Season 2: The Premiership

Hi everyone and welcome back to the north east of England and my FM 2012 story with Middlesbrough. After a mixed preseason i was eager to see how we would fair in the premiership and i also really wanted at least one good cup run :) Sorry that there isn't much detail in these posts as i decided to write a story about my FM campaign after i had completed 2 and a half seasons so i have no screenshots of earlier seasons. The next post should contain a lot more detail.


The Premiership:

We couldn't have asked for a worse start to the season fixture wise; Man Utd and then Aresenal in our opening two games. Needles to say, we lost both, but we did hold a good account of ourselves and i was looking at the third game against Blackburn as the realistic start to our season. Overall, i was pleased with the team's effort in the first half of the season although we were drawing far too many games for my liking. I think what we lacked was a stand out striker who was going to regularly bang in the goals as nobody really stood out on that front; Emnes, Fierro and Soukouna all put in good efforts but none were really jaw dropping.

 The second half to the season was much better with the best performance being the 2-1 win against Man City; the team put in a great shift and really played for the badge (something Man City's millionaire players don't understand). Even after the signing of Sanogo i hadn't really solved our striking problem but we were getting there as my young talent is maturing well. The final table looked like this:

What can i say? A fantastic effort from my team throughout the season left us finishing a very respectable 5th. Man Utd simply ran away with the title; wining it for the third successive season. The following group of teams in 2nd, 3rd and 4th also formed their own competitive group which left Boro, Everton, Wolves and Stoke to fight over the final european places. So so pleased with our first season in the prem as we really announced ourselves; next season's expectations will be to try retain our european spot and hopefully break into the top 4.

League Cup:

I've been asking the team for a good cup run since i took over and they duly delivered with an excellent performance in the league cup. Even thought it it considered the 'micky mouse' cup, it's a cup none the less and i've really happy that we won it. We had some luck along the way with Man Utd fielding their reserve team/youngsters against us and Chelsea also making the same mistake in the first leg of the semis but the overall dedication and commitment from the team was amazing.

FA Cup:

The only positive to this seasons FA cup run was the revenge win against Sunderland who knocked us out of the competition last year. A flat performance against an under strength Chelsea team was not a great way to go out but i never expected Boro to be wining both cups at this stage so for now, i'm happy with the win in the League Cup.

Thanks for reading and hopefully you will stick around for my season 3 updates which will be out soon. As per usual, any requests for screenshots will be granted as best i can and questions will also be answered in he same vain; your comments are always welcome.

Thanks,

Atokous