I should probably work on being a much, much better manager. Farnerud and Brandon are decent running from midfield but mostly are we are grateful to Pinheiro in goal, who picks up the man of the match award on his debut. Ronaldo and both my centre-halves get sixes. Kidderminster make more passes, win more headers, have more shots on target, and are just generally better than us. I guess this whole thing rests on my team talk. I just realised I haven’t organised any training sessions or done any scouting on the other team.
I resubmit bids for every expensive Scandinavian wonderkid on my shortlist, go scouting for everyone on a free transfer with Tackling >14 and Determination >10, and prepare for our first away trip of the season. We might survive a trip to Aggborough, but this isn’t going to do for the whole season. But they’re slow, they’re old, and they can’t tackle. Warburton and Peters have good influence, they’re determined, brave and strong. Margas doesn’t get his work permit, which means I’m still facing the prospect of starting the new season with my original centre-halves. The perfect youngster for Bernard Lama to take under his erratic wings. The revolving door at Nene Park begins to smoke as we welcome Portuguese ball grabber Hugo Pinheiro for just £100k. A commemorative soap basket is sent to their widows. Despite the fact that I know Burgess is a good player in Division 3, and Wormull’s stats aren’t awful, there is no place for them in my strictly wingerless regime and so I decide to take some money instead. I still don’t have a decent left back, or centre backs, and my best pre-season striker can’t legally open a bank account, but at least I have another midfielder who doesn’t quite fit into my preferred formation.Īnd speaking of which, we wave un-tearful goodbyes to Simon Wormull and Andy Burgess.
Alexander Farnerud is broadly considered to be one of the Champ Man greats, and for another cool £1m, I’m finally happy. Our first CM01/02 legend is secured (sorry, Cristiano). It’s comfortably the biggest news of this adventure so far. I’m going to call this an investment and hold my breath for we months.Īnd then. £1m is a pretty penny, but he’s 21, can play in lots of positions, is quick, brave, and aggressive, and already has a Norway cap. But in Division 3? He can have a few games at right back. In the Premier League, his stats would be fairly average. I’ve been courting a young defender by the name of Pa Modou Kah – never heard of him myself, but I read about him during my pre-game research into CM 01/02 superstars. I check my shortlist and note that I still have 40 active bids for players, some of whom are defenders, so I decide I might have things under control after all and hit continue. I might have also sent someone to have a look at Sir Les Ferdinand, as if we need to. I then ask for scout reports for lots of new defenders – too many to write about individually, but I’ll keep you posted. I assume they won’t just be sunning themselves on the beaches of Europe and South America like I would. With pre-season over and the Division 3 openers looming, the first thing I do is bolster my scouting team to the maximum compliment and send them off to find me some diamonds I can spit-shine and turn over for a profit in a year’s time. Then he signed Ronaldo on a ten-year contract. In our first episode, Mike Paul loaded Championship Manager 01/02 and took over Rushden and Diamonds.