Tag Statistical Analysis

The Art of the Signing – Football Manager

A FM Old Timer 3 Comments

This post originates from a signing I have already made for my Bayer 04 Leverkusen side. I was appointed as manager of Die Schwarzroten after I was resoundingly sacked by the board at Genoa for starting a striker in a Coppa Italia game against Inter, whom I’d previously promised not to play due to poor form. No, I’m not joking.

Signing a football player is, I imagine, very different to recruitment in most industries. Player identification may share similarities with that of top-end corporate jobs, i.e. head-hunting, but it’s far from the ordinary occupation which still relies on applications and interview process to determine what one hopes is the best candidate. In many ways, football recruitment should be far better – a team can clearly see the past performances of a player, whether live, in the produced data, perhaps supplied by the likes of StatsBomb, or via video scouting packages, such as Wyscout. This should help them to identify a set of players who fit their needs, and via considerable background research/due diligence into a player’s background and personality beyond the white lines.

In Football Manager, it’s possible to do many of the above, to a degree. In my case, I was debating whether to sign a central midfielder – Davide Frattesi. He was transfer listed by Herta Berlin after being deemed surplus to requirements. He looked to be a good option for the central midfielder on attack role that I use on the right-hand side of a two in a regular wide 4231. I ran through my usual, in-depth criteria for going ahead with a signature, and all suggested his signing would be a good idea, helping to provide competition for Connor Gallagher. Yet, I found myself a little conflicted as to whether I actually should sign him.

In the below write-up, I’ll explain the full process I undertook, using an example of a player I’ve identified to potentially fulfil a role, and put across my thinking behind each stage of the identification and recruitment process.

Identifying a gap

When considering a player acquisition, it’s crucial to assess the playing time, age profile and even the expectations of the employed tactic on player workload of your existing squad. If a player is in a key role, then it is anticipated that they will need to make a large number of vertical sprints back and forth when completing attacking and defensive actions. Therefore, each of those energetic actions increases the probability of an injury occurring the more that player plays, because of the stress and strain that he will be putting his body under. Of course, you can mitigate this somewhat by having high quality coaches, sports scientists, physios and training facilities, along with a well-thought-out training program to minimalise this risk, but it nonetheless is a potential problem, especially as a player grows older.

Equally, it’s important to recognise the existing players who are towards the younger age within your squad. What does their current pathway look like? Are they nailed on to be a first-team starter and in need of minutes to develop their potential, or are they more likely to benefit from a loan, in which case they are not a short-term option for your first team squad, and an immediate fix may need to be found? If there is no suitable internal recruit to the potential vacancy you may have within your organisation, and there is no suitable candidate to be retrained, then a club must rely upon external recruitment to achieve its objectives.

With the case of Frattesi, I knew I was relying on Gallagher far too much given the strains of Champions League football and weekend games in the Bundesliga given our high, intensive pressing football and constant travel, with little time to train in between games beyond preparation and feedback/recovery sessions. Yet, I had also been deputising Noël Aséko Nkili, a talented young German whom I’d previously picked up from Bayern München. I was conscious of not blocking his pathway to minutes and, fingers crossed, development, especially as he’d filled in relatively well in terms of chance creation and assists.

However, I still felt a little light in case of any injury, there was no Plan C, or rather a potential improvement on Plan B. The Bayer 04 academy had not provided us with any suitable youth player for this position – so on that basis the first step of making a signing had been reached.

Finances

Next, I had to consider the possibility of making a signing.

If you’ve read my previous blogs on football finance, you will know that I go one step further than is available on the user interfaces within Football Manager, utilising amortisation calculations to determine accounting player values and (basic) remaining costs for each member of the first team squad. This can help me, along with the provided transfer and wage budgets available in the finances tab, to decide what I can afford to spend. (It’s worth noting that on the Price of Football podcast, Miles has said that amortisation will never appear to the user in Football Manager, but he did hint that it is there in some form in the background)

At the time, we had over £40m to spend on one or more signings according to the game, but far more using an amortisation approach. Plus, if I was able to sign a player by splitting the cash outlays over three or four years, then I could stretch that budget further still. We were well under our wage budget allocation, so this too wasn’t an issue.

There is one other important consideration – we’re Bayer 04, and whilst we may be playing Champions League football, we do have a rigid wage structure that we try to adhere to. Only club captain, Micky van de Ven, is on more than £100k/week. Our pool of talent to select from is accordingly limited to those who are not already on or above this level of wages.

Existing squad culture and player personality

Whenever talent is recruited, it is important to consider the existing ethos of the organisation that they will be joining – we have a determined squad, so they may not gel well with anyone who doesn’t share their same values.

As you can see from the squad graphic above, I prefer to run a relatively tight-knit squad, with only twenty-one players finishing the season with us in the first-team squad. This is in part due to the lack of high enough quality players having remained with the club having come through the youth system, but also my preferred style to avoid unnecessarily imbalanced squads with players clamouring for playing time and upsetting the squad harmony.

It is this previous failing that forms part of the reason to recruit for the central midfield position. Brazilian André, was signed as a squad player during a complete overhaul of the Bayer 04 team in the first summer transfer window I was in charge. He very quickly became upset at his lack of minutes he played and started to unsettle the rest of the squad. I took the decision to jettison him to the U19s to remove him from the first-team squad, and transfer list him before selling him for a minor profit to Real Sociedad.

With this new recruit, being able to speak German was seen as important, but not essential skill, given the spread of other nationalities and first languages, as this would help the player settle earlier. The existing squad is relatively young, with an average age around 24. As such, an older head could be useful to guide these players, though this isn’t a deal-breaker.

The important thing here is that they need to have a positive mentality and approach to the game/training. As many leaders have said, including Ole Gunnar Solsjkær, it’s better to have a hole in your organisation than an a***hole who upsets everyone else (it’s admittedly odd that Ole seems not to have followed his own guidance with one particular signing, and it’s certainly notable just how well MUFC are doing now that he’s gone). Managing someone out of an organisation can be even more expensive than the initial recruitment in the first place – it’s far better to recruit once and recruit well.

Plus, this can be a more considered signing than when I was ripping apart the squad that I inherited. I don’t need to rush into making a signing here. I hope to have learned my lesson from the signing and near immediate sale of André.

Attribute requirements

As I was looking for a first-team player, they needed to have the ability to play Champions League football. A high level physical ability is also critical – our energy intensive nature of our gegenpress means that the player needs to be able to both make high intensity sprints and do so over and over, or risk seeing holes for the opposition to exploit. As such, a premium is placed on natural fitness, teamwork, work rate and stamina.

The player’s mentality and ability to perform under pressure, being able to be consistently operating at the best of their abilities in the toughest of matches, was also high on the list of requirements. As such, it wasn’t just the technical and physical attributes that were being assessed, but his persona and cognitive abilities too.

To identify the potential recruit’s physical capabilities, just looking at their actual aforementioned attributes is insufficient. Their injury history also needs to be considered. It’s all very well having a great ability to be everywhere on the pitch if they’re only capable of doing that for 90 minutes of a potential 270 or more because you require rest or treatment on the injury table. Therefore, looking at their history of knocks and injuries will be a key step in the recruitment process.

Scouting

Having already previously set up my scouting team to scour all of Europe and South America for talent, there had already been a plethora of reports for central midfielders. I’d chosen to take control over the assignments, so that I could have say over who my team were running the rule over. Whilst the majority of scouts are looking for the upcoming talents, I have assigned some to look at players who are in the prime of their career in case I ever need a ‘here and now’ signing. It will be these scout reports that I will be relying upon to inform my decision as to who to sign.

Scouting reports

When receiving scout reports, there are a few obvious things to look for, the minimum standards, the instant red flags. If a player is going to be playing Champions League football, and in games against Bayern München, they need to be mentally prepared for the big game atmospheres. They can’t be too nervous to make a decision/rush to make a decision, which can then negatively affect the outcome of the game due to their mistake(s).

Equally, they need to be at least reasonably consistent in their delivery of their abilities on the pitch – their teammates need to be able to rely on them to perform their duty – as legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick is quoted as saying, “do your job”. This effectively means everyone else can concentrate on doing theirs rather than having to cover for you too, causing problems in the team’s shape and structure, leaving gaps for the opposition to exploit no matter what shape the ball. A central midfield cannot afford to be constantly out of position, nor operating outside the confines of the team plan – if they are, it’s a recipe for being cut open time and time again – against high quality opposition, this will likely prove fatal.

Player traits

Although not strictly necessary given they can be taught through coaching, there are some traits that could be a concern and there are others which could be more useful given the playing role/position.

As the central midfielder, potentially on support of attack duty, and using a gegenpress tactical style, dives into tackles would be a red flag. A player who opts to go off their feet both increases the likelihood of the player picking up cards, suspensions, and therefore potentially result in putting their teammates down to 10. What’s just as concerning is that if the player misses both ball and man due to some technical flair shown by the opposing player, the tackler is then out of position and out of the game if, as is often the way in the Bundesliga, they choose to rapidly counter-attack.

Other traits that would be viewed negatively would be: argues with officials, dwells on the ball, stops play, plays no through balls and plays short simple passes.

Far more attractive traits are arrives late in the box, looks to switch play to the flanks, looks to play one-twos, gets forward whenever possible.

Now that I’ve identified what I’m looking for, it’s time to run Davide Frattesi through my self-imposed checklist.

The run down

Frattesi had been signed by Herta Berlin from Italian side US Sassuollo for £26m by Brendan Rodgers. Yet despite signing over the Summer transfer window, he had already been transfer-listed on the grounds of being surplus to requirements following the appointment of the new Head Coach, Leonardo Jardim in December 2025 following the sacking of Rodgers.

Jardim’s preferred formation involves a double deep pivot as a central midfield partnership, which isn’t Frattesi’s natural position, but one that he can play. Both Toni Kroos and Salvatore Esposito held the starting births, and it seems Frattesi wasn’t wanted by the new manager. Given his asking price of £22.5m, he looked to be a relative bargain.

Having played sixteen league games, with two of those coming from the bench, as of the last week of the January transfer window, the fall-out with Jardim must have been rapid following his appointment in December 2025. Whilst it could be useful to look at Frattesi’s performances so far for Hertha given he’s playing in the Bundesliga, it’s also useful to look back at how he performed last year to gain a greater understanding at his metrics over an entire season.

In his last full season with Sassuolo, before his transfer to Herta Berlin, he played 89% of all minutes over the course of their Serie A campaign – he more than ticks the box for his availability. This statistic shouldn’t be overlooked, but how does he stack up on a deeper level rather than just being ready to step over the white touchline?

Over the course of the 2024-25 season, compared against other central midfielders across the top five leagues, with 1,000+ minutes, his metrics looked like this:

Clearly not used as a creative outlet for Sassuolo, Frattesi looks to be someone who is more adept at recycling the ball. He’s barely made an assist all season, and it’s not as though his teammates have been missing clear-cut chances he created, because he didn’t make them very often at all. This is an area of the game that would clearly need to change, as the central midfield role is one that does need to chip in with the occasional through ball for the likes of Moise Kean and Florian Wirtz. He didn’t even make that many progressive passes, so this is a concern.

As for his defensive metrics – he’s a pressing monster – so could suit well into our gegenpress. He also seems to match that with his ability to read the game well, winning back possession at a consistently high level, and then he didn’t give the ball away cheaply either. His tackles are also not to be ignored, though his success rate isn’t good, so he may give away a high number of fouls, but if that breaks up a rapid counterattack from the opposition, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

A relatively trigger-happy shooter, judging by his high frequency of shots per 90 and his xG per shot, he also comes well below average when it comes to his xG over performance. Yet he also finds himself above the 25th percentile for goals scored per game, and in the top quintile for his xG. If his shot choice can be refined through his decision-making, or perhaps better quality passing options ahead of him, he could look to reduce his wastefulness with the ball.

His scouting report actually highlights that his passing ability is underlined by his technical prowess, so it’s curious that he’s not utilised this, or been playing in a role that has looked to utilise this skill. He’s also apparently relatively quick, and a consistent performer, both fantastic traits for my tactical approach. My scouts also highlight that, despite his transfer-listing, he’s a leading player for any Bundesliga side, would be a fairly good social fit into the side, and enjoys big games. It’s a very positive scouting report, besides his penchant for a competitive streak which can lead to him bending the rules.

With his suppressed value and the information contained in his scout report, it looks a reasonable decision to sign him – particularly given his age of 26, giving us potential re-sale value should we need it, plus he would nicely fit into the mix in terms of players being of a similar age profile already in the squad.

His spirited personality, whilst not being top of the preferred list, isn’t a bad one. What really is in his favour though is his player traits of runs with the ball through the centre, gets forward whenever possible and runs with the ball often. All of these could help to split a defence open if he attracts the opposition towards him and laying off the ball to a teammate in space, or taking on a shot when ghosting into the box as a third-man run.

His scout report also highlighted his considerable technical, mental and physical attributes that were hinted at in his pros and cons.

The decision is made to advance the acquisition by submitting a bid at the asking price of £22m. This is swiftly agreed, and so we quickly progress to contract discussions. Frattesi wants to be a regular starter within the first team, which doesn’t come as a shock given his skill level and age, combined with the fact that he wasn’t going to be seemingly seeing much first-team action at Hertha.

We manage to agree to a deal with his agent for £72,000/wk, and a four-and-a-half year deal, with additional bonuses kept to a minium of an appearance fee and an unused substitute fee. The weekly wage makes him a relatively mid-ranked paid player, so this isn’t anywhere close to disturbing our existing salary structure.

The length of the contract means that the annual amortisation value of Frattesi will be exactly £5m. His book value, including his wages, totals £39,348,000, or £8,744,000 per year. This seems relatively shrewd given his indicative transfer value rises to £52-57m upon joining us at the close of the January transfer window. This is well within our budget, and leaves me with plenty of room to make any necessary adjustments to the squad in the Summer should we need to.

I hope that you enjoyed reading the thought-process that goes into transfers when I look to sign players in Football Manager. This, of course, doesn’t have to be the way for everyone, but hopefully it might make you think about areas of transfers that you’ve missed, or perhaps could look into further.

If you have any questions around this topic, or those that I allude to, please don’t hesitate to contact me @afmoldtimer on Twitter. Until next time – auf weidersehen!

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Football Manager 2023 – Genoa CFC: Mister (2)

A FM Old Timer Leave a comment

Ad Maiora Semper

Ciao, and welcome back to the second half of the first season at Genoa CFC. In this piece, you’ll read about the winter transfers, see how we finished off the second half of Serie B, and the financial impact of being in Serie B alongside my transfer business.

Winter transfers

After the defeat to Frosinone, Albert Guðmundsson had the temerity to come to me and challenge me on how I spoke to the team during my team talks. I didn’t appreciate his tone, so he went straight on the transfer list, offered for sale, and put into the Under-18s for good measure. A number of teams came in for the Icelandic international, but it was Mainz that sealed his signature for £2m. As you’ll see below, this netted us a net positive financial return on his time are the club given his remaining book value, as well as a very useful £2m in cash to help support our haemorrhaging of cash.

For similar financial purposes, I looked to sell Milan Badelj. At 33-years of age, and about to turn 34 in February, I wanted to extract any value I could from him. Aware I was going to take a hit on his book value, I didn’t care, given he was on £43k/week. Selling him saved £1.2m purely in his basic wage. The fact I only receive £86k from Cruz Azul, the equivalent of just two weeks wages for Badelj, is neither here nor there – I removed an unhappy player who wasn’t playing and wasn’t going to be offered another contract to add to the one that was expiring at the end of the season. On balance, this sale made financial sense.

The other player to leave was Caleb Ekuban. He’d been back up to Yeboah, but whenever he’d been given the chance to experience some minutes in his place, he looked like he’d struggle to score in a vacated goal. His shooting was wayward, and it wasn’t like we weren’t creating the same quality of chances for him. When he came to me asking to go out on loan, this seemed a good idea for both parties. Hopefully in his time at Sturm Graz, he’s able to put together a run of form to rebuild his confidence.

Despite the aforementioned financial difficulties,  I did consider bringing in a signing as cover for Yeboah on a permanent basis, I realised that if we could continue our existing form, we were likely to achieve promotion to Serie A. As such, I didn’t want to sign someone to a permanent contract who might be a good fit now, but in six months time be left with someone lacking the necessary quality to compete in Serie A. Consequently, I decided it better to look into the loan market, and add to our loanees. The search for a target didn’t take long once I spotted the name of Ezequiel Ponce. The 25-year-old Argentinian striker was unloved at Elche, and a deal was quickly agreed to bring him to the Luigi Ferraris stadium.

This meant that the squad looked like this after our Winter transfers:

League update

In truth, we won Serie B at something of a canter – the league was wrapped up with four games to go and promotion had been obtained two games prior to that. We dominated the league, going on a twenty-four game unbeaten streak, as we barely had to rotate beyond suspensions and relatively minor injuries, except Alessandro Vogliacco who broke his ankle. Our relative goal difference tells you the story of our superiority over our peers – in only four games did we have a negative xG-xGA difference.

Player analysis

This achievement, as stated in the mid-season review, is in no small part down to the form of Kelvin Yeboah, but also Mattia Aramu, Aldo Florenzi, and Henrique Pereira – my front four (after the sale of Guðmundsson). It’s only right that we take the time to investigate just how good they performances were.

In the below player analysis, rather than just copying across the in-game graphic of his spider chart to show how good each was in Serie B, I’m going to look at how well they did relative to that of other, comparative leagues. The reason for doing this is that there could, for example, be a relatively small number of players with sufficient minutes playing as a wide forward in a single league, so utilising other leagues to make a comparison makes it somewhat more reliable. The leagues I’ve chosen are 2. Bundesliga (Germany), PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa (Poland), Fortuna Liga (Slovakia), Ligue 2 BKT (France) and of course Serie B. The reason behind choosing these leagues is that they are all European league, with the same calendar for their respective sessions, and who are roughly comparable with Serie B given their league rankings. All players who have had their data gathered have all completed 1,000 minutes or more to avoid any small sample size of minutes skewing the data.

Kelvin Yeboah – Capocannonieri Serie B winner

Yeboah typically played with tremendous freedom, utilising his fantastic pace to run in behind defences when they had pushed up, resulting in him having a number of one-on-ones which he calmly finished on a pretty regular basis. I’m not going to pretend that he scored every week – he did, despite his fantastic figures, have some barren spells. Yet it was so often his goals which separated us from our opposition – his speed, composure, off the ball movement, and his finishing ability saw him finish the season as Serie B’s top goalscorer.

Aldo Florenzi

As the first signing I negotiated after I took on the role of Genoa manager, it was fantastic to see Aldo Florenzi perform to the standard that he achieved over the course of the season. Playing as an advanced playmaking 10, he demonstrated the ability to play the killer pass and to hit the back of the net all in one shirt. His radars show just how brilliant he was in front of goal, taking the burden away from Yeboah, whilst also nearly topping out (5th out of 109) of the assist makers per ninety across the five chosen leagues.

Henrique Pereira – Miglior calciatore giovane winner

The other new signing at the start of the season under my stewardship, when Pereira received his chance to have a run in the side, boy did he take it. He became the creator in chief of our side, laying on multiple opportunities for Yeboah and Aramu to score. You can see from the radar on the left in the below graphics just how elite his chance creation was for our side, whilst also not being shy in shot creation too (right-hand radar). For reference, the rankings are out of a total of 182 players.

His form saw him pick up the ‘Best Young Football’ award for Serie B. It’s no surprise that when he became available to speak to on a pre-contract agreement, I leapt at the chance, and was delighted that he wanted to extend his time with us beyond his initial loan.

Mattia Aramu

If Pereira was the master creator, Aramu was the master swordsman – an incredible inside forward with an eye for goal. League-leading across Serie B, and just as good if not better than anyone else playing on either side as a wide forward, it will be a shame when his loan with us end. I looked into being able to sign him on a pre-contract, but the wages he demanded would have smashed the existing wage structure. Whilst he is definitely good enough for Serie A, I couldn’t risk financial ruin and meet his £40k+ basic weekly wage.

The below graphics combine Pereira and Aramu’s metrics together into a bar chart, and compare them against the same players across the five leagues. I’ve also added the metrics for Güven Yalçın, who played in the inverted winger role that Pereira made his own following an injury to Yalçın. This gives you some idea of the level that Pereira and Aramu were able to operate at in the same side as Yalçın.

If you wish to see further graphics on the performances of the side, you can click here for the central defenders’ metrics; here for the full backs defensive metrics and here for their attacking metrics (this is well worth a look); and here for the defensive metrics of our central midfielders, here for their creativity and here for their goal-scoring actions.

Finance analysis

With the promotion that came with the form that these players achieved, which yielded the corresponding £2.15m prize money, and some careful cost-cutting, one would be forgiven for thinking that things would see growth for the financial side at Genoa CFC too, but sadly far from it.

Despite the player trading and collecting over £8m in incoming transfer fees, the player sales (those in red) and amortisation charge of this year’s incoming transfers alone led to an annual net loss of £5,626,667 in player trading alone, before the taking into consideration the cost of amortising the remaining book value of the entire team, including those out on loan (purple in colour).

The total amortisation charge for the year is £20.3m, which will go against any potential profits from trading over the year:

Safe to say, there were no booked profits for the financial year 2022-23, of which there is further evidence in the year-end cash flow analysis below:

This graphic highlights the high level of spending on player wages, bonuses and loyalty payments as a proportion of income:

The rate of spending on players being over 80% is uncomfortable and a sign that were we not to have achieved promotion, we would have been in dire straits as a club, but it can’t be taken for granted that life in Serie A is a path paved with gold either. I will need to be careful with our spending, assessing and addressing gaps in the squad, both in terms of numbers and quality, so that we can look to improve sufficiently enough to stay up and not put into trouble with the bank. It will be a tricky tightrope to walk and find that balance between pushing to avoid relegation and also pushing the club too far into the red with a potential that any transfers don’t pay off.

Yet all that, and our first games in Serie A will have to wait until next time. Will Yeboah make the step-up to the big time? Will Henrique Pereira continue to turn provider, or will that fall to some other new, as yet unknown signing? And just who will Genoa CFC bring in to replace the previous RB Leipzig loanee goalkeeper, Josep Martínez?

For that, and more, tune in next time, but until then – arrivederci!

Football Manager 2023 – Genoa CFC: Mister (1)

A FM Old Timer Leave a comment

Nuovi inizi

Ciao, and welcome back to my first review of my time as Genoa CFC Mister. Below, you’ll read of the nuovi inizi (new beginnings) and how I’ve already begun to assert my way on the club both on and off the field.

Staff and Transfer Dealings

Assessing a new club is never easy. Taking the time to consider your options tactically given the make up of the squad, how that tactic will inform the training schedule, considering the positions and ages of players you want your scouts to be looking for, not to mention the locations you wish to send your scouts to are all lengthy and considered tasks. One thing at Genoa, however, was a simple task – one look at our coaches and I realised quickly what needed to be done – every one of them bar the assistant manager was dismissed. They were well below the standard I wished for to help improve my players on the training field, and certainly not good enough to be offering me advice on the qualities of my playing squad. In came Dennis Bergkamp (Coach), Glynn Snodin (Coach), Grégory Coupet (Goalkeeping Coach), Alberto Andorlini (Fitness Coach), Giorgio Bianchi (Goalkeeping Coach), Massimo Lo Monaco (Coach), and Roberto De Bellis (Fitness Coach), and various other members of the backroom staff to help fill appropriate gaps within our organisational structure.

If evaluating the coaching staff was relatively easy, then assessing an unfamiliar squad that is new to the league it finds itself in, and with low squad morale as a result is considerably harder. With no clear idea as to how good, or otherwise the squad is, there will need to be an initial period of establishing who is right to help this club return to Serie A and who needs to move on. Having said this, I do have the advantage of knowing who some of the players are through their reputation.

Kevin Strootman for example is a fine Dutch footballer – if prone to cruciate ligament injuries. He is with us on loan from Marseille. Yet at £49k/week I questioned whether or not to keep him around given the potential ~£2.3m saving that could be made by cancelling his loan spell. It’s not as if we are short of players for the central midfield berth either. With other options for the same position including Stefan Ilsanker, Abdoulaye Touré, Stefano Sturaro and Milan Badelj, all players I’ve had dealings with in squads in previous teams I’ve managed, there is a need for rebalancing. This list doesn’t even include Manolo Portonova, Pablo Ignacio Galdames and Morten Frendrup who also play in the same central positions.

Taking this into consideration, and with the opportunity to operate within the initial Summer transfer window, I set about putting my stamp on the side and began to look at offloading some players, and bringing in players who I felt we could develop and then sell on for a profit, as per one of the objectives the board have for the club.

Transfers Out

Out went Abdoulaye Touré, who was already transfer listed on my arrival. As were Galdames and Filip Jagiełło, yet another central midfielder, so they both left too, after being deemed not sufficiently skilled enough to operate in my side.

The other big outgoing transfer was that of ex-Juventus player Stefano Sturaro. On very high wages for someone in Serie B, and not being a first-team regular when his squad status was that of an important player, he was as keen to leave as I was for him to go. The £500k we received for him resulted in a booked loss given his remaining book value, but it was worth it to shift his big wages off our books, and to claw back some value on him rather than see him leave on a free and have to entirely write off his remaining accounting value.

Transfers In

Three midfielders having left, including two of my (relatively) younger players in this side, investing some of the received transfer fees back into buying young talent was required. I was keen to ensure that it would be for players we could provide playing time to, and offer them mentoring by the remaining experienced players within the team to help bolster their existing skills and personality.

From the get-go, my scouts were really keen on Aldo Florenzi, a 20-year-old at Cosenza, a rival of ours in Serie B. It’s not hard on first look to see why they would like him. A good price point, a range of technical and physical abilities, with the scope to improve further with the right training, game time and luck. A fee and contract was swiftly agreed, once we’d checked with his agent that he was interested in joining us.

My scouts had also highlighted 20-year-old Tim Breithaupt at Karlsruher SC very early on after I switched our focus away from just Southern Europe to include all of Europe. Whilst far from the finished article, he looks as though he could be highly mouldable into a dependable midfielder who can break up opposition attacks, whilst also being a threat in both boxes given his 6’4″ height. Breithaupt looks to be a similar player to Frendrup, in age and ability, so the two could be starting midfielders for a while to come, or more likely until a bigger club comes calling.

In analysing my squad’s depth, I also recognised how it lacked enough depth at centre back and on both wings. With deep concerns about cash flow over the rest of the season, I was keen not to spend any more cash on transfers, so I took to the loan market.

First in was Henrique Pereira, a tricky inverted winger from Benfica B, who would play a rotational option to Güven Yalçın. His general pace and technical abilities would make him a good understudy should we need him. With his contract up at the end of the year, if he’s successful here, we may well be able to bring him in permanently should we wish to.

Going back onto the loan list, I spotted someone I immediately wanted to act as back up to the central attacking midfielder and on the right wing, Samuele Vignato, who was at Monza. The 18-year-old is younger brother to Emanuele, who is a similarly talented footballer I had managed before, so I had high hopes that Vignato would prove to be an effective, cheap and versatile squad option.

Lastly, to provide cover at centre back, Parma’s 19-year-old, Alessandro Circati, was loaned in to slot into the roster behind Bani, Vogliacco and Drăgușin.

Squad Depth & Accounting Costs

After completing the player trading, the close of the transfer window saw the squad look like this (light blue means on loan with us at Genoa):

In terms of accounting costs, and a reminder there’s a focus on this because of the issues around the finances going forward this season, this sees us have a total accounting cost of £20,667,849 on player amortisation, including an additional £1,391,667 from the players purchased above, and £24,885,900 in expected basic wage expenditure over the course of the season. Net transfer expenditure, taking into consideration the remaining player book values of players sold, was -£2,516,667. A negative net transfer spend is not what we need, but the player sales did clear £3,328,000 a year from the wage costs. A more detailed overview is provided below, with out on loan players in purple and on loan at Genoa in light blue again (click the image for a new window to open and a chance to take a look at the player amortisation and basic wage costs in more detail – in fact, all images in this post are clickable):

It’s worth remembering that the accounting period is not yet over, so hopefully I can recoup more from player sales during the transfer window and resist any acquisitions, whilst also using this to consider who is worthy of retaining at Genoa. With a large number of outward and inward loans, and with more players under contract with Genoa into their final year, it will need careful consideration in the allocation of wage budget remaining as to who is retained/put up for sale/released from their contract.

Tactical adaptations

With the number of defensive midfield players available at the start of preseason, it was clear sense to play with a double pivot in front of the defence. Once this was decided, I then had to choose between 424 and 4231DM. With Florenzi coming in, and Portonova and Aramu who can play in the hole in behind the striker, 4231DM seemed the obvious choice. Kelvin Yeboah showed his potential and his sheer pace in the friendly matches, so he was going to be my starting lone striker. Güven Yalçın and Albert Guðmundsson would be the initial starting choices on either flank, as an inverted winger and winger respectively.

Yet when the season began, it became obvious that this tactic wasn’t insufficiently creative, and not attacking enough – which is relatively obvious given the roles and mentality I had adopted. The xG figures were low, with a combined 3.97 xG across the first four games, and we didn’t look like we were ever going to be in a position to score goals on a regular basis. With one win, two draws and a defeat, we were too passive and too negative in our approach for a team that is odds on favourite to win the league. I had already tweaked the roles and team instructions in these games, but to no avail, so I took the decision to abandon the two deep-lying midfielders and move them up to standard central midfield players. I also made some further tactical adjustments with the team instructions, including moving our approach from ‘balanced’ to ‘positive’. If we are better than our opponents according to the bookmakers, then it was time to start playing like it – adaptation was the way forward to go forward.

The impact was immediate, and poor F.C. Südtirol felt the full force of our new tactical approach, as we galloped to a 4-0 victory. In fact, the next four games resulted in victory, with a significant spike in xG, which rose from an average of 0.99 xG/90 to 1.95 xG/90, and whilst the xgA/90 rose from 0.6 to 0.92, the net xG-xGA rose by 0.65, making it far more likely that we would be claiming the three-point win.

The main contributor to our on-field success in this period was Kelvin Yeboah. His 12 goals against an xG of 11 accounted for 41.38% of our 29 team goals. As you can see from the (clickable) graphic below, he’s far out performed his attacking peers in Serie B when it comes to xG/90 and goals/90, with only two players having a higher goals/90. Whilst not a creative attacker, I haven’t set him up to be, he’s the fulcrum of our attack – the finisher. It’s fair to say we wouldn’t be where we are without him and you’ll notice from the amortisation graphic above that he has been rewarded with a fresh contract at the club after becoming unsettled due to feeling undervalued. Given not a single other pure striker has a goal to their name yet this season, with Coda, Pușcaș and Ekuban all failing to hit the back of the net when deputising for Yeboah, I had no option but to increase his wages and provide him with specific targets which trigger bonuses. With metrics like this, I hope he stays fit, triggers these achievable targets and gains the rewards for doing so because if he does, then it’s likely we’ll be doing well in the league as a result.

It’s also worth including analysis on Breithaupt and Florenzi, as to just how well our season is doing thus far in settling in these youngsters. They’ve benefitted from game time and have been recording high scores from coaches in training, along with the other new signing, Pereira.

Playing in the central midfield role with a defensive mindset, Breithaupt was never likely to have a flurry of goals and assists to his name. However, what is both expected and pleasing in equal measure is his defensive actions in terms of his interceptions, tackles, blocks and even fouls to break up play. What is outstanding though is his progressive passing per 90 – he’s second in Serie A, second only to our left-back Czyborra. His height of 6’4″ means it’s not suprising that he’s winning plenty of headers.

Florenzi, on the other hand, has been playing in behind the Yeboah for most of the season this, so he is expected to have a greater goal involvement. 0.28 npG/90, with an additional 0.28 assists/90 (above his 0.14 xA/90 – giving you some idea how good Yeboah’s finishing has been) mean that he’s been a valuable goal contributor. Making 1.39 key passes/90, and a relatively impressive 2.63 progressive passes/90 given that he’s been part of the leading pack for attacking midfielders.

With the team second in the league at the break, behind an impressive Cagliari team, time will tell if we can sustain our run at immediate return to Serie A. Hopefully the new players continue to adapt to each other and the team in general to try to claw back the lead that Cagliari have establish. It’s been a productive few months in charge, and I hope to continue to bring about more success in forming a greater team ethic, whilst trimming off more of the unwanted players as I settle on a core squad.

That will be left for review the next episode in this series to reveal, where I will look to dive deeper into our player performances and the impact of our team on our finances – both good and bad.

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest update on fortunes on and off the playing field at the Statio Luigi Ferraris – and, until next time, arrivederci!

AC Le Havre – 2027-28 Season Review: Ligue 1 Ou Rien?

A FM Old Timer Leave a comment

After last year’s highest ever Ligue 1 finish for Le Havre and a Champions League Final against Chelsea, it was time to see how far this side that I have put together could go. It feels like most of the pieces of the puzzle are there now, we just need to overcome the behemoth that is PSG to make that final step in French football and deliver our coastal side to its first ever top division title.

Transfer update

Given that I did indeed feel like the squad was pretty complete, at least as far as we could reasonably afford with our given wage and transfer budgets, I wasn’t looking to do anything in the transfer window unless my hand was forced, bar two first team players. One who was set to leave on a free and another that wanted first team football.

Summer player sales

Mathieu Goncalves was the latter, seeking to move somewhere were he could be the outright number one left back. He’d not let us down in being a rotational option, and the offer from Toulouse was perfectly reasonable for someone who was good if not outstanding and now behind Augustinsson and Thiago in the left wing back berth. He was allowed to move on with my blessing.

Abdoulaye Touré’s contract was set to expire and, given his age (32) and a recent injury, he was starting to decline physically. As such, it was decided against offering a contract extension and he was allowed to leave on a free transfer, eventually signed by Montpellier. This will leave us with a lack of depth in the central midfielder on defend role, so someone will need to be brought in to fulfil this role alongside Dvunjak.

This was only heightened after another departure in central midfield. Chelsea and Liverpool had been hovering around both Depoorter and Zwane. It was Chelsea that finally pulled the trigger on Zwane. He hadn’t made himself first choice, despite contributing ten goal contributions (two goals and eight assists) in twelve starts and twelve appearances off the bench. Once Chelsea bid for the player, he made it clear that he wasn’t prepared to stay and so a deal for £45m, potentially rising to £50m based upon international appearances, was agreed. The £44.7m booked profit will enable us to recruit for this position and strengthen in other areas too.

Various youth team products also left after they were clearly not going to make the level required to achieve first-team status – Gilles Herbert (Monpellier), Nassim Agounon (Montpellier), Matheo Leroux (Châteauroux), Meddy Reiver (Guingamp). The fact that they have all gone to lesser clubs is a good sign that these were the right sales at the right time for both player and club alike.

We also lost two youth team products thanks to my oversight in not offering them full professional terms in advance of them turning 17 – Junior Yuma left for Monaco whilst Steve Niyonkuru was recruited by Nantes.

After the Summer sales were complete, our squad churn looked like this:

Summer acquisitions

Henrik Bang was the number one target for our Summer transfer window after Zwane had left. Take one look at his attributes as a 17-year old and it’s not hard to see why. He’s an incredible player at a very early stage in his professional career and with the right place to nurture his talents, he could be world leading player. Able to play in pretty much any role throughout the central midfield positions, he offers versatility which guarantees him first team minutes. Already capped four times by Denmark, he is a blank slate when it comes to player traits, but is a natural leader even at a young age. He will be lined up for future captaincy duty, and with a high level of determination and a bit of work on his already strong driven personality, he could be a perfect tutor after a few years of senior football. With only a year left on his deal, and Bang making it plain he wasn’t going to sign a new one at FC Midtjylland, this deal is a bargain.

In order to replace the outgoing Abdoulaye Touré, Elisha Owusu was identified through searching for players with suitable attributes for the defensive roles in central midfield. Seeking someone with a bit of steel about them, but equally not a complete mad man, Owusu’s high level of anticipation marked him out as a good candidate for the role, as well as his work rate and positioning. The fact he’s a good passer, albeit one that prefers to play it short and simple, should mean that he has a calm head on the ball as we look to dominate possession, allowing the more creative players around him to pull strings, but winning the ball back to break up opposition counters using his superior tackling and ability to be in the right place at the right time for interceptions. Initially unwilling to sign for us at the turn of January with six months left on his contract, he eventually agreed to a deal after his release from Club Brugge. With an already very youthful Le Havre side, this signing marked a notable step away from a typical desire to sign players aged 23. With a keenness to add someone to the squad with more game time and experience to lead the way, matched with strong levels of decision-making and leadership, Owusu fills that role well.

However, there was a very busy January transfer window, with plenty of players leaving us, which led to more signatures too.

Winter sales

Thiago Cavaleiro had long been rumoured the top-target of Real Madrid, and so it proved. Their initial offer was negotiated up to £87m, with the potential to rise up to £102m following league appearances. His head turned, this deal was accepted and the player became the latest galáctico. This was financially a deal that we couldn’t turn down, seeing us book a £74m profit, which could go rise further. He’d been a good player for us and had the promise of more, but we’re not in a position to refuse the player a move such as this.

Determined to land a new, lucrative contract, Jens Petter Hauge was beginning to kick up a fuss and trying to unsettle the squad. He wasn’t first choice, behind Núñez on the left-wing and so he was offered out. RB Salzburg came in with an acceptable £19.5m bid which was immediately accepted. Having only made four first team appearances between August and the start of January, this was a great deal for someone seeking to earn well above his perceived value with us.

Having said that Chema Núñez was first-choice, his sale for £40m might come as something of a surprise. Beijing Guo’an tabled a low-ball bid for Núñez, who had recently signed a new deal at the start of the season, so when I bluffed by countering with a price of £40m for Núñez, they called it. Núñez has twenty-three goal contributions last year, and whilst that had dipped this season to only four (including missing three penalties), I couldn’t overlook the ability to lock in a fantastic monetary gain for a player who had turned 30. This could give Yasser Kchouk chances of more first-team action that could bolster his development, but we would need another player in now that we’d let Núñez and Hauge go.

After all sales were complete following the closing of the January transfer window, our annual player sales and profits from those player sales looked like this:

Winter acquisitions

Itzak Bar-On is someone for whom we have had a signature agreed for for over a year now. Identified as one of the hottest talents in Israel at the tender age of 15, we snapped him up on a cheap deal that saw him join the club after his 18th birthday. The left-footed centre-back is comfortable with the ball at his feet already, and looks to have a strong all round set of physical attributes despite his young age. If he can time his tackles, his aggression and bravery should make him a tough opponent for any Ligue 1 striker. At 6’4″, he isn’t just strong aerially at the back, he’s also a threat on attacking set pieces, much like Badiane (6’6″). It’s early signs for him yet, but he’ll stick around as fourth choice centre back despite the fact that he will take up the fourth non-EU player slot.

The following players were all picked up to add to the youth ranks at Le Havre after years of poor quality youth intakes: Mamdou Sylla (Lille), Marek Zielonka (Lech), Patrick Kameni (Atlético), Albertine Baldé (Amiens), Miroslav Radic (Partizan), Jakub Vizek (Victora Plzeň), Frederico Capela (Sporting Clube de Braga), and Willem Mkhwanazi (Sundowns). Anyone aged below 18 will slot into either the B or U19s sides. The ability to sign European players who are 16 and have them arrive straight into our training centre is something I’m keen to exploit, especially given the paucity of talent on our youth books currently. Those aged 18 or older (with some exceptions made to those just about to turn 18 within a matter of months) will head out on loan to continue their development. As you can see from the sides that we’ve signed them from, we’ve really stepped up our pull from other clubs internationally now that we’re achieving a more than notable status in European club competitions.

Once U-20 capped, Mahazou Doukouré was picked up from ASEC Mimosas. His off-the-ball movement, matched with his excellent technicals for his young age and his desire to run with the ball should make him an exciting player into the future if he can match his potential. Naturally right-footed, he’ll be trained as an inside forward in the more advanced position than he is currently accustomed to. He’ll need to work on his natural fitness to improve his recovery between games, but fingers crossed with more time in the gym and game time, he’ll be able to improve both this and his stamina.

Aydemir Balikçi was on our radar before Tiago Cavaleiro left, with my South European scout identifying him in a scout report. Whilst not my first choice of attacking central midfielder (and in truth not my second either with both of those going to players at Rennes, neither of whom were affordable), he offers some attacking flair with room to grow. He comes in as our record signing at Le Havre, but adds to the Turkish link that I’ve managed to maintain thanks to Ali Akman. He’ll need to accept being second fiddle to Lema, but he should see enough minutes as we fight for trophies on all fronts from January onwards.

Our South American – East scout had highlighted Brazilian wonderkid Leandro Teófilo around six months ago and he’d been on our shortlist ever since, with regular tabs being kept on his progress and development. When the sale of Núñez and Hauge went through, triggering Teófilo’s minimum fee release clause seemed the sensible thing to do. He’ll be given time to bed in if at all possible, but with both Hauge and Núñez sold, he will almost certainly have some first team action. The two-footed speedster cuts in from both wings, and whilst his decision-making needs improving, along with his stamina and work rate, with his fairly professional personality, I would hope that they can improve.

The final transfer was something of a whim. It wasn’t a player that was needed, nor one that was for the future. Hannibal returns to Le Havre. I saw that he had requested to go onto the transfer list after being made a fringe player at Manchester United. Over the last two seasons, he’d barely seen a minute of action. Given his prior stint with us, he was qualified as home-grown at Le Havre and so could add squad depth in our Champions League squad without taking anyone’s place. Whether he’ll be first choice with our tweak in player roles to a deep-lying playmaker on the left-side and a central midfield defend on the right is an issue, but I couldn’t pass this up to bring a club icon back to France. Signing for £16m on a five-year deal with a base £16m, he’s finally ours on a permanent contract.

This meant that our player acquisitions for the seaon look like this:

After all the player trading was done, including/removing the moves made in January, our player amortisation is represented in the below graphic, leaving me with some decisions to make with regards to contract renewals of Juan Soriano, Lucas Gomes, Camilo Moreno and Héctor Amaral.

Squad profile

You can see from the below graphic on minutes played by player age how influential Henrik Bang became over his first season with us. Whilst Slobodan Lucic had firmly taken over the No. 1 jersey from Soriano, Bang leapt passed Depoorter to be first choice deep-lying playmaker. Whilst he didn’t score a single goal, he did create sixteen assists in 28 starts across all competitions. That’s one assist per 0.52/90 minutes. The next best player in our squad in terms of per 90 metric that had more than 1,000 minutes registered over the season was Kchouk and he was down at 0.26 A/90 and he only had four assists. Bang was literally twice as creative as any other player in our team per 90. Only Saranic beat his nominal assists in Ligue 1 with fourteen.

Albian Hajdari continued to assert his dominance as our number one centre back, with Daouda Badiane taking over the reins from Ariel Mosór as the right-sided centre back as Badiane continued to develop his attributes.

Champions League

Our Champions League journey was far briefer than previous European adventures. We qualified second out of our group, which was no mean feat having been seeded third. However, we met Manchester United in the first round knock out and after two defeats, we were sent packing. No jaunt to a European final this year. Disappointing, yes, of course, it’s never nice to lose. More realistic to our expectations at this stage? Definitely.

Domestic football

On French (and Monégasque) soil, we faired rather better, as the below graphic tells you:

To win our first ever Ligue 1 title ever for the Club is a major triumph and is a credit to the players and the support staff alike.

It’s not often that goalkeepers get praise in title winning performances, they usually get lost in exuberance about the team. However, Slobodan Lucic’s performances over the season were stellar. His 16 goals conceded was second only to Dominik Livakovic’s 14 at PSG. Yet compare this to the xGA of 24.53, and its clear to see the value that he added to the side over the campaign. His goals conceded minus xGA differential was second only to Nice’s Stefan Bajic. His performances were enough to win him the goalkeeping jersey in the team of the year. He was joined by central defensive pairing Hajdari and Badiane, Henrik Bang (in his debut season no less), Ivan Saranic and Emiliano Suárez.

By other measures, our success is in part, perhaps, down to PSGs decline in spending. Nasser Al-Khelaifi had scaled down funding the Parisian club in June 2025. This is somewhat represented by their reduction in spending and change in their net spend, although perhaps not initially.

To put their net spending into perspective, take a look at the net spend under my management at Le Havre. In only one year did I spend more on transfers than I recouped and that was the Summer transfer window after we’d won promotion to Ligue 1. Improving the quality of the squad was probably the single best thing that I did to the club during my tenure. It ensured our safety in Ligue 1 for that campaign and allowed for the subsequent future to have a chance to blossom, as it has now.

For an idea as to how our two clubs have differed in spending and recouping of transfer fees, see the below image. Under Tuchel, PSG’s spending on transfers alone was 753% more than mine at Le Havre (£1.1458bn to £0.1935bn), and whilst they received £770m to my £359.75m, this is only 214% more. This yields a total net spend of £688m by PSG to -£166.25m from us.

If Nasser Al-Khelaifi wants PSG to balance their books, I’m all for that if within three seasons I’m already winning the league, especially as our own infrastructure, transfer budget and reputation amongst the top European sides started to grow almost exponentially.

Stand out Le Havre players

I couldn’t end (blogging) this save without paying a homage to three of the stand out players – Ali Akman and Ivan Saranic and Tomislav Dvunjak. Since their arrivals, they have been fantastic, developing along with our side as we improved the squad season by season. Below you can see their minutes across the seasons that they have been with us. Ali Akman joined first during the 2021-22 season, with Saranic and Dvunjak arriving at Stade Oceane in the Summer window of 2022-23. Together they’ve racked up 48,847 minutes, scored 173 goals, 93 assists, all in a grand total of 668 appearances.

The below graphic shows the goals/90 and xG/90 for both Ali Akman and Ivan Saranic (because Dvunjak is a central defensive midfield plays and his stats look underwhelming in any light), and their goal contributions and shot conversion. Ali Akman’s match time might perhaps have dropped as a result of the recruitment of Emiliano Suárez, but his contributions when he did play were fantastic. To consistently and persistently outperform his xG is outstanding. He even responded to Suárez arriving by lifting his efforts and benefiting from the switch in tactical systems to playing as an advanced forward in a 4-2-3-1. Ali’s shot conversion is nothing short of elite over his time on the field. Anything in and around 25% is considered elite with shot conversion, so for him to have five of the seven seasons above that is remarkable.

With Ivan Saranic, his all round play for us has been stand out from when he joined us. It’s a testament to his ability and continued improvements that I’ve not replaced him and anyone that has come in to act as a potential back up has fallen by the way side. His goal contributions have risen almost every year from year to year, with a notable spike in 2024-25.

It has been an absolute pleasure to blog this save and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. I’m still contemplating my next save in the latest iteration of the game and even whether I’ll blog it. The data hub definitely looks to show promise for more statistical analysis, so as long as the data is right that feeds into it, it could cut a lot of time down that it takes to produce these blogs. It’s not a chore by any means and my PowerPoint and Excel skills have improved immensely (as I’m hoping you can see by flicking through my musings). There is though an opportunity cost to all this, so I’ll need to weigh that all up. I hope, at the moment, to see you on the other side of Football Manager 2022. Until then, adieu!

AC Le Havre – 2026-27 Season Review

A FM Old Timer Leave a comment

After a tremendous season in Europe last year with lifting the Europa League, albeit with one to forget in Ligue 1, I was keen to continue the 4-2-3-1 formation. As a team, we are full of more skilled, technical players with pace and stamina to play a pressing style of football that we simply didn’t possess when we first achieved promotion. With this in mind, the squad needed some alterations to it.

Player Trading & Amortisation

These were largely funded by the sale of relative youngster Erik Willems to Bayern Munich. After buying Willems for a paltry £11,750, his remaining book value was just shy of £4,500. With a negotiated, structured offer on the table of £25m for a player yet to make his senior debut for us, and with Willems wishing to go to the Bundesliga giants, it was a relatively easy decision to pocket nearly all of this cash (at least in accounting terms). Utilising the funds, along with top ups from other player sales on a smaller scale will help pay player wages of those still at the club and those of the new recruits, alongside the annual amortisation of their transfer fees/agent fees, etc. made relative financial sense given the lack of significant lucrative sponsorship, gate receipts or TV money from Ligue 1. We still have to be realistic that we are a selling club at this point – just look at Sevilla in real life – in the same way, we sell to have success.

Other sanctioned deals were for notable players, Godswill Ekpolo and Boulaye Dia. Both players had been stalwarts over the transition into Ligue 1, making themselves first choice on the right flank in their respective positions in the years we were establishing ourselves as a Ligue 1 outfit. However, last year both went out on loan, unsatisfied at the lack of first team opportunities as we had improved in depth and injuries had taken their toll upon them and their physical abilities. A ~£5.8m profit improvement on the sale of these two players is a good return, especially after the quality of service that they had supplied to the club over that time.

Juan Cruz, as mentioned in the previous review, was someone who was signed for free last year with the sole intention of flipping him for a profit. After a season largely out on loan at Montpellier, where he barely played, he was picked up by Guingamp. With the initial transfer costing nothing, we book a £1.5m in profit, with a £2.2m profit improvement after adding back in his remaining wage payments. Of course this overlooks his loyalty fee and agent fees, but these were less than £1.5m, therefore boosting our profit and loss account.

The three remaining sales were youth team/B team players who did not play a single minute of first team football and never look destined to do so.

To book a profit of over £31m on these players is fantastic, even if most of it comes from the sale of Willems. If we can try to stick to one big sale per year, this should help balance the requirement to bring in cash whilst maintaining league and European success, assuming players still wish to stay of course. Champions League football this season should help with that, especially given we go straight into the group stages. In facing high quality opposition, we’ll need strong squad harmony and chemistry within the team to pull us through tough games. Therefore, taking into account those players that racked up first team minutes over the 2027-28, to have a squad churn of less than 1%, or more accurately 5.47% taking into account those that went out on loan in the forthcoming season, means we’ve clearly met that objective.

Much in the same way that Juan Cruz was signed to be sold, Mihael Zaper signed a pre-contract agreement from Inter. The talented midfielder had been short of match time in Milan, and was willing to come to the North West of France to try to kick-start his career again as a squad player. I’m unconvinced that he has sufficient quality to make it past Depoorter and Zwane in midfield, so he will be loaned out to assess his abilities further, and if I’m proved right that he doesn’t have the playmaking and defensive abilities, I’ll look to sell him on.

Thato Manuel on the other hand was signed for the intention of loaning him but with every chance that he could be in with a real shot at first team action in the future. The promising playmaker signed from Orlando Pirates, the same South African side that Sifiso Zwane came through at. Thato will go back on loan there to develop his game further before reassessing his player pathway, with further a loan to a European side likely, just at what level will depend upon his growth.

The Portuguese central midfielder, Ronaldo Camará was someone I had tried to sign prior to his joining Juventus. Having kept tabs on him whilst at The Old Lady, I’d notice his contact was being run down and with no sign of a new deal in the offing, I leapt at the chance of signing him on a free. Initially, he was not willing to talk to even discuss a contract but as the end of June came closer, he was eventually willing to negotiate and arrive at a deal that sees the 23-year old sign a 5-year contract worth over £6m. Offering versatility in the central midfield areas, his ability on the ball, as well as his runs into the box should add depth and attacking prowess.

It’s likely that Camará won’t find himself first choice in the attacking central midfield slot though as Matías Lema’s arrival from Racing Club in Argentina will see him taking the starting spot. The diminutive Argentine has a strong eye for a pass and likes to run into the box late, unnerving unwitting defenders as he bursts into incoming crosses or one-twos with the striker. Signed for his minimum release fee of £7m, he comes in on a five-year deal to take up one of the four foreign player registrations. Our scouts had been raving about the former national U19, so to bring the wonderkid in for a relative bargain can be taken a sign of the boost in reputation that the Europa League victory has granted us.

A further player on my shortlist whom I’d been tracking for a while with my scouts, Reidar Lervig was also running his contract down at FC Midtjylland. The Faroese wonderkid already has nineteen caps for his country and looks to be a very versatile defender. A little raw in his aggression and bravery, rather than his natural centre back, he’ll be another option to Giulian Biancone at right fullback in the wing back role replacing the outgoing Ekpolo (though Marc Juardo was also signed on loan in January after an injury to Biancone from Manchester United). His fantastic pace should help to stretch defences whilst Saranic is cutting inside taking the opponents left-back with him. His stamina should mark him out as someone who can run up and down the flank throughout the ninety minutes. He was able to be signed for a cut price deal as he had informed the Danish side that he was unwilling to sign a new deal, landing him on the transfer market and attracting the likes of Inter and Dortmund. To pick him up for only £975,000 ahead of these European giants who failed to press the trigger is a testament to our scouts in Scandinavia being on the ball in identifying him as a standout talent.

The final transfer during the Summer window was that of Emiliano Suárez. His transfer was also one that I deliberated on the longest out of all the deals. This was partly due to loyalty over Ali Akman and Lucas Gomes, with the latter impressing over the second half of the season, in particular during the drubbing of Napoli in the sensational victory in the Europa League Final. The other reason was because it would leave me with no wiggle room in the transfer budget, taking up everything that was left due to Boca’s reluctance to accept anything less than his minimum fee release clause – some £6.75m. Now this on the face of it would seem a small price to pay for someone of his clear talent but it would leave the squad unbalanced, lacking a true back up to Saranic on the inside right. Hauge was demanding to play on the left side, Núñez had made the left wing role his and fellow left side youngster Kchouk had no familiarity in this position. It’s true Suárez has some experience in the wide right position but not as an inside forward and this would require a tactical switch which could unpick the tactical blueprint that has seen us progress in Europe, if not yet in the league. Nonetheless something inside me was going to regret not signing him – and boy that gut feeling was right…

After all player trading was complete, this is how our contract lengths, amortisation, wage bill, remaining book value/wage costs look:

Season Review

Come the end of the season, Suárez was second only to Hajdari in terms of minutes played over the season, causing a significant reduction in the number of minutes for Ali Akman. Akman, for his dues, recognised the superior abilities of Suárez and was happy to step down to bring a squad player, without any upset at all – a sign of a true professional. I again prioritised minutes for younger players with the aim of developing these players, but also largely because this crop that gave been meticulously recruited for my system are what fit best at Le Havre.

Domestic season

Their hard work and endeavours paid off in Ligue 1 with the squad achieving the highest ever finish in French top flight football for the club, along with a record points haul. Still some 16 points shy of PSG, we were conformably inside Champions League qualification proper rather than relying upon our European form to access continental football once more. Our goals scored soared to 90, 32 came from Suárez. As you can see from the graphic below – he was well worth the £6.75m. To be in the top 5% of non-penalty goals, xG, shots and shots on target per 90, as well as the top 10% for key passes per 90 as a forward and successful dribbles per game. He converted our 55% possessions into shots thanks to the creativity of the likes of Depoorter, Zwane, Saranic, Huage and Núñez. With his shots, 19% of them went in – putting him in the top 20% of strikers with more than 1,000 minutes in Ligue 1.

Champions League

Being a first seed for the Group Stage was a big boost for us given our relatively new status in European football, with our coefficient score yet to rise significantly on average across the last five years. A hammering of Olympiacos in the first round, before a draw in a tricky away fixture to Slavia Praha in the cauldron that is the Sinobo Stadium. Two expected defeats to Chelsea saw us needing results in the reverse fixtures in our remaining two games. That was exactly what we achieved – battering the Greek outfit in their own yard before seeing off Slavia Praha for the last round.

Here’s how the table finished:

To be rewarded, if that’s what you can call it, with a tie against Manchester United I was fully expecting our European adventure to come to an end. Yet to win the first leg at home 2-1, and then go to Old Trafford and win there too was beyond my wildest dreams. Our former loanee player Hannibal looking on from the stands after not even being named on the bench for either game. At least it was nice for him to see his former teammates, if not be able to swap shirts with them.

The draw for the Quarters wasn’t kind to us either, but then this is now the last eight of the teams that are supposedly the elite of Europe. A creditable 1-1 draw at home, after 6’5″ central defender Badiane leapt at the front post to head home from a Saranic corner. To concede the away goal was disappointing and I assumed would lead to floodgates opening with a Liverpool side boasting Camavinga, Ansu Faiti, Musiala, Van Dijk, Bellingham, Salah and Hakimi among notable others. Instead, we came out flying, almost as you would have expected Liverpool to do. Mosór scored from a corner before Suárez put the tie out of in their reach with just over twenty minutes gone. Anfield was stunned into silence with one of the competition favourites bowing out to a relative European minnow. We’d lost 2-0 to them in the Super Cup, so to knock the defending champions out was remarkable.

When it comes to European giants, facing Real Madrid in the semis is about as big as it gets. This didn’t stop Saranic – he ran show in the home leg. He was as clinical as he was dominating. Taking the tie by the scruff of the neck from beginning to end, he made a mockery of his opposite number throughout the night under the lights of Stade Oceane. The second leg was a tense affair but the two away goals saw us safe, with our key players Cavaleiro and Suárez – the latters seventh in all Champions League games.

So to the Final and our opponents –  Chelsea. The very same team that topped our respective group and beat us comfortably in both match days when we faced off. They’d cantered through the league, as you can see from the demolishing they dished out on a pretty regular bases:

After a first leg defeat to PSG, they came roaring back at the Bridge to overhaul their deficit proving that PSG were yet to overcome their hoodoo in the competition. Holding onto a draw away at Barcelona in the last eight following Havertz’s dismissal was as impressive as Adeyemi’s hat-trick was against them in the return fixture. With Dortmund in the semis, it had to be former BVB-man Sancho to stick the knife in to seal their fate, and that of Chelsea’s return to the Champions League Final.

The Final itself was a hard-fought game, with both sides creating chances, but of limited quality. The high frequency of chances went to Chelsea, and it was Mount’s finish in the second half that ended the wildest dreams of Le Havre fans and players alike. Despite throwing everything that we had at Lampard’s Chelsea well-drilled defence, we were unable to find enough creativity to make anything clear cut enough for Suárez or any of the other attackers to pounce on for an equaliser to force extra time.

A defeat to a Premier League side at any stage of a Champions League competition is nothing to be disgraced over given the sheer inequality between the two national leagues and our respective wage bills, but to beat two sides and then the might of Los Blancos is an incredible feat and one I suspect we might find hard to match going forward without an unsustainable amount of investment into the playing squad. This pretty much sums up what I told the players in the end of season meeting shortly after the defeat – we’ll look to achieve Champions League qualification through the league and try to achieve first round knock outs in the Champions League, which happily they concurred with.

With a number of players wanted across the squad, no doubt partly due to our overachievement in three successive European club competitions, detailed planning with need to be put into place. This, along with careful assessment of the scouting already performed and reviewing those players out on loan, will help form the backbone of any recruitment or internal promotion which needs to be enacted in the Summer transfer window. With the need to still sell one big star to fund the club and find liquidity to reinvest into players, we won’t be in a position to turn down offers for at at minimum one of those players that have taken us this far.

To find out how the 2027-28 season went, you’ll need to check back for the next post coming soon. Until then, adieu.

AC Le Havre – 2025-26 Season Review

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Transfer Update & Amortisation

Knowing full well that Manchester United were not going to continually agree to the renewal of Hannibal’s loan, I’d already sought out his replacement in Cüneyt Gür last year. However, when Borussia Dortmund came in for the midfield orchestrator, he was understandably keen to leave to a club playing Champions League football. After a little negotiation, the Bundesliga club agreed to pay an initial £25.5m with further payments to be made of 30% of any future profits on a transfer. Given our initial outlay of just £6,750, after one year, his book value was a measly £5,063, allowing a booked profit of £25,494,938 and a profit improvement (taking into consideration his remaining book value, wage cost for the rest of his contract and the booked profit) of £27,567,000. This transfer in itself will pay for the entirety of our basic wage expenditure for the squad over the course of the forthcoming season – a shrewd piece of business, especially when taking into consideration who I’ve brought in to replace Cüneyt Gür and Hannibal (more on this later).

When he was at Le Havre, and not out on loan, Mathieu Cafaro was nothing more than a bit part player. He’s play well during pre-season but then I wouldn’t give him a look in besides odd Coupe de France games, where invariably he would under perform because he lacked match sharpness. To recoup the transfer fee on him was seen as a good deal with only a year left on his contract.

It’s a somewhat similar story to Pité. We’d long since outgrown his abilities and he’d been out on loan at Clermont last season after only making four appearances off the bench in the season prior to that. Given he was a free signing, selling him on was something of a no-brainer before his contract expired.

Alan Navarro, Anthony Louis-Bonnet (both youth academy players) and Javi Ortega were players in the U19s who were deemed not good enough to make it and were sold off, with Javi Ortega being sold on at a not unreasonable profit. Transfers like these help to fund the spending that goes towards the youth team and makes offering contracts to players that I know aren’t going to play a minute of first team football but who can be developed and sold on worthwhile.

Tilen Ribic was a sale that I mulled over for a while. I’d previously sent him out on loan to Clermont alongside Pit, but his season with them in Ligue 2 was underwhelming (nine goals in thirty five appearances) and I wasn’t convinced that he was going to kick on in Ligue 1. His potential clearly is high, I just had doubts that he could match that potential. When Juventus offered us the chance to pretty much have our money back on the initial transfer fee, with a potential to rise to £9.75m, I took them up on the deal.

The final player sale actually took place during the January transfer window. You may remember from an earlier blog post that I had signed Elias Mesonero based upon his metrics whilst playing for Grasshopper Club Zürich. Elias had been a solid player for us whenever he has put on the Oxbridge colours. Yet, over time, he had seen his playing minutes diminish as Ariel Mosór was brought in and became the first-choice right-sided centre back. Guangzhou Evergrande were able to offer him wages we couldn’t dream of (yet), and so a deal was struck for an initial £20m with a further £5m in potential add-ons.

All in, player sales generated a booked profit of £51m and a profit improvement of £69m. Not bad for players that had a total initial transfer cost of nearly £9.2m. A more than useful set of sums to help progress the club both on and off the field. Player acquisitions will be addressed below, but improvements to the training ground/facilities were made for the senior sides and also for youth teams.

Taken at the start of the season after the Summer transfer outgoings were completed (and therefore not including the Elias Mesonero transfer), and not including those players that left on loan, our squad churn was pretty low. The 81.60% represents the percentage of minutes that were played last season by players still with a permanent contract at Le Havre (though may be heading out on loan for the 2025-26 season). Three loan expiries (along with Hannibal going back to Manchester United, Sassuolo and Porto both wished to give first team opportunities to Christian Dalle Mura and Augusto Rocha respectively) and the sale of Cüneyt Gür accounted for the players no longer with the team and in possession of a Le Havre contract (a nod to Ben Mayhew on Twitter for the ‘inspiration’ for the donut chart). As such, we have a relatively settled squad but are lacking at left-back, depth and quality first choice creative centre midfield and another player to slot in as second choice right-sided centre back as of January when Mesonero left.

The deal to loan Albian Hajdari from Juventus last season included a £4m optional future fee which, given this was below his market value and he’d played 3,204 minutes for us last season, was triggered well before the end of the season. Hajdari had played very well over the course of the season, displacing the aforementioned Dalle Mura as the left-sided centre back. To give you some idea how much we dominated the ball, and to an extent Hajdari’s reading of the game, he completed less than one tackle/90, even allowing for possession adjustment. He also completed 97% of all his passes – impressive when this also includes clearances within the metrics. With our tactical style set up to recycle possession at every opportunity, seeking to patiently pick apart our opponents, it’s an important cog in our wheel to have a defender who is as comfortable in possession of the ball as he is without it.

The standout signing, and a club record fee, is Tiago Cavaleiro. The Portuguese arrives to replace Hannibal as the conductor in our midfield. His almost natural passing abilities, with his tremendous vision, technique and passing, make him ideal for such a role. He had long since been identified by my scouts as a talent, but his price tag was beyond the means allowed by the Board’s set transfer budget – at least until the sale of Cüneyt Gür. That transfer alone provided sufficient additional transfer funds to be able to offer Tondela a deal with structured payments so that they would agree to his sale. £17.25m is a considerable fee for a club like Le Havre to pay, but I’ve every confidence that if Cavaleiro is as good as the appears to be, we could have a superstar on our hands and the outgoing transfer fee will be much greater. His sixty-eight appearances for Tondela yielded twenty-nine goals and eight assists (so thirty-seven goal involvements) and fifteen player of the matches. This all before his nineteenth birthday – this boy should be some player.

Slobodan Jucic is a fantastic prospect – the Serbian goalkeeper is already well developed in terms of his attributes, bar one or two mental areas to focus in on with specific training, which should be easily achieved given his young age. To sign him on a free transfer after his contract with FK Voždovac expired, initially be a back-up to Soriano, should leave us in a good place to have a first-choice goalkeeper already integrated into the Club going forward. This deal also enables me to allow Alfred Gomis to leave as he was rapidly deteriorating in terms of his attributes and isn’t worthy of a place as a back up. Jucic’s forty-three appearances in the Super liga saw him concede forty eight goals and keep twelve clean sheets, including a player of the match performance on his first-team debut for Voždovac. For a young goalkeeper, these are, at least on the face of it, relatively impressive without having access to the xGA he faced.

To address the issue of depth at left back, Frenchman Mathieu Goncalves was picked up from Rennes where he was on the transfer list. He had only picked up one appearance in two years at fellow Ligue 1 competitors before spending a year out on loan at Bordeaux, where he made 4.32 tackles/p90 in twenty four appearances, with a passing success rate of 87%. Happy to come in as a fringe player, and on a relatively low wage, this deal pleased me greatly as he is a genuine back-up option for the side with his energy and pace to push on down the left flank. He filled the gap left by Augusto Rocha.

In looking to add depth to wide attacking options, and in all likelihood looking sell him on for a ‘free’ profit, Juan Cruz arrived on a the year deal from Malaga. The Spaniard comes in as a rotation option but will almost certainly be loaned out to maintain his value before his eventual sale. This is a player trading tactic that I often look to implement when trying to build up a club so that funds can be enhanced through signing plays on pre-contract deals, loaning them out to them sell them on before their contract expires.

Dylan San Juan, besides being excellently named, is a bright prospect to be a long-term successor to Mosór in central defence. He had played thirty-four games for River Plate, making 2.04 tackles/90 and a remarkably low fourteen fouls against across the season (almost bizarre given the reputation for Argentinian defending). At £3.9m, he will be back-up at first, and I will look to integrate him where allowing given Mosór’s and Hajdari’s blossoming defensive partnership. His personality type isn’t one that I would normally seek to recruit, but I’m hopeful that with some mentoring and time spent in our professional squad, this should adjust.

Vamouti Kouao (ASEC Mimosas) and Bryan Joubert (Brest) were signed as low cost youth players who may or may not develop into first team players, but expectations were low and little risk was attached to the deals. They will be loaned out to see how they fair with first-team football elsewhere.

There were four further signings during the January transfer window.

Hécto Amaral falls into the same category as San Juan. The once-capped Mexican central defender, picked up for £1.1m from Liga MX side Pachuca, made forty-eight appearances in his four years there. After San Juan had spat his dummy out when I was unable to register him for the Europa League because of the restrictions in terms of homegrown/national, San Juan refused to back down and tried to kick up a fuss. Consequently, he was first sent to train with the U19s before later being promoted to Le Havre 2. Amaral will be put out on loan to hopefully hone his defending skills and benefit from first-team football which he is a little away from being ready for at Le Havre as yet.

Federico López was a player whom I had actually signed as a 15-year old. Pucker up from Peñarol, the Uruguayan had already reached the feat of earning five caps for the national U20s-side. He comes to us a much more developed and well-rounded 18-year old. He too will be sent out on loan to continue his development as the midfield ranks are well stocked for the moment. His mental abilities at such a young age were an incredible appeal, and so too were his player traits. He’s already set up to be a top-level player if he can kick on with his growth.

Gonçalo Esteves came in on loan as a second choice right back from Porto – I seem to have established a reliable source of full-backs from them over the years on loan. A pacey player, and more than able to handle himself offensively and defensively, his stamina and abilities off the ball make him a useful emergency back up to Biancone.

Lastly, along with the earlier transfer of Cavaleiro, the signing of Brazilian Thiago from Atlético Mineiro demonstrates how far we’ve come as a Club in a very short space of time. He’s the second Brazilian to grace Stade Oceane behind fellow countrymen Lucas Gomes and could prove that the tide has turned seven it comes to Brazilian’s showing an interest in joining us. Thiago doubles a wing back and a left-sided centre back, offering fantastic flexibility to go alongside his physicality. We triggered his minimum release fee of £13.25m and signed him up on a five-year deal.

After the transfers have been completed (* note Elias Mesonero is included to demonstrate positional places for prior to his January transfer) our squad depth looks something like the below.

Ligue 1 Finish

After the season was completed, our squad profile ended up looking like the below graphic. In terms of minutes late, Tiago Cavaleiro took to French football well, playing the fifth most minutes out of our squad. Lucic didn’t manage to displace Juan Soriano, in part down to errors from Lucic in games that he did play, but there’s time for him to make yet.

At an average squad age of 23.06 (thanks @FM_Stag for helping me crack how to calculate that), weighted by the minutes the players played and their age, our squad as a whole still has further potential development left to go, and it’s pleasing to be able to bring so many of these ‘youth’ players, if not homegrown players through.

That being said, Kchouk gained yet more minutes over the season and I was able to give a debut to another promising youngest in Dumont (as you’ll see later). If Dumont can kick on with his technical, mental and physical abilities, we could have a heck of a player on our hands straight out of the academy.

The Ligue 1 season was actually something of a drab disappointment. An eighth place finish saw us fall out of the European places and my job was on the line with the final game of the season for failing to meet the Board’s objective of continental football. A 1-0 victory at home to Strasbourg was enough for a stay of execution. At least up to and including the following game but more on that below.

I’ve written previously about the tactic I’ve implemented at Le Havre, setting out our desire to control the ball and nullify opposition chances. Yet this was the season that changes had to be made. Our football and become something of a taupur, slow mechanical football that simply wasn’t creative enough and not positive enough (no points for spotting the song reference there but it was definitely true. We had a net goal difference of eleven and an net expected goal difference of exactly the same football – we weren’t worthy of a place in Europe. When your lead striker scores only nine goals in a season and even that out performed his xG of just over six, you know that something is awry. As as you can tot up from the graphic below, on fifteen occasions we had an xG of less than one. We’d become stultifying to watch and perhaps we were missing Hannibal more than we had realised.

As a result, or rather because of a lack of positive results, I needed to make changes to our tactical set up. In moving a way from the 4-3-3DM to a 4-2-3-1, Tiago Cavaleiro gave us the perfect player to slot in behind either Ali Akman or Lucas Gomes, the latter of whom had found form at one of our affiliates, IFK Göteborg and came back to us in the January transfer window. With both forwards preferring the advanced forward role, the false nine was ditched too. The deep-lying defensive midfielder moved up a strata to form a double pivot, changing to a central midfielder on defend and the mezzala shifted to a deep-lying playmaker on support since this is Depoorter’s natural player role and suits his left-footedness. The other change was to move the right-sided full back to a wing-back on support.

The shift was made prior to the Lyon home game towards the end of the season when after only winning two games in twelve matches in Ligue 1, it became clear something had to be done. That Lyon game did see us have an xG of less than one but it did also yield a positive result and from there the points flowed and we began to be more creative, despite having had very little time to implement the tactical changes on the training field, in part due to our commitments in the Europa League.

Given we finished out of the automatic places in Ligue 1, some of you might be questioning how is it that the final league table graphic shows Champions League qualification against our name. Well, after missing out on UEFA Europa Conference League glory last year after AZ’s dramatic (and worthy) fightback, we won the UEFA Europa League at our first attempt.

Our route to the final saw us top our group despite stiff opposition in RB Salzburg, who were the only side to beat us. We then played the not at all related side RB Leipzig in the second round, scraped past Porto and beat off fellow Ligue 1 side, Lyon in the semi final.

Our opponents in the final, Napoli, had crashed out of their Champions League group, in spite of Celtic achieving a negative goal difference and only scoring four goals. If that isn’t a record, it can’t be too far from one… Once in the Europa League, they overcame Ajax, narrowly beat last year’s Europa Conference League winners, AZ, dismissed Slavia Praha comfortably before vanquishing FC Midtjylland in the semi.

Whilst the final saw the team in some reasonable form after the improvement in league results, player form and squad morale was some way of desirable levels. This made selection to start the Final tricky at best, so as to ensure that those on best form started the game to give us the best possible hope of victory. As you can see by comparing the team graphic below against the squad depth graphic and the squad profile of minutes played/player age, there were one of two big decisions that I made when it came to who to start.

Saranic had been in very mixed form prior to the final, and had picked up an injury in the Montpellier fixture which resulted in him missing the final two league games of the season. As a result, I made the decision to switch Chema Núñez across to the right hand side away from his usual left wing role, and bringing in Hauge.

In the six Ligue 1 games that he had played prior to the Final, Lucas Gomes had scored five goals in contrast to Ali Akman who had one goal in six. Whilst on the face of it, this might seem like an easy decision, I had a strong loyalty towards Akman that had to be overcome by looking the data and putting trust in Gomes.

The other difficult decision was whether to start Depoorter or Zwane. Neither had been on exhilarating form and thus making them a must pick, but I went with Depoorter for his leadership and prior three assists in the Europa League.

To help improve morale, I also spoke to each individual player when deciding upon the first eleven to praise their conduct just to eke out that little marginal gain. Boy how it worked. Depoorter ran the show, making 105 passes from 118 attempts, creating a clear cut chance which Gomes tucked away as part of his four goals from an xG of 1.5 – some return for a final to land him with a perfect 10.0 score. Núñez returned a goal and an assist, running rings around Di Marzio.

Going into UEFA Europa League Final v Napoli still facing the sack to win 6-1 was a magnificent achievement from the side and seemingly vindicated my selection choices. Gattuso was actually the manager to be sacked following the final. Now we’re in the Champions League, the Board are far happier with me – having more faith in my managerial abilities.

How will we get on in Ligue 1 next season and our debut in the Champions League? Check back again next time to see which players are signed/sold and a review of the 2026-27 season. I hope you enjoyed an admittedly longer read that normal – please hit the ‘like’ button to let me know you did.

AC Le Havre – 2024-25 Season Review

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The 2024-25 season was a very successful one, relatively speaking. After achieving European football through league finish last season, we managed the same feat again with the latest campaign, improving our finish from 6th to 4th – as a result going through to the Europa League in 2025-26. With only PSG attaining more possession than us, we again dominated the ball against our opponents, though we did score notably fewer goals than our fellow European qualifying teams. Yet we pretty matched out expected goal difference – evidence that our formation does a good job in looking after the ball, but perhaps isn’t that cutting edge. Given our advance up the Ligue 1 table, perhaps a change in tactic might be required to have more thrust to goal scoring to hopefully match our dominance with the ball.

Once again we gave our younger players considerable minutes, with the majority achieving well over 50% of potential minutes. This analysis also helps to identify players who aren’t playing sufficient minutes and are likely surplus to requirements. Boulaye Dia falls into that category and will be earmarked for a move away from the club. Giulian Biancone has also usurped Godswill Ekpolo in the right back role, so consideration will go into whether he is the right man to be a back up. It’s worth noting that Jens Petter Hauge only joined the club in the January window, so as such, actually played a considerable number of minutes in relation to how many he was eligible for.

New central midfield signings, Depoorter, Zwane and Cüneyt Gür all played a good number of minutes without any of them standing out. The mainstay in the central midfield was on loan Hannibal (signified by the purple dot). This was to be his last season at Le Havre as Manchester United had decided that he was now suitably developed for a place in their squad and would not renew his loan agreement. His time at Le Havre has been instrumental to our achievements in not only retaining our status as a Ligue 1 club following our promotion from Ligue 2, but also to then progress up the league and into Europe. His chance creation has been exemplary – as pointed out in a previous blog with a player focus on him – but I feel it’s worth highlighting just how good Hannibal has been for us. Whilst his goal contributions have waned, his assists have been club-leading for us. Never falling below 0.30 goal contributions per 90 in his four seasons with us, he’s provided numerous open play chances for Ali Akman, our main striker, and our other forwards, and also from set piece situations.

In terms of goal scoring contribution across the entirety of the season (and not just Ligue 1), we relied heavily upon both Ali Akman and Ivan Saranic. The two contributed 37% (helpfully 37) of all goals, on a combined xG of 29.48. Ariel Mosór, our Polish right-sided centre back, signed for £6m from Legia last season but crucially (read stupidly) after the closing of the registration window, was the next highest – showing that our set pieces routines, in particular corners, worked well. This pleased the board as they’d mandated this a club focus. In total, seventeen goals were scored from set pieces (eight from corners and nine from free kicks).

Europa Conference League Review

Achieving European football well ahead of the expectations of the Club leadership, gave us a good chance to see where we were at. As it turned out, we were a lot further ahead than I had thought we were with our development.

Winning our group against relatively weaker opponents (Slovenia’s Maribor and Serbia’s Čukarički) and Bundesliga side Köln, resulted in us achieving a bye in the first round knockout as those sides who finished third in the Europa League and second in their Europa Conference League played off against one another. Two further victories over Czechia’s Slavia Praha and North Macedonia’s KF Shkëndija followed – with us brushing them both aside with reasonable ease, so much so in the case of KF Shkëndija that we were able to fully rotate our side for the second leg after a 5-0 victory in the first match.

It was the semi final result against Everton that really shocked me. A 2-0 win at home was surprising, but to then go to Goodison Park and win 2-1 away from home was a fantastic feeling. Ali Akman was the star of the tie with three goals across the two games and eight in the competition as a whole. Achieving a final in our first outing is brilliant and something I really wanted to win to make our mark on Europe.

Our opponents were to be Dutch side AZ Alkmaar. AZ had qualified for the Europa League proper, but a third place finish in their Group saw them drop into the Europa League Conference. Their path to the final was represented by a demolition of Parma, close ties against FC Midtjylland and Rapid Wien, before a semi final victory against our Group opponents Köln.

Europa Conference League Final Line Ups

Match Analysis

Setting up in a 4-2-3-1, AZ were plainly set to play very wide by Arne Slot after watching some initial attacking play. Their full backs, with Beukers likely playing as a complete wing back on the right, spread wide and rapidly once they’d won back possession of the ball. This left their central defenders with a lot of space to cover should a swift turnover occur with a Le Havre counterattack. We were already set to press them high up the field, so recognising their weakness in the centre of the pitch, I added a further instruction to the team to play through the centre. The below graphic shows with AZ’s average positioning with the ball. Our pressing helps to explain why they’re so deep when in possession of the ball – but also note the advanced position of Beukers, this will be integral to the first real action below and also the space for us to exploit with a quick counter.

After I adjusted our team instructions to focus play down the middle it worked a treat. The long kick from AZ’s Owusu-Oduro fell straight to Dvunjak who, untroubled by any opponent, has time to lay it off to Hannibal. He in turn spots Zwane, our Mezzala in space not being pressed by the deeper AZ central midfield players who haven’t advanced up the pitch. When they do come into press Zwane, Ali Akman in the false nine role drops back into this space and drags his defender with him. Chema Núñez runs into the huge gap between the right back, Beukers, who has initially advanced too far up the pitch and the other centre back, Van den Berg. All through the play from the moment we win the ball back to the first touch of Chema Núñez, the ball barely travels outside the width of the centre circle and we have a one-on-one which is finished emphatically.

We had to wait until the second half for our next goal. This time the goal came from an initial build up from our own half. We win the ball back and then look to spring an attack, spreading the play across to the right hand side. By the time it reaches Biancone on the flank, he lays it across to Hannibal who uses some of his flair to beat his man, playing it into Ali Akman who holds off his run into the six-yard area, with AZ’s defenders concentrating on the run of Saranic. With Chema Núñez occupying the mind of Beukers, Zwane finds himself unmarked and he finishes with aplomb into the bottom corner.

Our second goal seemed to free AZ’s shackles. They took the game by the scruff of the neck from their kick off following the Zwane strike. Their first response was in the 64th minute. We lost concentration following an AZ thrown in and it culminates in our offside trap being sprung by a Koopmeiners through ball over the top to Yusuf Barasi, who calmly finished past the on-rushing Sorano – 3-1. Biancone had been to distracted by the offside Karlsson, giving Barasi the perfect opportunity to rush past Mosór who was overloaded with Barasi and Taabouni to look after because Dvunjak had been dragged over towards the ball rather than sitting on Taabouni.

It only takes another minute for AZ to find the equalising goal. We switch off yet again from another throw in, with the AZ players running rings around our defenders, leading to Fedde de Jong popping a cross up for Taabouni to nod in. A poor couple of minutes have cost us a game that we had a stranglehold on and the players’ morale drops markedly. I try to encourage them, but to no avail…

We try to reassert our dominance on the ball and remove team instructions to time waste now that AZ are level. Yet this just leads to AZ exploiting us on the 85th minute as our players tire from our pressing. After yet another thrown in from AZ down their right flank, play eventually develops down their left flank. Saranic lets Esajas run past him and with Biancone and Dvunjak confused as to who is picking him up, as Reijnders off the ball run has them confused, neither of them pick up the run nor the player on the ball. Mosór was unlucky not to cut the pass out with his attempted sliding interception, but this just leads to Yusuf Barasi being free to slot home at the second attempt after Soriano blocks his first effort. Hearts sink and we look to go ‘very attacking’ but the game plays out with AZ sitting deep and keeping out any of our efforts.

You might think I would be disappointed by the result, and I was, but I was equally as pleased because we had made it this far – proud in fact. We shouldn’t be this far ahead of our plan and our overall play is generally encouraging – we are playing good football, if not full bore attacking chance creation on steroids. Quite how much we will miss Hannibal and his creativity, we will have to wait and see next season, but we have now earned the revenues from European football to help us solidify our finances and have some funds to reinvest. If we continue to be cautious with our spending on player transfers and wages, then Le Havre should at least have a strong platform to build upon going forwards. This should then help us progress our tactic and shape in the fullness of time once we have better players amongst our ranks to properly fulfil them.

As a break from the norm, I’ll be looking at player acquisitions and sales in the next blog, along with the usual amortisation in the season review for 2025-26. I hope you return for that soon.

AC Le Havre – 2023-24 Season Review

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The previous post, released some time ago now thanks to the impact of workload in real life, hinted at the prospect of European football for Le Havre. In the very next season, so it came to pass – we qualified for the UEFA Europa Conference League. The clubs first foray into continental competition. With an actual goal difference of 18 and an expected goal difference (xG Diff) of 17.05, we performed broadly in line with where we were anticipated to have done according to the data. Marseille on the other hand were ridiculously lucky to have a goal difference of 29 given they should have had a goal difference of just 3.37 by taking xG-xGA – a massive over performance.

Whilst twelve draws weren’t ideal, we were comfortably ahead of 7th placed Stade Reims, who were even luckier to be placed just outside the qualification places with their xG differential. Equally, we weren’t close to LOSC Lille. What was most pleasing was the percentage of possession we averaged across the season – a Ligue 1 topping 60%. Our tactical style of patient build up, opting to work the ball into the box and play out from the back, saw us dominate the ball.

The 61 goals scored (by a Le Havre player – 62 including an own goal) came predominantly from our forward line – with Ali Akman leading the way, scoring 16 goals from an xG of 13.25 (including three penalty goals). Leon Bosnjak’s frankly statistic breaking 11 goals from an xG of 4.43 came from him either deputising for Akman or playing on either attacking flank. 46 of the 61 goals (or 75.41%) were scored from a player in one of the three forward positions – whilst the spread amongst them isn’t necessarily a bad thing, perhaps over-relying upon them might be and it’s something to review.

Nonetheless, it is nice to see the acquisitions that were made last year settle in – with Leon Bosnjak, Chema Núñez and Cüneyt Gür (a 19-year old Turkish U21 international who was signed for £6.75k (yes, you did read that right) from Bursaspor with just 6 months of his contract left in January 2024) all being signed within the previous twelve months. It’s hoped that Gür will develop sufficiently to replace Hannibal in the long-term one his on-going loan inevitably ended from Manchester United, and continues the club’s ties to Turkey.

Another one of the new names on the goalscorers list is that of Yasser Kchouk. A youth team product, he has made his break into the first team at the tender age of 17. The left winger can play anywhere down the flank, and has been selected to play for Switzerland U21s. His development has been somewhat rapid and his breakthrough into the first team wasn’t the one that was anticipated from prior youth intakes given a previous youth team prospect, Sébastien Briand.

In truth, Briand’s development has stalled badly. He simply hasn’t kicked on at all, as can be seen by his attribute analysis below. Key role attributes are denoted in the Oxford blue (darker), non-key role attributes are in the Cambridge blue (lighter).

This as disappointing as it is frustrating. Quite why this is the case is probably down to a number of factors.

First of all is ultimately probably down to me – I probably promoted him too quickly into the first team at just 16. He could have benefited from staying down in the youth team and training, just concentrating on honing his attributes rather than being with the senior side. This could have aided his confidence levels, boosting his morale and thus his training levels. By lifting him above perhaps where belonged by being over excited about a youth team player that could actually kick in into the side, as per part of the goal of this save, has perhaps set him back.

To try to overcome this, he was sent out on loan for the second half of the season at Ligue 2 side, Troyes. Yet this might be another cause of his lack of development. I didn’t check what position he was likely to be playing him, not in the loan agreement, but by agreeing a loan with a manager that didn’t play with a defensive midfielder in his preferred tactical set up. Consequently, he ended up playing as an attacking midfielder, something that he’s completely ill-suited to. His attributes naturally lend himself to being a ball-winning midfielder, so by playing him as an attacking midfielder, his attribute development is completely antagonist to what I would want him to have been working on.

The third reason – luck. Player development isn’t a given. We’ve all seen real life players make their debuts very early in their professional careers before slipping down the pecking order and eventually being released/sold after not achieving their suspected potential. That may well be what’s going on here – it’s simply unlucky that Sébastien Briand, the best youth prospect I’ve had in a save where I wanted to promote youth players is actually… rubbish. Well, not rubbish perhaps, he did turn out regularly for Troyes, but definitely not capable of the high potential ability he had. He is only 18 so perhaps it will finally click, but I doubt it somehow.

On the other hand, Yasser Kchouk has developed nicely. Looking like he wasn’t all that amazing upon first inspection, yes, the only five star prospect to come through in his ‘class’, but his technical attributes are not at all something to remark at. Therefore, he remained in the U19s. There, he racked up 60 appearances, with a very credible twenty goals (including six penalties) and an incredible thirty-two assists since his promotion as a youth candidate.

His technical, mental and physical improvement is clear to see, especially the latter. His teamwork and work rate are already exemplary for someone so young, but it’s his physical progression which to me shows that there’s more to come in his quest towards first team football.

He has received just a handful of minutes so far, coming on for either Chema Nuñez or Arnaud Nordin. To ensure his player pathway isn’t blocked, Nordin, the weaker of the two left wingers in the first team already, will need to be moved on. This may seem harsh given his help to push Le Havre this far, but this is the nasty part of club management – you have to be brutal to achieve. Hopefully Kchouk can continue to progress to make this decision and easy on in hindsight and not something to regret.

Transfers

Before the transfer window even opened, loan renewals for Hannibal and Dalle Mura were negotiated and agreed with their respective clubs, Manchester United and Fiorentina. They’d been mainstays in the first team throughout the previous season and were terrific value for money given their quality.

As with previous seasons, players had started to attract interest from bigger clubs. Given the financial situation, with the lack of significant funds being generated from prize money, no European football income (though that its to come), and no big TV deal, we have to sell to fund ourselves. This time it was Diogo Nascimento who was sold to AC Milan for £20.5m, including various installments and a 20% profit on next transfer fee. The 21-year-old wanted to leave, understandably, and we weren’t in a position to stand in his way. The fee isn’t unreasonable, especially when taking into consideration that this deal represents pure profit when it comes to our accounts (bar his wages/signing on fees/etc.), as he was signed on a free transfer from SL Benfica two seasons ago.

This left us with a hole to fill in the mezzala slot in our midfield triumvirate. Our scouts had already identified a possible replacement – two in fact. The first is Belgian U20 international, Jef Depoorter. Signed from Mouscron for £7.25m, including installments a clause which pays out £500k if he plays five internationals for Belgium, the player comes with as much hype as he does promise. Despite his tender age of 19, he’s already made forty-one first team appearances in Eerste klasse B, contributing nineteen goal involvements and eight player of the matches. Being naturally left footed, he should fit in nicely into the mezzala role. His player trait of tries long-range passes should help to spread play and help start quick counter attacks, and with a degree of accuracy given his already top-level vision, technique, decisions and passing. His finishing is also a stand-out attribute. He has a real eye for goal and can offer a rotation option up front should we need him to. The only sticking point with him is that in his contract negotiations he demanded to be played in his preferred role of deep-lying playmaker in central midfield. Given that this isn’t a role we adopt in our system, he’s going to have to put up with being played out of position and hopefully come around to the idea of starting regularly in a higher league system than he was previously playing in.

The second option was Sifiso Zwane, a 6-times capped South African international despite being only 18-years old. Signed for his release fee of £825k, I’m sure you’ll agree that he looks to be something of a long-term bargain. Already well rounded when it comes to attributes for someone so young. He possess similar play-making abilities to Depoorter, and has that much sought after ‘wonderkid’ media description before even signing for us. He’s not naturally left footed, and his concentration is a little concerning, but he looks to be a star in the making given his technical abilities on the ball. This meant that I’ve brought in two replacements for one player and still have over £12m remaining. As a Club, this is how we have to operate to strengthen and improve depth.

With that in mind, Daouda Badiane was signed as youth prospect. Coming in for just £140,000 from Generation Foot, he’s been capped nine times by Sengal U20s, contributing one goal. At 6’6″, he should be a great threat, not just in defending set pieces but also in attack too. He’ll go out on loan to maximise his playing time, but I am excited about his potential.

Tilen Ribic falls into a similar category – a player signed for the future who isn’t likely to achieve first team minutes from the get-go and will go out on loan. Signed from Young Boys in Switzerland, he’s been capped seven times and scored two goals for the Swiss U21s. He has good player traits for a false nine, though I’m unconvinced by the shoots from distance given his relatively poor finishing, but there’s time to improve that. At £5m, he’s not cheap, but he should represent another good investment for the future if he can develop, hopefully a loan will help him to achieve that.

Camilo Moreno was signed on a pre-contract agreement. Yet to sign a professional contract with Independiente Santa Fe, the three times capped Colombian U20 international 18-year-old looks to have further potential to tap into. His passing, technique and teamwork should make him into a good deep lying forward or false nine. The £1.3m compensation fee will hopefully prove to be a shrewd investment. Unlike Ribic, Moreno will stay around the first team and pick up minutes in cup games and off the bench to replace Ali Akman.

Two other loanees arrived in the form of Albian Hajdari and Augusto Rocha. Hajdari was someone that I had been scouting for some time, and his existing club Juventus were keen to continue loaning him out for first team experience. It was his loan spell at Nice, where he played 15 games and scored one goal, that proved that he could hold his own at Ligue 1 level as a centre back. When his loan ended at Nice following the finish of the 2023-24 season, I approached Juventus with a loan offer of my own. Within that loan offer included an optional future fee of £4m. With only two years left on his current contract, and therefore just one year left at the conclusion of the loan should it go through, I was relatively confident that Juventus would accept such an offer. Along with a loan fee – they did. If he performs well, and we have sufficient budget, it’s likely that we’ll activate the option to buy. Augsto Rocha was signed as a rotational option at left back from FC Porto. Yet another 18-year-old, he’s not as developed as I’d have liked for a rotational option, but there was a paucity of available options within our price range and wage budget. Possibly a little better in defense then he is in attack, he should hopefully be a reasonable back up once he adjusts to life on the North West coast of France.

The name that probably catches the eye the most is Jens Petter Hauge. Unhappy at lack of playing time at AC Milan midway through the 2024-25 season, the Norwegian international was transfer listed for £6.25m with just a few months left on his contract. Rather than try to sign him on a pre-contract agreement, I took the decision to bring him in early. The attacking winger offers quality on both flanks. I will need to ensure that he doesn’t block the player development pathway for Kchouk, Naturally an inverted winger on the left, he will also slot in on the right when Saranic isn’t available as Boulaye Dia has failed to consistently step up to Ligue 1 level. To add a player of his reputation really shows how quickly we’ve come in from our initial promotion our of Ligue 2 and I hope that he can add to our chances in Ligue 1 and in Europe. He has demanded that we play him as an inverted winger on the left as part of his contractual negotiations, but as with Depoorter, I’m hoping that playing frequently and in a successful team will help him realise who holds the power in this side.

Other additions – Stefan Petrus, Emeric Schultz are punts on youth players who may/may not make it, but will go out on loan to see if they develop. Schultz was also signed on the basis of a requirement from the board to sign players from the lower leagues in France in order to develop them. Our scouts liked him – I’m not so sure. At £500k, I’ve almost certainly overpaid.

With the £20.5m recouped from Nascimento and £3m from other sales, including Nordin who left for Guingamp for £1.2m, saw a net transfer spend of -£4.5m, i.e. another profit in the transfer window(s). This resulted in an amortisation charge of just over £6.8m for these transfers (not including previous transfers).

The next blog will review our first foray into European football, along with the regular season review.

AC Le Havre – 2022-23: Sailing out to a European waters?

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The 2022-33 season saw us fall into an initial slump, with poor results against our opponents in the opening fixtures, seeing four defeats in the first seven games and only two wins. This form saw us sat in 15th. Only after around nine games did we find our rhythm. Reducing the number of goals conceded by minimising the quality of chances presented to the opposition helped significantly, and as confidence and morale improved, so too did our goal scoring. Working on our defensive set up in training, as well as dropping Václav Jemelka after doing some metric analysis into our performances in favour of Dalle Mura, on loan from Fiorentina, helped to solidify our back line, dramatically bringing down our xGA.

This is reflected in our eventual finish of 6th, one place outside of European qualification (due to the winner of the Coupe de France), and in the amount of points we gained above that of those that my self-calculated model said we should have attained come the end of the season. The dip in form after the crazy run of fixtures following the Winter World Cup is mostly due to the need to rotate our small squad (more on this later). A strong finish to the last third of games saw our league position soar.

If we look at the cumulative net points (points minus expected points using xG differentials), then we were largely outperforming the number of points we should have had, with a big dip after the 4-1 battering at the hands of Lille. Earning three more points by the end of the campaign than we were predicted to using xG differentials helped us to overachieve by way of our expected league position finish.

I alluded to the heavy rotation that we had to adopt due to the fixture congestion thanks to the Winter World Cup. This can be plainly seen in our squad profile – taking minutes played and player ages. In trying to protect our plethora of young players against burn out, only goalkeeper and captain Juan Soriano played more than 80% of potential minutes in Ligue 1 (in fact he played every minute). With the minutes shared out, you’d think that the development of player attributes would have been evenly shared, but because of the number of midweek games and a near month long holiday in December, player development largely stagnated because they weren’t on the training field as often as they would have been during a normal season.

This leads me onto a player I want to hone in on and almost pay homage to as a result of his performances.

Player Focus – Hannibal

Hannibal Mejbri, known simply as Hannibal, has been on loan with us at Le Havre for the last two seasons. Over that time he’s made 58 appearances and 27 goal contributions, one every 160.22 minutes, or roughly 0.56 per 90. He has therefore understandably come to make the 8 position his own on the right-hand side of midfield.

Despite his young age, he already has an eye for a pass, with fantastic vision and technical ability. His underlying technique, flair and first touch enable him to make defence splitting passes for players running through on goal.

This is reflected in his third place finish in the Ligue 1 Meilleurs Passeurs for 2022-23, after racking up ten assists, behind Neymar (20) and Marseille’s Maxime Lopez (12).

His attributes naturally lend themselves to playing as an advanced playmaker, and to an extent, the team has somewhat been moulded around him in this role.

With a false nine ahead of him (Ali Akman), a winger on the left to flank (typically either Nordin or Pité), an inside forward cutting in from his right flank (either Dia or Šaranić) and a mezalla acting as another 8 to his left (normally Nascimento), he’s not short of passing options. Combine this with the right sided full back going forward on a supporting duty, and he has a gamut of choices.

With the adopted tactic set to play at a slow tempo with shorter passing, this does act as something of a constraint on his creative abilities. However, it does mean that the team can build possession together to look for an opening rather than have to continually press in exhaustive fashion when the ball has been lost in an effort to recycle possession. Equally, if the ball is turned over, because the team have progressed up the field together, it is then easier to enact a meaningful press by blocking multiple passing lanes rather than a solo press.

This helps to hide Hannibal’s main weakness – he’s a poor defender. He can shirk his defensive responsibilities, with 2.96 defensive actions per 90 (tackles and interceptions adjusted for possession) over the last season, a metric which puts him in the bottom 24th percentile for Ligue 1 central midfielders. This is part of the reasoning for opting to play a defensive midfielder in behind him and the other 8, as Nascimento is similarly uninspired by having to defend (with 1.82 defensive actions per 90 – in the bottom 2%).

With this cover, Hannibal is able to play the creative role, and was amongst the league leaders in all manner of passes (attempted, completed, key and assists per 90), dribbles and in being fouled (leading to the potential for attacking free kicks, which he himself takes). His pass completion is poor, but I think in part this is because he takes set pieces, but also because he’s looking for the through ball which will often be cut out by opposition defenders.

The below shot you can see Hannibal’s ability to deliver a cross to pin point perfection. Following an interchange with right back, Godswill Ekpolo, which created separation for Hannibal away from the opposition defender. Hannibal then swung in a cross, picking out Pité who has eluded his marker at the far post for an easy finish. This is only made easy because of the quality of the delivery itself from Hannibal.

It’s at this point that I wanted to delve into Hannibal’s fantastic passing ability and vision further, but sadly I’ve come across (yet) another bug in the game with a divergence between recorded assists outside the ME to what is shown inside the ME when going back to old fixtures, so instances in some matches are wrong, including passing maps, times of goals, goal scorers, assist makers… I’m hoping it was the update that threw this all out, but who knows.

Club update

After receiving the prize money for our league finish, I immediately request that the board reinvest the proceeds into the recruitment of youth prospects, and improve our training facilities for both the senior and youth sides. This should aid player development amongst the senior side who have stagnated as previously mentioned thanks to the lack of time on the training ground. Fingers crossed it will also help develop our own youth players as this is a key part of the club focus and as you can see by the squad profile, I’ve not done a great job of bringing any through, instead favouring external recruits.

The problem of this long term strategy was that it left us without much immediate cash with which to extend contracts of key staff, and a tiny budget to initially spend on transfers. As a result, early incomings on the playing staff were nil –  we simply didn’t have the funds to bring anyone in. This was fine, as I felt that bar left back, with Carole departing following the expiry of his contact, I had two players of adequate or good quality in every position.

This though, didn’t solve the issue with staff. I was unable to negotiate contact extensions with a number of staff because their weekly wage expectations had risen following the club’s success on the field. Yet this wasn’t matched with the wages I was in a position to offer them. As such, a number left and were replaced with unemployed coaches, analysts, physios and scouts who were willing to join for lower compensation for their gainful employment.

My thoughts regarding squad depth held until I had an offer for Guilherme Montóia from Arsenal. I knew as soon as Arsenal bid for him that I was not going to be in a position to reasonably stand in his way. Whilst the Club is just about washing its face when it comes to finances, player sales were going to be required to pay for the growth and development of the Club as a whole. The initial £7m bid was negotiated up to £12.25m, including £5m in £1m payments staggered over semi-annual payments for the next three years, which should help with our cash flow. The big bonus though was the fact that Arsenal were happy to loan Montóia straight back to us to continue his development. Montóia could remain first choice whilst his eventual successor bedded in.

Looking into the finances of this deal in more depth, because we can book the proceeds of the sale of Montóia straight away, i.e. record the receipt of funds immediately and not when actual payment is received. This results in us making an instant paper profit of the £12.25m that Arsenal agreed to pay because Montóia was signed on a free transfer – his book value to us was nil, so the transfer fee represents pure profit.

The other transfer that I couldn’t possibly refuse was that of Brahima Ouattara. Juventus were negotiated up to an offer of £11.5m, including three guaranteed payments of £1.33m over the next three years to further bolster future cash inflows. The Ivory Coast international made twenty three appearances but never really shone in the mezalla role. Given the depth we have in central midfield, I was more than happy to let Ouattara go to Turin and try to break through into i Bianconeri’s first team.

The fee we had paid RC Abidjan for Ouattara was a meagre £275k and he had signed on a four-year deal. Given that there were still two-years left on his contract, this meant that the booked profit on this transfer amounted to a whopping £11,362,000 (whopping relative to our club size at least).

In booking this £23,612,500 profit, this provided the Club with funds to reinvest back into the transfer market where we could find more ‘wrinkles’.

With Carole leaving, I went searching for a left back. After much deliberation, largely because no one was as good at the soon-to-be outgoing Montóia, we brought in Jonathan Augustinsson from Djurgården in Sweden for £1.4m, rising to £1.8m after 50 league appearances. His appearances for Sweden and his relatively older age compared to those around him in the squad I’ve assembled at Le Havre (note the number youngsters in the earlier squad graphic above), should add experience to the side. His personality of a model professional certainly made my mind up when deliberating over his transfer – hopefully he can climb up the player hierarchy to become a team leader so that he’ll make a perfect mentor for any defender in the side.

We also looked to invest into a back up for Ali Akman and brought in Leon Bosnjak, a young Croat from NK Varaždin, for his £2.6m release fee. Looking at his attributes, he looks well developed for an 18-year old. Whilst his finishing is below what I’d normally look for, I realise I can’t have everything at this level, especially not for an initial back up player. His composure and off the ball movement, along with his excellent with rate and flair should mean that the can bamboozle defenders to increase the quality of chances he creates for himself/find himself free in pockets of space to be find by the likes of Hannibal.

Chema Núñez signed on a free transfer from Albacete to improve the quality of our attacking output down the left hand flank. The pacey Spaniard likes to dribble down the left flank, yet also moves into channels, so should confuse the opponents he finds himself up against when coupled with his flair, technique and dribbling ability. His vision and passing is also excellent, with his trait of playing one-twos and killer balls, he should offer a fantastic threat going forward.

Dual national, Giulian Biancone came into to offer a challenge to Godswill Ekpolo. Ekpolo will remain the first-choice, but at £750k following his transfer-listing at Monaco, this looked a good deal for the former French U21. He’s attacking in his nature as a full back, looking to bomb on down the right flank, so will help to add width given the inside forward that is played ahead of him. His decisions, technique and composure could be better, but there won’t be many, if any, better players at this price in his position.

Just prior to the start of the season, Juan Soriano picked up an injury which meant that he was set to miss the opening three games of the forthcoming season. With only the under-developed Yahia Fofana as a back-up option, I brought in Alfred Gomis from Rennes as a reserve goalkeeper. This is quite some come down for the player chosen by his previous club Rennes to replace Edouardo Mendy after the latter signed for Chelsea. The 6’5″ Senegalese international joined for just £1m, after his transfer listing. Having played just four games in 2021-22 and zero in the 2022-23 season, Gomis was more than happy to cut the cord from Rennes and be the second choice behind Soriano when he returned to fitness.

Hannibal and Dalle Mura both had their loans renewed, so will be with us for the 2023-24 season. All deals saw us spend £5,750,000 in total on first team players, with a further £1,855,550 spent on U19 potential prospects. This was in part trying to becalm the directors who were ‘devastated’ at my inability to purchase players from lower leagues in France, develop them to the first team before selling them on for a profit. In total, five such players were brought in but they will not be expected to feature in the first-team and anyone older than 18 will be loan listed to encourage their development.

Will this addition of depth to the squad help our onward march to European places? Find out in the next blog post.

AC Le Havre – 2021-22 Season Review

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HAC Foot – Safe Haven in Ligue 1

The winter break saw HAC Foot in 8th place and it is there that we finished in our first campaign in Ligue 1. Quite some effort for a team expecting to be relegated back from whence we came.

The second half of the season actually went better than our first. Picking up nine wins and four draws saw us achieve four more points we did before the Winter break. Notable performances included a 3-0 victory at home to Lyon, 1-0 win against Nice and a 3-3 draw versus Monaco where we raced into a 3-0 lead only to see Monaco rage back against us.

The results enabled us to finish just outside the European places – perhaps as well given the lack of depth we have in our squad. This is evidenced by the fact that eight players played in excess of 75% of the possible minutes in the league – six of which were new additions to the team. It’s great that the players we signed had the natural fitness and stamina to last the season. However, this will be taken into consideration when looking to utilise the £6.78m we’ve been allocated in transfer spending and nearly £100k p/w in wages.

Gibaud’s, Gorgelin’s and Club captain Fontaine’s contracts are all expiring and they will not be signed to new deals. This may be a little harsh on Fontaine who has been with HAC Foot throughout his career. When delving into his data for the 2021-22 season, his first ever in Ligue 1, it looks even more ruthless. Fontaine, despite playing as a deep-lying playmaker in the defensive midfield strata, produced some elite level metrics, delivering key passes, being efficient with his use of the ball and managed a goal involvement 0.41 per 90, almost a goal or an assist every other game. It is worth noting that this sample size isn’t huge with only 14.62 90s played, but he did play in a good number of the games in the second half of the season alongside our improvement in results.

However, at 33, his physical attributes are starting to wane. Whilst Ligue 1 isn’t the most physical of leagues, a two-year deal did not seem like a good use of the clubs finances, would block the player pathway of Briand, and could open wage budget for other recruits too to fill the gap between Fontaine and Briand, besides just Lekhal.

For Gorgelin, whose performances saw us keep eleven clean sheets – the decision could have also have been said to be heartless. Again, the contract that he was demanding was not acceptable to the Club in terms of how he was valued. That might seem strange given the number of clean sheets and the fact that we conceded just 42 goals as a club. However, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia‘, “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”. So let’s take a much closer look at the data.

Further investigation into our metrics demonstrates a clear down turn in form in keeping out goals over the second half of the season compared to those the data tells us we should have conceded (GA-xGA). We conceded nearly four goals more than we ought to have done according to xG – not awful, but perhaps there’s room for an upgrade in this area. This would so easily be overlooked given the improvement in results from the pre-Winter break.

If we take a deeper dive still into the data, you’ll notice that over the course of the season the 10-game rolling average goals, xG, goals against and xGA drifted together. Once we are beyond the “noise” of the first ten games, we see that bar one small spell, there never was much gap between all statistical measures, both actual and theoretical. In other words, we were performing roughly as expected over a rolling ten game period and we were perhaps a little lucky to be ultimately as high as 8th. Therefore, if we can upgrade in the goalkeeping position, this could see us improve further still, should we bring the goals conceded back towards xGA and xGA remains low next season.

To an extent, this is backed up on the cumulative xPts data too. We broadly achieved the number of points we should have done, with us dropping only two points using the cumulative differences between G-xG and GA-xGA. Accordingly to the data, we statistically could have picked up two additional points to those we achieved.

Therefore, it could be said that although 8th place was something beyond our wildest dreams before first fixture kicked off, this is an indication that we actually underperformed in our first season in Ligue 1. This comes despite the bookmakers having us odds on to be in the bottom two and relegated. Definitely some to ponder on when deciding the balance of the squad over the Summer transfer window.

Stand out player

Before we progress onto the Summer dealings, it is worth highlighting the speed at which Ali Akman became an integral part of the squad. Eighteen goals on an xG tally of fifteen, and an xG per shot of 0.25, meaning one in every four of his shots would likely result in a goal. The latter statistic was the best in Ligue 1, and for a 20-year old that is seriously impressive. Especially so given he was playing as a withdrawn striker in the false nine role. His actual xG tally was fifth best of all strikers, behind Ligue 1 top goal scorer Harry Kane, and Akman ranked second by shot to goal conversion. So despite playing in a far deeper positions than any of his peers would likely been playing in, Akman looks to have made a fantastic start to his time on the French coast. If he can improve his interlinking to set up his teammates to up his assists, his time be at HAC Foot might be limited as bigger clubs start to take notice.

Transfer planning

With the aforementioned contracts expiring, deals needed to be done to replace these players and to deepen the player pool in terms of quality.

Before the transfer window opened, a deal was done to make Arnaud Nordin’s stay a permanent one, with him happy to stay on at HAC Foot after his deal with Saint-Étienne expired. Saint-Étienne coincidently were relegated. He signed a 3-year deal on a basic salary of £9,250/week with various bonuses and clauses attached. His hard work as part of the forward line to press and win the ball back with his tackles and interceptions (T&I/90) and the willingness shown to take on his opposite number with a dribble saw him create seven assists. These metrics are easily good enough for a Ligue 1 player, so to acquire him for no transfer fee is a big bonus.

Also prior to the transfer window re-opening, Manchester United were approached to extend Hannibal’s loan. Whilst he didn’t see much over 50% of the possible minutes, his importance to the system was growing, despite his inconsistencies in performances. Both the club and player accepted the offer, so Hannibal stays in his home country for another year and on a lower wage contribution to boot. It’s not hard to see why I was so keen either given his metrics. In the first year of his loan spell, he was elite at goal involvement and key passes per game when on form. Whilst his passing success rate is low, as an attacking playmaker, this is not that much of an issue if he is creating chances and assists for his team mates. He was second in the list of key passes played by either defensive or central midfielders with more than 1,000 minutes played in Ligue 1 – he will be welcomed with open arms upon his return from holiday.

It was adjudged that Yahia Fofana did not have the required skills and attributes to step up to the No. 1 jersey, and as such, scouts had been focussed on finding a new goalkeeper. Scouts had for a long time been keeping tabs on Spaniard Juan Soriano. He’d spent the 2020/21 season on loan at Malaga from his parent club, Sevilla. Over that season he kept seven clean sheets from 41 starts, conceding 50 goals, with four player of the match awards. However, over the 2021/22 season, he had returned to Sevilla and found himself a third wheel behind Tomas Vaclik and Yassine Bounou, who shared the goalkeeping duties. With the picture clear that he wasn’t going to receive first team action at Sevilla, when we approached the once U21-capped 24-year old with a contract and promise of being the first-choice goalkeeper, he didn’t hesitate in signing a three-year deal on £6,500/week. Although a tad eccentric for my liking (15), he is excellent at one-on-ones (16), has a high level of concentration, reflexes and agility (all 15),

To replace Fontaine, we looked for an experienced player to offer a mentality of leadership and positive attitude, alongside a considerable number of minutes in Ligue 1. Defensive midfielder Abdoulaye Touré became available on a free signing after being released by Nantes. He took some convincing to join, with negotiations being protracted over a number of weeks after the player initially turned us down on two occasions, but we eventually managed to come to an agreement with the Frenchman signing a 3-year deal on £17,000/week, making him our highest paid player. At 28-years of age, he has made 175 appearances in Ligue 1 and has a fairly determined mentality with strong attributes for determination, teamwork and work rate.

Mathieu Cafaro had also been impressing domestic scouts in the Stade de Reims team. Following his transfer listing, we saw an opportunity to sign a quality young French player who could rotate with Hannibal and had the versatility to play in a number of other roles if required. A fee of an initial £2.6m, climbing to £3.2m, was agreed with Stade de Reims, with Cafaro signing a deal worth £13,000/week. If we can flip the player for a profit, this could prove a shrewd deal.

With Umut Meraş not receiving many minutes because of his consistently poor performances, another back up to Carole was required. Carole’s age of 31 meant that the Club were in a position to sign a young player with Carole passing on his experience to him on the training pitch. Guilherme Montóia was available to be able to discuss a pre-contract as S.L. Benfica had neglected to renew his contract. A considerable number of top clubs were after his signing – yet because we were in a position to offer a clear pathway for him to be a key first team player within the next two years Montóia looked favourably upon our contact offer. He did seek a reassurance that we were going to be an established Ligue 1 side over the next few years, but having achieved 8th in our first year, we felt confident we could match that promise.

Scott Fraser’s first season at the club was less than successful. It became apparent that he did not play well alongside Hannibal. Both players weren’t significant contributors to defensive actions (tackles and interceptions), and Hannibal outperformed Fraser when it came to goals and assists over the season. Whether this was due to a language barrier, the jump from League One’s MK Dons being too great or finding himself playing in a slower, a less direct and slower playing style than he was used to, it’s hard to determine, but it was clear that a replacement option was required.

Diogo Nascimento was identified as the player to come in and take Fraser’s place in the starting eleven. Available on a pre-contract agreement after running down his contract with S.L. Benfica, much like Montóia, the young Portuguese starlet was similarly wanted by a host of top European sides from most of the Big Five leagues. We moved quickly to secure his signature on a five year deal. The left footed midfielder will hopefully adapt to life quickly in Le Havre so he does not have the same fate as Fraser. The Scot will be offered out on loan to try to drum up some transfer interest with the aim of recouping a transfer profit from the sale.

If Fraser was a failure, then Boulaye Dia couldn’t have been anything more different. Dia had a fantastic campaign – his superb metrics show how important he made himself to our HAC Foot side. His twenty four goal involvements saw him in the top 90% of all wide attacking players with more than 1,000 minutes. His attacking nature saw him drive at defences, and have a better shot to goal conversion rate than players like Mbappe and Neymar. Yet when Dia wasn’t available, the drop off to players like Pité was notable. Therefore, a second option to add depth to the playing squad was required.

Scouts had spotted Ivan Šaranić playing in the UEFA-21 qualifiers, alongside fellow Croatian Tomislav Duvnjak and came back raving about both. Šaranić possesses the attributes that mark him out as an ideal initial back-up to Dia, but he was keen to impress upon us that if he was to move to France at such a young age, then he would want to do so with a fellow Croat to help him settle. Duvnjak, who was playing alongside Šaranić at GNK Dinamo Zagreb also looked like someone that we could sign to develop and then sell on, hitting the Club vision of signing players under-23 who we could flip for a profit. A bid was then tabled for him to, and whilst Duvnjak had his own reservations, his wages demands were reasonable. Both players signed for a combined £5.3m split across four years payments, rising to £7.2m after various criteria are met, largely player performance-related.

In analysing the performances of our three main centre backs, whilst Mesonero is showing the possible ability to make the step up, with the Swiss defender making the most interceptions per nine across all central defenders, Jemelka and Mayembo look to have struggled. Their tackles per ninety and tackle success rates are very poor, with Mayembo’s seeing him in the bottom five percent. I haven’t included heading data within the below player data profiles, largely because it’s not possible to discern between an attacking heading attempt and a defensive effort, but all of the HAC Foot defenders struggled to win the ball in the air. With only three defenders as an option, more depth was required, but if we could improve the quality of defenders then this would be beneficial too, especially with the metrics making it clear that Mayembo has been ground to be lacking at this level.

Scouting reports had highlighted the availability of David Costas who had not accepted contract offers with Celta Vigo. Costas likely won’t necessarily improve us in the air at only 6’0″ tall, but he will add to our ball-playing ability as he is a natural passer. Given our desire to play passing, controlled football, this should allow us to build up from the back. To add greater depth in the left centre back position, Christian Dalle Mura was signed on loan from Fiorentina as a squad option, with the intention that he goes in behind Jemelka to rotate in and out of the squad when the fixture list piles up, with nine games inside January alone after the Winter World Cup.

With these new additions to the squad, we’ve hopefully achieved our objectives in the transfer market to both strengthen and deepen the team to help prepare for the fixture madness of January and February to catch up from the games that have been moved from November and December. This was despite having only been issued a transfer budget of £6.78m – spreading payments out over four years with the use of installments helped us meet our objectives. With an overall spend in the region of £8m with regards to transfer fees, with further in add-ons if certain targets are met, were should find ourselves better resourced to avoid the so-called difficult second season.

As to how we’ve progressed against the Club objectives of signing under-23 players to sell on and from domestic lower leagues, well five out of eleven players were under the imposed age bracket. Where we missed the prescribed goals was not signing anyone from Ligue 2 or below bar technically Nordin from Saint Étienne. It’s not for the lack of player search, there just wasn’t the talent there, or if there was in the relegated teams, they wanted wages well above what we could reasonably offer with our wage structure. We’d already stretched that with some of the above signings. Hopefully this won’t be too much of an issue for the Board. To address the problem head on, two scouts were immediately assigned to Ligue 2, National leagues and the junior age group leagues for a better overview.

The next post in the series will go onto look at the 2022-23 campaign, as well as highlight some youth prospects starting to emerge from the academy, skipping the usual half season analysis. I hope you’ll return for that post. Until then, au revoir et bonne santé.