-- The guy I considered the perfect left back (of players I found in my price range) plays in Scotland for Kilmarnock (sp?). They accepted a $400,000 transfer offer, and I offered him $2,000/wk, his current salary. He likes where he's at though and wants to stay. I'm trying to offer him $3,000/wk. He's not like super spectacular or anything, but I *think* I would rather spend on an end to end athlete at fullback than on a striker given my playstyle and how last year felt.
Before that gets resolved though:
August 11th, 2015
Capital One Cup
Exeter vs Bradford
Bradford is in League 1. I think advancing in this tournament is where we can make the most money and thus get the best chance to progress. So this is a huge, huge match for us.
GK: Pym (58)
LB: Woodman (59)
CB: Moore-Taylor (60)
CB: Bennett (62)
CB: Butterfield (56)
RB: Ribeiro (64)
CM: Tidser (62)
CM: Wheeler (59)
CAM: Onyedinma (56)
ST: Harewood (58)
ST: Nichols (58)
Just the attacking midfielder change today. We'll start in a defensive mindset.
19': Just one shot for them so far, they're better than us but our aggressive defending is holding them back. We are having trouble getting forward and holding up play though.
32': They get a good look after a long ball, we built up and got men forward, and our defense defends pretty high in this tactic, they win a header on a long kick from the keeper and it generates a good shot from 18 yards out, but its high.
45': They get a couple men forward and counter us pretty hard, a striker makes a couple nice moves, dodges a couple tackles, and gets a close range shot off. Pym stops it, but it trickles away, they get to it again, Pym dives for it, but pushes it in himself, its considered an own goal.
0-1
45': Extra time runs longer than I thought it would, they use their superior speed to get a corner and score on a header off the corner.
0-2
HALF: Davies in for Tidser, Reid in for Harewood. They control only 54% of the possession but they use it well, 7 shots to our 3, 3 on target for 2 goals. They are just a bit faster than us everywhere, so every mis-step is punished.
The second half isn't worth talking about. Each team had a couple chances, but they defended a lot, we generally either had to try random desparate shots b/c we were sort of close to the goal, or had passes picked off by 7 guys in the box.
Exeter 0 : 2 Bradford
Two years running that we don't get out of the first round of the Capital One Cup, too bad. We need a draw against a league 2 opponent.
Player Acquisition
Welcome
24 y/o LB Chris Chantler to the squad.
Not Garmston speed, but fast enough, way way faster than Woodman, faster even than Ribeiro. Better crossing and ball control and passing than Woodman, better tackling too, though slightly worse marking.
We paid a $400,000 fee to Kilmarnock, and will be paying Chantler $3,000/week. That leaves us with $313,000 in transfer funds and $3,830/wk in wages. We could at this point go hard for a loaner at striker, or look to buy another player that could make an impact.
I can adjust that to $400,000 transfer/$2,000 wage, or as high as $9,000/wk wage if i wanted to try to get an EPL loaner. I had been holding off on making any other moves until I got my LB.