We Finally Scored
Part 10 | Ingolstadt 04 | FM23 Hardcore Mode
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I had a good feeling coming into this match, I really did. I felt that we got most of the complainers and toxic players out of our squad. Our younger players were hungry and eager to go, and I thought for sure that this would be the day our fortunes would turn around.
Well, the good news is that we scored again, finally. The bad news? Tobias Schröck, our defensive midfielder, scored the goal.
Schröck is now our leading scorer with 2 goals. And I’m starting to worry that I really might not have much of a future at this club.
Schröck’s goal came at a great time. Wiesbaden went up 1-0 right before halftime, and we didn’t seem to have much of an offensive attack at all. We were able to get the ball forwards, and the players were finally starting to take some chances, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. Our team lacks offensive cohesion.
We did dominate possession again, holding onto the ball 64% of the time. As usual, that possession largely consisted of passes to ourself in our own half.
There were a few bright spots. Angelo Brückner became the latest in our series of young players making their debuts. Brückner played well, and looks to be a good signing for the future.
Schröck’s heroics won him Player of the Week, which I think was a bit overstated. I’d probably feel better about this designation if we had actually won.
Injury Woes
Remember how I told you a few days ago that we’d regret paying Visar Musliu all that money?
Well, I was right. Musliu injured himself in training and will be out for 7 weeks.
We’re paying about 1/5 of our wage budget to a player who hasn’t started in half of our games this season because of his injury problems. I tried to offload him right before the end of the transfer window, but nobody would take him — because of the injury problems, of course.
I hate blaming our struggles on things like injuries, but it’s really hard to ignore with a squad like this. We’ve got too many injury prone players, our highest paid player is rarely fit enoug to play, and the older players have a major attitude problem. It’s really hard to win under these conditions. I really don’t think the tactic is the problem; I think it’s the locker room atmosphere.
Monthly Review
I’ve been seeing a lot of Robert Deising, our head performance analyst. He came up to me again with a few notes on how we looked statistically in August.
There aren’t a whole ton of surprises. Lino is performing extremely well in goal, which we already knew. If we hadn’t signed him on a free transfer we’d probably be last in the league.
Marcel Costly has played poor in defense when we’ve used him at right back. I knew this before our latest match, and decided to play him as an attacking midfielder on the left. He played poorly there as well — and, of course, nobody seemed interested when I tried to sell him on transfer deadline day.
Tobias Schröck is probably the best player in the league at his position, which also isn’t surprising. He is still our captain. I love watching him play, but am also very much aware of his age, and will likely move him on after this season — assuming I’m still around, that is.
On the flip side, Benjamin Hemcke has performed particularly poorly in the attacking mezalla role in midfield. We’ve been forced to start him there anyway, since David Kopacz, who really should be starting there, only just came back from an extended injury.
I think we’ve done all we could to stop the bleeding. The board and the fans seem to recognize that, though they’re not going to have much more patience with me if things keep going south.
SC Freiburg II
Next up is another match against a reserve team. We’ll be in Freiburg taking on SC Freiburg II.
Everybody hopes that we’ll start attacking and scoring goals. I’m most worried about Justin Butler, who we’re going to start up front yet again. He hasn’t scored at all this season, and I’m really starting to regret signing him to a contract extension right after I arrived.
