Dafuge & Data: Season 13 Summary, Unlucky for Some
The some here being anyone who faced us whilst we were on blistering form. Sorry, giving the game away a little bit here before the summary, but it was a nice season. One I played many months ago in real life but have only recently got round to writing about.
Season updates from now are going to be a bit briefer. Partly because FM22 is now breathing down our necks. Whilst I’m not exactly frothing with excitement at the 4000 new features updates, I will still at some point be making the move over to FM22 when the beta drops. Even if it’s just so I can spend some time reporting the inevitable bugs brought in with the features. Perhaps a bigger driver of shorter posts though is that we’ve now reached a point where I don’t have much to do data wise. I think I’ve reached the limits of what I can manage with FM21 and the time I have available. It’s been fun yet frustrating to extract stats and data out of the game, but there’s not much more to do with this version.
Likewise I’ve not got a great deal of tactical changes to make. I’ve got something that’s working for me so it’s now just a case of fitting the right players in. So shorter updates it is. That said, I’m not stopping the save just because FM22 is nearly here. I’ve still got silverware to win and like I said, I’m not massively excited for the new version. I’m sure it’ll be an improvement over 21. I’m just not sure it’ll be a massive improvement in the areas I care about. Plus, I love the Seadogs.
Transfers Summary
In
We’ve reached the point where we have money, and we are sort of attractive to players. Behold, our transfer excesses.
Edimar, at 7.75m , came in to take over the number 10 slot. Just behind the strikers he would hopefully become a key focal point for our attack. Morris came in at 11.75m, also with a view to taking on the number 10 slot. In all honestly I cocked up the order of my transfers. He arrived a week after Edimar and I was taken in by his home grown status. But he is good. And competition can’t hurt can it? The real order issue though was that Seb wanted midfield to be improved but because he came in after Edimar our Brazilian AMC wonderkid didn’t count. So I had to find some more recruits.
This is where the next lot come in. Peltonen at 5m, Andrews at 4.4m, and Francisco at 8.75m. That’s right, we’ve entered the Brazilian wonderkid stage of the save. I feel dirty but honestly when you have premiership money you don’t need to be subtle with your transfers anymore. Peltonen we actually missed out on a season or two before but would potentially fit in nicely. Francisco would be eased into the team. And Andrews was an English prospect as we kept an eye on the future and the squad limits.
A little further back we have one of the steals of the save. Billy Bindelov. He had a release fee of £3.5m and we got the bid in a few days before it expired so it was honoured. Billy arrived without a work permit but after half a season on loan in the Bundesliga he got enough caps to get the permit agreed. He came back to boss the backline with Blanco. Look at Billy, he’s amazing. And what’s better is that he frequently gets 10’s in training. And I mean frequently. We are talking 50% of the time.
We had a few more too. Kearney as a potential English keeper in the future, Vasquez because why not?
Out
It wasn’t all one way. Defensive guardian Angel left for PSG for £7m, and targetman Prince left for about £3.8m. Old faithful goalkeeper Harrison left for a measly 300k to Wolves (he had hundreds of appearances for us and would be missed). Other stalwarts like the permanently angry Kamagate went for 1.2m, Annesley-Smyth for 625k, and leftback Marks for 325k.
The other big move was Welshman Connor, labelled the next James. Arsenal bid £5m for him and I had not pressing plans to use him this season so off he went.
I wound up the car window, said a prayer of thanks to Harry Redknapp, and we moved on.
The Actual Season Summary
We started strong, and stayed that way pretty much throughout. We had moved into our new Stadium, the 14k seater Flamingo Land II. The board immediately moaned that we sold fewer tickets in our new 14k seater than the 25k seater we’d borrowed the season before.
I was going to try to tease some sort of tense battle this season but actually the main drama came from whether we would finish in a European place or not. We were there and thereabouts and our form had flat lined, but in a nice way.
After 38 games, where we beat most small and mid-table teams, bloodying the occasional bigger side’s nose, we finished 6th. Great you might think. Thats us in Europe then. Fly high mighty Seagulls. But no, because we had to wait on the results of several cups. English teams had done not just well, but extraordinarily well, in getting to finals.
Spurs and Arsenal faced each other in the Euro Cup, Man United and Chelsea in the Champions League, Aston Villa were against Gallen in the Euro II/Conference. Spurs were also in the FA Cup against Burnley. All of these combinations basically meant that some European places might filter down kindly, and some like the FA Cup and Euro II meant they could disappear, with Aston Villa and Burnley potentially sneaking into Euro Cup at our expense.
It all worked out. With Burnley losing the main threat was gone, and Aston Villa’s win against Gallen meant they bumped Burnley into the Euro II Cup next season instead. The Seadogs were going to Europe. To the group stages of the Euro Cup no less. We would be welcoming continental teams to our shores. Although not really our shores.
The board seeing that we had filled every home game, and would be playing even more because of Europe decided to expand the stadium to something sensible. After just a season Flamingo Land II would close it doors, and expand to 21k seats. We would instead play at the Steve Gibson stadium in Middlesborough. A much better choice geographically than the season or so spent in Barnsley.
So, next season we have more cash to splash. Shins to kick, and facilities to upgrade.
