Football Manager Blog | Football Manager Guru | Leeds United Crowned Champions of League 1

Leeds United, Fallen Giants

In the history of the Premier League, there were many giants in Football who were relegated. Long before Newcastle was relegated to Championship, another big club like them, Leeds United was relegated and ran into financial difficulty. Before they were relegated, Leeds United was one of the sides in the Premier League that played exciting football. I will always remember when I started watching the EPL, Leeds had a young and talented starting 11. Harry Kewell was a menace down the left wing, Viduka, Hasselbaink and Alan Smith was ruthless in front of goal. Oliver Dacourt bossed the midfield, and Ian Harte was their freekick specialist. Paul Robinson was their young talented keeper, and I will always remember that epic high-scoring draw against Real Madrid.

My Aim

My goal in this save of Football Manager is to bring LUFC back to top flight football, the premier League. When I just took over the squad, I realised the Leeds squad was relatively strong for a League 1 side and with a few signings, I should be able to make LUFC the dominant force in League 1.

Transfers Out

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LUFC had a pathetic budget of 1 million at the start and the wage budget was extremely tight. This forced me to sell players during pre-season and also during the Winter transfer season. As you can see from the screenshot below, I made a net gain of 7 million. A couple of players to highlight, Zenden was signed for free at the start of the season and resold for 2.4 million during the winter transfer season. He was a great playmaker for me but I just could not resist making a profit of 2.4 million of him, especially since he is approaching old age. Another player was Robert Snodgrass who was a talented winger for me that came through the Leeds academy. However 1.8 million is once again alot of money. And I had to prepare my transfer budget warchest for the next season in Championship (yes, I was that confident of winning League 1). While these two players were hard to replace, I was able to pick up a few really cheap players over the course of Season 1.

Transfers In

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My highlight buys are as follow.

Henri Camara: Bought for free at the start of the season, finished top scorer of League 1 with 43 goals, and the most man of the match at 14.

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Rohan Ricketts: Former Arsenal trainee, also signed for free, finished with the most assists in a season, standing at 25.

Ze Maria: Brazillian right wing-back who is voted the player of the year at LUFC by the fans, with the highest average rating of 7.52 throughout the whole season with 43 appearances. He also won player of the year for League 1. He scored 13 goals and made 17 assists from a DR position. Great attacking asset. Sadly, I did not resign him for my 2nd season with Leeds, as I think his deteriorating physical stats are just not cut out for the Championship League.

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Joel Lindpere: Also signed for free, turned out to be a great piece of business as he is actually Championship material. He was brought in to fill Zenden’s shoes, which he did admirably. A free player to replace a player sold for 2.4 million, sounds like profit to me. He is currently my first choice winger for the Championship League.

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Tactics

This is the tactic I used for Leeds United. I play a high-defensive line for quick counterattacks when regaining possession. I have a DM playing as anchorman, and an MC as a deep lying playmaker in a support role. The two AML and AMR are played as advanced playmakers. Jancker is played as my targetman with the ball played onto his feet, with Camara a pacy striker playing off him.

Crowned Champions of League One

It was an easy season for me in League One, and I guess, the greatest challenge for me was to raise as much funds as possible so I can have a bigger transfer budget in Season 2.

Leeds sitting pretty at 1st position in the Championship

This is where the real challenge starts. 7 games into the Championship, I have won 6 and lost 1, largely due to a strengthened side after given an 11 million transfer budget. Even then, I am finding it so much more difficult to win matches, the gap between League One and Championship is really significant. But more on that in the next post. I will be updating this series of blog posts after half a season. See you in the EPL.