Believe

“You may call it in this evening, but you’ve only lost the night. Present all your pretty feelings, may they comfort you tonight”

Hello and welcome back to another instalment of our Football Manager 24 save, Sunderland Till We Die. When we last left you, we were flying high in the league, and showing we were by no means this years whipping boys. We also had the January transfer window to navigate through, so let’s see if there was any activity at the club.

These were the only players to leave. O’Nein was our captain and a good squad player, but he kept complaining about silly things at the club, and there was always a few supporters for him. So when Al-Gharafa came in with a £7.75M bid, I jumped at it. We also loaned out Aji Alese and Chriss Rigg so they could get more game time. This meant we had a chance to strengthen the team, so here is who we signed.

Lucas de los Santos was signed for £5.5M as competition to Allan Campbell. He is the direct replacement for O’Nein and should do a great job for us.

Tobi Oluwayemi was signed on loan from Celtic to act as cover in goal. The squad complained a few times that we didn’t have enough depth in goal so I felt this had to be done. He is a good keeper but we have Anthony Patterson and see no reason to drop him just now.

Last but by no means least, welcome to the Stadium of Light, Sverre Halseth Nypan. He is a wondered who was on my radar for a while but never had interest to sign for us, until now. I mean look at his value already?? We only signed him for £3.3M, outrageous. This does leave us with a bit of a dilemma as we now have a lot of very good players at CM and might struggle to keep them all happy.

As you can see it has already started. The one I don’t get is Jack Clarke. He is a regular starter and has played a lot of games for us but still complaining. He also hasn’t played that great for us at times.

As you can see, 3 goals and 2 assists so far this season is not a good return for a player who was our top player last season. Luckily we have had some players step up and show we deserve to be here. Jobe and Wharton are solid in the middle of the park, and Back has come into his own, just as Grant has stopped scoring.

So let’s see how we got on so far this season. Are we still flying high? or have the other teams figured us out?

Not a bad period, with a bit of a wobble in December, but ultimately some good results there. We are also through to the fifth round of the FA Cup, meaning we have another decent cup run this season. Our biggest result was the 5-0 thrashing of Newcastle. It really was an amazing occasion. So how has that effected the league?

We are still flying high in the league, albeit not fighting for the title anymore, but the top 4 and Champions League football is a very real possibility. There are some big teams really struggling this season, but Chelsea seem to be the big news. Pochettino was sacked at the start of December, and Unai Emery was hired as the replacement for him, and to be fair he has made a difference.

That is some amazing form, and clearly shows that Poch was massively underperforming with his team. They also have a chance of silverware this season, the Carabao Cup so this could be an amazing season for Emery, and the Comeback of the Year.

We have a decent run left, but the last 5 games do worry me a lot. I know we are safe from relegation, which is what the board wanted, and I am confident we can finish in the top half of the league. But Europe has to be the goal now after the season so far. Hopefully by the time the last 5 games come around we already have European football confirmed.

I will update the future of this save after the next post, as I am really enjoying this Sunderland team, but also don’t want to leave it too long to start our journeyman save this year. thanks for stopping by and listening to a bearded man ramble about Football Manager

“Oh say something, say something, something like you love me. Less you want to move away, from the noise of this place. I don’t even know if I believe”