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HullSouthampton: Top half is not close enough
"Top half is not close enough" - some rhyme from me on the post title 
. Ye, that's about my Southampton story. But at first I'm going to tell you what transfers were done during winter transfer window of 2010/2011 season.
Winter Transfers
I spend all the rest of money I hadn't spent before the season buying Orlando Engelaar (you've seen him on Euro 2008 in Holland team), Dean Derry (18 years talented left back - regen), Abdoulaye Meite (strong and well-known DRC).
Meite is the most important newcomer of the club. I'm going to try him on DR position. Or maybe on DC position moving Chygrynskiy or Diamoutene to DR.
Certain pros of Meite are: very high value of Strengh, strong mentality abilities, good enough Jumping, Position, Marking, Tackling... in one word - everything that central defender needs. Sure, I see few cons: average speed and passing skills.
Anticipating thinks I can tell that he didn't impressed me as flank back... right because of speed and passing... And at the moment Meite is on substitution bench waiting for chance of getting to the first squad
Latest Southamton Results
Lets return to the start of this post: "Top half is not close enough" slogan . The reason for raising this slogan is easy to understand (if you remember my expectations at the season start). The latest results of the matches were very different (good and bad) and really unlucky. Unlucky in straight sense of lack of luck during dangerous moments. We should win the most of all matches played during January, February and March. Even with Man United and Arsenal when there Southampton was leading with 2:1 score after during middle of game. So it was disappointing period for me as Southampton manager 
. From the other hand this is the first time when I felt my team competing with grand-clubs of Premier League!
There was the crazy game with Aston Villa - 5:4. We gained victory due to goal of Daniel Niculae (not Marius Niculae 
) on the last minute. He was a real hero of the game making "poker" - 4 goals in the match! 
Before the last 7 fixtures of English Premier League my Southampton is almost safe from relegation zone and have very slight chances to enter top half of the table.
Therefore motivation for matches that left is not so high. But anyway I will try to do my best in this season thinking of the next one...
Previous posts of Southampton story for 2010/2011 season:
- Part 2 - Going up to 11th position
- Part 1 - Below expectation start in FM 08
- Transfers and targets before the start
if middlesbrough get relegated you should try and buy some of their stars as Downing,etc. and how are you doing in FA cup ?
Daniel
hey vitaley, too bad your not getting what your hoping for this season, maybe a change of tactics could help?
That's very cheap for Engelaar! And it looks like you're conceding a lot of goals again... are you still using that (pretty) attacking 4-4-2 tactic?
Hi Vitaley, i'm interested to know if you would ever consider International management. I know its sometimes hard to concentrate on 2 jobs but would be interesting to see how you performed at a World Cup or Euro Championships.
Glenn,
no, I use 4-5-1 and 4-3-3 tactics for away and home matches correspondingly.
anonymous,
I'm out of FA cup. You see at the first screen shot that I lost the game with Man United with 2:5 score
Vincent,
I don't think that it's time to change tactics. I need few star players in every line of my formation for achieving top half.
Kevin,
in FM 08 I had been starting to manage Senegal in my Arsenal game but the save file was lost.
I would like to manage some international team but they do not accept me as manager when I apply. And actually it is more often when I just skip a possibility to apply because there is no any news about vacancies in FM08. It was better in previous version when vacant position of manager of national team was announced in the news.
thanks for your help...have me out a lot with this info but all i want to know is how do i stop terrible away form ? and how do you get the badges on the table etc ? i have team logos just not on the tables and transfers ...thanks again :)
Excuse me, I do not remember exactly where I downloaded club logos for Premier League table.
Try to search somewhere here
You thrashed MK Dons :(
Started a season with them last month, second season now going for second promotion.
Amaury Bishcoff
Keith Keane
Pele
Enkelman
Got a team of championship worthy players.
Have you ever tried signing Ninis, the greek youngster, in my old game which was 8seasons in, I had won the world cup with him as greece, and he was the best midfielder in my chelsea side.