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Hey there guys, KB here and welcome back for Part 2 of my Wigan career mode. I felt good
after winning our first match of preseason, especially with the performance of new striker
Sone Aluko. However, despite Leon Barnett's headed goal
there were real glaring problems in the defence, and because of this I wanted to spend some
real time to tweak and fine-tune the squad. I sent our scouts to find a decent backup
striker and a good young centre back, and they came back with some great recommendations.
The problem was they were pretty damned unrealistic.
I asked for a pacey, prolific centre forward, who could fill in for Aluko when he was injured
and we needed that speed on the counter. However I seemed to get people who were already first
team quality in bigger leagues. I took a look at Celtic's Teemu Pukki, Frasier Campbell
from Cardiff City, and Hannover's Mame Diouf, as well as a few others. I put in enquiries
as to the availability of each of these guys, as well as a player who I thought could be
a real diamond in the rough.
Blackburn Rovers' Jordan Slew has got a sprint speed of 82 + and the acceleration is insane,
ranging anywhere between 89-99. He also looks mid-range in terms of strength, which is a
big issue in this year's FIFA. His skills on the ball are a little rough, and his finishing
isn't that great, but for a back up he should be able to work his way past the defenders,
shrug them off and hopefully get into a goal scoring situation.
Looking at the centre backs that my scouting team had recommended to me, and again these
guys were top drawer -- but I had to check. I had asked for tall, strong defenders, and
these players epitomised that: I put in a cheeky enquiry for Robert Huth from Stoke
City. The other ones I enquired about were a bit quicker and would be able to deal with
pacier attackers. Michael Dawson was on the fringes of the Spurs first team last season,
almost going to QPR -- and I was hoping I might be able to unsettle him if the choice
is there. Nedum Onouha was an outside shot because QPR were in the same division, but
he would be ideal. Pacey defender, rough around the edges but loads of time to improve.
There's only one problem with making all of these enquiries -- my transfer budget. I started
off with 7 million, but the wages for Aluko and Jenkinson meant that I had to tweak the
sliders. I ended up with a budget of £2 million and wages of 40 grand a week. However I need
more for the additions to improve the team, so I beg the board for another 2 million.
Unfortunately they're not convinced
I get the enquiries back for Diouf and Robert Huth, but they're way out of my price range.
Onohoua also looks like a no-go, but my scouts think I might be able to tempt QPR with a
cheaper offer -- so I fire over £2 million to see what they think. Michael Dawson is
also far out of my league, with Spurs asking for £4.8 million -- and to add to that the
board have turned down my request for more money. I'm not going to try again -- hopefully
in January we'll have done enough to earn a bit more and attract some more players.
In the meantime, I'll have to sell some players -- and I managed to offload some of the dead
weight, selling Jamie McCormack to Stevenage for 120k. QPR also respond to my offer, saying
it's not good enough. I also try for a season long loan with an option to buy, but they're
having none of it. Frasier Campbell is also way too far out of my price range at 7 million
-- but Michael Turner is definitely worth a punt at 2. I make a bid of 1.5 million and
hopefully I can offer him a contract good enough to get him to drop divisions.
I then get an offer for number one goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi. Nuremburg are willing to give
me 2.4 million. I try for 2.8, but they can't go any higher. I stall the offer for the time
being -- I played Scott Carson in the first match, and I'll use Al-Habsi next match to
see if he's worth keeping. Norwich accept our offer -- so I offer Turner 10 grand more
than his current wage of 15 thousand a week and hopefully prise him away from the Canaries.
I also do a little bit of scouting for a left back -- after checking who's on the transfer
list, I see that Getafe have Manu Torres up for sale. I initially fail with a cheeky free
transfer, and decide to offer 150 grand for him.
So our next pre-season match is against Spartak Moscow and I go all out, doing a full rotation
and allowing the backups a chance to shine. And they start off well, McManaman and Fortune
making some good runs and shots- particularly Mcmanaman's ability to take on defenders.
At the other end of the pitch however we were shabby. We simply weren't strong enough to
take on the Spartakplayers properly, and when we do win the ball we were too awkward moving
it out of our half.
This came to bite us in the *** just before half time, McGeady floating a cross over,
and Yakovlev's header really should have been handled better by Al-Habsi, who misses it
completely. AT the beginning of the second half I decide to make some changes, replacing
Nick Powell at Cantre Attacking Mid with Shaun Maloney, and bring on James Perch to replace
McCann as some of my defensive mids.
I was hoping that they'd help to change the game but they didn't. The back four was still
shaky, and you could see that we badly missed players like Aluko up front.
And in the 69th minute they struck again -- we couldn't properly win the ball, and they capitalised.
Again Al-Habsi was having a shocker and he really should have saved that.
We had the most of the momentum in the final 20, but there was no way we could get through
that defence apart from one weak Fortune shot, and the game deservedly ended in a 2-0 defeat.
Thanks for watching, and I promise the next episode will be up much quicker than that.
Let me know what you thought, if you want more matches per episode -- and most importantly,
who should we buy? Thanks for watching, please like & subscribe, and we'll see you next time.