Part 15: Chapter the First: The close season.

Volume Two: Purgitorio

Chapter the First: The close season.
May 12, 2014-July 1, 2014



Just a day after the start of the offseason owner Yuri Kropotkin was found dead in scandalous circumstances. Tackleford FC is likely to be put up on the auction block as the oligarch's assets are distributed to his heirs and assigns. Local fans are quick to start fundraising for when the team is put up for purchase, but at present the team is being run by a caretaker regime that has stated it will not invest additional money into the club.



The board has also ordered that the team's finances become self-sufficient, and that the manager reduce the wage budget now that the club is no longer being funded from the oligarch's own pockets.




The club lost £4 million despite taking in nearly 6 million pounds. In order to comply with the caretaker board's demands we're going to have to slash salary by a fair amount and be much more circumspect in our signings. We'll also have to slow down our rate of training facility improvements, as those are large lump sum costs.



I didn't realize this but our Under-18 squad won their group. This has basically no benefit, and only shows that our youth players are better than the other lowest division youth players. Still, it's better to win than lose.



Rosetti and Duchamps both have contracts that end in a year. They're both unwilling to resign with the team, and Rosetti straight up doesn't respect me. I could sign them, probably, but they'd each take significant pay raises and we simply can't afford that. Moreover, they could be signed away by foreign teams on pre-contracts as of January, meaning we can't wait until mid-season to move them.



My decision is made easier since Rosetti went from being excellent at the start of last year to merely middling throughout the second half of the season. He scored only five goals in his final 17 games, and found net just once after mid-February when we most needed him. His departure will hurt, he's still by far and away our best player, but he wasn't as vital to the team as you'd imagine.



So Rosetti goes on the transfer list and he'll probably bring in over a million pounds. I'm going to wait and see on Duchamps for now, he won't bring in as much money and his £2,500/wk salary isn't nearly as prohibitive as Rosetti's £17,000/wk. If we get a good offer for him he's gone, otherwise I might play through the season with him even though we'd get nothing for him at the end of the year.



Between Rosetti and players with expiring contracts we'll trim our wage bill by about £30,000/wk. Combined with lower transfer expenditures and what the sale of Rosetti will bring in and we should be just about at the break even point. The core of our team will return, the only players leaving who got any playing time down the stretch were McLaughlin, Rosetti, and Casey.



I also set up a boatload of friendlies against the biggest competition I can find, now that we're poor I need to buck up our bankroll however I can, and one good way to do that is to be the whipping boys for higher division teams. We're expected to make over £100,000 in profit from our match against Arsenal alone. Overall we should bring in over a half million pound profit from preseason matches. It also means we're going to get our asses kicked repeatedly, since we're playing against much better clubs.



On June 5th the transfer window opens again, and we're able to start officially adding players. We've got a couple areas I'd like to improve on, but we need to sort out our wage situation first.



Wigan is interested in Duchamps. He'll get moved if they make a suitable offer as we have no hope of getting him to sign a contract that won't destroy our wage structure.



Each summer teams cut loose youth players that they don't wish to sign to professional contracts. Most of the time they're slim pickings, but occasionally as a LLM you can find someone who has a lot of talent and has developed enough to be useful for your team.

Ian Ellis, Goalkeeper
Free Transfer





Our first signing of the offseason is Ian Ellis, who was released from League One side Coventry. He's currently rated as a “leading Skrill Premier” goalkeeper and he, along with Marc Pearsons, should be with us for several years. He's the replacement for McLaughlin, and will have first crack at being our starting goalkeeper.





We're also in the market for a new striker to replace Rosetti, a right winger to supplement the aging McCarron and allow Holsgrove to play on the left wing, and perhaps also a left back if we find one on the cheap. I'll also be looking for any bargains regardless of position, but right now we've got a mostly complete team. Our success in the coming season will largely be determined by how much our young players improve, enough growth and we'll be looking at back to back promotions.



While all the world is paying attention to the drama of transfer season in Tackleford, England, some little quadrennial international competition is happening in Brazil.



Five teams are interested in Duchamps, and we accept an offer from Wigan Athletic that would pay us £437,500 pounds and also allow us to keep Duchamps for this coming season on loan. This is the best of both worlds for us as Duchamps would not sign a new contract with us forcing us to sell him or lose him for nothing at the end of the season. The Wigan offer allows us to both keep him for the season and get paid, and on top of that allows us to arrange a friendly against them where we'll get to keep all of the proceeds. And there's more, now we don't have to pay Duchamps' wages for the season. The end result is that we save £130,000 on Duchamps salary, get paid £437,500 by Wigan, and earn another £95,000 from our friendly with them... all while keeping Duchamps for the same amount of time that we would have had we not sold him. I love this game sometimes.



Wigan and Duchamps quickly agree upon a contract, and we've sold our first player. I was honestly expecting Rosetti to be sold more quickly, but while Serie A team Chievo is nosing around him they have yet to make an offer.



A well deserved award. Holsgrove was excellent all season, and I'm hoping he can continue to outperform his two star rating for another year in a higher division. You'll find that some players seem to outperform their star rating, so long as they look to you like they deserve those high ratings then I support sticking with them. The opposite is true, you can find some absolutely brilliant players who constantly underperform, and you should be willing to accept that some 4.5 star player just isn't actually as good as the guy you already had with 2.5 stars.



I mean, I guess it's better than a punch in the face, but this isn't exactly worth notifying me about. Tell me when we start pulling in the real TV money.



Welcome back. It's like you never left.



Wow. And here I thought we'd be asked to finish somewhere in the mid-table. I really hope we challenge for promotion, because I could find myself on the hot seat if we don't. I'm also not sure how we could have such a large transfer budget, given that I've already edited us down to a much more reasonable amount in the kitty of £500,000 and unchecked the sugar daddy box. I change these to a £35k/wk wage budget and £50k base transfer budget, as the other numbers are just way too much for a team at our level. By way of comparison, Luton Town has the highest wage budget in the Skrill Premier league, and that is only £33,000/week. Our budget numbers will improve with the Duchamps and Rosetti sales, 70% of each sale will be available for wages and transfers so we're looking at ~1.2m more than the base amount.



15 players see their salaries increase, this occurs when they have a clause in their contract that gives them a yearly pay-raise. For some of these players it doesn't mean much, an additional 20% of 200/wk is only 40 quid. For the ones earning a decent wage, though, it can amount to a big bump. Players can get both a promotion salary increase and their yearly increase, so be careful that the guy who was affordable at one level isn't getting too large of a pay hike when you win promotion.

Michael Coulson, Winger
On Loan from MK Dons





We loan Coulson from our parent club, MK Dons, and while he's best in an Attacking mid-right position he'll also be able to provide cover at Striker and mid-right. Since he's a loaner his salary is paid by the parent team and we get someone who should be pretty good for us for free. Of course, since he's a loaner we don't get to keep him permanently. Loan players are very useful to a Lower League Manager, you can get some very good players for your level at zero cost, but if you rely on too many of them you can find yourself without a good home-grown core when you reach the higher levels.





The World Cup is rife with upsets as Germany, Italy, France, Holland, and Uruguay are all bounced in the group stage. The United States beats Uruguay, but yet another loss to Ghana (for the third time in the last three World Cups, and just as I predicted when they were drawn together in Chapter Eight last season) keeps them from advancing to the knockout round. Meanwhile the English look dominant, scoring 12 goals in three wins to move on. Odds on favorites are Brazil, who play Chile in the knockout round.



Rosetti looks to return to Italy, with Serie A sides Chievo and Torino both looking to sign him for a 1.3m transfer fee. Between the Rosetti and Duchamps sales we should have more than enough money to play with during the season. He'll leave the team on July 6th, so our friendly with Bolton will be his last game for the team.



Or not. I guess it's the end of an era here at the Fig Poll Stadium.




Where's your faith, guys? We've totally got this. I hope.