I hope you’ve been enjoying the opening chapters of this new Football Manager 2021 series. I’ve certainly enjoyed taking a more light-hearted approach to my blogging.
To recap the story so far, Shama Deadman has begun his managerial career at Cambrian & Clydach in Wales’ second division. We met his new team for the first time in Part 1, while Part 2 saw him struggle to get to grips with the Cymru South – and a stubborn chairman.
In today’s chapter, Shama’s first season reaches its halfway point as we get through the long, cold Welsh winter. Meanwhile, the temperature in the Cambrian dressing room is starting to heat up…
SHAMA GETS ANGRY
Saturday 12 December 2020. My Cambrian & Clydach side had just played against Risca – bottom of the Cymru South, with just one win from 13 matches – and I was fuming. So much so that as soon as I entered the home dressing room, I picked up a water bottle and hurled it towards captain Ceri Morgan, who muttered, “Someone’s not happy.”
“Damn right, I’m not,” I shouted. “I’ve only been here for four months, but that was THE most INCOMPETENT excuse of a performance I’ve ever seen from you lot!
“I’ve seen Sunday League teams defend better than you did today! How the hell could you concede FOUR goals AT HOME to the WORST team in the league?! They don’t even have a manager, for goodness sake!”
I then pointed at centre-back Connor Young and told him, “And don’t think I’m finished with you, Connor, after I subbed you at half-time! Just because you’ve signed a new contract until next season doesn’t mean you can take it easy now! You may be one of our better defenders, but your place isn’t secure – especially not if you lose track of the runner so easily!”
Striker Ryan Prosser piped up, “Excuse me, Shama… but we won the game, didn’t we?”
“That’s not the point, Ryan! Good work again on getting those two quick goals for us, but you could’ve had a hat-trick if you didn’t get caught offside all the time! I swear you’ve had more flags than a vexillologist!”
Glancing towards attacking midfielder Liam Edwards, I said, “At least you’ve shown today that we’re not just a one-man team! I thought you were great again, Liam, but your back must be hurting from all the times you’ve carried us!
“You defenders need to take a lot more responsibility, ‘cos this kid won’t keep bailing us out forever! He’s far too talented for this league, and we all know it!
“This isn’t the first time we’ve come close to throwing away a 3-0 lead this season. I REALLY hope it’s the last.
“At any rate, we will need to make big changes next month to stay out of a relegation battle. Let me make it clear now – you are ALL fighting for your places. Shape up, or ship out!”
With my words ringing in their ears, the players knew exactly what they had to do. This HAD to be a turning point in our season.
DECEMBER 2020
We endured a rough start to December, only barely getting past non-league Tredegar in the Welsh Cup. It took us 81 painful minutes to break the deadlock through our saviour-in-chief Edwards before we booked our place in Round 4 – the Last 16 stage. If there were any positives to take out of that, we kept our first clean sheet in nearly three months, and our new signing enjoyed a solid debut in midfield.
This is Emanuele Zaminga – an athletic Italian stallion who has an impressive first touch, and better passing ability than most of our other midfielders (which isn’t saying a lot). Zaminga briefly played for Bangor City last year, but his future surely lies beyond Welsh football.
A week later, we began a run of three straight home league games with that nine-goal thriller against Risca. I still can’t figure out how we fell apart so suddenly after going 3-0 up in the first 10 minutes, and then 5-2 up with 18 minutes remaining. On another day, against a much better team, we surely wouldn’t have taken all three points.
Prosser followed up his double in that match by going one better in our 4-1 victory over Undy. Ryan kicked off his hat-trick with this excellent strike from a 4th-minute free-kick by goalkeeper Cameron Clarke, and Zaminga helped him finish it just before full-time. This match also saw 21-year-old left-back Lloyd Davies score his first senior goal, having recently become an unlikely regular in our defence.
Sadly, we then fired blanks against Afan Lido on Boxing Day. Lido sliced through our defence midway into the first half before brilliantly subduing Edwards and suffocating Prosser to end our five-game unbeaten run.
We ended 2020 sitting six points above the drop zone… but 13 adrift of the leaders. Mid-table mediocrity was perhaps the best we could hope for now.
JANUARY 2021
A new year meant a new transfer window – and my first chance to make major changes to an underperforming squad. My clearout effectively began in October, when I sacked winger Lewis Reed and allowed backup goalkeepers Dan Bradley and Jarred Howells to join new clubs. Now it was time to throw away the rest of my deadwood.
Cam Strinati, Keiron Coles and Josh Owen were all released on New Year’s Day. Strinati had started the campaign as our first-choice left-back, but a series of mistakes saw him lose his spot. Owen was basically a utility midfielder, and Coles played only twice for us at centre-half.
Carn Thomas left us too, with the young right-back signing for Cefn Albion after failing to break through. However, one man who wouldn’t leave was left-footed wideman Josh Bull, who just wasn’t fitting into my team. I tried to shift Bull’s £120-a-week wages onto another club, but Josh rejected every offer that came his way.
Despite having several players on my radar, I only managed to bring through one new signing in January. Londoner Scott Tomlinson is an experienced and creative midfielder with plenty of stamina who last played at Briton Ferry.
To kick off 2021, we battled past Goytre United in a tense contest, eventually snatching a 1-0 victory late on. Keen not to be overshadowed by our other goalkeeper’s assist a few weeks earlier, Neil Collins bombed a long ball forward to substitute midfielder Dai Thomas, who broke free and drove in his first goal of the season.
Collins then stood firm to record our second clean sheet of the league season – our first since we beat United by the same score on the opening day! However, it was not all smiles, as playmaker Kyle Jones‘ recent upturn in form was cut short by a cruciate ligament injury.
We then recorded another single-goal away win against Llantwit Major. Prosser hit his 10th goal of the season early on, following a couple of excellent crosses from Davies and Ellis. Attacking midfielder Joshua Williams was harshly sent off for a mistimed tackle in the closing stages, but we still managed to take home the points.
And then, a fortnight later… disaster. We got ourselves knocked out of the Welsh Cup by Ton Pentre – our local rivals from the third division. Those statistics say it all.
Our defending was diabolical in the first half, and our shot conversion wasn’t much better. Prosser did try to lead a mini-comeback – scoring in the 80th minute before having an equaliser disallowed for offside – but it was too little, too late. We’d thrown away a fantastic chance to reach a cup Quarter Final.
To make matters worse, centre-backs Jarrad Wright and Mark Crutch each suffered injuries in that game. That meant I had to promote Regan Fear from the Under-19s and start him alongside Young in our next game.
Regan had a fearless debut against Lee Trundle’s Ammanford, but it was another teenager who earned us a 1-0 win. Substitute striker Dylan Reid pounced on a late defensive slip-up to score his first league goal.
With nearly two-thirds of the season gone, we were back in the top half, and relegation was no longer a major concern. We’d probably left it too late for a title charge, but a respectable finish was definitely on the cards.
FEBRUARY 2021
A couple more players left us in February. After eight appearances and zero goals for us this season, misfiring striker Samuel Johnson took his pens and poetry to Conwy in the Cymru North.
Clarke also headed north after signing for Airbus UK, but I wasn’t too disappointed to see the young keeper leave. I’d been rotating him and Collins all season long, with the older goalie finally establishing himself as number 1 after keeping three clean sheets in January.
Meanwhile, I signed a couple of 16-year-old free agents to add extra depth to the squad. Centre-back Harry Blake got injured on his youth-team debut, and striker Jamie Wilson isn’t quite ready to play, so I’ll introduce you to them properly in the next chapter.
After his heroics against Ammanford, Reid again came off the bench to score another late winner – this time in a dreary match at Cwmbran Celtic. Or at least we thought it was a late winner until Celtic came back and equalised in stoppage time. Personally, I’ve always preferred Cwmbran Rangers…
There was further disappointment when we hosted league leaders Pontypridd. A fit-again Wright had headed us into the lead from Edwards’ 54th-minute corner, but our defence collapsed late on as the Dragons scored three times in the final 11 minutes to end our slim title hopes. Perhaps Collins wasn’t the right man to keep goal for us after all?
Oi, Harry Churchill! You have good reflexes, you can catch a ball, and you’re a young man with plenty of room to develop! Would YOU like to be our new goalkeeper? “Ohhhh yes!”
But can you keep a debut clean sheet against your former club Swansea University? “Ohhhh… no, no, no, no.”
To be fair, Harry didn’t do a lot wrong. Edwards ended a two-month goal drought to give us an early advantage, but Swansea then scored twice on the stroke of half-time, and we never recovered. Immediately after our heaviest defeat of the season, I decided to axe one of our disastrous defenders.
Foster might share his name with an Australian beer brand, but his performances at right-back have been XXXX. He’s lethargic, his positioning has been poor, and an average rating of 6.54 across 16 matches is just shocking. I might as well give one of our teenagers a chance instead. Get out of my sight, Lewis.
And so we finished a dreadful month sitting 8th in the Cymru South. Had we held onto all those 1-0 leads we had in February, we would have moved up to… well, still 8th, but we would have been much closer to securing our survival!
As it is, we’ve still got work to do to secure our second-tier status for another year. Let’s hope we can get through these final eight games without too many more hiccups, eh?
After a shaky start, it looked like Cambrian & Clydach were pulling clear of danger. Let’s hope a frustrating February isn’t a sign of struggles to come.
Please join me on Friday for Part 4, where Shama finishes his first season as a football manager. Can he keep his team out of harm’s way and earn a new contract… or will a shocking collapse leave him out of a job?
Thanks for reading!
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