My Scouting Report

Since Southampton needs a speedy right side attacking player and a defender who can play both in the center and on the right, I decided to see whether I could develop a plausible list of targets using Football Manager (FM) 2014 and the internet.

Right Attacking Midfielder

I created a large data base game for FM 2014 which included all nations.  I chose to play as Manchester United because they had a lot of scouts.   I spent a couple of weeks scouting players and then ran a search.

I screened for players 27 or younger, with good pace, who played right attacking midfielder and had an EU passport.

Then I eliminated any player who was playing for a clearly bigger club, unless the club was one that tended to sell players like Sporting or Athletico Madrid.  I also screened out players who had changed clubs or signed a new long term contract this. (This eliminated five plausible candidates.)

Next, I used the  FM Editor to arrange the players in order of their current ability (CA) with potential ability (PA) as the tie breaker. I chose this order because we need someone to play now more than we need someone for the future.  Also, I think PA is less reliable than CA.  Here is the list:

Player                                      CA                                           PA

Alessio Cerci                           151                                          160
Andros Townsend                   143                                          155
Patrick Herrman                      142                                          157
Alexandre Lacazette                140                                          -9
Luciano Narsingh                    137                                          157
Emilio Nsue                             137                                          150
Maximilian Beister                  136                                          148
Henri Saivet                             135                                          150
Callum McManaman               134                                          160
Nathan Redmond                     131                                          160
Lass Bangoura                         130                                          150
Ryan Mendes da Graca            127                                          150
Alvaro Vadillo                         126                                          -8

The negative numbers are for players whose PA is undefined.  -9 is better than -8.   -10 is the best possible score and is very rare.  Just for comparison, our best 11 last year had an average CA of 143.

This shows just hard difficult it is to improve upon last year’s team.  The players who are good enough to do so are generally ones whom we either could not afford or could not sign.  I should mention, however, that according to FM, the players on this list are all ones to whom we could afford to offer a significantly improved salary.

Nevertheless, this does not look like a bad list.  In fact, it might almost be the actual list Southampton is using (especially if they are using Prozone’s Recruiter) since the top two names on this list appear to be the team’s top two targets.

If I were playing FM and I had this information (which I wouldn’t because I don’t use the editor when I play the game) I would probably go after Lacazette first because of his high PA.  Cerci would be my second choice and I would take McManaman or Redmond over Townsend because of their higher PA and lower price.  I would pass on the two players with CAs in the 120s and anyone whose PA is 150 or less.

Defender

Using the same game, I searched for players from 20 to 28 who were at least partially capable of playing both right back and center back.  I did not limit myself to EU players, but that did not matter because no non-EU players ended up making the cut.  (This might be because such players were not on Manchester United’s scouting horizon in the game.)  I also screened for a minimum of 12 (out of 20) skill on the three basic defensive skills.  Again, I eliminated recent signings, which removed three good prospects from the list, including Stefan de Vrij, and players for bigger teams.  I ruled out Benedikt Howedes because I just do not see us convincing a German on a high salary to join us from Schalke.

Player                                      CA                                           PA

Gary Medel                               148                                          155
Micah Richards                         147                                          161
Robert Huth                              145                                          152
Toby Alderweireld                   140                                          155
Mikael Lustig                           140                                          143
Serge Aurier                             138                                          160
Sergio Sanchez                         138                                          150
Santiago Vergini                      137                                          154

Once again, the shortness of the list demonstrates just how difficult it is to find players who are good enough for us, but not too good.

I left Micah Richards on the list because he is in the last year of his contract and, supposedly, is available. According to FM, he currently makes 60K a week.  We could probably afford that, but I am not sure we should—well, actually, if he really is a 147 who will improve to a 161 we should grab him immediately but, obviously, the real world is not Football Manager.

Nevertheless, overall this list appears to be a viable list of prospects.  The one alleged target whose name has been leaked is on the list.  The problem is that everyone on the list would expect to start regularly.  With a normal number of injuries, that would probably happen, but our current back line of Bertrand, Gardos/Yoshida, Fonte, and Clyne would have to give up some starts to keep any newcomer happy.

I am off on a week’s vacation (or holiday, if you prefer).  I should be able to watch the West Ham game on my ipad.  Enjoy your Labor Day weekend.