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.