It’s time to get straight down to work and into friendlies. Our first game is the first XI against the second where the starters do pretty well. My theory of playing exciting football and getting fans through the turnstiles seems to be correct, even if this is a behind closed doors game.
We beat the second XI a whole seven goals to one, with them getting a few opportunities on goal. “We’re gonna score one more…” etc. Except the second eleven is bloody useless and scores barely anything, which doesn’t bode well for any problems during the year. Still, it’s entertaining football.
Then I settle into the pre-season as a brand new manager.
But there’s even bigger news for new managers! Also the greatest ever coup for the Association of Dublin Wine Bars — namely that they need to stick their pint glasses in the washers and get them all clean and sparkly — Big Sam has signed on to coach the Irish national team.
I, for one, cannot wait. I even look around my small apartment to see if I brought any Rieslings with me I can send him as a welcoming gift.
Our first friendly against Kerry goes well from a tactical perspective, with us winning 5-2. The intensity of the tactic is giving me some pause, however. The lads get tired quickly and I don’t know if it’s down to lack of conditioning and it being early in the pre-season, or whether they’re just not up to the pace of what I’m asking them to play.
Kerry will be disappointed with the result. Due to an administrative snafu they were placed in the bottom league of the Celtic Nations’ Leagues: The Welsh Lamb League (which isn’t only for Welsh teams, although I’m not sure if there’s a rule against a lamb playing for a team.) As far as the sports journalists have been able to figure out it’s possibly something to do with Kerry’s relative new-ness as a club. And that basically means an administrator somewhere forgot about them until the last minute then shoved them in wherever they could fit.
Realistically they should be in our league and we should be a league higher in the Tunnock’s League Two.
The main downside of the match is we pick up an injury to Aaron Connolly. It’s not a terrible injury, just out for two weeks. And Daniel McKenna is a solid replacement. Injuries can always happen when someone is playing a game fresh, with no time built up in their legs, but it’s not ideal and is another mark against our intensity.
We stick with the tactics though and draw our next game, at home, against Galway United. Which is fair enough. In the old Irish leagues they’d be the ones beating us, mostly. They’d be in our division but they’re the favourites going into most games.
After that it’s a 2-1 win over Ballymena from the league above us and a 3-1 win against Treaty. Both good wins and things are looking good at the end of the pre-season.
I manage to sign a couple of scouts, and my Director of Football suggests some players for me we could use at left-back.
Kevin O’Connor is the guy who stands out. Solid, if not amazing. Most importantly he has a few years behind him and should have the mentality to be ready when needed, and to stabilise a young team.
We break our own budget a bit to bring him in but I feel it’s very necessary. We have some money in the bank and aren’t hurting our own cash flow to get him, but obviously the board does want me to stick to what they’ve laid out, and we’re now spending too much on wages.
It’s all well and good sticking to wage budgets but if our guy on the left — Jarlath Jones — goes down with an injury and we have literally no-one to cover for him the board will be a lot angrier about us not performing than spending a few hundred quid a week we shouldn’t be. At least I would be.
And not to mind the board’s own instructions on wages my Director of Football initiates some signings for our youth team. They all have the possibility of decent potential and could become decent players in a year or two. On top of that the three lads agree to non-contract positions with appearance fees instead of wages. As far as I know appearance fees are for the first team, not the under-19s, so it shouldn’t cost us much. Maybe the accountants can answer me on that one?
The deal is these kids train with us, we develop them, maybe it works out for both them and the team in the long term, or maybe it doesn’t and we go our separate ways with no-one too put out.
The problem, of course, is that my Director of Football seems to be absolutely useless when it comes to spotting young talent. Sure, they’re fine-ish players, they just don’t have the actual potential promised when we get them in and our coaches see them.
Which gets me thinking — now that I’m typing all this out — if they’re on non-contracts can I just cancel their contract? ‘Sorry, fellas, we had a look and you’re not right for us. Even though you left your old teams to come here.’ A bit ruthless. And maybe it hurts our reputation long term, players won’t sign for us on non-contracts, but as things stand now I can’t bring in any other youth players, players who might have the potential.
Then it’s our first game in the league proper with our opening match — an away fixture — against East Fife, in Methil in Scotland.
Which goes sort of well… I guess..?
We win six goals to four but it’s certainly not comfortable. We pull clear ahead. Quite easily, in fact, but the team can’t seem to relax into a dominant position. In the last twenty minutes we give up three goals and it’s only our own, sixth goal in the last few minutes that makes me feel comfortable. Even then I’m not completely comfortable.
If you were to look at the xG, shots taken, shots on target, possession, etc. we were deserved winners, but once you take into account they had three clear cut chances to our two it’s not so rosy viewing.
We can’t give away opportunities like that in tight games. And we certainly can’t let teams back into games we’re winning.
Still… A win is a win and I need to let things settle before I go changing everything. Maybe I need to be faster dropping our mentality to a more balanced approach? Maybe I need to go to a slower, more patient tactic once we’re clear ahead and in the second half? There is a tactic I do have prepared although it’s not tested.
After our first league game it’s straight into our first cup game, in the Kingspan Cup/Irish Cup, where silverware is competed for between all the Irish and Northern Irish teams. The New Parliament Cup being the Welsh and Scottish version of this competition, with the Ballygowan Spring Championship — not actually played in spring, it’s spring as in water spring — being played against the winners of the two competitions as a season opener at the start of every season from next year on.
We’re against Shelbourne in the Kingspan Cup, who should dominate, and dominate they do. I use a more direct system for this game, given they’re better than us, at least on paper. I’m still not sure about it as a tactic. They go 1-0 up pretty quickly before I realise coming up to half time I’ve been too adventurous in our mentality.
I drop it down to a more balanced approach and they still dominate but we snatch the goal back, although to no avail. In the last few minutes Shelbourne get a deserved winner. I can’t complain about that. They were the correct winner by every metric, including the score — the only metric that really matters.
At least we have one less cup to worry about, because looking at our fixture list games are coming thick and fast.
Possibly too fast. We get two injuries, one in the lead up to and one in our game against Annagh United. I felt we dominated, certainly in xG and possession, and in shots, but we just can’t take our chances.
And part of that is we’re now down to barebones at striker, espeically with the injury during the game. The only guys I could bring in can’t jump, which isn’t ideal for the way I’m playing. Two of our players out are ‘Star Players’ which is not exactly great, and the physios hinted these issues could be recurring injuries, another aspect that ain’t exactly great.
I quickly go to our Director of Football and ask for suggestions of loans we can bring in up front.
We have no funds to bring in a permanent or high quality player and the DoF can only recommend kids as potential loanees. I already have youth in my team. Still, I send my newly hired scouts out to scout these guys, at quite a bit of a cost considering they’re not in our division. That could be a mistake I regret later in the year when we can’t scout anywhere, but for now it’s a little bit of grasping — not quite at straws but maybe at a big floaty straw hat. A big box of straw hats, maybe….
It all leaves me with some thinking to do. I said as soon as I arrived we’d have a fine season if we could avoid injury problems. Potentially I cursed myself with that. Now I’ve just got to do my best, and hope the team is up to the challenge.
This is what being a manager is all about.
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You can find the database edit on the Steam Workshop here (which has the database edit for the main January transfer update from Sports Interactive.)
Or you can get both the old and new file — for both database versions — and check out some videos from content creators about the Celtic Nations League on the Sports Interactive forums. As well as find me explaining a lot more about the league setup, with images of how it’s setup, as well as me talking with people and answering their questions.
Lump Kickers Anonymous 