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FM18 | The Chancer Chronicles: Premiership Winners?

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The Sleeping Giant

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. A quick recap for you all, I’m currently managing Liverpool and we are in hot pursuit of our first title since 1990, with Manchester United sitting 6 points ahead of us. Unfortunately, the ball is in their court, they have one hand on the trophy, we have a mountain to climb, erm, I can’t think up any more metaphors but you can catch my drift. Anyway, we will do our best and chase them to the end. In the meantime, we are still very much alive in all of the cup competitions including the Europa League. So let’s see if this was a season of success or a season of failure…

Transfers:

Well, this is easy, there wasn’t any, bar a youth player being loaned out. For those of you who have been following my brilliant, funny, wonderfully written journey from a no-mark to an all-conquering master of the universe… What was I talking about again? Erm, let me just put this trumpet down and find my train of thoughts again… Oh yeah, that’s it, for all of that, you have likely came to find I’m a frugal man, looking for the best deals for the club and for the team. And to be blunt, this team is stacked with quality. Not to the standard of PSG, don’t get me wrong, that was insane. But it isn’t far off. If any injuries do crop up I’m confident the quality sitting in the reserves can take the step up. So the clubs transfer profits still sit pretty at £22million. And yes, I have a lot of money in a Caribbean Island offshore bank account.

February:

‘And Liverpool will play Manchester United in the Carabao Cup Final.’ The presenter made an ‘O’ with his mouth as if he’d burnt his hand. There’s only one way to describe that; fireworks.’ I threw my remote at the TV screen, annoyed. Why is it always them twats?
Stoke, 3-0
Burnley, 4-0
Brighton, 7-1
Europa Cup 1st Knockout Round – Palermo, 3-1
F.A. Cup 5th Round – Southampton, 5-1
Europa Cup 1st Knockout Round – Palermo 4-2
Carabao Cup Final – Manchester United, 1-1

To win our first cup was amazing. To beat Manchester United, the clubs biggest rival was terrific. To beat Mourinho, in a draw and ultimately by penalties was priceless. I can’t think of anything better than out Mourinho-ing Mourinho. The gobby tit. I must admit, that win really invigorated the team. Hopefully, we can turn the screw in the league and pile on some pressure.
Clearly, it was a successful month, not only did we win the Carabao Cup, we also progressed in the Europa League and the F.A. Cup. All of the lads are starting to dream now. What can we achieve here? I’ve got a past of winning multiple trophies in a season, can we replicate something special here too?
Manchester United Points: 72
Liverpool Points: 63

March:

‘Now lads, diet is the key to success, do you hear me?’ The lads all nodded. I’d put them through a tough training session, they’d performed admirably and now I was to reward them. ‘See, Wenger first made the changes and what a difference it did make. He won titles and cups galore. So here’s to Wenger!’ I lifted up my fork and the speared fish and chips spilt from it. ‘The last man to finish his battered cod buys gravy foreveryone’ss chips!’
Chelsea, 3-1
Arsenal, 2-4 – LOSS
Europa Cup 2nd Knockout Round – Leicester, 8-2
Man City, 2-1
Europa Cup 2nd Knockout Round – Leicester, 4-0
F.A. Cup 6th Round – West Ham, 3-1
Manchester United Points: 81
Liverpool Points: 69

The loss to Arsenal has really pissed on our corn flakes. I thought we had a chance to at least keep up the pretence of breathing down United’s neck but now we’ve seen a ravine of 12 points open up between us and I can’t see how we come back from that. I was furious as you can imagine, and one or two of the players faced a good stern bum smacking after the game. Bunch of shithouses. They’ve been informed any more of that malarkey and they’re out of the door come the summer and no one will receive my special massages anymore.

April:

‘So, how would you rate your time at Liverpool so far?’
I scratched my chin. ‘Fine, I suppose. We’ve won a cup and are on course to possibly win more. I can’t complain.’
‘Do you think this is your best team yet?’
‘Look, being a manager you build relationships with every club as if you are a father and the club is your kid. Do you have kids?’ The man nodded. ‘Do you have favourites?’
‘Yes, my son is a little twat. My daughter is my favourite.’
‘Fair enough.’ I leaned closer to the man. ‘For what it is worth, I have a favourite too.’
Bournemouth, 7-3
Preston, 6-1
Newcastle, 3-0
Europa Cup Quarter-Final – Tottenham, 4-0
Swansea, 2-1
Europa Cup Quarter-Final – Tottenham, 0-1
F.A. Cup Semi-Final, Millwall, 6-0
Everton, 2-0
Southampton, 4-0

A massive month, not just in terms of what was at risk but literally a massive month. We had nine games in a thirty day period, meaning we played every 3 days near enough. Thankfully we have a decent sized squad and somehow managed to navigate it without any slip-ups. In fact, on the contrary, we’ve somehow managed to close the gap considerably.
Manchester United Points: 91
Liverpool Points: 87

May:

‘Liverpool will play… Manchester City.’ Jesus Christ, I may as well be playing in the Premier League at this rate. We’d played Leicester, played Tottenham and now we’d drawn Man City. I looked to the side of the stage and guess who I saw smirking and rubbing his hands together. That little bald bastard who’d stitched us up in the Champions League for all these years. His twinkling eyes met mine, he saw my nostrils flaring and my eyes widen. ‘Shit,’ he said before turning and running away.’
Europa Cup Semi-Final – Man City, 4-1
Stoke, 3-0
Leicester, 4-0
Europa Cup Semi-Final – Man City, 2-2
Crystal Palace, 2-1
Manchester United Points: 93
Liverpool Points: 96

We managed 31 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses in the league this season. United managed 30 wins, 3 draws 5 losses. In United’s last five games they managed 1 win, three draws and 1 loss. All of their draws for the season came at this vital stage of the season. In other words, they fucking bottled it. They. Bottled. It. The guy etching the winning team’s name onto the trophy had to re-etch Liverpool over the Manchester name after they so wonderfully threw it all away. The beautiful bottlers, them.


The club was jubilant, the fans beyond speechless and I was astounded. How we managed to claw it back I will never understand. Luck? Skill? Maybe it was a mental weakness, maybe it was injuries or maybe it was as simple as being a loss of form. Either way, fuck ‘em, we’d only gone and won the fucking league!
Now hold on a minute, before we all start popping off bottles of champagne we have other pressing issues to attend to. Two cup finals. One domestic F.A. Cup and a European Cup, the Europa League.

Cup Finals:
F.A. Cup Final – Brighton, 4-1
Europa Cup Final – AS Monaco, 6-0


Well, that was fucking ridiculous. That means we managed four trophies in my first season at the club. The Carabao Cup, the F.A. Cup, the Europa League and the bloody Premiership. That is outstanding and fucking ridiculous. How am I meant to top that? How? There’s no chance. I may as well retire now. However, the whole point of joining Liverpool was to retake the clubs perch and stand above the others, including my arch rival Jose Mourinho and United. Currently, they sit on 21 league titles and we’ve now managed 19. My task is still yet to be achieved.

I’m coming for you, Jose.

Player of the Season:

Origi, ST – the man was sensational. At first, he couldn’t break into the team but when he did, sweet Jesus he was unstoppable. In 42 games he scored 44 goals and assisted 36 times, winning 17 MotM performances with an average rating of 8.17. Those numbers are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Honestly, no words for the man I didn’t think could be apart of the team when I arrived. Fair fucking play to you mate.
I love you and I’m sorry.

Sarr, CB – 47 appearances, 3 goals and 8 assists… he’s a centre-back. He averaged 7.45 for the season. A helluva debut season, hopefully, there is even more to come.

Tyman, LB – 36 games, 2 goals and an incredible 14 assists, he averaged 7.50 for the season. I ask a lot from my fallbacks and that means they are heavily rotated, so to reach those sort of numbers is just mouth watering. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know who the fuck he was when I arrived, but his performances ousted Robertson, despite Robertson also being hugely consistent.

Arthur, CM – 34 games, 10 goals and 8 assists. He averaged 7.58 for the season. The truth is the man was the hub and engine of the team and without him, I don’t think we would have managed half of the success we did.

Salah, ST – 43 games, 35 goals and 21 assists. The scary thing is, despite how incredible Salah has been he wasn’t even our best player. He averaged 8.02 for the season. He’s 31 now so I think we’ll get one more top season out of him.

Iheanacho, ST – 33 games, 29 goals and 25 assists with an average rating of 8.16. It was a toss-up between himself and Origi for the player of the season and Origi managed it by a small margin.

Firmino, ST – 25 games, 29 games with 4 assists. He was the bedrock of the team and hugely effective, however, injuries meant his season was very stop-start otherwise I have a feeling his numbers would have conquered the world. At 31 I want one more big season from him.

To be honest, nearly every single player should be mentioned here because they all put a massive heroic shift in all season. There’s a reason we were so successful and it was down to the quality in the squad. Makes you wonder how former managers have been so underwhelming. I guess they all just needed some of my gold dust sprinkling over their cornflakes… And by gold dust I mean performance-enhancing drugs.

Anyway, it’s been a hugely successful campaign but it’s over now. Now I need to make plans to try and topple the league for the second time. Can it be done twice? I’m not sure but we’ll give it a good go.

So that’s all, for now, folks, until next time.
Toodle-loo.

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