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HullSouthampton is going up the table! On 11th position after the first season half...
Hello, my dear readers! I'm glad to continue my Southampton story!
After the poor start in our second Premier League season it was certainly time to do something about Southampton position in the table. I didn't do anything serious about that. Though just changed a bit my defensive tactics and startup squad. And now the first squad in the defensive formation looks in the following way:
Exchange of positions of two central defenders Chygrynskiy and Diamoutene was very appreciable. That's because in my tactics during corners one of defenders stands before a goalkeeper (Challenge Gk setting) and waits for a good pass trying to score header (6 Yard Box corners setting). Dmytro Chygrynskiy was really poor scorer... He was always missing his head shots. But Souleimane Diamoutene managed to score 7 goals from corners using his head during the last 11 matches!!! He performs even better than Pichu Atienza whom I had loaned and been using in the last season in the same way!
After all these changes I got into winning streak beating Newcastle and Liverpool:
Unfortunately Southampton got out of League Cup in the tough quaterfinal with Man City. But the progress in Premier League is more important, for sure.
And now I like the league standing much more than in the beginning :)
Seems like I will justify board confidence and expectations reaching the top half of Premier League. Or may be even getting to UEFA Cup? Who knows :)
There is also some interesting statistics of my players:
Looking into it you can notify that Marius Niculae is not so good for a while as in the last season. Yes, he scores few important goals but only few... Meantime young Martin Fenin started to show his best performance. He is the author of the first goal in the last match with Liverpool, for instance. Three my coolest signings during transfer window - Souleymane Diamoutene, Dmytro Chygrynskyi and Daniel De Ridder. The first two made Southampton defence stronger than ever. The third one is simply the best dribbling and passing winger in the team now.
Performance of our goalkeeper Rune Almenning Jarstein is worthy of the best words certainly. He was the hero of the last match with Liverpool making 5-6 brilliant saves! And at all Rune is very confident keeper.
As dutch guy im very interested in seeing how daniel de ridder has been growing in your game, could you post an screen of his attributes for me please? Nice to see your almost of the left side of the table :D
There were De Ridder's attributes.
You see I have 4 Dutch players in the first squad and several more in the second :)
Speaking of Dutch players, how is Bodde doing for you? He plays for my hometown club but a lot of clubs are after him at the moment
Great update as usual Vitaliy. Was the other Niculae guy you signed not very good?
LightSpeedChampion,
Freddy Bodde has been performing better and better for my team. He is good as DMC but not DC. Though I use Bodde more from substitution because the first squad DMC position is after Aaron Mokoena
Kevin,
the other Niculae (Daniel Niculae) is not so good as Marius. Daniel is more fast... But very often he misses his goal chances. Plays more unstable than Marius, though scores goals as well.
I tend to use Bodde as a CM when I play a 4-4-2 and a DM when I play 4-5-1. He plays better at DM but can do just as well in CM, haven't tried him in defence yet.
hi,do you think that these tactics that you are using in FM 08 in southampton would be good for FM 07?? cos i had only FM 08 demo but than i discovered that it only allow me to play half of first season(i was really sad:( ) so now i am again playing this old boring 07 :((
thx for answer,
Serrofan
May be - yes, may be - no. FM 08 differs much from FM 07. But you can try to experiment with this tactics anyway