[FM22] La Samp

[Tommo_]

FM22: LA SAMP

Ciao a tutti!

Welcome to my FM22 save and my first topic on this forum. Having been a long time CM/FM player and a frequent lurker on this forum, I couldn’t help but notice some old names from the old Dugout forum starting to post on here more regularly so I decided to ‘take the leap’ and join you all. 

If you are equipped with some Football knowledge you’d have already guessed that I’ll be taking the reins of Sampdoria. You can’t mention Italian football without mentioning Channel 4’s coverage in the 1990s. It’s been covered in many a save intro so I won’t go on about it too much but it’s certainly a programme that had a big effect on me and many people of our generation. (I’m assuming most of you are old like me!)

As a family of huge Arsenal fans I had no choice but to support the best team in North London and one of my earliest memories is watching Arsenal beat Sampdoria in the semi finals of the Cup Winners Cup (1995), my Dad went to the game with my older brother and I had to settle for watching it on the telly.

That Sampdoria side had their best time at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s and thanks to Channel 4 we were able to watch it unfold. They won the Cup Winners Cup in 1990, their only Scudetto in 1991 and were runners up in the Champions League in 1992. Around that era they had a real English connection David Platt who later went on to Arsenal and Des Walker followed in the footsteps of Graeme Souness and Trevor Francis plying their trade for the Blucerchiati. 

If I had to pick Samp would be my Italian team, although I don’t follow Italian football that  closely anymore. Having recently read a few articles about their current situation I was inspired to take over on FM22 and aim to bring back the glory days. 

SAVE INTRO

So, what is the current situation? From my knowledge, I would say Sampdoria is a team with a volatile owner, laboured with huge debts, an ageing squad. struggling to stay in Serie A with lack of real modern Football direction. Sounds like a perfect project for me to get my teeth into. 

Let's start with the debt as I start my FM save the game shows that the outstanding debt is €49M being paid off with a small €220k per month until the end of 2039. That seems quite manageable maybe not a huge issue but I like to manage the clubs for the long term and I like to look after the finances. The Chairman is currently 'open to offers' so this would be taken into account with any sale. 

Now, on to the ageing squad. For the past few years the club have relied on 38 year old Fabio Quagliarella who is now showing signs of slowing down. There is also a 34 year old Antonio Candreva, 33 year old Ciccio Caputo plus a few others reaching that 30 year old age. These ages don't really seem to bad when considering this is the Italian league, I won't go into the traditional Italian football stereotypes but there has been a shift across modern football in recent year. Younger, faster, fitter players, strong recruitment models and modern tactics are all player their part in the growth of some teams. We're now seeing it at Arsenal in recent weeks and it's been a joy.

According to recent posts/studies from the CIES Football Observatory, the Italian league has quite a high average age across all of it's club compared to other leagues. This didn't really surprise me. There are some 'smaller' leagues that are more open to playing younger players and there is also less 'stress' on achieving results. See Croatia, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway. Now, if you take the average age for players in each Serie A team, you will see that Sampdoria are second highest in the league.  One club that I want to point out is AC Milan, even though they have an ageing Zlatan Ibrahimovic they have a larger selection of younger talented players, Tomori, Leao, Diaz, Tonali, Bennacer etc. They've started the process and are reaping the rewards. It's something I want to achieve with Sampdoria.

Whilst, we're on this topic. CIES in the same report also noted 'club trained' (home grown) players. Serie A sides only give 7.7% of minutes to their home grown players. And specifically  Sampdoria haven't given a single minute to a home-grown player this season. This is something I want to change. You'll notice at the top of the pile for giving minutes to home-grown players are Genoa. Genoa are Sampdoria's local rivals, we cannot be overshadowed by our city rivals in this area. We need to put things in place to secure the best local talent. 

SAVE AIMS

1) Manage debt and financial side of the club
2) Create a younger squad of playing staff
3) Focus on specific recruitment models
4) Prioritise player development, particularly local talent
5) Long term aim for domestic and european trophies

I'll leave it there for now and report back soon, thanks for reading.

Arrivederci!

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Tommo_

[_Ben_]

Another one! Great to see you here and look forward to this. I have always had a very soft spot for Italy, largely due to this man…

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Welcome! Glad to see yet another lurker turned poster like myself. I like Sampdoria so very pleased to see you have selected them. Looking forward to following this thread.

[Tommo_]

.       

Our first competitive game went well...a hat trick for Caputo on his debut. A nice cup win over Serie B Ascoli. 

I've set the team up with a basic 4-3-3DM formation. Aiming for high pressing and high possession whilst keeping efficiency for creating/taking chances. More on that and our work during pre-season shortly. 

[Guest]

Following this. Presentation looks top tier so far mate, keep it up!

Edited November 16, 2021 by Guest
typo

[john1]

Good old days when Football Italia was on TV, with James Richardson  Good luck with Samp!

[Jogo Bonito]

Nice intro, good club pick. And anything that remembers the old Football Italia show with James Richardson gets my respect. It's not quite the same now on his BT Sport slot, he needs to be sat in a cafe with newspapers on a Sunday lunchtime...

Good luck.

[sl92]

Best of luck mate. Sampdoria are a club I’ve pinpointed as a fun save for this year as well. 

Any love for James Richardson and the  Football Italia show in the 90s is always welcome by me too.

[Tommo_]

FM22: LA SAMP - September 2021

My time at Sampdoria has started well, my primary focus was to upgrade the staff at the club and figure out the perfect squad for the season ahead. More of both of those in the my next post. I thought I'd start with the matches so far and explain some of my tactical choices. I touched on it above but I'd started out with my preferred '4-3-3 DM wide' formation with minimal team and player instructions added. I decided to approach this slightly differently to my standard approach and I set myself the task of starting games with no instructions and adding them as I deem fit. 

I lined up with GK-D, FB-S, CD-D, CD-D, FB-S, DM-D, CM-S, AP-S, IW-A, IF-S, CF-S
 

.   .   

Can you see the issues in the above Pass Maps? I've added a spreadsheet above with our xG figures, possession and pass combination numbers. Against Napoli you can see we had almost 1000 pass combinations but created very little. You can see from the Pass Map that we had plenty of easy possession but really struggled to use the ball efficiently. Similarly with the games vs St Gallen and Parma we lacked combinations centrally to help break lines and create chances. 
 

.   .   

Hopefully, you can see the difference with this set of Pass Maps. Less passing overall but we seemed to use the ball better. Our DM, AP, CM and ST were more involved and we came away with a higher xG. I'm tweaking team mentality for each opponent and selecting team and player instructions that encourage possession that I want to see. It's still a work in progress but I'm pleased so far. 

When I have further data available through the Data Hub I'll dive deeper into this and try to explain a few more things that I'm seeing. 

Squad management updates up next! Thanks for reading, arrivederci!

 

[nsd]

You, Ben, Shrew, kizmarlo...it's a real TD reunion this year  always had a bit of a soft spot for Sampdoria so I'm looking forward to see how this goes

[Tommo_]

20 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

Another one! Great to see you here and look forward to this. I have always had a very soft spot for Italy, largely due to this man…

Thanks Ben, funnily enough did you know the person that founded Genoa is named James Richardson Spensley? 

17 hours ago, DefinitelyTaylor said:

Welcome! Glad to see yet another lurker turned poster like myself. I like Sampdoria so very pleased to see you have selected them. Looking forward to following this thread.

Thanks! @DefinitelyTaylor

15 hours ago, Fudal said:

Following this. Presentation looks top tier so far mate, keep it up!

Cheers @Fudal - appreicate it

15 hours ago, john1 said:

Good old days when Football Italia was on TV, with James Richardson  Good luck with Samp!

Grazie @john1 - who didn't love abit of C4 calcio!

13 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Nice intro, good club pick. And anything that remembers the old Football Italia show with James Richardson gets my respect. It's not quite the same now on his BT Sport slot, he needs to be sat in a cafe with newspapers on a Sunday lunchtime...

Good luck.

@Jogo Bonito - I agree, a shame they scraped the 'european football show' that was a nice round up programme usually with James Horncastle - he's also great. Good luck with Palermo too!

12 hours ago, sl92 said:

Best of luck mate. Sampdoria are a club I’ve pinpointed as a fun save for this year as well. 

Any love for James Richardson and the  Football Italia show in the 90s is always welcome by me too.

Thanks @sl92 !

10 hours ago, nsd said:

You, Ben, Shrew, kizmarlo...it's a real TD reunion this year  always had a bit of a soft spot for Sampdoria so I'm looking forward to see how this goes

I shouldn't be mentioned in the same vein as those guys but it's nice to see some of them back posting. Thanks @nsd

[Tommo_]

LA SAMP 2021: 1st October



An perfect month for us as we now sit 2nd behind AC Milan. On one hand it's somewhat surprising but on the other hand we haven't played a top half team yet. October is a huge month for us and we'll really see where the team is with games against Lazio, Juventus, Inter and Atalanta plus our first Derby della Lanterna versus Genoa. Wish us luck!

SQUAD MANAGEMENT

I thought I'd take this time to talk a bit more about the squad I have at disposal now that I've had a few months working with them. We currently have 30 players in the first team squad, 6 of those players are youth players that are there to train with the first team but they only play matches for the U20 team. One priority that I had in the first few months in charge was the number of contracts that were expiring, over 8 players have had new deals and I now only have 2 players expiring next summer. Ravaglia and Yoshida. Ravaglia will most likely leave but Yoshida could still stay. The new contracts have also effected our older players, the ones I moaned about in the intro, most of the have had new deals. I'm absolutely aware of keeping them happy as they are mostly highly influential players or team leaders. So despite my long term vision is to move on from them, I need them for the time being. 

I disabled the first transfer window so we don't have any new players. As I don't have a B team, I think it's important to bring my best youth players into the first team to train alongside them, make use of mentoring but they are playing with the U20s only. The odd one will make an appearance on the bench. They are Filippo Calixte Mane, Niccolo Bianchi, Simone Trimboli, Nik Prelec and loanees Riccardo Ciervo and Radu Dragusin. I can't imagine any of them making themselves a regular in our first team but this is all I have to work with youngster wise, our U20 and U18 sides are full of dross that the board won't let me or my DoF sack yet. 

So without further ado here's the squad in full.



GK

• Audero is our clear number one and is showing decent signs of improving. 
• Falcone is our number two, he's home-grown at the club which is important for me. He'll be number for a long time, as far as I'm concerned.
• Ravaglia will more than likely leave at the end of his contract in the summer. 

DR

• Bereszynski is a Sampdoria legend, he's played a significant number of games in the famous kit. He's proving efficient in his limited role (in my tactic I don't want FBs bombing on past the wingers). I'd like him to retire at the club.
• Depaoli is a good backup option. He's 24 so has room to grown.

DL

• Augello is a great left back option. I'm probably not using him to his full potential so far but I can tweak things to make him more attacking in games if there are certain points we need more attacking prowess.
• Murru is a solid and dependable backup option. I would expect he could start for a number of other Serie A sides. 

CB

• I'm starting with Yoshida and Chabot over Ferrari and Colley at the moment due to their better mental attributes but Yoshida is getting older, this is a position that could see investment in the near future.

DM

• Ekdal, Silva and Vieira are my options here. Silva being the first choice at the moment but I'm also wary of upsetting Ekdal who is a team leader in the dressing room. Ekdal and Silva have both filled in at CM at times too. Ronaldo Vieira is getting limited opportunity but has been injured. He's currently wanted by Wolves so will have to give him some minutes to keep him happy. 

AP

• The main man in the side, Morten Thorsby who's just been given a new contract and jumper from influential to highly influential in the dressing room. His Model Professional personality is also helping on the mentoring front. If I need to, sometimes he switches to CM-A in games and has been making a difference. Verre is my backup in that role.

CM

• Askildsen makes it a Norwegian duo in midfield alongside Thorsby. The youngster has huge potential and is performing well. I had some issues with complains about training but after a few tweaks I've seen some progress in his development. I would imagine the game time is helping him too. 

WNG

• My starting wingers are Damsgaard and Candreva. Usually as Inverted Wingers and we're seeing great perforrmances from them both, both popping up with goals and assists. Gabbiadini is just back from injury and has been used on both wings. And as forr Ihattaren, the boy has huge potential but I'm concerned by his mental attributes, at the moment he hasn't been that 'trustworthy' especially with my high pressing matched with his low work rate. 

ST

• I'm having great success with Caputo as my CF, he's scored 4 in 5 Serie A starts as I write this and he also links the play well. I'm having to manage the fitness and morale of both Quagliarella and Torregrossa so they have been present in some matches also. The striker role has to be a priority with all three options ageing or not good enough. 

 

[john1]

Decent start with Samp, despite not facing the top teams yet, hopefully you can carry on with that form into October!

[Tommo_]

SUCCESSION PLANNING



Apologies, I was meant to add this in the above post but I didn't make it in initially. 

I'm a big fan of forward planning and I think it's particularly pertinent with this ageing squad. I also love a spreadsheet like a few others on this forum and above is one that I've recently made for this save and for the purpose of managing the squad. It should be pretty self-explanatory. Each player is listed with key information and things I hold as 'non negotiable' such as personality, determination, teamwork, work rate. For things I like I have marked them green, for things I don't like I have marked them red and the things I don't mind either way have been highlighted in yellow. 

Looking from left to right you can see a few red highlights for ages, bad personalities and low key attributes. These are the things I want to eradicate as we move forward.

I'll be taking all of this information into account before making decisions on the future of these players and before looking at any data on each player. As I mentioned in the intro, I want to build a modern day footballing squad before looking at success and trophies on the field. 

I have then made a simplified version to look at the year on year effect of age and contracts etc. You can see I haven't included the current season so players that have contracts or loans expiring haven't been included in the 2022/23 playing squad. I have one again continued the traffic light system for things that I like, don't like or don't mind. In this simplified chart we're mostly looking at age and my opinion on the player. I'll take a shot at explaining some of this...

Next season, in 2022/23 judging by the above chart I think we have the below requirements:

A PRIORITY 

1. A first choice right central defender to replace Maya Yoshida
2. A first choice left winger to go into the first team ahead of Manolo Gabbiadini who'll drop to a backup option

A NEED?

1. A new first choice striker who would replace Ernesto Torregrossa. Someone who could be younger profile and share gametime with Quagliarella and Caputo and be mentored by both of them.
2. A new left sided central defender? We could sell Colley and improve in this area. 
3. Do we give Ronaldo Vieira a new contract? or replace him? Is Ekdal second choice if we replace him?
4. Find loan deals in Serie B/Serie C for our youth players, try to bridge the gap between U20 and first team.

FUTURE THOUGHTS

1. Do we give Wladimiro Falcone a new deal as backup goalkeeper until 2026?
2. Can Bartosz Bereszynski, Albin Ekdal, Adrien Silva, Antonio Candreva, Fabio Quagliarella and Francesco Caputo stay at the club in a staff role after their careers?
3. How do we replace Albin Ekdal, Adrien Silva and Fabio Quagliarella?

I'm not the type of manager that is keen making lots of changes each summer so I'm pleased with this 'to-do' list. Our priorities are clear and there are a few nice to have. One of the biggest things that I'm very conscious of is keeping the ageing team leaders and highly influential players happy as we transition away from them. FM does sometimes feel like 'morale manager'!

I will have the option to integrate those youth players and returning loan players too. Radu Dragusin is a Juventus player but could quite easily do a job at centre half for our side. Do I really want to develop him to lose him 6-12 months later? Nik Prelec could be good enough as a backup option on the wing as he's developing nicely and playing well at U20 level. I expect to loan him to Serie B in the January window and then see how he fares. The other three currently training with our first team aren't high enough level yet, I expect them to spend season two out in Serie B or Serie C.

Loanees that are returning to the club include Antony Anglieri, Jeison Murillo, Fede Bonazzoli, Gianluca Caprari, Lorenzo Sabbatini & Felice D'Amico - I'll be keeping a closer eye on those players over the coming months but I doubt any of them are ready to step in to the first team. I also like the idea of buying my 'own' players. 

I hope that gives you guys an explanation of the squad and all the things that are in my head at the moment. 

Until next time...arrivederci!

 

 

[john1]

Loving your future planning with the club  

[Tommo_]

One of the first games where I felt our possession approach was too risky...they had a lovely time on the counter attack against our high line but it was also more comfortable that the above looks. 

Bragging rights in the city! 

[Tommo_]

NEW SERBIAN OWNER










 

I mentioned if the intro to this save that our current owner was 'willing to listen to offers' and now things have quickly progressed into a sale of the club.

The Ferrero's have been replaced by Nedzad Dragolovcanin, a Serbian who has previously owner a Serbian Premier League and Lower League team. He brings with him a Slovenia Director, Zeljko Obrez and a Serbian Director, Dragan Sosevic whilst keeping two Italian's at Board Level. This has proved quite a positive step forward, especially with the change in Club Vision.

. 

Club culture before and after

1. Playing entertaining football is still a must. 
2. We no longer need to sign players from lower leagues but no focus on under 23's instead. 
3. We no longer need to break even in the transfer market (but this will still be a goal o mine)
4. Happy finishing in the top half for the near future whilst we transition forwards

This also happened. The new setup suits me just fine.  I've already been looking at under 23 players in my key markets (more on recruitment later) and the Serbian aspect interests me also I'll be planning a longer piece to explain why a bit later. 

What about on the pitch?

It's been a good month and we certainly haven't been embarrassed by the bigger sides. We deserved more against Juventus when Caputo missed a penalty amongst a few other chances. Against Inter and Atalanta I got it all wrong. The Cautious mentality approach that I used against Juve didn't pay off. We had no possession and virtually no chances. I'm pleased to have bounced back well against Fiorentina and Bologna. Napoli had a man sent off early and thus made that game easier that anticipated. 

I'm quite scared how well it's going...

Edited November 18, 2021 by Tommo_

[john1]

Tough October month   Surprised to see Juventus sitting 12th!  

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Gutted that Ferrero has left! The guy looks absolutely mad. He really does epitomise the stereotypes of an Italian . Nevertheless, a great start to the season especially when you consider some of the sides you have faced in the early stages of the season when you're still getting to grips with the side. Very impressive and certainly an encouraging sign for the months to come.

[Tommo_]

We keep rolling on.

Missus is away tonight so plenty of time to crack on. 

[Tommo_]

The highlights of my first Youth Intake - I love the look of Carriere...

. 

 . 

[SteinkelssonFM]

I'm not quite sure how I have missed this one during the week, you have made a great start and I have enjoyed reading your content so far. Looking forward to following along 💪

[Tommo_]

A hit and miss February and March for our side. We've had some good performances amongst so terrible ones, consistency is our issue at the moment. At least we beat local rivals Genoa again. New Juve managers Jardim has hit the ground running and things are looking good for them. 



My biggest concern right now is that the board are 'disappointed' with the lack of entertaining football at the club. The mian is

My main issue right now.

So I made a simple spreadsheet to confirm what I already know.

1. We have the lowest xGF out of the top 8 sides (some way off the top 4 sides)
2. We have the second highest xGA out of the top 8 sides
3. Our xG difference is only 1.13 - terrible
4. We have made the most passes in the league and over 7000 passes more than Atalanta in 2nd place
5. Inter, Milan, Fiorentina have the three least passes completed in the league.

Given the review of the situation above I've tweaked our playing style. Less possession focused instructions replaced by instructions I'm aiming will led to the creation of further chances. I thought I had cracked the code when we tonked Fiorentina away 4-0 but the games that followed were not pretty. We struggled for possession and struggled to create chances. 

We're limping towards the season close but the table is still looking amazing. Not bad really for a team predicted to finish 10th. 

[Tommo_]

Season complete with two awful games against AC Milan and Torino. 

I will certainly take being 'best of the rest' even though we didn't deserve to (see above post). We overachieved (got the most out of the players we have) and we have lots of improve tactically as we move forward into next season. Having the best 'keeper in the league made a huge difference. 

Two huge pieces of news. As we head into the new season, it doesn't look like expectations have changed much, the players were pissed at me for expecting to qualify for the Europa Conference League next season so I had to settle for a top half expectation. We'll see. I aim to improve the team as much as possible this winter. 

One improvement will be that Quagliarella won't be in the side anymore. He was somewhat a burden towards the end of the season, moaning about starting, not playing well, lacking pace etc. We paid for his coaching badges and he's now a coach in game, the romantic in me really would have loved to had in at the club but his attributes are awful.

Transfers

1. I forgot to mention that Maya Yoshida left in January - we received €1m for him from Al-Arabi - he was leaving at the end of his contract anyway. 
2. Omar Colley kicked up a stink around his playing time in the lead up to the African Nations Cup. He was worried about not getting selected but he did end up playing the tournament. When he did his happiness changed but and he saw out the season with us. At the end of the season he asked to leave and I let him do so, much to the dismay of the fans. He joined Wolves for €8.5m
3. Dragusin stepped up as Yoshida's replacement and ended up playing 6 matches. He'll be 4th choice in season two so I only need to find one new centre-back.
4. Bereszynski, Depaoli, Murru, Gabbiadini and Vieira are wanted.
5. Damsgaard wants to leave for a bigger club and kicking up a right fuss. 

-

Lastly, here you can see our output for the season. You can really tell how we struggled going forward. 

Work to do!

[F0rzaH]

Enjoying this thread so far @Tommo_ especially the squad and future planning. 

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Kudos. A fantastic season where you have more than exceeded expectations in my book. The tools were never there for you to secure a top four finish but nevertheless, it has been achieved. There’s certainly work to do - which has only increased given the kicking-off from players that you mention - but this can be a season to be remembered fondly. 
 

More of the same next season? 

[Tommo_]

Thanks @F0rzaH & @DefinitelyTaylor

[Tommo_]

Improving the team.

I thought I would write some notes down regarding my current thinking on recruitment this summer. One of positives on writing a thread on your own save if that you can get ideas out of your head and 'onto paper' so here goes...

I'll start with my comments from my succession planning post from earlier on in the thread.

On 17/11/2021 at 17:51, Tommo_ said:

A PRIORITY 

1. A first choice right central defender to replace Maya Yoshida
2. A first choice left winger to go into the first team ahead of Manolo Gabbiadini who'll drop to a backup option

A NEED?

1. A new first choice striker who would replace Ernesto Torregrossa. Someone who could be younger profile and share gametime with Quagliarella and Caputo and be mentored by both of them.
2. A new left sided central defender? We could sell Colley and improve in this area. 
3. Do we give Ronaldo Vieira a new contract? or replace him? Is Ekdal second choice if we replace him?
4. Find loan deals in Serie B/Serie C for our youth players, try to bridge the gap between U20 and first team.

FUTURE THOUGHTS

1. Do we give Wladimiro Falcone a new deal as backup goalkeeper until 2026?
2. Can Bartosz Bereszynski, Albin Ekdal, Adrien Silva, Antonio Candreva, Fabio Quagliarella and Francesco Caputo stay at the club in a staff role after their careers?
3. How do we replace Albin Ekdal, Adrien Silva and Fabio Quagliarella?

PRIORITIES

1. Maya Yoshida has gone, but so has Omar Colley. Dragusin will be given some more game time (4th choice - I could also aim to buy him) so I will definitley need one more centre half. Ideally one that is better than the current 3 I owe.
2. This is still true as Ihattaren went back to Juve

NEEDS

1. This has become a priority as I still don't rate Torregrossa and Quagliarella has retired.
2. Colley has left so, this is still a need. 
3. Vieira secured a new deal last season to secure his value if nothing else.
4. On my to do list.

FUTURE THOUGHTS

1. All for later on down the line.

So my shopping list is three items long; a central defender, a inverted winger for my right flank and a striker so let's go shopping...

I have left Director of Football in charge of sending our scouts out but the above image shows how I've sent the general focus.

I want to find;

1. Players that are under 21
2. Located in Italy, South America (South) orr Eastern Europe
3. Don't hold me to this criteria

I was impressed to see that our scouting team has scouted over 1000 players in our first season, the A-F ratings are throwing my slightly but it seems more realistic.

From there I have created three new shortlists, one for each positions on my shopping list and set about filtering players. 

1. Non negotiables (Determination, teamwork, work rate)
2. Age
3. Value
4. Role attributes
5. Interested in Samp?

For my center back search it left me with 8 players on my shortlist, (7 pictured plus the one I've signed.)

As you can see it's bought up a nice range of options. 
 

1. Kabak and Queiros would have been my first choice options but their price is far too high. 
2. I liked the look of Nehuen Perez, Malang Sarr and Tommy St Jago too.
3. Chris Richards not pictured is the most affordable option

I started with Perez, he looks like a solid traditional centre-half that can handle himself well enough with the ball at his feet.

Aleti wanted €30m for him so I moved on...

Sarr was next on my list but having looked at his mental attributes again I had second thoughts

TSJ has an amazing name and a good solid set of attributes. I had an offer accepted for him with some money upfront and some spread over the next three season but in the end he decided to go to Porto over us. 

I ended up signing Chris Richards. For only €3m.

When TSG was going to cost €17.5m and the others even more I think I've found true value in this deal. He can be versatile in DM and RB too which can help. I've very tempted to play him a IWB in some games too. 

I'm yet to send any bids out for the other two positions but I have taken this chap on trial. I'm very tempted but also put off by his low composure and decisions.

What do you guys think?

[SteinkelssonFM]

How much is Bernardeshchi asking in terms of wages? Would have to agree that his composure and decisions are pretty poor but his other attributes are pretty decent. Physically he is great and those attributes aren't impacted by consistency etc so will always work the line for you. 

[SixPointer]

1 hour ago, MattyLewis11 said:

How much is Bernardeshchi asking in terms of wages? Would have to agree that his composure and decisions are pretty poor but his other attributes are pretty decent. Physically he is great and those attributes aren't impacted by consistency etc so will always work the line for you. 

Very solid advice this! I would agree with matty although personally I think decisions is one of most important attributes if not most. 

[Tommo_]

Cheers @MattyLewis11 & @SixPointer

Here's what I managed to get him 'down' to. 

I think it's way too much cash for what he's worth. There is no guarantee I'll have consecutive seasons in the Champions League so still being careful with money. 

I'm edging towards passing up on him.

 

[SteinkelssonFM]

11 minutes ago, Tommo_ said:

Cheers @MattyLewis11 & @SixPointer

Here's what I managed to get him 'down' to. 

I think it's way too much cash for what he's worth. There is no guarantee I'll have consecutive seasons in the Champions League so still being careful with money. 

I'm edging towards passing up on him.

 

I'd have to agree with you, surely you can find someone who will provide more value for money in the market for £3m...checks Scandinavian scouting reports...☑️