Leader of the Pack

Hello everyone and welcome back to our FM 24 Beta save, Sunderland Till We Die. When we last left you we had just taken charge of Sunderland, and had given you a back story of the club. Obviously this club had a LOT of potential and I was excited to get started with the squad we had, but there were a couple positions I thought we needed some strength in depth. I definitely thought we needed a defender or two for back up, and possibly a better striker, but I didn’t want to change the squad too much.

The bottom three transfers in are the ones I went for, A left sided CB in Liam Scales and a LB in James Morris, both on loan. I also had to sign an emergency GK, in Wayne Hennessey, as both my main and back up GK got injured and the youth keepers weren’t good enough. I think it is a Beta thing with the amount of players getting injured, but luckily we have a deep enough squad to cope with it. Both Scales and Morris were brought in to be back up, but ended up being first team players due to injuries and if I’m honest, they have been pretty solid with it. Hennessey done a job for us while Patterson was out injured, but he was completely signed as a back up option and that’s how we will use him. Let’s look at how well the team have played so far this season.

Overall I have been really impressed with the players so far and think this squad has a really bright future ahead. There are a few players i am really impressed with but the biggest disappointment is our highest rated striker, Nazarly Rusyn. At the start of the season, my coaches rated him head and shoulders above the rest of our strikers, but he really struggled to perform, even though we gave him a lot of chances. Luckily other players stepped up massively which has really helped us.

Bradley Dack has been a rock in our midfield so far this season, playing in various different roles, and performing in every single one. I did try and use him in his preferred AMC position but I couldn’t get a tactic that worked well with it. I used him as a STC for the first few games and recently he has been a CM for us. 6 goals and 2 assists in his 15 games so far is brilliant.

The other Bellingham, Jobe has done amazing so far and I really want to build the team around him. He has a small injury just now but should be back soon and honestly the sky is the limit with this guy.

Patrick Roberts is by far my best player and he is showing that time and time again. Unfortunately he has informed me that he wants to “explore his options” so the vultures have started circling for a cheap, Premier League level winger. I am hoping I can convince him to reconsider this and sign a new contract but I am not hopeful. I will see what happens in January, but I am not looking to sell him, on the off chance I can get him to resign with us.

Jack Clarke has also been performing amazingly and I am glad he has a 3 year contract with us as he will be going no where. This man will take me to the Premier League and secure us safety I guarantee it. As you can see though we have played very well so here are the fixtures so far.

We have had a couple of wobbles but ultimately we have been brilliant. I am happy that we have played some of the bigger clubs so far, but in this league anyone can beat anyone on their day. I wasn’t too happy to go out of the Carabao Cup to stoke but they held us to penalties and its always a lottery when it comes to that. My favourite result is the 6-1 thrashing of Middlesbrough, beating a rival is always sweet but doing it after the real result was 4-0 to Boro. So after that here is how the league standings are so far.

We are sitting on top of the table, four points clear, with a massive goal difference and I couldn’t be happier. Now I am under no illusions that we will probably have tougher times with fixtures, and some of the other teams will push to topple us, but I relish the challenge. The bottom team I have missed out is QPR as I wasn’t able to get them in on one screen shot.

These are our upcoming fixtures and honestly I think we will do pretty well. There is no overly hard games next to each other, and I would probably say the Leeds game at home is the hardest of this run. Hopefully when we come back we will still be flying high in the league, and I will also have a good transfer window to show you. Finally before I go, I want to show you one thing. We have been hiring some staff as we go to improve the squad, some by searching and some by putting up adverts, and this person is who we hired as a Director of Football.

Was he the best option? No. Was he the one that wanted the job in the media? No. Did I hire hime because he is Scottish with a glorious afro? You bet your ass I did! So on that note I will leave you and thank you for listening to a bearded mans ramblings on Football Manager.

“Some people have a special kind of knack, getting what they wanted just to stab you in the back, nine times out of ten it’s the leader of the pack, leader of the pack”