WWSM 2006: The MK Dons

[MikeVick7]

Ok well, it's been almost a year since I last attempted to document my travels through the FM world, but with my current struggle at finding a new game to occupy my time, I thought I would see if this could keep my interest for a while once again.

First off, I'll give you a little history with WWSM 06. My longest career with this year's version has been 13 years, where I managed Northwich from Conference North to the Championship. Then I took the Portsmouth job and took them from the Championship to the Premiership where I finished in 2nd place before I lost interest.

Since then I have been dinking around with other careers where I was the England National Team manager and then another managing Chelsea. Real tough huh?

Anyway, now I thought I would give myself a bit more of a challenge and change things up a bit. I've chosen to start a new career with League One side MK Dons and play in a fictional world with attribute masking on. I hardly ever play with the masking on, but I figured if I was going to have scouts on my staff, I might as well put them to use. Also, I've never played with fictional players before, but that's not too big of a deal since outside of the EPL I don't have a wealth of knowledge of too many other players.

In past dynasties, I have used templates to post my games and for the league table, but I think for this one I'm going to be pretty plain, at least in the beginning until I figure out how I want this thing to look.

So enjoy.

[MikeVick7]

Team History

I'll try to give you a brief rundown of the Dons. (This is all from the team's actual website.) They started in 1889 as the Wimbledon Old Centrals. In 1992, they were one of the inaugural members of the FA Premier League and they stayed there until 2000 when they were relegated after a 14-year stay in the top flight. In May of 2002, they were given permission to relocate to Milton Keynes and then a year later the club went into administration. In 2004, after emerging from administration, they relegated to League One and that's where we are today.

One of the main reasons I took over this club is that I wanted to have a stadium in place that could support a team once we got to the Premiership. For the first season, the club will be playing at the National Hockey Stadium in Milton Keynes. The capacity is only 8630, but never fear as the club is set to move into the new stadium called Denbigh North on 7/1/06 which has a capacity of 30,000. Woot!

As you can imagine, my financial state is not the best as from what I can tell there is no balance, we're not in debt so I guess that's not all bad, but the kicker is that we have a £2 million loan that has been taken out and we'll be paying that off until 2013. Super. And to start out, my weekly wage budget is at £19,250. My current wage total is sitting at £17,065, so I have a little room to add to my roster, but the only problem is that I have no transfer budget.

[MikeVick7]

Team Philosophy

This will probably change as I go along, but my main goal is to put together a solid 4-4-2 with an emphasis on defense. With this year's game I've mainly been playing counter-attacking 4-3-3, much like what Chelsea uses. So being that I've been using that formation for a long period of time, I thought it would be a good idea to get back to the ol' 4-4-2.

The players that I'll be looking for are pretty standard. I like strong center backs, quick fullbacks who are good at putting crosses in the box from deep. I'll probably start off with a a DMC and a AMC in the middle and then some speedy wingers who are also excellent at crosses. Up front, I really like having a tall and strong target man accompanied by a speedy small guy right next next to him.

[ice4277]

Originally Posted by MikeVick7

Team History
In May of 2002, they were given permission to relocate to Milton Keynes

And for this I will always despise this club

But good luck with your dynasty nonetheless

[MikeVick7]

The Staff

I've already put out the word that I need more coaches, scouts and doctors. I'm not sure how much money the board will give me to hire anyone additional, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've got a pretty decent staff in place already. The team came equipped with an Asst Man, 4 coaches, 2 physios and 2 scouts.

Dominic Harrison (Asst Man) - He'll start off with coaching the defense along with managing the fledgling reserve squad and the U18's.

Chris Wilson - Chris' strengths lie in the Attacking and Tactical side of things so he will be in charge of training ball control and attacking.

Danny Taylor - One of our two fitness gurus, not sure if you can be a guru at the League One level, but Danny will be our strength coach and also handle the tactics.

Kevin Miller - Kevin's our other fitness guy, so he'll handle aerobics and shooting.

Paul Watts - Paul really is our goalkeeping coach, but until we can get a few more coaches in here, he's going to coach set pieces as well.

All of our coaches only put out a 2-star rating for each category with the exception of Dominic Harrison, who's only job on the training side is to train defense and he puts out a 3-star rating. So with my emphasis on defense, that works out just fine for now. But ultimately, I would love to get each category up to at least a 3-star in the near future.


July 2005

So here we go, we start out with a week to go before our first friendly. We have five friendlies on the schedule before we kick things off on 8/6 on the road against Rotherham. Here's the friendly schedule:

7/17 - at Darlington
7/20 - QPR
7/24 - Welling
7/28 - Tottenham Reserves
8/3 - Worcester

Hopefully in my next report I'll have an update on any staff hirings and a clue as to what I'll do tactically.

**Quick edit** I always forgot to mention that I've assigned my two scouts to scour both League One and England for some possible talent.

[MikeVick7]

Originally Posted by ice4277

And for this I will always despise this club

But good luck with your dynasty nonetheless

Hey, my first enemy. Nice!!

[MikeVick7]

July 13, 2005

Well, an ominous start to the season as our #1 keeper, Adam Bennett strained his back while lifting weights and is expected to be out for 3 to 4 weeks. I don't really want to rely on 16 yr old Jamie Burton to man the net, so off to look for a loaner.

July 17, 2005

In my almost panic state to find another keeper, I had extended an offer to 19 yr old Craig Rowe from the Wolves Reserves. But, considering that I didn't have time to scout him and also considering that the other teams going after him are all from League Two and below, I decide to hold off.

Gameday

We have our first friendly against League Two side Darlington. This might be a close match because even though we're in League One, I know we're a relegation candidate, so we'll see how we fair.

It's really pointless for me to run down my team for you right now, much less my starting lineup, since I don't have a great grasp on that yet. But my plan is to give my starters about 60 mins out there today and then throw in the 2nd team. Also, we're just going with a narrow 4-4-2, just to see how things look out there.

1st half - After a shaky start, we really started to take over at about the halfway point. We had the possession advantage 51/49 at the half, even though we were on the road, which was sort of impressive and we also outshot them 8-1. No score after 45, but we had some decent chances in the final 10 mins, all the while basically shutting down Darlington.

2nd half - Almost a complete reversal of the first half. Darlington ends up with a 51/49 possession advantage and they outshot us 7-0 in the 2nd. What saved us is that not one Darlington shot came even remotely close to being on goal, which is good since we have a 16 yr old backup in net. Still a decent first outing. I've got a wealth of speedy strikers up front, (ok well 3, but still) and a decent passing team altogether so maybe I'll try to throw in some counter attack in game #2.

Final Score: 0-0
Attendance: 395

[ice4277]

Originally Posted by MikeVick7

Hey, my first enemy. Nice!!

You always need at least one

[MikeVick7]

July 17, 2005

- Ooooh boy, the injury woes continue. One of our strikers Paul Kennedy suffered a bruised rib during the Darlington match. He'll be out 4 days to 2 weeks.
- Another one of our strikers, Michael Barnett, twisted his knee during training and he's expected to miss between a week and 4 weeks.
- Also, winger Peter Carter sustained a chest injury while lifting weights and is also expected to be out between a week and 4 weeks.

That's two training related injuries right off the bat. I've used these training schedules for a long time now, so I hope that they are not too intense for League One. I'll have to watch this carefully.

July 20, 2005

Gameday
We enter into our 2nd friendly, this time against Championship side QPR. We're still scrambling to get some loaners in here and with little time to scout, it makes it kinda hard. Especially when I got my first scouting report back on a player and all of their attributes were still not uncovered. Weird. Anyway, this attribute masking may be more frustrating than I had anticipated. With the three injuries sustained this week, only one was to a starter, right winger Peter Carter.

1st Half - I was kinda surprised with our first half performance. We scored our first goal of the season as striker Ryan Vaughan took advantage of a mistake made by the QPR left fullback and rocketed one in just 8 minutes into the match to make it 1-0. This mistake was made off of a counter attack. Looks like our speed upfront definitely took advantage of that blunder. But then just 2 minutes later, our young keeper made a handling error on a long back pass and QPR's Marco Jose Basto claimed the loose ball and took it in for an easy score to even it up at 1-1. We had the poss. advantage 53/47.

2nd Half - Things started off well as we regained the lead just 10 mins into the half as right fullback James Anderson knocked in a shot off a cross off a free kick to make it 2-1. But then two poorly defensed free kicks of our own allowed two QPR goals to seal the victory. The 2nd coming with just 4 mins left in regulation to make the final score 3-2. We did win the overall battle of possesion 55/45, however, which makes me a happy manager.

Final Score: 2-3
Attendance: 419

Jeesz, another injury sustained in the match as another one of our strikers, Marc Colpaert suffered a thigh strain and is expected to be out between a week and 4 weeks.

July 24, 2005

Gameday
This is our 2nd friendly of the week as we take on a non-professional team in Welling. No injuries were suffered in training this week, which was a nice change, and we actually saw some decent attribute improvement in all of our non-injured players. We "should" win this match despite the injuries but I won't hold my breath.

1st Half - It was a relatively easy half for us as I expected. We outshot Welling 7-3 and had the poss. advantage 55/45. We got on top early as LW Andy Simpson found FC Stephen Kelly on a break down the left side and then Kelly powered on up the upper right-hand corner at the 29 min mark to give us a 1-0 halftime lead.

2nd Half - Stephen Kelly was the recipient of a James Vaughan header right in front of the goal mouth as he scored his 2nd goal of the match just 9 minutes into the 2nd half. That was all that we needed for an expected 2-0 win over Welling.

Final Score: 2-0
Attendance: 103

[MikeVick7]

July 25, 2005
- Another day, another injured player. This time starting striker Ryan Vaughan has suffered a thigh strain. He'll be out from 1-4 weeks. I think I finally need to cave in and lower the training load.

July 27, 2005
- This somewhat surprised me as we received two transfer offers from Portsmouth. They have put in bids for ST Marc Colpaert and MC James Moore. The bid for Moore is quite poor as far as up front value goes. Basically they are offering me a percentage of his next sale and a friendly. For Colpaert, they are throwing me £120,000, which is about half of his actual value, a percentage of next sale and a friendly. I may have to think about the Colpaert deal since I have no tranfer budget and more strikers than I need.

- We finaly get some relief in the loan department and it comes in the form of a keeper. 18 yr old Carl James from Luton Town has agreed to a 3-month deal with us. He will be thrown in as the starter until Adam Bennett comes back off the DL.

July 28, 2005

Gameday

Today, we're playing our 4th of 5 friendlies before the season starts. Today's opponent is the Tottenham Reserves, which could get real ugly. We finally had of our injured players made available for this match as ST Paul Kennedy has recovered from this injury suffered 11 days ago. He'll be in the starting lineup for James Vaughan. It will be interesting to see our new loaner Carl James face this reserve squad right off the bat.

1st Half - We gave up a goal early but recouped to play a decent first half. Tottenham has the advantage in SOG's at 2-0 but we had a slight advantage in Poss at 51/49.

2nd Half - We got one back in the 2nd half as Stephen Kelly scored his 3rd goal of the preseason at the 67 minute mark to tie it up at 1-1. Surprisingly, it was a header on a cross from the right side. Kelly's not the strongest of forwards so that was nice to see. Then of course Kelly injures himself just 2 mins later after that. Then of course backup striker John Okoye went down with an injury at the 83 min mark. Why not? But we won possession again and left with a 1-1 draw.

Final Score: 1-1
Attendance: 240

Luckily, only one of the two strikers ended up with a long-term injury. John Okoye ended up fracturing some ribs in a collision during the game. He's expected to be out anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months.

July 30, 2005
- We finally were able to hire another coach. 26 yr old Ryan Taylor gladly accepted a one-year deal worth £275 a week.
- We also secured another scout as 32 yr old Andy Bennett signed on for a one-year deal as well.

[MikeVick7]

August 2005

August 3

- Well, despite seeing what he can do, I went ahead and agreed to the tranfer deal of 18 yr old striker Marc Colpaert with Portsmouth. The deal will give the club £120,000 up front, gives us 25% of the next sale and also a home friendly against Portsmouth next season. The board's allowing me to use 60% of any transfer revenue so this will give us £72,000 to use. We definitely need that transfer money right now.

Gameday
Today's final friendly is against Worcester. This should be another victory for us and send us into the regular season with some very good team morale.

1st Half - A pretty dominant first half by the Dons. So dominant in fact that DMC James Moore scored twice. He scored the first goal off a cross from the left side and headed it in to make it 1-0. Then he was on the receiving end of a deflected pass and powered another one in to make it 2-0. Finally, ST Paul Kennedy had his volleyed deflected past the Worcester keeper to make it 3-0. We also held Worcester to no SOG's.

2nd Half - The 2nd half was fairly drab. The only score was a penalty shot made by backup fullback Mark Blake. And we escaped injury free which is always a bonus. Now onto the regular season.

Final Score: 5-0
Attendance: 89

August 5

- We draw Millwall on the road in the first round of the Carling Cup. The match will be on August 24th. Great, this will probably be a first round exit.
- The deal for Colpaert goes through today as well. Now we have a little tranfer money to play with. Hopefully, we can sign someone before August comes to an end.