FM11 West Bromwich Albion Pre-Season 10/11

Hi guys, and welcome to the start of my West Bromwich Albion story. I decided to wait for the 11.3 update, so I decided to start it now. Unfortunately, this changed a lot. As many of you know, Roberto Di Matteo, the former manager, got fired, and with him, left 2 staff members, the assistant manager and the fitness coach. This may not seem like a lot to you, but West Brom only have 3 coaching staff now, 1 assistant manager, and 2 YOUTH coaches - but I have given them new contracts as coaches. In addition, my transfer budgets also changed.

Here is my new transfer budget, with my changed expectations. I increased my expectations, but my budget was decreased. Stupid Jeremy Pearce and his tight arse. Fortunatley, I managed to increase the budget by being a pain in the ass.

With our one signing in the January window - Carlos Vela from Arsenal, it meant that I had an abundance of strikers that I would have to get rid of. My other signings would be an extra midfielder and some sort of extra strength in defense.

Ismael Miller was the striker I decided to get rid of. Being valued at 2.9 million, and not being of Premier League in my opinion, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a negotiable offer of 3.4 million from Newcastle. I was even happier when Fulham matched the offer after submitting a lower offer! What was even more surprising, was that they were upfront, not in monthly installments! However, when Newcastle submitted an enquiry for Chris Brunt, I almost rejected the offer for Miller, becuase he is listed as indispensable. However, he joined Newcastle for 3.4 million :)

Here is my total summer sales

As you can see, I got rid of a lot of players, and raised over 8 million pounds.

I re-invested all the money I got into one player, Phil Jones of Blackburn. He is currently regarded as the next John Terry, and already has very strong mental and physical attributes. He is rated at 5 stars by my assitant. He joins us for the rather large fee of 15 million pounds!

That was the only signing I managed to make in the window, and even then, he joined just before the season began. However, I did try and get some quality staff in. I got in one coach, and one additional scout.

Pre-season went okay, the team is still getting used to the tactics that I am creating, and our form should soon pick up.

Overall, I think that pre-season could have been better, but I am happy with the transfer activity, and how our friendly's went.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment. I will try and show you my tactics in the next couple of days, but then I will not be posting for a couple of weeks as I am going to Cambodia to teach children, and then hopefully to Japan to help the victims of the terrible earthquake that has struck them, so have a nice couple of weeks, and I'll be back with a update soon!