Into January 2011 on FM 2010 now with Everton. Managed to qualify for the Champions League after finishing 4th in the league in my first season, beating Citeh to 4th by 2 points. Annoyingly though, in the Summer transfer window after the 1st Season, Bill Kenwright thought it'd be a brilliant idea to accept an offer from City for our star player, signed in January 09, Luka Modric. He cost me £22.5million, and was sold to Citeh for £45m, so we made a tidy profit, but he was performing excellently on the left for us.
Since that signing, I've made a couple of good changes to the side. I brought Santi Cazorla in to replace Modric, for a bargain price of £11m. I also brought in Italian striker Alberto Paloschi, Spurs right back Alan Hutton, Villa striker Nathan Delfouneso as well as free transfer signings of David James, Juan Roman Riquelme, Deco and Asier Del Horno. By January we'd started well, and were in 4th place. A few more players were sold in January, with Stephen Pienaar, Yakubu, Tony Hibbert, Nathan Delfouneso, Louis Saha and John Heitinga all leaving. This freed up £45million of transfer fees, which were splashed on Arsenal attacking midfielder Andrei Arshavin. I was surprised to see him listed as a realistic target on my Player Search, so made an offer, Arsenal came back saying they'd accept £39m, and the deal was done. That means my strongest XI currently looks like:
-----------------------------------Howard----------------------------------
---Hutton------------Jagielka------Garay/Distin---------Baines----
------------------------Fellaini---------Cahill-----------------------------
------Arteta------------------Arshavin-------------------Cazorla-------
--------------------------------Paloschi-------------------------------------
We're 1 point off all of the Top 3, although Chelski and City have a game in hand. I wasn't very confident going into the Champions League, with a group including Barcelona, Juventus and Russian side Tom. I was expecting to finish 3rd in the group, but surprisingly we managed to come top of the group, losing only 1 game, that was the first of the tournament, at home against Barcelona. Things aren't getting any easier though, I've been drawn against Real Madrid in the first Knockout round, which is sure to be a fun experience.
Alberto Paloschi's been my most impressive signing, bar Modric, and has performed excellently in his appearances so far. He's played 30 games across all competitions, scoring 28 goals, with 18 goals in 19 games in the Premier League, making him the Top scorer in the League, 3 clear of the nearest contender Carlos Tevez. David Beckham, Juan Roman Riquelme, Santi Cazorla, Tim Cahill, Marouane Fellaini, Mikel Arteta and Phil Jagielka have been excellent also. Just need to improve the defence in the Summer I think. Could do with a world class Right Back and another quality centre half to partner Jags (if I keep him, Real Madrid are supposed to be interested). Loving this save, and loving the game. Just need to get the league title won now.
Could do with better wing backs, but Baines and Zaccardo'll do the job for now. It's the attack I'm most happy with, Alexis Sanchez, Andrey Arshavin, Santi Cazorla and Artem Milevskyi is one heck of an attack, especially with Fellaini chipping in with a few goals too. They certainly started well anyway, with Milevskyi scoring a hat-trick on debut in the Community Shield in a 5-2 win over Liverpool.
was 1-0 up till the 70th minute, 2-1 in the 94th and final minute of the game, feel robbed tbh
