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Career Unemployed Career - Looking for work!


Massey127
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Background Info

After working as a food technologist for 15 years, I give up my career in the food industry to follow my real passion, Football! 

Tired of the boring, mundane routine in my normal job and doing it just to provide for my family, I have give up my job and attained my coaching badges to become a professional Football Manager.

With my family now relying on me providing for them through football management there is no doubt that this will be a rocky road!

Now that I am unemployed and not wishing to up route my family I will be trying to forge my new career in England.

In July 2016 I checked the job market for vacancies and found 5 vacancies in the country, 1 with a Championship club, 3 with League One clubs and 1 with a League Two club - Grimsby.

I am in desperate need for work and I apply for all of them in the hope that someone will take a gamble on me and see my hunger to succeed!

Will I get a job?  Will my family go hungry before I secure a job?  Will my wife leave me before I can prove to her this might work?

A very uncertain future lies ahead...........

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I have an Interview!

Having been in the market for only 7 days I have been offered an interview with one of the 5 aforementioned clubs!

I felt the interview went well and I made clear that my lack of experience is more than made up for by my desire to succeed and keep my family together.

I have sacrificed everything for this career and I am determined to make this work and follow my dream.  I will reward any club that shows faith in me by becoming a servant to the club and bringing success as soon as I can to the club.

I left the interview feeling positive and excited about the prospect of managing so soon but will I hear back from them????

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I am officially a Football Manager!

My first interview and its successful!  It seems the board were impressed by my desire to succeed and could see my hunger!

After 24 hours negotiating the contract I have signed my first profession Football Manager contract and start my new career!

But who have I signed the contract with?

Where is my new home?

Can I meet the expectations of both my new club and my wife or will I disappoint both?

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My New Home - Grimsby Town FC

The club to which I owe so much from this point forward is none other than Grimsby Town FC!

Grimsby Town have shown that they share my footballing beliefs and philosophy.  They have taken a huge gamble by hiring me as an unproven and unheard off manager!  A gamble I hope to pay out on!

This exciting new opportunity has certainly eased my wife's concerns about the lack of security changing careers has brought upon my family.  This fantastic new chapter in ours lives will see us relocate to North East Lincolnshire and Blundell Park will be our new home!

Can I hold myself together as I encounter everything for the first time in football management or will I crumble and reign shorter than Mr. Allardyce!

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Feet under the table!

So I have signed the contract and committed now so what are we working with?

Well Blundell Park seats just over 9k and both our training and youth facilities are "Basic".

We have one coach and one scout (both have silver badges) and one physio who has a bronze badge.  Our coach is also our 2nd best goalkeeper at 40 years old!

The squad is at best average to say the least.  Our best players appear to be our two main centre backs and we are lacking any quality strikers.

The board expect a safe mid table finish and that is probably about right with what we have.  The board have however give us £529k transfer budget to work with.  Having searched extensively for players that would add quality and are willing to join us, this appears a tough task!

Our formation looks like it may have to be defensively based too!

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Our first (and only) signing!

With £529k to spend and only 2k spare in wages we found it very tough to find players that were willing to join us that would add quality but my priority was a decent striker.

I needed someone with the best ratings in Finishing, Movement, Decision making and Pace that we could afford and please welcome to Blundell Park - Jermaine Hylton!

Jermaine joins us from Swindon and although he was unsure about stepping down to League Two, I had convinced him that his dream of emulating his hero Wayne Rooney (both pictured below) was best developed by joining us and showing what he could do!  He agreed to join us and cost us £525k leaving only £4K left of our budget.  I have faith though!

The only other transfer dealing was sending a fringe player out on loan.

How will we fare?  Do I have what it takes to lead this team to at least mid table? Will I let Jermaine, the board, the club and my family down?

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6 Months in......... Do I Still Have a Job?!

With a mediocre team and only one signing a wasn't expecting much and to be honest I merely just wanted to keep in touching distance with the play off positions.

Ten games into the season and we were hanging on for dear life (Full fixture list below).

Jermaine Hylton once settled at the club really seemed to be making a difference and we were became more consistent as a result!  Then disaster struck, he got injured for 2 months! you can see below this drastically affected his stats!

Our form dipped temporarily and I tweaked the formation again.  To cut a long story short we have always been floating in around the play off positions until our recent run has seen us rise up the table to 2nd!  A very strong Luton team preventing us from taking top place.

We got knocked out of the EFL Cup straight away by Barnsley and are still in both the FA Cup and the Checkatrade Cup both at the third round.

Jermaine is back and he has just hit form again so we will see what 2017 brings.

After signing contracts with the players due to expire we are now in the red so I will have to release one or two of the fringe players in Jan.

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26 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Interesting to see how far you can take this team. Good stuff so far.

 

25 minutes ago, Jack said:

I love these types of careers - liking the detail / effort so far keep it up!

Many thanks for your kind words and interest guys, it really does help with the motivation to continue!  Thank You!

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Season 1 Summary - I am still Married!

Well what an extraordinary roller coaster of a season it has been!  To be honest the most pressure I felt all season was the pressure of walking into my house on a Saturday afternoon after a loss and hearing those words "I told you this wouldn't work out!".

It made me more determined to succeed however and I am immensely proud of what we achieved in our first season considering the squad we had. The lads give it everything they had and I couldn't have asked for anymore from them!

Where do I start to summarise all that has happened?

Jan transfer window

Since the last update in January we endured a torrid run due to injuries and the biggest blow of all - a bid for my main man Jermaine Hylton! He instantly became unhappy and I had no choice but to accept the bids and these came in Feb so I had him for the rest of the season but he was never the same player since agreeing to move!  He did finish with 22 goals and as you can see from the below screenshots we set up very defensively and didn't score many goals so those 22 goals were worth their weight in gold!  We did however manager to negotiate his transfer fee up to £1.3m with Gillingham winning his signature, which is a return of 150% profit after buying him for £525k.

We also had to release two fringe players to bring our finances back into the black.

Competitions

We were put out in the first round of the EFL cup by Barnsley and made it to the 3rd round of the FA cup where a very memorable game vs Huddersfield saw us dumped out.  In the Checkatrade Cup we made it to the final (at Wembley!!!!) where we bravely lost to Charlton.  The most memorable game of the season however was the Semi-Final vs Bolton in which we came from 2-0 down at half time to draw 2-2 and win 3-1 on penalties!  Bolton went on to win league One to put that in perspective and Charlton finished 2nd!

We did however finish 2nd in League 2 four points behind a dominating Colchester side.  Remembering that our board expected mid table finish, I consider this season a huge success and promotion to League One!!!

Team

Overall I couldn't have asked anymore from the guys.  Having to release two players in Jan and then effectively losing Hylton from Feb on top of the injuries we had, our squad was tested to the max! We have in general quite an old team and two of these players that have played well will leave us this summer to retire and 3 valuable loan players will also leave.  Our No.1 goalkeeper also wishes to leave for a bigger club so this will be an extremely testing summer and we will have to maximise the funds Hylton has brought in.

On the plus side we have had two young players (Max Wright and Dan Jones) who have played many games this season and performed reasonably well so their future at the club looks promising (profiles below).

The hunt will be on for a new star striker and possibly a new IF to play on the wing. I feel the overall quality of the squad needs improving and we will be lucky to survive relegation next season!

Over my dead body though will I allow my wife to say that phrase one more time!

 

 

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My first year as a Football Manager and I am in demand!

Well well well folks, I am not sure I am over the euphoria of the season just past yet and as I was about to start focus sing on preparing life in League 1 I got a phone call today from Peter Coates (Stoke City Chairman) and after praising my work this season with Grimsby, asks me to consider Managing Stoke City who finished 9th in the Premiership!!!

I need to sleep on this and decide what's best.  Will my wife be happy that we have made it into the big time or will she be nervous about relocating again and the pressure of the Premiership?

I will give each of you a ring tomorrow for your advice! ?

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Heartbreaking Fans Plea!

After news broke of Stoke's approach the Grimsby fans moved swiftly to show their appreciation for what we had been through this season.

As I arrived at Blundell park this morning I was greeted by thousands of fans asking that I reject Stoke's offer to remain with the Mariners!

In heartbreaking scenes I am now left with a huge dilemma and this will need some thinking through!

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Opportunity of a lifetime?

With such a difficult decision to make I felt I had to speak with Peter Coates in much more detail to ensure what I was getting involved with and what the terms would be.

I travelled west and made the 264 mile round trip from Blundell Park to the Bet365 Stadium and when I arrived I was simply stunned and even took a few pictures to share with you all.

Lets put this in perspective, 12 months ago I was working as a Food Technologist and bored out of my mind.  I never even dreamed that 12 months later I would be offered the opportunity to manage a Premier League team!

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You got Grimsby promoted to League One AND you brought them to Wembley. I say you owe them nothing anymore and I'm positive they won't hold any grudge against you if you follow your ambitious dreams. 

I concur. Do it!

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I Fell In Love!

Having spoke at length with Peter Coates and discussing his vision for Stoke City and sharing my views, philosophy and beliefs it was clear very early that this could be something very special.  Peter dreams of a day when Stoke become revered, a day when Stoke are considered one of the Premierships elite! 

Peter also promised to back us in the transfer market and put his money where is mouth is.  He had great belief in my ability and was extremely complimentary about my achievements in a very short 12 month period so far.

I was convinced there and then this would become my new home.

My wife has become more trusting in my ability also and sees this as an opportunity we as a family cannot turn down, we would regret it for the rest of our lives!

I contacted Peter and informed him I would be delighted to lead Stoke City FC!

He arranged a full blown fanfare to welcome my family and I.  We were simply blown away!

Stoke City are the 2nd oldest football club in the world and one of the founding members of the Football League!  Can you name the oldest club?

Stoke have only won one major trophy in the League Cup and their highest placed finish is 4th in the Premiership.

Can we change that?

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Time to Get to Work - What have we got?

I cannot waste a second if I am to succeed in the Premiership so let's have a look at what we have to work with.

Since the timing of my appointment is perfect as its at the end of this season instead of start of next I have transfer funds I can put into wages before next season loads (£17.15m).

We have world class facilities which allow for 4 coaches, 3 scouts and 3 Physios.  These will need arranging and I will need to bring in some of my own to balance the specialities but most are gold badge holders.

The squad itself as you can see was very inconsistent with only two stand out performers both in terms of goal scoring and ratings - Arnautovic and Diouf!

Shaquiri, Cameron and Charlie Adam have been sold before I arrived and no new arrivals.

Quite a bit of work to be done here!

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4 hours ago, Real_Random said:

Great season mate. Congrats on the premier league job, by the way the oldest football club (because you asked us to guess) is Sheffield FC.

 

3 hours ago, lewy_addisonyen said:

Keep up the nice work mate

Thanks guys, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

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Season One Overview and Universe Insight

As the title suggests the screenshots below give you an insight into the footballing universe.

We have our new transfer budget and board expectations.

We are expected to qualify for the UEFA Cup and have been given £25m to spend after leaving £120k spare in wages for new signings.

This £25m will have to be spent extremely wisely as the squad needs overhauled.

My main priority is to shift on quite a few players I consider surplus to requirements in order to boost our funds and decrease our wage bill.  Then we will set about strengthening this squad.

My objective for this season is simple - Not to get sacked and qualify for UEFA Cup and perhaps enjoy a cup run.

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Pre Season Summary - This is much harder than I thought!

Well after spending literally hours at my new desk assessing the squad and trying to arrange transfers both coming and going we have ended up with a squad I am happy with and we are within budget.

We made many new signings as we needed to improve in quite a few areas mainly ST, RW, LW, CM and CD.

I believe I have found a few little gems and I am going to single out Chavez here.  I signed him for £1.5m and he is already worth over £9m and has scored 6 goals in 3 friendly games!  Danny Rose, Brendan Galloway, Centurion, Cueva and  Alario amongst others make this a very successful period for us!

Diouf is out for 6 months with a broken ankle and Arnautovic wants to move to a bigger club but I won't let him go cheap!

Our first Premier League game is just around the corner vs Chelsea then we have Man City!  Not an easy start!

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8 signings for roughly 25M, and for Stoke standards some really decent players too. I'm impressed! The squad must be looking pretty good by now. Hopefully you find the right formula to make 'em gel.

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Early season update

After playing three league games and a cup game so far I have settled ok keeping the same formation as we used at Grimsby.

We started with Chelsea and were beaten 1-0, Then we played Man City and were narrowly defeated again.  Neither of those two games though give me any real concerns as this was while we had Diouf still Injured, Arnautovic unhappy and rest of team unfit and we put up a good fight in each!

I stuck with it for Everton and we came away with a strong 2-0 victory and then refreshed the entire team for the Cup game vs Rotheram and win 2-0 also.

Arnautovic agreed to sign a new contract and we were able to keep hold of him and now back on form which will be a major boost for us!

So I can now share with you the starting 11 and tactics etc.

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That fixture list looks like one of the most challenging I have ever had at the start of a season.

Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal all in the first 8 league games of the season!

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