Life in Football Manager

I have constantly been banging my head against a brick wall for the last couple of days to how best to publish this series of articles. So I think that I am going to profile each of the managers individually otherwise we could see this article going forever. Eight seasons of the game have thrown up some interesting results.

What if… what?

I thought that we would start in Italy, basically because Ince is the only manager on my shortlist that has left our small Island for the big boot in the sea. Paul Ince who had spent two years at Nerazzurri before, signing in the season of 1995/96. He had a successful period in Milan becoming a Milano favourite, this was more down to his commitment and charm as while at the San Siro Inter didn’t manage to win a thing finishing 7th and 3rd in the two years. But Ince had a helping hand in getting them into the UEFA cup final which was lost to Schalke 4-1 on penalities. Now Ince has returned to finish the job he had started, to win something with Milan.

Season 2007/08

Paul’s first season couldn’t have been any better winning Serie A title with ease, something that we seen as a trend at the moment. Nerazzurri finished the season 15 points clear of their ground sharing rivals AC Milan, Ibrahimovic instantly becoming a favourite of Paul’s scoring 32 goals and an average rating of 7.88, in the league over 35 games out of 38 he averaged 7.92. Paul also won the Italian Super Cup against Roma and Italian cup defeating their rivals in the semi final of the Italian cup to setup a tie with Cagliari in the final Viera’s extra time goal securing the win. The signings that actually came into the side never made much of a difference surprising when £22 million was spent on two players Makoun playing only one game and Palombo coming in for £12 million from Sampdoria played 25 games not really making much of a difference in any of them, taking the runners up award for the worst signing of the season. Why Ince felt that he had to spend so much money in the defensive midfield position when he still had Viera and Cambiasso in the team I don’t know. In the Champions League Inter found their way to the quarter finals before they hit any real challenge, which proved too much, Sevilla’s two goals in Spain canceled out Chivu’s first minute strike at the San Siro. Other awards for the Inter team Stankovic took the foreign player of the year, Ceaser the goalkeeper of the year and Ince naturally took the best manager award.

Season 2008/09

Ince must have had a shocking amount of money to spend in his second season as he dished out £87 million on players, but if Paul had read review of the Inter team at One FM he would have learned that throwing money at his team is not the way Inter have found success. This season was no different as Inter only managed a third place finish. Looking at the league table Roma managed to win the league with just 68 points a close affair this season which Ince should have capitalised on with the quality of his new signings Palermo finished second on 65 and Inter 64. A majority of the big buck were spent on Giuseppe Rossi for £34.5 million and with 33(8) games he scored 15 goals only 9 of them in the league, meaning his goal fee ratio was £2.3 million for every goal. Rossi managed to keep out Suazo who only managed 3 goals himself all of them shadowed by Zlatan’s 29. It was a poor performance from the rest of the team that saw Inter lose their way this season, Chivu the only other putting in a performance worthy of the Italian giants. The rest of the budget was spent on Pedretti (£10.25 million), Huntlaar (£16.5 million), Rafinha (£10.25 million) and Belluschi who had spent a year with Palmero came in half way through the season for £15.75 million. Notably leaving was Zanetti who mutally terminated his contract to setup a pub in Spain. Adriano also left in the January to Sevilla and finished with a good display in Spain himself. Milan did better in Europe this season managing to progress a stage further to the Semi Finals, again they were undone by another second rate Spanish team. They did manage the Italian cup final but lost out to Lazio, three goals from a bargain bought Adebayor, earning him the best signing of the season, made it a cupless season for Ince. It seems the trend at the moment is that Ince is spending millions on players who are just not performing. Maybe he got lucky with his first season and in his attempt to reshape his team has unsettled everyone.

Season 2009/10

Another season of spending, £87 million being the magic number again, surely the board wouldn’t settle for anything other total world domination with figures like that, Ince has totalled £195 million in spending, obviously we have a patient board at Milan. But Serie A definitely produced some surprises in this season, both Milan and Fiorentina failed to make European places. Runners up last season Palermo were 2 points shy of the drop. But the biggest shock of them all was newly promoted Cagliari who were relegated in the first season came straight up to win the league by 3 points ahead of last years champions Roma, 4 points behind on 67 points was Inter. It was actually the Ince’s former assistant Sinisa Mihajlovich who lead Cagliari to victory. In the market Ince made a mixture of big signings and quiet squad fodder. Xabi Alonso broke Ince’s transfer record spending £35 million. Lucas (£12.75million) followed Xabi, Marchisio commanded a total of £16 million between two team to arrive at the San Siro and FM/CM legend for all the nostalgics Saviola signed the dotted line. Former Juve midfielder Nocerino tied up the rest of the big names coming via Villarreal (£14.5 million). Daniele Federici came back to the San Siro after a season with Pro Sesto, a free transfer who is a natural in five different positions all over the pitch. Palombo left for Valencia for a healthy profit surprising Valencia saw it fit to spend £18 million for him.

It was a better performance from Ince’s signings this season, Ibrahimovic again had an excellent season finishing top goalscorer once again. Rossi the winner of the seasons young player award, partnered Zlatan gaining 16 goals and a fine performance this season to eventually start paying back his bill. The partnership between the two seems to have something to build on for next season and hopefully will save Paul’s job. Xabi, Saviola and Belluschi have all settled in well the latter getting 15 goals from the midfield to establish him as a first team player unfortunately Huntlaar didn’t see a single minute of action making him a very unhappy guy indeed. Unfortunate really because I am sure that he could have added something to the team once he had been around for a year or two. Paul did manage to win the Italian cup once again Reggina in the final this time Ibrahimovic’s fine display won a scrappy game. The Champions League is another competition which Paul seems to be forever improving, passing Manchester United to setup a quarter final tie with Liverpool but Torres was too much at Anfield.

Season 2010/11

For 2010/11 season normal play resumed. Finally after another £39 million of splashed around Paul Ince took his second league title, helped no doubt by the 49 goals that the Rossi and Ibrahimovic partnership produced. The league title is getting closer and very unpredictable Fiorentina taking second 5 points behind Inter and AC Milan managed a UEFA cup place in 5th. It seems like the players who struggled when they first arrived have now gelled together and both new and old are producing the goods, Maxwell and Chivu putting in the performances needed to win the league this season. The new guys were Abidal (£11.75 million) who arrived from Barcelona after three successful seasons, Derby made a profit with Dervite who at 22 still has a bright future and arrived for £12.75 million although the Italian press gave him the worst signing of the year award, something that seems common of Ince’s dealings. The strangest signing and the biggest of the season was right back Behrami £14.25 million, he looks good on paper but he hasn’t really put the performances in on the pitch to warrant such a high fee. Nocerino went the other way to join Barca after not really making it at Inter, playing only 8 games over the two season, being disappointing, but after 12 games with the Spaniards seems to have found his calling.

Paul’s biggest success of the season and his Inter career so far has to be his Champions League win. Knocking out Real Madrid and Arsenal on the road to Klagenfurt were Inter met Barcelona. a tight game which over 120 minutes only produced 10 chances a piece. Injury to Ibrahimovic in the 29th minute must have had the fans heads in their arms, But it was his replacement Saviola who in the 95th minute broke the deadlock and brought European success to the San Siro. Maybe it was Internazionale’s early exit in the Italian cup to Genoa that gave them that little more time to prepare and concentrate on Europe. Zlatan took the player of the year award and Ince took manager of the year.

Season 2011/12

Ince must now feel that he has the team how he wants it all the windows are in and the building is complete. But Inter continued there strange yo yo like form as this season they finished 9th a disappointing season, I think it was only last years success that has meant that Ince wasn’t sacked, but after talking to the board he took the decision to resign. He made two signings this season, Forsyth a backup goalkeeper arrived on a Bosman and Brazilian Kardec joins the collection of strikers at the team for £11 million. Rossi and Ibrahimovic still dominated scoring 41 goals. It was the defensive side of the team that let everything down this season Chivu having his weakest season yet and non of his other colleagues making much of a reputation for themselves. With exception of Maicon who continued his good service to the club. Spartak Moscow made sure that Inter couldn’t defend their title after beating them both home and away in the 1st knockout stage. Juve also dumped Milan out of the Cup making, the only success in the season the Club World Championships and winning this can’t be construed as a successful season. Out went Lucas and Rafiniha after very few games at the club.

After Ince’s departure,l Inter have failed to perform, since winning the Champions League Milan have failed to qualify for the for the competition until the former Chelsea assistant Steve Clark took over and finished 4th in 2015 and winning the Italian cup in 2014. Reggina winning the league and Napoli and Genoa all becoming the title challengers, Parma and Palermo all seeing relegation between the periods, just showing how interesting the Italian league is for just throwing up unpredictable results. 33 year old Ibrahimovic slowly seen a decline in first team minutes, but even still his performances continued to dominate. The same season that saw Ince resign saw former Manchester City coach Tommy Soderberg and Martin O’Neill come and go in the same season before the settled with Clarke. Ince although hasn’t retired in football has yet to manage another club and still waits in the wing for the perfect chance for him to come back, maybe he is waiting for the Liverpool or Manchester United job?

So does Paul Ince answer are conundrum, Is it the manager who makes the team, or the team who makes the manager? Well I would like to think that without Ince Inter Milan would have dominated Serie A consistently instead of winning the odd title. It was probably the vasts amount of money that was spent by Paul on players that managed to get him any success at all, that and the gem that is Zlatan who was able to dominate Serie A all on his own rarely finishing top goalscorer. So in this case I would say it was the team that made the manager, sorry Paul.

Paul Ince