Career Sunderland 'Til I Die

[CamelXCVII]

I've enjoyed looking through the site over the last few weeks so I've to decided to post something of my own. I'm going to try and take Sunderland back to the Premier League and beyond. I'm just starting the career as we speak and will upload some updates as the season goes on. 

Rules:

No transfer budget in first window.

No cheating.

Wish me luck!

[gunnersaur]

Good luck man .. tough challenge ahead 

[Gerechtigaids]

From experience just tactics could get you to the PL with the Black Cats

[Madferit25]

After watching the 'Sunderland till I die' doc on Netflix I quite fancy starting a Sunderland save! Big club with a good stadium! How is Lee Catermole on £50-£70k a week though in real life😲

[ScottishFMM]

Gutted as I fancied this myself especially after watching that Netflix Doc, anyway GL mate

[CamelXCVII]

10 hours ago, gunnersaur said:

Good luck man .. tough challenge ahead 

Hopefully I'll be in Prem within four years. Just finished my first season (spoiler alert: it's a good start)

added 0 minutes later

1 hour ago, ScottishFMM said:

Gutted as I fancied this myself especially after watching that Netflix Doc, anyway GL mate

Cheers mate. I'm actually visible on the Netflix doc a couple of times. Guess I'm famous!

[CamelXCVII]

3 hours ago, Madferit25 said:

After watching the 'Sunderland till I die' doc on Netflix I quite fancy starting a Sunderland save! Big club with a good stadium! How is Lee Catermole on £50-£70k a week though in real life😲

What's even worse is that his agent is Sunderland's ex chief exec... 

[FoxD]

11 minutes ago, CamelXCVII said:

I'm actually visible on the Netflix doc a couple of times. Guess I'm famous!

Are you one of the many angry people in the crowd?

[CamelXCVII]

So I got a bit carried away and finished the first season in one massive swoop. I started off by loaning out youngsters and getting a new physio. I then put together my team, aim to create a squad which would use possession and technical ability in order to counteract our lack of athleticism and physicality. 

In short, it didn't work. I got dominated in pre-season and scraped a very lucky win against Charlton, where the score (3-1) felt completely against the run of play. I felt like I had put too much emphasis on the passing and had forgotten about the work off the ball. In addition, the wingers were getting no service and opposition's were getting numerous good opportunities, so I needed more cover. Therefore, I tried a new formation:

With this tactic, I hoped the compactness of the team would help to use numbers to defend against physicality, whilst using technical ability to use quick passing to progress through. This (especially the inverted wing backs) was heavily inspired by Pep Guardiola, as I knew teams could struggle to deal with the overload in the centre of the pitch. So did this work?

Yes. It worked. Especially after making a couple of signings in January, we walked the league. On Jan 1st we were 2nd, level on points with Scunthorpe who were top, 3 ahead of 3rd placed Burton. So I searched for players who were strong, good passers and had impressive stamina for the box-to-box role, whilst selling a couple of players to free up funds and wages.

After Jan 1st, we only lost 1 league game for the rest of the season. A 2-0 home defeat to Portsmouth in the penultimate game. 

So what's the plan for our return to the championship? I aim to use loan signings to help strengthen, as I don't want to jump the gun and be reckless with spending, as a Sunderland fan, I know how bad that can work out. Target? Top 10, pushing for play-offs.

[CamelXCVII]

17 minutes ago, Foxy said:

Are you one of the many angry people in the crowd?

I'm a guy chewing gum behind Simon Grayson and someone looking miserable at the end of season awards. Wasn't too bad though, won a bottle of wine in the raffle... 🤷‍♂️😂

[CamelXCVII]

8 hours ago, Gerechtigaids said:

From experience just tactics could get you to the PL with the Black Cats

I'm confident I'll manage it, the infrastructure is already excellent. Only worry is the finances, as I intend on spending as little as possible, certainly want to keep the net spend as £0 maximum.