2015 The Unemployed Challenge

[liam1872]

Nice move mate! One team closer from finishing this challenge (I'm confident you will  ) about the images I don't really know why you can't post imgur but maybe @Putzy or @Dec could help you. KIU!

Cheers mate, hopefully I can finish it

Nice one! I've got a long way to go to catch up! Although, I am currently challenging for promotion to the prem in only the 2nd season!

Thanks mate, and that's not bad going at all!!

[liam1872]

liam1872's Unemployed Challenge

FMH2015

Update #13

So here we are, finally at a team that is a part of the checklist, Liverpool. Arriving in December with the club sitting 15th in the Premier League table gives us quite a job to do. So let's get into it..

End of Season Review

Transfers

TRANSFERS OUT

Nobody left the club during my time in charge, so not much to see here...

TRANSFERS IN

Given a budget of £68m meant we had plenty money to bring in reinforcements, which is exactly what we needed. So I went a bit mental with the spending and probably overpaid for players however, we needed them quite badly so it had to be done. First off we signed full back Diego Ranieri from Lazio for £15m to help strengthen our defence. Remember Clemens Huth? Well I signed him again, this time for £14.5m however hoping he would give us the goals he gave me at Barnet. Andre Kruse joined from Feyenoord for £12.5m, overspend, however he is quite versatile and helped to strengthen our defence. With no goalkeepers at the club when I arrived I had to offer contracts to a couple of reserve goalkeepers to get us to January when we signed Jorge Jara from Ajax for £9.5m, Cristiano Insigne arrived from Frankfurt for £9.25m.

NEW SIGNINGS STATS

Competitions

Capital One Cup

A cup win with Liverpool! 1 down 1 to go in order to cross them off the list! Both strikers getting on the scoresheet in a 3-0 win is always good too

FA Cup

We had another chance to win another cup, this time the FA Cup, but we were stopped in our tracks by Chelsea as we suffered a 2-1 defeat in what could've been the 2nd cup we need.

Europa League

Going down to 10 men in the first half had me worried especially given the qualities of Roma. However, we stood firm and Peter Gustavsson got us the vital goal late on to make it 1-0. The Europa League was ours!! 2 cup wins in 1 season means that we can finally cross a team off the list!

Barclays Premier League

A very tight finish to the season saw us squeeze our way into the top 4 on goal difference after we managed to put together an incredibly run of results!! It helped of course that the teams ahead of us continued to drop points, but take nothing away from that achievement!

Trophy Cabinet

As you can see, 2 cup wins added to the overall total makes it 5 all together after we won the French Cup and the Champions Trophy at Lyon and the Community Shield at Barnet. This means that we can cross off Liverpool from the list giving us one less team to get to in order to complete the challenge! Hopefully we can get a move soon to another team from the list as time is fast running out!

The Checklist

 

MANCHESTER CITY

LIVERPOOL

CHELSEA

ARSENAL

ATLETICO MADRID

BARCELONA

REAL MADRID

ATHLETIC BILBAO

PSG

MONACO

LILLE

JUVENTUS

ROMA

NAPOLI

 

 

THANKS FOR READING AND I'LL SEE YOU ALL SOON

[S4NCH0]

Great update! Jorge Jar looks amazing with so many greens! Seeking another big move?

[liam1872]

Great update! Jorge Jar looks amazing with so many greens! Seeking another big move?

Thanks man! Jara was an absolute beast, greens everywhere!! And yeah I know it seems soon but it has to be done to move on with the challenge!

[MichaelC15]

Spent the last 20 minutes reading your updates for this challenge, you have done amazing,keep up the good work,inspired me to try the challenge myself!! 

[liam1872]

Spent the last 20 minutes reading your updates for this challenge, you have done amazing,keep up the good work,inspired me to try the challenge myself!! 

Aw cheers mate, appreciate it!!

[HarryB571]

Great job as Liverpool! Up 11 places in half a season is incredible! How did Barnet do while you were in France?

[liam1872]

Great job as Liverpool! Up 11 places in half a season is incredible! How did Barnet do while you were in France?

Cheers! I may be wrong, but if I'm right, Rafa Benitez took over and they finished mid-table

[liam1872]

liam1872's Unemployed Challenge

FMH2015

Update #14

After success at Liverpool, and after winning the 2 cups that I needed, I decided to leave Liverpool to pursue a job at another team on the list. I didn't have to wait too long thankfully as I was offered a job in early November! This job would be in Spain, at Athletic Bilbao.

Now you may be thinking that's a good club to be at, they have good players, they're consistently in Europe, what could go wrong? Well, something has gone drastically wrong for Bilbao over the years..

They are BOTTOM of the league after just 1 win from their opening 10 games!! I didn't understand why this was so until I looked at their squad. They had just 13 first team players, most of which were 30+ years of age..

Then I looked at finances and thought, that's fine we have plenty of money to bring in players in January so if we try not to get detached from at the bottom by then, hopefully I can bring in some better players..

That was when I remembered, Bilbao are only allowed to sign Basque players and so our options would be limited. A very tough challenge we have here to both keep Bilbao in the league then we need to win 2 cups at the club to cross them off the list...

JANUARY

When January arrived, we were in a very bad bad way..

We hadn't won a single game yet, and with injuries happening too frequently, the squad was becoming so thin I had to offer contracts to and promote some players from the reserves, and they weren't of the greatest quality to be honest. We were in some real trouble..

TRANSFERS

OUT

We couldn't let anyone leave the club given the already tight squad, so there were no outgoings.

IN

Bringing in players proved to be harder than I expected, as even with a large budget at our disposal, there is no search filter for Basque players! So the only way to find Basque players was to leave the 'Interested' filter switched ON. Of course this would only show Basque players however it would leave out the best ones that we could have tried to get. Being in 2026, I couldn't use my knowledge of Basque players either as they were either too old, or had retired. So we were very restricted and that meant we were in more trouble than I thought..

We did manage to bring in some players however. Not all of they players in the image were brought in by me, some arrived in the summer before I took over. I managed to sign only 5 players, and to be honest they didn't look that great but I had to work with what we could get. Tom Verhoek joined from Feyenoord for £4m, Luuk Pisas arrived from Heracles for £2.8m, Francisco Ramirez left one Spanish club for another as he joined for £350k, Mikael Svensson came in for £150k and Mark Walsh joined for £80k.

NEW SIGNINGS STATS

COMPETITIONS

The club were already out of all cup competitions when I arrived, so all we had to do was keep Bilbao in the league...

After a nerve-wracking second half of the season we managed to stay up! However, that is only the beginning of the challenges that lie ahead at Bilbao. We still need to build a squad, from only Basque players, that can win 2 cup competitions. It will be tough but hopefully we can do it.

Trophy Cabinet

So no more cup wins to add to the tally, but at least we have something to build on for next season and hopefully we can put together a cup winning team quickly!!

The board are expecting a respectable league position next season, and again we have a decent sized budget but we need to find the best Basque players possible which is hard to do without a Basque national search filter!

Update #15 should be out tomorrow, don't miss it and make sure to see how we get on with rebuilding Bilbao.

The Checklist

 

MANCHESTER CITY

LIVERPOOL

CHELSEA

ARSENAL

ATLETICO MADRID

BARCELONA

REAL MADRID

ATHLETIC BILBAO

PSG

MONACO

LILLE

JUVENTUS

ROMA

NAPOLI

 

 

THANKS FOR READING AND I'LL SEE YOU ALL SOON

 

[S4NCH0]

Wow! Great job getting Bilbao out of the hole! Looking forward to see what can you do with them now! When are you starting with national management?

[liam1872]

Wow! Great job getting Bilbao out of the hole! Looking forward to see what can you do with them now! When are you starting with national management?

Cheers! Hopefully I can do something quite quickly with them! And whenever really, the jobs I need aren't really popping up very often

[S4NCH0]

Cheers! Hopefully I can do something quite quickly with them! And whenever really, the jobs I need aren't really popping up very often

Ok mate, hope they start popping soon! KIU!

[MerlionMaple96]

Some great updates mate Really enjoying this. Superb performance at Liverpool btw to come in 4th. Equally solid work at Bilbao to keep them from relegation. KIU 

[liam1872]

Some great updates mate Really enjoying this. Superb performance at Liverpool btw to come in 4th. Equally solid work at Bilbao to keep them from relegation. KIU 

Thanks mate! Appreciate the support

[HarryB571]

That was some managerial genius keeping Bilbao up. Good luck for next year!

[liam1872]

liam1872's Unemployed Challenge

FMH2015

Update #15

Update 15 is here! My first full season at Athletic Bilbao, and we were hoping to build on last season after managing to save the club from relegation after taking over when they were BOTTOM of La Liga. Managing to secure our La Liga status and climb up to a 15th place finish. Hoping to build on this, we set about trying to bring in some new faces to bolster the squad..

End of Season Review

Transfers

TRANSFERS OUT

4 players left the club permanently as their contracts expired and they were either ageing or simply just weren't good enough for what we wanted to do at the club. These players were Markel Etxeberria, Jonas Ramalho, Iker Muniain and Edu Fuentes. 2 youth players were sent out on season long loans to hopefully get some first team action.

TRANSFERS IN

If we were to compete for silverware and improve on our 15th place finish last term, we would need new signings. So again having to only sign Basque players using the 'interested' filter on the player search, I set out to bring in some new players. I actually managed to find a few players who looked good so I had to pay whatever it took to get them given how little Basque players there are. Davide Insigne arrived from Sassuolo for £6.5m, Jose Luis Martinez came in from Malaga for £1m, Spyros Labropoulos came in for just £825k which I was surprised a little about, Steven Guillou and Matty Fitzpatrick arrived for £625k and £80k respectively.

NEW SIGNINGS STATS

Competitions

Spanish Cup

I decided to prioritise this competition over the league, which could've been risky, but hopefully this would help us to secure our first cup win at Bilbao..

We manage to just that after Francisco Ramirez put us in an awkward position just before half time. Luckily we were already one up thanks to Javier Granero and our keeper decided to have the game of his life! We secured the Spanish Cup with a 1-0 win over Sevilla, so one cup down, one to go. Managing to avoid the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona helped us massively on our way to Spanish Cup success.

La Liga

Hoping that prioritising the Spanish Cup would not hinder our performance too much in the league, we looked to build on last seasons 15th place finish..

After finally putting together a team I was somewhat happy with, we managed to secure a top 6 finish, an improvement of 9 places on last seasons efforts. This would also mean that we would be playing in the Europa League for next season. So a very good season after the struggles of last and we look to build on that even further when we rejoin for next season.

Trophy Cabinet

So we had another cup win to add to the total, and we would only need one more to tick Bilbao off of the list. We would have 3 chances at doing that next season as we would be competing in the Spanish Super Cup, Spanish Cup and the Europa League so hopefully we don't need to wait too long for more success!

Update #16 might not be around until Thursday as I'm quite busy tomorrow, but make sure you don't miss it.

The Checklist

 

MANCHESTER CITY

LIVERPOOL

CHELSEA

ARSENAL

ATLETICO MADRID

BARCELONA

REAL MADRID

ATHLETIC BILBAO

PSG

MONACO

LILLE

JUVENTUS

ROMA

NAPOLI

 

 

THANKS FOR READING AND I'LL SEE YOU ALL SOON

[liam1872]

 

That was some managerial genius keeping Bilbao up. Good luck for next year!

Cheers Harry, next update is already out

[S4NCH0]

Great improvement with Bilbao Liam! Wow!

[HarryB571]

6th! That's incredible. Its always risky getting rid of players with Bilbao as you can't sign many. But your signings look really good!

[BillyTheKid]

Nice work! Hopefully, you can win the Spanish super cup and then you will have already accomplished your two trophies with Bilbao in my opinion will probably be the hardest team to win trophies with!

[liam1872]

 

Great improvement with Bilbao Liam! Wow!

Cheers mate!

6th! That's incredible. Its always risky getting rid of players with Bilbao as you can't sign many. But your signings look really good!

Cheers! Yeah it was risky but it worked out fine in the end, thankfully

Nice work! Hopefully, you can win the Spanish super cup and then you will have already accomplished your two trophies with Bilbao in my opinion will probably be the hardest team to win trophies with!

Thanks Billy, and well you'll just have to wait and see huh? Yeah I underestimated how hard Bilbao was going to be when I started the challenge!

[liam1872]

liam1872's Unemployed Challenge

FMH2015

Update #16

Even though I thought I wouldn't have enough time today to get an update up, I was wrong and so here it is, update 16

END OF SEASON REVIEW

TRANSFERS

OUT

We took a chance again this term with transfers as we allowed quite a few players to leave the club who I felt weren't up to the standard we needed. So this meant goodbyes for 5 players, Peter de Jong, Javi Hernandez, Jon Aurtenetxe, Inigo Ruiz de Galarreta and Juan Manuel Alba, 4 of whom left for free with de Jong being the only player to bring us in a fee. 4 players also left on loan and should I need them throughout the season, could be recalled.

IN

5 players out permanently, 5 players in permanently. We spent a large amount of money again but we had to in order to get the players given there aren't many Basque players going around. Francisco Morales, Christian Sala, Christian Solberg, Aymeric Laporte and Chris Harris all arrived at the club for just under £20m. Aymeric Laporte's return to Bilbao costing just £775k however his stats considerably did drop come January. Christian Sala ended up spending some time on the sidelines with injury which didn't help us in terms of scoring goals.

NEW SIGNINGS STATS

COMPETITIONS

Spanish Super Cup

The first chance of silverware of the season saw us face last seasons league winners Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup. Somehow, after being dominated in both legs, we managed to hold them to a 0-0 draw in the first leg and snatch a goal in the second leg to come out of the tie 1-0 winners on aggregate. We done it!!! 2 cups with Bilbao have been won, and we can start looking towards other teams hoping their managers get sacked...

Spanish Cup

Last seasons Spanish Cup heroics couldn't be matched as this time we couldn't avoid Real Madrid and after putting up a good fight we came out losers in a 3-2 aggregate defeat

Europa League

After cruising through the group stage without even conceding a goal, and securing an emphatic 7-0 win at home to Portuguese side Vit. Guimaraes, we were due to play FC Twente in the 1st knockout round. However, I didn't make it to mid-February when the tie was to be played...

La Liga

When the January window closed, I had a think and had a good look at the league table and where we were. On the 1st of February we were 6th in the table, the position we finished in last season with a goal difference of 0. I thought about whether or not I was actually enjoying Bilbao and well, I wasn't really. Having already won the 2 cups we needed and currently only matching our position from last season while struggling to score many goals I was struggling for motivation to play really. The added toughness of how difficult it is to bring players in certainly didn't help.

So, I decided to resign. 

Yeah I know, you're probably thinking I'm an idiot but if I kept going as Bilbao I felt I may have ended up completely losing interest in the challenge and I want to complete it. So resigning to me was the best option, so the job hunt began again..

JOB HUNT

After just over a month of checking the job centre a job pops up that I like the look of. Not only is it one of the teams on the list, it's a team I actually quite like. So I applied for this job, and they offered me the position as manager and I accepted without hesitation.

Who do you think it is?

You'll have to wait till the next update to find out Leave your guesses in a comment and I'll let you know how close or far away you are!

TROPHY CABINET

As you can see, another cup win to add to the total, this time the Spanish Super Cup after a 1-0 aggregate win over Barcelona!

Update 17 will contain the rest of the season at my new club (from 31st March onwards) as well as the following season, my first full season at my new club, which will be the 2028-2029 season!

Thanks for reading and make sure to keep an eye out to see who my new club is.

THE CHECKLIST

 

MANCHESTER CITY

LIVERPOOL

CHELSEA

ARSENAL

ATLETICO MADRID

BARCELONA

REAL MADRID

ATHLETIC BILBAO

PSG

MONACO

LILLE

JUVENTUS

ROMA

NAPOLI

 

 

THANKS FOR READING AND I'LL SEE YOU ALL SOON

[pipaz4]

I have read all of the updates in like 30 minutes and it's an awesome challenge gonna be following from now on, cheers.

[liam1872]

I have read all of the updates in like 30 minutes and it's an awesome challenge gonna be following from now on, cheers.

Aw cheers mate!

[HarryB571]

What was Laporte doing at Bournemouth?  I reckon you got the job at an Italian club.

[liam1872]

What was Laporte doing at Bournemouth?  I reckon you got the job at an Italian club.

He was at Chelsea and they sold him to Bournemouth for something like £3m

Which Italian club though...

[HarryB571]

 

He was at Chelsea and they sold him to Bournemouth for something like £3m

Which Italian club though...

I think Roma would be nice to see

[S4NCH0]

I'm guessing it's Juventus 

Great update!

[liam1872]

I'm guessing it's Juventus 

Great update!

oooooh, close

cheers mate!

[MerlionMaple96]

Congrats on the 2 trophies with Bilbao, playing with them is awfully tough.

Looking forward to more