Malaga CF – Season 2 – Update 1 (July – December)

Welcome back! Before we get into everything first team related and our summer plans, I wanted to look at our under 19’s squad and look at the depth to ensure we do not have too many players which runs the risk of our most promising players have their playing pathway blocked by a player who will not make it.

The U19’s themselves had a great season, they won group 4 of the Under 19’s division 1 with 97 points, scoring 143 goals, conceding 25 and only losing 1 game.

They unfortunately lost to Barcelona U19’s in the U19’s division final 2-1 but that result aside they had a brilliant season and with 1 or 2 players to keep an eye on, the future looks good for Malaga.

The U19’s squad certainly don’t lack numbers with 24 players registered, some of which we will look to move on as they don’t have the potential to develop into the sort of player that will challenge for the first team. We also need to ensure that we don’t have too many players all competing for the same position and our better players are the first name on the team sheet. I will evaluate the playing squad and look to move on players that won’t make the grade and move any others into the B or C team to ensure our talented 15/16/17 year old’s get the playing time they need to develop.

Let’s move on to the first team, in my last post I said that I had used the majority of the transfer budget we had to renew the contracts of our important first team players. This means that the first team squad is in a pretty good place.

There are a couple of areas I think we need to improve which are at wing back and in goal and I think we need an extra DM and a left winger for depth.

The goalkeeping department is a priority for us, Herrero and Lopez are not good enough.

Herrero only saved 56.41% of the shots he faced and had an expected goals prevented of -5.94, one of the worst performers in the league. Lopez faired only marginally better, he did save 73.33% of the shots he faced but he also had a poor expected goals prevented stat of -1.93 so a good goalkeeper is a must sign this summer.

Our first choice left back Victor Garcia is a decent option and had a good season for us as he racked up 10 assists in 35 league games. I will keep Garcia if I have to but we definitely need to bring in at least 1 left back with some quality if we can and look to move Dani Sanchez on.

The board have given us a transfer budget of £645k along with a wage budget of £120k a week, a £32k a week increase on what we are spending now. Given the low transfer budget we may need to look into the free transfer market and see what we can do.

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The boards expectations for this season are simple.

They want a mid table finish, I think that is something that our current squad are more than capable of achieving. This seems like a fair objective for us, I’d like to think we will at least reach the play offs but there are some really good teams in this league so maybe a season for consolidation will benefit us in the long run.

Now, I may have a problem developing which may cause some potential squad issues over the few weeks. One of our most important players, Kevin Villodres is currently extremely unhappy after I rejected a bid from Rayo Vallecano.

Villodres is currently valued between £750k – £1.8 million with Vallecano offering only £800k spread over a number of years with some money depending on player and team achievements. This was rejected which caused Kevin to ask for a meeting, I reminded him of his minimum fee release clause (£15 million) so if a team met that then he was free to leave. This hasn’t gone down well with him at all and is complaining to team mates resulting in them wanting a team meeting. I asked them why they would be happy to let one of our star players leave which would make us weaker and there response was “what good is it keeping an unhappy player”. I ended the meeting so I currently have 5 of his teammates agreeing with him so watch this space and we will see how this develops.

Back to transfers and I have made a couple of signings,

Lewis Fiorini joins on loan for the season from Man City, I like his versatility, he can play in the CDM, MC or AM roles so offers great depth and should develop well over the season. Lino Kasten comes in on a free transfer and will go straight in as our number 1, is he a marked upgrade on Herrero or Lopez? No but he isn’t any worse and hopefully he can do a good job for us this season. He isn’t a long term solution for us so will continue to keep a recruitment focus looking for goalkeepers for us to monitor.

On the eve of the new season, the media has predicted a 9th place finish for us. I think the supporters and board would be happy with that but I’m hopeful the team can surprise a few people and we can achieve a play off place come the end of the season.

August & September

Our opening game of the season was a difficult one as we faced newly relegated Las Palmas. We took the lead in the 3rd minute and took control of the game as we came out deserved winners after dominating play and creating plenty of good chances. The home game against Alcorcon was a one sided affair as we cane away with a good 3-1 win with Roberto Fernandez scoring twice before another good performance by the team as we came away from our game with Coruna with the 3 points thanks to a 3-1 win.

Our first defeat of the season came against Sporting Gijon as we lost 3-1. It was a frustrating result as we failed to take our chances and were made to pay for it. Despite having 21 shots on goal, we only managed 8 on target but couldn’t beat their keeper more than once. As we pushed forward late in the game we left space for Gijon and they took advantage of it as the result flattered them a little.

A bit of transfer news to bring you on deadline day, we sold Alfonso Herrero and Dani Lorenzo.

Herrero left to join Tenerife for a fee that could rise to £850k and Lorenzo joined Udinese for £775k. Both were out of contract this summer so made sense to cash in on a couple of players who would of left on a free.

We did bring in a player on deadline day as we signed 18 year old German Lennard Becker from Bayern Munich for £150k.

He’s got great potential and could develop into a really good player for us. If things don’t work out, we should be able to make a decent profit on him but I think he could develop really nicely for us.

A change to the formation for the tough away game at Racing Santander as we opted for a 5221 formation and it paid off as we came away with an impressive 3-1 win. One sour note was our new keeper Lino dislocating his shoulder and will be out for between 6-8 weeks.

We followed that up with a goalless draw against Villarreal B before beating Valladolid 2-1 with goals from Sangalli and Fernandez. A big match against league favorites Valencia ended in a 2-0 win courtesy of goals from Enriquez and Fernandez. Quality shooting was on short supply from both teams as Valencia failed to have a single shot on target from their 9 shots whilst we only managed 3 on target but we scored the important goals and possibly one of the best goals I’ve scored from a passing and patience perspective.

This was a beautiful goal to watch as we were patient with the ball, keeping possession as we moved up and across the pitch as we looked for the opportunity to progress into the final third. A lovely lovely goal!

Another clean sheet and another good performance as we beat Eibar 3-0 before rounding off September with a 2-1 win over Elche thanks to goals from Sangalli and Kevin Villodres.

10 games played and we sit proudly at the top of the table with a 4 point advantage. Plenty of games still to play but we have made a really positive start.

I picked up manager of the month for the teams return of 4 wins and 1 draw from our 5 games in September.

October & November

A difficult start to October saw us face Barcelona B but a good team performance earnt us a 1-0 win thanks to Nelson Montes header from a corner in the 45+1 minute. We then faced bottom of the table Cartagena and despite dominating the game, we could only manage a 1-1 draw. Two wins followed as we beat Huesca 2-0 before thumping struggling Antequera 6-1 with Abaida putting in his best performance since I’ve been at the club as he scored a hattrick and was a menace the entire game.

A big game to open November and a big result as we came back from 2-1 down at half time to win the game 3-2 thanks to second half goals from Villodres and Abaida. A dominant 4-1 win over in form Burgos followed by a 2-0 win over Tenerife and a battling 1-0 win over Oviedo led us into the final game in November against Zaragoza. A goal in the second half from Villodres set us on the path to victory but Dani Sanchez was sent off in the 80th minute for a second bookable offence and we conceded an equalizer just 4 minutes later as the game ended 1-1.

19 games played and a healthy 11 point lead over Valencia, we discount Barcelona B as they can’t get promoted, is a fantastic position to be in.

December

we came from 2-1 down to beat Eldense 5-3 thanks to a strong second half performance and braces for Fernandez and Enriquez. The first half was terrible, they completely outplayed us and some choice words were said at half time and it worked. We suffered our second defeat of the season against Leganes as we down 1-0. Credit to them as, much like Eldense, they outplayed us and made life really hard for us. We didn’t deserve anything from the game and we potentially are hitting a rough patch of form given the performance in the last game.

Our final game of the year was the Spanish Cup First round match against Spanish Federation Second tier side Manresa. We raced into a 4-1 lead in the 56th minute and looked like we would comfortably go into the second round. Boy was I wrong, Manresa scored in the 57th, 64th and 76th minutes as they took the game to extra time. They went ahead in the 92nd minute and looked like they would claim a famous scalp but substitute Genaro hit a 119th minute equalizer and penalties loomed, at least that’s what I thought but Roberto Fernandez scored 2 minutes into second half injury time as we finally won the game 6-5.

As we head into the winter break we hold a 9 point lead at the top of the table. Given our recent form, I think the rest break has come just at the right time for us so we can reset and go again for the second half of the season.

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Thanks for taking the time to keep up to date with the progress we are making at Malaga. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far? If you’re interested in anything else I’ve written over the last couple of years, please take a read by clicking here.

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Until Next Time.

FM Academy