During January I’ve usually only got one thing to talk about – transfers.  However this January there was very little turnover in the playing staff.

Transfers

In came two players – Andreou Marinos, a Cypriot winger whose sole purpose is to help countryman Pabos Kleanthous settle now he is back from his leave of absence; and Ravel Morrison, an attacking midfielder I didn’t want from parent club Man Utd.

The main thing I wanted to do was reduce my wage bill this month as I am currently over-spent on wages.  I have Tonel’s contract expiring the end of the season and I needed money to renew that.  Furthermore the likes of Hooper, Juarez, McFadden, Commons are all out of contract the following summer.

Bogle and Towell had to leave on frees.  Their contracts were out in the next 18 months and although Towell is ok, he was never going to be a challenger for a first team place.  Liviu Ganea, who I thought was fairly decent, also left.  He had limited opportunities due to the emergence of Shane Sutherland this year (more on that later).

Other than that I also tried to shift Scott Allan, Marko Vejinovic and a few U19 players out on loan but without luck.  Finally, still almost £10k p/w over budget I tried to sell Baba, only for the transfer to be cancelled because it wasn’t concluded in time.

Contracts

The wage situation looks like this.

And the players out of contract in the next 18 months are as follows.

Of these, I regard only Tonel and Hooper as must renew. I’ve offered one to Tonel which he looks like he’ll accept.   I don’t know where I got the money from for it though.

I offered Hooper a contract and eventually agreed on all but one term – a minimum fee release clause (foreign club).  He wants just £1.1million and I simply refuse to give him it at all.  It looks like he’ll need to be sold in the summer

McFadden and Juarez contracts should be renewed.  Commons, Stokes and Vilar are maybes while Slane is almost certainly no, as are the loans.  What are your thoughts?

Results

We played games in each of the SPL, Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup.  So how did we fare?

An unbeaten month.  But the cost of 6 games is never-ending fatigue in all of my players.

The ironic thing is this month I rotated the squad, using a lot of the players who were not getting as many games.  This was all kicked off because Victor Wanyama wanted first team football and I promised it to him.  I realised that with only domestic games coming up, and most of them against easier opposition this was the time to do it.  Have a look at some of the line-ups.

Forster in goal, Matthews at right back, Hanlon at centre back, Forrest on the right wing, Wanyama in centre mid, Sutherland up-front.  All of these are quite young players and they played well.  Take note of the injuries – these forced my hand a little throughout the rest of the month.

Another good result in the Scottish Cup and again Forster, Hanlon, Matthews (at left back!), Wanyama and Sutherland played.  The latter was really starting to catch my eye at this point, performing excellently as a Target Man with Attack duty.

And so it continued with the young players against St. Johnstone and Motherwell.  It wasn’t until the Kilmarnock game that things started to look a bit sketchy.

Sometimes you can just feel a game isn’t going too well.  This was one of those.  I don’t know why, maybe it was because we took forever to score, but I never felt confident during this game and I wasn’t surprised when we conceded a late goal.

With Hearts (2nd place in the SPL) on the weekend following this Inverness game, I decided to continue playing the fringe players in the Scottish League Cup.

For those of you who didn’t count, that was 8 penalties in the shoot-out, not including the one Inverness got in extra time!  Although I had that same bad feeling as in the Kilmarnock game,  I am glad we came through with my youthful team having been instrumental in getting to the final!

Rotation and youth development

As the title of this article suggests, this was all done to ensure my young players progressed.  I rotated the squad, moving the young players in and out of the team to get the right “fit” for each match.  I have now managed to give all of my young players at least 4 starts this season.  Some of them have even reached the 15 game barrier just over half-way through the season while others will break it soon.  This is the number of games recommended by Darren Smith in this excellent article on youth development, though I admit I have used it for slightly older players (those under 24 rather than just 17/18 year olds).

For players like Hanlon, Rogne and Sutherland I think I am already reaping the rewards.  Who knows, maybe Wanyama, Forrest, Matthews, Allan and Vejinovic will follow?

Competitions

The SPL table looks like this.

We’ve increased our lead over 2nd place Hearts to 8 points and there is now 9 points between us and Rangers.  This serves as proof to me that it is safe for me to rotate and bring in the young players.

In the Scottish Cup, as you saw, we beat Aberdeen and will now face Kilmarnock (away) in the 5th round (last 16).

In the Scottish League Cup we will defend our trophy in the final against giant-killers Partick Thistle!

Players

Overall most players are still playing very well.  Hats off to Shane Sutherland, the 22 year old striker who is my best player according to the table above.  However there are a lot of first team regulars, such as Rogne, Forrest, Thompson, Forster and Vilar with average ratings less than 7.00 which is a concern.

Injury watch

Last month I reduced the training intensity, mainly lowering the sliders on Strength and Aerobic training.

The squad was suffering from injuries to Ledley, Hamad and McFadden, which continued into this month.  These forced my squad rotation, even if I hadn’t wanted to do it.  There were further injuries to Mulgrew and Hanlon during the month too.

Only Hanlon is injured now and he picked that up during a match.  So I think the reduced training is having the right effect.  However this meant that I could not reduce my wage costs by cancelling the loan of Julian Koch.

U19s

The youth team continue their good run of form under new manager Erick Mombaerts whom I appointed last month.  They are still top of the U19 league, but with a three point gap now.

There are a lot of good performances from the young Celts too.

Finances

No surprises here, we lost money in January, mostly owing to poor gate receipts, no prize money and high wages.

Upcoming fixtures

February, and the beginning of March, promises to be the most crucial 5 weeks of this season.

How I will balance the squad, with the Rangers game coming after the second A.C. Milan game, I do not know.  But one can say this month will have a big say in the SPL and my European campaign for this season.

Anyway – what are your thoughts on youth development in Football Manager?