2016-2017 Season Review - koszak27's Dynasty

koszak27's Dynasty Blog

2016-2017 Season Review

Posted on August 8, 2016 at 12:50 PM.

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Exeter City, England

After a busy summer window, Exeter City looked on paper to be in position to fight for the League 1 title. The additions of Pfeffer and Beavon aimed to strengthen the midfield while the trio of Sikorski, Romero and Ojamaa looked indefensible. The team looked set for a single year in League 1; a temporary stop on their way up the league ladder. Unfortunately, the games didn't play out that way and by December, Exeter City was in 9th place in the league having at one point been as low as 12th. With half the season gone and the team eliminated from all cup games, the only goal left was to get to the top of the table.

The January transfer window would prove to be the difference maker in the 2016-2017 season. The team had not played well defensively and even had a negative goal differential by January 1st despite having such good attacking players. The obvious fix in a situation like this is to find some defensive players to transfer in and help the back line. This would not, however, be the case for Exeter City. With such a large task ahead of them, The Grecians needed much more than a player or two to accomplish their lofty goals.

The first transfer in January 2017 was a shocker with Henrik Ojamaa being transfered to the Premier League. Ojamaa had been having a great year with 13 goals and 10 assists through December. He and Sebastien Romero had been the scoring force for Exeter while Daniel Sikorski seemed to be hitting a wall. There didn't seem to be enough scoring to go around for the three strikers and the 4-3-3 formation, while playing to the team's offensive strength, was leaving the midfield and defense vulnerable.

Soon after the transfer window opened, offers for Ojamaa came flying in due to his chase for the golden boot and his excellent form. His evaluation of $4 Mil was tempting but to let the star of the team leave, it would have to be for big money. After rejecting many offers, the big boys of the Premier League finally stepped in with Southampton offering the magic number of $8 Mil for the Estonian forward. In the end, Ojamaa would see his $10,000 weekly wage become $60,000 for the Saints and the 25 year old would get a shot to prove himself on the big stage. For Exeter City, they had turned a free transfer into $8 Mil in just 6 months; a necessary achievement to overcome the stingy board's small transfer budget and stratospheric goals.

Henrik Ojamaa will get to bring his talents to South(beach)ampton and the Premier League.

With Ojamaa gone and a sudden surplus of money, Exeter City got to work on planning for the last half of the season. In 9th place, the feat was not impossible but highly unlikely. The first two moves were loans for some depth players; Alejandro Pino Caride (53 OVR, RB) from Rotherham and Adrian Wojcik (49 OVR, CM) from Wisla Krakow. 22 year old Duane Holmes (62 OVR, CAM) would be the first addition in January. The young midfielder from Huddersfield joined the team for a fee of $400,000 and would serve as a back-up player for the team. The big signing for Exeter City though would again come from the MLS. This time in the form of LM Diego Fagundez for $3 Mil. The 22 year old Uruguayan left midfielder from the New England Revolution would slot into the starting role for Exeter City and provide some skill on the wing.

New England Revolution's Diego Fagundez will join Exeter City for $3 Million.

The final move in the winter window was the sale of disgruntled goalie Hendrik Bonmann. An offer of $250,000 came in from Vaduz and the team agreed to let him go.

With the window closed and sitting in 10th place on February 1st, the team made the final change it would need to bring everything together. Ojamaa's exit had not only increased the team's budget but also freed up the manager to drop the 3 forward formation. In an effort to increase the team's defensive efforts, Exeter City adopted a variation of the 4-5-1 formation to create the 4-2-3-1. Do Heon Kim, one of the first youth players signed to the team, had been great as a CBafter being moved down from a CDM role. He never had the pace for the midfield but had become a force on the back line. With the addition of two CDM players in the back half of the field, the focus had shifted from offense to defense. Daniel Sikorski would be the player moving to the CAM role in the new formation to try and take advantage of his long shot skills and superb passing. This was the starting formation used to tackle the 2nd half of the season:

Sebastien Romero turned out to be an excellent option as the lone striker. His form stayed high and the goals kept coming for the young star. Diego Fagundez became an immediate contributor with 5 goals and 4 assists in his 15 games.

As the weeks went by, Exeter City started to gain ground on the league standings. By March, the team had climbed into the 6th spot on the way to an 8 game unbeaten streak. By April 1st, the team was in 2nd place overall and within reach of their promotion spot after losing only 1 game after February 1st. Entering May with 5 games left, Exeter City had a strong hold on 2nd place. They were ahead of Petersborough by 5 points with a game against the Posh coming up. The Grecians not only won the match 2-0 but stayed unbeaten in May to finish the season in 2nd place, 2 points behind first place. Exeter City had done the (almost) impossible and managed to gain automatic promotion to the Championship after losing only 1 game in the last three months of the season.

Manager's Notes:
Well, it took a long time to simulate through this season but it was worth it. I only played one game each month and going into January it was not looking good. The first three games that I played we lost and the team was not clicking using the 4-3-3 formation. I couldn't see past using the three big strikers to try and score goals and we were getting beat frequently on the counter. Even when I went back to the 4-4-2 and put Ojamaa on the left wing, we still weren't as sturdy in the middle as we had been.

I really didn't plan to let Ojamaa go but once a few big teams offered double his evaluation, it became a smart deal. The funds could be used in many different ways and at that point we were back to youth scouting Australia and New Zealand because of our low funds. After selling Ojamaa, I initially went to a 5-3-2 formation to really emphasize the back line defense but I ultimately changed permanently to a 4-2-3-1 and it worked like a charm. We were blowing out the bad teams and drawing the top teams like we needed to be. With no cup games and the 2nd half schedule being fairly stretched out, I only had to sim 1 game with back-ups and that is the game we lost.

Romero won the golden boot with 27 goals and Fagundez is a very good LM in the new formation. He had a really nice cross late in one game which Beavon headed in for a 1-0 win. I was ecstatic that we gained promotion but most of it was relief that we weren't fired. The team made a tremendous push and even with a few injuries to starters like Dezi and Ledson, they reached promotion.

The remaining money from the Ojamaa sale would eventually go into extending some starting player contracts (like Ryan Ledson and Sebastien Romero) as well as hiring a new global scout, a new youth scout and signing three youth players at the end of the year.

The main focus in the next summer window will be to sign a Championship caliber goalie. Eric Lora went back to Roma so he is an option but I hired another scout so that I could really look into a good player. I have already found some 6'6" Russians that would fit the bill. It will come down to what the board assigns to the transfer budget and how cheap we can get them.

This is the table of stats for the team:

Soccer Leaders - Updated: Jun 1, 2017
Games	GA	Goals	G
1. Daniel Sikorski	52	1. Sebastien Romero	27
2. Michael Schimpelsberger	52	2. Daniel Sikorski	19
3. Sebastien Romero	48	3. Henrik Ojamaa	13
4. Do Heon Kim	48	4. Tom Nichols	5
5. Eric Lora	46	5. Diego Fagundez	5
Assists	A	Clean Sheets (GK)	CS
1. Henrik Ojamaa	10	1. Eric Lora	21
2. Sebastien Romero	9	2. Christy Pym	1
3. Daniel Sikorski	9	3.
4. Diego Fagundez	4	4.
5. Jacopo Dezi	4	5.
Average Form	AF	Overall Increase	UP
1. Sebastien Romero	7.3	1. Nicky Rhead	5
2. Diego Fagundez	7.3	2. Sebastien Romero	4
3. Henrik Ojamaa	7.3	3. John Beavon	4
4. Jang Suk Won	7.1	4. Danny MacGillivray	4
5. Daniel Sikorski	6.9	5. Samuel Hadler	4
Overall Decrease	DWN
1. Seul Chan Jung	1	1.
2. Christy Pym	0	2.
3. Aiden O'Brien	0	3.
4. Richard Duffy	0	4.
5. Duane Holmes	0	5.