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Ok .. before you all go slamming in on me .. This is my first true LLM attempt. And for this first one, I decided on the following. I will try and make my way up from the bottom. Meaning that, if an offer comes along that would make me better myself club wise ... I would not say no. But .. starting at the extreme bottom. This is my career !
If this isn't LLM to you .... please feel free to delete.
An unknown Belgian manager takes the helm at Vauxhall Motors for his first managerial position. All are expecting him to fall flat on his face, with no budget, no nothing, just high aspirations, high hopes and a few fears.
Halfway through my first season and things aren't looking all that bad. As we are just over that halfway mark we are sixth in the league .. so who's complaining. I'm not .. My board's not and even the fans seem to have been starting to think I might not be all bad.
Then, to my total shock. The phone rings. A few hours later at a quickly russled up press conference I start a story that I had hoped to comply my three year contract with the club, but that I'm sure all fans will understand that, if Real Madrid comes knocking at your door ... you take the first plane there.
At the question of a dumbfolded local journalist, who actually believed I was going to Spain (it's not even a selected league silly, I can only work in Belgium and England) he is relieved to hear I'm only moving to "in trouble" Bristol Rovers.
The pirates ... two above the relagation zone, had just sacked their manager and asked me to step in and still get a respectable league position. For this purpose .. I had no budget. Oh and by the way sir, please make sure you can drop our salary budget by 40%. Sounds just like my kind of a challenge I thought.
Anyway .. I took over, we finished 14th in the end. Everybody seemed pretty happy.
As Cosmo said jumping ship is fine. Most people in here do it but only to clubs they deem realistic, so they won't jump from the conference to the Championship for example. The unwritten rule for the purist I believe is a move up one division at a time.
Second season at the helm in Bristol saw at least a few goals achieved. My team managed to make a loss last season of 150.000 this season, we made a 500.000 profit. Some decent results, a few good cup wins, finally loosing out to Arsenal (thanks for the money though Mr. Wenger) and a midtable position targeted, and obtained in the end it could have been a dull season.
But was it ?
Well have way through we were only 17th, we had cut our salary budget with 20% already and made money along the way. What more could a board ask for you'd say ? Well alot more apparently as I was in over my head. My status got worse and worse, and rumours about my dismissal were even in the press.
A decent tactical change, and the return of some injured key players turned my fortune, and we managed to finish 10th in the end, the board, although just satisfied, decided to let me have another go at it next season.
Third season almost at an end ... This is the final update for now.
After signing on two of my loanies of last season and with the departure to Wolves of my star centre back (who was my salary budget problem) things were financially sane. Salary budget was just met, and that did probably please my chairman.
A dismall start was even easily forgiven as after 8 games, we were 20th !! I had no clue what to do how to solve it. We were scoring goals oh yes ... but we were conceeding. We went 0-4 up at chesterfield to end in 4-4.
Two tactics were tried and luckely the second one proved to be the right one (my third new tactic in as many seasons - is this LLM ? ). Suddenly my boys were flying. We rushed through the ranks, I kept on collecting second places in the Manager of the Month awards (didn't win a single one, was at least five times second .. lol) but more importantly, twelve games from the end, we were 7th, just inside the playoff spots.
Things kept on going better and better. With one game to go a win from my Rovers side, and a defeat of second placed Tranmare at league leaders Shrewsbury would see me automaticly promoted.
Of course that didn't happen. The had a draw, and my win against Wycombe didn't help me either. 4th was our final standing and in to the playoffs we go.
Conceding 61 goals is one thing ... But we scored 109 goals in a season !! No wonder people just keep on coming to the stadium (with a whoping 1.5 mlo profit this season as a result.
Playoffs are about to start in which we will first play Mansfield, the team we really didn't want to play. Row's with their manager have been around all season, we have played badly against them each time in the last two seasons.
Oh well, heads up lads .. Here come the playoff's, this is our League one chance.
If you're planning to be jumping ships often, two points need to be made: 1- sort out the job offers by asking yourself if it's a realistic move; 2- please state which team you're managing and the league you're in in every post - kind of like a header, to make things easier for us the readers.