(FM24)Flamingos Can Fly! Taking Scarborough Athletic to the top.

[robertpeet27]

May 2035

Into the final 3 fixtures we go, with what is a relavively nice run in. We start 1 point behind Brighton who we play away in the penultimate game of the season. I think Southampton and Forest should be comfortable 3 points. 

Week 36 - Southampton (H) - a comfortable 1-0 win, Josip Bilic getting the goal to take all 3 points. Brighton also beat Palace away keeping the 1 point gap. 

Week 37 - Brighton (A) - We just didnt turn up, gutting, Brighton played us off the park and after taking an early lead our plan to counter attack was nulified and we had to try and chase the game but they were too well set up. It puts us 4 points behind them, however we now need to try and secure 8th with Newcastle just 1 point behind us. 

Week 38 - Nottingham Forest (H) - We comfortably despatch Forest at Home, the attacking trio on the scoresheet, Bilic, Vanzo and Kyung-Won. Newcastle managed to beat Liverpool, meaning Manchester CIty pipped them to the Title. 

Results and final table

A Dissapointing end after losing to Brighton, however the 6 points from 9 gave us our highest ever finish with 63 points in total. 8 more than targeted this year. Josip Bilic with a strong month again he finished as our player of the year topping the goals and assists table with 13 and 12 respectively. Manchester City won the title, after a few years of being out of the race, Liverpool bottling it on the last day. Hull, Forest and a terrible Crystal Palace were relegated. 

European Qualification - A good job we did secure 8th place as it has qualified us for the Europa League! Scarborough Athletic will be venturing around Europe next year which is incredible and should really help our finances and reputation.

[robertpeet27]

Season Review 2034/35

A quick look back at the season just gone, a brilliant year for Scarborough Athletic, finishing 8th in the Premier League and qualifying for Europe is more than I had hoped for. 

It will be a challenge next year competing on all fronts but should offer some excellent development opportunities for some of the younger lads who need game time. 

We had some fantastic performers, Kyung-Won scored a handy 15 goals, Bilic with 13, and 12 assists. Im undecided on whether to look for another striker or whether to trust Kyung-Won again next year. 

FA Cup - A decent performance in the FA Cup, however we rotated against West Ham in sacrifice for the league. 

Carabao Cup - A poor result against Leicester, we may have rotated but we should still have had enough to beat a Championship side. 

Finances - Another strong performace with the finances, Sponsorship was once again successful, and we took a lot of money in from transfers, and I will try and sell some more bit part players.  As you can see below we practically break even now, with the profit made for the year from the profit we made from the transfers. I think the european competition will help this year plus being back in our own stadium. 

 

Squad - A strong season for the team. 

Varga - Was impressive, keeping 8 clean sheets. 

Saphiu - contributed at both ends of the pitch, helping with 5 assists. 

Mai - 5 goals from the back plus being the most dependable CB we have. 

Dimic - Not as strong as Mai but he is still developing, however there is a lot of interest in him at the minute. 

Mazzarani - Solid season for the left back, 5 goals and 3 assists is a good return. 

Sanchez - Ever dependable at breaking up play and recycling the ball, a solid if not remarkable season. 

Konrad - A good first season for him, 7 assists and 4 goals from the box to box midfielder. 

Samame - more of a rotation player this year, still contributed when called upon with some important goals. 

Vanzo - 9 assists from our playmaker, plus  goals is a good return when adjusting to a new role. 

Bilic - Superstar in the making he was unbelievable this year, with a goal contribution return of 27 he really hit new heights this year. Resulting in him being awarded the english young player of the year. 

Kyung-Won - Our South Korean Asian Cup winner performed well again this season, he developing nicely and led the line well with 15 goals this year. 

Stadium and facilities - Another big expansion to the stadium by the board, I am not sure when Hull started playing at our ground either as we was at theirs last year? We shall see what happens when the new seaso rolls around.

We have improved the training and youth facilities again and we are very close to being maxed out now.  

Jayden Danns - I couldnt release him at the end of the year, especially due to him reducing his wage by £10,000 a week to remain with us, and with the higher amount of games he will provide good cover as we are bound to pick up some injuries. He will remain here for 3 more years. 

 

[robertpeet27]

Pre-season & Transfers 2035-36

A busy summer transfer window for us, especially due to the outs that we had. 

We brought in 6 players and out went 8 first team players. Some planned, and some not. 

Firstly the outs:

Ndour - Was sold due to him entering his last year of his contract, £20m was a great deal for us for a squad player. 

Bessala & Harrison - Were both released at the end of their contracts. Bessala wanting upwards of £90k a week to sit on the bench. 

Dorrington - Poor signing, the first one since being in the Premier League. £10m was a good deal for him as he had no future here. 

Molinos - Due to two arrivals Molinos was now our 5th CB. Hence when Dortmund bid £20.5m rising to £27m it was too good to turn down. 

Lee June-Hyuk - Loaned out with a mandatory £20m for a player who didnt want to be here. 

Dimic - Not planned, his release clause was triggered. and due to onl having 10% of funds being made available we didnt have enough to replace him, a nightmare as now we have Lucero a 1.5* 21 year old as one of our two rotation CBs.  £50m is great but I would rather him with us. 

The Arrivals

We looked to improve the squad with young players to add to the core we had, until that was decimated with bids from Tottenham and Dortmund for Dimic and Molinos leaving us low at the back. 

Zdenek Straceny £8m - First in at the end of last season was Straceny, coming through the Slavia Prague setup he slots straight into the 1st XI.

Franko Kartelo £4m  - We needed to replace June-Hyuk with someone who wanted to be here, Franko was full of enthusiasm to come to Scarborough and looks like he will develop into a fantastic wing back.

Norman Mortier £24m - In to replace Weinar as our starting advance playmaker on the right wing, allowing Vanzo to drop back into the centre of Midfield.  A large fee but at 18 eyars of age he looks immense and will hopefully improve a lot this year and is already first team ready.

Miguel Oliveira £27m - After Dorrington and Molinos was sold I went to look for a CB who could improve us but also had potential to grow with us, Miguel was the man and once Sporting agreed to the £27m deal I made sure we sealed his services, he will also start now Dimic has gone. 

Arafat Azaleko £40m - A mighty fee paid for Azalenkos services, but he has scored goals at all levels and his physical profile fits the bill for the Premier League and I think he will be a real success. 

 

Friendlies

A fantastic pre-season for us with only 1 lost to Barcelona, Jamie-Luke Chick in fine form. 

Hopefully we can carry this form into the new season and build on last years 8th place finish and push to go as far as we can in the Europa League. 

Starting XI

Azaleko, Mortier, Oliveria and Straceny come sttraight in. I think we have gone slightly backwards, especially at the back, but we have the potential to really improve and I expect the side to be much better at the end of the season from where they start. 

 

[robertpeet27]

Season Preview

We have a tough tough opening set of fixtures to start the year. I could see us having no points after 5 matches, and we play Tottenham in our 6th game, I just hope our morale isnt decimated before we are even into October. 

I think we need to be solid at the back this year to try and gain some points where we can and then have a strong December and January and really target points there when the teams are not as strong. 

Europa League: Some tough games in here, Red Bull Salzburg, Napoli, Feyenoord and Wolfsburg are difficult, but we should have enought to beat the rest, hence Im hoping for a play off spot. 

Season Preview: We are 700 -1 this year, a big drop from 100-1 but still only 15th. We need to respect that and be prepared that it may not be a fantastic season again, we have done very well but expectations need to be managed. Zinedine Zidane has come in at Arsenal, Jurgen Klopp is still going strong at Liverpool. Diego Simeone has been appointed and Newcastle, that will be interesting to see how he does. 

Expectations: Thankfully both the board and the supporters are happy with a mid table finish which I think is the realistic target his year while the youngsters get another year under their belt. 

Finances - We start the season with over £100m in the bank. an immense amount, mainly funded through players sales. I think we are certainly stable now financially, and we will look to build up and be able to offer higher contracts to more reputable and exciting footballers. We are up to 15th in matchday income, however we still are bottom of the season tickets by some way. Hopefully being back at our stadium should help. We no longer have the smallest stadium and at the end of this year we will have a big boost. Our Sponsoship income is forever climbing and being in europe this year should really help out there. 

[robertpeet27]

August 2035

*** A quick note, I updated NewGan for the faces and lost the old profile, hence the faces will look different for everyone, but everyone has a face, you win some you lose some. 

We manage two very respectable draws against Manchester City and Liverpool, before our luck runs out against Arsenal. I am pleased with the performance of the lads, especially to gain points from the good performances, as so often hasnt been the case against the bigger sides. 

It seemed to take its toll on us as we needed penalties to get past Hull. 

A good start to the season, 2 points from 9, but given our opposition, its definitely 2 points more than expected. Sitting us 15th at the end of August. 

Stats by Position, Goals and Assists - Kyung Won and Mai the two goalscorers, with Mortier getting the first assist of the season. 

Player Feature - A quick look at two of our up and coming prospects. Byron Harper has had a full year training in the U18s, he has been called to the senior side to train and is playing with the U21's and in our Carabao cup games. Nicolas Lucero is having to do more than we thought he would after Dimic's departure, he isnt ready, or good enough, so this season will be a big year for him, if he handles it and improves, he may just keep that place. 

 

[robertpeet27]

September 2035

We lose our next two league games, 2-1 and 4-1 to Manchester United and Chelsea, expected results, which gave us 3 losses in a row until we managed to grab a point against Sunderland. 

We breezed past Woking in the Carabao Cup, the rotation team doing the business. 

In the Europa League we won our very first game away at Red Bull Salzburg. What could have been a tricky tie was actually pretty straight forward with Azaleko getting his first goal. We then beat Turkish side Adana Demirspor 1-0 at home to be 100% after the first two games. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - A pre season injury meant Kippersuis played the majority of the games, he has done well with a rating over 7, good given our opponents and the results. No surprise Bilic tops the goalscoring charts, however Santiago Villar is the star man with 4 assists and a goal this month. 

Player Feature - Santiago Villar has been a star performer after returning from loan at Monaco in January. He has carried on last seasons form, and with Vanzo being out injured he has made the most of it and took the starting spot. Brun has also had a good start to the season featuring in all cup and european games and doing well. Josip Bilic gets Premier League YPOM with 2 goals and an assist. 

[robertpeet27]

October 2035

Premier League Victories!!!! After another loss to Tottenham, we finally win, Villar bagging a 69th minute winner at home against Fulham, we then put Larne to the sword in the Europa League. 

Newcastle then hosted us at St James Park where two 90th minute goals secured us all 3 points and boosted us up to 14th in the table. 

Liverpool brought us back down to earth with a 2-0 loss knocking us out of the Carabao Cup, but we could do without the fixture congestion. 

We sit 5th in the Europa League table with a 100% record. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - Kyung Won finds his scoring boots, popping him into first place with 5 goals, Bilic has 4 goals and 4 assists, with Villar also sitting on 4 assists. Lucas Mai has 3 goals from CB already this year!

Player Feature - Although I spent £40m on Azaleko, Kyung-Won is still firing and vying for the starting spot, he has 5 already this term and has been a real find. Keighran Hardcastle has also started well at left back, he has developed into a dependable rotation player and reminds me a lot of James Milner, nothing exciting but incredibly dependable. 

[robertpeet27]

November 2035

Lucas Mai scores again, this time to rescue a point against Leicester. 

We then welcome Italian giants Napoli to Scarborough, and our 2nd XI beats them 3-1 before we thrash Dinamo Tblisi, Santiago Villar continuing his fine form. 

Unfortunatley we cannot produce the same results in the league, losing to both Villa away and then Brentford at home. 

It is now a concern as these were games I was targeting wins from. 

We sit 16th in the league with 10 points, where as we are now top of the Europa League table and have a play off place guaranteed. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - Bilic scores two more taking him to 6 goals, Villar with 5 goals and 5 assists. Jamie-Luke Chick has had a good month scoring two goals in europe. Carstein Geipel has also found his feet, he has 5 goal contributions from 773 minutes of football. 

Player Feature - I couldnt keep Bilic away for any longer, his 10 contributions have been immense, also averaging over 7 in a struggling league side is testement to how good he really is, I hope we can keep him for a long time. Samame has been a really good rotation option but he is becoming unhappy at his role at the club, hopefully I can appease him as I dont want to lose his important contributions. 

[robertpeet27]

December 2035

A mixed month in December, some good results and then some bitterly dissapointing results. We picked up some important results though and remained outside the relegation zone. 

We started the month with another loss, this time away at West Ham who are flying in 6th currently. 

Thankfully a quick fire double from Bilic and Jamie-Luke Chick got us the 3 points against Wolves, vital at the time. 

We carried on our dominance in europe dispatching CSKA-Sofia, Brydon Harper making his first senior start. 

Bilic rescued a point against Bournemouth, a game I had really targeted 3 points from. 

Chelsea easily beat us at home, just like Everton, I had hoped for a result against Everton but they are actually a decent side now and are lower than what they have been the last few years. 

We got 3 points against both Brighton and Leeds in what was a more positive end to the month and we have picked up 10 points this month which is a good return and a movement in the right direction. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - A fantastic month for Bilic as he claims YPOM after 5 goals in 6 appearances. Kyung Won is 2nd with 6 goals with Villar, Mai and Chick on 5. A surprise package in Samame is in 1st place with 7 assists, Villar with 6 and new signing Geipel with 5 in his first season. 

Player Feature - Geipel has had a good start to the season, the scouts said he wouldnt improve much but since he has arrived he has shot off and is performing fantastically, he is a great second fiddle to Bilic. Sion Edwards on the other hand is struggling being out of the side, with Chick being the rotation at Right Wing, Edwards has announced his intention to leave on a free so we will cash in during the summer. 

Santiago Villar wins the prestigious European Golden Boy, he has had a fantastic year and it is nice to see it recognised on the world stage, now to keep hold of him!

Newcastle called again but I didnt pick up, they went for Simone Inzaghi.

Youth Intake Preview - Lets see  what comes, a decent CB wouldnt go a miss actually. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 10 by robertpeet27

[robertpeet27]

January 2036

Normally a stong hold month for us we again attack January and secure some fantastic results. 

We started the month with an expected loss to Liverpool, 2-0. 

Away at Chelsea we blew them away with a 10 minute spell, where Vanzo bagged a brace and Samame, the suprise package of the season  got the third. 

We then couldnt take our chances against Southampton before another brilliant display against Man City, winning 3-1 thanks to a late onslaught. 

Geipel scored an early goal that gave us enought to take a point against Arsenal. After these unexpected points it wasnt a concern when we lost away at Man Utd. 

In the Europa League we kept our 100% record from all 8 games by thrashing Feyenoord before going to Wolfsburg and beating them with two U18 CB's playing. 

Azalenko found the net twice against Leeds but unfortunately it will require a replay after we conceded two second half goals. 

All in all a positive month which sees us rise to 14th. But importantly puts 8 points between us and the relegation place, and we only have Tottenham left to play of the "top" teams in the last 14 games we have. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - Bilic is clear and away the top scorer with 12, Kyung Won in secon with 8. Geipel now sits with 7 goals and 8 assists which is fantastic for a 19 year old, only two assists behind Samame who is the last person I expected to be up there. 

Player Feature - Brun has really stepped up his performances this year, I think the European competition is enabling the 2nd XI to keep progressing and giving them valuable match experience. Vanzo has come back from injury this month and carried on where he left off, there is some really competitive competition between him and Villar now. 

Transfers  - Only outs this window due to the board being unwilling to give us any sort of budget. Sion Edwards leaves with 18 months left on his deal. Kippersluis kicked up a fuss and wanted to leave, I plan on bringing in another keeper in the summer who is better than him with more potential so I think it was a good time to get rid. We are by far spending the least amount per week on wages in the league. 

[robertpeet27]

February 2026

Our first unbeaten month of the season, and not only was it unbeaten but 100%. 

Our only blip was needing extra time to progress against Leeds in the FA Cup. Kyung Won scoring the winner in the 119th minute after a Carsten Geipel winner. 

We started off the month with £40m Azaleko getting a brace before Josip Bilic put us 3-0 up, thankfully Tottenham could only manage two in reply. 

We blitzed Sunderland at home 5-0 before going to Craven Cottage and winning 2-0. 

Bilic and Villar both scored a brace at home to Newcastle, before we rounded off the month by securing another clean sheet and progressing in the FA Cup to Wolves expense. 

This month boosted us up to 11th, on 37 points, now 17 clear of the relegation places. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - Bilic moves 6 clear of Geipel with 16 gals, Samame still tops the charts for assists, and Geipel has the most goal contributions with 19. 

Player Feature - A look at our two new CB's for this season, neither of them has been able to force Lucas Mai out of his starting spot, leaving them to compete against each other. Straceny started as the first choice but Oliveira has replaced him through the season due to better performances, hopefully both can start next year and really take their game, and our defence to the next level.

Awards - Bilic wins Young player of the month again, and our 100% record secures us Premier League Manager of the month. 

Youth Intake - Yet another poor year, Soni Moreman looks a potentially good player but is no means a superstar, lets hope a few of them surprise us. 

[robertpeet27]

March 2036

March follows February by being another unbeaten month, 7 points from 9 in the league before progressing in the round of 16 by dismantling LASK.

The biggest result however was the extra time win over Man City, putting us into the Semi Final where we will play Championship MIddlesbrough. Im hoping we are able to get past them and into the Final!

Azaleko scores in each of the league games as well as the Quarter Final against Man City. 18 year old Redmond Boocock scored a goal on debut in the Europa League as we were through and needed to rest Bilic and Geipel. 

We now sit 11th on 44 points, with 7 games remaining, if we can secure 15 points form 21 I will be happy as we have had a tough run this year but have brought it back nicely. 

Stats by Position, Goals & Assists - Bilic is top of the scoring charts with 18, Azaleko is up there with him now with 14, Geipel and Kyung-Won with 12. Samame is still topping assists with 12 in what has been a fantastic year for him.  Im pleased we have given him a new contract as his work this year deserves it. 

Player Feature - A quick look at two of the French lads we have in the squad, one is the overperforming Azaleko who after a slow start has began to find the net, and secures Premier League Player of the Month. I think next year will be a real breakout year for him. Konrad on the other hand has struggled a bit this year and has not looked himself. maybe it is not his best position but he has performed well there before so it is disappointing to see him not manage it this year.