Season 6: Young Guns

Hey everyone and welcome back to another instalment of my FM2012 story with Middlesbrough. Last season was hugely successful for the club and this post will be a review of this season.

The aim this season is to retain the prem title and, for the first time, win the champions league. Along the way, it would also be nice to win some other competitions :)

The post is called Young Guns due to the incredibly low average age of the Boro squad and the number of youngsters that make up my squad. I took the gamble and got rid of my older players; hoping that the youngsters could step up. The last post covered the transfers and the overview of the club so we'll get straight into it.

It's nice to see that interest in Boro is increasing and the ticket revenues are rising as a result. Hopefully we can replay those who are supporting the club.

Preseason:

Having so many player U21 does have it's disadvantages as quite a lot of my players were away on international duty for the majority of the preseason. At times i barely had 13 players to put out. We had some tough games organised and i thought they went quite well. The loss to OL was bad but we had players playing in ridiculous positions to try and scrape together a half decent starting XI. Overall, looking forward to the coming season.

Community Shield:

Not the strongest XI that we had as players were still away on international duty but i think the talent was there; it did help that Rafael got sent off in the 14th minute. Looking at the stats it was quite an even game but we managed to come away with the win :)

Match Highlights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVB9csGiGqY&context=C3daf65eADOEgsToPDskJaz3Wcj9zIyRTtSdimj6Je

League Cup:

Once again, i think this is the 5th year in a row, we won the League Cup and apart from the final, it was pretty easy going. We thrashed Chelsea with Fierro putting in a great performance. The final against City was quite a close affair that isn't reflected by the score but a win's a win :)

FA Cup:

Again, we had a relatively simple run to the title. All the big teams were drawn against themselves in the earlier rounds which paved the way for Boro to stroll to victory :) The final was a relatively easy game and it was nice to keep adding the silverware to the cabinet :)

Highlights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvZwf1G1Bis&context=C3e55750ADOEgsToPDskK8Fo-jA5i1umC_YpYrCAbB

Champions League:

The group stages went exceptionally well. We brushed aside our opposition in a fairly simple group and were rewarded with a relatively tough and challenging draw in OL. We played well in both legs and finished up with a 3-0 aggregate victory. Our quarter final draw was easier and we were helped by Mario Gomez seeing red at the end of the first leg so was unavailable for the second match. The semi final against Barcelona was an entertaining affair that i would have liked to have won but in the end, they probably deserved it. We are edging closer to that first champions league victory :)


Premiership:

After winning the league last year, the bookies still didn't have us rated too highly. We are rated 4th but you'd think we'd be higher.

Not much more to say than we absolutely dominated the prem. We only dropped 12 points throughout the entire campaign and remained unbeaten. It was a terrific effort from my young team and the completely justified my faith in them.

As you'd imagine after a set of results like that, we won the prem by a staggering 22 points. Looking forward to next season :)

Prem Awards:

After our success in the prem, we picked up a few awards. We didn't dominate but won a few bits and bobs here and there.

Miscellaneous:


After a great season for the club in which Boro won the Premiership, League Cup and FA Cup and reached the Semi-finals of the Champions League, the club's image and stature naturally improved.

I didn't do too badly as a manager as well. Becoming the most successful Irish manager ever was quite a nice feeling and it's always nice to have former Boro legends praising your work.

The squad performed really well throughout the season. Outside the usual awards, Fierro and Mazibuko picked up some awards that are well and truly deserved.

After a great season, Niang was deservedly named as the Fans' player of the year.

The squad performed really well over the course of the year. The screens below show a more in depth analysis of each players performance and contribution. I'm most pleased about the contribution of my new signings; most notably Mazibuko and Julio.

Our finances aren't overly healthy but with £35m in the bank we're not doing too badly.

That's all for this update. I hope it provided you with a decent enough insight into the season and it keeps you interested enough to eagerly anticipate the next post. As always, all your comments are welcome.

Thanks,

Atok