Liverpool - Charity Shield and the early season
We began the season playing Middlesbrough in the Charity Shield. We only just managed to win the Charity Shield thanks in large part to the sale of Galli to Middlesbrough. As I mentioned before, the plonker managed to race clear of my defenders only to blast the ball over the bar. Twat.
At first, I was a little bit worried. In the early season games, it was clear that my team was struggling to score goals again. Was my plan to play Mills and Blake in attack a bad idea or was it simply my new team taking time to adjust to playing with each other? I will be honest and admit that the doubts started to creep slowly in. However, after a couple of games, my team managed to find their form and we really started to play extremely good attacking football - thanks in large part to Carlos Sanchez (more on him below).
The English cup treble
In fact, our team did so well that we easily won the Premiership, the League Cup and the FA Cup! A clean sweep of the English compo's!
Below, you can see the final league table. As you can see, we walked the Premiership again. However, the big difference from last year is that we scored 114 goals - a far cry from the pitiful 89 that we scored last year.
Interestingly enough, despite our trouble scoring last year, we actually had 92 points at the end of last year which is 1 more than the 91 points I picked up this year. The main reason for this is that, although I scored more goals this year, I also leaked a lot of goals as well. I guess its true what they say - defense does win championships (at least, thats what they say in the NFL).
Champions Cup
However, the real test for this year would be the Champions Cup. With Liverpool being knocked out in the quarter finals last year by an Italian team, you can understand that I was more than a little worried when we only managed a draw in the first leg of the final 16 this year (also against an Italian team). Clearly, last year's pitiful showing against Italian opposition was wearing on my players minds as well as on my own.
In the end, we only barely managed to scrape through that tie. However, winning that tough tie really gave my players new hope and they managed to go on to even greater heights. In the following tie aganst AS Roma, we absolutely mauled them 4-0 at Anfield. However, this would turn out to be only the beginning. In the return leg at Roma, we gave them a masterclass in football.
The demolition of Roma put the fear of Liverpool into every other team and we managed to walk the rest of the Champions Cup campaign. Although we never managed to duplicate the results of the Roma tie (unsurprisingly), no other team came even close to beating us after that. In fact, even the loss of Fernandez and Oliveira (due to suspensions) in the final didn't stop us from winning it easily.
And so the Liverpool manager showed why he is the most highly paid manager in the World (GBP110,000 per week!) by winning everything that he could possibly win in 2031/32.
Oh - one more thing. Just to show how completely we owned the Champions Cup, the next screenshot shows the Champions Cup dream team for 2031/32.
When you look at that screen, just bear in mind that Van Dijk is my GK and I normally play Thorpe as LM with Sanchez up front.
Can you see my smirk?
>:)
Liverpool Squad
As usual, some screenshots of my squad at the end of the year.
The biggest surprise will probably be Sanchez. You will recall that I tried to sell him off at the end of last year but failed due to his outrageous wage demands hence I ultimately decided to keep him as a backup striker.
Turns out this was probably the best decision of the off season. Imagine my surprise when, after I played him in a couple of games, he started to bang in goals like Geralt bangs pros (obscure gaming references ftw!). After seeing him play so well, I moved him back up the pecking order above Mills. Naturally, with him playing so well, other clubs started to take notice and I started to get some more transfer bids for him. In the end, I agreed a deal to sell him at the end of the season for just under GBP6M. Considering he will be another year older by then, I really think that was a superb piece of wheelin' and dealin' by yours truly.
Oliveira and Coelho both slotted into the team easily as well which is gratifying. Very often, for new players, they have a couple of games where they struggle to perform before they get used to the Liverpool way. However, both Oliveira and Coelho came in and did well from the start.
In Oliveira's case, I was extremely lucky this was the case as Julien Karlen really struggled at the start of the year. To be fair, Karlen is 33 and I suspected that this was one year too much for him. This was why I promoted Darren Barber to the first team. Barber is actually a wonderkid striker that I signed in 2029/30. Although a natural striker, he is also good enough to play on the wing and I was planning on playing him some more this year anyway. In the end, by conserving Karlen and playing him in less games, he was able to stay fresh and up his game again.
A new name you will see in the squad is Gary Powell, the 18 year old DC. Powell is a product of the Liverpool youth academy and has been doing well in the U18s and reserves for the last couple of years. During the season, Baines had a patch of bad form and I had to play Powell for a couple of games. Powell stepped in and did a fantastic job.
Having said that, I had a real moment of doubt for the Champions Cup final. Fernandez picked up a yellow card in the semi final and had to miss the final because of it. Who would I play in his place? The experienced, but possibly out of form (he had started to play well in the reserves again), Baines or the inexperienced, but in form, Powell? In the end, I decided to keep faith with Powell and he repaid me with another great performance in the final. Having said that, based on his stats so far, I have real doubts about whether he will be good enough to be a first choice DC in the future.
One last thing before I stop. You will notice that John Farrell is no longer around. John Farrell started the year extremely well. He was tackling well, passing well and scoring goals with ease. As you can expect, this attracted the attention of a lot of clubs and several teams came in with attractive transfer offers in the January transfer window. Although my AssMan said that he had the potential to develop into a future star, I decided to sell him off.
Ultimately, Farrell was signed as a fourth string MC. I wanted to develop Sadler and Rogers who were also identified as future stars. In addition to that, Mike Patterson (another potential future superstar) had been doing a marvelous job in the U18s. In the end, I had a surplus of MC talent and felt it was better to accept the inflated transfer offers which I was receiving.
Next up - the off season
Wow - this post is huge and I haven't even gotten to the off season yet. Which is why I will sign off here and save the off season for a smaller post next week (besides, I can only upload 5 images in one post)!
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