Chelsea save - start of season 2

Another season started and I'm setting our goals pretty high this time around. I convinced the board we are going to win the title this time around. With that they opened the wallets for me and I've spent a lot of money in the transfer window... maybe a bit too much even. I'll probably go into my transfers on a later data however.

Right now, we've played 3 matches. Our season opener was against Man City, a game we played well in my opinion, but still failed to get any points. This was also the first game I attempted a new tactic using a 4-6-0 formation with Oscar as a Trequartista playing in the AMC position. It's something new I am trying this season, but I think I pulled the trigger too early and probably should have tested the waters against an easier team first.

Anyway, second game we had the newly promoted Huddersfield, which we managed to beat very comfortably despite playing away. Costa was incredible and I hope this is his new norm, last season he had a few dry spells that really worried me about how much I can rely on him to win games.

My most recent game was against Tottenham at White Hart Lane. This was another tough match for us since last season they beat us when we played away and we fought fiercely for the 3rd position. Fortunately we managed to come out on top of a game where Spurs was certainly controlling. We played again with our 4-3-2-1 formation with the flat narrow midfield, Hazard on the left as an inside forward and Willian on the right as a winger.

FM15 Chelsea save - end of season 1

It was a fairly exciting end of a season for us. After that great knockout round with Dortmund we faced another German side. Bayern Munich was probably one of the toughest draws for us and we had to face them. At our visit to Germany we got beat 3x1 which was a good result based on how much they dominated that game. On the game back in London we managed a 1x1 draw in a game we probably played better than them, but never looked like we were going to beat them by much. While disappointing, I can't say we really had a chance to win that round. This left us with a few games left in the premier league. Our last game was against Spurs where we were in 4th place and they were in 3rd. We were 2 points behind them and a victory would secure us 3 place. If however, Liverpool lost to Hull we had a chance of moving to 2nd place with a greater goal difference assuming we scored a lot of goals against Spurs.

That match was very good for us. We had our full squad and beat them 4x0 with a hat-trick by Diego Costa. Unfortunately Hull tied with Liverpool, leaving us to end the season in 3rd place. This was enough to please the board and to satisfy our goal of qualifying to the Champion's League. Below are some more stats from this season.

An interesting bit from this season was the fact that Mourinho took over Manchester City. City was doing very poorly under Pellegrini and while Mourinho's arrival did improve their standing, they still only managed to get 7th in the end, just missing the Europa Cup position which went to West Brom. Mourinho did get a few awards for his work in the last few months. The FA Cup title this season went to Tottenham with a 2-1 victory over Norwich after their defeat to us.

Now, how about some stats about my players:

Defence

Looking at our center backs, Cahill and Terry dominated in appearances, but were they our best players? Well, when we look at the numbers, in terms of interceptions, Dante, our mid season purchase, did the best, with 10.6 interceptions p/ game. Gary Cahill comes second with 10. These two also lead in tackle rate, with Zouma as the top 3 players in this category. Zouma is definitely a player I intend to develop and use heavily in my squad. Once again, when we look at tackles per game, Dante is on  top with 7.45. So I really hope that despite the money spent on an older player, the board sees how valuable this player was for us.

Midfield

In the midfield we have strong passing performance by the Nigerial Mikel and the Croatian Nemanja Matic. with 88% and 87% respectively. Despite that, their average rate was fairly low. In terms of producing assistances, Fabregas produced 0.39 assists p/ game, followed by Willian and Hazard with 0.33 and 0.32. Here this trend actually equates to high average ratings for these players.

Hazard has the highest rating (7.41) followed by Willian (7.21) and then Oscar (7.07). Oscar's stats would probably be even better had he played most of his games in the wing. He was not an effective CM or ACM this season and this did hurt his stats.

Attack

At the front, we actually see some rather disappointing revelations. While Diego Costa was a fairly strong player for us with 0.75 goals p/ game, added to Remy's 0.7, this is pretty much the best numbers we have. All our other offensive players find themselves under 0.4 goals p/ game. The best average ratings went to Hazard (7.41), Costa (7.22) and Willian (7.21). I must admit, Willian was a much bigger asset this season than I expected. He was a source of consistency in the team, ensuring that he scored whenever the team seemed to need the most. He scored 13 goals.

Diego Costa finished with 28 goals in total, while our second best scorer was Hazard with 17.

Football Manager 2015 - Late season one (Chelsea)

We are not late in the season (end of April), and there are only a few games to go. Our Chelsea side is doing well in the premier league. Unfortunately the race has been extremely tight. The top 3 positions are separated by 3 points only. Tottenham has been doing very well and ManU dominated the league for most of the season. Unlike real life, Mata and Falcao have been unstoppable. Chelsea has had some good stretches, particularly around mid season but once the fixtures got congested for us we ended up losing a few games that we shouldn't have. We managed to win the Capital One cup against Everton which was a nice win for us, even if the board isn't as impressed. On the other hand we were knocked out by Wigan in the FA Cup after a pretty embarrassing two games.

In the Champion's League Chelsea had an extremely exciting first KO round. We faced Borussia Dortmund and lost our away game by 2x0. We came back to London to put up a great show. After a 2x0 lead, Oscar faulted inside the area giving the German side a penalty. They scored making the match 2x1. At that point I thought we weren't going to manage. I was very wrong, the team played like champs and we managed to end up the game with a 6x1 win. It was a wonderful game for our team.

We have also made a few tactical changes since my last post. For one we made a few purchases. Most of them are a reflection of the fact that I'm trying to plan for a team that will be unbeatable in a few seasons. For that I purchased Gimber, Coric and Taufer. I had mentioned before that I was eyeing the CB Gimber and the Winger Ante Coric. They are both fairly good prospects that may become first team players in a few years. For now they are mostly just playing in the under 21 squad. These players are also young enough that they will become homegrown if I keep them for the long term, something I desperately need with my current Chelsea squad. Aside from that I brought in the Brazillian center back Dante. He came in for 7.25 Million, which in hindsigh might be a tad much for a 31 year old. I just felt that Chelsea was a bit too thin at the back and to be quite honest he has been very useful so far. I played him as CB quite a few games but I also ended up using him as a defensive midfielder during an injury spell. I basically had all my defensive midfielders injured for a long time. That fact combined with our clogged calendar made it so I had to bring him in. I can't complain about his performance despite his lack of natural skill in that position.

Lastly, I brought in the Italian DM/MC Melkamu Taufer. This 17 year old is already a fairly decent player and he is supposed to be developing into a superstar if things go well. I would very much like to develop him into becoming a strong deep playmaker, but we'll see. Right now he is looking very good in terms of teamwork, work rate as well as good passing skills. I may need to increase his off the ball skills and wouldn't mind better vision as well. He came in for 2.3M pounds, which isn't cheap, but I know I can at least make my money back in a few seasons. I believe I will also manage to bring in Odegaard at the end of the season. This player will likely cost me a good chunk of money but will certainly be worth it in the long run.