Luckily for me, Papastaphopoulos (what a name!) turned out to be an excellent player and although I still think I overpayed for him, I have to admit that at least he immediately established himself into the squad as a key player.
Anyway, after the disaster that was season 2011/12, there were two key things that I was looking to change.
Younger players
The first thing I wanted to do was to give my youth players more of a chance to play. If you were paying attention during my pre-season update, you would already know this. What you might not know is why.
One of the problems my side has always faced is a difficulty in breaking down weaker teams. In the first couple of seasons, we were generally able to beat the better teams but we always struggled against the weaker teams. At first, I thought it was simply because weaker teams were playing a lot more defensively thereby making it harder for me to score. However, I ultimately realised that the problem wasn't quite that simple as it seemed like some of my key players really weren't playing that well.
In short, I suspected it was a case of motivation. This was why I wanted to put more youngsters into my first team squad. By playing a mix of younger and more experienced players, I was able to have a solid spine of key players mixed in with young lads who were looking to impress and win a regular first team slot.
Buncha' bottlers
The second key thing I changed this year was in how I approached the mental aspect of the team. The problem I have is that my team are a bunch of bottlers. Put them in a pressure situation and they fold like a cheap suit. Looking back at the disaster that was last season, I think one of the things that went wrong was that I put too much pressure on the team to perform.
The thing is, I should have realised this much sooner. The signs were there. In the 2010/11 season, they buckled badly at the end of the year and there was a fair amount of luck in how we won the Prem that year.
The upshot of all this was that I made a very conscious decision to be a little more lenient on the team. Don't get me wrong, I fully intended to give out the occasional roasting (and in fact, did so on more than one occasion) but the key thing was to find the right balance so that the players had an environment in which they could perform.
Premiership
So, with all that said - did it work? What do you think:
Man City were favourites for the title - hahahaha, lets all laugh at MC!
Despite me ultimately running away with the title, things weren't smooth sailing. The start of the season was very similar to how last season developed in that we had a lot of trouble beating teams. In fact, most of the defeats and draws were in the early part of the season. I suspect this was primarily because the changes in mentality that I was trying to implement took time to take effect. However, after they did take effect - wow. My team went on a ridiculous unbeaten streak where we took on all and sundry!
Still, Arsenal weren't making it easy. It wasn't until around Xmas that I actually took over the lead and even after that, Arsenal were breathing down my back. In the end, the extra experience of my side proved decisive as, for some unknown reason, Arsenal fell apart in April and lost a ton of games.
Ah - it sure does feel good to be back at the top. :)
Cup glory too!
I didn't actually do too well in the League Cup or the FA Cup (which really disappointed the Board). What this means is that, as you can probably guess with a header like Cup Glory, I won the Champions League!
Actually, looking back, I have no idea how I managed to win the CL. All through the group stages and during the knockout stages, my team never played particularly well in CL matches. However, we were generally somehow able to sneak a win (due to Torres being awesome this year) which ultimately ensured our progress.
The final of the CL was against Chelsea and luckily for us, they had a player sent off early in the first half. Despite being down to 10 men, they still played really well. In fact, if I'm being honest, they probably outplayed us. However, Torres managed to score a goal on a counter attack and we ended up winning 1-0. What can I say - I guess we were just destined to win it. :)
The Squad
Final squad ratings below. Actually, that's not strictly true. Both Gerrard and Lucas played lots of games and were key players during the year. Unfortunately, both picked up injuries at the end of the year and I dumped them into the reserves while they were out injured. Of course, being the idiot that I am, I forgot to put them back into the squad for the end of year group pic.
D'oh!
As you can see, Torres was our key player this year
A look at the squad value (which doesn't mean as much as it used to as the value now defaults to what you paid for the player before slowing moving to a lower figure over time). Still, with 5 players valued over GBP10M, this is an impressive squad I've got.
Some concerns around the number of older players but otherwise, a good squad
Finances
Unfortunately, despite my success, the clubs finances aren't in particularly good shape.
Despite receiving GBP40M in prize money (GBP20M for the Prem and GBP20M for the CL), I still had a loss of approx GBP24M with my bank balance overdrawn by approx GBP11M. As you can see from the numbers though, a big reason for this is the huge net transfer spend of approx GBP59M (okay, I admit it - I bought the Prem!).
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