So I took the reins at Leicester City and told the board that I will achieve promotion in my first year. The board gave me £4 million to do this, which after a slight tinkering with the wage budget I increased to £7.5 million.
Our first friendly was only 5 days away, and after looking at the squads fitness ( too many late nights and all day drinking sessions in Ibiza) I decided to cancel the game, and prepare for the home game against Sunderland in 10 days time.
Now I am a big fan of Argentinian players, and noticed the squad was lacking a player from the land of steak and wine. I wanted my own Mascherano or Cambiasso, so I scouted a few prospects and settled for Adrian Calello from Dinamo Kiev for a paltry £350k. Calello has all the qualities of a midfield warhorse with high teamwork, tackling, fitness and positioning attributes. The team already had a fair few defensive mid-fielders and a few of them showed their displeasure at Calello’s arrival. I assured them I would be selling some players on to balance the team out, but I didn’t say who.
The Sunderland game arrived and my team lined up as follows:
Schmeichal, Pantsil, Mills (c), Bamba, Tunchev, Abe, Calello, Fernandes, Gallagher, Beckford, Vassell.
We started brightly, but wasted plenty of early chances. We took the lead on 34 minutes through Darius Vassell who headed home from a Beckford flick on. The first half ended 1-0. My team talk was perhaps too relaxed as just after the break on 52 minutes Bendtner rose home to equalise. The game finished 1-1 which I was satisfied with for the first game of the season. Calello had a decent game, winning 100% of his tackles and broke up a lot of the play in the middle of the park.
The first observation of my team was that we were lacking in the right hand side of midfield. We had a few players who could play on the right, but were not fully experienced, so I sent out my scouts and they brought Elias Hernandez to my attention. Hernandez currently played for Pachuca in Mexico, but wasn’t happy, and for £700k, and an experienced international to boot, I couldn’t say no. I was also hoping he would turn out to be as successful as his name sake at Manchester United. As soon as news broke out of Hernandez’s arrival the fans were jubilant, and couldn’t wait to see him in action.
Not content with one South American we are currently awaiting a work permit application for another in the form of Ecudorian Luis Bolanas, another international who operates on the left of midfield with outstanding pace.
Our next game is against Hinckley away from home, where I am hoping to throw Hernandez in and for us to score a hat full of goals, stay tuned….
