Ladies and Gentlemen, the Money Has Been Spent

By: Daryl | March 24th, 2009

After all the umming and arring about which defender to buy and how much to pay, some decisions have been made.

May the Toon Army forgive me for what I’ve done.

In the end I decided not to splash that £22m on Cristian Zapata. He’s definitely better than my current defenders, but not £22m better. In addition, he doesn’t speak one word of English, and Will says he’s a troublemaker. Plus, isn’t it a masochistic Newcastle tradition to have a stronger attack than defence? I’ve decided to stick with that.

Instead, I’ve spent £23m on Portuguese defensive midfielder Miguel Veloso:

Here’s why I did that.

The friendlies and the first couple of games of the season made me realize that the DM position is key to my 4-1-2-1-2 formation. When Ignacio Camacho is playing, we look absolutely awesome. But Ignacio Camacho gets tired pretty easily. And when 17 year old understudy Lars Lien steps in, we look about half as good. So in a way Veloso is there to share the load with Camacho, and ensure we’ve always got quality.

Just as importantly, it gives me the option of a more conservative formation. If I want to go a bit more defensive, I can now play 4-1-3-2, switching the AM for a more solid CM.

Second, I’ve signed another striker. Never heard of this young man before, and found him via the search filter when looking for young, quick strikers. He’s a tiny Chinese lad (5′5″!) by the name of Fan Bo, and he cost me £7.25m from Vitesse Arnhem in the Netherlands, where he scored 18 in 17 in 2009/10 and 30 in 33 in 2010/11.

To pay for these moves and make a bit of extra room I sold Nicklas Bendtner to Charlton for £4.1m (basically because I don’t need him anymore, sorry Pink Boots) and Mascio to Portsmouth for £8m.

I waved goodbye to Mascio with a little tear in my eye, because he’s only 20 and is already quality. Kid’s going to be awesome. But with my new formation, he can’t play DM and he can’t play AM, so he doesn’t fit in. It was time to get tough and send him on his way.

Both those deals took a while to work out, so neither of them played in the first three games, all of which went very very well.

One other big pre-season move, was a change of armband wearers. Basically, neither Taylor nor Given (my former captain and vice-cap) are guaranteed starting spots. New captain is frizzy haired Fabrcio Coloccini, with fan’s favourite The Pog as vice captain. I braced myself for the squad reaction, but it was almost 100% positive.

Here are match reports from my first three games of the season. You’ll notice a new, more screenshotty approach, which I’ve stolen from both Tom’s FM Arsenal blog and Corey’s FM Lyon blog (update: and Dhaw’s FM Roma blog, see comments). I figure it looks nicer than the old dash-dash-dash style teamsheets. Let me know if you disagree.

vs Hamburg (home)
Champions League Qual, 3rd Rnd 1st Leg

Laurito was out injured, Rusol and Taylor suspended. Hummels took his chance and looked solid.

Camacho banged one in early from the edge of the area, Coloccini got a tap in towards the end and Fleck came on to score right before full-time. That’s one foot very firmly in the Champions League group stage, and the other ready to kick Hamburg even harder in two weeks time.

Result 3-0

vs Man Utd (home)

After finishing 6th last season, Alex Ferguson gave up and retired. And the new Man Utd manager is…

Juande Ramos? The man hadn’t worked for three years in my game, with a hole in his resume from 2008 (sacked by Spurs) to 2011 (hired by Man Utd). Rumour is he wandered the earth for three years and came back a wise man.

But not wise enough.

Lewandowksi headed one and struck one, and Diego came off the bench to make it three. Young Ryan Bertrand got a 7.1 on his debut while marking Cristiano Ronaldo. He was shaking with nerves before the game, but full of himself after the whistle. He even mimed taking C-Ron out of his pocket before giving his jersey to the kitman. Good lad.

Result: 3-1

vs West Ham (away)

Jonas opened it with a chip, but West Ham levelled through Dean Ashton. Frankly, this was the game that persuaded me to pay up for Miguel Veloso, because it was pretty obvious that Lars Lien isn’t yet mature enough to carry us at DM. I’d planned to rest Camacho, but had to bring him on for Lien with 30 minutes to go.

Fleck crossed for Jonas to tap in his second, and The Pog made it three with a great turn and bendy strike from just inside the area.

Result: W 3-1

Here’s the Prem table after two games: