An Exploration of the Wonders.

Start of Season Expectations

The only options I had for my start of season expectations was either Title Challenge or Winner – with Twente predicted to finish 3rd I decided to lay back a little and go for Title Challenge, which gave me a £5.7m transfer budget & £185k to spend in wages, with £151k already being spent.

Transfer Update

My transfer update showed that we shall be signing a new player next season – Andreas Bjelland has already agreed a £2.6m move from Danish side Nordsjaelland and will join on at the start of July 2012. Here is his profile;

Transfers (up to the end of July 2011)

This summer I spent a lot of money at FC Twente, £17.25m, but did manage to recoup back £6.25m from selling players, taking my net expenditure to £11m. First, the players that left. The main reason why many left was because of my tactic which uses the 4-1-2-1-2 formation, so the wingers were sold as they were no longer needed. The main departure was Nacer Chadli, who joined Valencia for £4m – the Belgian could of played in AM but wasn’t good enough there, and with his £2.4m value, I was pleased with the amount of money I got for him. Roberto Rosales also went to Spain to join Getafe for £1m as he was sat rotting in the reserves, whilst both of the John brothers left – Joshua going to Germany with Gladbach for £525k, with Ola going on loan to Vitesse, being joined by Wesley Verhoek. Now to the players coming in to FC Twente;

Danny Welbeck, Manchester United, Loan UEOS

Danny Welbeck was my first signing of the season as he came in on loan until the end of the season from parent club Manchester United. The newly-capped English striker will be my first choice striker alongside Luuk De Jong, and has a 4 star ability – with 17 acceleration and 18 pace & flair.

Felipe Anderson, Santos, £5.25m

I was delighted to have beaten Real Madrid to the signing of 18 year old Brazilian midfielder Felipe Anderson, signing him for £5.25m from Santos. His ability is only 2 1/2 stars at the moment, but he has a fantastic 4 1/2 potential, and I will be giving him lots of game time so he can quickly progress. His mental attributes are already excellent.

Mahamadou Diarra, Free Agent

Mahamadou Diarra was brought in as a free agent to rival other players for the DM & CM positions. At 30 he has played for Real Madrid & Lyon and will provide excellent experience to the team, with a good 3 1/2 star rating and good teamwork & work rate ratings.

Walter Montillo, Cruziero, £12m

The big signing of the summer was certainly Walter Montillo, who I signed for a whopping £12m from Cruzeiro, smashing Twente’s previous transfer record by £7m. I have seem him in previous saves go to the likes of Arsenal and Manchester City and do brilliantly so was delighted to see he was interested in joining me – and he did, bringing a 4 1/2 star ability. All of his stats are excellent.

Birger Maertens, Free Agent

Birger Maertens came in to act as cover – but has found himself at DM in recent games because of injuries to Bouma and Diarra. He is 31, rated 3 stars and has some pretty decent stats, and is good, cheap cover for my CB’s.

The team at 30.7.2011

Pre-Season

FC Twente had a solid pre-season, losing just once as they beat 2 big teams from England. I set up a cup tournament (name The Twente Tournament) featuring Arsenal, Lyon and Porto. We beat Arsenal 2-1 in the semi-final to my delight, but were thumped 4-1 by Lyon in the final. I was going to go on tour but the Dutch Super Cup & the CL qualifiers stopped that from happening – although we did beat parent club Man Utd 1-0 and drew 0-0 with Liverpool.

Dutch Super Cup Final 2011, FC Twente v Ajax

The day was here and my first came came my first final – and I hope it wouldn’t be my last. Due to my incompetence I forgot to screenshot my team, so here’s the written version of my team, with 4 debutants;

Mihaylov

Cornelisse Bengtsson Douglas Buysse

Maertens

Fer Anderson

Montillo

Welbeck De Jong

FC Twente came from a goal down to record a stunning 4-1 victory over Ajax in the Dutch Super Cup Final to win it for a second year in a row. After 28 minutes of fairly balanced play Twente were behind, Ajax breaking away from a Twente corner and Eriksen was left in piles of space to cooly slot in the opener. But Felipe Anderson had other ideas, and 3 minutes later the Brazilian beat Anita before smashing a screamer from 15 yards into the top corner to score on his debut. Twente then went and took the lead in first half stoppage time – Cornelisse playing a neat one-two with Luuk De Jong, and the young Dutchman buried the ball under the GK. Danny Welbeck then went and also scored on his debut, bundling the ball over the line just 43 seconds into the second half from De Jong’s cross. Welbeck got his second and completed the scoring 25 minutes from time, his shot smacking against the woodwork and he was alert enough to tap the shot back into the net. But Welbeck and Twente’s night was slightly soured 5 minutes from time as Welbeck stupidly got himself sent off for a poorly timed challenge, resulting in a second yellow card. Nevertheless, the first trophy I have won at FC Twente.

Thanks for reading and look out for a special post soon detailing my CL qualifying campaign, showing you how I did.

Cheers,

Dan.