Der Dino Down

Hamburger were relegated on the final day of the season, a creditable 0-0 draw at home to a very strong automatic promotion seeking Levante side wasn’t enough. In the end, even a win would not have saved us as both Sporting and Celta Vigo, the two teams above us both won.

We return, again, to Division Three.

Back where we started in S2 (although hopefully not rock bottom with zero points after seven games).

Worst team in Top 100

Power Rankings at the start of the season

Not much progress, then, and disappointing to say the least. Plenty of other clubs, under the guidance of more capable managers than me, have zoomed up the divisions in that time. Some have zoomed back down again under new stewardship, too. So it could be worse.

And to be fair to myself, I did start the season with the worst team in Top 100!

So to finish 17th in D2, 63 places higher than I had any right to, wasn’t a bad effort at all. It’s all about context, you see. And balance.

Balance was the one thing I didn’t have. At the end of last season, I had sacrificed all my ratings for youth, in a futile effort to stop the evil Salvo and his crazy demonic Levante youth team from destroying Top 100 once and for all!

Levante won then, and they won again this season, too. Yet another Youth Cup Semi-Final defeat for me. I did stop Levante getting an automatic promotion spot, though.

So, I played most of this season with a very young team, by far the youngest I’ve ever put out. A few did get small ratings increases towards the season’s end, but it was always going to be too little, too late.

Of course, I could have tried to trade up during the season, but having brought in some lovely young players I did want to have another go at the Youth Cup.

By the time we were knocked out, it was too late. We were rock bottom of D2, and although we put together a good run in the final six or seven games, it just wasn’t quite enough. A defeat in the Nordderby was probably the killer blow.

So now we face another season in D3, but with hopes of a quick return to D2. I’ll take nothing for granted, though, as there are going to be some very good teams and managers in D3.

We do have a stronger team again now, though.

In my defence…

We brought in Szczesny from CSKA to replace Lafont, who went to Kazan in exchange for Ekitike. Woj should be good for a few seasons, still, while young Hugo will hopefully get his real life career back on track soon.

Thiago Silva joined from Flamengo, with Antoine Semenyo going to Brazil.

Tyrell Malacia replaced Quentin Merlin, and Hamari Traore and Romain Saiss reinforced our back line further still.

Jaka Bijol remains at the club, and I see him as a longer term option.

We also brought in James Milner and Neco Williams, who can provide short and long term cover at both fullback and wingback positions.

And we brought back Alfonso Pedraza, who can play left wing, too.

We let go of our two youth centre backs, Kaiky and Orozco, but we’ve replaced them with Mihajlo Ilic (who I think has just moved to Bologna in real life), and Alessandro Marcandalli, who’s playing really well for Reggiana (on loan from Genoa) in Serie B. I think they could both be better long term prospects.

In the engine room…

In midfield, we replaced Angelo Stiller with Nemanja Matic in the short term, with Nampalys Mendy and Ibrahima Sissoko providing cover.

Emile Smith-Rowe, who left as part of the Szczesny deal, was replaced by marquee signing Mason Mount. While Mount’s had a torrid time with form and injury in real life (and somewhat harshly reflected in an immediate SM ratings drop), he’s young enough and good enough to return to fitness and form sooner rather than later.

One of my favourite signings this season was bringing back Yacine Adli. He’s such a lovely player to watch, and finally he now seems to have got his chance with Milan, so I’m hoping for big things from him.

We’ve retained Albert Sambi Lokonga, who I hope is regaining some form in real life now he’s playing regularly again. We also brought in Mohamed Kaba from external, and he’s having a great season with Lecce in real life.

We let go of Fidel Ambriz from our youth set up (part of the Pedraza deal with Orozco). We replaced him with Jose Caicedo (also playing in Liga MX). We’re a bit light in midfield in the youth ranks, but we do have some exciting younger prospects in Breno Bidon, Kees Smit and Luke Harris, as well as Mohamed El Arouch, Jumpei Hayakawa and Ayanda Sishuba.

Up front…

Up front was where we had the biggest problem. Lack of goals was ultimately the reason we couldn’t stay up.

For most of the season we played a front four of Mason Greenwood, Ander Barrenetxea, Georginio Rutter (all in our youth team as well), and Morgan Gibbs-White. They all did well enough, but they are just too young to reliably produce enough goals.

Rutter (another lovely player to watch) left with Stiller and young Samu Omorodion as part of the deal for Mason Mount, and Summerville went to Cruzeiro for Breel Embolo. Embolo failed to score in seven games, so that definitely didn’t work out short term, but I’m confident he will score plenty in D3, and hopefully recover from his real life ACL and return to form with Monaco later this year.

It’s always hard to part with talented youth, and Rutter and Summerville look fantastic in the Championship. Summerville was on Level One concerns, though, and he was never going to get into my first team, so he had to leave.

We’ve retained Greenwood (our player of the season with most goals, assists and MotM awards), and Gibbs-White (another lovely player to watch, and who was criminally played out of position for much of the season in real life, but who now looks to have a new lease of life under the new management at Forest).

Ekitike replaced Rutter, and we brought in Ritsu Doan to replace Ander Barrenetxea. Another small ratings boost short-term, and a little more positional flexibility and a natural left-footer, which I like.

As part of the Barrenetxea deal, we also brought in young Momodou Sonko, who I hope has a very bright future.

We also brought Diego Lainez back to the club from external, and he seems to be rediscovering some form playing again back in Mexico.

We also brought in a couple of promising young wingers in Lainez’s real life team mate Marcelo Flores, and Raul Moro and Ahmed Qasem, although we had to let Brazilians Pedrinho and Goncalves go as part of deals for Hamari and Ekitike. We also managed to sign young South African talent Adam Bojang from external.

We’re definitely not going to be challenging for the youth competitions again any time soon, but we do have a better balance between ratings while still having some younger players with good potential to improve. I’d still like another centre back and centre forward, but I’m not desperate, and we may go with what we have now for next season, or bring in a lower rated player or two as cover from external, if need be.

So while we’re back to square one in one sense, we’re definitely in a much better position overall in terms of first team ratings with a sprinkling of exciting younger talents, and a decent crop of youth prospects.