The Man City match was tougher than I expected. They were playing a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 so I thought I should use the width while having Essien in the centre. We were particularly successful down the wings with the 4-4-2 with wide men. While I was winning, Man Utd remained in No.1 as they continued their winning run with clean sheets and better goal difference.
Just like the real league cup fixture this season, Chelsea was paired with Liverpool in the League Cup, but in the third round here. So far, I’ve done very well in the big matches. I did not want to lose this record. At any cost, I wanted a win. I even made a sharp comment in the media that Chelsea will have no trouble in brushing past Liverpool. I played 4-4-2 with Drogba and Huntelaar as the strikers. I had Essien and Lampard in the centre, Joe Cole and Malouda on either sides. I gave freedom to Dani Alves and Ashley Cole to go forward in the flanks while instructing Essien to stay back, playing a defensive role.
It so happened that Chelsea completely rolled over Liverpool. We won 3-0. The domination was much more than the score line shows. Liverpool had one shot on target all match while we were bombarding them. And they could not complete even one cross. If Drogba did not miss a couple of sitters, Liverpool might have been terribly shamed. In short there was only one team playing football, and they were wearing blue.
I was telling you all that I had a disagreement with Roman or the Chelsea Board. Let me explain. I had a decent group of coach staff with Steve Clarke as my assistant coach. I wanted another assistant coach of better quality, especially in tactics. As the FM08 gamers know, Pako Ayestaran (who was the man behind Rafa Benitez in real life football) was a free agent at the beginning of 07-08 season. I approached Pako to sign him for Chelsea as an assistant coach, an offer he duly accepted. That’s when I got the below message from the Board.
I got really really pissed off at this message. I badly wanted to sign Pako and now it got cancelled. I tried signing him again but the same result. I did not want to go so hostile so early in my career. So, I had to sack poor old Steve (I do like him very much though) and had to sign Pako. I tried to re-sign Steve in some other capacity but he did not want to join Chelsea.
The last match of my session yesterday was with Birmingham. Frankly, my recent successes made me think that this would be a walk in the park. That was not to be. In fact, I happened to play the most difficult match so far this season against Birmingham, of all teams. Within 10 minutes, I got a penalty which was neatly converted by Lampard. Later on, media called it a controversial penalty but I clarified that we deserved to win anyway. When we were around the 85th minute, I wanted to sub Lampard and Essien, not only because they were tired but also because they had collected yellow cards. I did not act swiftly enough but Lampard and Essien did the hard tackle as I had set them up and got their second yellows. I got the three points but I could have certainly avoided these red cards.
I just got the good news that Man Utd drew against Wigan 1-1 while Chelsea were beating Birmingham. Despite the recent drama, Man Utd still lead the table as they had played one extra match. So, Chelsea trails Man Utd just by one point with a game in hand. Here I come Fergie!
Finally before I finished my session last night, I just got the good news that I’m awarded the manager of the month. Hurrah! I just want to win the league title and champions league. These monthly awards mean very little to me!
Here are some of my tactic files:
new-3-5-2-attacking-chelsea-oct-2007.tac
This looks like a pretty fun game! Although it seems pretty easy, but i guess if chelsea played as good as their respective players every week we might get scorelines like this!
[...] By the way, I continue to win, but it’s really hard to topple Man Utd. Due to my tussle with the club management, I had to sack dear Steve Clarke. And you know what, I just won the ‘manager of the month’ award pipping Sir Alex. Not bad! [...]
How is Huntelaar going? I’m in my 3rd season with Chelsea 2nd witih Huntelaar and he is lead scorer in the league with 13 goals in 9 appearences.
Drogba has 9 in 9 and Sahar has a respectable 4 without starting a game.
Seems you have such a successful tactic, BC. Even if I spend ages on developing a tactic it will continue to let me down. I don’t know whether with Chelsea to play with a flat 442 or a 4132 with a DM. Which do you use? Also, I was wondering if you could please, possibly, upload your .tac file of your tactic? :) Just for reference material haha. Cheers.
Nubskeh – I’ve uploaded my tactic files above for you. With my Chelsea team, I’d never play flat 4-4-2. We do have fast skillful wingers, so 4-3-3 would be good. if you still want to play flat 4-4-2, let the tempo be slow so that the attack builds up and also assign forward runs accordingly. Hope my tactic files are useful to you.
I’m in 2nd season and doing very well .. in 2nd season i bought Aguero and David Silva and they are phenomenal especially D.Silva also as RB Miguel from Valencia is very good right back
Woah, BC, thank you so much for uploading those! That’s very nice of you, I’ll give them a look at very soon. Thanks heaps mate! :)
I have just read in the press that MAN UTD are preparing a 12million dollar offer for our man Hunterlaar (in real life) I will be ropeable if they get him, because I would then be forced to hate him.
Anytime Nubskeh! Please bear in mind that my tactics were meant to suit the strengths and weaknesses of my players. Hope you’ll tweak it accordingly.
You know what Nubskeh! I think I can even upload my 6-1 demolition of Man Utd so that you can VIEW that match in your FM 2008. How is that?
Haha, that’d be great to see. I’m not sure how large the files are, but it should be great to watch!
I had a look at the tactics, they seem very good. I had a tweak at mine after seeing the strengths of yours over mine, and I think it seems to be working fine now. Cheers mate xD
@BC lol u got lamps and essien sent of hahahahaha,,
Hey BC! Could you help me out? I’m playing with chelsea as well, and the the game just asked me to register my squad for the champions cup. But it keeps saying ‘invalid squad’ every time I try to register it. For some reason, Chelsea doesn’t have three players who trained at Chelsea. :S I’d be grateful if you can tell me how to do this. Thanks.
Cracker – you have to put in the 3 players who trained at Chelsea. They usually come from the reserves or U18 team, unfortunately. The likes of Jimmy Smith, Mancienne etc.
Thanks Nubskeh! :D