Before you continue, be sure to read last week’s post covering the opening months of SBN United’s first season.
SB Nation United: Rising to the top of the Premier League
The first season of our fictional super club roles as The Mustached Gentlemen are quickly becoming the cream of the crop in the EPL.
After three months in charge of SBN United, things have been going pretty darn well for myself and our new digital super club. Despite a ton of injuries, we managed to get off to a great start in the league, and a solid start in the Europa League group stages as well.
My two biggest slip-ups, losing in the Capital One Cup fourth round and signing Mario Gomez, really haven't hurt the team. Plus, with the transfer window fast approaching, there would chances to fix one of those issues.
November 2014
Things continued to go well for me in November as the team went 5-0-0 in all competitions, including two more Europa League wins in group play. Our 6-0 win over Sloven Liberac on November 6th secured our place in the knockout round, which made me happy since I could rest more players in the remaining games. Even though the injury issues were lessening, it was nice to know I could sit guys down if they needed a break.
In league play we defeated Leicester, Hull City and Crystal Palace by a combined score of 9-1, with two clean sheets in three matches.
My good luck continued as well later in the month when the SBN United board, so amazed and pleased by my masterful management of the club, offered me a new contract. When you takeover a club in Football Manager, you’re given a one-year deal. Typically, if you start the season well, you’re quickly offered an extension. Such was the case for me.
$135k a week on a deal through June 2018, not too shabby. Certainly more than I’m making for writing this! Too bad it’s digital money ... sigh.
Entering the month, Roberto Soldado had scored 10 goals in all competitions, and he added five more on his way to winning the Premier League player of the month award. Memphis Depay won yet another young player of the month award as well.
I was also awarded with the coach of the month award. Wooo!
December 2014
The final month of the year was yet another successful one for SBN United as we went 5-1-1 in all competitions. All was not sunshine and roses though, thanks to a 1-1 draw against QPR, and a rather dreadful performance in the season’s first North London Derby, as we fell 2-1 at White Hart Lane.
Despite taking the lead in the 19th minute thanks to a Nabil Bentalib goal, our defense played horribly and allowed Lukas Podolski to score twice. The Gunners midfielder scored the winner in the 72nd minute to break our fans' hearts and cause me to curse very loudly at my computer. Our play was totally against our form, and we looked nothing like we had over the first couple months of the season. Really weird.
Soldado scored five more goals to end 2014 with 26 (20 in league play, six in the Europa League). That’s right, 26! In the real world, he’s scored 15 goals in a season and a half with Spurs.
We closed the month in first place in the league, three points clear of Arsenal.
In other club news, on the 28th, Southampton fired head coach Ronald Koeman. Certainly things did not go as well for digital Ronald as they are for real Ronald this season.
January 2014 (Part One)
HELLO TRANSFER WINDOW!!!
My first order of business to ship Mario Gómez off to Napoli for a cool $30.5 million ($3 million more that we paid Fiorentina for his services). Considering the production I was getting from Roberto Soldado, and the fact that I was able to sign 18-year-old striker Zakaria Bakkali on a FREE TRANSFER from PSV, I was happy to make this deal. How I was able to get Bakkali on a free I’ll never know, but I’d be dumb not to sign the kid. He won’t join the roster until the summer, but who cares, totally worth it.
I also bolstered our midfield, and our future, by signing 17-year-old Youri Tielemans from Anderlecht for a very reasonable $8.5 million. Fullback DeAndre Yedlin also joined us from the Seattle Sounders.
There’s games to be played in the month of course, but there’s also still time to make some moves with the roster. I’m pretty happy with how things are looking, but I’m curious what you, the readers, think I should do. Let me know what signings I should try to make in the remaining time left in the month and I’ll take the suggestions into consideration.
So come back next week to find out how we played in January and what further business SBN United did before the transfer window slams shut.
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