A new outlook for Season 9

Youth has been an important area for my side for a number of seasons. The glorious season of my ‘golden generation’ of U21’s saw my side win all three AEFA U21 trophies – winning the U21 league by a monstrous margin. However, after those brilliant youngsters permanently joined the ranks of my seniors, I always felt it was going to be difficult to ever recapture that level of performance. My kids performed admirably this season, with Coffey, Russo, Alves, Hofstede and Kjaer forming a strong backbone that would have formed part of my youth side for several seasons to come. But after examining the reasons why I couldn’t compete in the league, I did realise one thing – Jannik was spending 50,000 a day more than me on his senior squad, the equivalent of two world class players. I made the decision that it was too difficult to be able to fight on two fronts – senior and youth – and so I opted to move towards a senior only team. This is partially done also for the reason that I want to start playing fewer matches and the youth aspect certainly does result in a high number of matches being played. With that in mind, and needing to refresh the squad, I’ve made a number of deals over the past couple of weeks.

In

Henrique – Rice Crispy FC – £950,000

The world class central defender was very attractive to me. Bought for a fair way under his market value, the Brazilian DC has a high reputation but a much lower wage demand than many other central defenders of his reputation. He’s performed admirably since arriving at The Anchor and has secured a place in the starting lineup.

Sergio Aquero – The Stone Colds – £2,750,000, Coffey, Russo and Alvez

It isn’t often a truly world class striker becomes available, especially not of the handful in the £2m+ AF bracket. Anders of The Stone Colds has decided to change to a youth strategy. After painfully missing out on the signings of Jack Wilshire and world class left winger Christian Vieri, I was determined not to let Aguero out of my grasps. In the end I agreed a deal for £2,750,000 which also saw three of my top youth prospects move the other way. The brilliant Argentinian has started very well and heads one of the most deadly attacking trio’s in the gameworld – Vela, Aguero, Kouakou.

Out

Naldo – Erdinlington Eagles – £250,000

A fee of £250,000 was low for such a world class player, but age was against him as he was about to turn 34. Having lost a yard of pace and with his technical skills on the decline, he was no loner of a high enough quality to remain a starting choice at The Anchor.

Vanderson Canela – Birmingham Southside – £1,800,000

The young DL was a truly world class prospect, but I simply didn’t have the locks that enabled me to keep him. I tried to swap for a number of other DL prospects but to no avail, so in the end Terry secured his services for a cool profit of £1.4m.

Neymar – Edinbugrh FC - £825,000

With Aguero joining, the brilliantly talented and explosively improving Neymar found himself well down the pecking order. Keen to cut costs having taken Aguero’s sizeable wages onto my books, I couldn’t justify the wages I was spending on Neymar to sit on the bench, so off he went to join Barry Watson as a replacement for Benzema.

A number of youth players have also left Beaulieu FC, making room for more improvements in the senior team. More comings and goings are expected over the comings days, so I will try and keep the blog updated and update the team on the right of the page at the end of this season.

A fantastic season

Firstly, apologies for the sparse updates but life and moderating have taken up my time to the extent that I haven’t had the opportunity to write a proper update. So to end the wait…

Season 8 Summary

A very successful season saw my side bring home another truck-load of trophies;

Charity Shield – Winners
Premiership Cup – Winners
All Evening Cup – Winners
Goodwill Cup – Winners
Premiership – Runner Up
Gold Cup - Winners
AEFA U20 - Winners

The Gold Cup triumph was especially sweet. A final against Kyle’s Major Beef was always going to be an exciting affair. The Beef feature quality players in abundance, including Micah Richards and former Anchor-man Nedum Onouha in defence, Anderson and Gonzalez inspiring a quality midfield and the one and only Balotelli upfront. Carlos Vela proved the difference, scoring twice, as my side eased to a 3-1 victory in the biggest game in FML football.

The league was a different matter. With Pato in uninspiring form in the early season (before the swap for Vela), my side were mediocre at best, awful at worst, and the title was lost in the first few games. A 5-1 loss at home to Jannik’s AI with 5 games to play effectively handed his side the title – a gap of 6 points showing how close it was at the end of the season.


Player of the Season

There were several leading contenders for player of the season;

Carlos Vela – Some thought the deal that saw the Mexican magician join Beaulieu FC was a bad one, with Pato irreplaceable. They were wrong. While Vela didn’t score as many goals as Pato, he scored more consistently and he scored against the best sides in the gameworld – something Pato had often failed to achieve. A brilliant player, he secured the Gold Cup for The Anchor for the second time in 3 seasons.

Moussa Kouakou – The emergence of this youngster into a world class forward had gone unnoticed by some. A season of taking corners has artificially boosted his ratings, but never-the-less the Ivorian powerhouse has emerged into a really top drawer player.

Guilherme – Some questioned the re-signing of Guilherme, both over the price and the fact that Beaulieu FC already had 3 quality strikers. Guilherme slotted in at AMC and showed the world what they were missing. An average rating of above 7.5, a goal to games ratio of 0.50 and a huge number of assists and MOTM – all of this when not involved in corners, free-kicks or being a playmaker! A driving force behind Beaulieu FC’s success.

In the end, there could be only one winner, with club legend Guilherme sneaking ahead of Carlos Vela by virtue of his history with the club.

Promoted

I've been promoted from AEFA Org to Mod after 7 hard seasons. The only reason I'm posting this is to say I expect to update the blog a little less from now on, but I will continue to keep it up to date with the fate of Beaulieu FC.

Huge transfer news at Beaulieu FC

In the biggest deal since the return of Guilherme and to the shock of all fans at the Anchor, club legend Pato has departed the club. Pato was replaced with world class forward Carlos Vela, with £500,000 moving into Beaulieu FC’s war-chest in lieu of the extra wages being given to the Mexican (£11,000 a day). Screenshots will be added at a later date.

World-class Mexican forward Carlos Vela is a slightly better player – a little quicker than Pato, although slower to get up to top speed, he’s a better finisher, a mesmeric dribbler and has far greater mental attributes. Most importantly, he’s far more versatile – naturally talented as a left winger, an attacking midfielder or as a striker. With all 4 strikers at the club (Vela, Guilherme, Kouakou and Neymar) able to play AMC or ST, this means far more tactical flexibility when it comes to matches.

Some pundits have pointed towards Beaulieu’s mixed results as the reasoning behind the change upfront (and a likely change in tactics). While Pato, as ever, has been impressive – a goal ratio of 1.3 is stunningly high – the team just haven’t gelled properly. Goals from midfield have largely dried up and the defence is looking weaker than ever despite being, on paper, the strongest it’s been for a while. League form says it all – 1 win from the opening 4 games. With a number of players contracts up at the end of the season, further changes are expected at The Anchor in the coming weeks.

In other news

All competitions apart from The Premiership have been going well. 3 wins from 3 in the Gold Cup leave Beaulieu FC in a good position while qualification looks likely from difficult groups in the Goodwill Cup and Prem Cup. The club also finds itself n the 2nd round of the All Evening Cup after a powerful performance over two legs versus Jondal IL. The Charity Shield has also seen the best performance of a mildly disappointing start to the season in a 7-1 demolition of Premiership side Herrestorp. Meanwhile, the youth side is a shadow of the golden generation of last season but is still holding its own. Russo is yet to find his feet as the leading striker, but he still has another 2 seasons at youth level so I expect good things from the young Italian.