Mikes FM Journeys.

Well we go in to the new Serie B with great excitement and I genuinely can’t wait to be managing in this league. It is a big change from playing in front of about one thousand people a game at best. We certainly need some extra income coming in as the club is in a bad state financially at the minute and that is reflected in the start of season expectations.

due to our promotion in to the Serie B the board have decided that this would be a good time to increase the scouting range of teh club. We can now scout anywhere in Europe compared to before only being able to scout the countries close to Italy.

The expectations were set at avoiding relegation which is definitely my only aim this season as we are still a very small club at this level and i think anything else would be a bit optimistic given the stature of the club. However we have been the most improved club in terms of stature for both years in Italy. The wage budget was set at £31.5K p/w which is a bit less than last year. With the amount of people going out on free transfers meant we had some wage to spend on new players.

The bookies think we should be worrying about relegation and i agree with them but i believe we will have brought in enough quality players to survive by the end of the window.

As you can see we brought in a huge amount of players and most of them on frees which was going to be obvious looking at my budget. I am going to take you through the most important players i have managed to bring in and some of the exciting prospects we as a club have.

Key Players

Francesco Rossi is a great goalkeeper and he is still very young at the tender age of 22. I brought him in because Layeni is a bit to eccentric for my liking and he may make a bit to many mistakes in a higher league which could cost us.

Lorenzo Degeri has been loaned from Inter and will be a key player for us this season as he is quite capable at both defending and attacking. I would definitely like to sign him permanently if possible but i doubt this will be possible as he will end up seeing his career elsewhere.

Emanuele Sembroni was signed on a free and will slot in to the first team. He will be a big player for us this season as he is probably our best defender.

Michel Panatti has been loaned from my favourite team in Italy, Fiorentina. I hope he will have a good season with us as it could convince him to stay with us which would be brilliant.

Ildefons Lima was signed on a free and will be in the starting line up due to his impressive aerial ability. He i son less than a grand a week which is surprising considering he is an older player and they usually want more than the younger ones.

Francesco Evola was signed on a free and will be expected to sit in front of the defence and provide some cover against teams which are much better than ours.

Emanuele Orlandi was signed for a fee of 12K which in my opinion is very good and i could definitely have done with him last season. He will probably be my main right winger but i have other options there.

Pietro De Giorgio is another good right winger i have. He will be rotating with my previous signing most likely but can play in all the attacking midfield positions.

Dario D’Ambrosio will be my main right back but can play right across the beck four which could be very useful.

Horacio Erpen is a very skilful player and i will be hoping for him to provide some assists this season even if he doesn’t get a starting place he will be used of the bench a lot in my opinion if things aren’t going my way.

Umberto Varriale has the potential to be a great player for us and i was really surprised when i was offered him. He is brilliant and will be my main left winger and his creativity will hopefully provide lots of assists for the team.

Prospects

I am really pleased to show you some of the players i have brought in to try and improve the depth of the squad with younger players and hopefully they will all develop in to top Serie B players.

Well i want to quickly mention that this player has come through my won academy which i am really pleased with as my Junior Coaches are definitely doing something right i just hope i can keep hold of him. An extra bonus is that he is San Marinnese and if we keep developing as a club the country may actually improve as well so it will be interesting to see if this works out.

Another player from my academy and he has very good potential and should be in the national team very soon if i’m honest.

Preseason Fixtures

I have decided to add the Italian Cup to tis post because i was still very much experimenting with the team and who i should be playing. But we played very well and actually beat ChievoVerona who are a decent Serie A team and the media couldn’t believe we had beaten them. The first four game were to bring in more money through ticket sales and we didn’t actually do to bad against Lazio.