Either Fate or Football Manager 2009 Has a Sick Sense of Humour

By: Daryl | February 18th, 2009

Managing: Newcastle
Date: January 27th, 2011
Progress: 6th in Prem after 22 games

Either fate or Football Manager 2009 has a sick sense of humour. And I suspect it’s the latter.

Because after I finally resolved the Diego vs Foti dilemma by signing Diego and saying I’m fine barring serious injury to my strikers, this happened:

vs West Brom (home) W 3-2

- – - – - – - – Given – - – - – - -
Taylor – Coloccini – Rusol – Enrqiue
- – - Skjelbred – - Camacho – - – -
Jonas – - Marquinhos – - Arshavin
- – - – - – The Pog – - – - – -

4-2-3-1, lots of width, short passing, slow tempo; offside trap, high defensive line.
Diego started on bench, but didn’t get on.

An easy win, despite the close scoreline. Camacho headed home a corner at the near post (first goal for Newcastle, apparently), Arshavin poked home a second, and Lewandowski came off the bench to get a third.

Lew was off the bench because The Pog pulled up injured in the 38th minute. And here’s what greeted me after the game:

Five months. That’s the rest of the season. And it happened the very next game after I signed Diego over Foti. So now I wish I’d signed Foti instead.

The scramble for short term replacements isn’t going well. Both Nicklas Bendtner and Franco di Santo are available for loan, but Arsenal and Chelsea won’t let then leave for a “rival team”. Nice that I’m now considered a rival team, because Chelsea had no problem loaning me Belletti back in the day. But damn it.

The other option is to buy Bendtner. His asking price is 3.6m, and my transfer kitty is 3.58m, so it’s definitely doable. Anyone worked with him before? To be honest I wouldn’t even be considering this if I wasn’t suddenly up shit creek without a striker.

vs Spurs (away) D 1-1

- – - – - – - – Given – - – - – - -
Taylor – Coloccini – Rusol – Enrqiue
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
- – - Skjelbred – - Camacho – - – -
Jonas – - Marquinhos – - Arshavin
- – - – - – Lewandowksi – - – - – -

4-2-3-1, lots of width, short passing, slow tempo; offside trap, high defensive line.
Diego started on bench again.

With The Pog out, it was important for Lewandowski to step in and perform. He didn’t. He got a 5.3 after getting just one of four shots on target.

When Gareth Barry put Spurs 1-0 after 75 minutes I brought on Digeo (debut!) and big Andy Carroll and through everything forward, like so:

- – - – - – - – Given – - – - – - -
- – Taylor – Rusol – Enrqiue – -
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
- – - Coloccini – - Skjelbred – - – -
Jonas – - – Diego – - – Fleck – -
- – - – Carroll- – Lewandowksi – - – -

3-2-3-2, all out attack, long passing, target man (Carroll) fast tempo; offside trap, high defensive line.

And we equalized in the 89th minute:

Maybe not the prettiest goal you’ll ever see, and it’s actually going down as an own goal, but I’m giving the credit to Big Andy Carroll.

Carling Cup semi-final second leg vs Wolves (home) W 3-1

4-2-3-1, lots of width, short passing, slow tempo; offside trap, high defensive line.
Diego started on bench again.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I want to win this trophy. First leg finished 0-0, so it was all on me to win at home. Thankfully, Lewandowski was back on form, firing in two quick first half goals. Diego came on for the second half (still “severely lacking in match fitness” – no more McDonalds for him – but looked tidy).

Wolves actually pulled one back towards the end, and even sent their keeper (the 6′5″ Wayne Hennessy) up for a 94th minute corner. Andrei Arshavin showed Hennessy why that wasn’t necessarily a good idea.