Football Manager 2018: The Man Utd “Challenge” Part 4

It’s part 4 of the Man Utd “challenge” and so far it’s going well, I even won manager of the month in October. Hopefully this month we can win that again, if we hit our target of maximum points then I’m sure we will. 

I mentioned in an earlier part that no one likes me, except for Carrick, well… it’s official.

We have a close relationship apparently, I’m even in his favoured personnel, I’m not sure why but… hooray! I have a friend. Anyway, we start the month at home against Liverpool, this will either be a boring 0-0 or a classic.

I would call it a disappointment, Liverpool scored 3 goals and that is never good unless they go 3 up and then lose, but it didn’t happen this way here. Eric Bailly heads in from a corner to put us ahead, then an excellent counter attack ended with Herrera putting Mata through and it was 2. Only for a minute though as Firmino pulled 1 back immediately. Right after half time, Pogba plays a great through ball which Mata latches on to and rounds Karius to restore our 2 goal lead. Then 5 minutes later it was 4-1 as Young crosses to the back post for Herrera to put it away. Mane and Henderson scored after but I felt we were in control and we saw the game out to win 4-3.

Away to Brighton next and it’s a game I’ve seen a few times this year, the home team is the better side and we struggle to create chances. To make matters worst we get another 2 injuries, Martial came back in the side against Liverpool and only 9 minutes into his second game back he’s off injured. Luke Shaw also picks up an injury which isn’t surprising but still frustrating. Despite the downsides, we still do win the game, Darmian of all people picks out Herrera with an excellent pass. He drags 2 Brighton defenders over to him then squares it to the substitute Mkhitaryan who couldn’t miss.

Didn’t expect them both to be out with a concussion, it’s bollocks really isn’t it…

A very comfortable 5-0 win essentially seals top spot in our champions league group, Qarabag only manages 1 shot on target and no one plays well for them. We are still rocking with the strikerless formation, Rashford bags 2 goals from the left side. Angel Gomes came on after the hour for Mata and got his 2nd Champions League goal of the season.

Back in the Premier League, it’s 3 wins out of 3 against a quite disappointing Everton side,  we were the better team in all areas and should have scored more. It was Inaki Williams in his first game back from injury who headed onto the crossbar for it to then fall for Pogba to tap in. Williams got the assist for it so I’m going to assume he meant it. Only one game left this month away to Palace let’s do this!

27 seconds into the match Matic 2 foots Benteke and is sent off, for fuck’s sake. Despite being down to 10 we stop Palace from creating any real chances but we still couldn’t hold out. Wilfried Zaha of all people scored the winner 7 minutes from time, De Gea will be disappointed conceding at his near post but it’s all Matic’s fault anyway so whatever.

So close to unbeaten month then along comes Matic, he is fined a week’s worth of wages and he accepts it, wanker. Fortunately, it doesn’t impact the table too much.

We stay 2 points ahead of Bournemouth, who are surprisingly up there in 2nd place, the only other surprise is obvious. Arsenal in 5th and not 4th pfft, Chelsea, City, and Liverpool all finding it tough as of late but of course, there is a long way to go. The CL group is done and dusted, we would need to be well beaten by Spartak to finish 2nd in the group.

It’s a busy December for us with 8 games, 7 of which are in the league and the 1 CL game is not important really. So in 7 league games, we will be going for at least 16 points, we have a small room error there, just in case. Do you think we can do better? Worse? We will see how it goes.

Click Here for Part 5