Background
Hello guys,
First attempt at doing any kind of story so tips/suggestions are greatly appreciated. I had been getting bored of my usual saves in Scotland, mostly with my favourite team Rangers, so I wanted to try something a bit different for me and start a save in the Premier League. I also thought recording the save on here would be a good way to add a bit of fun and different dimension to it.
First thing first was to pick a club, and as the title would suggest I have gone with Spurs. I wanted to go with a relatively safe option as I am not the greatest
FM player in the world to say the least!
Please note I am using a transfer update from a few months back. So a considerable amount of real life transfers will not be reflected on the database.
Aims
I the first few years...
-Don't get sacked (Got to start simple!)
-Win the Premier League
-Be competitive in Europe
Longer term....
-Build a squad with British core
-Win the Champions League
-Develop young British players
-Improve the Home Nations International fortunes
Budgets
As you would expect for a club like Tottenham we are met with great financial resources. We have a transfer budget of £54 million and a wage budget of £1.9 per week. With the current spending at around £1.6, it means there is a lot of room in the pot to play with!
The budget will come with following expectations, very fair in my opinion...
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Staff
The very first thing I did when starting the save was review my staff. The existing staff was overall quite poor from my expectations so many were replaced with additions being made. I made the decision to retain Jesus Perez as my assistant for the forthcoming season at least.
We are shaping up nicely with all training categories at minimum 4* with the maximum workload for any category at average. Ledley King promoted to coach for First Team to act as a general coach while the other coaches specialise.
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We also bring in Bernhard Peters from Hamburg as HOYD. I hope his Model Professional personality will rub off on the young player coming through in future!
On the Scouting & Transfers Team we also made a high number of changes. Firstly, I brought in Leo Beenhakker as Director of Football. My DOF's primary job will be to get unwanted players out the door, so I hope with a good reputation along with 20 Motivating and 17 Determination, Leo will be able to do just that!
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For my scouts I have brought in no less than 16 scouts, bringing the total number to 20. The plan for my scouting with so many scouts available is to station a scout on an Ongoing basis in a particular region/country. My minimum requirements for scouts hired was 15 for Adaptability, JPA & JPP. Here is how I've chosen to set up, let's hope it can bear fruit!...
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Squad
I am of course very happy with the Spurs starting squad. Appear to be a very well balanced side and no major transfers should be required in this Window.
Goalkeepers
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Hugo is one of the best keepers in the business, while his deputy Vorm is an established PL goalie, so absoloutely no cause for concern here and fingers crossed it should be a while before I need to look at replacing either of these two guys. I will look to give Vorm all cup games, however it shall remain to be seen if I hold my nerve and follow through with it! In terms of a third-choice I will be happy to give one of the youngsters a chance should either of my senior keepers get injured.
Defenders
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Again, great depth in here. Dier will mainly be featuring for me as a DC, so that gives us 4 really good, quick centre backs - I will look to evenly distribute game time among these guys.
In full back positions we have the explosive Rose and Walker at LB & RB respectively. These guys will have a big influence on our attacks I would imagine, and I'm hoping they can rack up the assists. Davies and Trippier look to be solid back up options.
You'll also notice in this screen I have brought in Lucas Leiva on loan from Liverpool. I felt we could do with an Anchor Man-type holding midfielder in the squad for the really big games. Should he perform well we can make the deal permanent for £5m, so an all round low risk deal!
Midfielders
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In line with rest of the squad, we have a real solid midfield here - some real creativity in there! I hope the likes of Eriksen and Alli can still perform as effectively in the MC strata, as I will be playing with no AM. These guys will play there in rotation with Mousa Dembele, and young Josh Onomah when possible. Behind these guys doing the dirty work will be Wanyama/Leiva.
As for my wide options we have Lamela, Sissoko, Son as well as the Frenchan Nkoudo. I am undecided how these guys will be set up for player roles etc so their will be a bit of mix and match here.
Strikers
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Not much explanation required here, Harry Kane will be the main man! I am hoping the
FM version of Jansen will serve as a better deputy to Kane than his real life counterpart perhaps did! You'll see the inclusion of Kelechi Iheanacho on loan from Man City, with no fee involved, he is just a short term fix in order to add a bit of depth and perhaps offer something a bit different when required.
Tactics
My tactical vision for will be to play in a scrappy, defensive style in 4-3-3. This completely goes against the attacking, possession football desired by the board, so lets just hope the results can keep them happy enough.
Here is my initial envisioned tactical set up. I hope it will prove to be balanced set up, being solid enough at the back with the DM player protecting the centre backs and also providing cover for the FBs. I want the AML to drift inside and create space for the DL, while his opposite will be hugging the touchline and get plenty of crosses in.
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As you'll see I'll start with a very conservative Defensive mentality. I don't want my players taking risks and I want them to keep the ball out of our net first and foremost! I have also gone for a Structured set up as I ultimately want players to focus on doing their job. Increased creative freedom will be given to one or two players to try and unlock opponent defences.
I will only train this tactic at the moment in a bid to increase familiarity as quickly as possible, as I can't foresee us starting any games in a different shape at the moment, however we will see how this pans out! Could be risky move, especially given the criticisms Mark Warburton faced for his seemingly stubborn "No plan B, do plan A better" mentality at my team Rangers IRL!
I will have no TI's in place to begin with however I would expect these to be added as we progress.
So with scouting, training, squad and tactics in place we march into the season! Thank you to anybody who may have read this far, and an update at the end of August will follow. As previously mentioned, I am by no means a good
FM'er so all feedback and suggestions welcome!
Arsenal 
Chelsea 
Everton 
Liverpool 
Man City
Man Utd 
Stoke 
Tottenham 
West Ham 
