celticman (85)
biobank (15)
Northampton Where we are now – Part 1
Hello everyone! This is what I will consider my first serious post since I started up again. I am going to go through the history; the highs, the lows and such. Also the current season, players and staff. All amazing stuff which might become boring, I hope not. Anyway, I will try to enforce an easy structure to follow. Oh and England I will talk about them. Remember guys, any stat player/person you want to see just ask, it is 2024 after all. I am going to do this all in parts starting with current staff and team….
Part 1 – Current players and staff
Senior Squad
This is my premier league squad which I have build over the years, of course none of the original league 2 players remain, but their legacy does. I do have a lot of players who have been at the club for five seasons or more, these are; Bradley Davey, Jean Deschamps, Charles Hurst, Ramon Jenkins, Jamie Manganello and Itaye Ochieng. Some of these are very key and some are simply great servants to the club. My squad contains a lot of experienced international players, but not really any old ones, unlike previous seasons. Also we have a rich source of potential all involved in the first team, some may be loaned out as always. We have quite a few of the academy graduates playing in the squad, due to our outstanding academy, most notably Charles Hurst. I must say I am worried by our lack of british players, but the foreign players are normally cheaper and demand less. This squad is build around a 4-5-1 formation, using a DM and an inside forward as-well. I will now go through some of the players I consider influential;
McDonald is a vastly experienced winger and striker at the age of only 21! He was played under 21 football as soon as he was around really, gathering a total of 19 U21 caps and 5 goals. However on the international senior scale he has reached 40 caps and 12 goals, without having a lot of bad games. He could easily challenge the England records. He started out in the Southampton academy, but was sold in his first season to Wolves for £180K. He was continually loaned out and never made a lot of first team appearances. In 2022 I bought him for £6M and got over 40 games that season and did the same the next year, hopefully this will continue. The best thing about him is that he still hasn’t reached his potential. Although he is amazing physically, his mental attributes excite me, because of his influence, he could make an excellent captain one day. His wages are ok for this level and I am very happy with him overall.
I first spotted this player when I called him up for England as he simply was one of the best defenders available, he had been at Arsenal for 7 years and played less then 10 games and was in the reserves. I couldn’t have an England international wasting away like this so I bought him for £8.5M in 2020, he soon reached his potential and is among the best players in the world. He has been nominated for World Golden Ball on two occasions and at his age he is bound to win it eventually. He has played almost every England game since I picked him and now has 65 caps at the age of 24, he was also capped 32 times at U21 with 2 goals. He is my captain and might end up as England captain one day. Again, he is physically brilliant and posses an amazing header. Unlike McDonald his wages are quite high, but then so is his value.
I am not mentioning the most outstanding players at the club I am purely mentioned some that I want to. Jean Deschamps has been key since I bought him, although his ability isn’t the best, he is one of the best in the league. All my french players who are amazing are not capped, this really shows the dominance of france in 2024…. He has always done well and has been our number one since 2019 and has one the Golden Glove twice, he was runner-up last time. He possess all attributes I think are key to goalkeeping as you can see and his wages are very pleasing.
The Reserves and Youth
The the reserves aren’t very exciting, but look potential! I signed the russian kid a while ago, I will loan him out. He is a bit slow on the developing side, but one day he’ll come out good I’m sure.
This year there is only one really good prospect, usually we have had a lot more, but I hope it’s just a blip and anyway all the 2.5′s can easily make it in the premier league. But the rest are just names and numbers really, you know…
The staff
You can already tell I like my staff, by the fact it takes 3 pages to get it all on here. I have always strived to have the best staff and thats why FM13 excites me a lot. You must be thinking that my board are pretty crazy to allow me to have this many staff, but its all from gentle nagging over the years. Good advice to all staff hoarders, never feel obliged to keep anyone, if a contract going and you can get better let him go. I am going to go through my two favourite staff members;
My Assistant Manager Mr. Olarra was still playing in 2014 and is an ex-chile international. I signed him in 2017 when I was looking with young staff with potential and he has easily for-filled this potential I hoped he had. He is an amazing assistant and I don’t want a replacement at all. He can judge well, knows his tactics and can pick a team.
I signed this great international player at the end of his career and then soon after made him player/coach. He left two years ago, but I have recently re-appointed him and he is a good coach + a wonderful influence on the players.
Thanks for reading,
Please VOTE and COMMENT (more parts to come)
2 Responses to 'Northampton Where we are now – Part 1'
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on November 23rd, 2012 at 05:37
Thanks for sharing nice post.
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on September 26th, 2012 at 06:18
You make an interesting point about British players being so expensive. I find that with Scottish ones I’ve tried to sign for Celtic. They are so expensive it’s illogical to sign them when there are considerably cheaper imports to be made. But that’s also the case in real-life.
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