We garnered quite a lot of points during the previous campaign – and I felt our quality was enough to see us do well higher up the football pyramid. But a disaster of a beginning to the season left the team in disarray, especially after all of the new faces we brought in. Check it out below and see if we could recover.
Transfers
As you can see, I may have gotten carried away with the new Consortium’s bounty of money they provided me. But I figure – I’ve got a transfer budget, might as well spend it!
Sefa Akgün is actually a good midfielder with 13 passing, and 15 teamwork and vision. Tackling and positioning are only at 11, which is okay for this level.
Jack Cole is a good defender on the right and the best player available. Leon Davies is not too thrilled about Cole’s arrival and I should have foreseen the drama and passed on Cole, even though he is very good. Just look at him.
Sure, his dribbling isn’t great but he’s excellent for a League One side and probably will still be with me as a backup in the Premier League.
Kwame Poku is one of those players who is scouted and looks great but not enough to go all in. Then you keep scouting and keep scouting and you’ve seen his name for so long, you feel like you should just get him. I think I scouted him for three seasons, and I certainly knew of his presence when he was playing for Colchester.
Tom Roberts brings passing, teamwork, and vision to the midfield, similar to Akgün; Kyle Allison will be a good backup to Andrea Falzon and plays better in a three man midfield if we don’t use an attacking central midfielder; Patrick Dawkins is in to backup Curtis McGuire; and, Dion Briggs would help out in the central defense to cover Mungo Bridge and Liam McCorkell when they were fatigued. Whew – a lot going on!
I actually felt pretty good about where the team was. The only hole was the attacking left wing. Alfie Matthews‘ time with QPR had ended and unbelievably he chose to sign with Cheltenham, a League Two side, rather than with us in League One. Talk about a lack of ambition! I signed Phoenix Patterson, a fast winger but with not so great mental attributes. I didn’t have a lot of options and I didn’t trust Dominic Birch so Phoenix is going to get a shot.
Season Results
Thankfully, we defeated Matthews’ Cheltenham in the first round of the Carabao Cup to end a string of three losses to begin the season. But it was 4 wins, 3 draws, and 6 losses in our first 13 league games. Coupled with the two cup losses, and our team morale was abysmal. It didn’t help that captain Bridge, Poku, Cole, Roberts, and Preston all picked up injuries and Patterson was an absolute disaster on the wing. With an average rating around 6.6, I had to find anyone else to be take that role. I signed Jayden Fevrier, a West Ham product who had played for five League Two sides the past five seasons with a horrible average around 6.7. It really was desperate times.
Especially frustrating was our 3-3 loss to Crawley Town. We were up 3-1 after 10 minutes (yes, you read that right), and gave up a penalty just before halftime. The second half as a ping-pong affair but I truly thought we had sealed the deal when Crawley Town went down to 10 men in the 85th minute. Instead, a 93rd winner drew us even and I nearly broke my laptop in two.
I suppose we returned the favor the following match when McGuire finished a 91st minute strike to gain a draw away at Rotherham.
Draws are better than losing, right? I don’t really know how to process these two months. If you remove the cup games, we only won once in the league. A total of 5 wins, 10 draws, and 6 losses for the year; 25 points and we’re nearly halfway through the season. Kinda dreadful.
Another frustrating loss was the 3-3 draw away at Leyton Orient. Like the match against Crawley Town, Leyton Orient was down to 10 men but still came back from 3-1, including a 95th minute goal, to draw. I think it was at this point that I just wanted to see how truly horrifically this season would go and sort of went into a daze, going through the motions into November, pressing the space bar as quickly as I could . . . not really caring . . .
I haven’t even mentioned the lifeless draw against AFC Wimbledon at home yet. Which, funnily enough, was actually a successful result! By the end of November, AFC Wimbledon was flying with 42 points and had been in the top 4 the entire season. Gabrielle Cioffe, the AFC Wimbledon head coach, had not taken too kindly to some of the words I said about him and his team to the media during the stretch run last season. Cioffe was constantly smearing me during the start of this season, saying Kingstonian was a favorite to be relegated. He was also quite pompous about his stellar start. Which ultimately was unfortunate for AFC Wimbledon as he left them at the end of November for the Championship side, Bristol City. The team crumbled without Cioffe, accumulating only 24 points the rest of the season, finishing 11th.
While our league form was in shambles, we did manage to progress in the Leasing.com cup competition no one cares about. Notably, we thwarted our memorable League Two opponent from the last game last season, Colchester, on penalties. We also progressed in the FA Cup, winning a replay on the road at League Two challenger, Oldham. Our next opponent in the FA Cup? Ah, our good rivals at AFC Wimbledon!
Well, we beat them for the title last year and could pile on the misery after losing their head coach this season. Poku scored a goal just after halftime but we gave up a reply in the 75th minute. The scenes turned to away at AFC Wimbledon, where we beat them, surviving injuries during the game to Dave Burke and Falzon. Louis Dunne, our penalty taker, scored in the 49th minute and Ciaren Jones headed in a set piece goal in the 84th minute to secure victory over our rivals.
By the end of January, we had exited both cup competitions but the games against AFC Wimbledon drew back my interest and frankly, our players’ interest in the season too. Now we could focus on digging ourselves out of the hole we dug in the league.
Or not.
I mean, where to begin? Okay, let’s start with the new addition you see there, Elisio Luis, a loanee from Tottenham and a Mozambican with 14 acceleration and pace, average technicals and mentals, but good determination, technique, and balance (12-14 ratings). He took over for Fevrier on the left wing, who was actually playing better than at any point in his career but was still in the 6.7 rating range.
I also had brought in another left winger, Chris Moffat on a $14,750 transfer fee from St. Johnstone in the Scottish Premiership. His first game in the first team ended in a lengthy injury that would keep him out for most of the season. This left attacking midfielder position was a curse!
There was another late goal allowed against Hull City, who scored in the 91st minute.
And then, finally, the disaster against AFC Wimbledon. Our first ever defeat against them. We were down 3-0 after 33 minutes until Dawkins scored two before halftime. It had been a cracking first 45 minutes. However, McCorkell was sent off late in the game for a reckless challenge and AFC Wimbledon scored the very next minute. A disappointing end to what would possibly have been a valiant draw.
We needed to pick ourselves up after this match and finish strong.
Whew. I’ve avoided talking about relegation because the bottom four were truly bad but it certainly felt like had been battling against that battle up until the last two or so months of the season.
We never actually were threatened with relegation but a few more draws like earlier in the season could have easily seen us in the 17/18th range. Instead, a mid-table finish was a nice reward to a frustrating season. That said, I was upset we didn’t manage to climb over AFC Wimbledon by the end, especially when you see our goal differential compared to theirs.
Best XI
It’s pretty clear we had a problem at the left wing position. Luis only managed 2 goals and a 6.68 rating so it’s not like he deserved a place ahead of Fevrier and Patterson.
You can also see a lot of our players struggled at the higher level. I feel like in previous Football Manager games, the jump from the National League to League Two was the most drastic until you get to the Premier League. But our defenders really stepped back in League One compared to League Two and I wasn’t quite expecting it to be so difficult.
Honestly, I’ve got to hand it to the new club president, Craig Jones. Akgün was a brilliant signing and played consistently well. He was the fans’ player of the year and probably mine as well. Speaking of fans, we averaged 2,800 this year but are still renting The Breyer Group Stadium from Leyton Orient. I have been badgering Mr. Jones for new grounds every opportunity I get but he won’t budge. We may have to rent our home field until the Championship, I guess. And that was our goal now. We finished strong, but we needed to find some better players. Just a few more wins than draws next year and we’ll be in the playoffs.
The Kings of London 