.

Chelsea were the richest club of the season, with £0.06 Billion more than Man United.

Unfortunately, money isn't everything and we find ourselves as 5th biggest club, behind the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Man United.

Pre Season

The board have given us a nice transfer budget but I don't see myself buying too many players this season.

Transfers In (As of 09/08/2015)

John Koning - a young Defensive Midfielder with the potential to be a key player for the team, bought for the occasional game for future use.

Francesco Fassina - not the complete package as a Striker by a long way but at the age of 16 is a good back up to Costa and Remy and future first team player.

John Stones - a solid young defender from Everton, with Terry getting older need someone to rotate in the Defense with the chance of becoming first choice in a season or twos time.

Transfers Out (As of 09/08/2015)

I got rid of the upset players from last year Willian (£14.25mil), Mikel (£8mil) and Cahill (£7.5mil) with other squad players that were surplus to requirements this year also sold, bringing in a healthy £56 million.

Several players were sent out on loan to get more experience, the only two that potentially have a first team future are Jeremie Boga and Bertrand Traore so I will be keeping an eye on their progress this year.

The Squad

I now feel I have cover for every position with some youngsters coming through.

I was half tempted to sign a new Left Back to provide competition with Felipe Luis but Jay Dasilva performed admirably last season when stepping in for Luis so I will give him his chance this season.

Up front we have Costa, Remy, the new signing Fassina and Bamford back from loan. With Costas indifferent form last year and with Remy not being all that good it's a chance for the two youngsters to get some game time this year.

As you can see Hazard has gotten injured and won't be available for the first few matches of the season. It is not the best news but these things happen in football.

Friendlies

We started the preseason off with a Testimonial for long serving Goalkeeper Petr Cech. Unfortunately he was injured, so didn't play a part in the match.

The rest of the friendlies went as much to plan as can be expected for preseason, against Besiktas we played a second string side so no-one got injured before the traditional curtain raiser that is the Community Shield.

As you can see it was a wise choice. Even without Hazard we won comfortably.

Hopefully it is a good sign for the season to come as Liverpool were one of the teams to do alright against me.