FM14 #3: The Season Review

In the last post, I left off at the end of October, and on the receiving end of an ultimatum, win or get sacked. Well thankfully, due to my incredible management skills I managed to avoid the sack.

Since then I have now finished the season, and a very interesting season it turned out to be!

Novembers & Decembers results

As you can see, in general we were performing pretty well. Although we did need two attempts and extra time to beat Macclesfield in the FA Cup 1st round.

I was pretty disappointed to be knocked out of the Johnston Paint trophy, as I thought we could be in for a chance of winning it. But never mind.

January, the transfer window opened. Due to lack of funds and the fact that I had already sign 4 loan players under 23 I wasn’t able to make many changes, the only players in were Vincenzo Iaquinta and a young left back who I took a punt on (as I couldn’t scout him) but both turned out to be pretty poor, but hey they were free. But it was more about holding on to my players that were performing well. Baldock was in good form, and had other teams sniffing around him. If I wanted to succeed he was the kind of player I needed to keep.

Fortunately I was able to keep hold of all my key players.  Which proved to be pivotal in the 2nd half of the season.

January to February results

Very important result against Wolves towards the end of January, and only 1 loss in the league  during this period really helped. By this point I was in and around the top of the league, (I can’t remember exactly where).

As the last remaining games of the season drew in. This was time we really needed to pull together and hit a good run of form.

As you can see we had a storming month in March but stuttered slightly in April. Wolves however, had really lost form, and eventually gave up first place to me, and ended up finishing the season in 3rd behind Brentford, who snuck in to 2nd at the last minute.

Final table standings.

WE WON THE LEAGUE! WOO!

That’s right, we managed to bounce right back up in to the Championship.

Highlight of the season, well there were 2. Firstly was my 2-2 draw with Stoke in the FA Cup xround, which got me a replay at Ashton Gate. In truth we probably should have won the first game, as we went 1-0 up and then 2-1 up, only to concede a late goal. In the replay we lost, but again we played very well, and had we won, I don’t think anyone would have thought we didn’t deserve it.

Secondly was beating Wolves in the final stages of the season. This was an especially nice fixture to win, 1 because they were ahead of me in the league, so I needed to close the gap, and 2 because the last time we played them they trounced us 7-0. Needless to say, revenge was definitely very sweet! I also like to think that the loss for Wolves helped demoralise them enough to make them lose there momentum and eventually the title. Although there was still a very long way to go when I beat them.

Player of the season had to be Vellios who scored 37 goals and grabbed 6 assists across all competitions. However it was time for him to return to Everton.

Oh also, I won manager of the season. See I told you I was amazing.

Now on to the Championship!

– Will

If you enjoyed this, and want to read some similar stuff head on over to the guys at Pass The Pad Games and read up on there Football Manager 2014 Networked Career Season 1.