Having made the decision to stay at Fahm it was time to look at improving things. After receiving a million pounds for promotion, we had around 750 thousand in the bank, I asked for new training facilities as ours were below average, this completely wiped our balance out, which I didn’t expect. However, it does appear we will make money this season, so fingers crossed this wasn’t a mistake.
The squad had quite a few loans last year, initially this left us without a starting GK, CB and DLP (D), along with a bench that had a couple of loans too.
So in came 6 new signings, 4 of which are starters.
Up first, attacking midfielder who is going to play as our MEZ (A) – Vitaliy Fedotov – coming off the back of an exceptional year in Crimea, grabbing 15 goals and 6 assists. He adds a very versatile option who can play all over midfield.
Silviu Pana comes in as the DLP (D) – a position that didn’t perform as well as I’d have liked last season, Silviu comes in as someone natural in the role and a definite upgrade on the players we had previously. With both Pana and Fedotov the new starting CM pairing it means Tako drops to the bench, 11 assists last year and was superb last year, I just felt with a stronger division it was important to have more quality, as Tako is unlikely to replicate his performance from last year.
After both keepers loans ended a new GK was required and Israeli Yehonathon Shabi on a free came in. He won’t be playing as a SK as it’s not a role I like to much, especially at a lower level. A nicely rounded player, nothing to special but young enough to improve upon.
Last but not least, CB Miki Seroshtan, released by Hapeol Haifa, he didn’t feature last season for some reason for the relegated club, but I think there’s lots to like about Miki. Lots of good attributes and mentally very good for our level with good jumping reach and heading to attack corners.
There are still loans to be brought in, to perhaps bring some depth, but those 4 are the main ones for the season ahead.
The Premier Toto Cup
Because of our promotion all our opponents are top tier sides, so rather than look to try and win the competition, I wanted to use it to access the team and see how we compete with these new sides.
We’re going to stick to the system that had such success last year, but I fear the AM might have to be moved to a DM against these stronger sides.
The group we had was a good mix of teams predicted at the top and bottom, we are predicted 800-1 at the bottom of the league, our first game came against the side predicted second bottom. We ran out 3-0 winners in this one. The visitors had 2 goals disallowed for offside, but overall we played well, and it definitely gives me hope as players settle and gain match fitness.
Elsewhere we have Beitar Jerusalem who are predicted 3rd and will likely prove the sternest of tests. Rather than discuss every game, here are the full results.
We finished 2nd in our group and then progressed to the classification round, where we might current Premier League holders Haifa, we were superb on the day and came away 3-1 winners. However, whether the competition is bugged or not there is no actual progression after this, having looked up the competition there seems to be a quarter final later in the season that Football Manager just doesn’t have. It’s the least important cup in Israel and more a good fitness builder than anything, but extremely weird either way.
UP NEXT… THE PERMIER LEAGUE STARTS
On the Break 