Based on the team’s ratings last season, we should have had better results. So I didn’t plan on making big changes.
The big reason is that we still had not been given our own stadium. I thought the owners would once we became a Championship club. I then thought they would after we beat Wolves and Tottenham in the Carabao Cup last season. But each request was rejected. I had hoped with saving up a bunch of money, this would incentivize the Board to go along with the building with a nice bank loan. Still – the answer was no.
At the very least, though, for the first time in ten seasons, the board has finally agreed to approve upgrades to youth recruitment and junior coaching. They also agreed to upgrade the training facilities again, which were now “good.”
As a result, attendance has only jumped up to an average of just under 6,000. To put this in context, the second lowest average attendance is about 13,700. So, we still have some work to do on our club goals to move into new grounds and raise attendance.
As for the other goals, we have successfully been playing attractive attacking football and have added pressing as a key component of our style of play.
The 4-2-2-2 DM system won us the National League and the FA Trophy. But these tactics above helped us win League Two, League One, and hopefully now the Championship. We have now far surpassed AFC Wimbledon so the only original goal left from a competition perspective is a win over Chelsea, which will have to wait.
Transfers
As discussed last time, we need a central defender. Up to this point, I have primarily relied on players under age 23. But to advance, I feel like I need to expand my search as the regen defenders in this world are pretty lackluster except at the elite level.
While the Board has been reluctant to agree to upgrades, one area where that isn’t true is with scouting. When we got promoted to the Championship, we were allowed to scout all of Europe. I also signed an Italian coach, which then provided a lot of knowledge of Italian players. One such player is Andrea Papetti:
Papetti will fit in nicely alongside Liam McCorkell, flanked by Jack Cole and Ansel Brown. Cole has disappointed me quite a bit so I also transfer for a young 17-year old Belgian named Matisse Dewulf. He’s got marking and tackling at 12, 17 acceleration and agility, 16 for decisions, but only 8 for crossing and 9 for dribbling. I’m hoping that he grows up and adds to his technical ability.
Moving to the midfield, there’s a surprising amount of movement. Mike Foster refused to sign with Kingstonian, wanting his ambitions met . . . in Canada? He’s off to Toronto FC for some reason. And Peter Rees? He’s now playing in Scotland for St. Mirren. This was not what I had planned for!
I went hunting for midfield replacements from the Premier League teams, finding another Manchester United player in Gary Corness, Crystal Palace’s Mohammed Sulley, and Tottenham’s Dave Clayton (on loan) to fight over a deep lying playmaker role. For the mezzala role, I make a big purchase and a gamble of a loan. First, the gamble – Ellis Stone, a loanee from Crystal Palace. Stone is one of the weirdest players I’ve seen. 7 dribbling but 15 first touch. 8 anticipation but 16 aggression. He’s fast, makes good decisions and has a wonderful work rate. I have no idea how he’ll play.
More predictable is Kurtis Butler, a Liverpool product. He has great determination, flair, technique, and balance, decent speed, but can’t defend.
This mish-mash midfield will have to do alongside Danny Johnson, whose current star rating is now 4.5 with attributes increasing rapidly, and long-time Kingstonian anchor, Tom Dinsmore.
Up front are two loanees. One is another Italian, Gianluca Esposito, with 15 finishing, composure, and technique as well as some great physicals. He’s no Connor Jones (who returned to his club while out for months, he won’t return to us) but Esposito will work. Also in is Steve Paxton from Leeds, who is really fast with 17 ratings in acceleration and pace but finishing around 13. Esposito and Paxton provide different skill sets so it’ll be interesting to see how we can play match-ups with them against the opposition.
Whew! That’s a lot of movement and yet, the biggest move of them all may have been securing a permanent move of Rajee Isaacs from Aston Villa. I’m going to need to keep doing this as the amount of reliance on loanees led to the unexpected departures of Foster and Rees.
Results
With all of the movement with the team, I really did not expect this much winning. In fact, after losing Foster and Connor Jones, I was positive that we would be stuck in the Championship for another year. Sure, we annonyingly didn’t have a clean month, but this was a good start.
Some notable games included the game away at Stoke where we scored three stoppage time goals, one by Johnson at the end of the first half and goals by Papetti and Cole in the 93rd and 94th minutes. Also fun was a 4-1 win away at Southampton with Butler, Simon Ford (remember him?), Isaacs and Esposito getting on the scorecard and young right back Dewulf with a splendid 8.3 rating.
Less fun was giving up stoppage time goals to lose games against Charlton and Bristol City back-to-back and then in the next game give up a draw to Rotherham with 89th and 91st minute goals.
By the way, can we just stand up and applaud Mr. Esposito? He has done a wonderful impression of Connor Jones, scoring 11 goals. Also admirable was the performance of wingers Isaacs and Ford, who both scored 5.
Strangely, the match fixture congestion was more pronounced in December-February than in the fall. I’m also not quite sure why this happened. There was no World Cup going on that would move the schedule around so why???
I don’t know but I think this congestion actually helped us. We were able to play around and rotate with our unexpected depth. This allowed different players to make their mark.
Paxton scored a 94th minute winner versus Hull City to gain us three points and finally got off the ground, scoring nine goals over these three months. Butler scored a brace away at Middlesbrough. Stone chipped in three unexpected goals to give us a draw against Walsall, a win over Portsmouth, and a draw against Stoke. And Isaacs scored the only goal in the win over Norwich.
Meanwhile, steady as it goes as Esposito continued his relentless season, scoring 7 during this stretch of matches.
The Birmingham and Derby losses were explainable, but the home loss to QPR wasn’t. QPR was a mid-table team that we were better than. We played rotated sides so we could have our first-team play the cup game and get us past the fifth round. But we fell flat on our face – it didn’t help that Isaacs pulled his groin in the 8th minute of the match and would miss most of the rest of the month.
I experimented with a couple of different replacements for Isaacs but none of them really worked. Curtis McGuire, a long abandoned soldier of the club chipped in though for the game at Bristol City and wouldn’t you know it, the guy scored a 90th minute winner. This was a crucial win and moved the team on top of the table. Here are the standings at the start of April.
At the end of last season, I felt we were just a few additions away from the title. After the mess of a summer, I was less optimistic. And yet, here we are, with as good a chance as I’ll get to win the Championship and make it four trophies from the National League up the ladder. I have never done that on a save before, usually one or two promotions are by playoffs and another by getting a promotion spot rather than a title. So, I was feeling the pressure a bit.
Sometimes this game feels scripted. Y’know? We were doing great, winning tough games here and then a game as dull as a brick against Cardiff and a lackluster showing away at Barnsley. This put us at 89, Nottingham Forest at 87 and Bristol City at 86. Both Nottingham Forest and Bristol City had better goal differential so we would have to win to make absolutely sure. Another bare knuckle last match day!
Home versus Sunderland. The weather report? Pouring rain.
Now, rain is a bit tricky in Football Manager. Players slide around a bit more and the ball is harder to handle. Sometimes, it’s best to just go direct with your passing and outrun the opponent in the mud; other times, the players can’t get traction to run and so only short passing works to get the ball up the pitch. Regardless, it usually is really hard to score in these games and with a club needing a win, this was not great timing.
By halftime, as predicted, we were locked 0-0. Thankfully, Nottingham Forest was down by 1 goal and Bristol City was drawing 0-0 against Swansea. We probably should have scored twice as Danny Johnson, in a box-to-box midfielder role for this one, broke past the central defense with two great balls from Butler but squandered both efforts. Butler again dropped a deep ball over the top of the defense perfectly for Paxton but the keeper ran way out to the edge of the box and got a fingertip to the shot just in time.
A penalty scored by Nottingham Forest in the 63rd meant they were within a goal of three points and the title if we didn’t score. And then, in the 73rd minute off a corner, a McCorkell header struck the keeper but bounced off his chest leading to a rebound and slam into the goal by Paxton. The crowd went wild and the players raced over to the corner to celebrate, sliding in the rain! We were just 20 minutes away from glory!
A few minutes later, Nottingham Forest scored a second goal, taking the lead. If we drew, we would lose the title.
In the 84th minute, a Jack Cole free kick near the halfway line was lumped forward for McGuire who anticipated the ball beautifully. McGuire then crossed it to the other side of the pitch where Ford one-timed it right at a defender. The ball careened off the defender’s chest to a waiting Paxton who shoved the ball into the net. 2-0 with less than 10 minutes to go.
Bristol City scored in the 89th minute. But it didn’t matter.
We. Won. Again!
Best XI
A really good season for Kingstonian. How could I say otherwise after they just lifted the Championship trophy? But there are some questions. Esposito drifted onto the bench by the end of the season and Paxton came on strong in the second half. Stone, Corness, and Sulley each battled for fitness and form and I wasn’t really ever sure who I would play on a given match day. I also wasn’t convinced that Papetti and the rest of the defense would be good enough in the Premier League; all of them were solid three star type players but not superstars who could still thrive with the jump.
My scouts were now operating around the world and we were out to find the best youngsters – or at least the best ones who wanted to join this unlikely yet memorable club.
With the Premier League money coming, I made another request to the Board. Build me a stadium!
Request rejected.
The Kings of London 