Special News
I found this news very funny: "Harrogate Town have made an offer to loan Liverpool's Mark Smyth for 3 months". Maybe few of you will get it, but I'm sure Eaglesfan27 will find the coincidence funny.
Transfer News
I'm still scouring the transfer lists, searching for players to help boost my team. Right now I'm thinking about getting a striker with pace, dribbling and crossing to play on the side striker spot. I won't break the bank for just anybody, but if I find one like that, I'd like to see what he could do in my 4-3-3 setting...
International Round-Up
Chris Coyne again does well without excelling, getting a rating of 7 while playing the whole match in Australia's 1-2 loss over Portugal. With the loss, Australia is out of the Cup.
July 1st, 2006
The Luton Team Board is down to bein very pleased about my work, mostly because it's the offseason and the high of promoting has been replaced by the agony of not knowing if we won't simply get crushed in the Championship.
Transfer/Contract News
With the arrival of July 1st, the contracts of many players on my shortlist are coming to an end. I look through and find a few I will want to keep an eye on.
Rowan Vine is one of them, and he's just been released on a free transfer. He's asking for $5400 per week, I decide to make him a very low first offer at $3600 per week.
I also offer
Keith Keane to a group of selected teams. I ask $2.2M for the young D/DM, his value has just jumped to 2.6M.
Work Permit News
Samuel Johnson's work permit is turned down. He's from Ghana and has 8 caps. He would certainly fit well within my midfield, but with the recent signing of
Paul Evans, I decide not to appeal. The defensive midfielder position is not one of my priorities at the moment.
Contract News
Rowan Vine accepts our offer and signs with Luton. There are some holes in his skill set, but I see him as a goal scoring machine. He scored 13 goals while on loan with us in 2004-05, averaging a form rating of 7.17, and scored 11 with Swindon in 2005-06, averaging a form rating of 7.21. He'll get plenty of playing time in my striker rotation...
Scout/assistant manager problems
I'm having the same problems reported earlier by Desnudo. Some amazing players are being reported by my assistant manager as being not worthwhile, making it so the team board only allows me to offer them $6200 per week, even as key player, while for other players that the assistant manager find worthy enough, I can offer up to $8200 per week. I'm not at a very high level yet, but this is already causing me to lose out on some strikers that are asking for that $8000 or so a week, but I'm not allowed to offer them more than 6200... A bit frustrating...
FM