Stockport County - Are they back?

[Bridgey@Stockport]

Championship league game 29

West Brom 2 - 0 Stockport County

Zero positives from this game and more importantly nothing learned other than when we do concede, we’re still not scoring. So, an early goal by the home side meant it was nailed on they take all three points.

I need to get the most out of these players, but are they good enough, even for the championship. Our due diligence on players need to be better if they’re just going to down tools and not even try to perform.

It seems they can’t get motivated against the lower sides in the table. As if the bare minimum will do and that will get the win. Time and time again the players have been proven wrong and everyone at the club looks silly. The only people who can do anything about it though are the players, they need to step up for the club, the badge, the fans and most importantly themselves. This is because if they’re carry on as they are no one will re sign them after we let them go.

I’m hoping leaving the blame on their doorstep in the public domain in this post match review it will hit them harder and provoke a response. We still have time to finish in a positive manner. Saving the clubs and the players season and careers respectively.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

Championship league game 30

Stockport County 2 - 5 Bournemouth

It seems like a public flogging for professional players has an adverse effect on performance and morale.

After a really low game before this one we hit a new low at home to the cherries. We were second best in every department. We conceded over 30 attempts on our goal and managed only 18 in response. A positive, we managed to score a couple, but this means nothing when we capitulate at the back. Something I can say has hardly happened this season. Trust the process though, that’s what we keep preaching, we will get the right players for this system, but it will take time.

Will results like this happen more until that happens? I’m hoping they will be few and far between. There will be points and games lost but I’m hoping not as bad as this.

Transfers to note, Zubueldia has come in and gone out with Suso coming in. I feel he will make way for a stronger striker in no time at all. We’re in further negotiations with Bristol City in a move to swap Suso and Gudmansson. In our assessments we feel Gudmansson is more of a cultural fit for the squad and the club.

Re hashed plan for next season Gudmansson and a loan striker from Man United’s youth setup. Behind them Canales, Blasi and Fraser will make up the midfield. The only other deal that needs finalising is Wallace on loan from Bristol city. Another youth player for us to develop, the only thing to finalise if the 5M fee for training him for them. It seems like some teams aren’t aware of this fee and it could become a stumbling block for some loans EOS.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

Championship league game 31

Sunderland 2 - 1 Stockport County

Started the game pretty well and took the lead early. We then had two goals dis allowed and the home side equalised. From those disappointing events we struggled to focus and get past the sense of injustice.

Meaning that the home side scored again and took the points. So frustrating until you see the stats and the scoreline become justified and we were in fact lucky not to lose by more. Another loss to a struggling team, have I overestimated these players even more than I thought I had. Are they as the form table suggests a bottle of the table team? Or is this just a tough patch we will come out of?

Will the supporters and the owners still want me as manager if these kind of terrible result continue. They will require resilience and patience to get to where we planned and I believe I will get that time to show what I and the team can do. I just need a few more transfer windows and more money. I’ll re iterate although these results will happen i in no way accept them or condone them. Our development and direction must shift and shift quickly.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

Championship league game 32

Sheffield United 1 - 0 Stockport County

Like Brighton, Sheffield should be ok the Premiership. Despite losing, I see this game and result as a turning point. We outplayed the home side, despite being countered and against home advantage. As well as how good the home side are we dominated many parts of this game.

Another game and another disallowed goal meant the result wasn’t positive, but the performance is what I’m looking for in my team. This will be the turning point and we will push as high as we can from now until the end of the season to maximise our finances for the new season.

Barring injuries and suspensions I believe we will get. Nothing but positive results in our last games and ideally finish just before the playoffs. Looking to finish in the playoffs and or above next season.

Confirmed for next season G Pazzini from Man United will join on loan for the full season with 5m heading to the County coffers to develop him. Unconfirmed currently is whether Bristol City are ok with paying the same amount. This will be chased and confirmed as soon as possible. If they aren’t ok paying we will have to source and sign and alternative loan. There are a few good prospects out there and we will take good care of them if sent to us as done with Bell and Beundia.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

With the end of the season circus well underway Stockport County have started making moves in what would seem as a step back from their previous strategy.

In season 3 Mike Bridge set out his stall and pushed hard with transfers to increase age and quality across the board to push for promotion. Top of the league half way through the season it was all going swimmingly, however, a massive dip in form meant a very big decision. Purge the quality signings as they eat up most of, maybe even all of the clubs money each month or keep them and gamble on a second try in season 4. Mike Bridge chose the earlier option. He moved the older better players on as well as their wages and this would build up enough money to invest in the clubs future.

So has the investment started to show any real potential? The answer is currently, very little, but we’re in the early stages of the investment. The extra bit of information to share is that we’ve been unlucky, well not as lucky as some of the other teams with the randomly generated youth players ratings. The next ones could be the gems we were looking for. But we will stick to the plan!

Last season went the same as the season before. Close to the top spot half way through the season only to drop as we moved players around to generate even more cash.

Last end of season we increased our stadium capacity from 35,000 to 45,000. We bought 3 seasons worth of training and 5 seasons worth of youth player searches.

The first incumbent to the youth setup is Luisao. A solid player in defence who may catch up with the extra training we’ve bought, but whether he will get to the highest level will have to come down to a bit of luck.

County will be doing exactly the same this season. 45,000 will soon become 55,000 at the cost of 15 million. Next we will be adding a second scout and that will add a further 5 players and mean a total of 10 to feed into the club and become the team that will take County to the prem. The icing on the cake is the second coach that will mean all the youth players will get 30 weeks of training 5 weeks extra per coach. All this will be vital and will mean we won’t have to invest further for a few seasons and will give the young players every opportunity to be a good as they possibly can.

Who to choose this season to add to Luisao? Let’s go back to season 3 to explain, we managed to get Willy Gnonto in the auction and no one seemed to want to offer a good deal for him. So, we managed to swap him and the County keeper at the time for Jack Grealish and Sam Johnstone. Grealish in this story is basically most of the cash for the investment when he was sold. However, Johnstone, 32 at the time became 25 rated with captain abs. The idea was he was going to play 2-4 seasons as the number one. Amelia in the youth setup was to replace him. The issue is the derates Johnstone is getting, they’re much heavier than we anticipated. Skip forward to now. Amelia has just turned 22 rated and he still isn’t as good as a 34 year old Johnstone who is now 23 rated. With captain abs he will be 24 rated which will be ok. I would like him to do 2 more seasons but to be realistic he will do 1 and then Amelia will be promoted next season. Hopefully he will have surpassed Johnstone by then and his number 1 career can commence. So, I’m thinking let’s scout a second keeper starting this season. The next player? We will promote the average Materazzi and the good Blasi. A defender and a midfielder. So it makes sense to scout a player to cover one of them, more than likely a defensive midfielder due to have other defenders in the pipeline and those players look like they could become first team players definitely.

We currently have 63 million in the kitty that already covers the stadium, scout and players. We are loaning a youth defender from Bayern Munich and a Striker from Manchester United. This will bring in an extra 10 million taking us to 73 due to the youth training fee. 77 with a full credit haul. Next up we will be moving Bernat on for 19 and bringing in P Max from Wolfsburg he will cost 16 so a profit of 3. The next part is only made feasible by bringing the youths up and brining the loans in giving us 2 extra players. Rekik will be sold for 17.5M and
With no real bidders or interest in the current player Fraser he will be purged for 27.8M for a total of 45.8M and a grand total of 128.8 for the clubs kitty.

We then have 68 to enter either the real auction or pick up 1 maybe 2 of the free youth players that were released from some of the bigger teams who played them 0 minutes.

Whether this will be enough to keep us in in touch with the other teams doing the same thing down in the championship who knows, but it will definitely give us a shot.

We’re not really looking at how strong or not the other teams in the championship are. We’re looking for an AM in the auction, that’s to complement how we want to play next season. I’m predicting we will be one of the youngest teams age wise and we will struggle for quality that will mean we will be near the bottom but that’s not an issue when you look at the bigger picture and the bigger plan!

I’m expecting Norwich and Millwall will be my competition in this youth venture. We have an even fight don’t we? You’d expect so, however you can’t put a price on the bonds and relationships JB and Gary Windebank already have. If it comes down to all 3 of us going for the same player or deal you can bet your bottom dollar I’d be chosen last unless it’s an exceptional circumstance or I somehow sweeten the deal. Am I complaining? Not at all I’ll just try harder and will do better on my own. It makes it all the more sweeter when it does happen.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

So, after a further think. Is it a good idea to select a defensive midfielder in our new scouting system. With goals hard to come by in the last few seasons we may need to reconsider and select an AM or for more goals an out an out striker.

We’ve done really well keeping how many goals we concede to a minimum, but goals at the other end have been hard to come by. So I’m leaning more towards the striker that will take us to the next level. All in all with the 10 players we have being scouted we can all but fill one slot in the team. I was thinking P Canales could fill the final spot but I think it’s far fetched to think he can make it at the top level. Maybe we can fill that void in the auction this end of season, with only a small pot of money we will be one of the poorer teams in either auction. We will need to be frugal to get anywhere with the cash we have, but we’re still in it and we have a shot to get a gem.

Next season we will setup with a variation of our 5 - 1 - 2 - 2. Five at the back is sorely needed with the keeper Johnstone becoming more frail in his old age. Blasi moving up from the youth setup will either play as a defensive midfielder against the better teams or as a midfielder against the more evenly matched teams. Leaving P Canales and an unknown incoming player to help setup Gudmansson and the on loan youth striker coming from Manchester United.

I feel this is the optimum setup for the players at the disposal of Stockport County. This coupled with the fact there is little to no strength in depth until at least the next incumbent of youth players next season.

Next season will arguably be the toughest since taking over at Edgeley park, with the youth players we’re giving minutes to and the fact that my old caretaker team Everton were relegated. I set them up for safety but it was unfortunate that David couldn’t keep them up, but they will be hot favourites to return to the Prem at the first time of asking. It’s also good to see the return of Tyler Edwards taking over at Wrexham (Formerly Sheffield Wednesday). Having the rivalry in the office and in real life will certainly spice things up more.

I’m also working on a few recruitment avenues, mainly seeing if my uncle could return and maybe even Dan Crinson. But having struggled in the past to get used to FFO it maybe a reach to far for them to come back and flourish.

Next we will look at what we’re looking to spend money on in the next few seasons after covering the maximum scouts and youth incumbents. Firstly we need to replace some of the older squaddies we have in the team, but this shouldn’t take up too much cash. It will be mainly more stadium upgrades and either saving for the next round of scouts and youth or gambling on an auction buy to resell and make further profit. I don’t see any benefit on spending it elsewhere. I’ll be restricting purchases from other managers, I see giving them cash and taking away from County as a double negative.

Next up we discuss Monaco the current caretaker club I’ll be looking after. I’ll be honest it was mentally taxing keeping them up in EFL1 last season. I’ll be looking to reduce the amount of time and exertion on them this season. I’d like a full time manager to take them over now to be honest, only after promoting a couple of youth players and replacing at least one of them. I feel the team has gone as far as I can take them while leaving the new manager enough to work their own angle. If I make any decisions now it will affect the new manager massively.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

It seems like the the dark arts crew has won with many media outlets reporting JB the new manager of Norwich has been hounded out of the club.

I for one think that they’re out of order and just because they disagree with the narrative and direction FFO is going in. Mainly because it doesn’t suit their own agenda it seems they have to “bite the hand” that feeds them and stick the knife in.

They “the fat cats” want to stay at the top with no fear of any other team or manager catching up. Their glass houses will soon come crashing down when the youth system pays dividends to the few using it in the right way and they will become old news.

No wonder with attack after attack we’re close to the straw that breaks the camels back. Their fear should not make them act out they should conform and keep quiet. I urge, as many of the rest of the managers would for JB to stay, carry on dating Delia Smith if that’s what would increase his enjoyment in the game. He spends a lot of time running the game as do all the admins, at one point we will play our final game in FFO let’s not have the few ruin it for the many who appreciate the game and not compare it to other inferior copies.

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