SC Preußen Münster: from an eaglet to a fully-grown Adler

[Gottlieb Pferd]

EDITOR'S NOTE: Having been sacked in November, I have decided to carry on this file but am no longer manager at SC Preußen Münster

 

This is a pair of eaglets, or baby eagles. Not particularly intimidating, right? I am about to embark on my first FM20 save with SC Preußen Münster, a team from the small university-town in western Germany, who are affectionately known by their fans as the "Adlertrager" for the Eagle that adorns their badge. However, like those little eaglets in the picture, Münster's football team is a far cry from its fully-grown counterpart and has much to learn before it can be truly considered to live up to its destiny.

Some background...

For those of you who are unaware of the small town of Münster, it is a university-town near to the Dutch border in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia. It is most notable for the sheer number of churches in its medieval centre and its history as the place where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in the 17th century. The football team also has some history, in that it was one of the founding members of the Bundesliga in 1963. However, it suffered the ignonimy of being one of the first to be relegated, dropping down in its debut season alongside Saarbrücken, never to return.

Having spent some time in the lower reaches of German football, the club made it back into the third division in 2011. Since then, it has flirted with promotion to the next division but always fallen short and even had to watch on as closest rivals Osnabrück took the league by storm in 2018-2019. IRL the club have been suffering badly this season after losing a number of key players and failing to find a sufficient balance to the team. This is where this story shall begin! Join me, as I help to turn this club into the proud Adler it has always longed to be.

About me..

I am an avid football fan and have always enjoyed the strategic and tactical side of the game. Furthermore I play amateur football in Germany and run a small training group. I find it great working with people and figuring out how to improve. I am looking to take my badges in the future and FM is an excellent way for me to cut my teeth, so to speak! I have further been studying basic computer coding and data analysis and would like to see how I can intertwine that and experiemnt with that on this save. I will begin by posting an overview of the club, my strategy and initial tactical considerations before posting intermittent reviews during the first season, as I define my writing/reporting approach. I would be grateful and delighted for feedback, discussion and debate throughout!

 

Story progression:

2019-2020: SC Preußen Münster (3. Liga) SACKED IN NOVEMBER

2019-2020: Cambridge United (Sky Bet League 2) FINISHED 15th

2020-2021: Cambridge United (Sky Bet League 2) FINISHED 7th, Lost in play-off semi-final

2021-2022: Cambridge United (Sky Bet League 2)

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Forza SCP!

So, a little more to the club and what I will have to work with. The stadium is called the Preußenstadion and fits around 15,000 fans, whilst the youth facilities and coaching are all at a fairly average level. This is about the standard in the 3. Liga, so it is plenty to work with in the meantime. Our focus therefore will be on trying to fill out the stadium in the medium-term, whilst looking to promote any talented youth products up to the first team as soon as it is possible, due to the lack of sufficient development that is likely to happen in the academy. In the long-term, I would like to turn this into a development club and so I will be looking to re-invest as much of our profits as possible in the youth facilities, coaching and recruitment over time.

Finances

Total club balance: EUR 3,899,469 (as of 17.06.2019)

Current wage budget/currently paying: EUR 53,000/EUR 46,812

Transfer budget: EUR 0

Whilst it is not exactly in my remit, it is key at this level that finances remain in order. I have set the first season to no transfers anyway, so there won't be much eating into that budget, but I will have to make sure in future that we stay well within budget and as far under as possible without sacrificing quality. This means focusing on free transfers and young prospects. I will try to sign players on a minimum of 2-year contracts, whilst selling players at peak value.

Staff

Coaching staff: GK coach (Milenko Gilic)

This is the only staff member that I started with. He has decent coaching stats, but pretty poor mentals. Nevertheless, I fully intend to keep him in position, for this season at least. Meanwhile, I decided I needed to sign up 3 coaches: an assistant manager with strong coaching stats, a fitness coach and a head of youth development. Allow me to introduce Sven Kmetsch, Robert Lossau and Rainer Grabowski:

All three have strong personalities and will complement the culture of the club well. Kmetsch is a particular coup, in my opinion. He brings both international experience and genuine coaching quality to the table, even if his ability to judge players is lacking (this is an area in which I consider myself to be relatively adept, at any rate.

Scouting team

The scouting team was made up of a director of football in Malte Metzelder (the brother of former Real Madrid and Schalke defender Christoph Metzelder) a Chief scout in Harald Menzel and a second scout in Kieran Schulze-Marmeling. Metzelder is a relatively poor director of football, but he will retain limited responsibilities over the course of this season before I decide whether to hire a new one next year. Menzel is a good scout and is being chased by a couple of clubs higher up the ladder. For now, I am happy with this department, but I will monitor it over the course of the first half of the season. There are no data analysts, but as this is something that I will be taking a look at myself, this will not be an issue.

Medical staff

All in order here, we have some very capable staff across the board.

The FIRST team

Having followed the club in real life, I am pleasantly surprised with the standard of player that I have available to me. We have a couple of seriously talented players to build the squad around, as well as a couple of project players I will be trying to develop over the course of the season

Key Players: Heinz Mörschel, Julian Schauerte, Lucas Cueto

These three will be key to our success this season.

First off, Mörschel is clearly above 3. Liga level, though his weaknesses are also clear. At first look, I consider it vital that we simply get him as close to the opponents box as possible, where he can use his physical presence and technical ability to wreak havoc. His lack of work ethic and slightly underwhelming mental stats in areas, however, will mean that we will need to have plenty of hard-working players around him.

Schaurte is a great full-back for this level. He has good physical stats, a strong personality and the versatility that will be needed with a squad our size. He is the club's current captain and I have already set him to mentoring Heinz and another one of our young midfielders.

Lucas Cueto is our out-man. I envision him being the player that helps us to break through opponents lines with his pace and dribbling ability to create space for other players. We lack pace in the rest of our team, so it is crucial that we keep Lucas fit.

Project players: Okan Erdogan, Fridolin Wagner, Marian Prinz

Erdogan is a new arrival from the Regionalliga and looks to be quite the talent. He has decent physicals and mentals, whilst also being Fairly Professional. I will be trying to give him as much game time as possible this season.

Fridolin has been excellent in pre-season and is a brilliant box-to-box player. The main issue for me is with his personality and determination, so I am hoping that with some tutoring and exposure to the rest of our team he will show plenty of development this season.

Our first team keeper, Schulze-Niehues, has been making noises about potentially leaving the club. Whilst I can by no means afford for that to happen this season, I will be wary that this could happen next year and will therefore be trying to give Prinz as much of a go as possible this year. He is a decent height and presence and also has good reflexes. His reading of the game is an issue for me, though, particularly if we are playing on the front foot. We will work on that this season.

Youth talents: Nick Selutin, Marcel Hoffmeier

I will look for openings for these two guys throughout the season. Selutin and Hoffmeier both featured in pre-season and have enough pace and trickery that they might prove useful on occasion. They will be training with the first team throughout the season but playing for the youth team on a regular basis.

---

Hopefully that gives you a brief overview of what I will be working with this season. I will drop in some info on some of the other guys as the season progresses. I have been working during the season on two vague structures to accomodate our strengths and weaknesses, with one for playing a Gegenpressing style, and one for a quick counter-attacking style. Gegenpressing has been successful in pre-season, but as I am not fully convinced by the physical stats of my current crop of players, it is a tactic I will be saving for very specific occasions. This is the general framework:

The roles seem to complement each other fairly well, I have simply been adjusting player roles depending on specific strengths of weaknesses of players. I have also been adjusting certain positions based on the footedness of certain players. As you will see now, we have looked very strong in pre-season, so I am fairly confident with these tactics for the time being.

Pre-season

In terms of matches, we performed extremely well in pre-season. Most notably, thrashing our league rivals Wehen Wiesbaden 3-0 and the 5-2 thrashing of our Avian cousins,  Go Ahead Eagles.

As for training, I worked the boys fairly hard for the opening 4 weeks, primarily on fitness and tactical matters. There was also a concerted focus on team bonding, however. A large part of this team is new to the club and there were clear chemistry issues upon arrival, and that remains the case at this point in time. Hopefully we can work on that as the season progresses.

I will drop back in with an update around November-time! Thanks for reading.

[DazRTaylor]

A very thorough introduction and will read with interest. One of my saves this year is with Rot-Weiss Erfurt and am trying to survive in the Bundesliga.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

7 hours ago, DazRTaylor said:

A very thorough introduction and will read with interest. One of my saves this year is with Rot-Weiss Erfurt and am trying to survive in the Bundesliga.

Thanks for the response DazRTaylor, that sounds like a fine effort! How did you find things once you got to the third division? Did you go straight up?

[DazRTaylor]

2 hours ago, Gottlieb Pferd said:

Thanks for the response DazRTaylor, that sounds like a fine effort! How did you find things once you got to the third division? Did you go straight up?

I went up from the third tier at the first time of asking, though only via the playoffs.  The first half of the season was a struggle, though we romped home in the second half.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

24 minutes ago, DazRTaylor said:

I went up from the third tier at the first time of asking, though only via the playoffs.  The first half of the season was a struggle, though we romped home in the second half.

Nice, I'd be pretty happy with making the play-offs to be fair. Did you take over in the third division or in the Regionalliga? Just wondering what the financial situation will be like further down the road at this level.

[DazRTaylor]

36 minutes ago, Gottlieb Pferd said:

Nice, I'd be pretty happy with making the play-offs to be fair. Did you take over in the third division or in the Regionalliga? Just wondering what the financial situation will be like further down the road at this level.

Third division.  I holidayed for a season and took over a newly promoted club.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

1 hour ago, DazRTaylor said:

Third division.  I holidayed for a season and took over a newly promoted club.

Ah okay. Good luck keeping them up

[Gottlieb Pferd]

November update

There are just 7 matches left before the Winter Break and the situation is not looking great already. The campaign opened well and we had just one defeat in the first 9 matches, but with far too many draws. Injuries to key attacking players such as Maurice Litka, Heinz Mörschel and Lucas Schnellbacher has meant that we have been unable to create or score enough chances. A lack of discipline, most notably from our captain who has already received two red cards, has also hampered our performances. Here's a quick look at the table:

Far too close to the relegation zone for my liking, though as you can see, we are only one victory away from 10th spot, and our goal difference is not terrible. It is vital that we start turning draws into wins, however, and climb up the table.

Just three victories in our opening 14 matches is really not good enough, though there have been some extremely unfortunate moments. We conceded a last minute equaliser against Bayern II having dominated proceedings. We then proceeded to lose to Magdeburg, who scored on a counter-attack from a missed Mörschel penalty. In the last match in October, we also failed to hold on to a deserved 1-0 victory, conceding in the 93rd minute. The defeats against Zwickau and Braunschweig were extremely poor, however, and I have highlighted a few key areas to strengthen should the opportunity arise in January. Mörschel is currently our top goalscorer with 4 goals, all of which have been penalties, and we simply do not have a regular goalscorer in our ranks. If we can add that, then I think we will achieve our desired mid-table finish before really shaping the team next season.

There have been a number of positive developments, though. Okan Erdogan has been developing very well indeed, becoming a fixture in the side and scoring 2 goals. He has even received 4 caps for the Turkish Under 21 side.

Undoubtedly our key player so far, however, has been Kevin Pires-Rodrigues. Our joint top goalscorer in the league with 4 goals, he has filled in across almost every position in midfield and scored some absolutely vital goals. In need of some pace and movement around him.

Meanwhile, Heinz Mörschel had been expected to be our key player. He has so far, however, been limited by injuries and performed inconsistently when on the pitch. I currently have him being mentored by our captain Schauerte, and this appears to be improving some of his weaker personality attributes, so I am hoping that performances will improve accordingly. Whilst his output has been decent, I would expect more from a player of his talent and he is again somebody who would benefit from having some faster players around him with good off the ball movement.

Summary

All in all, plenty to work on going into the winter break. My key aim for these last 7 fixtures of 2019 is to keep morale level and to make sure we get a couple of wins in key fixtures - easier said than done! From there, we will be looking to add to our ranks in January, most likely with a couple of loan signings, and secure a mid-table finish. Let's see if we can do that...

Edited March 19, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

March update

We're going up to the 2. Bundesliga!

[Editors note: Not really]

Sadly there was no turnaround. The failure to build up any momentum with draws all season escalated into a string of losses and after a discussion with the board in mid-November, I left SC Preußen Münster after just 5 months at the helm. How did it come to this? And where will this story go from here?

I was certainly tempted to restart the save from the beginning of November and replay the games. We were so unfortunate to lose the first game, and from that point there was no saving the morale. This is not something I was particularly keen to do, I would rather stop the save at that point than replay it. Indeed, this is not a particularly rare occurence in the football world and gives me the chance to take a more critical reflection of what went on and apply that going forward.

What went wrong?

Certainly I was unable to coax enough goals out of this team. The injuries certainly didn't help, but maybe there was more I could have done. We had good set piece takers and some decent aerial threats, so perhaps I ought to have focused more on that for the time being than on developing my tactics?

There was also an issue with mentality and discipline, as we threw away several leads and two red cards from my captain.

In terms of the playing staff, we were also fairly limited. We did not have a goalscorer of any shape or form - our best player Morschel was frustratingly inconsistent despite his impressive stats. On top of that, we did not have any particularly good wide players of note and our full-backs had poor crossing stats. The squad is not what I would consider balanced (perhaps explaining their poor form in real life).

What now?

Having decided I wanted to keep going and prove that this was an anomoly, I tried jumping straight back on the horse. My reputation had suffered considerably after this episode and I was being rejected for jobs left, right and centre. I looked and applied for interesting jobs across Europe, from Poland to Holland, from Austria to Belgium. Nothing doing. Then I was approached by a club from England...

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

November to March

I'm not one to bear grudges and I accept my responsibility. Nevertheless, there was a sense that this had been an unfair experience and I was determined to prove my ability. Who knows, perhaps one day I will be able to go back to Münster and run things on my own terms (that's if they manage to stay up!).

So having applied for numerous jobs across November and December, I was finally invited to Cambridge for a job interview. Cambridge were currently 23rd in the division, but having taken a look at the squad, I liked what I saw. Furthermore, with January rapidly approaching I saw the opportunity to shape the club a little bit more to my liking. When the offer came in, I bit their hand off.

I took control on the 29th December, taking charge of a 0-0 draw against Morecambe before I set about making my changes. I brought in a raft of new, hungry staff members:

Hungry, young (for the most part) and determined to succeed, I was delighted with the team I had managed to put together. I had decided that it would be critical to change the culture of the club and have hungry, professional coaching and player staff around me. As the club were also keen for me to bring through the youth, I wanted to make sure I had staff members with strong personalities in the youth team as well. From my experience, youth development centres around moulding the right characters and at our level, the best chance of bringing even half-decent players through is to make sure they are looking to improve - and then giving them game time. Here is my new U18 coaching team:

his came at the end of a thorough evaluation process, and I was pretty happy with the outcome. Hopefuully it pays dividends in the future.

Once I had the chance, I also needed to make some changes to the playing staff. We had some fantastic midfield players, great personalities and a decent spine. We only had 3 centre backs though, and 4 (!) left-backs. So I sent about cancelling a few loans and bringing in a few of my own:

Bob was a player I had scouted for Munster and has great physical and mental stats. Hopefully he can help add a decent press to our game. Also, his contract expires in June.

I was very excited to bring in Iker, he brings many strong attributes to the table and with his anticipation and playmaking skills, I hoped he would be able to help us play my preferred controlled style of play. He would play in the number 6 position.

Dan the man. A top player for this level and a real physical presence that we had been lacking. Will look to make his move permanent in the summer, if possible.

And that was it! I had pinpointed these players as the missing links to playing the football I wanted and I was delighted that we had managed to secure them. Having streamlined the side down and kicked a few unwanted players down into the reserves it was onto business. I could not afford not to win games in this new job.

All things said, that looks a lot nicer than at Munster! A couple of very dissapointing 3-0 losses, but on the whole we have been compact, held possession brilliantly and looked strong on set pieces (I have made this more of a focus, now). Let's hope I can keep this up until the summer.

Bearing in mind the position the club were in when I took over, this is a decent turnaround. But the hard work has just begun. Stay tuned, as I try to avenge my dismissal..

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

May update

Having begun the season planning to make a dynasty in Germany, it is a bit bewildering to find myself ending it by celebrating a good finish in the English League 2 with Cambridge United. But hey, that's football management for you. We continued our good form with four more wins, ending the season in 14th place.

We continued to prove extremely strong at set pieces (my loan signing Iker Pozo managed to knock up 7 assists, most of them from free-kicks or corners) and on the counter-attack. The board is keen for me to promote youth players, and the most talented of these in the academy are all rapid forwards. Whilst they didn't score too many, they certainly were a weapon in getting us up the pitch. I will see if I can compliment this with some real quality as well in the transfer window.

Here's the final table:

So Grimsby, Forest Green and Bradford City made it up in the automatic positions. Out of those three teams, we only lost to Grimsby - and that was a narrow away loss. Perhaps the most impressive of the teams we played this season was Crewe, who in spite of the 2-1 scoreline absolutely hammered us and played some exceptional football. Having looked at their team a little closer, they have some extremely talented young players in their ranks... Here's hoping they win the play-offs.

The off-season

I've steadied the ship here and now it is time to look to the future. We performed very well in the second-half of the season, which makes me optimistic that we can push for the play-offs next campaign - though I'm unlikely to tell the board that! My main aims for the off-season are as follows:

• Improve the overall mentality at the club
• Highlight U23 players for development/loan for next season
• Prioritize free signings over loan signings, whilst avoiding transfer fees/agent fees where possible
• Accept any above-average bids for players
• Tie down important players/personalities for 1/2 seasons, as appropriate
• Develop more refined tactics and an appropriate training schedule

Work on this front has already begun. I have created a spreadsheet to evaluate the current crop of players by position, wage and personality and will hopefully weed out any overpaid players or players in positions where we are overloaded. This will allow me to be more focused in the transfer market.

In terms of signing down important players, the following players have been retained:

Liam was transfer-listed when I arrived, but I like his personality and player traits. He is an excellent squad player, and highly influential.

Harrison is another player who was not seeing much game time before I arrived. I see him as a valuable rotation option across all of the left-sided positions, and an excellent personality to boot.

This probably required the most thinking, as Samir is on a very expensive contract. He is quality for this level, though and has been a vital cog in our counter-attacking tactics. He is one of our few players that can dribble us into key attacking positions, which he does on a consistent basis. Also a decent personality. He will start a new one-year 2.9k per week contract at the end of the season.

Georgey spent the latter portion of the season out injured, but was crucial in my opening couple of months. He is a talented all-round midfielder, with plenty of improvement in him and will be crucial to our team going forward.

Andy has a concerningly low level of determination, but his other stats are pretty handy for a 20-year old. I am hoping that we can bring in a veteran striker of real quality that can help him in this campaign, but he has proven that his pace is a real weapon in the last few months, so he will be sticking around.

We have furthermore announced an affilliate partnership with Everton, which I am hoping to benefit from this season. The club has a famed academy and has produced a number of top class players. If we can find any that fill any gaps in our squad this season, I would be delighted.

I will update next time on the progress toward my off-season aims and our pre-season results and will leave you with the sad news that SC Preußen Münster's relegation was confirmed toward the end of the season:

I will keep my eye on the club and hope that we might meet again later down the road. Thanks for reading!

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Pre-season update

And we're back in business. It's been a long summer of hard work in the transfer market, on the training ground and in the board room. I am pretty optimistic about the season ahead though. Here's a quick recap of what's been going on.

Transfers

Five of the lads from last season either left or retired, leaving me a decent amount of money to play with in the wage budget.

And they were replaced by the following names. Tom Carroll is perhaps the most familiar, with the former Tottenham and Swansea player joining us on a free contract for two years. Hopefully he can put his injury worries behind him and become a key player for us. Ryan Astley is a massive talent at center-back and joins us from our senior affiliate Everton for the year. Elias Sorensen is set to be our creative centre-forward, to complement the real pace that we have up top. Adding to that pace is Alex Jakubiak, a Scottish former-Watford player with pace and trickery in his locker. Overall I am delighted by these signings and I think our team is now well-stocked.

For those who are interested, this is my development PowerPoint for tracking my players this year:

2020-2021 season.pptx

Fixtures

The games were a mixed bag. The scoreline at Derby was not reflective of the match itself, but we allowed them to have too many speculative efforts from distance. Meanwhile, we put in a very strong performance against a tough Everton side and were quite unlucky not to get a draw. All in all, I learned a lot from the matches and am quite confident about our chances this campaign.

Targets and parameters

After our decent performance last year, the board are expecting another mid-table finish. Furthermore, they have told me that they do not expect me to sign players over the age of 30 and to make the most of set-pieces. Having been so effective last year and with new threats in the side in the shape of Astley and Grant, this is something I am hopeful we can achieve. In terms of making the most of our youth, we have promoted Finley Iron, Sam Bennett and Pascal Juan Estrada into the first team for this campaign and I will be endeavouring to give them plenty of playing time. The overall standard of our development squad, however, is pretty meagre. My scouts are looking to change this.

I will be back in November with an update, as well as a look at my data analysis work that I have been honing in pre-season. Until then..!

[Gottlieb Pferd]

November 2020 Update

It's been a very interesting start to the season. We seem to have made a few false starts and whilst not doing badly, we are struggling for momentum (shades of the first five months at Munster). We have not started to wrack up losses and our performances have been encouraging but cold blood will be needed over the winter period if we are to achieve our potential.

Before taking a look at the games, there was some big news early into the campaign. Captain George Taft decided to publicly air his concerns after I sold Ryan Hannant to Portsmouth for GBP 225k - a deal which the board, in contrast, were delighted with! We failed to reconcile this rift satisfactorily and when Millwall came in with a GBP 300k bid, I couldn't really turn it down. In his place came in Omar Beckles, released in the summer from Shrewsbury.

Whilst not having the brute force of Tafty, Beckles is much more aligned to our style of play this season and is a fantastic character to boot. Needless to say I wasn't all that downhearted by this development.

Meanwhile, two other players joined us toward the end of the transfer window:

Leif Davis joined the club on loan from Leeds. We had been following Leif last season and with concerns as to the quality in our side at left-back, we swooped in on deadline day. Joining him was Anthony Gordon from Everton. A tricky wide player who gave us added depth and another option in the forward positions:

Results

So many draws. Much like at Munster, we just can't seem to kill off games. Further analysis brings this into even keener focus. Toward the latter end of last season, we were winning or drawing games by virtue of our prowess at set pieces. We weren't making that many chances and were conceding them by the bucket load:

This shows the number of clear cut chances we have created and conceded in the last 50 league matches. It is skewed by the numbers from this season. This is this season's figures in isolation:

We are doing an excellent job of creating clear cut chances, and minimizing those of the opposition. This doesn't even factor in half-chances, where the numbers become even more unbalanced. And yet this is not converting into victories on a regular basis. We are conceding half-chances or less from our opposition's only attacks on goal and conceding pot shots from 30 yards. Needless to say it has been a little bit demoralizing. I am encouraged by the work we are doing, but we have to be much more clinical if we are to see any tangible reward. That is the aim for the rest of the season.

One of our key culprits is star signing Alex Jakubiak.

Alex burst onto the season with 3 in his first 2 games, but the goals have dried up since then and he has missed 4 (!) penalties already. He is now off penalty duties for the time being, but we would be in a considerably more comfortable position if those had been converted. As it stands, we are firmly in the middle of the pack. Just a couple more wins, though, and we will be back in the mix.

We also have excellent goal difference by virtue of our lack of losses. I am confident that if The Jak can find his mojo back and players start popping up with goals from other positions, we will start to look upward a little.

Until next time!

[Gottlieb Pferd]

March Update

So I've been in charge at Cambridge for over a year now and there has been some real progression in a lot of areas. Sadly, we don't look like we will be pushing for the play-offs this year (though we are only 6 points short at the moment), but we have had some excellent victories and are just a couple of players short in key positions of mounting a real challenge, in my view.

January transfer window

The transfer window was perhaps more dramatic than expected, with key player George Maris the third player to bring in cash via sales this season, as he left to play for table-topping League 1 side Sunderland for GBP 450k.

George was having a decent season, and whilst it was a shame to lose him, I felt confident that we would be able to replace him. The injection of funds into the club has also been very welcome indeed and should help us budget for next season. After shuffling the budget a little, we managed to bring in three new faces for the next 6 months.

George Oakley joins us on a free for 6 months to provide some presence up front. We had him on trial in the summer but his wage demands were too high. He has deteriorated since having failed to find a club, but is still capable of doing a job and providing an option that we otherwise don't have up front.

With our switch mid-season from a narrow 4-3-3 to a 4-3-3 with wide players, the need was there for an out-and-out winger, with Aaron fitting the bill perfectly. His wage requirements are also pleasingly low.

Finally we brought in our third loanee from affilliate club Everton in the form of Bobby Carroll. He will help to plug the gap left by Maris and his pace will certainly lend itself well to our counter-attacking 4-3-3 formation. He will function primarily as a quasi-B2B midfielder.

Matches

I've been keeping track of our results this campaign and noting the number of half chances/clear-cut chances we have been creating and conceding, as an indicator of our performance levels. It is difficult to imitate the Expected Goals (xG) metric that is used in football data analysis so often these days, but I have taken half chances here as being worth 0.5 xG and clear-cut chances as being 1.0. The green boxes are where we have created more chances than the opposition and the red meaning the reverse.

A couple of things stand out this season in terms of analysis:

• We are not taking our chances, and conceding too many half-chances
• We are drawing too many matches
• We are not scoring enough goals

Certain matches stand out in this note, such as the 2-1 loss to Carlisle, where we had 6.5 expected goals versus their 1. The run of 1-1 draws early on in the season where we were consistently going ahead, dominating the game and creating chance after chance, only to be hit by a sucker-punch, also sticks in the memory. Addressing these issues will be my key focus during the off-season.

We have further been hit by the fact that we stayed in the FA Cup and Johnstone Paint Trophy beyond expectations, increasingly the workload on the players. The winter period also saw a number of games continuously postponed, meaning we would have breaks of over 2 weeks before being forced to play match after match for months at a time. This took its toll on the lads.

With all of that taken into account, it has been a fine season so far. The board and fans certainly concur:

Furthermore, I have managed to engineer an excellent team spirit at the club, which bodes very well for the long-term.

Table

We are sitting in mid-table, where we were expected to be at the start of the season. We have a few kinder fixtures toward the end of the campaign, so we could make something special happen. Here's hoping! I'll be back in June for an end-of-season review and a look toward the 2021 off-season.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

End of season review, 2020-2021

Wow, league seasons in England are exhausting! After 56 games, the season has come to an end.. or has it?

We managed it! A 10-match unbeaten run to finish the season saw us make it into the play-offs on goal difference. There were so many times when it looked like it wasn't going to happen but some crucial wins saw us edge over the line. Having performed so well conosistently across the season, it is just reward for this squad of players. Once the grueling schedule in January and February was out of the way, we collected the momentum that I had long been hoping for. Here are the final ten results:

The run began with us picking up points against teams much further down the table. We had been facing most of the top half in February so this was a welcome change and allowed us to pick up a head of steam. That momentum looked like it was going to die out with three draws against Notts County, Plymouth and Rochdale. Then, 4 points off 7th with 2 games to go, we faced Scunthorpe United, who were top of the table. We conceded from a free-kick in the first minute, but our heads never went down. The improved Elias Sorensen bagged an equaliser at half-time and the second half was all us. Bobby Carroll, the replacement for George Maris brought in from Everton on loan in January, stepped off the bench for the final 45. With just over twenty minutes to go, he picks the ball up deep in our own half...

A sensational goal. It gave us the belief we needed going into the final game. Four teams were still in the mix going into the match against mid-table Salford for just two play-off spots.

We knew we had to win and we played as such. We took our attacking tactics, went with three stikers and pressed them from the get go. 4 clear cut chances and 4 half-chances later, we managed to sneak a 1-0 win thanks to their keeper catching a long-ranged shot and carrying it into the net. LOL. They all count.

So we finished in 7th spot. Meanwhile, Scunthorpe had been top of the table with 2 games to go and ended up finishing third. They will be our opponents in the play-off semi-final, so you can expect that to be a bruising encounter. We have the psychological advantage, though, having already beaten them twice this season, and also having much lower expectations on us than them. Hopefully we can exploit that to our advantage.

I will be back with a final update after the play-offs.

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Play-offs

We faced up against Scunthorpe United again, then, having beat them twice this season and effectively denied them a place in the automatic promotion spots. There were scores to settle here. Ahead of the game, we had the unfortunate news that our top assists man Tom Carroll would be out for the play-offs with an ankle injury, leaving us a little short in midfield.

We really dominated the first leg and were unlucky to concede a late equaliser from Gillead, a real sucker punch. They had initialy taken the lead with a speculative 30-yard shot that went in off the crossbar but we kept our composure to pull two goals back.

The second leg was a completely different game. A number of enforced changes saw us lose our rhythm and we didn't put in a performance we were capable of. In the end, Scunthorpe ran out the worthy winners.

Dissapointing considering our recent performances, but that's football. We can't be too dissapointed. Planning now begins for next season, with an off-season update to come shortly.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Off-season

So my second season comes to a close, and all things said it has been a positive year. Having got my foot in the door the previous season, this year allowed me to make my mark a little and we certainly did do that. We created tons of chances, and restricted the opposition significantly. We finished the year with the second least number of goals conceded..

...the second lowest number of losses...

...and with a record-breaking number of clean sheets.

Furthermore, two of our players made it into the team of the year:

And Iker Pozo also went on to be named the League Two Player of the Season, an exceptional achievement for a man who has been a consistent presence since I joined the club. In other news, our U18 team won their league. An excellent year for the club, and our highest league finish in over two decades.

What can be improved?

As I mentioned earlier this season, we have clearly fallen down on taking our chances. We dominate most matches and create tons of chance, and there is an excellent balance to our side. Unfortunately, our top goalscorer, Elias Sorensen, scored just 13 goals in all competitions, whilst our star striker Alex Jakubiak only managed 10. Put simply, a goalscorer is critical to our success for next season.

Transfers

Our release list was not all that long, but did feature ex-captain Greg Taylor. Whilst he featured very little last season, he was an excellent presence in the changing room and a positive character. We wish him all the best.

As for our transfers, Josh Grant was dissapointing last year and an unpleasant character in the dressing room, so we moved him on to Ipswich for a small fee. More importantly, we managed to make a few key signings. Bobby Carroll and Ryan Astley re-signed from Everton on loan for the season, having impressed so much this year, whilst young Jay Stansfield also joined from our affiliate.

Jay has the potential to be the missing link in our attack. Pacy, very intelligent and technically sound. At 18, this year will be one of rapid development for him.

I am extremely excited about our free signings. We have filled weak positions and the squad is now jam-packed with quality talents and characters.

Deji and Charlie were both released by Manchester United back in May. We instantly took them on trial and I was so impressed by their talents that I snapped them up without thinking twice. To have a player of Charlie's ability on such low wages is a blessing, so I will be looking to develop him and use him as much as possible this season. Deji is a little more raw, but that pace will be an exceptional weapon in the transition.

Kundai is a Zimbabwean international that can fill in all over the midfield and provides some pace and quality to those positions. He is still young, comes from Celtic and is on a relatively low wage, so I am very happy with this acquisition. He will likely phase out the dissapointing Otis Khan, who faded after a bright start last year and finished the campaign on an awful run of form.

Last, but by no means least, is Chuks. Our strike force was crying out for some physicality last year, but I also require creativity and technical ability and Aneke has exactly the right blend. I am extremely hopeful that he and Stansfield will prove to be what we needed to fix our flawed attack.

Pre-season fixtures

A fairly brief pre-season, with 3 matches against our affiliates. The lads are all fit and ready to go, though.

The board wants us to make the play-offs again and I think that's a fair target with this squad. We have only got stronger this summer, so my expectations are high. That means the pressure is also higher, but that's the fun, right?

[Gottlieb Pferd]

November 2021 update

It has been a pleasing start to the season, though some of our old failures are coming back to haunt us at times. We have played a large number of games across all competitions, which has been a challenge, but overall I can't be too displeased with how things are going.

League Two

We started the season in fantastic form, before going into overdrive during September. Goals were coming from all over the pitch and we were looking unstoppable. An unfortunate and unlikely defeat to 23rd-place Carlisle at the end of September, however, brought us back to earth with a bang. We then proceeded to lose to Exeter and have only managed one win in 7 (albeit three of those draws were against teams in the top 7). The loss to Carlisle didn't stop me from winning my first Manager of the Month award, though.

Our results to date see us sitting in 3rd position, some point off the two leading the pack. I am confident, however, that if we can keep the ship steady over December and January that we can have a similarly strong run in to last season and challenge for the title. A big IF, of course.

Here's the table. That defeat to Carlisle (24.) doesn't look good in this light...

Carabao Cup

This has certainly affected our form, somewhat, but we have had an incredible run in the Carabao Cup this season.

We have knocked out two Championship sides in Brentford and Portsmouth, with the victory against Brentford particularly impressive. We completely outclassed them:

Both of the goals ended up coming from corners, which remains a trait of this side (more on that later). We will face Tottenham at home in the Quarter-Finals. Whilst I don't really care how we get on, it has been fantastic for both morale and the finances, which are currently looking healthier than ever.

Leasing.com Trophy

Just the two games in this competition so far, both of which were victories. We are expected to get into the knock-out phase of this competition, but with the prize money on hand, I will certainly not be undervaluing it. We have also performed exceptionally against teams in divisions above us so there is no reason to think this could not be my first piece of silverware.

Player Performances

There have been some very noteworthy displays this season that are worth highlighting. Our current top goalscorer is the Everton loanee Jay Stansfield. Goals have come in fits and bursts, but his movement and pace makes him a great fit to our side.

For a first season in professional football, these are decent stats. I think there is more to come from him, though. We need a little bit more consistency.

Perhaps most incredibly, our second top goalscorer is centre-back Harry Darling.

Almost entirely responsible for Darling's output is Tom Carroll, who leads the way in assists.

Both players feature prominently on the division's stats overview:

I will go into some more detail about our tactics and our set-piece success in the next post, but here is just a little glimpse at how successful we have been from set pieces this season:

This is an overview of the last 30 matches (!), where we have scored 18 goals from set-pieces. The free-kicks conceded stats are a little worrying, but that is an incredible number. Needless to say, we feature prominently on the league stats overview for this, too:

Financial situation

Increased sponsorship deals, player sales, prize money from last season and the boosted attendance figures due to our Carabao Cup run have all contributed to a very rosy balance indeed:

The highlighted date shows November of last year, meaning our balance is up EUR 360k. With our cup run still ongoing, expect this to improve even more.

I will be posting a tactical evolution article next, before we return in March for an update.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Tactical Evolution - Cambridge United 2019-2022

Season 2019-2020

When I first joined Cambridge United in December 2019, I decided that in order to shore things up I would go for this defensive 4-3-3. It was relatively successful in stemming the flow of goals but proved to be unsuitable as the season wore on. Our wide players were not particularly adept at crossing, whilst Adeboyojo was not particularly good in the air or at making runs behind the last man. Neverthless, it was a shape that I wasn't too keen to abandon in the long-run. In the end, we ended up switching to another counter-attacking 4-3-3, but this time with two banks in the midfield and the forward line. This allowed greater compactness in the team as a whole, whilst also pushing our dangerously quick strikers closer to the opposition. Furthermore, this allowed the likes of Maris, El Mizouni and Pozo to display their playmaking ability from deep and proved to be much more successful in creating chances.

Season 2020-2021

I made a decent overhaul of the squad the following season, but the spine of Mitov, Darling, Pozo, Maris and Dallas remained the same. I was therefore reticent to abandon what was proving to be a successful formation, but having previously used the stock "Fluid counter-attacking" team instructions for the most part the previous season, I started from scratch to develop our new playing style.

As you can see, there aren't too many instructions - this is mainly defined by  players' roles and their PPMs. The idea was to control possession through the middle, with Pozo setting the tempo (attacking play was set to wide to combat the fact that this formation is naturally narrow). We would primarily drive down the right, with Davies the more attacking of our full-backs, and press the opposition from the right with Jakubiak/Dallas to regain possession. Estrada had a great season playing as a DLP. He had the defensive nous to be able to stop direct attacks toward our center backs and whilst he was very capable of simply recycling possession, he also had the ability to ping a long and incisive ball into the channels or to a marauding full-back. He eventually ousted our captain Danilo Wiebe for that position. Meanwhile, Maris and Samir Carruthers had been earmarked to be the players that would carry the ball from central midfield toward the opposition and maybe pick out a pass. Maris did this very well, and earned himself a January move to Sunderland. Carruthers suffered from injury and never managed to pick up from his form in my first season.

Here are Estrada's stats at the beginning of that season, his passing, vision, positioning and anticipation being key, whilst he also had the nimbleness to get around the pitch and the height to compete in the air. He played this role very nicely indeed.

We had some success with this role, but I increasingly noticed that our full-backs were being doubled up on and we were being caught out with crosses from deep behind the CB and the LB/RB. To combat this, I made the step of dropping Estrada back into the Defensive Midfield strata. I then set him as a Half-back, so that he would help to function as a third CB and push our CB's wider to combat this threat. This seemed to stem that particular avenue of attack nicely. So whilst the formation was essentially the same as before, it would swiftly come to resemble a 3-4-3 on the attack as our full-backs bombed forward to provide width.

George Maris left in January, so we brought in Bobby Carroll on loan from Everton:

Bear in mind, these are his stats as of March 2022. Bobby provided us with less of a playmaking option and instead somebody who could cover the ground in central midfield and allow us to play with a little more width and space. He has been exceptional at closing down spaces, whilst he is also fantastic at driving from deep toward the opposition (see his goal at the end of last season). He has become crucial to the evolution of our tactics.

2021-2022 season

This season we have had to be more adventurous as we aim for the play-offs. This has come at the cost of our defensive record, so impressive last season. The squad generally looks like this

Bobby Caroll or Tom Carroll are generally the midfielders that link our forwards with the midfield, whilst Kundai sits considerably deeper. Pozo often plays in this DLP position as well, so he can dictate play and link up the attack. Aneke has given us a presence in the CF role, allowing us to sustain attacks a lot more. Unfortunately, we have become more vulnerable on the counter-attack, simply due to the greater number of attack-minded players we have fielded this year. However, teams that do that are threatened by our lethal counter-attacking play that has become more apparent this year. See exhibit 1:

Cambridge 3-0 Walsall, League One, September 2021

So here is an example of where a number of teams try to hit us: behind the full-back. Davies has been caught out here by Walsall's winger and he now has the space to drive into the box or make a cross. He chooses the latter, but as you can see we are well positioned to deal with this, as Estrada (30) has dropped back in with the CB's, and our left-back is still in his default startin position to cover a ball to the far post. The ball comes in, its a poor one and Beckles (4) heads its away, where it is collected by Pozo (6).

At this point, Pozo is capable of driving with the ball behind the Walsall midfield himself, or launching a first time pass into our pressing forward Andy Dallas. He chooses the latter, with the space being vacated by the attacking Walsall wide players now offering Dallas the opportunity to demonstrate his pace.

Dallas has the PPM "Knocks the ball in front", and he uses it to great effect here to draw out the center-back and attack the space voided by the left-back.

Meanwhile, Stansfield has seen the opportunity and is making a dash behind the opposite full-back and center back awaiting the cross from Dallas.

The cross comes in just as the defense positions itself, allowing Stansfield to check his run and catch the centre-back flat-footed to power his header home. A perfect counter-attack.

Such counter-attacks have been a feature of our play this season, because of our rapid forwards. Andy Dallas, in particular, has come on leaps and bounds since I took over. I value his pace and his ability to win the ball in dangerous areas very highly, and he is key to a lot of our attacking play.

As you can see, our tactics continue to create a host of chances:

And our conversion rate is improving, even if it still could do with some work. There's no such thing as a perfect tactic after all!

Finally, a quick glimpse at my second set-up. We have retained the use of that 4-3-3 that we started with when I first took over, using it primarily as a defensive tactic in big games.

This was a victory early on in the season against Oxford, where it worked to perfection. Essentially we are generally more cautious than in the other 4-3-3 and look to focus primarily on the counter-attacks mentioned before as our method of attack. Wiebe sits as a covering central defender and one of the full-backs is set to hold position (normally the RB). Bobby Carroll is the player at LCM that is meant to bring the ball out of defence, with Dallas providing the width to the right, and our left IF and attacking full-back then providing the overload on the other flank. Stansfield then looks to make darting runs in to space behind when the opportunity presents itself.

Sorry for the wall of text, hopefully you get a little bit better of an idea of how the team is working now! Up next is a review of the second third of this season.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

March 2022 update

It's squeaky bum time in League Two now, as we enter the final strait. It has been a good season in most respects, but we have lost ground on our competitors at key stages in the season. We haven't been helped by our deep run in the Carabao Cup, whilst we also featured in the Leasing.com Trophy until January, meaning we had a fairly heavy workload in January and December that took its toll on performances. It's all to play for in the final 10 games.

League Two

We have generally fared quite well, but some heavy losses in November and at the beginning of December set us back badly. We lost twice to fellow promotion chasers Cheltenham, as well. Once the fixture congestion eased in February (and we saw the return of captain Danilo Wiebe), things began to turn around somewhat, but we unfortunately lost to Cheltenham at the end of February to again kill our momentum. Notably this season has seen us concede a lot more goals. I attribute this mostly to our more adventurous tactics (which has also seen us score a lot more goals), but also the fact that we often played some of our opponents at half-fitness having played Championship/Premier League opposition in mid-week. We simply couldn't get the consistency so far needed to mount a title challenge.

As such, our priority must be to make the play-offs again, which itself is no guarantee:

I take heart in our recent upturn in performances and our run at the end of last season, where we showed we had the stamina for the race. It's going to be damn tough, though.

Carabao Cup

Making the Quarter-Finals was an excellent achievement, and the full-house against Tottenham was a much-needed boost to the coffers. Nevertheless, there is no hiding from the fact that this had a negative impact on our promotion challenge. Liverpool would go on to win the competition, with us named as the overachievers:

Leasing.com Trophy

For the second season in a row we went out to Arsenal Under 23s. There is clearly an imbalance in the game at this point, because the Premier League U23s are just full of first team quality players. In this match, we came up against Reiss Nelson, Bakary Saka, Guendouzi, Tom Davies, Falori Balogun. Nevertheless, we were a missed penalty in normal time from Chuks Aneke away from victory, and a missed penalty in the shoot-out from the same man (Finishing 13, Composure 13, Penalties 12) from making the next round. I had mixed feelings, as there is money to be made in this tournament and I would like some early silverware in my career, but again, the added fixtures were impacting our league performances.

FA Cup

We dissapointed the board by failing to get into the Third Round, but there isn't much shame in losing to League One leaders Charlton Athletic. We put in a pretty gritty performance as well. I am encouraged by our performances against such teams, as it makes clear that we would be capable of challenging in League One - if we can make it there.

January transfer window

January saw a lot more movement than I had been anticipating - mostly in terms of departures. Last year's League Two goalkeeper of the season Dimitar Mitov was finally lured away by Scottish side Hamilton Academicals, who parted with EUR 350k plus future incentives for the privilege.

Sadly, we also lost our young talent Pascal Juan Estrada to his native country for a fee of EUR 275k rising to EUR 350k plus incentives. Pascal developed brilliantly over the one and a half seasons with us, but I am confident we can put the funds to better work. I was also slightly concerned about the lack of development of some of his mental stats. Nevertheless, I hope he progresses well and we earn some more money from the future incentives.

Kyle Knoyle, our second choice right back, has been with us since the get-go, but he had been dissapointed this season by a lack of game time. I was sadly always concerned about his lack of technical ability (notably crossing and tackling), whilst his determination was also always a concern. Therefore I wasn't too sad to receive EUR 150k for him. He makes a move to League One side Rotherham.

Otis Khan and Samir Carruthers were both not featuring this season, so we moved them on. Otis Khan was picked up by Notts County on a free transfer:

Meanwhile, conference side Port Vale took Samir Carruthers on loan for the final 6 months of his contract, whilst also paying his EUR 2.9k per week wages in full.

Finally, Deji Sotona, who we picked up on a free transfer at the beginning of the season, leaves for EUR 60k to Derby County, with numerous other financial incentives. He featured only intermittently for the first time and was excited by the prospect, so I saw no reason to stand in his way. Hopefully we benefit even more in the future.

That puts our transfer income at EUR 800k, for the season, plus add-ons. This is a very welcome boost to our coffers. In their place, I brought in a couple more loanees:

Reece Devine is a fantastic left-back, a position where Leif Davies had been struggling this year and we also suffered from an injury to ex-captain Harrison Dunk. Devine's contract expires at the end of the season, and hopefully we will be able to convince him to stay on. Much of that will depend on our status at that time.

The same applies to Ben Sheaf. I had noticed him when scouting the Arsenal U23s for the Leasing.com match and knew I would have to try and get him. We are paying some heavy wages but he more than fills the gap left by Estrada, and his contract also expires at the end of this season. He will be a priority.

George Tanner is yet another loan signing, but sadly there was no other options on the free market at this stage. We will re-assess come the end of the season. In the meantime, George provides us with great attacking and defensive qualities and will provide some depth for us.

In fairness, Mitov's position had been under threat this season anyway, as his form had deteriorated and young Burton was pushing for his spot. Stephen Henderson is not highly rated by my coaches, but I was satisfied that he would be able to provide enough competition to Burton to see us through the rest of this season. Again, we will re-assess in the summer.

Wish me luck as we go into the final ten games of the season! Here's hoping I have good news at the end of the campaign.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

End of season update

All 46 fixtures have been played, and...

Once again we have made it into the play-offs after a hard-fought end to the season. There were a couple of moments where it looked like things weren't going to turn out that way, but we kept our nerves and put in some excellent displays toward the end of the season to make it. In all honesty, it should have been more comfortable this season, and there are things we will need to look at in the summer regardless of the result of the play-offs...

Here are the results:

As you can see, there were some smashing wins along the way. Finishing the season off with a 5-0 win was also pretty nice, and gives us some momentum going into the play-offs. Indeed, our only loss in April came against Oxford United in the very last minute of the game, after a mistake by Ryan Astley. Top performers in the run-in were Alex Jakubiak, who finished the season with 14 goals and 5 assists in 23 starts, and loanee Ben Sheaf, who bagged 5 goals and a pair of assists.

And there is the league table. It feels good to have made it into the play-offs in such a competitive season. Oxford deservedly won the league - they were a class above everyone in the division. Our points total of 81 is quite incredible and would have seen us finish in 3rd place last season. Indeed, we finished 7th last year on 73 points so it has been an improvement in every way this season (even if the press keep saying we have underachieved).

But now we have to go one step further and win the play-offs! We will be facing Tranmere in the semi-finals. Tranmere finished in 8th last season and have been up there all campaign this year, too. We have played them twice this season, winning 2-1 at home and drawing 0-0 away. Last season we exchanged a 1-0 win for a 1-0 loss, meaning it has always been a relatively tight affair. I expect much the same this time around.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

We're off to Wembley!

We made it at the second time of asking! Our first trip to Wembley and the opportunity to reach the third tier of English football for the first time in 20 years. We certainly made it difficult for ourselves, though...

Twice we had to come from behind in this game, after a couple of clangers from goalkeeper Callum Burton. He initially dropped a corner for the Tranmere defender to tap home, before allowing a weak header from a corner to squeeze past him with just quarter of an hour remaining. Having equalised with a powerful header from Astley, it had only looked like we would go on to win but Tranmere's second really tested our character. Fortunately the man of the moment Alex Jakubiak popped up to head home expertly from Leon Davies' cross to keep the tie level going into the second leg.

Tranmere took the lead with a weak drive from distance that squirmed past the nervous Burton once again. But the boys responded YET again, with Dallas striking the post just over 5 minutes later, leaving Wellens with a tap in for 1-1. Both sides appeared to be nervous but we were controlling the game and making the best chances, before finally a clanger went in our favour..

The final will be against 7th placed Notts County, after they beat Grimsby in extra time. In our two matches against them this season we drew 0-0 and won 1-0. I expect more goals than that this time around...

[Gottlieb Pferd]

League Two Play-off Final 2022

We did it! An incredible achievement for the club but no less than we deserved. The amount of times we have turned games round in the latter stages of this season is testament to this team's fitness and character. Both of those were needed in abundance today.

Cambridge United 0:1 Notts County - Kieron Morris (18.)

 

Notts had control of the game in the opening ten minutes and took full advantage of Burton's recent uncertainty as he parried a speculative effort into his own net. It seems like recently we need the opposition to score to release tension, because after this moment we completely dominated the first half.

Cambridge United 1:1 Notts County - Alex Jakubiak (34)

 

After a period of intense pressure, we were consistently finding Dallas in space down the right channel. Leon Davies played him in again at this point and he drew the central defender towards him before picking out Jakubiak with a perfect cross. The Jak, with the Scotland manager watching on in the stands, steadied himself and carefully guided his volley into the bottom corner to level the scores.

Cambridge United 2:1 Notts County - Alex Jakubiak (40)

 

We continued to apply the pressure before half-time and were rewarded with another sumptuous volley from the Jak. We played the ball to Wiebe from a corner who squared the ball over to Ben Sheaf. His pass found Jakubiak who hit an exceptional volley past the stunned County keeper. A perfect time to score and momentum was fully ours at this point.

Cambridge United 3-1 Notts County - Dallas (54)

 

At this point we were inviting a little bit more pressure from Notts County and we executed a training ground counter-attack to effectively seal the game. Having won the ball in the midfield, Bobby Carroll drove us forward and unleashed Andy Dallas. Whilst he is usually great at making these runs, his finishes are always a little hit-and-miss. Not today.

Cambridge United 4:1 Notts County - Jakubiak (pen 64)

 

Notts County are already on the mat but this is the knockout blow. Ben Sheaf draws a foul on the edge of the box and the man-of the-moment Alex Jakubiak steps up to calmly score his 21st goal of the season and send us into League One.

Thanks for reading! I will have an end of season update shortly before preparations start for life in League One.

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Season review 2021-2022

What a season. I had been envisioning a long future at Preussen Munster at the start of this save, but I really landed on my feet with this job. It has been enjoyable from the very first game. Long may that continue.

Awards

I received my first major personal award as manager, being named the Sky Bet League Two Manager of the Year.

After seeing Iker Pozo win the award last season, this year saw another of our players receive the Sky Bet League Two Player of the Year award. Congratulations to Tom Carroll for a fantastic season.

He was also named in the league's Team of the Year.

Jakubiak's sensational end-of-season form saw him finish as the division's joint top goalscorer with 19. Sadly, he was awarded second place due to playing more games than his opponents. After a slow start to life at the club last season, he has really matured and performed fantastically this year.

Alex can actually consider himself fairly unlucky not to win the award, as although he played 40 games in total, only 26 of these were starts, and his goals/per minute ratio is actually by far the best in the division.

And in light of these impressive performances, it is possible that we will soon have a Scottish international on our hands.

The club's personal end-of-season awards saw Tom Carroll also voted the Fans' Player of the season, by some margin. Charlie Wellens rightly received the award of signing of the season - getting him on a free transfer for just over EUR 500 a week was some coup, and his return of 8 goals and 3 assists is pretty decent for an 18 year old. Incredibly, Ben Sheaf was named out young player of the season for his 4 months at the club. Whilst he was only here briefly (he has now signed permanently for FC Dallas in the US), it is likely that we wouldn't have made the play-offs or won promotion without his 5 goals, 3 assists and dominating displays toward the back end of the season. We wish him the best of luck.

Transfers

Before the end of the season, we took a couple of young lads from Premier League clubs on trial with us. One of them was a talented young midfielder from Liverpool and as soon as we took a look at him, I knew we had to snap him up. I see him as taking up the role played by Bobby Carroll, a kind of box-to-box playmaker.

He was joined by a couple of other Liverpool trialists, who will be beginning life at the club in the U23s. I am particularly excited by Brendan Mitchell and in light of his versatility, I certainly envisage him getting game time this season.

We also signed Armando Broja from Chelsea on a pre-contract. He will initially feature for the U23s and challenge Andy Dallas for the pressing forward role.

There is likely to be a higher turnover this season than last, but we have managed to retain the following first team players:

Callum Burton (GK), Leon Davies (DR), Harry Darling (DC), Omar Beckles (DC), Danilo Wiebe (DM), Tom Carroll (MC), Kundai Benyu (MC), Chuks Aneke (ST), Alex Jakubiak (ST), Andy Dallas (ST), Sam Bennett (ST), Craig Powell (ST), Leif Davis (LB - loan renewed), Charlie Wellens (ST)

Elias Sorensen (ST, Newcastle United), Ben Sheaf (MC, Arsenal - pre-contract signed with FC Dallas), Reece Devine (DL, Manchester United - pre-contract signed with Newcastle United), Iker Pozo (MC, Manchester City), George Tanner (DR, Birmingham City), Jay Stansfield (ST, Everton), Ryan Astley (DC, Everton) and Bobby Carroll (MC, Everton) are at this stage all set to return to their parent clubs when their loans finish. I am hopeful of keeping Stansfield, Astley and Carroll but they have so far rejected attempts to extend the loan.

I will be back with a roundup of pre-season fixtures and transfers.

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Pre-Season

Unsurprisingly it has been a busy couple of months as we prepare for life in League One. Things have been made doubly difficult by the fact that we had two less weeks to prepare due to the play-offs. In spite of that, we have made fantastic progress in strengthening the squad and had some excellent results in our pre-season fixtures.

Transfers

It was a very busy month indeed on the transfer front. We released a number of players at the end of June:

The most notable names here are perhaps Samir Carruthers, Harvey Knibbs and Harrison Dunk. Carruthers had been set to play a crucial role last season, but an early injury and poor training performances saw his physicals deteriorate drastically and he spent the second half of the season out on loan in the Conference - most likely where he will end up playing in the future. Harvey Knibbs also spent most of last season on loan in the Championship, where he ended up as Welling's top goalscorer. Sadly, he did not progress enough in the last couple of seasons and I did not deem him capable of making the step up to League One standard. Finally, ex-captain Harrison Dunk left the club as well this summer. Harrison was our back-up left-back last season but a 6 month injury left him far behind the level we need this season and we had to let him go. He was rewarded for his more than a decade's service by a Testimonial in pre-season.

Incoming (First Team)

Once July came around, we began to bring players in in earnest. With the loan players returning, we only had 14 first team players. We had been scouting all season, but I also spent the first couple of weeks bringing in released players on trial - this is where did most of our shopping. First up, we signed Connor RIpley after a successful trial.

We plan to play slightly more defensive this season and closer to our goal and Ripley suits this perfectly. He is exceptional in the air, has good reflexes and is intelligent. He is also a "perfectionist".

In defence, George Taft returns to the club on a free transfer to fill in as a back-up left back and centre back. George knows the club well and is excellent value for money.

He will be joined in defence by Lloyd Jones, Graeme Gebbie and Jordan Clarke. Jones is a technically strong central-defender, but he is also a real weapon in the air - I hope that he will be able to profit from our set-piece prowess. Graeme Gebbie is also likely to get a few goals this season, but I brought him in for his outstanding mental stats. I tried to sign Gebbie on a free transfer from Stirling during my first summer at the club, but he chose to go to Aston Villa instead. Now he finally joins us on loan. Clarke is tested at this level and will be a more defensive-minded full-back than Leon Davies. We had tried to go for the former-Celtic defender Anthony Ralston initially, but he decided to join Hibernian instead.

Our midfield has also been bolstered by a number of recruits. Joining us on loan from affiliate club Everton is Vivian Robinson. Vivian is a tenacious defensive midfielder, that I hope will help us win the ball-back quickly and help us to launch counter-attacks. On top of that, he is a top class set-piece taker. He will be vital for us this season.

Elijah Dixon-Bonner is another ex-Liverpool player signed on a free transfer this summer, and will likely compete with his ex-academy teammate Stockbridge for game time in the B2B position.

Also competing for one of the two central midfield berths is George Maris, who was released from Sunderland in the summer. He signed a 1-year contract to return to the club and I hope he will prove to be a strong squad member. He can play equally well as a box-to-box or as a playmaker.

As we are likely to be fielding a wider 4-3-3 this season, I thought it was important to ensure we had at least 1 out-and-out winger. We had stiff competition for the loan signing of Liam Higgins, but in the end our good reputation for developing youth players won the day.

Up front, we have brought in some real presence in the shape of Fraser Hornby, another Everton loanee, and Sven Schipplock, an ex-Bundesliga striker. Both are powerful and quick and will help to transform our tactics this season. I had to think hard about the Schipplock signing, as he was demanding pretty high wages. In the end, I felt that his physical presence and personality make this a worthwhile 1-season signing.

Incoming (U23s)

We have also further bolstered our youth team this summer with the free signings of Hadan Chase (ex-Arsenal) and Yoane Zohore. It is likely that they will spend at least some time out on loan this campaign.

Season preview

In light of these signings, we are incredibly being tipped by the media to end up 5th in our first season!

With so many big teams to compete with, I am still aiming to simply stay in the division this season as we figure out a way of competing financially in the long-term - anything more will be a bonus. After completing all of our transfers in the summer window, we are EUR 13.5k p/w under the wage budget with just under EUR 200,000 left to spend on transfers. The club's total balance currently stands at just over EUR 1.5 million.

I am pretty optimistic about the season after this transfer window, and think we stand a good chance of a strong season! See you in November.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

November Update

We have taken to life in League One like a duck to water, ending October in 6th place. We have drawn very few games so far but have competed in (almost) every single game, showing the quality that is in this side. This opening stage of the season has been very useful for me to experiment tactically, as we try to find the right balance with the players at my disposal. We are predominantly sticking with the narrow 4-3-3, but we are essentially playing with one wing-back and one extra centre-back. For the most part, this wing back has been Leeds United loanee Leif Davis, who has been really enjoying this new role and has an impressive 8 assists to his name already.

On the whole, its a fairly impressive start , but we are conceding a fair amount of goals. Indeed, in terms of Expected Goals, we ought to have lost quite a few of our victories. Nevertheless, we clearly have a few routes to scoring goals and we have also collected some good clean sheets as well, such as the one against Sunderland. This bodes well for the future.

As you can see, we currently occupy the final play-off spot. Sheffield Wednesday have led the league since the get-go, and we are in for a tough game when we face them. Meanwhile, Millwall had a rough start but are now hitting some fine form. Incredibly, we have been drawn against them in the Carabao Cup and the Leasing.com Trophy, so we will be getting a bit sick of them by the time the season is out. So far, we have lost to them twice in the Carabao and in the League. Sunderland are clearly the most dissapointing performer's in the division and manager Darren Ferguson will no doubt soon be under some severe pressure.

Top performers

Clearly our best player this season is on-loan midfielder Vivian Robinson. The combative defensive-midfielder has been key in launching counter-attacks, defending our 18-yard box and - crucially - swinging in those deadly set-pieces. 11 assists in 17 is some feat for the 18-year old.

Keeping him fit and not suspended will be crucial to our fortunes this campaign.

Equally key has been our most recent signing, John Marquis.

John had been on trial with us for most of pre-season but turned down a few contract offers. Finally, after losing our first three matches, I decided to accept his demands and got him to sign on the dotted line. He stepped off the bench for his debut against Lincoln to score the winner and has been in fine form ever since. Long may it continue.

Cup competitions

Sadly we exited the Carabao Cup in the first round, after being given a tough draw away to Millwall. We were also still trying to figure out our best line-up after so many changes in the summer, so I can look past this without too much dissapointment.

Leasing.com Trophy

Our performance in this competition, however, has been pretty poor. We were 2-0 down to Aston Villa U23s before turning it round to 3-2. We then conceded in the last minute to draw the match and whilst we did win on penalties, it puts us in a sticky situation. This was compounded by a poor, albeit unfortunate, loss to League Two Stevenage. I had been hoping for a run in this competition to boost the coffers, but it looks like we will be going out in the Group Stage. Our final game is against Millwall.

FA Cup

We were given a fairly tough draw in the FA Cup and, as I am looking to make a decent go of it this season, we will be going full strength next week against our fellow promoted side Oxford.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

March update

The season has followed a similar pattern to seasons past, as we suffered something of a slump over the winter period, before picking things up again going into March. As it is, we can be very happy with our progress with 10 games to go.

Transfer Window

It was another fairly active January transfer window, as I looked to deal with some of the players in our squad that were not featuring. Club icon and last year's player of the year Tom Carroll moved on after featuring sporadically over the course of the first half of the season, whilst Jordan Clarke was sold to Coventry and Chuks Aneke moved to Wrexham on loan for the rest of the campaign. Furthermore, we suffered a serious injury to top assist-maker Vivian Robinson, meaning I had to make some moves to shore up our midfield. Returning to the club is Everton midfielder Bobby Carroll, who fits perfectly into our new tactic (more about that later).

He was joined by the largest signing I have yet made at the club: Brad Potts. Potts comes from Championship side Preston and has all of the features I look for in an attacking central midfielder. Note in particular his PPMs.

Brad is on big wages but I consider him vital to our tactics, and I don't think there are many better in his position in this entire division. He also brings some presence to our otherwise slight midfield.

Finally, Gary Bermingham joins us on a free transfer from Shamrock Rovers. We have good knowledge of Ireland due to having a number of coaches from there, and they have been teeing us up with a few incredibly promising players. Bermingham will be pushing Ripley over the next couple of seasons.

League One

We suffered three dissapointing defeats in a row over December, whilst also being knocked out of our last remaining cup competitions. As it worked out, that seemed to free us up going into January where we secured some very impressive results with a new style of play. For most of the first half of the season, we had been using the narrow 4-3-3 that won us promotion. However, against Sheffield Wednesday, I began to tweak our wider 4-3-3 formation to ensure we utilize our pace as well as possible. We have used this for most away matches and big matches ever since.

It has meant that our top goalscorer John Marquis has been featuring less, due to the fact that he has a "Holds up ball" PPM. This tactic is focused on attacking vertically at pace, with very little space between our defensive line and our attacking line. Young Charlie Wellens has thrived so far in this position, due to his exceptional off the ball movement, whilst Higgins has been finally presented with the opportunity to show his worth with his pace. The key has been balancing the defensive positions. If Leif Davis is playing at left-back, I will usually prefer Lloyd Jones (a centre-back by trade) at right back to add more solidity. If Leon Davies is playing at right back, then Georgey Taft will come in at left-back. This gives us the presence at the back that is necessary for soaking up pressure.

As you can see, we dropped considerably during that slump in December, but we have recovered well and our now challenging for the promotion positions. With Vivian Robinson now back in the side, I am very hopeful indeed that we can maintain this push.

FA Cup

Now Doncaster isn't an exceptionally difficult task by any stretch of the imagination, but in the midst of a busy schedule, we would have preferred slightly easier opposition. As it was, we conceded a goal in Extra Time to knock us out of the FA Cup in the second round, to the dissapointment of the fans and the board. I had also been hoping for some of the cash from this cup run, as our coffers are looking particularly empty at the moment, even if we are EUR 11k under our wage budget.

Leasing.com Trophy

We did end up making it out of the group stage with an exceptional 3-0 win against Millwall, only to lose convincingly to Watford U23s in the next round. As with Arsenal last year, their team featured a number of players that are playing for them in the Premier League and we could not cope with the quality of their finishing. It also came in the midst of our worst period of form in the season.

 

JOB OFFERS

Our poor period of form coincided with a number of interviews that I held with Championship clubs, and I confess that my head may have been turned somewhat.

I was particularly excited about the prospect of working for Middlesbrough, a club with an exceptional youth academy system. I had been approached rather than applying for the job so I was pretty gutted when I ended up not being chosen. As such, I have decided that I will be ignoring any more approaches for the rest of the season in order to fully focus on the job at hand with Cambridge Utd. I will reassess my future in the summer.

As it is, everything is in place for us to challenge for the play-off positions and that has to be our aim! I will be back in April with an update.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

End of Season update

So the regular season has come to an end.  With one game left to go in the season, the table looked like this:

Bradford City and Fleetwood both had the opportunity to knock us out of our play-off spot at the last if we slipped up and they grabbed wins. We would be facing Rochdale in the last match, a team we had failed to beat in (X) previous attempts. Mark Warburton's side had been another impressive over-achieving side this campaign and despite our contrasting recent form, this was sure to be a tough test.

And it certainly was.. Despite creating by far the better chances (6 Clear cut chances to 2), we ended up running out 3-2 losers on the night. We mounted a stirring come back from 2 goals down and were pressing for a winner when we were hit with a late sucker-punch. We were therefore relying on Bradford, Wycombe and Fleetwood's results going in our favour...

We were in luck. Bradford lost to Sheffield Wednesday, the eventual league winners, in a fairly unsurprising result. Perhaps more surprising was 20th placed Accrington Stanley's last minute victory that confirmed our play-off position and secured Accrington's survival on goal difference, with Rotherham and Doncaster both consigned to relegation in their place. We would finish the campaign in 6th, whilst Rochdale's win left them in 3rd meaning we would meet again in just a few short days time!

We now have the chance of a second successive play-off victory, and based on our performance against Rochdale in the last game, I wouldn't bet against it happening! Here are our last ten fixtures that kept us in the play-offs:

Our form was stuttering at the beginning of March, but a victory against local rivals Peterborough United stirred us back up and we picked up vital wins away at Wimbledon at home to Blackpool to put us in place.

JOB OFFER

Stoke City came in for the second time this season, and this time I could not turn them down. After a very productive meeting with the board of directors, I negotiated a 2-year contract with the club that will start once this season has concluded. Either way, I will therefore be making my next steps into the Championship next season, but I am determined that Cambridge United will be joining me on that adventure!

[Gottlieb Pferd]

League One Play-off Semi-Final

We had failed to beat Rochdale in our previous 4 attempts, but having played so well the last time we met we went into this match full of confidence. With the home leg up first, we wanted to make sure we did as much damage as we could, and that's just what we did.

4 clear cut chances speaks for itself, we were truly dominant in this game. And that was whilst playing for 30 minutes with 10 men, after Higgins went off with a red card. Rochdale had taken an early lead from a poorly-defended free-kick, but we were level soon after when Wellens finished a rebound from Dixon-Bonner's long range effort. Higgins had an excellent first half and was constantly beating his man on the right hand side. He ran the length of the touchline to whip in a ball to the back post shortly after Wellens' goal where Dallas was arriving to make it 2-1. A Dixon-Bonner penalty shortly afterwards made it 3-1 and from there it was all about our defence. We ended the game with 4 centre-backs on the pitch and saw out the victory comfortably.

We have become really good at defending deep this season, and we were in our element during this game. Rochdale had tons of pot shots but we in fact had the only proper chance in this game, when Brad Potts missed a penalty with half an hour to go. In terms of our attacking play, we were extremely poor without Higgins, meaning we will have to rethink how we approach the final. The most important thing, however, is that we are going back to Wembley in a week's time.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

League One Play-off Final

Two successive play-off final victories! It has only been done once before -  by Neil Warnock with Notts County at the beginning of the 90s. We were in control of the entire game, although actually Wycombe had the best chances. They had two one-on-ones after mistakes in the midfield, but as he has done all season, Connor Ripley was in place to save the day. Chance after chance came, but we finally got the goal in injury time when substitute right-back Lloyd Jones rose highest from a Vivian Robinson corner to smash home a header.

What a way to end my time at Cambridge United. We will be facing each other again next season in the Championship, as I take up my role at Stoke City at the end of May. Here's a quick look at the season's final stats:

The end of season awards saw Vivian Robinson rightly named our player-of-the-year. Keepers are always under-rated in this game, I feel. Ripley was there in vital moments to secure clean-sheets and victories and would have been in my top 3, for certain. The free signing of Andy Stockbridge was made signing of the season, which I agree with. He was a vital link between our midfield and attack all campaign and will undoubtedly bring the club a healthy sum of money when the time comes.

And so Cambridge United - until next we meet. Farewell!

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Arrival at Stoke City

It is just a few short weeks since my trip to Wembley and I am getting my feet under the desk at Stoke City. In footballing terms, three-and-a-half years is a relatively long period of time to stay at one club and it is now up to me to get my head around this new task. I have a two-year contract to turn this club around, or it's back to square one. In terms of facilities, we have a Premier League standard stadium in the Brittania and decent training facilities - at least better than at Cambridge United.

I have also been given a fairly healthy budget to start with:

This could be added to with transfer sales, of course. The size of the current squad suggests this is also quite a likely route to go down.

Setting a course

In order to orient myself, I initially made a bullet point list of tasks I would need to accomplish whilst the players are on holiday and before pre-season begins at the end of June.

• Create a document outlining "Stoke City" identity
• Evaluate Club's performance in 2022/2023 season
• Evaluate senior and development coaching staff
• Evaluate senior and development playing staff
• Evaluate recruitment

I will detail the results of these in the following posts.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

 

Stoke City Identity

 

Footballing philosophy

Stoke City rose to the Premier League in the 2000’s thanks to the work of manager Tony Pulis, in close connection with the chairman Peter Coates. Over a period of 7 and a half years, Pulis transformed the fortunes of the club from one of middling Championship club to established Premier League side.

This was done primarily with an aggressive and physical side that dominated in the air. Goals would be scored from balls in the box from wide areas and from set pieces. There was a strong focus on winning at all costs.

Pulis’ time at the club was followed by a spell under former Blackburn and Manchester City manager Mark Hughes. His time at the club embraced the physical element of the game, but also added more aesthetic elements, finding space for talented, creative types such as Marko Arnautovic. It focused around a physical playmaker in the middle of the park such as Steven Nzonzi who could advance the team and allow for a more controlled style of football.

Our playing style will therefore primarily be defined by:

-          Aggressive mentality, not afraid of a physical battle

-          Strong in the air

-          Score from set pieces

-          Capable of controlling the centre of the park

-          Capable of playing vertically at great speed, on the ground or in the air

Much of this is reflective of my Cambridge United side, making me a very good fit for the club at this current time.

 

Development philosophy

The current board of directors are keen for us to promote players from our youth academy. This will require two things:

-          Players of a sufficient standard

-          Players of a sufficient mentality

These are both things that can be influenced by good management, but primarily over the long-term rather than the short-term. In the short-term, it is likely that we will have to sacrifice on both elements in order to satisfy the board’s demands.

It is therefore crucial that improvements are made in this field as soon as possible. This involves providing current youth players with as many opportunities to develop as possible, with the best quality of coaching available. It also requires board investment in recruitment, coaching and facilities at youth level.

Sufficient standard means that they fulfil the criteria for a role in one of our key positions to at least a League Two standard. These criteria are (position-dependent):

-          Aggression, Bravery, Decisions, Concentration, Anticipation, Positioning, First Touch, Passing, Vision, Composure, Off-the-ball, Teamwork, Acceleration, Pace, Work Rate, Stamina

This most be coupled with a sufficient mentality in order to ensure as quick development as possible. Sufficient mentality includes any of the following personality traits (coupled with acceptable levels of determination):

-          Fairly Professional, Professional, Model Professional, Perfectionist, Resolute, Driven, Fairly Determined, Fairly Ambitious, Very Ambitious, Model Citizen, Spirited, Resilient

Any players that fill these criteria should be promoted to the first team, provided with a relevant mentoring programme, if possible, and given as much game time as possible.

Players who are not of a sufficient standard need as much game time as possible. Players aged over 18 should be sent out on loan, if possible. Affiliate clubs should be favoured.

Players who are not of a sufficient mentality require mentoring if possible, or being loaned out to a club with an excellent mentality from 18+.

Players recruited to the club should already be of sufficient mentality or sufficient ability. Players to be developed should be from the British Isles.

 

Club culture

Stoke is a club with a proud and passionate support, providing it with strong, local roots. This should be emphasized as much as possible. It is key to bring the fans on side and to make a connection via the press and via positive football to ensure that attendance is always maxed out.

Loyalty should be valued, and routes should be made from playing staff to coaching staff. Players that embody the values of the club in terms of personality and playing style should be offered ways to stay at the club wherever possible.

An atmosphere at the club of hard, but enjoyable and rewarding, work should be instigated. This will be reflected by a happy dressing room and players that enjoy working with each other and for the manager.

There should also be a mentality of success and a desire to win. This is the lasting legacy of Tony Pulis, in that the club is one with that still retains the mentality of a Premier League side. This must be tapped into as soon as possible if the club is to return to the level that it deserves.

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Evaluation of Stoke City performance in 2022/2023 season

In order to get my bearings before starting my job, I decided it was important to analyse the club's performance last year. The hope is that this will highlight any potential areas of improvement and weak links in the team. The club finished 20th in the Championship, just two spots short of the relegation zone.

Tactics:

·         Appear to have predominantly used a 4-3-3 formation.

·         Wide players usually Etebo and Sabiri

o   Both players lack pace, meaning rapid counter-attacks out of the question.

o   Potential lack of support for full-backs from two wide-players (Etebo has low stamina and speed, Sabiri also lacks pace and stamina, whilst also having low work rate)

·         Tyrese Campbell played in every available game for analysis as a lone centre-forward. He finished the season with 17 league goals, the third highest in the division.

·         Central midfield often lacks height, unless Reece Burke played in the CDM role. Batty (5’8”), Woods (5’8”), Osborn (5’9”). Burke stands at 6’2”.

·         Thomas Lam playing at left-back.

 

Goals:

·         In the final 20 games in the season, the majority of goals were conceded in the opening 30 minutes.

o   Lack of intensity from the start

o   Cautious approach?

·         In contrast, the majority of goals were scored in the middle section of the first and second half

o   Suggests a need to warm into games, lack of intensity. Fitness or approach?

 

·         Majority of goals conceded came from crosses, followed by short passes, followed by through balls.

o   Frequency of goals scored by through-balls suggests space in behind the defence. Too high/wide?

o   Frequency of goals scored from crosses suggests weakness in the air/wide players failing to stop crosses. 2v1s due to Etebo and Sabiri being too high up the pitch, or not having the pace to track back?

·         Majority of goals scored came from short passes.

o   Ability to pass through opponents. This is unsurprising, due to the high number of gifted technical central midfielders that lack pace for through balls.

·         Very few goals scored from set pieces (4).

·         Concerningly high number of goals being assisted from inside opponent’s own half

o   Suggests the defence is too high and unable to cope with the long-ball.

·         Most of the other assists came down our right flank.

o   This coincides with some poor performance ratings for Tom Edwards in a number of games. Not enough support, or not good enough to stop wide players?

·         Relatively high number of clear-cut chances created and conceded in the space of 20 games.

·         Clinical finishing.

 

Player Stats:

 

 

·         Reliance on Tyrese Campbell for goals. Return is decent at just under 1 in every 2 games.

o   Second highest goalscorer is Abdelhamid Sabiri, most often seen playing in an advanced left-wing position supporting the striker.

·         Reece Burke with the highest number of assists (7). Predominantly seen playing as a centre-back.

o   Long-balls into the forward? Flick-ons from corners?

o   Could be a solution in the Half-back position

·         Sabiri with joint-second highest number of assists. Few assists from full-backs and wingers

·         Goalkeepers with extremely low passing accuracy

o   Tendency to go long, but with no obvious target man (midfielders too small, Campbell’s strength not holding up the ball)

·         Very few appearances for Benik Afobe and Niall Ennis suggests distinct reluctance to rotate or play with two strikers.

·         Few appearances for Webster and Collins, who appear to be the side’s best central defensive pairing. Likewise for the more defensive-minded full-back Adrian Gryszkiewicz.

·         Captain Tommy Smith only featured in just over half of all matches.

o   No serious injuries recorded

o   Better candidates for captaincy?

·         Thomas Edwards and Thomas Lam with large number of yellow cards (2 red cards for Lam).

o   Potential discipline issues? Asked to play more aggressively (both have low natural levels of aggression at 11 and 10, respectively).

Edited April 8, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Stoke City coaching staff

Most of the coaching staff had already moved on by the time I arrived. After evaluating the staff members, the following were retained:

Andy is a quality goalkeeping coach and I will be retaining his services for the time being.

Rory Delap was a fans-favourite at the club during his playing days, and he is also a decent coach. I therefore had no hesitation in keeping him on.

Alessandro is a talented young goalkeeping coach with an excellent personality. He will be working in the U18s.

I then hired my own staff members to fill the remaining positions:

ASSISTANT MANAGER

Alvaro moves from Cambridge Utd's U18 coaching staff to becoming my assistant manager. I had been set to promote him to the first team coaching staff in the summer anyway, but I am delighted to bring his talents to Stoke. He is an excellent personality that has developed exceptionally as a coach over the last couple of years and has a track-record of success.

FITNESS COACH

Also joining me from Cambridge United is Sam Huggins, who I really value for his mental stats and is continuing to develop at just 37.

FIRST TEAM COACHES

David Lee also joins from Cambridge and is the coaching staff's Mr. Motivator.

It wasn't a difficult decision to bring Jonathan Walters as well, considering his history at Stoke City. Furthermore, he has developed fantastically over the couple of years we have worked together and this is a natural next step for him.

Jamie McAllister joins us to primarily work with our defence.

HEAD OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Neil Woods joins us from Grimsby Town to head up the club's Youth Development. His tactical style, personality and attributes made him a perfect fit for the job.

U23 COACHING STAFF

MANAGER

Michael is an ex-Stoke player and was most recently working for Kettering's U23 side as manager. He is ambitious and has solid stats for a manager, so I was happy to bring him on board.

ASSISTANT MANAGER

Joining Michael will be Pablo Zabaleta, a player who has had success at the highest level and is looking to progress his coaching career.

FITNESS COACH

Chris is a top quality fitness coach and I had no hesitation in selecting him when he applied for the job.

COACH

Cole Skuse had an excellent career in the English Football League and with his personality and ability to work with young people, I am hoping to see him develop nicely over the next couple of years.

U18 COACHING STAFF

MANAGER

Karl Robinson is an excellent manager and I am hoping that he will do a fine job of developing young players for the first team.

ASSISTANT MANAGER

As part of an experienced duo, Graham Coughlan will join Karl as assistant manager and provides excellent mental attributes and a fine personality.

FITNESS COACH

Chris Riley will be tasked with ensuring that the fitness standards of our young players are developed to give them the best possible chance of featuring in the first team.

 

And that's our coaching team for the next couple of years! I am excited about the personalities we have managed to pool together and I am hopeful that this will result in our players developing markedly.

 

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

PLAYING STAFF EVALUATION

In light of the evaluation of last year's performance and a thorough evaluation of player ability and personality, I made the decision of transfer-listing Cameron McGeehan, Luke Berry and Tom Ince. The rest of the team has remained mostly intact as I believe there is plenty of untapped potential. Transfers were and will mainly be focused on improving the standard of our development teams.

All of the players to have left the club so far were part of our U23 and U18 sides. We are as yet to have bids for our transfer-listed first teamers.

Joining the club are the following:

Leigh Chandler fills a weakness in our U23 side in the centre of defence. He has excellent physicals and is fairly professional, giving me hope that he can develop into a solid player.

Marc Roberts joins from relegated Birmingham City to bolster our defensive ranks. He is an excellent professional with superb defensive stats. He also provides us with a powerful long throw as a set piece weapon. His wages are relatively high, but I insisted that he only be given a 1-year contract at 33 years of age.

Jon joins us for EUR 100k from Portadown in Northern Ireland. He is already good enough to challenge for the first team, and his prospects are boosted by his free-kick and corner-taking abilities. His height is a further advantage for him.

Enoch is a big target man that joins us for an initial EUR 700k from Nottingham Forest. At 16, he will be going straight into the development squad and is one for the future.

Kieran will cost us EUR 140k in compensation fees, but is a very talented and pacy centre-forward that our U23s had been lacking.

Ellery joins us on a free and will challenge for the first team goalkeeping position. He is just 23 years of age but is an excellent personality and defends his box well.

Troy Deeney was released by Watford in the summer and is the perfect foil for Tyrese Campbell. He has performed excellently in pre-season and his aggression and physical ability will be a vital weapon for us this season, if used sparingly.

Finally Kevin Richards is a young central defender who has previously played in the Welsh Premier League. We are hoping he continues his impressive development with us.

 

CONTRACT EXTENSIONS

FRom evaluating the existing playing staff, I decided that the following players had a long-term future at the club and were worthy of new contracts:

Brandon Austin will compete for the number 1 jersey, but is well equipped to win that battle. Excellent player and personality.

We were approached for Tyrese on multiple occasions over the summer after he finished 3rd top goalscorer in the league last season. We are convinced we can make him the top goalscorer and have given him a contract to reflect that trust.

Reece is versatile and another excellent personality and is the kind of player I want to build the team around. I actually envisage him as primarily playing as our half-back.

Josh is a top quality full-back. He is a similar player to Leif Davis at Cambridge United, but obviously another step up in class. I will look to exploit his ability out wide with my tactics.

Muhammed continues to attract a lot of attention from Premier League clubs, but I have assured him that he will play a key role this season for us, which has appeased him for now. A top talent.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Pre-season results

A bit of a mixed bag, really. Victories have only come against very low league sides, but we put in impressive performances against Cadiz and Leicester, and were highly unlucky to lose to ADO Den Haag. One trend has been individual defensive errors, which is something I hope we leave behind us going into the season proper. Our best performer has been undoubtedly Troy Deeney, who has lined up in most matches alongside Tyrese Campbell as a pressing forward. Here are the tactics we are looking to use this season:

No doubt there will be regular changes and adjustments to this, but I was keen to have a two striker system that utilised wingers. We have talented wide players at the club that I want to make the most of. Our second system resembles the one previously used at Cambridge Utd

The beginning of the season will see us experiment with these two until we begin to understand a little more about how the players work in them and develop some familiarity with the tactics.

I Will be back in November with a first season update!

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

November 2023 update

We are about a third of the way through the season, and it has been a solid if unspectacular start to the campaign. Really, I have to be pleased with the way things are going, but I do have a number of minor concerns.

Sky Bet Championship

As at Munster and Cambridge, my first full season is marked by a large number of draws. This is nothing conscious or intentional, but I guess I could be accused of being overly cautious. I am however keen to get through the first season with as much player and board support as possible before pushing the boat out a little bit. Whilst the large number of draws is something of a concern, I would point to just the 2 losses - the one against Barnsley being more than a little unjust. In terms of goalscoring, a large proportion of our goals have been coming from set pieces. This is both good and bad, as it is something we are working on but I am concerned about the lack of goals coming in open play. Our key striker, Tyrese Campbell, has been particularly guilty of missing decent chances and considering his ability, I would have expected more. Should we free up enough cash in January, I will be looking for a second choice striker to sufficiently push him.

I made my return to Cambridge in September, recording a 0-0 draw against them in a match which we dominated. We found their defensive set-up difficult to break down and my old boy Connor Ripley made a number of important saves from set-pieces to keep us locked out.

Going into the notoriously difficult winter period we find ourselves in 9th place. I am relatively pleased with that, but we are as many points short of 8th as we are of 15th so there can be zero room for complacency at this stage.

Carabao Cup

So far, the only other tournament we have been involved in, and we had a decent run. We exceeded the board's expectations but posed no threat to Tottenham in the 4th round, sadly. It had provided me with a decent opportunity for squad rotation, but we will now turn our focus to the league and the FA Cup.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

March Update

After a decent start to the season, we continued our good form into November, but as usual things have taken a bit of a turn downward since the winter period. Most concerning has been the fact that we have fairly consistently been conceding more chances to our opponents - even in victory. It was therefore no surprise to me when we went on a run of losses in February.

Championship

November was a strong month, with our Northern Irish winger Jon Kiely stealing the show by scoring three brilliant goals and leading us to important victories against Sheffield Wednesday and Wigan. The draw against underperforming Norwich was also a decent point - they have been underwhelming this season despite spending EUR 52 million in the summer transfer window, but their team is full of quality. Jon Kiely ended this month winning the Young Player of the Month.

Our coaches have reappraised their initial opinions of Jon and believe he will now end up being a Premier League winger. We have very high hopes for him indeed.

December was, unfortunately, more difficult. We ended the month with three games without goals, though strangely enough we were the team creating the most chances in these games. We sneaked a couple of important wins against Bristol and Cardiff to keep our heads above water but it was clear we were losing momentum. We managed to recover this in January, however. Three important wins in that month put us into the play-off positions.

Febrary was altogether more difficult, and three deserved losses against Preston, Cardiff and Norwich set us back in the table and in terms of confidence. Norwich were now in full-steam and pushing right up toward the top of the table, whilst we were beginning to drop out of the running for the play-offs.

Of course, not to make the play-offs wouldn't be a disaster considering the expectations at the beginning of the season. Nevertheless, we will be pushing for that for the last few months of the season to give us the most possible momentum going into my second campaign.

FA Cup

The FA Cup was something of a damp squib, as we were soundly beaten by Premier League strugglers Southampton in new manager Andriy Shevchenko's first game. Whilst this was considered an underperformance, my eyes are much more firmly set on the league for now.

Transfer window

As ever, January proved to be relatively eventful. It began with the sale of Peter Etebo, our Nigerian international central midfielder. A EUR 17.5 million bid came in from China, and I was more than willing to accept it.

My eyes had been firmly set on a replacement for a couple of months anyway, so I quickly moved to snap up Sam Field from Premier League side West Brom who I believe is an upgrade in any case. Sam is a left-footed all-round midfielder who will play a number of useful roles for me going forward.

The other unexpected sale saw American goalkeeper Brandon Austin leave the club for the Premier League. Sheffield United had made a bid for Brandon and he insisted in no uncertain terms that he wanted to make the move, leaving me with little choice but to accept. Balcombe had usurped his position as Number 1 anyway, so I wasn't too dissapointed. In his place came relegated Ipswich's number 1, Liam Roberts.

Meanwhile, Tyrese Campbell had continued to underwhelm up front, so I brought in further competition to spur him on. Afolabi had played against us whilst on loan for Swansea for 6 months earlier in the season, and I moved to snap him up for EUR 350k amidst much interest during the window. He reminds me a lot of Stansfield at Cambridge in terms of his playing style, and I am convinced that he can help us to nick a couple of wins (indeed, he has already done that in his first month at the club). Hopefully this will both ease the pressure on Tyrese and spur him on to better things.

Also joining the first team on loan is Arsenal loanee Johnny Campbell. He can play in multiple positions and is an extremely talented young midfielder.

Our scouts dug up a couple more players over in Ireland that will head to the development team and potentially out on loan this campaign. After the success of Jon Kiely already, we have high hopes for Jamie Henderson on the left-wing. Hopefully he will get one or two appearances before the seasons out. Meanwhile, Jonathan Webb is a great character and a talented midfielder that joined for very little and adds something we didn't have before to our development side.

Overall, the club is developing nicely. The board are happy with me and there are some really talented players in our youth side and out on loan that will be pushing for the first team in the future. I can certainly see myself staying here beyond the two-year contract I signed back in June.

A quick glance at Cambridge

Cambridge United have gone from strength to strength since my departure, a great credit to the players and staff that I did leave behind - as well as the club itself of course.

The first team is still heavily reliant on loans, as it was during my time there. The contracted players are still, mostly, the players that I signed however. Connor Ripley remains the number 1, Leon Davies is enjoying life at this level at right-back, whilst Brad Potts has proved my trust right with some incredibly vital goals for the club. Their manager Santiago Solari has also signed up some excellent players, no surprise for a former Real Madrid manager, and hopefully the good times will continue to roll there!

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So as far as this season is concerned, we have to push as hard as we can for the play-offs and continue to ensure our key young players are developing.

 

[Gottlieb Pferd]

End of season update

So the regular season has drawn to an end and it has been a very fruitful first campaign as Stoke City manager. From the first day, I was able to make pretty much all of the changes I felt were needed and the players have backed me from the beginning. We stumbled a little bit mid-way through the season but always kept ourselves in the race to the end, and have ended up making the Championship play-offs ahead of schedule.

We had found February to be rather tricky, but we put that to one side with a sensational 7-0 win away to Luton! It was a day when everything finally seemed to click for us. Set up in a 4-4-2 with Tyrese Campbell and Afolabi up front together, our movement in the final third was just too much for them to cope with and we put away goal after goal.

After seeing the partnership between Afolabi and Campbell blossom, I knew I had to stick wih the set-up for the rest of the season. Furthermore, the central-midfield partnership of Sam Field and Campbell worked fantastically, with Sam breaking up play and playing incisive forward passes to our attackers, whilst Campbell could break with the ball at his feet and drag us away. We had finally achieved the right balance.

The rest of the month went well, but the teams around us were also keeping pace and the fight for the play-offs was clearly going down to the wire. That was put into stark relief when we lost 2-1 to Hull City.

We kept our eyes on the prize though, despatching my old team and over-achievers Cambridge United on the way to a 100% record in April, which saw me win the Manager of the Month award.

The way things were going, it looked the final match against Brentford would be a decider, as they were also chasing one of the last play-off spots. As it happened, the last minute victory against Bristol City effectively secured our spot (due to our fantastic goal difference), meaning it would just effect the fixtures for the play-offs. In the end, it turned out to be a sensational game to end the campaign.

2-0 down at the break, I told the lads that we were unfortunate but berated the midfield for failing to take the many chances they had created. Campbell came into our 4-2-3-1 set-up that matched Brentford's and turned the game around, with the help of Muhammed Tufekci. The match finished 4-2 and we would finish the campaign in 4th, whilst Brentford slipped down to 6th and would be facing Norwich in the play-off semis.

Meanwhile, we will be facing Barnsley in our first play-off match. As you can see, Crystal Palace and Leeds romped to victory and were some way ahead of the chasing pack. Norwich's fantastic end of season form means they are the favorites going into this play-off, but we are the form team in the league and I have achieved promotion via the play-offs in my last two campaigns as manager. So it's all up for grabs!

Middlesbrough were relegated, having rejected the chance to hire me as manager last season. Sheffield Wednesday, who had come up with us last year, also suffered relegation, as well as Wigan Athletic, for whom it had been a pretty dismal campaign.

FORTRESS BRITANNIA

It's worth noting that one of my key aims, to build on our home form for success this year, was a mighty success. Certainly, nobody enjoyed a wet and windy night at the Britannia!

We lost just one game at home all season and ended up winning our last 7 matches there in a row. This bodes well with the second leg of the play-off set to be played there in front of our own crowd.

Transfers

Our second-choice Adrian Gryszkiewicz signed a pre-contract in February with Hearts in Scotland. He had not featured as much as he would have liked due to the sensational form of Tymon, and so it was not really a surprise. We had been unable to tie him down to a new contract, though I would miss having him as an option due to his more impressive defensive skills and height.

In his place, came a Scot from the Netherlands. George was signed for EUR 2.7 million from PSV, having joined the club two years ago for over EUR 12 million. We feel he has plenty left to offer and will be a useful defensive alternative to Tymon, as well as being someone who can fill in at left centre-half.

For EUR 100k, we also snapped up another Scot from Motherwell in Shaun MacFarlane, who will join our development squad in the summer.

Rob Wilson has been set for release by Chelsea and we moved quickly to secure his signature as well. The Welshman will also fit into the U23s next season.

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The season is not over, but I am delighted with our performances. Are we ready for promotion? That remains to be seen. This squad is probably not quite mature enough to deal with that level yet, but with some investment there could be enough to stay up. Either way, we have already achieved our expectations so there is no pressure on us really going into the play-offs. If we do fail to get promoted this year, we will take the momentum of our end-of-season run into next campaign, when some of our impressive youngsters will take us onto even greater heights.

I will be back shortly with play-off updates!

Edited April 12, 2020 by Gottlieb Pferd

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Play-off semi-finals

Sadly it wasn't to be this year. Injuries to two key defenders in the build-up to the two matches threw us out of our stride somewhat, and two stunners from Barnsley in the first leg left us with too much to do at home.

In the home leg, we dominated the first half and missed three extremely good chances before De Jong punished us with a sensational first time strike from just outside the box. Balcombe then fluffed a shot from striker Jacob Brown to double Barnsley's lead and the damage was done.

Nerves were clearly jangling in the second leg, and we conceded two goals early on in the match. After that we fought back hard, made several chances and this time managed to take a couple, but it wasn't enough. An injury to Tymon limited his influence on the left-hand side and that was us done.

The injuries to Nathan Collins and Reece Burke, two of our first choice defenders, through us out whack somewhat. As it was, Norwich ended up thrashing Brentford and then winning the final 3-0 to deservedly win the play-offs and make it into the Premier League. There's always next year.

End of season review

So a dissapoint way to end the campaign, but what a campaign it was. We defied expectations in the league, developed some exceptional young talents into first team players - namely Nathan Collins, Jon Kiely and Muhammed Tufekci - and put the club back on an upward curve. Now it is about adding to that and sustaining this level as we continue to level out the financial situation.

Nathan Collins was voted the Fans' Player of the Season. Nathan had seen very little game time over recent seasons, and whilst he wasn't necessarily as good as the likes of Adam Webster and co, his intelligence and speed excited me and he rewarded my faith in him over the course of this season. Our defensive performances in the final two thirds of the season when he became a regular improved significantly. Jonathan Afolabi joined in January and was voted as the signing of the season, whilst also nabbing the Goal of the Season for his exceptional solo effort against Cardiff. Jonathan was fantastic and struck up a partnership with Tyrese Campbell up top that I hope to build on next campaign. Nathan Collins then took the young player of the season to round off an exceptional campaign.

Pre-season will be hard as ever, and finding the right balance in releasing players and bringing new players in will be difficult, but this journey has just begun. See you after pre-season.

[Gottlieb Pferd]

Stoke City, pre-season 2024

Another busy summer has come and gone, and we are about to head into the new campaign full of energy. We said goodbye to a number of good servants to the club, but welcomed in their place some players of real quality in a couple of key positions.

TRANSFER WINDOW - OUT

The first player to leave the club was Niall Ennis, who only featured intermittently last season. I had been excited by his pace in pre-season but his inability to link up with other players and the superior poaching ability of Alofabi meant that Ennis was always down the pecking order. Hearts came in with a EUR 900k offer and we were happy to take them up.

The next player to depart was Josh Tymon. Josh had a EUR 17.5 million release clause which promoted side Crystal Palace took up upon being promoted. We are sad to let him go, especially after his incredible 15 assists last season, but his defensive performances had always been a concern. I was sure that we could reinvest this money more wisely.

Derby then made a suprise EUR 6 million bid for Ben Osborn, a useful player for a couple of positions in the team but never a regular.

The final sale was Ryan Woods, who departed for Hull for EUR 825k. Ryan had scarcely featured for the first team in the last campaign.

TRANSFERS - IN

With cash in the bank, I was ready to make our move for a couple of targets we had been scouting all season. Please welcome David Turnbull. David's physical stats rightly draw concern, but I was so excited about what I could do with his mental and technical stats that I couldn't resist parting with over EUR 6 million for his services. If I can get the most out of him, and mitigate his weaknesses, then he could be the player that makes the difference for us this season.

Ryan Sessegnon was the next man through the door, having been released by Tottenham in the summer. Not much needs to be said here, really, with Ryan's stats and reputation speaking for itself. Our time had been crying out for a left-footed midfield player last season, and Ryan more than adequately fills this need. Hopefully he can make the strides forward that have long been expected of him this season.

The next player was Charlie Taylor, who joins us on a free transfer from Burnley and provides real defensive and attacking quality. I am really excited about this acquisition as I believe he provides much more defensive balance to our side than did Tymon.

Robbie Gotts also arrived on a free transfer from Sheffield United. Robbie can fill in all over the park, is a very intelligent and hard working player and will be immensely useful for us this season.

Another free transfer that I am really excited about is Jack Harper. The Scottish international is capable of filling in across all of the offensive positions and his mentality and work-rate will complement our other attakcing players nicely.

Liam Delap was our second most-expensive signing of pre-season, joining from Manchester City for EUR 2.5 million after a very productive season with Charlton in League One. Liam provides us with a little more physicality up front than we previously had, whilst his finishing is deadly for this level.

 

The final player to join our first team is Gary MacLennan, with the Scot joining us on loan for the season from Manchester City. He is a player I would love to take on permanently if the opportunity arose in future.

Pre-season fixtures

Performances were decent in pre-season, as we ended with 3 victories out of 4. We experimented with some new tactics, as I would like to play more on the front this season.

I hope that it will provide us with the width, but also defensive stability that we lacked last season. My analysis of our performances last year showed that we scored the majority of our goals from through balls, and conceded an extremely high amount from crosses. I am therefore keen to ensure that we restrict the influence of wide players getting crosses in, whilst having the height at the back to deal with it.  Turnbull will initially function as a central midfielder finding pockets of space and launching counter-attacks when necessary, and ticking things over otherwise, whilst Field performs the more defensive duties of the two. Gotts and Taylor in this instance will provide the work rate and defensive ability to cover any attacks on our flanks, whilst also providing crosses from deeper positions when possible. This tactic has functioned well so far in pre-season, but will likely need tweaking as the season goes on.