FM21 Blog: 6) The Hell Run
Scheduling? What's Scheduling?
This article covers the month of September, in which we play nine games. That sounds fine, if a bit much (two per week, roughly), but then you realise that five of those games take place between the 20th and the 30th. That’s right, 5 games in 10 days, a run of game/rest/game/rest that includes some of our main title rivals and ends with a European away trip. I didn’t realise this until about half way through, either. It’s a fun one, trust me.
What’s to come:
Game 1: Utsiktens BK Home [Swedish Cup]
This month’s first game sees us take on third-tier side Utsiktens BK in the second round of the Swedish cup. Apparently, the way this works is we need to win this to get through to the group stage, and then after the groups is a quarter/semis/final, because Swedish football like to shove a group stage in the middle of the knockouts instead of at the start or not at all, apparently.
We’re playing a very rotated side, including a first start at long last for Mattias Özgün at left back and another start for Mattias Berg in midfield. Vilhelmsson would be getting a game up front, but I forgot to take him off of under 19’s availability so he’s already played today. Oops. A lot of the rotation is forced, as this game actually takes place during the international break (so no Anestis, Yusuf, or Kharaishvili even if I wanted them). We should be alright though…
Matheus Pato gets us going in the 18th minute, tapping in the rebound of a saved Aiesh shot. Berg then makes it two, scoring a 25-yarder on 25 minutes after playing a one-two with right back Hereda. Utsiktens had a chance to equalise with 5 minutes left of the first half, but missed the mark, and Pato made them pay by grabbing his second of the game in added time. Three goals, 18 shots and 71% possession inside 45 minutes - we’re looking good.
The home side did manage to pull one back though, with their striker going through on the counter around 5 minutes into the second half. Not much else happened though, and we pretty easily saw out the game.
Before the next game, the club has had its election for the next chairman. The new bloke is called Peter Gustafsson, and all he’s done so far is cut ties with the affiliate club I wasn’t using anyway and say he’s not going to pump in any money. The board expectations might change soon, then - we’ll keep an eye on that.
Game 2: Varbergs BoIS Home
Our first league game in a while comes against Varbergs BK. It’s mostly a full-strength side, but injuries to Söder and Aiesh mean Karlsson-Lagemyr and Pato come in, and Wernbloom starts in defensive midfield as we give Johansson a rest with our first European game in mind.
We get a good early start, with Yusuf scoring a header from a free kick in the third minute. The first half is very quiet after that, though. In the second half, we bring on Berg and Sana for Yusuf and Kharaishvili so that the latter pair are fit for the midweek fixture, and after a lot of nothing Pato grabs a second in added time to secure the win.
Game 3: Zorya Luhansk Home [Euro Cup II]
Right.
The game after this one is against Hammarby in the league. We really don’t want to lose that one. But we also really don’t want to lose our first game in this competition. I’m going to rest all the players that show as injury risk of high, but other than that, we’ll go full-strength.
The players that seem at risk of injury are Yusuf, Kharaishvili and Holm. Their replacements, Berg, Karlsson-Lagemyr and Hereda, are all in great form so I’m not too worried. We are going to go with a balanced mentality, though, because Zorya are a good team and it should be an even game.
We get off to a good start - Söder puts us ahead in the 10th minute, but there’s only one shot for either team between the 20th minute and half time and it’s not even worth a highlight. I’ll take that, though, as we go in at half time leading.
One-goal leads are precarious, though, and Zorya teach us that lesson within two minutes of the second half with their first shot on target. This seems to wake us up though, as we go straight up the pitch after kickoff, and Tom Pearce crosses straight onto the head of Aiesh for his 6th goal of the season. Söder makes it three on 75 minutes, going through to chip the ‘keeper from a Kharaishvili through ball.
Not much happens from there, and we go on to win the game - unfortunately, even a half-hour cameo was too much for Kharaishvili who picks up a muscular injury. We’ll give him some drugs so he can get through the Hammarby game, but he’ll be out for a while after that. Oh well.
Game 4: Hammarby IF Away
The second of two really big games in a row, we go away to top-of-the-table Hammarby IF. We’ve proven we can bet them before, but not when they’re in this kind of form - like us, they’ve won each of their last 5 league games. However, with a win, we can seriously start thinking about title ambitions, considering we’re 9 points behind with 3 games in hand. By the time we’ve played as many games as everyone else, we could easily be top of the league - but if we don’t win this game, it looks a lot less likely.
Here’s the team - it’s my first choice XI, apart from the injured Kharaishvili (who’s on the bench in case we need him). We’ve got lots of nice green partnership lines between players, that midfield especially is nice, and we come into this game in good form. Let’s just hope it’s good enough to push past Hammarby…
We’re dominant from the off, and while the really early pressure doesn’t have any payoff, Söder does get us off the mark with a smart finish after half an hour. Five minutes later he grabs his second, tucking it into the far corner after a run down the right hand side.
Going into half-time with a comfortable lead, I decide to slow the game down in the second half and just see it off with more patient, less physically taxing play, as the players are tiring. It works for 40 minutes, but Hammarby pull one back in the 85th, leading to a nervy last 5 minutes. We hold on though, and the game ends as a solid 2-1 win.
Also, I’ve brought in Jack Wilshere on a 4-week trial. Because I can.
Game 5: Örebro SK Home
It was at this point, on the 22nd of August with 5 games left to play in the month, I realised we were going to be playing 5 games in 9 days. So I split my squad into two teams that will alternate each game - I won’t even pretend they’re of even quality, but it’s what we’ve got.
The weaker team is the one that’ll be playing this game, and it looks a bit like this:
A fully rotated backline featuring Bidounga and Kalley plays behind a midfield three of Wernbloom, Yusuf and Yago - the thinking is that with two of our 3 starting midfielders, we should be able to have enough control of the game that it doesn’t really matter that the rest of the side is second-string. Lemperle and Sana get rare starts on the wings either side of an in-form Matheus Pato.
We go ahead early, as Yago scores a tap-in from a Sana set piece for his first goal for the club. However, that was literally the only highlight in a very, very boring first half.
Yusuf and Yago come off for Berg and Erlingmark on the hour mark as we look to keep them fit for the rest of the week. Sana comes off for Karlsson-Lagemyr as we look to see the game out as we did against Hammarby. And we succeed; let’s run that back again 4 times now, please.
Game 6: Malmö FF Away
You’d think Malmö would be one of our main title rivals; the media prediction at the start of the season certainly did, putting them first. But they’ve actually been pretty average over the course of the season, finding themselves in 9th place ahead of this game. Let’s see if the other half of our squad can kick them while they’re down.
The other half of the squad sees a full-strength defense and front three, and a rotated midfield. Johansson starts at the 6, Melvin Berg starts at Mezzala due to his great recent form and he’s partnered by the experienced Sebastien Eriksson.
We dominate the first half. We pepper the Malmö goal with twelve shots; they don’t even get one in return. Unfortunately, only three are on target, and none of them are good enough chances to be worth a highlight. I bring on Yusuf for Eriksson on the hour mark in the hope that the extra quality will be enough to make a difference.
The catalyst comes when Karlsson-Lagemyr is brought down in the area for a penalty. Johansson converts, and Malmö will be forced to come out of their shell a bit more if they want anything from the game. Söder has a second disallowed for offside, but it doesn’t matter - we see out the game pretty easily, and Malmö don’t even threaten to make us rue our missed chances.
Also, we’ve signed Jack Wilshere on a free. You can’t tell me what to do.
Game 7: Helsingborgs Away
Our next match pits us against Helsingborgs, who are five points behind us in 5th. Back to the Örebro team for this one:
New boy Jack Wilshere makes the bench as Johansson is knackered. He’ll probably come on around the half-hour mark.
We go behind early, with Helsingborgs scoring from a long ball after 5 minutes, then score from a corner with 5 minutes before half time to go two up. We’ve been awful this first half, having plenty of the ball, but doing almost nothing with it.
I shout at them a bit at half time, though to be fair they’re all knackered after the run we’ve had. Aiesh, Söder and Eriksson come on at various times through the second half, but it doesn’t change anything. It’s a loss, and a deserved one.
Game 8: Norrköping Away
The final league match of this insane run, and it comes against 5th-place Norrköping. We’re level on points with Djurgårdens in second - win this and we go a long way towards securing that position more permanently, lose it and Norrköping leapfrog everyone around us to go second. It’s a close race, alright.
It’s the same team that beat Malmö, except Eriksson drops to the bench so that Wilshere can have his first start. I’m thinking I can make him into a really effective deep-lying playmaker given his passing abilities, though I’m not sure if he’s big enough physically to make it work.
As in the last game, we go behind early - coming from a long ball from the centre back, it’s a very similar goal to Helsingborgs’ first one too. We have the lion’s share of possession without doing much with it - that is, until the 35th minute when Aiesh gets pulled down for a penalty. Debutant Wilshere steps up (he’s the best at penalties on the pitch, apparently) and scores, pulling us back level.
The second half is very quiet until Norrköping grab a second on 75 minutes. Sana, Eriksson and Vilhelmsson are our rolls of the dice, and bringing on the young striker pays off - he scores from a corner to bring us level with 10 minutes to play.
And then it gets wild. We go for the win, scoring again in the 90th with a De Graca header from another set piece. Norrköping come straight back at us,equalising as we attempt to drop back. We go straight back on the offensive. Aiesh is free and scores. Three goals in three minutes.
Our second attempt at closing the game out is more successful, and we take home all three points from a suddenly very dramatic game. It was so eventful that we’ve got two full screenshots’ worth of match report:
Unfortunately, Johansson picked up an injury after I’d made all my subs, and he’ll miss the next week as a result.
Game 9: Aalborg Boldspilklub (AaB) Away [Euro Cup II]
We’re nearly there now.
Our final game of the month sees us travel to Denmark to take on AaB. While they didn’t win their first game, and we did, everyone is knackered so I don’t see us playing our usual game very effectively - especially not with this rotated side. As a result, we’re going on the counter-attack:
[AaB Squad]
This doesn’t get off to a great start, as we go down to a header from a corner inside 15 minutes. After about 25, I switch to our usual balanced tactic, as the counter-attacking system was doing absolutely nothing for us. This pays off just before half time as Yusuf scores from range, and we go into the break level.
The second half starts pretty badly, and AaB have a goal disallowed for offside around the 50 minute mark. Not much happens for most of the half, barring Kalley getting injured and having to be brought off for Özgün, but then substitute Karlsson-Lagemyr goes on a mazy run before putting through Pato, who chips the ‘keeper and sends us ahead. Yago seals the win with a minute to play, breaking from midfield to play a one-two with Pato and slot home a third. We haven’t played great, and our players are dead on their feet, but the difference between this game and a lot of the ones in this crazy run is we were clinical with our chances - four shots on target led to three goals. We take those.
Kalley’s injury isn’t great - he’ll miss the rest of the league season. Fortunately, Eriksson and Özgün should be plenty good enough to fill the gaps.
This is the part of the article where I’d normally show you the Euro Cup II table. But this week it’s pretty boring. Both us and Young Boys have won both games; AaB and Zorya have lost both games. We’re top on goal difference. Nice.
League Table
Next month we’ll finish off the league season, so let’s have a look at the the table before we get into it: , but let’s have a quick look at how the league is shaping up as we head into October:
So we’ve played one of our three games in hand, and now we’re three points off top spot with two games in hand. We’re only 5 points off of dropping out the top three though, so we really need to get results from the games in hand to secure our European spot. Our six remaining league games are Falkenbergs twice, Mjällby twice, Östersunds and Kalmar - all definitely winnable. If we do it, we win the title. Bring it on.