Transfers and Targets

In my last posted I pointed out where I wanted to improve my side. With £2.2m in my first season I didn’t really have much money to play around with. With that in mind I decided to concentrate on the backroom staff and I am pretty pleased with the results. Once again I found Brazil the place to find the best backroom players.

Dortmund Backroom Staff

The target for the first season was to stay in the Champions League which would keep the bank balance up to build my squad. While doing this putting my scouts out and around to find the best talent young and old.

I’m not one to hang around wonderkid threads, searching for the best players. I like to think that I do a good job of finding my own players. Though admittedly I thank Twitter for some left back suggestions and if anyone wants to suggest a false 9 type player feel free to leave a comment.

After finishing the first season 4th my objective was achieved in a tight top 6, this kept finances healthy but the very frugal Dortmund decided to leave me with £15m to bring in any of my targets.

Transfers

I did sign bring a few players in the first season to sure up the squad on free transfer Andreas Hinkel, Timo Hildebrand and Timothee Atouba. None of these players were part of the long term plan but came in as cheap stop gaps.

My first signing though was:

Tobias Figueiredo

Tobias came to the side aged 17 for £2.2 million. The centre back looks a fair prospect for someone who might want to play at the back. But I was more interested in some of his decent passing stats, first touch, positioning and flair. Because I don’t intend to play him at in the back line.

Tobias has a future as a central midfielder, as soon as he has arrived I have been working on his ability to play in that position, re-training him and putting him on MC training schedules.

I need to work on his determination, other wise this attribute might cause some issues before I can send him out on loan once he is more then comfortable in his MC role.

With Hinkel and Atouba both leaving the club in the second season I went in search for a long-term options at full back. Last season I conceded so many goals from wide areas that it was important that I get in two players who are defensively sound.

Garry Bocaly (DR)

I have always been drawn to Garry by my scouts in previous Football Manager games, but only now have I ever signed him. Decent positioning, good tackler he is a sound full back, able to get up and down I hoped to get him a little cheaper then £8m but I thought that was money well spent, especially in my desperation for a player in that position. 24 still has room to improve so I will be working on the mental part of his game, positioning would be a good part for me to improve.

Aleksander Lukovic (DR)

After a massive search for an ideal left back, which included my scout searches and suggestions on Twitter, I stumbled across Lukovic. A better defender than Bocaly but equally as rounded a player. He has done some traveling Lukovic as he has played in Serbia, Italy and Russia before arriving in Germany.

I am pretty pleased with his capture at £7.75m, both players will strengthen my wing especially when they are left so exposed by my inside forwards.

I am little worried about the team work attributes of both these full backs but hopefully the quality of the middle defenders will combat this.

Targets

Now the full back are sorted I am interested in my central midfield. Ilkay though is maturing nicely and will definitely grab a first team place for the majority of next season as a MC. But I am also interested in two other players for this position

Jonjo Shelvey (MC)

Recently played Jonjo with my Great Britain side at the Olympics. A great looking deep lying play maker with good passing stats, work rate and composure. Though very little difference between him and Ilkay, he will add more depth to the midfield as I look to bring him in on loan with a view to a permanent move.

Defensively he isn’t all that, but play him alongside Bender or as an alternative to Kehl he will add something more to the attack.

Though in terms of all round play maker that would be perfect for my system

Arouca (MC)

This guy is my number 1 target. I have not had the money yet to bring him in and he has annoyingly just signed a 3 years deal with Santos so he probably won’t come cheap.

He comes from a perfect mould of Brazilian deep lying playmakers. Dunga, Lucas, Falco. Able to win the ball back and recycle possession or probe the ball forward to create goal scoring opportunities.

These targets are the key areas in which I want to improve in the short-term. Though I have been hit with the news that Kagawa in the final year of his contract wants out of Germany all together. His career aspiration to play for Barcelona are forcing him to look for a bigger side. This has thrown a few spanner in the works meaning that I now have to plan for a new AMC, though Perisic is more then good enough to step in as an attacking option my forward line will be left with out Gotze as a creative force. While a new striker will also do me nicely, someone in the guise of Rooney or Rossi who I had at Real.