My Latics Fantasy (fly eagles fly)

Name: fly eagles fly

My manager: Steve Bruce

His management team will be:

Eric Black, Frank Barlow, Keith Bertschin, Nigel Spink and Ray Mathias (note: this is the only thing, but I swiped this from worbo’s fantasy team… don’t know these guys too well so I figured his list would do.)

Player of the Year will be:

Antonio Valencia

Top Scorer:

Djibril Cisse – 14 goals

Newcomer of the Year:

Djibril Cisse

We will finish:

In the English Premier League: 12th

In the FA Cup: knocked out very early

In the Carling Cup: Quarterfinal Loss

This is how I will shape my squad.

Players to be released for free or top £100,000 (2-3):

Aghahowa, Olembe

Players I will sell (3-4):

Carlo Nash (250,000, Stoke), Henri Camara (1,000,000, Stoke or Hull), Jason Koumas (5,000,000, Blackburn), Andreas Granqvist (1,000,000, Groningen), Antoine Sibierski (1,000,000, don’t care)

Players I will buy:

Amr Zaki (loan – 1,500,000 plus 4,500,000 later), Djibril Cisse (6,000,000), Sebastian Larsson (3,000,000), Maynor Figueroa (loan – 1,000,000 to buy), Hendry Thomas (loan – 1,000,000 to buy), Quentin Westberg (500,000)

Predictions/commentary on the signings:

Zaki is the take-a-chance, potentialrrific guy that we can take a flyer on and hope he’s the guy we thought he’d be; he’ll step up, be our bonafide third stringer and fight for a starting place he deserves.

At the end of the season he’ll sign permanently and Heskey will move on somewhere else. Cisse is that speedster/finisher that Heskey needs to play off of him, he’ll add some much needed pace, experience, finishing and composure to our team, and should also help us out by helping to eliminate the ‘little Wigan’ tag.

He won’t go crazy, but with Heskey’s help should easily achieve double figures in goals this upcoming year. Zaki will become second-leading scorer with eight.

Re the midfield, Larsson was an easy signing, by far the classiest player on the classiest team to go down this year. Bruce – noted to not be Koumas’ biggest fan – will sell him the moment someone offers 5 million and will jump on Larsson as his replacement.

Versatile Seb will start at left mid and take free kicks, but can fill in on the right or in the middle if we need anything, with Kilbane or Taylor playing the left as needed, and will take over as the starting right winger when Valencia graduates to a bigger team in a year as he’s stated this offseason.

Our back four is boosted only with the addition of Figueroa, who like Thomas is taken on a season-long loan and bought after six months.

Westberg is our new 3rd string keeper, a French upbringing combined with American goalkeeping genes for a player who’s a soon-to-be USA U-23 international – can realistically be swapped with any young keeper with potential but I figured he’d be a good one to try – and a good way to fit an American into my squad in the absence of… well, we’ll get to him later.

My Squad (20 members, with some classic Dave Whelan one-for-oneing):

Kirkland, Pollitt, Westberg, Edman, Figueroa, Boyce, Bramble, Scharner, Melchiot, Taylor, Kilbane, Larsson, Brown, Thomas, Palacios, Valencia, King, Heskey, Zaki, Cisse.

We will be playing:

The ball up front to Heskey, for him to hold up to dish to Cisse/Zaki or to a group of mids who with Larsson should be able to score. Valencia also given more open space to work with on the wing; he could have a breakout year this year, especially feeding to guys like Heskey and Zaki in the middle.

My Latics team will play:

4-4-2.

5-3-2 with Taylor and Figueroa as wing backs would be my ideal to build around but that’s way too far of a stretch.

My starting XI for the season will be:

Kirkland, Figueroa, Boyce, Scharner, Melchiot, Larsson, Brown, Palacios, Valencia, Heskey, Cisse

My Subs: Zaki, King, Kilbane, Bramble, Pollitt

Comment:

Had to use everything I had not to force Landon Donovan in there – he’d be reasonably inexpensive, is certainly talented enough, can take free kicks and score goals, plus I think he’d want to come (I can elaborate for days on this if you let me).

We just didn’t need a second striker or an attacking or right mid and Donovan’s not the out-and-out striker than I think Cisse can be. Rest assured I still want to sign him and given his skill set he should be a great complement to Heskey – I definitely think he could fit in. (In fact, maybe I’ll do this a second time…)


So yeah, let me know how this sounds, corrections/revisions welcome as I know some of you guys have some frequent disagreements with my opinions – so I’m welcome to advice.





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